Chapter 50: Ignition
Thanks again to boothnat, who helped edit this chapter.
You can find her story The Traveler's Guide to Teyvat: How to not kill people - on her AO3 page.
Mr. S froze.
A maladaptive habit, to admit, but it turned out to be helpful in this case- because he knew he had no chance of making it out alive if it came to a fight, and running, he was sure, would be similarly unhelpful. So, while the sudden rigor mortis did make flight impossible, it helped free his mind to pursue more productive pursuits: primarily, bullshitting…
…
…
…
There was just one problem with that, however. Mainly the fact that, after having grown so used to the roll of lies that had gotten him to where he was, right now, in this particular situation, all he could come up with was...
Nothing!
Nothing was coming up! He had nothing! Nada! He was Out Of Stock!
His mind revved like the engine of a sports car as he tried to come up with something! Granted, his mind wasn't actually an engine, that was just an analogy: and, in that analogy, he was freewheeling because his car (lie) was missing a drive shaft: ie, anything that he could remotely build momentum (a believable lie) around.
Because he didn't have an aura! How was he supposed to get out of this one!? Behind his frozen expression, he felt his subconscious giving him several, swift kicks to the noggin as reality, once again, engaged in it's favorite hobby, and fucked him right up the tailpipe. God! He'd known he'd been forgetting something! Ever since Zama mentioned she could see aura, something had been bothering him! Some little voice in the back of his head had been whispering: 'something's off.' But did he listen? Nooo! This is why you adjust your mirrors before driving! Mirrors don't lie-! … wait a minute.
An idea!
Suddenly, a brilliant thought came to him. Like many of his premonitions, recently, it came dressed in the skin of a desperate gamble- covered thickly with the most unbelievable bullshit. And this gamble, in particular, was something special, because this was no ordinary, average bullshit he was working with; this was high grade stuff. If regular bullshit was unleaded diesel, then this idea that had just sprung to mind was ultra pure, hyper illegal, depleted plutonium- gotten probably from some terrorist groups somewhere. This stuff could take you back to the future. This lie that he was about to engage in.. it honestly terrified Mr. S.
Mr. S… was planning to tell the truth.
To tell the truth!
Why hadn't he thought of it before!? Telling the truth! It was the ultimate in bullshittery! Zama would never see it coming haha!
The saying went that honesty was efffortless, and that it required less thought than constructing an elaborate lie.
If there was any truth to that statement, Mr. S was certainly putting it to the test, because the great majority of his current attention was engaged by his desperate need to tell the truth convincingly. That was the key. A few moments passed in silence as he gathered his thoughts, at which point Zama once again brandished her short swords with an impatient gesture and Mr. S promptly abandoned all attempts at realism.
"I'm an alien from another planet," he blurted out. "I've been transported into Mr. Schnee's body by a pair of gods in order to solve a conspiracy when he died in the poisoning attempt."
Zama looked impassively at the news.
"Bullshit," Zama said, adding after a momentary thought: "explain."
And Mr. S leapt into the explanation, without consideration for realism, or even formatting, for that matter. "We don't have aura, or dust, or Grimm on my world, and-"
So on and so forth, Mr. S rapidly detailed his exploits and the circumstances which made them necessary. And Zama listened patiently throughout, not moving an inch from her position as he recounted his tale, declining to move even after he'd finished, leaving Mr. S sitting in a harrowing silence as he watched Zama process the information with all the seeming of an idle laptop.
"Ok," Zama said at last.
Mr. S raised his finger in planned rebuttal, only to lower it with a plaintly disappointed look when he realized he wouldn't get the opportunity to try out that great defense he'd just thought of.
"You… you believe me?"
"If you take the probability that you are from another world to be "f"-"
"In human language, please," Mr. S asked.
Zama paused a moment, looking up to the side as she made the translation until, finally, she turned back to Mr. S and said: "I've been scanning through the security footage. It was you who came up with the design for the scanner."
"Oh, right!" Mr. S snapped his fingers, leaning forward. "I said we don't have dust on my world! I know tons of designs you wouldn't have here! I can show them to you, if you like!"
"That will not be necessary," Zama said, immediately deflating his hopes. "I will turn over this evidence and confession to Schwarz, as well as to all of the relevant parties in the Atlas council."
Oh, crap, Mr. S thought. This was not good. At best, this would end with him spending the rest of his life in a no-kill shelter for 'obvious Grimm-spies, why the fuck else wouldn't they have souls'.
And,at worst...
