Reroll

Well… I've taken care to shield my family. What's next on the docket… ah, I need to research agents.  I go online… wow, the low end is a hundred an hour, huh?  Okay, so step one is “have lots of money.”  Well… that's not a problem anymore. My shadows don't qualify for Costly Creation to make gold, silver, and gemstones…but copper and iron are fair game via Create Materials and Expanded Materials in the Creation sphere. So a Mage build with Creation (base sphere), Create Materials (to make things Instantly, so I'm not cheating anyone), Expanded Materials (for copper access), Larger Creation (for volume), Divided Creation (to make them ingots), and Lengthened Creation (required for Create Materials) hits my current talent cap for shadows, and can make about eighteen tons of copper per casting, which takes two spell points and a standard action.

And that's valued at around a hundred sixty grand at the moment.  Not bad.

I'll need to set up as a copper refining business, selling ingots… I head to my ship and get to work: A few skill specialists (Computers, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, and a few Profession skills), my actual production mage (Creation sphere), an illusion mage, a transport mage (Warp sphere), and two skill support mages (Mind and Enhancement sphere).  

The basic plan is straightforward: I have the Computers minion file the suitable paperwork in government databases so the business exists, set up a website and ordering portal, setup a bank account, plant some historic fake reviews so the company is easily researched… and build a legal identity for ‘Alice’ for me to use. Next, I have the other skill specialists find folks who need copper, and make the sale.  Finally, I have the mages team up to deliver: The Transportation mage gets them to site; the illusion mage fakes a truck, delivery driver, and so on; the production mage makes the copper ignots, sized as requested, on site for the customer… then we collect delivery sign-off for payment by the Profession types. Oh yes, the two skill support mages buff up the skill based minions so they do their jobs better (Enhance Focus from the Enhancement sphere and Courage from the Mind sphere). I give my crew a suitable comm for their internet connection along with their orders, and they get to work.

What was it I needed the money for, again? Oh yes, a PR agent to handle bookings for Alice, probably some lobbyists, too.  I send a dozen inquiries to as many PR firms, and wait to see who will bite.  I then check my email: Ed did book a few interviews for Alice.  

While I'm looking over those, Ed calls me on the comm: “You'll never guess who wants a meeting with Alice.”

I consider, “In that case, you may as well just tell me.”

There's a pause, “That is not how that game goes.”

I chuckle, “Of course not. But I sometimes enjoy defying expectations.  So spill.”

Ed sighs, “The secretary director of the Federal Bureau for the Preservation of Human Rights.”

That's. Umm. But… can we?  I mean….

“You still there?” apparently I've been silent a bit long.

I take a breath, “Yes, I am. That is a very tempting trap.”

“No kidding,” Ed comes back, “I'll just delete….”

“Don't you dare delete that!” I interrupt, “We'll need to talk to them eventually. Just because it's a trap doesn't mean we shouldn't trip it. We should just make sure whatever we use to trip it is properly disposable… perhaps one of my Create Reality minions, invisible, managing a mobile illusion of Alice.”

Ed considers, “So if they fight, they catch the visible illusion, or at worst, the invisible one, and either way, we're fine.”

I nod, not that it's a video call, “That's the plan, yes.  And I'll make use of a trick to allow an instant dismissal of either or both, and I'll scry the minion for monitoring, and you and Betty can as well.  We should all be in on this.”

Ed is silent for a bit, “Let's get Betty on the line…” I wait while he does, and gets Betty up to speed.

“One of us should stay out of the scrying,” Betty suggests, “Ideally the Oracle with all the fix-it spells.”

There's a pause, and Ed fills me in on the reason when he gets it, “In case they expect a scrying on a remote, and have a trap for THAT.”

“Bingo,” Betty confirms.

“I wanted to be in on it…” Ed sighs, “but it makes sense.  We're playing 3d chess, we're late to the game, there's extra players, and we can't see the whole board.”

“That's certainly one way of looking at it,” I nod… and it's still not a video call… “But at least they can't see the whole board either… I hope.”

“If they could,” Ed replies, “They'd have caught us way back.”

Fair, “True.  All right… is there anything else we can do to make this a little more paranoid?”

“Public meeting space,” Betty volunteers, “They don't like exposure or collateral damage; them starting something in public could trigger both.”

“Good…” Ed adds slowly, “I'll specify the park, even, when I reply.  Anything else we should add?”

We come up with a few other odds and ends, then have Ed reply back, setting up a meeting in a public park, in the middle of a retail area, on a specific bench, with lots of sight lines and other people. They're in a hurry, and agree to it basically immediately.

And so, less than an hour later, I find myself set up in the party ship, sitting in a cargo bay, my library feeding me talents, while I monitor an invisible shadow controlling a selective illusion of Alice waiting on a park bench.

On schedule, a Guardian comes and sits down… at which point, I have my second-degree avatar become visible just for that guardian, and speak through a short game of telephone: “Good, you're on time.”

