Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 125

Blake feared the worst when Ruby set off the alarms. They were the first to arrive, but they weren't allowed to enter until Nicholas and Saphron arrived, by which point Ruby could have died. When they found her not only alive but gorging ice-cream in the control room, a new kind of fear emerged – that Ruby had lost her marbles and accidentally set off the alarm, and that they'd be in even more trouble.

But she hadn't, and the news she delivered was sobering.

A pregnant Terra communicated via distance call to inspect the program, apparently quite skilled at coding and technology. They didn't dare connect the laptop to the internet, so she instead watched through one while Saphron followed her instructions on Ruby's. Or the laptop formerly known as Ruby's. After contracting something from another dimension, the thing would be destroyed so thoroughly there wouldn't be anything left

"It's a virus all right," Terra declared, after almost an hour of looking at what it had done to the laptop. "It looks like it's set to run and implement itself without outside control. It isn't made to transmit anything back to anyone, but just to take over and run a simple program."

"What is that program?" asked Nicholas.

"It looks to me like it was designed to locate and activate self-destruct procedures on this facility."

Jaune sucked in a breath, no doubt imagining Ruby caught up in that, but Blake could see what this really was. "It was an attempt to assassinate Jaune."

Nicholas didn't respond, but Saphron asked, "What's your reasoning?"

"This is an alternate ARC Corp where Jaune never became an anomaly and his family never had time to accept and get used to that." Not that they had here, but it'd be even worse over there. "They were cooperative for a while but started to get antsy when Jaune's anomalous nature came out. They even asked us what countermeasures were in place and kept demanding we install new ones. Or just kill him outright. It looks to me like they were trying to take matters into their own hands."

"But Jaune doesn't work here all the time," said Saphron.

"They wouldn't know that. They probably assume Jaune is locked up here as an employed anomaly, that he's being kept here by you so he can be useful but contained. It wouldn't cross their minds that he might have the freedom to travel as he wishes."

"But they could have been trying to rid us of the anomalies here."

"She's probably right," Terra said, interrupting her wife. "I can see specific code to lockdown all doors and detonate the command centre. If they just wanted to kill all the anomalies we were keeping here, they'd have gone for the containment cells."

Saphron grimaced. "Even so—"

"No." Nicholas closed Ruby's laptop. "The matter is closed. This was an attempt to move against us, and their reasons don't matter. They may feel they did what was best for ARC Corp in both dimensions, but that changes nothing. This was a cross-dimensional act of sabotage."

"As you say, father." Saphron sounded frustrated. "But they've proven useful to us before. Perhaps we should pretend they killed Jaune and that we believe it happened due to error on our side. Then we could keep using—"

"Using the anomaly to our benefit?" Blake couldn't help herself. "That sounds like the kind of thing ARC Corp is meant to stop, not support. And you call us reckless."

"This is another ARC Corp. They share our ideals!"

"They attempted to murder one of us!"

"Jaune is—"

"She means Ruby," Jaune interrupted, taking a firm step in front of his elder sister. "Lest you forget, Associate Director, that my new employee would have died if not for her strict adherence to protocol."

"Protocol protected her. There's no great achievement in following the rules we set."

"Then follow them yourself, sister. Any outside organisation that takes an active stance against ARC Corp is to be considered an enemy. Being an alternate version of us doesn't protect them. In fact, it just makes them more dangerous as they could use anomalies against us—"

"Enough." Nicholas' voice was like the crack of a whip. "Neither of you are children, so stop acting like it." The rebuke seemed to hurt Saphron more than Jaune, likely because he'd given up on pleasing his family long ago, while Saphron still held them dear. "The matter of whether or not the Interdimensional Chatroom is to be destroyed is closed. It will be destroyed."

Good. Blake wanted it gone. The reasons were petty in the extreme – nothing more than jealousy over how good a life the other Blake had, and never wanting to have to think about it again. Mistakes were common in life, but they were easier to live with when you didn't have it thrown in your face how good life would have been if you hadn't made them.