"They will decide your fate." Zama added, concilliatorilly: "you may present any evidence you believe to be in your favor to them."
This… did very little to console him. Being found out by the council was… not a good outcome.
Although, as she spoke, even in his distress, there was a hint of something that underlied her tone and which struck out to Mr. S, if only briefly.
Mr. S had hardly noticed it, and normally- even in such a heightened state as he now occupied- he would have let the slight shift in her tone pass him by as unimportant, but recent experience with ignoring subtle details had taught him that small hunches like that could be the difference between a happy life and one where he was sitting in a dark office being demanded answers from by a knife wielding robot.
Now, Mr. S wasn't one to act on such hunches, and even the recent, painful, lessons on the subject hadn't done much to change this habit of his. It had, however, inspired him not to ignore the topic, to think; and think he did, searching desperately for some hint or divination that could satisfy the note of curiosity.
All of this effort proved fruitful rather quickly. Although, the result was not an answer, but rather a question: though a very interesting question, to tell by the extent with which it instantly captured his imagination.
The question was this: 'why had Zama come to interrogate him alone? If she had the evidence of his lack of an Aura, why not notify Schwarz immediately?'
She could have been bluffing him, but that seemed unlikely indeed.
Some thought on this matter proved to be even more fruitful, in that it produced yet another question: 'why had Zama tried so strongly to get into his security team in the first place?'
Again, this train of thought led to one final question, which itself seemed to eclipse all the others with its intrigue. The question was a familiar one, which he'd never even bothered to address despite how often Schwarz had put it to him during their many arguments. 'Why had Zama not told them about the assassin when she first awoke? Why hack into the castle and attempt to do everything herself? Why allow them to believe for an instant that she was acting irrationally when she had a clear means of communicating her true intentions?'
Schwarz, when she'd come up with the question, had not been able to find any rational answer. And he, infatuated at the time with having Zama on his side, allowed himself to ignore it.
Now, though, the answer came easily to him, and it came from a most unexpected place.
The answer lay hidden, not in his many years of experience as a rocket engineer, nor was it to be found in his Masters of Chemistry, nor in all of those crime novels he'd read instead of pursuing his doctorate.
To his surprise, the first and most convincing answer sprung up, instead, from his very rusty parenting skills. And though he'd shunned doing so for a long time, the answer to this conundrum became laughably easy the moment he turned to look at it through the eyes of a father.
Because, you see, what do teenage girls hate more than anything?
Dad, obviously.
Mr. S was intimately familiar with the phrase "I hate you dad," screamed in a teenage girls voice.
He'd heard it more often then he felt that he should have- at least, more often than he felt that he should have until he took the time to learn teenage girl psychology, that was. It struck out so easily to him, now. The fact that among Zama's first words had been filed a complaint about the 'limiting' safety features they had included in her new body, and which had, in her words, 'weakened' her. She'd spoken plainly about their lack of apparent trust in her capabilities right then, and Mr. S had let it pass him by! It was frustrating how obvious it all was in hindsight, when all the relevant scenes seemed tinted as if his mind had passed over them with a highlighter pen.
Zama was obviously looking to prove herself. That was why she'd elected to capture Farbe by herself. That was why she'd asked for that insane assignment to the badlands. This was why she was cornering him now. She was looking for accomplishments to prove herself by, and she resented the childlike treatment that made such proof necessary.
And Mr. S, careful not to get too excited, felt an inkling of a hint that he could use this to his advantage.
How?
Why by treating her like a child, of course.
And how would he treat her like a child?
Why, by treating her like an adult, of course.
There was no one more desperate to be treated like a real grownup than a child. And Zama it was becoming clear to Mr. S now, was precisely the kind of teenager most susceptible to such flattery: the kind that was, as the Italians say, literally born yesterday. And Mr. S was quite well equipped to take advantage.
Oh, it was a longshot, of course. He truly didn't expect to work, but still, he did it for the principle of trying. He did it because he had nowhere else to turn, and he was the kind of man who would spring at the vaguest hopes. He was the kind of man who would spring at a star, and attempt to warm his hands by it when dying of hypothermia. And, truly, this was an even more desperate hope then that. After all, who would fall for such obvious reverse psychology.
This all ran through him in a jumbled mess of realizations that coursed through the well worn habits of thought and deduction that had, in a past life, saved him from many, many teenage-girl breakdowns.
