Here we go.

Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 69 ;)

Blake filed into the meeting room alongside the members of the Fist Office. They took seats, facing a screen upon which Director Nicholas Arc sat at a desk. The atmosphere was tense, grim, and Blake took a seat between Jaune and Pyrrha, subtly shielding him with her body. He didn't even have aura for crying out loud.

"Thank you all for coming," said Nicholas. "By now, you are all aware of the latest threat to the secrecy of our organisation. This anomaly, which is being termed Matchmaker has become a worldwide phenomenon in a matter of days, and is using a web of amateur and semi-professional hackers to shield itself. We were able to break our suspect via enhanced interrogation methods—"

"Are we sure his or her testimony is accurate after torture?" asked Saphron.

"You misunderstand. Our advanced methods involved the suspect's browser history and threats to reveal it." Blake sighed, as did the rest of them, but Nicholas continued. "And no, that is not a joke. The individual's browser history revealed significant illegal activity, up to and including attacks on websites of large corporations that would be lining up to fund lawyers against him. He even staged an attack on the Atlas military, and, since he lives in Atlas, they would gladly throw him in a cell for the next twenty years. We have offered him an out, which includes a paying job with ARC Corp. He took the offer immediately and has been cooperative since."

"Better him than my stalker," mumbled Pyrrha.

"Very well, Director." Saphron bowed her head. "Pardon my interruption. Please continue."

Director Nicholas nodded. "Our information so far reveals that the anomaly is as of yet unknown to this hacker community as an anomaly. Their current belief is that it's an advanced hacker who has broken into numerous databases, with others believing he's using a simple learning AI to match people based on their social media preferences or some such. Like most people, they are grasping for reasonable explanations, and that buys us time."

"Our new agent has agreed to put himself back into the community and reach out to the anomaly directly. He tells us that the entity contacts individuals and offers them what is essentially a get rich quick scheme. All they need to do is market and host the app, and they can keep all the profit. Though many are suspicious, the simple nature of the task offered has been enough to have some offering to do it."

"Our big problem now is that they'll have boasted of the money they were making," said Terra. "The rest of them would have assumed it was a scam, but now that some of them have done it and made real money, there'll be a lot more people willing to host it."

"Exactly. We will be shutting down the internet after this meeting for a period of 24 hours. The various governments have their excuses lined up. During this time, the site they are using to communicate will be shut down, as will several affiliate sites. This will push them to private and encrypted messaging services once the internet comes back online, and our agent should be invited into those as well. Once they are all gathered in one place, we will have the company decrypt their encrypted channel and grant us access."

Most encrypted services like that made a big deal of the fact your data couldn't be accessed, even by them, saying it was scrambled to the point of being utterly inaccessible. Blake wasn't surprised to find out they'd lied, but she was disappointed. Also embarrassed. The White Fang had made extensive use of those kinds of services, and apparently their communications could have been accessed at any time. The only reason they hadn't been was because they weren't "important" enough for ARC Corp to care about them.

Go figure…

"Once we have tracked them, we will conduct a series of raids to arrest the entire hacking community. This will not necessarily stop the anomaly, but it will remove its access to a pool of candidates to hide behind. We believe this will either force the anomaly into hiding or force it out into the open as it is forced to host the app itself or have someone close to it do the hosting. We'll continue tracking and shutting down the breadcrumbs until we find the anomaly itself and kill it."

"Because of the worldwide nature of this and the chance of hackers being present in any kingdom, the Fist Office will need to return to Mistral." Blake breathed a sigh of relief. "The Containments Office will be tasked with dealing with candidates in Vale. That said, your usual methods will not be entertained. The anomaly is to be destroyed. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes Director Nicholas," said Jaune. "You make yourself clear."

"Good. This meeting is over. The internet goes dark in three hours. I suggest the Fist Office return to Mistral before the outage prevents flights taking off."

The screen winked out.

Saphron, Terra and Pyrrha were quick to get on their feet and move for the door. They didn't bother to say goodbye and Blake was glad to see them go. The sooner the better. Jaune remained in his seat, running a hand through his hair. She could feel the stress rolling off him, and it pretty much matched her own. This anomaly may have been a lot less dangerous than the ones they'd been after recently, but it was a whole lot tricker, not to mention rushed.

They didn't have the time to calmly investigate and piece things together.

"We have at least 24 hours before anything on our end can be done," he eventually said. "Take the day off and get some rest. We'll need to be prepared to move at a moment's notice."

