The Simulacrum - Chapter 74~ Part 2

“Your home is commendably inconspicuous,” my slightly unwanted guest stated as we walked into the living room. I was about ninety percent sure it was a compliment, but I couldn’t be sure. I had a hard time reading the guy.

He already peeled himself out of his trench coat, and he was wearing a real, authentic, one hundred percent genuine tux under it, complete with a little white flower on his lapel. Without his hat, I could also take a better look at him, and while he had a fairly boring crew cut, he had a small bare streak running from his left temple, plus a similar gap in his eyebrow. Probably the result of a long scar.

“We should sit there,” Mike proposed while pointing at the usual spots around the coffee table. He wasn’t nearly as nervous as the last time he was here, but I doubt anyone would mistake him for the heavenly Buddha any time soon.

I gestured for them to go ahead, and a few seconds later we were already seated on the couch and my favorite chair, respectively.

“Let’s not mince words, Mr. Dunning. Time’s a precious commodity, and it shouldn’t be wasted,” the middle-aged Celestial agent stated in a dryly raspy voice, and I couldn’t agree more with his sentiment if I tried.

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” I told him, at which point he linked his fingers in his lap. Hey! That’s my ‘devious mastermind’ pose! I didn’t remember giving him permission to use it… but then again, my conscience wasn’t entirely spotless when it came to borrowing intellectual property like that, so I decided to let it slide for now.

“I’m here because I was told you suffered an internal injury. I owe the boy’s father a favor, so came to take a look at you. If you injury can be treated, I’ll give you my best effort. I won’t make any further promises.”

“Yes. Mister Jaacobah is a professional, but there are limits to what can be done so long after the fact,” Mike added in a quiet voice, and the fact that they were already tempering my expectations didn’t bode well.

Still, as much as I wanted to avoid getting directly entangled with the Celestials without the Hub and the identity of Admin serving as a buffer, there was a good chance that if I didn’t take this opportunity, it would take ages until I can get my hands on a neutral healer, especially considering how hard these guys worked to sabotage them. Ah, speaking of which…

“Well, my hand wouldn’t need healing ‘so long after the fact’ if your people stopped blocking every other healer coming to the island.”

My jab didn’t even rattle the man in front of me, as he simply stated, “I’m not involved in such operations, and therefore I won’t comment on the validity of your allegations. So, do you want me to take a look at your injury or not?”

“Since you came all this way, I figure you might as well do that much,” I replied just a tad flatly, and I was just about to get up and walk over when the Celestial agent beat me to the punch and rose to his feet first.

He made his way over to my side and, to my surprise, he retrieved a small wooden box from his pocket. It contained a softly glowing monocle that looked shockingly similar to the one the school nurse used to examine my hand a while back. I thought it was just a weird, slightly anachronistic magical tool, but by the looks of it, it might be a piece of standard examination equipment.

This was followed up by another surprise as the man, after slowly looking me over from head to toe with his monocle, took my injured hand without any reservations, automatically marking himself in the process. I had to give it to him; he was efficient in more ways than one.

Anyhow, he spent several seconds inspecting my hand, going as far as to manipulate my fingers in a manner that was once again very similar to the way Peabody examined it in the past. He occasionally let out a small huff or a curious grunt, culminating in the words, “This is one of the worst cases of mana burn I’ve seen in my career. Who did first aid on it?”

“It was probably little Annie,” Mike supplied the answer, and when he received a disapproving frown from the man in return, he hastily added, “I mean, one of our assets on the island. She’s a distant relative of mine and specializes in healing hymns.”

“Is that so,” the morose agent muttered without paying much attention to his companion’s words and he continued to carefully but firmly manipulate my fingers one at a time. “It’s a competent job. Could’ve been done better, but I imagine she didn’t have any of the required instruments at hand. If she was serving under me, I’d give this a passing grade.”

“I’ll tell her the next time I meet her,” the blonde Celestial noted with a smile that looked genuine enough that it made me believe that he honestly thought Angie will be stoked by the idea of getting complimented in such a manner.

Anyhow, after spending a few more minutes observing my hand, the middle-aged Celestial wordlessly put his monocle away and returned to his seat, his brows thoughtfully furrowed as if he was considering a really hard math problem.

“Let me be straightforward, Mr. Dunning: your hand is an abject wreck. It’s not beyond salvation by any means, but it will be a difficult job. I can offer you two options on how we can proceed.” At this point he fell silent for several seconds, apparently waiting for a reaction, and when I gestured for him to continue, he told me, “The first option is the traditional way. It would necessitate multiple sessions to slowly rebuild the damage from the inside step by step and then synchronize your corporeal body with your astral body. It’s a long and painful process that will require several months even under optimal circumstances, and the rehabilitation and recovery may take years, and even after that, you will—”

“I get it,” I interrupted by raising a hand. “You’ve done well to explain the exact procedure we’re obviously not going to do, thank you. Now, would you please move on and make your actual sales pitch?”

