Disclaimer: The Secret World and all associated characters, settings, and situations are the property of Funcom and Electronic Arts. All use of them here is purely for entertainment purposes, without permission or intention to profit.
Juno
Saturday, November 4, 1:25pm
Redcrosse Circus Apartments, Ealdwic, London
Back in my apartment, I pack frantically. I throw on a change of clothes (black slacks and a white button-down blouse—not really my style, but then I did lose most of my own clothes shortly after I gained my powers). I keep my sneakers and the army coat, mostly because I don't have replacements for them. The shoes still squish a little when I step, hours after leaving the bay. At least they're not leaving wet footprints everywhere. I leave my laptop and my Bible behind, along with my spell book. I don't want to risk the Illuminati taking them. The send-box I keep in the backpack, but I take some precautions with it to prevent the Illuminati from identifying it as more than the antique jewelry box it appears to be. I take away the key, like Dame Julia said to, and attach it to my keyring, shoving it deep into a pocket of my jeans. As an additional measure, I put my silver cross pendant inside. It's the only piece of jewelry I own, but maybe it will convince the Illuminati that the send-box isn't really anything remarkable.
Once I've thrown everything into my backpack, I run through the streets back to the police barricade near Eldwic Station. An old yellow taxi is waiting there for me driven by the same driver who first brought me to see the Templars. He gives me a nod and switches on his sign as I approach. "Heathrow Airport, miss?"
"Yes," I say, throwing my backpack in and jumping in the back seat. "I'm in a hurry, too! My flight leaves in an hour!"
The driver calmly nods and puts the car in gear. "We'll be there directly, Miss," he promises.
While we drive, I dig out my cell phone. I pull up my home phone number and stare at it. I know I need to talk to my dad, but I know it's not going to be an easy conversation. In the end, I have no choice though, and he is my Dad. I can't live my whole life with him being upset with me. I take a deep breath and prepare to dial the number.
But before I can hit the speed-dial button, the screen changes and the phone rings, displaying an incoming call. The name it shows is at once familiar, yet wholly unexpected. It's Juno Bailey, my cousin. I haven't seen or spoken with her in a couple years, since the last big family reunion my Dad dragged me to down in Texas. She was always the black sheep of the family with her extensive tattoos and decidedly non-Christian beliefs, but she was extremely nice and the fact that she was an outcast made her ironically more approachable to an introvert like me. I've kept up with her on Facebook since—to the extent that I use Facebook—and I know she's been living and working in Denver for a while now, so it isn't completely unexpected that she'd try to call me, but I still have no idea why she's trying to call me now. Nevertheless, I have to admit that the idea of a casual conversation with my weird-but-nice cousin is a lot more appealing to me right now than a stressful conversation with my Dad. I answer the call. "Hello? Juno?"
"Chris!" she sounds enthusiastic, if a little sleepy. "I just heard you're flying back to Colorado today! I know I missed your big send-off a few months ago. I was thinking I could make up for it by picking you up from DIA."
"That'd be great!" I say, "But how did you know I was flying back?" Even I didn't know I was flying back until an hour ago.
"Oh, I got a call from a friend of mine at work," she said. "Our company's really closely tied to the airport, so we hear about all the incoming flights, and she saw your name on the passenger lists. I'd told her that we were related and hadn't talked in a while, so she let me know you were coming!"
"Well, I'm glad she did," I say. "It'd probably be better if you picked me up than my Dad."
"I'm guessing there's a bit of family friction based on the way you say that, hmm?" she says.
"You could say that," I confess. Internally, I thank God for my good fortune of having Juno as my ride home rather than my Dad. I'm sure he'll be a little upset about it, but it'll be nothing compared to the tense hour-long drive home with him that I've avoided. It also gives me hope that I can avoid facing a situation where my Dad is my only ride back to the airport and thus in a position to prevent me from going. "Would it be too much of an imposition to ask you to drive me back to the airport too? I'm leaving for London at 9:30pm."