"Sure. Will you be okay?"

"I'll be fine." He smiled for her. "I'm stressed, Blake, not dying. A coffee, a bath and a stiff drink is all I need. You?"

"A little scared to check my scroll in case Yang or Sun have called." Or Adam. "And still freaked out by the fact my perfect match is some random guy in Vacuo. But I'll survive. I'll have to."

"Don't buy the perfect match nonsense. We still don't know for sure if the anomaly does that. It might be the perfect match right now ignoring any change of tastes over the last day or two. It might just be picking out one of many perfect matches. It claims to have isolated the one perfect match, but we know this anomaly is sapient. That means it can lie. It could honestly just be picking out something as stupid as the person most able to give you an orgasm, or the person who you would have the best small-talk with. We don't know that this is really romance or love or whatever else you want to call it."

That helped, even if Blake was fairly sure it was doing what it advertised. The little bit of doubt she could inject into the equation would help keep her sane. The best thing she could do was to stop looking at the guy's picture, or delete it from her scroll, but it was hard.

A part of her wondered if Ruby didn't have it better, at least her match being someone close to her who she could try and get closer to, and who she knew on some level. Her own match could have been a serial killer for all she knew.

/-/

It was obvious when the internet went out because of the angry symbol at the top of Blake's scroll. Also because of the loud noise outside as people took to the streets in shock and anger. Anger that someone they had taken for granted had been taken away, and that their lives had been mildly inconvenienced. She doubted, this late in the evening, that they were using it for important work.

Maybe it would do some of them good to touch grass.

The TV continued working because that worked on the CCT, and long-distance calls and communications were still active. Blake knew that because she did in fact have a text from Sun, who had asked her if she was free tonight.

At least she could be honest in telling him she was busy with the internet outage. Her cover as being some kind of disaster-relief government employee came in convenient, and she told him she'd be stuck cleaning this mess up for a few days. When he replied that it was cool and asked if they could hang out after, she couldn't really say anything other than "sure" and turn off her scroll after.

He seemed like a good guy, and Yang seemed like a good woman, but she didn't like the idea that an invasive anomaly had pushed them toward her. It felt wrong. Manipulative. And what if Jaune was right? What if it wasn't your perfect match, but something else? Hell, what if it was your perfect organ donor match? It probably wasn't, but it might have been.

And how am I the perfect match for people like that anyway? I'm a former terrorist turned secret government agent. That sounded a lot cooler in her head than she meant it to. I'm the worst person for anyone to date. I have an impossible schedule, I couldn't tell my partner anything about my work, and I could die at any moment and they'd never find out how.

That was without considering other crazy possibilities like her being mind controlled by her Slaved Anomaly, which she still hadn't used or opened since it forced her to mack out on Jaune's face. What if it made her cheat on someone she genuinely loved? What if some other sick anomaly stole her body and made her kill her own family? They hadn't run into any that could do that, but it didn't mean they weren't out there.

Juniper had been a fool to fall in love with Nicholas, and an even bigger fool to give him eight children. What had it earned her? A loveless marriage, a fucked-up family and her eternal torture in the Twilight City until they found a way to free her through death. Blake couldn't even begin to imagine how much worse it would be for someone innocent and uninvolved like Sun or Yang to be in a relationship with her.

"Sorry I missed our anniversary, but I was busy killing a bunch of children possessed by a monster," she said out loud, imagining their faces. "Sorry I can't make out date. Jaune and I need to investigate a seaside resort. Oh, and we keep getting drunk via anomalous means and making out with one another. I hope that's cool with you."

Blake groaned, grabbed a cushion, buried her face into it and screamed.

"Great. I'm undatable. Literally." She rammed the cushion into her face a few more times for good measure. "And why shouldn't I be? I'm a mess. Most girls keep dogs or cats. I have a six-foot monster spider. I drink at a bar where a man has a mosquito's head instead of his own, and I'm regularly stuck making deals with a literal devil on my shoulder in book form!"

The book on her dresser table didn't respond. It never let her leave it behind but, for some annoying reason, it was fine with her putting it down when she was in her apartment, in bed or in the shower. It just refused to be left behind if she stepped outside, teleporting onto her hip in such a way that she didn't realise it was there.

What would even happen if her hypothetical boyfriend or girlfriend were to open it up and read it while she was in the shower? How would she explain it? How could she? Oh, by the way don't pat attention to the literally teleporting book that houses a monster who might eat your soul if you make a deal with it.

