Minutes trickled into hours as I finished inspecting the plaques and did some other miscellaneous enchanting tasks around the headquarters. After Arnwald, no one else bothered me with any additional requests, so I could finish up everything faster than expected. It was too early to pick up the class rep and Mike, so I decided to catch my breath and headed over to the lounge.

For the record, it wasn't the main hall's lounge area, with the bar counter and the mini fridge and the air hockey table, but a separate chamber. How should I explain this? Okay, so, the main hall, the reception room, the barracks, the training room, and the cafeteria were on the 'first floor', along with a few minor facilities, like storage rooms and toilets. We called it the 'first floor', even though it was underground, and it was mainly just the repurposed rooms and halls of the original bomb shelter.

Then, we had the 'second floor' under that. That's where Fred's fancy new generator was, as well as more storage areas, individual rooms for the research society members and guests, as well as all the workshops. The latter were new constructions, starting from the original 'main workshop', and then each additional one built next to the previous one as an angle. To make an analogy, if one could look at it from above, it would've kind of looked like a big cart wheel, with the spokes being the corridors, and the empty spaces between them being the workshops themselves.

Now, it wasn't complete yet, because the chambers didn't make a full circle, but to stay with the analogy, the center of the 'cart wheel' where the hub would've been, there was a smaller, circular room, with a hallway running around it. This design was, according to Fred, highly efficient for getting from point A to point B, though I personally thought a normal checkerboard floor plan would've been simpler.

Anyhow, the point I was getting at was in this circular room. Namely, that it was the research division's dedicated lounge, and it was arranged and designed by Galatea. In other words, it was a nice little room full of aquariums, beanbag chairs, and vending machines, and it had soft jazz playing all the time. Usually, there were a couple of Research Society members hanging around here at this hour, so I was surprised when I walked in and had the whole place for myself.

Not that I really minded though. I could use some peace and quiet, and while low-fidelity jazz was never my thing, it was a nice novelty every once in a while. As such, after sparing a few glances at the colourful exotic fishes careening around in the tank on my left, I walked over to a wending machine and typed in the override code (boss privilege) to get a free soda. Once it was delivered, I propped my swords against the wall, sat down in one of the beanbag chairs, and then promptly deflated like a punctured water balloon. The kind with the square taped on the side and used to demonstrate lamellar flow.

Exhaling hard, I shook the weird analogy out of my head and sunk even deeper into the chair. It wasn't the most dignified of displays, but I didn't really care at the moment. I was alone, and even if I wasn't, when compared to how weird and rowdy the average resident mad scientist was, I doubt any of them would've given half a damn about me.

In any case, now that I was comfortable, I sipped from my soda can and closed my eyes for a while. Unfortunately, that instinctively made me start searching for my Far Sight marks on the edge of my vision.

"Damn you, Pavlov," I whispered under my breath, but since I started, I figured I might as well do a quick round of the usual suspects. Going by my mental priority list, I started with the Celestial top brass, and to my surprise, I found them conspiring. Oddly enough, it wasn't in one of their blatantly clandestine meeting rooms, with the harsh shadows and the silly cowls, but one held in a well-lit parlour kind of setting.

The rest of my Elysian anchors and their red dots were quite far away from the trio, so I figured this was taking place in another tower entirely, and the longer I listened, the more it sounded like they were interacting out of obligation. Maybe this was some kind of PR stunt, I wondered? While there was no such thing as news media in the Elysium, their entire society (or at the very least, the higher echelons) seemed to operate on rumour-mongering, so the three of them having a 'polite' and 'cordial' meeting in the open like this would make the rounds within the day.

As for what they were discussing…

"What do you mean you don't have any reports on what Polemos and Deus are doing on the ancestral land?" Director Mensah cried out in audible disbelief.

"It is exactly as I said," Savir, lounging in her seat like this whole situation was none of her business, answered with disinterest and picked up a grape from the bowl offered to her by a young boy. Some kind of domestic servant, by the looks of it, though he was dressed in the same fancy Greco-Roman style outfits as the bigwigs.

