“Right this moment? We are quite busy,” Jill whispered to the side. To Bob, it probably looked like she was talking to a ghost, which she might as well have been doing.

“Yeah, right now. I don’t exactly want Bob to bleed out when he could be benefitting the hive.”

“…Very well. Toh, get up and go engrave a scroll,” she said over her shoulder to the man’s groaning form. Despite his current state, he obliged his boss. What a resilient guy! Or maybe he’s just scared of Jill. Or me.

Whatever motivated Toh was enough for him to force his jelly legs to move, so I also got to work. First up, a B-mail. As Toh made his way to the library, which was miraculously unharmed in the battle of Yiwi, I consulted with Beatrice and Queen for the contents of my message to Bob.

The goal: to make a deal with him. In exchange for forming the ReLinkuish connection, I’d save his life using my shiny new healing Ability. Since we don’t know the limits of it yet, this debacle could also serve as a test run of that very Ability. I wasn’t going to promise anything - at least not explicitly. But who knows? Maybe [I Command Bee, HEAL] actually did have the capability to regrow human limbs. It was probably impossible. But there was a chance, right?

Obviously, I wasn’t going to dangle the man’s life in front of him. That wasn’t much of a choice, was it? There was an absolute abundance of reasons to join our hive as a happy camper! I might leave out the constant invasive surveillance and capability to fully control your body as features, but there was more than that, I swear.

“Oh, there’s plenty. Knowledge, for one thing. Constant, endless amounts of information from every corner of our territory. An information network that has the potential to span the entire world itself. Oh, and constant invasive surveillance along with the capability to control their bodies. Ah, should we include trapping you within your own body and using it like a glorified meat puppet?”

Geez. It’s not that bad, man. Eh, it could be worse at least. It’s not great, but at least he won’t die.

Beatrice shared the thoughts stewing in her brain. “I think you may be overlooking something, Mother. If we are implying that this will be a deal between Bobby and ourselves, then the current terms are too suspicious. If we are unclear about the true effects of ReLinkuish, he will wonder what we stand to gain. And we obviously can’t tell him what the Link means for us, not really. I propose this: we present some simple terms in our favor. Of course, it will not actually matter; once he is Linked, he will be our tool to use as we please. Something like letting us use his company for our own purposes or something along those lines. It could be a valuable asset, considering that it is not connected to the large mercenary companies and their branches.”

“Whoah, Beatrice. Fine line there. Or, well, I guess you’re saying the quiet part out loud? We can work on your empathy, or at least your filter. But besides that… I think you’re absolutely right. Very human-like thinking there, considering that humans would be extremely suspicious of one-sided deals like that. He’ll scrutinize it less closely and be more likely to follow the ReLinkuish instructions. I’ll send the B-mail now.”

“You can’t see it anymore, but things are worse than you think.”

As Toh arrived, the information flooded into his brain. It would have been overwhelming had it not been packaged in a neat little B-box. Man, what a marvelous invention. I’ve done some awesome stuff with my Mind hadn’t I?

Ahem.

I finally decided to shift my perspective to Toh and leave Jill’s information to be priority processed by the CBU; the curiosity of seeing the scroll engraving process was choking me. Even Queen was itching to see something novel like that. That, or she really didn’t want to see the ashen, slumping body of Bob. Either way, I watched as Toh jogged towards a back section of the library, moving past the gigantic central scroll. A librarian (at least I assumed) moved to intercept him, but he flashed a little silver badge of sorts, which stopped her in her tracks. Probably some ‘seal of approval’ from Jill or the company or something. Maybe they have credit?

Toh was silent while he worked. He had been silent for a long time now, at least when it came to speaking. His thoughts were always abuzz, blaming himself, blaming me, blaming Yelah and her team. Lots of blame getting thrown around in that noggin of his. Regardless, he could do something as stupidly simple as engraving a scroll.

It was alien to me. Instead of developing a system of writing, the people of this world had instead developed a far more complicated method of putting thoughts into the world with a physical medium. It all began with a smooth, metal tube, much like the one Toh was grabbing from a neat pile right at that moment. This tube was featureless and gray, with slightly rounded rims giving it the appearance of a blown out soda can. That can was then brought to a large machine, of which there were at least a dozen in a row at the back of the library. Once he placed the can in a glass tube at the center, a few moments passed before the device shut closed.

It was at that moment I caught something out of the corner of Toh’s eye: a frail old lady turning a large crank. The more she pushed, the louder the machine grew. I suppose they would have a manual failsafe for these crucial machines if the Rotor was ever out of commission. Which it was. But a frail old lady? That was just mean.