Some girls had baggage. She had a freighter.

Having a terrorist ex who might be stalking her was honestly tame by comparison.

"Who needs romance anyway? I have a good job, good pay and a fully legal and promising career. I'm happy with that."

The image of a man in Vacuo still on her scroll continued to haunt her.

/-/

Come morning, the internet was still out, and they were still waiting on it to come back before the suspects started flooding their own channels. The news was all about the outage, with Vale's government blaming it on damage caused by the Grimm to internet towers, which weren't unlike the CCT Towers, and causing a break in the system. They had located it and begun repairs and the internet would be back in some 12 hours.

It was probably the first and last time the Council of Vale would ever be so "on the ball" in the public's eyes. Normally when they said something would take 12 hours, they meant 12 weeks, and after a lot of scandal and corruption.

The amusing part was the people talking on TV shows about how much "better" things were without the internet, and how children were out on the streets taking part in the community. It was the same old studies and excuses, many linking video games to violence and online activity to mental illness. She didn't think it would lead anywhere when they sounded so sanctimonious.

Jaune was in a slightly better mood after a night's sleep.

"Things look bad, but we've been in worse situations," he said. "The Twilight City was far worse. We can't let ourselves get bogged down just because things aren't going exactly how we want them to."

"I guess so. We should be glad casualties are as low as they are."

"Exactly. And we should count our lucky stars Saphron didn't learn anything about Alistair's or the other anomalies while she was here. Honestly, it's a miracle we managed to keep them out the office so they didn't threaten Timothy."

"I'd have killed them if they touched him."

Blake was deadly serious.

"Ahah." Jaune laughed nervously. "On that note, I have some… well, it's not great news. Awful news, you might call it. Really bad."

"About matchmaker?"

"No. Unrelated to this anomaly. For now. Basically, you know how I have two younger sisters as well as a bunch of older ones?" He paused. "Or I had a bunch of older ones. That number is starting to dwindle."

Blake shifted uncomfortably, and he quickly recovered.

"W-Well, there are a lot of offices understaffed right now thanks to not only Coral at the Schnee manor, but the losses we took in Mountain Glenn. That's pushed my father to speed up the educations of Lavender and Amber. Amber is fourteen right now, but she'll be fifteen in a week's time. He thinks that's time enough for her to start touring."

Blake frowned. "Touring…?"

"I think I mentioned it once before in how I was first trained, but basically you go on a tour of the various offices. Do a little service in each to get an idea of how they operate. The basic idea is that you get a well-rounded training because you can pick up the best habits of each office and see the whole world and how the kingdoms vary. If the Fist Office were incapacitated for instance, then we might be asked to temporarily take over Argus, so it's important I learned how the Fist Office worked."

"Right…"

"And, well, with Lavender and Amber being fast-tracked on this, they can't really be sent on tour together or they wouldn't get the one-on-one training and experience that's a big part of this, so they need to be split up. And the Secrets Office is dead, and the Burn Office is short-staffed after Mountain Glenn…"

Blake's stomach dropped. "We're having a child dumped on us!?"

"Worse," said Jaune. "We're having an Arc child dumped on us. We're the literal worst. I should know. I am one!"

She couldn't say she appreciated his humour at a time like this. "Jaune, no!"

"I don't have a choice. None of us do."

"But we're the Containments Office! We contain! They're going to hate that. What about Timothy? What about any of our anomalies? Are they more forgiving than the others? Are they more like you?"

Jaune scratched his cheek.

"They're nothing like you, are they? They're like your father." Blake groaned into her hand. "Please tell me we're not going to have to babysit some genocidal mini-Saphron."

"I mean, I'm going to have to babysit. You're just going to have to put up with her."

"Jaune!"

"We can cope. We'll deal." He cut her off. "And we really don't have a choice, so the sooner we think up wants to deal, the better. First idea is that Timothy bunks in your apartment. If that's okay with you?"

"Yes. Fine." Blake would enjoy the company, though the mailman might not. "In fact, you can use my apartment to store anything. The globe. That has living people on it." Or people-adjacent anomalies. Either way, they didn't deserve to die. "We can keep the non-sentient ones locked up in the office but move any capable of feeling to my apartment. Also, what about Ruby?"

Jaune pulled a face. "What about Ruby? How is she relevant to this?"