"To be fair," Tsephanyah, wearing his usual ensemble and lightly swirling some red wine in his glass cup, "The Praetorian Guards are directly under Polemos himself, so they would only report to him and no one else."

"I know that! I'm not daft!" the bespectacled director fumed and picked up a tall glass from the nearby table, then emptied it in one go. "I'm talking about the rest of the CIN! Why aren't there any reports from them?"

"The number of active and trustworthy assets on the island is… not what it used to be," Savir noted a touch sourly.

"And whose fault is that?" Mensah growled. "You wrestled control away from me, and you can't even keep the intelligence network functioning?"

"Well, maybe someone left the Agency in a sorry state and I had to pick up the pieces," Savir hissed back, and Tsephanyah hastily cleared his throat.

"My friends, please remain civil. We are here to show unity; please don't let such petty arguments sour the image we seek to project."

"It's not a 'petty' disagreement," the youngest director argued back, though in a noticeably quieter voice. "We can't allow ourselves to be blind to the Archons' actions at a crucial time like this, and yet the CIN, our first line of defense, is left completely useless under your leadership."

"Then you do something about it," Savir countered in a dangerous contralto. "I have more important things to worry about."

"What could be more important than our eyes and ears in the outside world being hampered?"

"Dolion, please," Tsephanyah cut in again, sounding downright exasperated. "Why don't you just take Eris up on her offer? As you have pointed out, the Celestial Intelligence Network was under your sphere of influence until recently, so I'm sure you have the means to whip them into action once again. For example, isn't your brother working directly under the Deputy Director of Clandestine Service?"

"He's the vice director now," Mensah noted, and for a moment I had to wonder when Admin got promoted. Not that there was much of a difference between the two posts, but still, it was unexpected. "And as for that man, he's my brother in name only, and an unsightly withered branch on our golden family tree. You will not find me stooping so low as to contact him."

"In that case, it might be more prudent to contact the vice-director directly. He is one of your men, is he not?"

Mensah was about to open his mouth to argue back, but then he looked stumped for a second, and his face went from an angry scowl to a confused scowl. The difference was small but evident.

"No, he's most definitely not. He was originally installed as the Deputy Director of Intelligence Community Coordination by Eris. I had nothing to do with him."

"Hold your horses, gentlemen," Director Savir cut in as she lurched to a proper sitting posture in her seat. "I have nothing to do with the man in question. I was under the impression he was a double agent you installed into the position a while ago to spy on Dolion's activities."

He was pointing at Tsephanyah, and the blonde man looked positively bamboozled by this development.

"No, I have not. He was promoted based on Dolion's recommendation, was he not?"

"I tell you; I have nothing to do with him!"

In short order, the discussion devolved into a heated argument, where everyone was convinced that Admin was secretly working for someone else, and then when one of them remembered that I (as Polemos) gave me (as Admin) amnesty when I (as Admin) couldn't attend either my (as Polemos) parade or the party when I (as Leonard) returned to the island, suddenly everyone started throwing accusations around, and the whole meeting dissolved as Mensah and Savir left Tsephanyah at the table.

So much for a 'show of unity', eh? Still, this showed me two things (three, if we counted the fact that these three weren't getting along all that well anymore): Mensah's relationship with Moose was rocky, to put it mildly, and sooner or later, I could be looking forward to some or all of them looking into Admin's whereabouts. It took them a while, but it didn't matter much; I already made a bunch of sock-puppet accounts, so that we could access the Hub in case my Admin guise got busted, and even then, I still had Moose and Mike to rely on, so at this point, it would've been just a mild inconvenience at worst.

But speaking of him, I glanced at our hapless Celestial agent and his family reunion, and I found them sitting in a circle around the table in the same room where I left them. The atmosphere was laidback, as expected, though it didn't have the same kind of wholesome warmth as the family dinners I had at my girlfriends' homes. It probably had something to do with this being their first meeting and the awkwardly fidgeting class rep.

"… the Lord Archon values you greatly, so you need not worry," Kane stated in a solemn yet at the same time oddly heartfelt voice.

"He does?"

The one who blurted that out was a woman the same age as the guy's mother, so probably an aunt or something along those lines, and Kane nodded in the affirmative.