To Mr. S's own mind, the thoughts themselves were hardly discernible, so quickly did they pass through the prepared trenches that shaped the paternal aspects of his mind. But this was hardly any trouble, the details were hardly all that important, after all. No, what mattered was the general shape of the idea, as well as of the conclusion which, in his overly excited state, came spitting out of him with all the suave of a crack addict.
"Wait!" Mr. S yelled, twitching.
Zama remained quiet, her unblinking eyes the only hint that she was listening.
"Remember when I told you the gods had been the ones that called me?" Mr. S spoke in a nervous flutter. "Well, that was all true!" he affirmed pointlessly, carrying on. "You believe me, don't you? You have all the footage, and you can deduce things that no one else on Remnant can see! You're the one who solved the Farbe mystery. You're the one who independently found out the truth of the Green Palace explosion, and you're the one who caught me for goodness's sake! Do you have any idea how many gods have worked to keep my presence here a secret?"
"How many?" Zama asked, curious.
"Well, like, two. But that's not important! The point is that you're the only creature on Remnant, Zama, with the capacity to see the truth! You're the only one who can stand to look dispassionately at the facts and see the reality behind them. You're truly something special."
Mr. S had calmed down near the end of his tirade, and, in his calmer state, deduced that this would be a good place to pause, to observe Zama's reaction to his words.
Zama, still unmoving from her guard position, only answered with two words. "Go on."
Haha! He had her!
Mr. S was careful not to revel in his jubilation, however, and took on a calmer, more deniably impartial, exterior.
"I merely point this out to ask: why would you give over the evidence to the Atlas council?"
"So that they may come to an appropriate decision on the matter," Zama answered. "They cannot do that without evidence," she stated matter of factly.
"You have the evidence!" Mr. S nearly screamed. "You're the only one who even thought to look for evidence, and you've plainly proven that you have the superior deductive skills, why after all this work, would you let them make the decision?"
"You are trying to manipulate me into acting in your favor."
"I'm not prescribing a decision for you, Zama. I'm merely asking that you be the one to make it, because I trust your eminent abilities."
"Why would you care who makes the final decision?" Zama asked.
And here, Mr. S paused, breathing intensely as he clutched his hands and looked down at his desk with great gravity.
"Because," he started, "the fate of the world is at stake," he looked up at her with an earnest expression that told her he really believed his own words, "and, trust me, I already know exactly what decision the council will be coming to. And, whatever decision you come to, I can't stand by and allow you to cast the responsibility of making it onto people who are more concerned with their election campaigns than the truth.
"Ask yourself, Zama," Mr. S continued. "What will be the inevitable conclusion of your decision to turn the evidence over to the council." Mr. S had fully given himself over to the smooth habits of his new body, running his speech on autopilot, and he was surprised when those habits dictated he take a pause, to let Zama mull over the implications herself. "Will they come to a reasoned conclusion after a proper investigation? Will they put half as much thought into interpreting your evidence as you have into collecting it?" Another pause. "No, Zama, no," he shook his head. "They will look at the preliminary data, they will confirm that I don't have an aura, and I'll spend the rest of my life in a lab. I'm not saying this to elicit pity, I say this because it's the truth…
"And consider, then, what will happen? The gods sent me here to find out who is behind the great threat to this world. Will that, too, go on uninvestigated? Trust me, Zama, they don't think like you do, they can't. No other being on Remnant would have listened to me after they found out I don't have an aura. No one else in this world would have for one second conmy story a valid one, when the obvious prejudices against grimm give them an easy reason to discount me. No one else is in a better position to make a decision about my fate than you."
Mr. S felt his body slump over in a natural exhaustion, and he felt a weariness provoke his words as the true extent of his desperation hit him, and he sat silent, hoping beyond all hope that Zama would consider his words.
Her words came suddenly, and without warning.
"And what decision are you hoping I come to?" she asked.
"It doesn't matter," Mr. S shook his head. "I'm only asking that you be the one to come to it. You've found me out, and I want my fate to be decided because you came to a thoughtful decision…" he said, adding after a moment, "and not because the council doesn't trust your reasoning as much as they trust your evidence." A bit played up, perhaps, but true enough, and effective, too, to tell by how quickly Zama's reply came.
"You do not have a soul," Zama said.
"I don't have an aura," Mr. S corrected tiredly, looking down at the hand on his desk. "I've already explained why." He closed his hand into a fist.
"You are a potential danger," Zama retorted. "It would be irresponsible of me not to include others who may be affected by the final decision."
"And would they include you in their decision?" Mr. S snapped. He quickly cooled his temper however. He couldn't afford to be emotional.