"The only question," he continued, "Is whether we destroy it and cut the connection, or send a warning shot back to their dimension before we do."

Blake perked up. "A warning shot...?"

"Actions have consequences. They attacked us, so we could attack them in return."

"We don't have any anomalies we could send over, or that we should," Terra said, "But I could write some nasty code to cause them problems if you want me to, sir. I could wipe their databases clean."

"Won't they have the same protocols we do?" Ruby asked. "If I'm not allowed to download anything from their dimension, they won't download anything from ours."

"Hm. It's a fair point. Then I'm not sure what we can do, Chief Director. It might be best to simply destroy the device and be done with it."

Blake was tempted to send Coda over and have the anomalous entity comprised of computer code wreak havoc, but that would be cruel. There was no guarantee she'd be able to come back, and she might end up stuck on an isolated computer device. The ARC Corp over there might be able to kill her, and they'd certainly try. Plus, it'd mean revealing they knew of this anomaly and hadn't tried to stop her.

"We could give false information instead," Blake offered. "Pick some dangerous cases we had trouble with, give them terrible instructions and leave them to suffer the consequences. We could tell them the Blank Slate exists, where to find it, and that it can be used to hide the wielder from anomalies. Make it out to be a useful tool we've had great success with."

"That's cruel," said Jaune. "What if it catches mom?"

"It's not your mother."

"It's someone's mother." He was too gentle for his own good. "Sir, I move we destroy it and call the matter done. Seeking vengeance will only satisfy our egos. No one was killed, and it's better we not take risks that might result in further attacks. Destroy it and cut the connection."

"It's the easiest solution."

"I still think we should use it," said Saphron. "We can be cautious with what we take from it, but it's helped us solve numerous cases."

Nicholas frowned. "Destroy it," he decided. Saphron sighed, while Blake cheered. "And see to giving Rose a bonus this month. I should think a million lien would do."

"Whaaaa—" Ruby's eyes rolled in their sockets. "B—But that's too much. W—What would I even do with a million lien!?"

"We spent over forty million fixing and adapting this facility to how it is now, Agent Rose. And, given our secrecy, it obviously isn't insured. You've saved us forty million in damages, and the risk of a contamination breach. You also risked your job to signal the alarm. I would see that kind of behaviour rewarded."

"B... But most companies would just give me a pat on the back..."

"Most companies are focused on making profits and don't care about their employees. That is not how we operate. You will be rewarded suitably. That is not up for debate."

The small girl flopped back, stunned. "Um. Thanks..." Her eyes dipped down to her hands. "That's a lot of cookies..."

Blake's eye twitched. The fridge was already chock full of Ruby's junk food, and the cupboards in the staff kitchen as well. If she had a million, she could buy her own damn fridge for the command centre.

Nicholas commanded Jaune and Saphron to accompany him in destroying the Interdimensional Chatroom. One hour later, it was gone for good, sliced up, crushed, taken apart and then having had its constituent parts incinerated, crushed again, incinerated again, and then any remaining metal melted into slag balls and buried underground.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

/-/

Taiyang cocked his head when the front door opened. He could determine who it was by how it opened, and the person's mood from how it closed. Yang would always turn the doorhandle down and then shoulder her way in (the door always sticking a little as the wood had warped) whereas Ruby took two attempts, the first jamming and the second letting her in.

Two bangs. Ruby, then.

The slam indicated it had been a rough day.

He still wasn't sure what to think of Ruby getting a job in the city with some government agency. On the one hand, he was a little sad she didn't want to follow in his and Summer's footsteps. On the other, she wasn't following in his and Summer's footsteps.

Because their footsteps had led to one of them dying.

Watching Yang go to Beacon had hurt because it was like she was leaving him, but having Ruby commit to staying, at least for a little longer, took the pain away. Ruby had to split her work between an office in Vale and a building somewhere on Patch, so it made sense for her to have both an apartment in the city and still live here. That was something he was grateful for, because the house would have been too lonely without her.