"Wow! That's a short trip!" Juno says. "Sure, I'll take you there and back! I always have time for my favorite cousin!"
Her generosity makes me feel guilty that I'm probably the only member of our family who tolerates her, and that even I haven't been too good of a friend to her. I hope it's not too late to change that. "Thanks, Juno," I say. "You're the best."
"Don't mention it, Chris!" she says. "Send me a text when you land! I look forward to hearing all about your adventures."
She hangs up and I lower my phone. I realize I should call my Dad anyway, though, since showing up unannounced on his doorstep is not going to go over well. I dial the number hesitantly and hold the phone up to my ear.
The phone rings four times before anyone picks up. When my Dad does pick up, his voice is groggy and muffled. "Hello?...Who is this?"
"It's me, Chris," I say.
"Chris!" There's a noise in the background as he apparently fumbles with the receiver. "Chris, what's going on? Where are you?"
"I'm in London now," I say.
"London? So you're done with all the Kingsmouth nonsense?" Dad says.
"It's not nonsense," I insist. "I really was in Kingsmouth, on Solomon Island, but I'm back in London now, and—"
He doesn't let me finish. "Don't lie to me, young lady!" he says. "I talked to the school in Greenwich. They told me there was no trip to Solomon Island. They'd never even heard of the place!"
"I wasn't with the school, but I was on Solomon Island," I say. "Like I told you I was with—"
"I don't want to hear it, young lady! Not another word!" he says angrily. "Where have you been? They said you were at the Red Cross, but you hadn't shown up for any of your classes in two weeks! I've been looking for you everywhere! I called every Red Cross I could find in the city. All of them said they'd never heard of you! Where have you been?!"
"Kingsmouth, Maine," I say flatly. "And now I'm in London."
"Don't lie to me!" he says.
"I'm not lying!" I shout back, loud enough that the driver straightens his glasses and gives me a cross look. I lower my voice. "I'm telling you the truth, Dad. I'm in London now, heading for the airport, and I'm coming home right now. I'm having a friend pick me up and I'll be home around 7pm," I say.
"You'd better not be lying about that, too, young lady!" he says. "Be home and don't be late, or I will call the police to find you!" He hangs up before I can say anything else. I lower my phone, feeling somewhat sick to my stomach.
I can see the signs for Heathrow Airport up ahead. The cab weaves in and out of traffic, turning down side roads and even alleyways to somehow arrive back at the main road much further ahead that I would have thought possible. In only a few minutes, we pull up to the curb at the entrance for departures. I thank the driver and grab my backpack. I start to fish out my wallet from my bag so I can pay for the cab, but the old driver waves me away. "Never mind about that, Miss," he says. "You go on! Compliments of Sonnac!" I thank him and rush inside, sheepishly thinking that I should have known the ride was arranged specially by the Templars. I rush inside and hurry through security and the lines. I'm just in time to catch my flight.
The flight itself is remarkably normal. I get a window seat and wind up next to a short, darker skinned guy not much older than me wearing a business suit. He and I make stilted small talk mostly out of the desire not to appear rude, but it's clear that both of us have our minds on other things. Before long he pulls open his laptop and buries himself in some kind of coding project he says he has to get done before we land. He doesn't speak to me after that. The flight is long and smooth with the sun sparkling off the water or highlighting clouds far below as we cross the Atlantic at 12,000 meters up (however many feet that is: I still haven't gotten the hang of the metric system).
The view can't keep me from my thoughts forever though. Before long my thoughts turn back to the conversation I had with my Dad. What am I going to say to him when I land? I pull out my own laptop and try drafting a message. I've always been better at writing than speaking. Maybe if I can figure out how to say what I need to say on the keyboard it won't be so hard to find the right words when I meet my Dad in person again. But what do I write?
I stare at the blank page for almost half an hour, unsure of how to even begin. Finally I start putting words in the page just in order to avoid the weird looks my neighbor is giving me.