“Certainly,” the man responded without batting an eye. “The second alternative is much more straightforward: by recovering both your physical and your astral body at the same time, it achieves instantaneous synchronization and will allow you to regain your access to your compromised motoric functions as well as the ability to channel mana like before. However, such therapy would require support in the form of a specific catalyst generally only reserved for CIEL operatives and Seraphs. While I could certainly gain access to one such catalyst, I’d have to request it from Central Command, and it would require adequate justification to do so.”

“So in other words, you want something in return for your services,” I stated, and after a moment of thinking, he shook his head.

“My services are free of charge, as it’s a favor I’m working off. As such, I won’t charge you for my labor regardless of which option you choose. However, if you wish to gain access to a healing catalyst, you’d need to compensate Celestial Command in return. As an intelligence broker, you should be well acquainted with such trades of equivalent exchange.”

“Since you brought that up, I imagine you’re not asking more money in return,” I ventured an educated guess, and the thin-faced Celestial confirmed it with a nod.

“Indeed. Command in general, and the Celestial Intelligence Division in particular, is looking for a specific piece of information you should be able to provide us.”

For a moment I considered how I should respond to that, but I figured I had little to lose at this point, so I went ahead and asked, “What exactly do you want from me?”

“Over the past weeks, the dragonbloods of various lineages launched numerous successful assaults on the hideouts and safe houses of the Oathbreakers,” he stated in a bit of a non-sequitur, but I was pretty sure he was building up to something, so I once again gestured for him to keep going. “This happened just a short while after you, an up and coming information broker, entered into the relationship with the heiress of the dragonblood clan currently residing on the island, and said attacks were carried out by the clan’s known associates.”

“I thought you didn’t want to mince words during this meeting,” I pointed out just a touch impatiently, and he softly cleared his throat in return.

“My apologies. The point that I was getting at is as follows: all of the aforementioned Oathbreaker strongholds were ones we already recorded in our database. There were no attacks on bases of operations we weren’t already aware of, and the assault happened after you made contact with the dragonbloods. This is, of course, only conjecture, so let me ask you this: were you the one who provided them with intelligence on the Oathbreakers?”

We locked gazes for a long moment, and I spent that time considering my options, but since he said that much, I was almost entirely sure he already knew the answer to the question and was only testing me. As such, I didn’t really have a choice but to tell him, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.”

“We presumed as much,” my guest told me without a single crack on his poker face, and then he immediately proceeded to drop a bombshell as casually as one would make small talk about the weather. “In that case, the terms of our arrangement will be self-explanatory. In exchange for providing you with the catalyst and the expertise needed to repair your damaged hand, the Celestial Intelligence Division wants the identity of the Celestial informant who sold you classified intel on the Oathbreakers and their operations.”

His words were followed by a very long, deafeningly silent beat… that would’ve probably lasted much longer if not for the previously passive Mike nearly falling out of his seat as he defensively raised his arms and exclaimed, “It wasn’t me! I swear, I don’t even know anything about the Oathbreakers!”

I glanced at the panicking guy, then at my guest again, and I found a sense of camaraderie in his eyes as we both let out a shallow sigh more or less in unison.

“Of course they know it’s not you,” I told him a tad wearily. “If you were under suspicion, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, and you’d be probably already spirited away for interrogation somewhere. Most likely Cairo.”

“Oh, so you’re also aware of that,” the older Celestial noted with mild disinterest, though the small glint in his eyes said otherwise.

“I think at this point everyone knows you have a base there, they just don’t act on it because they all think they’re the only ones who know and are waiting for the right opportunity,” I told him with similarly forced nonchalance. In fact, said ‘Cairo’ base was part of a long-running Celestial disinformation campaign. It was about creating a few ‘secret’ bases that would be ‘leaked’ to the other supernatural power blocs (mainly the Assembly) so that they would focus their attention on them instead of the actual, real operations taking place elsewhere.

“They do? That’s troubling news,” the Celestial operative told me with perfect seriousness, only to then rapidly switch gears and ask, “In any case, let’s return to the identity of your informant. When can we expect your answer?”

“Obviously not right now,” I told the man right away. “Reliability and confidentiality are both vitally important in this line of work. I can’t just reveal someone’s identity on a whim like that.”

“A shame, but an answer I expected all the same,” my guest responded with exaggerated disappointment before he reached into his pocket and handed me a card over the table. “I’ll return once I secured an apartment in the city to start your treatment. In case you change your mind in the meantime, you can contact me using the number on my business card.”