"It wouldn't be right to keep it a secret."
Ahh, and it was a good decision, the one to remain calm, because it allowed him sense some duplicity in her words, just then. You don't care about that, you just want the credit for having caught me. Mr. S noted, a thoughtful look crossing his face.
Mr. S breathed.
"Zama, as I've already explained, the entire world is in danger. It has been in danger for a long time, by a threat no one is even willing, much in a position, to investigate. Consider, what was the White Fang five years ago? And how long did it take them to grow from there, until they were besieging Vale?"
"I do not take your point."
"I'm saying that there are people in danger either way. Yes, I'm a potential threat, but there is also a potential threat to the world if my mission is stopped! And I know you want to do the right thing, you want to let people know about the evidence you found, but think of how much more you could do if you just worked with me! The world is at stake and, through coincidence or fate or predestination, you've found out about it! Think of what you could accomplish if you only set your mind to it! Help me, and when the unknowns are known, then you can tell everyone, Pietro, Ironwood, about everything. You can come to them, not with some evidence of an oddity like me, but evidence that could save society! Think about it, they'd be far more impressed by the latter, no?"
"You are assuming I believe your story," Zama warned.
"Well, do you?" Mr. S insisted.
Zama was silent for a few moments.
"Ok," Mr. S interrupted, before she could speak her conclusion. "Run a hypothesis test for me: what is more likely: that I'm a grimm, or that I'm not?"
"You are plainly not a Grimm," Zama answered, having seen too many of his biometrics to believe otherwise. "However, that does not discount some other force at play. You could just as easily be another unknown; and even if you were human, you could still more easily be a malevolent actor."
"Is that so?" Mr. S asked, utterly confident. "Well, you have the camera footage." He gestured to her as if to make her move. "Before you revealed yourself just now, I had no reason to believe anyone could possibly suspect me, and, even in private- in any of the footage- have I ever once behaved in a way that could be reasonably described as malevolent?"
Zama was silent.
"I've been a saint!" Mr. S answered his own question, gloating just a little. "The first notable thing I did was stand up for interracial relationships. And don't forget all that money I donated to the rebuilding of Atlas! And do you have any idea of how many orphans I've saved?"
"That could easily have been a ruse," Zama retorted. "Anyone who knows what they are doing can act unassuming."
Mr. S, however, only smiled at this denial. Because, just then, the opportunity came for him to bring up his final point- his piece de resistance.
"Zama," Mr. S said, steeping his fingers and speaking with a measured tone of saintly patience, "can you honestly say I look like someone who knows what they're doing?"
Zama, while not utterly convinced, was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
And, per her ultimatum, Mr. S spent the next several hours divulging detailed information about Earth, his past life, and getting quizzed on the particulars of non-dust mechanics. Fun stuff. But, it was worth it in the end because Zama, mostly due to her own wants, was willing to give him some measure of leeway in his actions… provided he allowed Zama a great deal of leeway to oversee them. She made no secret of the fact that, until further notice, she would be watching him like a hawk.
Which Mr. S was completely fine with, given, well, everything. Although... the two inch trailing distance she adhered to when drafting him through the halls was a bit much, he thought.
By the time they'd finished the briefing, night had passed, and a great darkness engulfed the scenery of the external windows, the interior lighting turning them into dark mirrors that Mr. S used to admire his own reflection as he walked through the halls. And, looking at himself, Mr. S could see he bore the harried expression of a man who was slowly coming to terms with his mortality after what, on a casual count, had to be his third near death experience in the past four days. Promptly, he worked to hide that expression as Schwarz came round the corner.
"Schwarz!" Mr. S greeted with an easy smile.
"Sir," Schwarz nodded. "I trust everything went smoothly on your first day?" she asked, redirecting her attention to Zama, who had popped out from behind him.
"It went like a charm!" Mr. S answered. "I told you there was nothing to worry about!"
"Yes, well, I'm glad to hear you're taking the job well," Schwarz said to Zama with surprising honesty..
"And, I've been meaning to get you started on your new job as well," Mr. S began, already pulling out his access card and eager to unload everything onto the woman.
"Actually, sir," Schwarz interrupted, "It may be for the best if we delay that transfer."