"Hey dad." Ruby trudged into the living room in her fancy new suit, shirt untucked and jacket on the hook by the door. She looked adorable in it, all fancy and smart and adorably small. "I'm home."

"Welcome home. How was work?"

"Ugh." Ruby came around and collapsed on the sofa beside him. "It was a crazy day."

"Anything you're allowed to tell me...?"

He'd been fishing for information forever but Ruby was always evasive – contractually so. He'd have suspected more if Ozpin and Qrow hadn't also been evasive when they were trying to convince him to talk Ruby out of her new job. They had also said they weren't allowed to say, only that it was a government agency, so Taiyang knew she wasn't lying.

Was it suspicious? Sure. Was it unusual? Not really. A lot of jobs had NDAs and such, and a government more so than most. The fact Ruby went to work in a crisp suit and came back in a wrinkly one with cookie dust on it at least told him she wasn't fighting aliens or risking her life. He could also tell she wasn't losing aura, so it was presumably confidential stuff in paperwork form, and that was fine.

Taiyang wasn't willing to put up with Qrow and Ozpin breathing down her neck, either.

It was his daughter and she could make her own choices. He looped an arm around her and felt his heart swell when she let herself fall into his chest. Once again, he was glad he'd took her side and not tried to push like everyone else had. Ruby was in a foul mood with her uncle after he'd tried to guilt her into Beacon.

"I guess I can tell you there was a cyberattack at work," she said, yawning. "Someone tried to take control of the computers and access data, then shut everything down and wipe it clean. Real bad."

Taiyang hummed. Computers and data entry weren't huntsman jobs, but he worked at a school so he knew how painful it would be if they lost their student database. He could only imagine a government had even more to protect. "Did they manage to stop it?"

"Actually, I did."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It tried to come in through my laptop."

"Uh-oh. You didn't...?"

"No, dad, I didn't get it infected playing games." Ruby swatted his leg. "It was my work laptop. I was using it for work stuff and... and I guess it was on an email. I noticed something suspicious and disconnected my laptop before opening it, and then called an alarm when it took over my laptop. We had the big boss come from Atlas to inspect it personally."

"The big boss, huh?"

"Hmm. Anyway, it was a bad virus and it would have done a lot of bad stuff, so they destroyed my laptop and closed down the way it got in. Then there were loads of meetings about it so other people didn't make the same mistake."

"Hmmm. Makes sense. It's good you were so smart, then." He ruffled her hair. "And did my little girl get anything good for saving the company? Employee of the month?"

"Hm? Oh, right. I got a million lien as a reward for stopping it."

"Aww, that was nice of them."

"Yeah..."

Taiyang continued stroking her hair.

It took a full minute for his brain to catch up with her words.

"Wait, what...?"

/-/

There was a blonde waiting for her outside the door to her apartment.

It was not Jaune.

"Hey." Yang pushed herself off the wall she'd been leaning against, a schoolbag at her feet. "Do you mind if I crash with you for a night?"

Blake looked behind herself just to make sure there wasn't someone else there – Ruby, perhaps – that Yang was addressing. There was not. Jaune had gone back to his office, and Ruby had gone home to Patch since, by the time they finished their meetings, it was late and they were already on the island. Ruby also had work there tomorrow cleaning up the containment cells that had been hosed down as part of the lockdown measures.

"Are you... talking to me...?"

Yang fidgeted. "Yeah."

"Why...?"

"Because I kinda need somewhere to crash."

"Why me? Don't you hate me?"

"I don't hate you..." Yang said it awkwardly, rubbing a hand through her tangled mane. "I don't even hate your boss; I just... you know, don't like the whole monsters thing. And I don't like your spider, but only because it's creepy. I don't hate it."

"..."

Blake couldn't quite find the words. A lack of hatred or not, they certainly weren't friends, and not enough for Yang to assume Blake would put her up for the night. At best they'd spoken when Jaune told her the truth about why Ozpin had been pressuring Ruby, which, come to think of it, had been just before Ruby set off the alarm. Yang would have gone right back to Beacon after that, and now she was here.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing I don't regret."