“Since when do CIEL operatives have business cards?” I mused aloud as I took a closer look at the piece of laminated paper in my hand. I couldn’t see any magical light around it, so it probably wasn’t tracked, but I’ll have Karukk check it for electronic bugs as well. In fact, once this guy leaves, I’ll have the Faun check the whole house, just to be safe. “Is this for a burner phone at least?”

“Naturally,” the long-faced man responded with something infinitely approaching yet never reaching a smile, and proceeded to take out a handful of other business cards from his pocket. “I have nine, one for each card.”

“That’s pretty neat. Do you mind if I borrow that idea?”

“No, of course not. I didn’t come up with it in the first place,” he told me before he pocketed the cards and rose to his feet. “I believe we’ve already taken up more of your time than necessary, Mr. Dunning, so I’ll take my leave.”

Following his prompt, I also stood up and got ready to lead him outside like a good host. Or, at the very least, that was the plan.

“Ah, I’ll catch up with you in a moment,” Mike suddenly interjected, and seeing the older man’s questioning look, he hastily added, “I have something to discuss with Leonard.”

The well-dressed Celestial simply shrugged and walked back to the entryway without uttering a single word. I didn’t really want to let him out of my sight, but didn’t have much of a choice when Mike practically dragged me over so that he could lean closer and whisper, “Listen, Leonard. Can I ask you a favor?”

“Depends,” I told him a touch flatly, yet he exhaled a heavy breath like I just took a huge weight off his shoulder.

“So, the thing is, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but Ammy is doing another… um… ‘thing’ this evening.”

“You mean infiltrating Magi property?” I asked for clarification, but he immediately gestured for me to tone it down.

“Yes, that,” he whispered, this time even quieter than before, and after glancing over his shoulder once, he quickly continued with, “I was also going to help her out together with Joshua, but since mister Jaacobah is here, I can’t. I have to help him find a place to stay, you see. More importantly, I told her that something came up and I cannot go, and I made her promise we would go another day, but she sounded really impatient, so I think she might try and do it without me around.”

“And if you were there, it would be safer?” I inquired just to keep the conversation rolling, and the guy instantly flashed me a proud smile, accompanied by the words:

“Yes. I’m seventy percent of the reason why we haven’t been caught yet. Well, okay, maybe closer to sixty.” He paused here to awkwardly clear his throat, and then he sheepishly amended, “I’m… good with locks.”

“… I can’t help but remember that I had to rescue you from an actual, locked metal cage not too long ago.”

“I mean, magical locks,” he clarified with an honest to goodness blush. “You know? Wards and surveillance mystic arts and that kind of stuff?” I nodded to get him moving, and after taking a long breath, he finally blurted out, “So, since I have nobody else to ask, could you, maybe, look after her so that nothing would happen? It would help my peace of mind.”

The guy looked both genuine and entirely serious, so after a moment of hesitation, I exhaled a shallow breath and told him, “Sure, I’ll keep an eye on her.”

“Really? Thanks, pal!”

Before I could respond, the already dressed Celestial operative let out a pointed cough, and Mike immediately jumped back like he just got caught red-handed for shoplifting by a security guard, following which he dashed to the main entrance and began dressing like his life depended on it. I followed after him, though at a considerably more laidback pace, and once I arrived next to the middle-aged man, he immediately offered me a hand.

“I’m awaiting your positive response, Mr. Dunning. We hope this might be the beginning of a fruitful partnership.”

I took the hand offered and responded with an equally diplomatic, “I certainly hope we’re going to stay on good terms as well.”

He let out a grunt that I interpreted as further agreement, and once Mike put on his coat, the two of them bid a not at all teary farewell and finally left the premises. Once that happened, I let out a relieved sigh, which I followed up with rubbing my temple in an onset of metaphorical headaches. So, just to summarize: the Celestials managed to get to me first, and they would withhold on actually healing my hand until I provided them with the name of my Celestial informant. The only issue with that was the minor fact that technically I was the one they were looking for, so this deal literally couldn’t work out. Now, I could potentially create a sock-puppet or a fall guy and blame it on them, but it would be risky and not necessarily foolproof. Not to mention, getting directly entangled with the Celestial Intelligence Division was a bad idea on principle.

In the end, I pocketed the business card I received, just in case, but as far as my plans were concerned, I more or less crossed off the Celestials from the possible solutions to my hand injury. To be honest, Abram’s proposal to just cut it off and replace it with some kind of Draconian artificial limb sounded more tempting by the minute. I was still pretty attached to my hand though, so for the time being I put the whole topic aside and headed upstairs, turned my PC back on, and once I got my browser up and running, I immediately started my in-depth research into this Jaacobah fellow. I simply couldn’t get a read on the guy, which really bothered me, but on the other hand, I didn’t get irrationally angry in his presence either, which meant he probably wasn’t going to make my life much more complicated.