Anyway, Toh was already proceeding to the next step. There were two vertical handles that he placed both hands on, and simply closed his eyes. Then he began to think. I could feel the sheer concentration he needed to hold in order to send the correct message; whatever he thought about would be engraved onto the scroll. He even activated a Lock, which would enhance his concentration so that only the relevant information would be engraved. That trickle of Mind from the Lock was more than I expected, and I saw it was because some of it flowed into the vertical handles. So the engraving process required not only thoughts, but Mind itself? How interesting.

As Toh concentrated, a window into the machine showed the can - the scroll - spinning around while a series of thick needles stabbed into it seemingly at random. Seeing it in action, I couldn’t imagine someone doing such a complicated process by hand. Although I couldn’t imagine someone carving stone tablets or something like that either.

The process didn’t take long. Before I knew it, the instruction had been painstakingly carved into the scroll, creating bizarre squiggles of near-imperceptible stippled dots all over it.

All that remained was to give it to Bob.

They really were going to let me bleed out, weren’t they?

It was all I could do to maintain my consciousness as Jill Yemonto herself stood before me, her menacing hand unwavering. I knew the risks that establishing a mercenary company in this city would bring, but I had no other option. Getting an in to the city’s upper echelon was too important for my mission.

But everything just kept going fucking wrong! I expected a bit of a roughing up, for Person’s sake; maybe a chance to impress Ms. Yemonto or some executive at Hayrey enough to be offered a job instead of cast out of the city entirely. The company was just a means to an end, one which should have led me to the Rotor or even the office of the City Lord.

But no. Now I was going to die. Actually, who even cares? The entire reason I came here, the suspicious Yiwi Rotor I had been desperately trying to convince the higher-ups was dangerous, was gone. Just poof. I’d never visited the city before, but I’d obviously seen images of it. You couldn’t miss a building sized contraption that loomed over an entire city like a hulking beast. But it was just… gone. And it didn’t take long to find out why.

What sort of luck did I have? If I had stayed in Siniwan just a day or so longer, our intelligence agents would have informed us about Yiwi’s rebellion and collapse. But no. I just had to fly off the handle with my boss and get threatened with a reprimand.

My focus wavered, so I tried thinking. Thinking was good for living - you need to be alive to think. And what better subject to think about than my current situation? When I did think, something stuck out like a sore thumb: the odd behavior I had encountered in Yiwi. Perhaps it was to be expected after a massive rebellion that resulted in a disaster of incredible proportion; I mean, there was a massive indent in the city from where the Rotor supposedly fell. The ordinary people were simply downtrodden. The food shortage that came a result of the Burning was only exacerbated by this conflict, and people were left without home, belongings, or even family. To make matters worse, there were some fools going around trying to take advantage of these downtrodden souls; a group had even tried harassing me, though they were weak. Civilians, I believed.

And yet, despite these obvious things, nothing truly made sense. I had only been here for a mere two days, so my knowledge was somewhat limited, but that much was clear. Well, I probably did quite a good job, but surely not as good as one of our Auditors might have done. Not my field of expertise. But I could certainly examine the info I had.

Focus. Apparently, the conflict had mostly taken place between two factions: the so-called ‘Yiwi Fighters’ against the local government. The local government had its own policing force, while these Yiwi Fighters were more a civilian militia, supported behind the scenes by the merchants. All was in order there. The mercenary companies, on the other hand, were split; several companies joined the civilians while some took the hand of the City Lord. And this is where everything began to fall apart.

The City Lord was deposed. Missing, supposedly. The Fighters were all but disbanded. And the mercenary companies controlled the city. Or, that’s what people believed. Why were the merchants still so prominent, then? Especially one, a lesser-known merchant suddenly in control of the large Treeline Company? I had seen her around Yiwi, occasionally talking over her shoulder to an invisible listener.

So the merchants and mercenaries struck a deal, then? Strange. Strange, especially considering that every mercenary company was operating as normal. Typically, in a conflict like this, companies on opposing sides would cannibalize each other, make underhanded deals, or simply leave. The only possibility here was a shady plot involving every mercenary company in Yiwi and the powerful merchants.

Yeah, right. Mercenary companies were notoriously competitive. Maybe Yemonto Co. could form an alliance like this on a whim, considering Jill Yemonto herself was here, but others like Hayrey and Ehra would need approval from the larger branches. And I knew for a fact nothing like that was in the works, not anymore. Toss in that one money-lender and suddenly the coincidence crowd was becoming a bit, well, crowded. Something else had happened. Beneath the shady deals were the shadier deals, and beneath all of that was the shadiest deal of them all, something that connected everything together.

Something unexpected had appeared in Yiwi and turned the city into its playground. Every powerful figure was working together in perfect harmony, without the approval of other branches or companies. The Rotor, which had fallen, was mysteriously absent, apparently carried away by the Human themself. The City Lord was not publicly executed, but instead declared missing.

And then there was the talking.