"Dear Dad,
I know you probably won't believe me when I tell you this. I know I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't lived through it. The truth is I can do things now that I never before thought possible. Call it spiritual gifts, superpowers…it doesn't matter. The powers are real and I can demonstrate them to you if you need proof. I don't know why they were given to me or how, but I believe God does everything for a reason and that He gave me these powers to do good. I've joined an organization that I believe will help me do that. They took me in, as a matter of fact. They taught me how to use my powers safely, saved me from being a danger to myself and everyone around me. And they gave me the opportunity to powers to good use, saving lives... and yes, one of the opportunities is in Kingsmouth, Maine."
I stare at the computer for some time after that, trying to decide what to say next, trying to figure out how my Dad would react to all of that, but I just don't know. After about fifteen minutes I notice the guy sitting next to me glancing over at my screen and I shut my laptop without saving and put it away. I spend the rest of the flight staring out the window, watching a movie, and sleeping.
When the plane finally lands, I'm understandably groggy from the fact that my brain tells me I've had a very full day while my watch, once properly adjusted, tells me it's only 5:30pm. I send a brief, "I just landed" text to Juno and Micah, which actually takes quite a while since I'm still not very fast at texting. Then, I grab my backpack out of the overhead compartment and stagger off the plane following the line of weary travelers who just endured a nine hour flight with me. I walk semi-conscious through the halls of metal and glass that make up the airport's terminal. I trudge over carpeted archways overlooking runways surrounded by miles of rolling hills outside the city.
I finally reach the customs desk. Most of the other passengers already filled in their paperwork and are in line for their interview. I suppose I should have filled in my paperwork on the plane too, instead of napping. I go up to the counter and grab one of the clipboards to fill out a form for myself.
As I pick up the form, I'm on my guard. I can sense the eyes of one of the customs officials on me. He isn't dressed like the other officials. He wears a black business suit and blue latex gloves in lieu of a uniform and his black, slicked-back hair frames an angular face with dark, dead eyes that watch my every move. I almost wish he'd play the role of the stereotypical secret agent a little more obviously and put on a pair of sunglasses. At least then I wouldn't have to see is dead-eyed stare.
I try to ignore him and fill out the paperwork. When I hand it in, a woman in an ordinary uniform goes through the normal interview and checks my backpack without comment. She sees and opens the send-box, of course, but when she does she notices the silver cross pendant inside and checks it off as a jewelry box. The man in black's eyes never leave me, but he says nothing and makes no move to try and stop me. I shiver under his gaze, though, until at last I can leave customs and step into the main area of the airport.
Juno is waiting for me. I almost don't recognize her because she's dressed so differently. Instead of her usual halter top and bell-bottom jeans from when we were teens, she's wearing a white blouse with white slacks and a white business jacket with sleeves down to her wrists: long enough to hide all of her tattoos except the Celtic knot tattoo on her forehead, which is mostly hidden by her golden blonde curls. Her smile when she sees me, though, is the same: warm and genuine, in spite of whatever distance may have existed between us. I can't help but smile back and wave at her. She grins as I approach and I soon find myself clasped in a warm hug by the taller woman. "Chris! It's so good to see you! How was your flight?"
"Good, long," I say. "Thanks for picking me up!"
"No problem, cousin!" she says. She takes my hand and leads me across the crowded concourse and past the baggage carousels. "It's been a long time since we've seen each other," she says, as she leads me up the escalator to the upstairs exits.
"It has," I confess. "Two years." It seems like an eternity. Then again, with everything that's happened to me recently, the last two weeks seems like a lifetime!
"Two years," she sighs dreamily, "but you look just the same!"
"You look different," I say without thinking about it, then quickly add, "I mean I almost didn't recognize you in that fancy suit!"
Juno smirks. "Dress to impress, as they say!" She explains, "I say it's just another example of the Law of Attraction: push out of fresh, professional image, and the professional life and its benefits just flow naturally!"