Like that, time practically flew by, and it was past two in the afternoon when I was jolted out of my work by the sound of a car coming to a stop in front of my yard. I glanced outside, and once I recognized Elly’s usual limo, I put the PC into standby mode and quickly made my way downstairs. The four girls left on foot in the morning, so I couldn’t help but wonder why they needed a car. It didn’t last long.

“Hi, Leo! Please help packing,” my draconic girlfriend greeted me the moment I opened the door, and I reflexively took the four bags full of clothes off her hands.

“What’s that?” I weakly gestured towards the trunk of the car, where Judy and the chauffeur, a placeholder whose name I couldn’t quite remember, were in the process of taking a large box out of the car.

“It’s… uu… It’s a computer,” my sister provided the answer as she came over, and I couldn’t help but notice that she was carrying a large, flat cardboard box herself. When she noticed where I was looking, she hugged the box to her chest and weakly told me, “Also, we… bought a graphics tablet. I mean, I bought it with the money you gave me.”

“And I bought the computer to go with it,” Elly added with a proud little smirk. “And before you ask, it’s an investment, so I used company money. Dad agreed too.”

“Oh, right. We did talk about something like that a while back…” I mused a little absent-mindedly, but then I was quickly reminded that I should help by my other girlfriend waving at me with ‘Leo, please help!’ written all over her face, with Ichiko nearly being squashed under another box (probably a monitor) she was carrying, so I quickly put the bags into the living room and returned to provide support.

A short few minutes later everything was successfully hauled into the house, and once we all caught our breaths, I couldn’t help but let out a small whistle at the amount of stuff they bought in such a short time. There were several sets of clothes, both for Ichiko and Snowy, some miscellaneous items and random souvenirs, and a full PC complete with a large flat screen monitor and all the required peripherals.

“Uuu… Sorry,” my sister immediately apologized the moment she followed my line of sight, and when I turned an uncomprehending glance at her, she hurriedly sputtered, “I-I mean, I originally didn’t want to buy it, but then Elly said she’d invest in me, and then we got caught up in the moment, and I didn’t even think about where we could put it. I… I never even used a PC outside of school, and I don’t even know how to put it together, and…”

Seeing that she would likely keep going for a while if I didn’t stop her, I had my hand gently land on the top of her head, and the moment she fell silent I told her, “Well, I guess I better put it together for you and show you the ropes then.”

“I don’t want to inconvenience you…” Snowy muttered as she averted her eyes, so I rubbed her noggin a little harder and said:

“Come on, sis. This is what big brothers are for. I’ll teach you everything you need to know. It’s no problem at all.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” I insisted why a well-practiced brotherly smile, and once she was sure she heard it right, Snowy quickly closed in on me and caught me in a hug that was a mirror image of what she did in the morning.

“Thank you, Leo! I love you!”

I was just about to pat her on the head, but her words made me freeze up mid-motion and reflexively send a glance at my assistant. Judy, contrary to my expectations, didn’t show any reaction at all. Well, at least until she noticed I was looking at her, at which point she unsubtly rolled her eyes.

“Please, Chief. I’m a changed person now, with my own hair accessory and everything. Did you really think I’d get jealous because your sister said she loves you?”

I almost reflexively nodded, but managed to clamp down on the urge, and we entered into a thankfully brief stalemate broken by my other girlfriend letting out a mirthful little giggle, and Ichiko next to her also followed suit. Once they eased the tension like that, I took the opportunity to pretend that everything was perfectly fine and tousle Snowy’s hair for a few seconds before putting my hand onto her shoulder and gently pushing her away.

“Well then, I guess we should move these things into your room.”

“I’ll help!” the energetic little miko volunteered on the spot and immediately grabbed the biggest and heaviest box.

“Wait, wait! You can’t carry that alone!” Snowy exclaimed in a mild panic as she grabbed the other end of the box. Elly picked up the monitor in turn, so by the process of elimination, I had to carry the bags again.

I was still in the process of gathering them when someone tapped me on my shoulder, and when I glanced over it, I realized that with the other girls gone, only Judy and I remained in the living room. She was carrying the electronic drawing board, and once she was sure she had my attention, she firmly stated, “For the record, I want to make sure you understand that only Neige is allowed to say that, and only in a familial sense of the word. If it happens with anyone else other than the three of us, I’m still going to get really mad and I’ll probably hate you until the heat death of the universe. Understood?”

“… Yes, perfectly.”

“Good.”

After stating that, my dearest assistant also headed for the stairs, and I once again had to conclude that, hair accessories or not, the more things change, the more they stay the same…