"Yang..."

"I may have gotten a teensy-weensy suspension." She held up her finger and thumb, scant millimetres apart. "Just a little one. Suspended for two weeks for... uh... you know, breaking the rules and all."

"Did you punch Ozpin in the face?"

Yang's eyes slid guiltily away. "No...?"

"..." Yang had punched Ozpin in the face. "Did you knock him off his feet?"

"Not saying that I did but, if I did, then it may have hypothetically broken his nose because he didn't expect it."

Blake walked past her and unlocked the door to her apartment. "Come on in."

"I can stay!?"

For decking Ozpin? Yes. Yes, she could stay. Blake stepped aside as the blonde grabbed her bag and hurried on in.

"Thanks! You have no idea how much this means. I'm not ready to face dad yet—"

"You think he'll be disappointed in you?"

"Well, reasons or not, I did kinda punch an old man in the face. I'd be worried if he didn't chew me out. How is Ruby doing?"

"Saved the company from an interdimensional computer virus and won herself a million lien for it."

Yang gaped. "What...?"

"Yeah." Blake sighed. "It's been one of those days." She shucked off her jacket and tossed it over the back of the sofa. "You can put your stuff wherever. How is your team taking the whole suspension thing?"

"They're in the dark as to why it happened, so it's obviously a little awkward." Yang set her bag down in a corner far away from the huge cobwebs. Most people would have asked why her apartment looked like the inside of a haunted Halloween house, but Yang knew, she knew and she eyed them warily. "Your... uh... Your pet isn't living here, is he?"

"Yes."

"W—Where?"

"I don't know. He'll be around, watching us." Blake didn't mean that to sound so ominous, but it apparently did, because Yang abandoned her bag and rushed over to cling to Blake. "Timothy is fine. He's affectionate."

"That's the problem. I could kick him if was violent, but he's an affectionate spider. That's a no from me. I'm a dog person."

No taste, then. Dogs were so much worse than spiders. Did dogs have eight cute, sorrowful eyes? Did dogs take care of pests in your apartment? Of course not. And dogs moulted fur everywhere, while Timothy was... well, he wasn't clean as he left webbing everywhere, but at least he didn't poo on the carpet.

"Where does he sleep?"

"In the living room mostly."

Yang grabbed Blake's shoulders. "I'm sleeping with you."

"Take me on a date first." Blake pried her away. "Your team...?"

"Weiss probably suspects but Ren and Nora are ignorant, and Weiss and I agreed to keep it that way because the truth sucks. Anyway, Weiss texted me to say she'll try and calm them down, but it's hard for Ren and Nora to be sympathetic since I did deck an old man in the face. It's not easy to write that off as reasonable on my part. I'm more annoyed I got told off by Miss Goodwitch for it. I got angry and called him a worm parasite and she didn't even bat an eye – she knows! She absolutely knows!"

"She probably does," Blake agreed. "The way I hear it, Ozpin has been running Beacon for several lifetimes before this one. It makes sense he has some teachers in the know, as they'd need to hire his next host for the job and let him have the headmaster role over them."

"Great. So, not only is he an immortal worm interested in my little sister but he's a nepo-baby as well. Awesome!"

Blake snorted. "That's one way of putting it. At least Ruby will support you."

"Yeah." Yang smiled happily. "She will. But, ugh, uncle Qrow has sent me, like, ten texts."

"You haven't read them?"

"Of course not! You know what they're going to be about. He's totally losing the title of coolest uncle, which means I need to find another uncle to replace him with. Seriously, though. Imagine taking a worm's side over his own nieces!" Yang paused. "Do you think he's been brainwashed? Is that a thing?"

"Sadly, the only brainwashing he's been through is the mundane kind where Ozpin convinced him to follow his orders. Funnily enough, not all cults are anomalous in nature. I should know since we've had to investigate several."

"Are some?"

"Yes. Absolutely."

"Okay, I have to know. Lizard people—"

"Exist, yes."

"Seriously!? And they run our governments?"