We step outside just in time to see a young man in the pressed black uniform of an airport valet pull up to the curb in a white sportscar. He steps out and hands the keyfob to Juno. My eyes go wide, darting from her to the car and back again. "That's your car?!" It looks like it's worth more than I've ever seen in one place before, with the possible exception of my tuition bills that would have wrecked my finances for life if not for the scholarships that followed them.
"I know! Isn't it great?" says Juno. "It's a Tesla, too, custom model! Great for the environment!" She goes around the side and gets in.
As she does, the valet holds the passenger door open. It takes me a moment to realize he's holding it open for me. I hurry into the passenger seat, nearly slipping on the icy curb. Juno grabs my arm and helps me into my seat. Then, while I scramble to find my seatbelt, she starts the car and fiddles with the radio. It chimes gently and the small screen shows a strange pattern of lines it shapes, which momentarily seems to include a seated skeleton. The words All Clear flash across the screen and Juno frowns, but then the music starts and the screen switches to display the music video of some long-blonde-haired pop artist I don't recognize. Juno smiles, puts the car in gear, and pulls away from the curb smoothly and silently. "Baby, you're the highlight of my lowlife," she signs along quietly when the chorus starts.
I finally manage to get myself buckled in and take a peek at the music video but still don't recognize the artist and...is that a man dressed up in a red devil costume? I shake my head and look down at my coat. I have more important things to worry about. Fastening my seatbelt over the bulky camo coat has made me self-conscious about the state of my own clothes. I must look like a hobo that Juno picked up off the street. I brush at the brown, gritty dried mud and blood stains on the coat, trying vainly to keep them off the cream-colored faux-leather upholstery. "Sorry about the seat," I mutter.
Juno turns down the music and laughs. "Don't worry about it! I'll get it cleaned!"
I try to relax, but the unexpectedly rich surroundings still have me feeling off balance—and that definitely is a man in a devil costume in that music video, sitting at a banquet table covered in human bones. It seems completely out of place with the upbeat melody, but then again I can't hear the lyrics and I'm pretty glad for that. I decide to ignore it. "I didn't even know DIA had valet parking," I remark. "I can't imagine how much it costs!"
"It's actually surprisingly reasonable," Juno says. "And after the employee discount, it's practically free!"
"You work for DIA?" I ask.
Juno bites her lip and cocks her head from one side to the other, humming along with the song while she decides how best to answer. "It's more like I work at DIA," she says at last.
"For one of the airlines?"
Juno laughs and shakes her head. "I work for a much bigger international organization with much deeper pockets. That's how I can afford the suit and car!"
"The TSA," I ask, guessing.
Juno laughs again. "The government doesn't pay anyone that well, and our organization has much deeper pockets than them. The national debt is practically our annual budget," she says. "We've actually got a pretty extensive facility on site at DIA, though it's kept strictly outside of the public eye."
"I've never heard of a company like that," I say. "What's their name?"
"Oh, you've definitely heard of us before," she says, her smile as bright as the sunshine outside. "We're the Illuminati!"
I freeze and feel my blood run cold, despite the heater on the floorboard going full blast. The devil is on the screen in the music video again, walking behind the blonde pop star, seemingly berating her, but I hardly notice. "You're with the Illuminati?" I whisper, fearful. I find myself suddenly wishing I had a gun.
Juno looks over at me and laughs. "You look so tense, Chris! Relax! I realize you didn't get off on the right foot with our organization, but come on, you know me. We're cousins! You know I don't bite!"
I fold my arms close to my body, trying to force myself to calm down. "I know you," I say, "but do you have any idea who the Illuminati are? What they've done?"
"Chris, I've worked with these people for two years, I think I know what they're capable of," Juno says.
I shudder, remembering what they did to my brother. "How can you work for them? They're monsters!"
"Monsters?" Juno laughs, tossing her head in a way that makes her gold curls bounce, before returning her eyes to the road. We pass the striking blue statue of a rearing bronco with glowing red eyes, before merging onto the highway. "Come on, Chris, you and I both know what real monsters are like. You've shot 'em, I've vivisected 'em, and I can assure you I don't work for 'em!"