That one merchant woman. The large mercenary who had just left. The money-lender. A young mercenary girl who looked permanently ill. Even Jill Yemonto herself, mere minutes ago. Occasionally I saw them, whispering something over their shoulder like an old friend was standing behind them, ready for some juicy gossip. But there was never anybody there. I was convinced: whoever had secretly taken control of Yiwi was dangerous. Perhaps they were connected to the suspicious activity I had analyzed of the Rotor?

I shifted a bit as my heart began to pound. Was it all connected? Who else would have taken the Rotor? Who had the capability? Was it really a foreign power? An organization that had slipped under the nose of even our agency?

Perhaps I would never know. My body slumped again, the pain biting my missing leg. What a coincidence, then, that the large mercenary man, Toh, I believe, walked in holding a scroll. Was that a message from my quarry? Or something else?

“I suggest you read this carefully, Mister Bob. Your life may hinge on your decision,” Yemonto said. She seemed bored, unfazed by my bleeding body. Have some heart, woman! Though maybe I wasn’t one to talk.

My mouth was too weak to speak, so I simply shrugged my shoulders. Even that was difficult. The merc lumbered over, nowhere near as graceful as he had been during our confrontation, and shoved the scroll into my lap. Despite my pain, as the content flooded my Mind, I sucked in a sharp breath of air.

“Hello Bobby. I am a very important person. And I believe you can help me. Why not help each other, then? I will ask of you two things: a simple task and a promise. In return for those gifts, I am willing to give you quite a few goodies.

For one, I can save your life. This is a pretty good offer. You are in a sorry state, but I can arrange for your life to be saved. Next, I offer information. As much as I have, which you will find to be significant. The mercenary companies in Yiwi are full of secrets, you may know. So are the merchant companies. And so is the government. A nice bit of knowledge I offer is the truth of what happened here in Yiwi: what happened to the Rotor and the City Lord, as well as the companies that call the city their home.

If those are not enticing enough for you, I have more. Wealth? I possess an abundance. Resources? Plenty. Best of all, I have a means of communication whose value cannot be estimated. Over any distance, with anybody I please, I can grant you this capability to interact with others in a way you could scarcely imagine.

That is all for my offer. Now, for what you can give to me. I will ask for the promise first: give me your company. That is all. I want your company to do with as I please. If it is all the same to you, we will keep it under your name, and you will still manage it, but I will control it from the shadows. Much like I do with Yiwi now.

The second condition is this: I want you to create a Lock. The instructions on how to create it will be included, but there is something you must know. I cannot give you several of my gifts without the Lock. Including, you may find vexing, the capability to immediately save your life.

I hope we can come to an arrangement.”

As I took it all in, including the instructions for creating the Lock dubbed ‘Close Connection’, I nearly died of laughter. Because I nearly died when I tried to laugh. Such a long message, and all for what? Their very first point was already enough to make this a deal I couldn’t refuse. I’d die if I didn’t accept. Worse, the Lock was the way they proposed to save my life. It wasn’t impossible to imagine that a doctor would find me a lost cause, but making a guarantee like this person was doing was instantly cause for suspicion. Even if I weren’t a professional skeptic, I might find this all too fishy.

It reeked of a contract. It had been done before; records of people creating Abilities or Locks which allowed them to control, obtain, or even influence the thoughts of others. They were difficult to pull off, for a variety of reasons, but they had existed. Long ago. Disgusting. Other than that, the rest of the deal was essentially pointless drivel. It was obvious to me that this person only wanted the Lock to be formed. Would it give them access to my memories? Maybe even turn me into a happy supporter of their organization? Who was to say?

What the scroll did do was give me more information. It confirmed my theory that an unknown entity had taken control of Yiwi and was pulling the strings of the entire city. Including influential figures like Jill Yemonto. Additionally, they were too informed. They knew everything that had happened here in my building; otherwise, they would not know my current state and situation., certainly it could have been communicated to them by these mercs, but I found it unlikely. Jill had only spoken over her shoulder briefly, and the large merc had run off to make this scroll even as she spoke.

At the same time, they weren’t as all-knowing as I expected. Their offers implied to me that they didn’t know I was a part of the world’s foremost intelligence agency, hence the offer of information. Also, in that same vein, they did not know about the secret Mind Inquiry Services correspondence systems, and therefore, the inner workings of the MIS. Though this apparent means of communication sounded far more powerful, it still was not something unheard of for me.

What to do, then? My life was already in their hands, and I definitely didn’t want to die. But compromising my Mind was both repulsive and against the code of the MIS. In the end, I felt the corners of my mouth turn upward in the beginnings of a sad smile. I’d take the deal. Make the Lock or whatever. But I did almost feel bad.

Whoever this was, they were going to get caught much sooner than they anticipated. Unfortunately for them, nobody fucks with the MIS.