"The Lord Archon was unusually talkative today, and he even smiled," he responded and pointedly glanced over to the stars of the meeting, where both of them were acting like a pair of rabbits in an unfamiliar pen.

The class rep was bad with groups, as usual, while Mike was acting a bit awkwardly because he had a young, golden-haired boy sitting on his lap, about three or four years old. A little brother, perhaps? Or a cousin? In any case, once they noticed Kane was looking at them, Ammy automatically grabbed onto the guy's hand.

"In fact, the last time I've seen him smile, it was in the company of Her Grace Deus and her Justicar," Kane continued the previous thought, and it earned the two of them a couple of impressed, or even envious glances from the extended family.

"W-Well… Leonard… I-I mean, Lord Polemos did say he considered me a friend?" Michael spoke up in a mousy voice, but it still caused an uproar.

"Really?" The middle-aged lady I presumed was Mike's mother exclaimed in a mixture of disbelief and exultation, and when he nodded, the whole family was acting like they hit the jackpot.

"Y-Yes, and… I think he also said he considered father one of his few friends in Elysium too…" Mike added, emboldened by the reaction, and this time, everyone fell silent and glanced at the man at the head of the table.

"Hm. Well, yes. I suppose," Kane muttered while stroking his non-existent beard on his chin, and tried as he might, he couldn't hide the smug grin creeping onto his face. However, once he realized this, he forcefully cleared his throat. "This only reinforces my previous point. If the Lord Archon truly considers our family his friends…" he said, putting extra emphasis on the 'family' part, "… it means you have nothing to fear! The Lord Archon's word is law in Elysium, and no one would dare touch you for breaking the rules by coming here."

"And why should we care about those laws, anyway?" Mike's mother doubled down. She was much more straightforward and strong-minded than her soft, feminine appearance made me presume.

"Sister, not so loud! You can't question the laws!" a grumpy-looking man interjected, but the lady in the middle only scoffed at him.

"To the Abyss with the laws! They took my son from me for nineteen years!"

"A-Auntie!" One of the younger family members nearly jumped to her feet when she heard that and tried to calm Mike's mother… whose name I still didn't know. Maybe I should ask when I pick them up. In any case, she waved her hands and said, "You can't say that! Those laws were put in place by Father Deus himself!"

"Yes, and she walks with us once again, doesn't she? Has anyone asked her about them? If they still make sense today?" Mike's mom argued back with a defiant huff. "She's already wise beyond her years, so I'm sure she would see the folly of these archaic laws! Isn't that right, Amelia, dear?"

Suddenly finding herself in the limelight, the class rep tensed up like a piano wire.

"Ah… um… E-Excuse me, what was the question?"

"You knew Her Grace back on the ancestral land, didn't you?" she pressed on, and when Ammy nodded, she continued with, "Don't you think she would agree with me?"

Stumped, the class rep remained silent, but at last, she readjusted her glasses and answered with, "I think she's very… practical, with modern sensibilities, so… she most likely wouldn't agree with this practice."

"Now that you mention it," a portly middle-aged man with an impeccable dad-moustache spoke up, his round face alight with a pleasant realization. "Can you tell us more about Her Grace? Since you have known each other for so long, I'm sure you can tell us much about her. We're all terribly curious, you see?"

"Uncle," Mike cut in all of a sudden. "Don't pressure Amelia like that."

"That's right," Kane backed up his son with a mild frown. "We're not here to gossip about Her Grace, but to welcome my son back into the family."

"R-Right!" Mike doubled down and roughly rubbed the head of the little kid still in his lap. He didn't seem to mind though. "Not to mention, little Annie wouldn't like us to talk behind her back, anyway!"

"Excuse me?" his mom spoke up again, suddenly sounding rather apprehensive. "Who is this 'little Annie' we are talking about?"

"Oh, that's just Angie… Ah, I mean, H-Her Grace Deus. I've been calling her that for ages, so it just slipped out without me noticing." Seeing the confused looks on the family's faces, Mike let out an awkward chuckle and muttered, "Um… Haha… Did I forget to tell you that she's my cousin?"