"What? No. Lizard people exist but they're just lizard people living their regular lives. They live in swampy areas and marshes and mind their own business."

"Oh. That makes a lot more sense. Less cool, but normal."

"Not all anomalies are world-ending disasters." Blake started brewing some tea, her kettle bubbling away. There was more water than was necessary, and two pots of dehydrated noodles ready for them. She usually ate out, but the day had been long and she couldn't be bothered. "I'd guess that three fifths of the anomalies in the world aren't even sentient. The other two fifths are sentient. Of all that, there are probably more dangerous anomalies that aren't sentient than those that are."

"Really?"

"A lot of sentient anomalies are confused and don't know what they're doing. They fall back on animal logic, living solitary lives. A lot of our work is with people abusing anomalous items."

"What about Mountain Glenn?"

"Heavily classified."

"Yeah, but, was that an item or...?"

"That was a human who was turned into an anomaly."

Yang was horrified. "That's a thing!?"

"Not if you have aura."

"Oh, thank fuck."

"Because aura is already an anomaly that has unknown effects on your body."

"Fuck! W—What does it do?"

"We have no idea, but it's rooted in your very soul so good luck." Blake came back with a pot of noodles and a cup of tea for her. "Here. Dinner."

Yang accepted the tray woodenly, settling it on her lap as she stared into the distance, vaguely horrified by what she'd just learned. "I feel sick," she mumbled.

"Not on my couch, you don't."

"How...?"

"Hm?" Blake hummed past noodles hanging from her lips. "Whzzt...?"

"How do you accept and process all this without losing your mind or going crazy? The world is a lie, everything we know is false, and there are monster that lived under the bed might be real and planning to eat you. How do you learn all that and not go mad?"

Blake slurped up her noodles, the tail-end whipping up to smack her on the nose.

Yang twitched at the sound.

"I mean... I share an apartment with a giant spider," Blake eventually pointed out. "And I fed my ex-boyfriend to an eldritch abomination. Then I come home to eat noodles, read porn, and sleep. I'm probably not the best person to ask for advice on how to stay sane."

Yang's face fell into her hands.

Blake felt bad for her.

"Hey," she said, rubbing the girl's back. "The fact you're agonising over this probably means you're the sanest one here. I'd be more worried if you accepted it all as happily as I did. Or Ruby. You're the normal one, Yang."

"Being normal is giving me a panic attack!"

"That's a very normal and very well-adjusted response."

"Damn it!"

"Eat your noodles. They'll help."

Yang did so obediently. The simple act of spooning the food into her mouth and chewing did, in fact, help. The human body was great at distracting itself with things like that. Blake turned on some terrible late-evening television to help. She was of the opinion that it had been made to be so stupid and campy for the express purpose of letting people de-stress by hating on it, and she appreciated the sacrifices of those actors and actresses.

About an hour later, Yang prodded her in the side with her elbow and mumbled, "Where's the bathroom?"

"Through that door."

"Cheers." Yang mumbled, stepping up and heading that way. The door clicked open and shut.

A moment later, an ear-piercing shriek tore through the apartment.

Blake leaned back over the sofa. "Oh. I guess that's where Timothy is..."

/-/

It had been a long time since Blake had been spooned. Of course, the last time had been a little more intimate than this. Adam had always been emotional, but he'd never cried into her back, nor hung on so tightly. Yang was spooning her so hard that she'd almost rolled Blake up into a ball on her side.

"He was trying to give you a hug, you know. He was letting you know he likes you."

Yang whimpered gibberish into the back of Blake's neck, tucked her knees even further up under Blake's and clung on for dear life.

Blake sighed and squirmed, but Yang took it as a sign of escape and wrapped her arms even tighter around her, one over her stomach and one diagonally across her body, right between her breasts. Somehow, she doubted this was what the girls at the massage parlour had meant when they told her she needed to de-stress by seducing a hot blonde into bed.

Her alter-self hadn't warned her Yang could be so needy.

What a bitch...

Next Chapter: 9th December

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