“Yes?”
“Why have you disabled your comms and tracer?”
My what? I searched through Neo’s memories. Private comm… Godscripts… the floating boxes and quest system… there’s a built-in voice-chat feature and a location tracker –
The Godscripts were nothing like my Nightscripts. It was a Player User Interface, complete with private messaging, limited inventory storage, a connected information network, a Codex, virtual libraries, maps, live-feed real-time weather, temperature, and vitals –
I didn’t have any of that, because I wasn’t a human.
Oh, this might be troublesome.
For each second that ticked by, numerous eyes locked upon me, along with several whispers. Tension began to rise. “You do understand,” Sophia continued, “only would-be deserters, or people who have a reason to hide where they are going bother to disable their live locations?”
Mutters cut across the Lance Brigade. Some along the lines of ‘I didn’t even know they could be disabled’ to ‘wait, you can disable them?’
Sighing audibly, and loudly, I declared “I have no intention of deserting.”
“Then why are they disabled?”
Because the real Neo Saintarelli is dead.
I couldn’t say that for obvious reasons.
Think. What does Neo know that can help me? In a situation where you were already under suspicion for a deed or misdeed you committed, what was the best thing to do?
I looked her straight in the eye, smiled, and opened my lips.
“I don’t believe it’s any of your business.”
Change the stakes.
Numerous pairs of eyes widened in my direction, the voices turning from whispers to full-blown chatter. I stood, arms crossed, staring straight at a superior officer in what was the most ham-fisted show of defiance and insubordination I could physically muster.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re not the one in charge here,” I pointed to Juma. “He is,” I said, before thinking. “I don’t take orders from women.”
Juma, standing beside Sophia, rose his brows, whereas the girl in question bristled. I could almost feel the intensity of her anger from where I stood, despite several feet and several people being in between us.
Ah, yes, playing the role of the sexist bastard always works.
“Perhaps, if you were to ask him to intercede, I would be more willing to give my answers, to the true leader of the Lance Brigade… not his eye-candy.”
I heard the ‘oohs’ and ‘oh snaps’ from the crowd. Soldiers or not, the people gathered around me were teenagers and young adults. I remembered from my teen years how much they possessed a great deal of desire to witness a good verbal spar.
My eyes darted back and forth between Sophia and Juma. The situation was a tricky one that I had once faced, in my previous life. An employee dismissing the instructions of his female superior, and deferring only to his male counterpart. I fired the idiot ultimately, because no one disrespected my Jennifer. She had been the most excellent PA. Not even our tryst managed to ruin that.
But the AAA wasn’t a company. Sophia couldn’t fire me any more than she could hire me. If Juma interceded, I would only have proven my words right by having him settle the matter for her, thus weakening her position and authority in the Lance Brigade. If he didn’t, which I was willing to bet on, and Sophia wasn’t able to somehow get me to obey their instructions, both their standings would go down.
Now… what hand will you play?
“Do you somehow, in that delusional mind of yours, believe yourself to be stronger than me, Saintarelli?”
Ah, a direct challenge then?
Numerous eyes were on me again. I took in a deep breath, making a show of shaking my head in disappointment. “It’s not about strength. It’s about worthiness. You aren’t worthy to lead us.”
“And you are? Because you have a cock between your legs?”
I dismissed her question. “Because I do not talk down to people like ants.” I gestured to the soldiers in assembly. “You talk down to everyone around you. Your tone reeks of arrogance. Do you believe yourself that mighty, or is it just because your father happens to be one of the Ten High Eminents?”
The mutters and whispers swept through the crowd. As I suspected, the information wasn’t public knowledge. Juma standing beside her also had a look of surprise he didn’t quite manage to hide.
“Her dad is a High Eminent?”
“No way.”
“Of course – Alphaphilia – as in, Sophos Alphaphilia.”
“No wonder she’s so stuck up –”
“Shh! Are you mad? What if she hears you!”
It isn’t public knowledge at all. Fascinating. So why did Neo know it?
“That has nothing to do with this Saintarelli –”
I waved my hand. “Are you’re saying that your father being the High Eminent of Progress has absolutely nothing to do with why you’re in the AAA?”
There was a moment of silence where she opened her lips but hesitated. The Lance Brigade saw it immediately. Like starving sharks sniffing a bleeding cut on prey, they took that one act of hesitation as a confirmation of the idea. The outcries and accusations launched at machine-fire rates.
“So it’s true?”
“You’re only in the AAA because of your dad?”
“That’s such bullshit –!”
“Fucking Eminent privilege –“
The crowd was incensed enough that no one was focusing on me, and the fact that I lacked a tracer. The original reason my name was called had been forgotten in lieu of the accusations and shouts at Sophia. She was made into the scapegoat, but alas, it was her fault for calling me out. Watching her stand, awed and confused by the yells and accusations, I took the opportunity to turn invisible with [Phantasm] and slink away.
I left in a random direction away from the Lance Brigade’s meeting