"I meant it figuratively," I say, defensive.
Juno cocks her head. "Still a bit of a stretch, don't you think?"
"No, I don't," I say.
"Oh, come on! Every organization in the world is full of driven, ambitious people—people who bend the rules and sometimes break them. Rules are meant to be broken, though, and limitations are meant to be surpassed."
"Rules are there for a reason," I counter.
"Some are," Juno concedes, "but if we let ourselves get caught up in that what would happen to the march of progress? Science, technology, society, culture...they all depend on breaking rules now and then. Everybody does it! Even in a straight-laced organization like the Templars human nature's still the same."
"We don't hold children at gunpoint," I counter.
"No, and neither do I," says Juno. "But your boss was only too happy to use that same child for a bit of international intrigue, knowing full well that he was putting his life in danger by doing so. And when that danger came, they did nothing, despite having a veteran known agent of theirs on the scene the whole time! And now they want to send him to Venice…"
"It's for the greater good," I say, shifting in my seat.
Juno sighs. "If sayin' that makes it easier for you to sleep at night, you believe whatever you want to believe," she says. "But I'll say this for the Illuminati: we're honest. There's no pretence with us. No sugar coating or political correctness. You know exactly where you stand and exactly what we're in it for. You can't say that for many places or people!"
"Well, I'm honest," I insist. "And so are the Templars!"
"Really?" Juno laughs, but with none of the brightness in her voice that there'd been before. "Chris, I don't mean to be insulting, but...well, do you really think the Templars needed to pull you out of that mess in Maine just to go fetch your brother for them? Do you really think they needed Micah all that much?"
"I...well, it's not like Dad would let him go with just anybody," I say, though inwardly I have to admit I have no idea how I'm going to convince him to let Micah come with me.
"Oh, sure," she says, a bit of a sarcastic edge to her voice now, "as though a kid with Micah's talents and an organization with as many resources as the Templars couldn't between the two of them figure out how to forge a field trip note." Juno shakes her head, no longer smiling. "Even if that weren't the case, I've seen the flight plan for your return trip. There's no way the jet stream requires your plane to fly that close to New York City! And then there's this." She touches a switch on the radio and the music video vanishes, replaced by swirling lines and a brief hint of a skeleton, definitely seated—and in exactly the same position as me! Then the image focuses on something, I can just make out the outline of a bag of some sort, and inside it a box, within which is the unmistakable outline of my cross pendant necklace. "Most scanners wouldn't pick it up—in fact this scanner didn't even idententify it correctly—but I know the long ley-line tracks of a sendbox when I see them. You are up to something, Chris, no doubt about it!"
That icy lump of fear in my stomach crystallizes. I feel myself sweating at the same time. I hear buzzing in the back of my brain, and I can't find any words to say to Juno in reply. My mind scrambles for options but with no weapons, I have none—aside from just letting my power go wild. I can't imagine that would end well for me, not at highway speeds! I wait for the other shoe to drop: for a weapon to come out, for threats to be made, or maybe even for tortue to begin.
Instead, unexpectedly, Juno laughs, a clear genuine laugh. "Wow! You are tense, Chris! I can feel it from here! Your energy could probably recharge this car thirty times over right now. There's no need for that!" She reaches over and puts a hand on my shoulder.
I feel a tingling of energy at her touch. I flinch.
"Relax...!" she says. Her fingers press into my coat and run across my shoulder blade and up to the back of my neck in a strange rhythm, as if tracing a pattern only they know.
Unexpectedly, my fear vanishes. I feel completely calm, even though my situation hasn't changed a bit. A nagging part of my brain says I should be concerned by this, but those thoughts fail to gain traction as Juno's fingers wind their way up the side of my head and trace the edge of my ear. I sigh and lay back in the chair as I feel my muscles relax. If she was going to kill me, she'd have done it by now, I think, relaxing further. "What are you going to do about it?" I ask, feeling and sounding completely detached, as though the answer is a mere curiosity.
