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About a month before the assault on Sim Twelling’s castle, Ahvra called Drim down to her lab. “I’ll be blunt, Useful One,” Ahvra swiveled around in her chair as soon as he entered the room. “We need medical data.”
“Umm, okay,” Drim hesitated for a moment as he tried to decipher the meaning, sitting down in a vacant chair so he could ponder. “I’m going to assume you mean personal medical records of everyday citizens. You don’t mean Fiends or you’d just get it from us, or wait until we recruit more. You also must mean we need it in vast quantities, or you’d likely be able to hijack it yourself, or get Feyj or Mallea to do it.”
“Precisely. There’s a reason you’re the useful one, Useful One,” Ahvra gave a rare bit of praise. “Your goal is ambitious. Understatement. Can’t say whether it’s diabolical or saintly—not really interested in the morality, just the science. However… without that data, people will die. Not a handful… thousands. Millions. Can’t give you an exact number, but I can give you that guarantee.”
Drim didn’t respond again for a while, thinking of how to handle it. “So the CP then…” he finally uttered. “You’re saying we need to break into the Central Peace headquarters and steal the information from their medical database.”
The CP had a copy of almost every citizen’s medical information from their constituent nations. No one was forced to opt into giving it, but there was appropriate incentive for doing so. They’d receive a discount on their insurance and medical bills, so most jumped at the opportunity. Similar to what Ahvra wanted to do with it, the CP most likely held that information for medical studies, census, and experimentation.
“Correct again,” Ahvra confirmed. “Unless you want to go around the world once more, breaking into doctor’s offices.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be opposed to it if that’s what it took,” Drim was surprisingly open to the idea. “However… I don’t think it’d go as well as last time. They’ve seen what we’re capable of now and would work even harder to stop us once they saw a repeat pattern. Plus, once they knew we were after medical data, there’s a good chance the CP could order the offices to purge that information since they could always provide a backup once we quit.”
“That really is a huge ask,” he sighed. “Again, I’m not opposed to it. I’d love to go to the CP headquarters, steal their data, and honestly just experience what it’s like there. Supposedly, it’s otherworldly, from the whispers I’ve heard. I don’t think it’s something we can actively plan for, at least right now. We need to at least launch the third phase of our plan before it’s something we can worry about. That said, if an opportunity presents itself, I won’t hesitate.”
“Good to hear you’re motivated,” Ahvra said with slightly more enthusiasm than usual. “Probably harder than you already think. The pawn... agent I captured, got her talking. She spilled everything about the security and layout. Even if you break in, you need to specifically get to the science department deep underground. Every department’s data is only in their department. Could probably brute force from other terminals, but would take a long time.”
“Would be much easier with Annoying Convenience, but they’re actively working on developing Fiend sensors and—”
“We should probably stop there,” Drim cut her off. “If we talk about it more, I’ll start seriously planning—obsessing over it. About that agent, though…”
“Don’t worry,” Ahvra assured him. “She wasn’t tortured, and we test-drove Nathym’s machine on her. She’ll never remember that she talked.”
“I understand your hesitance to rush this, and we honestly don’t need it right now. Development on the device will still take a long time. The sooner the better, though. The later I get the data, the longer it will take for me to guarantee there will be no deaths. Need it at least months, maybe years before launch.”
“One more thing to consider. Eventually, we will need live testing. With live people. But that should happen after we have the data. Thank you for coming. Now I have more tests to run. You can stay and watch, but you’ll get bored.”
◆◆◆
The tape that Sim Twelling had sent to the group popped out of the video player after automatically rewinding.
“Well, that’s obviously a trap,” Xard muttered.
“Of course it is,” Phon scoffed.
“You’re still going to make us go, though, huh?” Kada inquired.
“Of course we’re going,” Drim declared. “Stopping Sim aside, this may be the perfect opportunity to get a crucial piece needed to advance our plans.” The other three stared at him, befuddled as he pondered for a moment. “Phon, even if you don’t know it, you’re an expert at understanding human behavior.”
“I am?” Phon was surprised at what was said but unoffended by the praise.
“Yes, you are,” Drim confirmed. “You’ve been watching people for over a decade; studying their patterns, learning their motives, figuring out the best way to kill them. I can’t think of anyone who knows what other people are thinking better then you. So, I need you to confirm some things to prove to myself that I’m not crazy.”
“First, while we’ve all agreed that this is a trap, but who’s setting it? Is it Sim, or is it someone else?”
“Definitely someone else,” Phon answered immediately, without hesitation. “His monologue was way too thought out and scripted, by someone who clearly isn't him. It must be the CP. No other party would make his threat so unthreatening.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Drim agreed. “Next is how they’ll act. Would they leave it to Sim and pick up the pieces after or actively get involved?”
“No way they’d leave it to Sim,” Phon was certain. “This is their best chance of stopping us yet. They wouldn’t waste it, and no chance they’d leave it in the hands of someone as unreliable and unhinged as Sim. They’re most likely using him as bait, or a distraction, so they can swoop in and force us to fight on both fronts.”
“If I had to guess-” Phon continued after some thought. “-helicopters, a small swarm of them to attack us safely from the air. I have a hunch that my Curse will be weakened when we go there, and being in the air would keep them out of the range from the rest of our Curses fairly reliably. They also don’t know about The Tourist’s upgraded flying capability.”
“I doubt they’d send all their power at once, just enough to keep us engaged as we fight with Sim. They’ll have a lot more soldiers on standby, but will wait for us to be as weak as possible.”
“Okay, that’s very good, thank you,” Drim appreciated her insight. “That clears the first hurdle of deduction. Now that we’ve concluded it’s the CP, we need to work out what will happen if they win. Would they capture us alive or kill us on the spot?”
“I want to say capture us without a second thought, but that’s wrong,” Phon seemed annoyed by her own mental quandary. “They’d capture Kada and Xard if they were non-resistive, most likely take them to a maximum secure facility for interrogation and experimentation. But you and me, they want us gone. It doesn’t really matter how beneficial we’d be alive. Just us being alive outweighs any of that. Plus, they have the added incentive of gaining control of the Common Cards if we die.”
“No, even that wouldn’t be enough. They need to be certain, to see us die with their own eyes. If they found our corpses, they’d likely shoot us both in the head to be completely assured, and possibly burn our bodies.”
“What if one of us was still alive, and they could ‘kill’ that person? Do you think they would mutilate the other?” Drim’s questions were starting to get oddly specific.
“They'd most likely leave it alone in that case,” Phon was getting less sure, but still had the most insight. “Especially if Kada and Xard were ‘dead’ too. They’d focus all their attention on capturing the remaining Drazah. After that, they’d take the remaining one for a public execution, no doubt in my mind. The rest of the corpses would be retrieved for experimentation. Assuming they got the satisfaction of killing the last one themselves too, they wouldn’t waste that resource and it’d join the other three.”
“Finally, and most importantly,” Drim emphasized. “Where would our corpses be taken?”
“It’d have to be the CP science division in their main headquarters,” Phon concluded. “They’d never trust another lab with such a valuable resource.”
“Perfect!” Drim’s eyes lit up.
“Okay, wait,” Kada finally interjected. “You want us to die now?!”
“Sorry, this must be very confusing,” Drim apologized. “Let’s meet in the secret lab in about an hour and I’ll explain everything. First, I need to confirm some things with Nathym and Ahvra to figure out if this is even possible.” Drim then darted off without waiting for acknowledgement from the others.
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