Chelen City: Chapter Thirteen, Part Two

 Notes: Time for a come-to-Jesus talk (without the Jesus, of course, this is not a religious society as such).

Title: Chelen City: Chapter Thirteen, Part Two

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Chapter Thirteen, Part Two

 

“You what now?” Why in any universe would Kieron actually go so far as to infiltrate Caria’s home? “Why?”

“Because I couldn’t break into it from a distance, and you people are shit at up-close security measures anyway.”

“Excuse me?”

“I swear to god, it’s like you all want to be assassinated,” Kieron went on, starting to pace. “You protect your digital existences like they hold the secrets to the universe, but all I have to do to get into a house is apply a little foreign DNA in the right places and scan myself in through the employee doors.”

Elanus still felt stunned, but that feeling was fast giving way to anger. “I’m still not hearing a why.”

“Because you’re compromised when it comes to investigating your peers.”

His hands clenched into fists. “Are you suggesting that I wouldn’t do everything in my power to keep my daughter safe?”

Kieron shook his head. “No, I’m suggesting there are things you wouldn’t think to do because you don’t work that way. You’ve been raised in this society and you have the according blind spots. You banter about potential murder but you don’t really concern yourself with the possibility because it would be ‘crass.’ You jealously defend your intellectual property while showing off the fact that you’ve got a big fucking secret that you’re not sharing, then brace yourself for attack. You go from battle to battle without ever thinking about how to win them so that you can finally stop fighting.” He stopped and pointed a finger at Elanus. “You’ve been trained to be ineffective at self-defense, and handicapped on top of that.”

“You are…”

“I’m right.”

“You’re insane!” Elanus had never quite experienced a takedown like this, and he definitely hadn’t expected it from Kieron. “None of that is true!”

“It is, though.” He sighed and closed the distance between them by a step. “You’ve got a plan for what comes next, right? With Caria? And it involves having more conversations, circling ever closer to the truth, toying with each other…you treat it like a game of cat and mouse, but in reality you’re both mice.”

Don’t you mean catterpet, Elanus wanted to say, but he didn’t because inside the sense of blazing anger that was roiling in him, trying to get out and start yelling, he was starting to sense a cold, hard nugget of truth. He didn’t speak—couldn’t speak, wasn’t sure what was going to come out of his mouth and didn’t want to be vicious even when he felt it was warranted—and after a moment Kieron went on.

“People can block data on implants when you access them, or sanitize what can be detected even under a profound attack on their AI security. Don’t tell me that even if you hadn’t managed to protect Catie that the data they were going for wouldn’t have been compromised first. I know you’ve got backups for both the girls that are updated every .3 seconds.

“But Ganians take far fewer precautions in-person, at least the upper-class ones do. So I thought it was worthwhile to pay a visit to Caria myself.”

Elanus covered his face with his hands. Holy shit. “What did she say to you?”

Gentle hands grabbed his wrists and slowly lowered his arms. “Nothing. She didn’t even see me. I just listened to what she had to say, to herself and other people.”

“How?”

“Physical devices I placed in her workshop that crawled up into her living quarters. It’s not that hard to spoof defenses like that, and as long as the transmitters are low-grade, they tend not to be picked up by detectors. I hid in her garage and listened to her for thirty hours.”

“She would have fucking killed you if she found you,” Elanus said, hoping the seriousness of this was getting through to Kieron. “She has killed people in the past, and for less.”

“She would send someone else to kill me, you mean,” Kieron replied. “And I’m not taking that risk lightly, but I don’t think she even detected me. And it was worth it, because Caria didn’t have anything to do with the attack on Catie. She’s obsessed with Deysan and the past, but she has a huge soft spot for you. She’s not going to try and hurt you or your business.”

Elanus…didn’t want to believe that. He couldn’t believe that, didn’t feel like he could afford to. “How can you know that for sure?”

“I have thirty hours’ worth of ranting and bemoaning that speaks to her intention. Well, more like twenty-two,” he amends, “she had to sleep sometime. She really ought to sleep more, I think—she’s really heavily relying on Regen micro-injections to get her through the day, and that’s a crutch that would be very easy to take advantage of.”

“Kieron.”

“I’m just saying, I could have poisoned her four times over in the time I was there.” He met Elanus’s eyes calmly. “I could probably figure out a way to kill anyone on this planet in under a week, because I don’t think the way the rest of you do. I can get information you’re not going to think is accessible because I don’t have the same training that you do. And that’s good,” he emphasized, “because you do the same thing for me in other ways. We cover each other’s weaknesses and we give grace to each other’s strengths. At least, that’s what we’re supposed to do. This is a partnership, not a dictatorship. Right?”

Elanus sensed that this was more of a crucial moment than he’d anticipated having five short minutes ago. “You can’t keep me asleep while you’re risking your life,” he said, because that was a nonnegotiable for him. “You can’t do that.”

“I needed to move while Caria was still stuck on your conversation to—”

“No. You cannot do that. It violates my bodily autonomy, for starters, and I would never fucking forgive you if you got hurt or killed while doing something that I could have helped you with.”

Kieron nodded slowly. “That’s fair. But you need to stop trying to protect me and let me do what I’m good at, while you do what you’re good at.”

Elanus had the feeling he wasn’t going to like this part. “Which is?”

“Science. Research. Finding answers.” He squeezed Elanus’s hands. “You need to find a solution to Elfshot Disease. So many people will benefit from a cure, but there’s so little interest in coming up with one. And I think that’s deliberate.”

“Deysan—”

“Had nothing. At least, according to Caria.” Kieron shrugged. “It was just a way to maintain investor interest and earn enough money to buy himself a fancy new life after he made his getaway in Catie. She got very drunk about that,” he reflected. “Very, very drunk. She’s really weepy when she’s inebriated.”

Elanus put that information away for later reflection. “This is a big ask,” he said. “I don’t know how quickly I’m going to be able to figure this out, if at all.”

“I’m not asking for a miracle,” Kieron said. “I’m just asking for you to work on this very real problem while I handle figuring out who’s trying to sabotage you.”

“Why can’t I do both?”

“Because you’re an obsessive who does best focusing on one huge problem at a time.” When Kieron tugged his head down, Elanus let himself go. The kiss was sweet, the words that followed it even more so. “Please. Give me some time to try things my way before you jump back into the fray.”

Where had the rage gone? Where was the righteous sense of fury that had been boiling up in him? Why did Elanus feel completely disarmed?

Love. Fucking ridiculous. “Fine.”

“Thank you.”

“But you’ve got to keep me in the loop and promise to listen when I bring up a concern.”

“Deal.”

This time Elanus led with the kiss, and Kieron responded eagerly. “Bed?”

“Yes.” Because sex wasn’t a cure for anything, but it was a damn good treatment.