Juno smiles bemusedly and returns her hand to the wheel. "Well, I'm not gonna rat you out for it, if that's what you're afraid of," she says. She touches a control on the steering wheel and the multicolor display on the screen vanishes as the words Scan Deleted flash on the screen. Then another music video comes on: the same pop-star, cloned and standing in four garish outfits as she sings along to herself. "I sure as hell don't want to be the one to tell Cassini that her new scanner's not all it's cracked up to be. Besides, we're cousins, family, and I'd like to think friends too! There's no reason for us to be enemies."
"No, no reason…," I mutter. A shiver runs through me and I shake myself, feeling more awake as I do—and also a little terrified. "Are you...are you going to try to stop me?"
Juno glances over at me and quirks an eyebrow, arching the tattoos on her forehead. "Should I?"
I'm silent, uncertain what to say. As an Illuminati agent, she probably should. But isn't what I'm doing right? It's for the greater good, I tell myself. When I think of Kirsten Geary getting her hands on anything remotely related to the Filth, I know what I'm doing is right. But when I think of it in the hands of someone like Juno or Dan, or even Dame Julia, I'm less certain. I don't really know any of these people. Would such an awful thing be safe in any of their hands? Would it even be safe in mine?
"I trust your judgement, Chris," Juno says, breaking the silence. "I don't think you're going to use the send box to drop an anima bomb on Manhattan or anything horrible like that. You're a good person. You'd never do anything if you thought it would hurt someone else. You're far too sweet for that, and I trust you," she says. "Just make sure that whatever it is you do is your choice, and no one else's. And make sure it's your best choice, your best option." She's silent for a moment, letting her words sink in. On the screen on the radio, the identical girls dance gently in their garish costumes, sipping tea together and signing about calling and hanging out with their best friends. Juno continues, "All I'm asking is that you keep an open mind. That was always your strength. Don't let some fop with a red and black cross on his cape take that away from you just because he says he wants to save the world. Everyone wants to save the world, or at least their own piece of it. I'm just saying you should consider all your options—and remember that the Illuminati are one of your options."
"You seriously want me to consider joining the Illuminati?" I ask, though not as harshly or disbelievingly as I might have once.
"I do," says Juno.
I look at her and shake my head. "I can't, and I still don't understand how you can work with them either."
"They're not bad people," Juno says, "at least not any worse than any other people."
"Kirsten Geary held Micah at gunpoint," I remind her. "That's terrible! Who does that to a kid like him?"
"He's not a kid anymore, and the Templars tried to use him as a pawn and a spy," Juno reminds me again. Another song comes on. It's the same artist again in the music video standing there posing with a very old computer monitor while singing about her love for her computer. Juno hums along, then sighs and shakes her head, turning back to me. "Look, Kirsten is a piece of work. She's a bitch, I'll admit. Every organization has a few. I'd apologize, but she's more a fault of the universe than anything else. She's not the boss of me, I'm not the boss of her. Sometimes assholes just are. The universe has got to shit somewhere, you know."
I laugh in spite of myself, though a part of me is embarrassed and disgusted by the joke. What would Dad think? But Dad isn't here and he doesn't approve of much I do these days anyway. Besides, the joke was genuinely funny, and true.
"Seriously, though, there's a lot more to us Illuminati than Kirsten Geary and the like," Juno says. "We're doing cutting edge research into fields even I didn't know existed two years ago. We have facilities all over the world and crack commando teams to protect our people. We can offer security, training, purpose, wealth, influence...and free gym membership with a dental plan that's not half bad." I smirk and she continues, "We're all about changing the world. It's what we do in the Illuminati. People may question our methods, and they may even be right to do so at times, but you can say one thing about us for certain: we get things done!"
She pauses a moment, changing lanes to turn onto the interstate. The music video continues, rather repetitive, and I can't help but notice the solid black eyes staring soullessly from the monitor that the pop star is signing fondly over. I turn my head back to Juno. "The Templars get things done too," I insist.