"Why?" Mr. S' face promptly took on a worried expression, fearing the worst now that Schwarz seemed to be showing reservations about the matter. And, truly, he was fearing it. Because transferring all the duties of CEO to Schwarz was, in his estimation, one of the greatest ideas he'd had ever since arriving here- not only because it freed up enough time to work on his special project, upon which- he was quite certain- lay his greatest and perhaps only chance of success in anything on this world, but also because he understood that, even by a generous estimation, he was quite a sub-average CEO. Mr. S had been studying, studying, studying- everything about running the SDC in every free moment he could gather. He'd absorbed several accounting courses worth of knowledge and a Masters in insurance administration just over the past week alone; and from his studies and his experience it was very clear to him that… he was not at all qualified for the position.
It had been difficult to tell, at first, how well he'd been doing, but then he found the archival videos of Mr. Schnee at work- and, swiftly, he realized that he needed to get away from the wheel as soon as possible, and then, if it was at all feasible, jump overboard. Because, running the SDC… well, it required knowing a lot more politics than he was familiar with, and it required a lot more of that hardness for which he'd so far not shown the greatest aptitude, and which Schwarz had shown so much much affinity for over the course of the past several days..
Besides, he reasoned to himself, Schwarz had spent years by Mr. Schnee's side, absorbing the names and relationships and procedures required to keep the company running, and on top of that she seemed, on some level, to be one of Mr. Schnee's few confidants. Of course she'd do a better job, study guides or no!
And so, for him, it had been a relatively easy decision to make Schwarz- the new de-facto CEO.
Apparently, however, the same could not be said for Schwarz herself. And so Mr. S was left floundering as to a reason why she would throw such a wrench into his plans like this.
"What do you mean?" Mr. S asked. "We've already got the transfer papers in place, what more do we need to wait for?"
"The board has decided to hold your private hearing tomorrow, sir," Schwarz provided. "I believe it would be best to hold off on the transfer until after then."
Mr. S was confused. The board had decided to conduct a "private review" of his actions after the Atlas council apparently refused to hold a criminal case for the dust palace incident. To be fair, this had been a reasonable move on their part at the time, considering the only evidence in his favor then had been the blackmail he used to get the council to back off… at the time. But, the council had investigated again this morning and found evidence that he was innocent- doctored evidence, but evidence nonetheless- and everyone in the city had seen that evidence by now. When the video had been released, every single civil case against him had been shut down on the hour! So, given that, it was confusing to him why the board persisted in holding this "private" bullshit review.
As if seeing the question written out on his face, Schwarz was quick to answer unprompted.
"They have changed the terms of the review," she said. "Instead of holding the review to condemn your criminal actions, they have decided to shift, instead, to hold a review of:
-" she looked down at the recently released affidavit "-
to what extent you have negatively impacted public perception of the the Schnee brand,
if you are a liability to the security of the company, as well as
how you have acted with insufficient care to allegations of worker abuse."
Mr. S chuckled out loud at that last one, joined in slightly by Schwarz. The Board was one of the primary voices denying those allegations! And this worked to highlight for him the exact nature of the "private review" that was awaiting him tomorrow.
'Have reacted with insufficient care to allegations of worker abuse,' indeed. Though no expert, Mr. S had - over the course of his time as Mister Schnee- picked up quite a bit about the subtler political processes behind every decision made at the SDC. And, oh, yes, he could see it now. Tomorrow they were going to parade him out in front of a chair of heads and, although they couldn't fire him- not for six months anyway- they were content to start the process of discrediting him, and what better way to do than than to hold a 'private review', to show the world just how much trouble he was i.
'Well, let them hold it!' was his thought. At this point, he was far past caring about… well, anything really, but in particular this. And he was only bolstered by his knowledge that, without the ability to actually fire him, this was all just bluster, on their part. So, confident that this wouldn't do anything except waste his time, he didn't see any real threat in it.
In fact, the first and only major thought that came to him upon hearing the news was:
"Huh, that might bolster stock prices, actually."
"Of course," Schwarz nodded. "They are asking for a spot in your Schedule. I've put them down for a four hour slot in the morning."
"Good idea to get it over with early, I suppose," Mr. S said.
"I'll let the security team know of the changes to their Schedule," Schwarz moved on and Mr. S did the same, having grown exhausted, somehow, over the recent evening and eager to go to sleep.
However, something called him back to turn to Schwarz.
"Schwarz."
"Yes, sir?" Schwarz answered.
"Before you go, could you call Ironwood? Make sure he gets the rocket design team here by tomorrow?"
Schwarz looked strangely over at him. "I assume by that you mean the 'missile' design team?'
"No," Mr. S shook his head. "I mean rocket design."
AND
