Chapter 237: Send an Army (Send a Diplomat)
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The bottle was tinted, but the liquid inside was entirely clear, like water. Danny knew, because he had taken the lid off and put it back on several times.
"Think of it this way," said Damien, encouragingly. "you can either drink it, or you can be depressed for the next ten years."
"Who told you to say that?" asked Danny.
"Rude. Can't I say things for myself?"
"Yes, but you're also, like, a baby. I don't think you know what depression is."
"I have your memories, dude. I know what depression is."
"Touché. Still."
For a split second, Damien's eyes twitched to the side. Danny turned.
"That's really rude, Ellie," said Danny. "Let me savor my last moments of unaltered consciousness."
"Am I wrong? Besides, you swore that you'd do it, didn't you? You're just drawing this out and making yourself feel bad."
"We all know this is hard, Danny," said Themis, who was among the witnesses, "and we did not specify a time scale. However, we did specify who needed to be present, and many of us do have other duties to carry out."
Danny grumbled, and looked at the note his parents had sent him again. With a sigh, he folded it up and held it up to Jazz.
"Can you keep this safe for me?" he asked, not quite up to looking at her.
"Sure," said Jazz. "If you don't mind me reading it, too."
"I don't but… like… why?"
"Research material."
Right. That was still a thing. Maybe he could send a letter to the University of Ys or something. They were supposed to have a good psychology program… and a psychiatry program… or was that one of the other universities in the Drowned Quarter? Danny couldn't remember.
… Could he even send a letter to the Drowned Quarter, or would he have to get it engraved on a rock or something? Speaking of which, how did the universities down there even work, under all that water? They had to have some kind of reading material. What kind of institute of higher education didn't?
He was distracting himself.
He'd be a lot more comfortable if he could wait until Clockwork came back, but he didn't know when that would be. Soon, hopefully, Danny could feel the disturbance the GIW bomb had caused start to clear up, which was weird, but it was still there, and—
Stalling again.
He twisted the cap off and downed the contents of the bottle in one go.
It tasted sweet. Almost like flat soda.
Carefully, he set the bottle back down on the table. A piece of paper, the restraining order, was slid towards him. He reread it, wondered why he had been so upset about it before, and signed it.
"So," he said, addressing the room at large. "Are we moving straight into the custody hearing, or do we have a break?"
"A break," said Themis.
"Cool. Hey, Jazz, will you help me with that letter to the president I've been putting off?"
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Danny did not get to write that letter.
"Poindexter was kidnapped by Freakshow?" he asked.
"If that is indeed the man's name, then, yes," said the Unstoppable Mailman, who had just dropped the director (ex-director?) of the GIW off in the dungeons.
Danny covered his face with his hands. "Okay. Can you describe what he had with him? Like, artifacts and stuff? Maybe we can find someone who recognizes something."
Danny was not looking forward to informing Dora about this. She and Sydney were surprisingly close friends.
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"I'm going to send an army to fetch him," said Dora, who had come to Libra to see the conclusion of the sentencing hearing. "I'd like to see that jester fight my finest knights."
"Dora, no," said Danny, who wasn't particularly enthused about staging what would basically be a black ops operation in a country he was currently trying to negotiate peace with.
Even if he was tempted to let her do it, anyway, because Freakshow was a monster, Sydney was one of his sort-of-friends, and he was angry, angry that one of his people had been taken, had been hurt, was being controlled.
(He was still adjusting to the whole 'Prince of All Ghosts' thing, but his Obsession was already snagging on, well, everyone. Which was going to be a painful problem at some point in the near future. He could tell.)
Dora, holding her head high, her neck straight (and more than a little scaly) glowered down at Danny. "Then, what are we doing?"
"First," said Danny, with a sigh, "we're going to see if we can get Sydney back—and maybe catch Freakshow, too—without turning this into a huge battle. Or roving the countryside with an army. If we can figure out where he is, remotely, we could maybe get someone to open a portal under him."
Danny internally withered under Dora's continued draconic glare but kept up a hollow front of confidence. Then Dora sighed.
"You are right, of course," said Dora, pinching the bridge of her nose in a rare outward display of annoyance. "I forget myself, and the circumstances we are operating under. Might I suggest, however, that you include a clause regarding the retrieval of your citizens."
"Already in there," said Danny. "At least, I'm trying to get it in there. Making it sound like it's just about the GIW, which is easy, because that is what it's mostly about, but I don't think it's really flying with them…" He trailed off. "Diplomacy is hard."
Dora leaned forward, less annoyed and more worried, now. "I hesitate to bring this up, but could you perhaps ask your Regency Council for aid?"
"Haven't assembled yet," he said. "Not completely. I think. Which makes me nervous about whether or not I have the right to even negotiate. I mean, Themis let me do things with her, but…"
Danny didn't even know what the Regency Council was really supposed to do, let alone if he'd get in trouble for stepping on their toes. The general understanding he had was that they were supposed to take care of some of the decisions Danny would normally make as king (still a weird thought) until he became king officially instead of just prince. But he didn't know which ones. Diplomacy probably fell under their purview, though…
"Sir Phantom," said Dora, "you have every right. You have been crowned. If the rumors I hear are true, the Lady Ereshkigal herself demanded it be so."
"Thanks," said Danny, wondering if he was screwing up by showing uncertainty and weakness. "I should… probably look into that, though. Uh. But, yeah. No army. Yet. Since we're doing the diplomacy thing."
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"I am… concerned about the ghost army," said the president. "The one whose location is unknown to us," he clarified, as if there was another ghost army out there that they did know the location of.
Did the ghosts have more than one army? Although in modern times people thought of a country's army as a single body, in the past, the armed forces might be divided up into several different armies, which were better thought of as divisions, but ghosts were likely old-fashioned. In any case, it was unlikely that anyone competent would send their entire combat strength away.
Of course, if the people in question had nothing they really needed to protect, on account of being dead, that bit of conventional wisdom might not hold up.
(This was a well-trod track in the president's mind. The ghosts that had attacked the GIW headquarters had been formidable on their own. What if they truly brought their whole force to bear.)
"The experts think that it went back to…" the man made a sour face, "wherever it was before."
"But do we know that?"
"No."
"Do the 'experts' have any way of gaining that knowledge?"
"No."
"Do we have any way of getting better experts?"
"Actually, yes, I think we might."
"I'm still concerned, but let's hear it."
"A few days ago, we were contacted by a man…"
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"Is it fixed?" asked Sojourn. "My sense of these things is… rusty."
"As much as it can be," said Clockwork. "I do hope the humans do not have more such machines."
"Hope?" asked Nephthys. "You don't know?"
Clockwork's age shifted younger, and he twisted his hands around his staff. "I'm still having some issues identifying the timeline. Particularly which one we are currently in. I have it narrowed down to three hundred and forty-four. For reference, compared to the vast number of possible timelines, that is a very small number."
"Three hundred and forty-four?"
"How are you, ah, coherent?"
"I do have a perfectly functional linear memory," snapped Clockwork.
"Oh, it's like in Men in Black!" exclaimed Nephthys, clapping her hands together.
"What?" asked Sojourn.
"It is not."
"It is! Like with Griffin!"
"It is not," insisted Clockwork.
"Men in Black? Is this like those Guys in White fellows?" asked Sojourn.
"It's a movie. We can watch it later. I bet Danny likes it. It has aliens. And space."
"He does like space," mumbled Clockwork. "But I am not like Griffin."
"Keep telling yourself that."