"Do you really think Ruby is going to just sit by when a fifteen year old girl that isn't her is hired by you? I somehow doubt she'll be super chill with that. I'm guessing we have to make a good impression on the little brat as well, or she'll report every single misdemeanour to Saphron."

"Oh, absolutely. My sisters pretty much have an alliance against me."

"Because you're an anomaly…"

"Well, the alliance existed before that even happened, but I expect the whole getting mom killed part did play into deepening the lines a little." He smiled helplessly. "It's not going to be good either way, but it's going to happen. We just need to put up with it without having anything explode in our faces, and without you tearing her head off."

Blake crossed her arms. "How am I the issue here?"

"You have a bit of a temper…"

Her ears flattened to her scalp, and she hissed out, "I do not!"

"Right… My mistake." Jaune didn't sound convincing, and she hissed again. "I'm just warning you ahead of time. It won't happen for at least another week. Just be on your best behaviour and ignore any instances of her not being. We can demand she be professional, but there's no point demanding she like me. Or the Containments Office. The faster we train her, the sooner she can be gone."

His scroll went off before she could respond.

"Looks like the internet is back on, and it looks like our double-agent has already been contacted about joining a new private channel. They're fairly predictable given they're meant to be elite hackers or something."

Blake rolled her eyes. "Elite hackers are too busy making money through phishing scams and ransomware to spend their time on stupid forums like this. They're hobbyists with chips on their shoulders."

"Fair enough." He flicked through his scroll. "Their locations are being tracked. We're about to get the coordinates for ours. Oh, it looks like they didn't fix the internet for the whole world. Clever. They've given internet back to the four major kingdoms and a few strategic towns like Argus and Kuo Kuana. That way they can isolate the ones we can get to."

"When will the global web be back on?"

"Three hours from now." His scroll beeped again. "We have our first target."

/-/

Blake's throat was beginning to ache after their fifth raid, mostly from all the shouting she had to do. The people they were arresting weren't dangerous or armed, though one had brandished a sword at her and screamed that they'd never take him alive.

Blake had, in fact, taken him alive, and she'd taken him very easily.

Who could have guessed that a life of anime and video games couldn't stand up to her years of training and combat?

But there was a lot of talking and shouting and hysterical family members who didn't realise their children might be doing illegal things on their computers. Her neck was scratchy, and her voice was hoarse, and she met up with Jaune as he finished his raid at a college dorm. He was covered in egg, looking like he'd been pelted with hundreds of them.

"What happened?" cried Blake.

"They decided me arresting the suspect was some kind of attack on their democratic rights. Apparently, he's done a few protests on campus and they assumed I was arresting him as part of some police-crackdown on his right to free protest. My voice got drowned out."

"Are you… okay…?"

He smiled lopsidedly. "I'm high in protein."

"Idiot." Blake took her sleeve and wiped his face clean of yolk. "No harm, though?"

"Only my pride. These people are just hobbyists like you said. There hasn't been a hardened criminal among them, and I'm sure they'll all be let off with fairly minor charges. Community service and agreements never to do this again, with further charges if they do. The main thing is cutting off the anomaly's options. It has to be running out of hackers by now."

It really did. They were operating in Vale, but there were arrests across all four kingdoms, and their scrolls had been linked for the operation. Blake received updates whenever any arrest was made, and there had been almost sixty across the kingdoms already. The group wasn't so large that it could boast a hundred members.

The main risk was the anomaly realising what was going on and adapting, but if they did their raids fast enough then news of the arrests shouldn't make it out so fast. There was a chance that the anomaly would just think they'd logged off and keep sending them information. Meanwhile, ARC Corp had taken over their computers and could pose as them.

Blake's scroll buzzed angrily.

"It's Ruby…" said Blake, looking down on it.

"Don't tell me she's found out about Amber already," groaned Jaune.

Blake answered it. "Hi Ruby. I'm kind of busy—"

"It knows you're onto it!" Ruby yelled down the scroll.

"What…?"

"Put me on speaker!" Blake did so, and Jaune listened in. "The anomaly has figured out you're attacking it or something. The app has changed. It's changed massively! I matched with Blake!"

Jaune coughed. "I'm happy for you?"

"No! You don't get it. I matched with Blake. Dad matched with Blake. Uncle Qrow matched with you. My dog matched with someone called Nicholas Arc! It's showing all of ARC Corp, and it's matching everyone with you. I mean, everyone. Every single person on Remnant. It's on the news!"