"Your what!?" the relative who was previously trying to calm his mother down suddenly exclaimed from the top of her lungs.

"I-I mean, on Critias! My adoptive family and hers are related, so we are cousins on paper."

"Does she think of my son the same way?" Mike's mom levelled that question at Ammy, for some odd reason, and once again, she froze up like a deer in the headlights.

"I… think she does, yes," the class rep squeezed out, and the whole family fell silent.

"So," Kane whispered, yet his voice was loud in the room, "you're both friends of Lord Polemos, close to Her Grace Deus, and also technically speaking, related to her."

"That's… accurate, yes," Mike mumbled between weak nods, and once again, silence reigned in the room. At least, until one of the uncles suddenly stood up.

"Where's the sparkling wine?" Seeing that nobody answered, he threw his hands into the air and exclaimed. "Come on, Kane! Don't hold out on me like this!"

"Right!" another member joined the fray, her face flushed red and her eyes practically glowing with excitement. "This is no longer just a family reunion! We're celebrating!"

"Yes! It's a party!" another voice joined the fray, and before long, everyone in the room worked themselves up into a festive frenzy. Well, except for Mike, Ammy, and the little kid on his lap, who was now playing with the class rep's hair, blissfully ignorant of the sudden shift in the mood.

So, what did I learn on this front? There was apparently a sort of middle-class in Celestial society I hadn't interacted with until now, who were unsatisfied with the old laws of their society, including the whole 'demote your two-winged kids into serfs or send them out for adoption, never to return' system, but were afraid to act out against it. In retrospect, I felt a little silly missing them, but to be fair, I was isolated into only interacting with the top brass of the Celestial hierarchy, and outside of seeing the Malakim living around the towers, I never had much of a chance to even meet the average… what was their name again? Ishim? No, those were the Malakim who were sent outside, like Mike and Moose. Then what was the one for the four-winged guys?

…

Whatever, it didn't really matter. The point was that there was a whole segment of the Celestial caste system I kind of ignored because they were trapped between the most powerful to whom I had to pay attention and the least powerful to whom I couldn't help but pay attention. Still, now that I was reminded of them, I could see how they could play a crucial role in the near future.

After all, I was using the Celestial Hub to recruit people. The majority of the users of the Hub were the aforementioned Ishims; Celestials practically exiled from the Elysium and turned into spies and intelligence assets. A good chunk of them, if not the majority, had to come from this 'Celestial middle class', so if I got them on my side, I could use them to get their estranged parents and relatives by proxy, and use them as leverage for…

"Crap. I'm starting to sound like a Celestial," I grumbled as I emptied my soda can and stood up.

Since they just started their impromptu party, it was too early to pick up Mike and Ammy (not to mention, by heading over now, I would've risked getting roped into the celebrations), and I wasn't in the mood for any further Far Seeing. As such, I quickly skimmed through the rest of the important marks, and when I reached Sir Percival in his cell, next to his steadily growing book collection, I was once again reminded that I should really do something about him one of these days. Except I couldn't because I didn't want to create a chain reaction by removing him from the table and accidentally bumping some of the other dominos standing around. But I had to because I couldn't just leave him on the table either. But I couldn't, because something-something Pandora's Box and unforeseen consequences and so on. In the end, I gave up and jumped to my feet.

Between all the plans and schemes and ploys and whatnot, shared among Critias, the Elysium, and the Abyss, the situation was like a giant Gordian Knot, and my problem wasn't that I couldn't cut it, but that I had only one opportunity to make the cut, and I wanted it to be perfect, severing all loose ends at once. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe I was setting the bar too high, and I should just cut my losses and get it over with.

But not yet. I still had time, and I was still looking for that perfect cut. I still had some time before my secret meeting with Dad-in-law in the evening (part of my not-at-all grandiose Valentine's date plans), so I figured I should clear my mind first. As such, I threw the empty can into the trash bin, picked up my swords again, waved goodbye to the fishes, and then headed outside, wondering if any of the Knights were up to getting roughed up a bit.

…

Sparring. I meant sparring. Definitely.