Belle
With new questions the only thing between Belle and Lycaon and Qingyi, conversation dried up and there wasn't much more to say to one another. Belle was eager to talk to Fairy, but she couldn't do it here. The A.I. seemed quiet, but it was not entirely unusual for it to refrain from speech unless directly addressed. It had sounded like Fairy suffered from their fight with daemon, so perhaps it was recovering in its own way, too- bleeding figuratively in a cyber chair somewhere.
That mental image made Belle concerned.
The thoughtful silence pervaded as Lycaon and Qingyi sat on their chairs and stared off into separate sections of empty space, each seeming to be lost in their own mental calculations. Belle herself had likely been doing the same just now as she considered Fairy. It was the arrival of Wise (in the form of Eous the bangboo) and a delivery man that broke the spell over the group gone silent.
The delivery man was sharply dressed in a shirt, vest, and slacks. He announced himself as with Victoria Couriers and he promptly handed Lycaon a large plastic crate. He then bowed and left. Belle and Qingyi watched Lycaon open the parcel with mild curiosity but no one was surprised to see a cybernetic leg inside. It was identical to Lycaon's surviving leg except for signs of wear and tear- and color. This one was a gleaming, factory white.
"Alas," bemoaned Lycaon. "They've shipped the wrong color!"
Belle thought Lycaon looked more distressed by the revelation of mismatched legs than he did over his own oozing wounds. "Don't worry Lycaon, white and black go together. It will look fine."
"True, very yin-yang, very zen," offered Qingyi in her mild sardonic tone.
Belle glared at her, which only caused Qingyi to turn her sardonic smile upon Belle instead. Something about Belle and Lycaon's situation deeply amused the small woman. What was with her? She was so odd!
Lycaon seemed unconvinced but he began the process of attaching the new leg to the furry stump of his right thigh. Meanwhile, Wise withheld comment on the leg but tapped on the back of Belle's shin. He didn't speak, presumably because he was unsure of Qingyi's presence. Human operated bangboos were the tell-tale signs of illegal proxy work, so Wise was trying to keep the appearance of being a bangboo-operated bangboo- but Belle knew what he was trying to say: their proxy business with Belobog was concluded.
"Well-" said Belle into the silence, using that vague assertively whimsical tone that was the signal for departure across human civilization.
Lycaon's ears popped up at the sound. He quickly finished his attachment and cautiously rose to his feet. There was a small smile of satisfaction as he did so without difficulty. Lycaon had both legs again, though one was black and one was white- and his arm was returned to its socket. He wasn't so much as bleeding from various points on his chest anymore but.. merely oozing. As things went, it was a vast improvement in a short amount of time.
"Shall we away, Lady Belle?" said Lycaon, gamely. "Where do you wish to go?"
Belle blinked at him, somewhat aghast that it was even a question. Where did he think she wanted to go? Shop for cakes in the high rise district? Perhaps have a spot of tea near the river? He had absolutely no regard for his body!
"To a hospital or a thiren doctor or somewhere, Lycaon, to have someone see to you," said Belle with exasperation
Lycaon's ears went back on his head again. "Lady Belle, your concern for my wellbeing is well received; but I assure you, I am quite aware of my own injuries and I am confident in their mild severity. My kit at your residence contains all I need to provide myself the necessary care."
His tone was so precise and confident that Belle found herself believing him, mostly. "W- well, fine. Then we should head home directly."
Lycaon nodded. "As you wish."
Belle pursed her lips at Lycaon's very satisfied tone. Had she just allowed herself to be effortlessly played? Should she insist on the doctor? She didn't know.
Qingyi stood up. "Let me help you with that. I'll have Seth drive you home in the squad car. And yes, Lycaon, it's the tinted and bulletproof model."
Belle saw Lycaon's tail wag ever so slightly at the word 'bulletproof'. A free ride was welcome enough, but that little reaction from Lycaon made Belle's acceptance of Qingyi's offer effortless. "That would be nice, Qingyi. Thank you."
Qingyi nodded. "Least I can do. Stopping that ethereal now saved a lot of people a lot of dangerous work. Probably some lives, too."
Belle blinked. Qingyi actually seemed genuine in that statement. Was there actually a soul of social service within the woman's petite chest?
"Seth!" shouted Qingyi out the open door.
In moments, Belle was in the backseat of the PubSec vehicle, a deactivated Eous in her lap, and Lycaon in the seat nearby. The mostly empty streets around Ballet Twins Plaza took them to streets full of mid-afternoon traffic and they moved slowly through it. The car was silent, as Junior Constable Seth drove with the serious attention of the duty-focused, and neither Lycaon or Belle wished to reveal anything to this unknown subordinate of Qingyi's.
And maybe they were just tired. Belle thought Lycaon sure was. How much sleep had he even had last night?
She watched Lycaon's fingers tap impatiently around the control for the car window, as if he really wanted to lower it but would not do it. Finally he leaned forward and spoke to Seth. "Sir, could you please open the vents to outside air and turn up the fan?"
"Er-! Yes! Of course!" said Seth primly and he flipped some knobs on the vehicle's dash.
Belle felt the soft flow of cold, conditioned air stop and become the warmer billowing of natural air. Lycaon leaned subtly towards the nearest vent and inhaled deeply through his nose. His anxious finger tapping stopped.
They rode quietly for a time, the car moving in intermittent spurts through the streets surrounding Lumina Square. Belle thought that the subway was assuredly faster, but she was more than content at the moment. She liked witnessing this brief moment of relaxation which Lycaon seemed to be permitting himself while he was inside the tinted and bulletproofed police vehicle. Or most likely: because Belle herself was inside this tinted and bulletproofed police vehicle.