Juno shakes her head. "Templars waste too much time dawdling, worrying about their image, and grandstanding. And in the end their actions and their image don't even come close to matching. Look at what they did to your brother! They used him as a pawn and a spy. And as for protecting him and your family? Well, we know they've been watchin' your family for a while now. They've got eyes on that place all the time, there's an old agent of theirs that's been spotted nearby, one we've never quite been able to lay hands on. We know he was there the day Kirsten came for Micah. We know he was nearby the whole time. And what did the high-'n'-mighty Templars do to protect that child, your brother, their asset?" She shakes her head, her expression grim. "Not. A. Damn. Thing."
"There wouldn't have been anything to protect him from if not for Kirsten," I grumble, though the complaint rings a little hollow for me, while Juno's observation certainly has me thinking twice.
Juno sighs and nods. "I know, I know," she says. "Look, I'm not asking you to kiss Kirsten. Hell, you don't even have to forgive her or stop hating her. I certainly haven't! Just consider our offer. Everybody says there's a Secret War comin'...that it'll start any day now. Who knows what will set it off? I'd hate to see you or your family wind up on the wrong side with people who won't protect you, or getting caught in the crossfire. You and your brother don't deserve that. Just give yourself a chance to think it over, alright?"
"Ok," I will, "I promise."
"Good," she says, smiling. She switches off the radio and straightens, turning her attention to me as much as the road allows. "Now, we've been apart for a while and you've had quite a time: tell me all about it! How have you been? Tell me everything!"
"Everything?" I ask, laughing. "It's been two years, and the last week feels like it lasted forever!"
"We've got time," Juno insists. "After all, it's a long drive!"
Author's Note: Thanks to everyone for patience with me! I'm glad to finally be able to upload this chapter.
I spent a long time trying to figure out how to handle Chris' arrival at DIA. I knew I wanted her to be intercepted by an Illuminati agent. I knew I wanted the Illuminati to discover her send box and recognize that she was up to something, but not quite have enough evidence of what and how to pin her to the wall (especially considering that doing so without an airtight reason that could hold up in the Council of Venice would likely start a secret world war). I wanted them to try to recruit her, but I wasn't sure how. I tried threats, torture, bullying, bribes... but it wasn't really what I wanted because Chris wasn't really vulnerable to any of that. She was expecting Illuminati bullies and prepared for their tricks. So in the end I threw Juno at her. Juno was a character I created just for this chapter, based on my Illuminati character for TWS Legends and the question "what if an Illuminati agent were a genuinely nice person who just happened to work for an evil organization?" I feel like the end result of pairing her off against Chris was far more effective. Chris is expecting and prepared for (and maybe even secretly relishing) the black-and-white noble struggle between good and evil, but Juno doesn't fit neatly into either of those categories. She's a sweetheart, a friend, but also a calculating minion of a heartless organization. Her nature as a manifest shade of gray and her gray view of the Illuminati casts doubt on Chris' own black-and-white notions of the virtuousness of the Templars, and of her own motivations. In the end that seed of self-doubt is a far more effective weapon than any threat or bribe. I hope it also made the scene an interesting read.
Chris saying she's lost most of her own clothes is a reference all the way back to chapter 13 of "Lit Major Shoots Lightning" where her luggage is stolen while she's unconscious following her meeting with the "prophet" in the Ealdwych Market. Her shoes are still squashing because, unbelievably, it's only been a few hours since she and team KCD went toe-to-toe with a Draug Lord in Kingsmouth Bay, back in chapter 23. The cross pendant is also a reference to a piece of jewelry that belonged to her mother, first mentioned in "Lit Major Shoots Lighting" and which I actually have for her character in the game.