Jaune swore and yanked out his scroll, opening the app. "I'm matched with Saphron!? First of all, ew. Secondly, it couldn't even perceive of me before, and it didn't ask to see my face this time. This isn't real." It was the obvious conclusion. "It's not matching us at all. It's just showing our faces. Why?"

"It's exposing us," said Blake. "This is its counterattack. If it can't expose itself and become Reality Class, then it's going to expose ARC Corp and make every anomaly a Reality Class." Her words had Jaune swearing. "Or this might be blackmail. Mutually assured destruction. It's telling us that if we continue to come after it, it'll come after us."

"I have to go!" she told Ruby, ending the call. Blake tuned into the news a moment after.

"-rather amusing confusion as the popular new matchmaker app has experienced something of a bug, showing everyone a limited pool of matches. One of those matches appears to be Blake Belladonna, infamously bad actress from the worst-rated movie `Tomorrow's News`, which flopped onto TV screens last month."

Blake's eye twitched. Insulting or not, it was still a problem. She didn't want her name and face thrown out across Remnant, and ARC Corp didn't want people digging into the why and finding out more about them. They could suppress the news and do their best to play this off as a coding error, but people would still want to know more about them. That was just how human curiosity worked.

And then there would be the idiots who thought it was real and who might come after them with romance on their minds.

"Jaune," she hissed. "What do we do?"

"I don't know! We can't stop if it's shown willingness to do this. We'll just have to trust people will think this was caused by the internet outage. Though having our names and faces close to that is bad news as well. Damn it, I'll call Saphron and see what she says. Just give me a—" He paused.

With good reason.

They'd been getting a few odd looks for Jaune being covered in egg-white and yolk, but nowhere near as many as they were getting now. People had stopped to stare, and many were looking at their scrolls. They weren't looking like lovestruck fools, at least most of them weren't, but they were the centre of attention.

If people kept watching their every move like this then it would greatly limit their ability to hunt the anomaly down. They might as well have spotlights on them wherever they went.

"Back to the office first," said Jaune, his voice low. "But make sure we're not followed."

"That won't matter," she hissed back. "Look!"

Under their faces on the app was their address. In their case, the address of the Containments Office and of her apartment. It even listed them as ARC Corp, though it thankfully hadn't mentioned anything about what they did. Probably because it knew people would dismiss it as nonsense if it tried.

Even so, this was a direct attack. Blake closed and opened her app again, this time getting Nicholas Arc as her match, and it showed his office in Atlas. She hadn't even known he had an office in Atlas.

The other offices might be able to get away with people sneaking in to have a look around, but not theirs. The Containments Office had too many things that would stand out, one of them being a six-foot spider who wouldn't react well to strangers.

Jaune flagged down a taxi and they took it back fast, arriving in time to find a small crowd already growing outside the building as people, for no other reason than curiosity, decided to follow the address given to them on the app. Maybe they thought it was an ARG or a marketing ploy like Tomorrow's News.

Even a bad movie could generate a certain level of hype, if only to see how badly it flopped.

"Mr Arc!" shouted a man with a camera and a microphone. "Can you comment on—"

"There's obviously been some kind of bug with that stupid app after the internet went down. I used it before, so maybe it just saved my face and is regurgitating that out." He waved his hands at the crowd. "You are trespassing if you enter. This is not some stupid game or competition. Please leave."

The crowd murmured, and people began taking photos on their scrolls.

They weren't going anywhere.

"Damn it all." Jaune pushed inside and let Blake in, then closed the door behind them. There were others inside, though thankfully less. "Please move aside. Respect our privacy, damn it. How would you all feel if your address got leaked on some stupid dating app? Move aside. Move!"

They had to muscle their way through to the elevator. Thankfully, their floor was clear, and their door was locked. Jaune unlocked it to let himself in, but then moved it half-shut before she could follow.

"I need you to watch the corridor," he said. "Keep people out while I try to hide things as best I can. We might not be able to keep people out, but we can at least hide the things that—" The phone on his desk went off. "Damn it. They've probably found our number too. Just keep people out! If they're customers, tell them ARC Corp is closed while we deal with this mess!"

Blake sighed and nodded, turning so she was leaning back on the door like a bouncer. It didn't take long before the first people came up the stairs, but her furious glare kept them as distant admirers.

She knew it wouldn't last.

Next Chapter: 11th September

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