The Guardian looks around at people playing, and at the illusion, “How is it that nobody is reacting to the fake angel sitting next to me?”  Bizzarely, the Guardian has a woman's voice.

‘I’ chuckle, “What I'm doing and where I am is… subjective. As I've said before, my friends have some really cool tricks.  For your proxy, I'm sitting here, talking to you.  For them…” my avatar gestures widely at the crowd, “...you're talking to empty air, because I am elsewhere doing other things.”

It's hard to see the Guardian's eyes… but it's a remote unit, so that really doesn't matter; he pauses slightly, “So your illusion can only be seen by some folks… good to know.”

“Ah, right… one of my friends mentioned that there was a tattooed magic man at my last healing that reported in before… well.  I don't imagine you'll find the body: My friends can be very protective of me sometimes,” I'd rather not let the controller know he's alive and well and in skirts with a new name.

The Guardian pauses a bit, “So you've no problems with murdering your own kind, huh?”

“I'm a human with a condition that's apparently not all that rare.  My friends engage in immediate defense of others’ lives… I don't see a problem with their actions.  The forced servitude, execution without trial, gunpoint rapes, exploitation videos… those I have a problem with.”

The meat puppet takes his time responding, “The rank and file do have some disgusting pasttimes… but you're hardly human anymore. You have about as much right to exist as a rabid dog.”

Oh really? “I ran across an article from about 1900 in a library once: A scientist was bemoaning that he couldn't get his research materials to study human evolution anymore… because Australia outlawed the practice of hunting down the aboriginal population, killing them, and boiling the flesh off their bones to harvest their skulls.  There were also a rather lot of people upset by the constitutional amendments passed between 1865 and 1870.  Their objections are in the dustbin of history. Yours will end up there too.  Be careful not to get binned with them."

The Guardian is giving me a lot of time to finish speaking… but I'm quite sure now it's not because the controller on the other end is polite, “Do you have ANY idea the things we hold back?  The atrocities committed by your Corrupted kind?” I give a few mental instructions to some minions.

“I do, actually,” ‘I’ sigh, “I've seen some of the mission briefings you give to the ‘rank and file’ controllers, and I've been working the resistance over to get them to see baseline humans as people. I’ve found a… barely viable… solution for vampires and gotten their leader to agree to it; I'm still working on something for the werewolves, although I'm afraid trolls, ogres, goblins, and similar types will need something akin to leper colonies, as distasteful as that is.  I'm well aware much of the work you do is necessary. I'm on record as saying your organization needs reforms, not dissolution.”

I wait for the message to round trip through whatever long distance proxy setup the secretary director is using, “You are really vexing, you know?  If you weren't so coherent…”

My relay delay is lower; I insert, “Then I wouldn't be having this lovely conversation with your long distance remote,” over her, “...then this would be a lot easier.”

That leads to a much longer pause than usual, “You figured it out, huh?”

“I don't really blame you,” ‘I’ shrug, “You're concerned about infection… and I have it on reasonable authority that it's a mostly valid concern.  That said, my Myth doesn't have the same group required angle, so you'd be safe enough as long as all you did was talk.”

“You don't know that,” the presumed secretary director sends through her relay after a suitable pause, “We have yet to encounter a Corrupted with an actual zero transmission rate.  The lowest on record is three in ten to the sixth, which was admittedly recently set from the prior record low of one point two in ten to the fifth.”

“So you have a way to actually measure it… tell me, what's the practical difference between ‘zero’ and ‘you will not meet enough people in your lifetime for it to matter’?” I'm just keeping her talking, now.

She gets back to me, eventually, “Everything, for the person the draws the very long straw and turns into a titan that crushes their family rolling over in their sleep,” okay, that I had coming, “... but the more benign and useful cases we leave alone if they have a transmission rate below one in ten to the fourth, for exactly that reason.  We're not monsters.”

Oh yes you are, “Your orginization's 'plan A' for my first public appearance was shooting me in the face while I was healing dying kids.  How many kids, do you think, I needed to let die because I was wounded and recovering from that?”

Eventually… “That plan did not pass MY desk.”

“Doesn't matter; we're speaking of your organization, not you personally,” I pause, “Even setting that aside, you're aware of the ‘disgusting pasttimes’ of the rank and file: How they have the Guardians rape the pretty Mythics on camera and pass around the video.  I'm sure you're also aware of how the ‘useful’ Mythics are treated as little more than slave labor.” ‘I’ shake my head, “Your organization is in desperate need of bringing the abuses to light. You’re doing work necessary for society, but…” I trail off, listening to a report from a shadow minion, “... but Ms. Amelia Bertrand, wife of John, mother of Samuel, living at…” I read off her address, “...using the big stick all the time is bad.  It makes other people think it's fair play.”

After a short delay, the Guardian collapses to the ground.