The taxi driver, likewise, is a throwback to the briefly-seen cab driver (well, cab really) that drops Templar players off at Ealdwich for the first time in a cutscene. I fleshed the cabdriver out a tad in chapter 11 of "Lit Major Shoots Lighting," making him obviously someone working with the Templars. Now his mention of Sonnac paying for the cab and his use of probably-Secret-World ways to get past traffic builds on that. There is a snippet of Lore in the game which hints to the fact that the cab drivers may indeed be in on it, because they never take the same route to Ealdwich twice and drive on roads not on any map, if I recall correctly.
Heathrow Airport, though, is just Heathrow Airport: a real international airport on the west side of London. I didn't give much detail about it because I've never been there, but hopefully I didn't make it too obvious that I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to flying out of London.
12,000 meters is about 40,000 feet for all you Americans like me and Chris, or nearly 7.5 miles just for a bit of mindblowing scale. It's pretty standard cruising altitude for a passenger jet.
Chris' flight companion, the young businessman isn't based on anyone or anything in the game. Rather, it's based on an some anonymous stranger I wound up actually sitting next to on a plane. The man in black at customs isn't based on anything in game either. Mostly he's a red herring to make Chris think she's already encountered and gotten past the Illuminati's security, when the real Illuminati agent (well the one really there to intercept her) is waiting outside to hug her, scan her, and try to recruit her. His appearance is a bit of a mix between the Men in Black from The Men in Black, the Agent Smith from The Matrix, and the creepy "Hands of Blue" from Firefly.
The Law of Attraction mentioned by Chris is a principle of the New Thought panentheistic religious movement which teaches that positive thinking begets positive life experiences and results from the universe and vice versa. It's a form of magical thinking (in my opinion) which has gained a lot of popularity recently, especially among people who, like Juno, seek to be seen as spiritual but not religious (or necessarily Christian—though Prosperity Gospel is basically the Christian equivalent). Juno's Tesla and environmentalism is likewise an expression of her stereotypically New Age rich-hippy lifestyle and outward image...though of course for her it's way more than an image. Her tattoos aren't just for show and her study of massage and pressure points has some very real applications, as Chris learns!
The music video and song Juno plays is That Poppy's "Lowlife." If there was ever an official pop artist of the Illuminati, it would be Poppy. If you're looking for something cute, catchy, but undeniably creepy, check her music and her regular videos out. The second music video that plays is Poppy's "Moshi Moshi" which is, all things considered, one of her more normal songs, though still not without some slightly uncanny moments. The final song featured is her "Computer Boy" where I find the most disturbing thing is the black soulless eyes of the face on the monitor.
Juno's working at DIA is a reference to the popular conspiracy theories that a series of secret bunkers were built under DIA's terminals by the government when the airport was under construction. The blue statue of the bronco with glowing red eyes is a real thing too, with conspiracy theories around it as well. It is also sinfully ugly and I have no idea why they thought it was a good idea. It's official name is "Blue Mustang" and it's supposed to be a tribute to the Denver Bronco's football team, but the locals call it Blucifer and if you see pictures of it online (or worse in real life) it's hard to disagree.
The seated skeleton on the radio, is, of course, an X-ray (well, a magic-tech Illuminati x-ray) of Chris herself, though it takes her a while to realize this. Leah Cassini is the tech guru of the Illuminati and probably the designer of the scanner who is very proud of her technology's capabilities and probably would not be thrilled to hear that her scanner had failed where the intuition of a hippy tattoo girl had succeeded. Kirsten Geary, is, of course, Dan's boss and the handler for Illuminati player characters in the game—and also the woman who held Micah at gunpoint, so not Chris' most favorite person in the world.
An anima bomb is a munition I just made up on the spot, but probably very powerful and magical, and stuff...sort of like the nukes of the Secret World, I guess.
The Templar spy who was present during Micah's kidnapping was first mentioned by Sonnac back in chapter 20. More information and an eventual appearance is planned in the next few chapters.
Hopefully the conversation between Chris and Juno wasn't too repetitive. I kept returning to Micah's kidnapping because that would be the major sticking point in Chris' mind, the go-to argument for proving the Illuminati are evil. She'd need a lot of reassurance to start to get over it. Hopefully I portrayed that well.