Lycaon's long chin rested on a large, balled fist. Belle could see his cute nose vibrating slightly as it sniffed everything on the air blowing in through the car's vent. She thought he would certainly prefer wind through an open window, but she suspected he would not partake in that desire due to her presence. Even a cracked window was an unacceptable gap in her security.
Belle didn't like being a burden on someone, but perhaps that was the basic reality of needing a bodyguard. Come to think of it: It would be interesting to know what Lycaon was like when he was not her bodyguard. Though, it was becoming more and more difficult to remember that this was only their second day of knowing one another at all. So much had happened in these short 48 hours, and they did not seem any closer to resolving this threat against her life. If anything, they were now farther away than ever because their single lead had literally turned into a shrapnel grenade and almost killed them.
Unless! Unless Fairy had gleaned something from her battle with Daemon. Belle's personal worry for the A.I. entity resurfaced itself in her mind. Was Fairy okay? Belle thought it safe enough to speak vaguely to Fairy even with Seth in the car. There was no way the junior constable could infer that Belle's remote communication was with an artificial person who lived in the Inter-Knott and not a human being.
"Fairy," said Belle quietly, activating her communicator. She saw Lycaon's ears perk up and he looked in her direction. "Fairy, are you all right?"
There was silence for a moment. "Belle. I am currently in self-diagnosis and repair. Please be aware that I am unavailable for support actions at this time."
Belle blinked. Well, that gave her most of her answer right there. "Just checking if you are okay."
"System Maintenance will conclude in approximately 13 hours, 12 minutes, and 41 seconds," said Fairy. "Thank you for your patience. In the interest of conservation of system resources, this channel of communication will now close. Goodbye."
Belle rolled her eyes. An A.I. was still a computer, apparently- but Fairy was okay, for all intents and purposes- or about as okay as Lycaon was.
Belle frowned and felt anger building up like a headache behind her temples. Both her protectors: Lycaon the physical and Fairy the technical- were wounded today while defending her. Belle wasn't sure what Daemon had tried to do to her in the OldKnott, but she was pretty sure it had been something mortally nasty. And Lycaon prevented a giant ethereal from potentially going on a rampage in Belle's immediate proximity. That wasn't healthy for anybody.
And what had she, Belle, done? Huh?! Nothing except be helpless and need saving. It was not the outcome she'd wanted this morning. Not after seeing that body in Random Play. She'd intended to get herself one step closer to solving all this mess, but she'd come up empty and people who had to look out for her had gotten hurt instead. Dammit!
Should she just have stayed at home, in the end? Shut herself into Random Play and hide herself behind Lycaon's systems of sensors and traps? Let the experts at Scott Outpost pull the information out of her brain until there wasn't anything left for her to be killed over? Maybe that was the right call. Maybe this wasn't one she could get herself out of.
That conclusion didn't feel right to Belle, however. It was too passive. Too reliant on others. If she'd taken that path in her life before, then she and Wise would probably still be working two minimum wage jobs each, struggling to get by while their employers got rich paying them as little as legally possible in an economy designed to keep them down and out.
Such as it was for most of the refugees of hollows. A hollow falls on your head. You lose everything you ever had; your home, your things, your neighborhood, your family. You get shuffled off to some other part of New Eridu with nothing and no one. Meanwhile, some big corporation builds an ether generator under the hollow that exploded your life and their shareholders get rich and fat while you scrape by on entry level work and state welfare because your paycheck isn't big enough to live on.
Do you see any of that company's profit? No. It's probably spent on lobbying efforts to keep wages down and reduce the very taxes that fund the welfare that keeps you barely afloat.
Do you get any money from the sale and purchase of that land on which you used to live? No. It'sland inside a hollow now. Private citizens can't own land in a hollow- only licensed corporate entities can do that. Who gives out the licenses? Committees of elected officials who receive donations from corporate entities! Weird how that works!
It sure seems like companies in the ether energy business, and their investors, probably benefit more from the existence of hollows than even the fucking ethereals do!
Belle took a deep breath. That was an interesting thought. There was a lot of money flowing out of hollows. And she had data in her head that may contain secrets about hollows and their formation. And someone wanted to kill her for it. Belle had seen quite a few movies about true crime and forensics… and people killing people for money was a commonly recurring theme.
Give up and stay inside? No! She was onto something. Belle could feel it. Why else would someone want to kill her all of a sudden? She could not lose her conviction when she almost surely possessed her prize already, even now, inside her own skull. An answer was there! An answer to why her and Wise's life got blown apart by that hollow disaster which, in today's world, was just another routine event in the grind of humanity's current status quo. And Belle meant to change it.
"Lady Belle," said Lycaon, breaking Belle out of her train of thought. She looked over to see Lycaon's torn chest, slightly swollen shoulder, and his mismatched legs. She took a deep, regretful breath at the sight. Perhaps any of her own proactivity could wait a couple days for her allies to heal up, at least.
"Lord Wise has just received a guest at the front door of Random Play."
"Who is it?" said Belle, idly curious. She thought she already knew the answer, anyway. "What are they doing?"
"I believe it to be the Miss Nicole Demara." Lycaon's eye glazed over slightly. "They are going up the stairs. They have entered Lord Wise's room."
"Thanks for the updates, Lycaon, but I really don't need to know everything that my brother does in the house." Belle sighed, feeling unsettled. "In fact, I would rather not."
"As you wish, Lady Belle, though if any action were to compromise your safety in some way, I will be obliged to inform you."
"Fine," Belle mumbled, not really interested.
She didn't know why she felt upset at the news of Nicole being there and going to Wise's room, probably to watch some old tape and "chill". It was an emotion Belle had felt the night before when she'd argued with Wise. There wasn't really anything about Nicole that Belle didn't like specifically, it was just… Wise AND Nicole that bothered Belle somehow.
But why? Belle asked herself. And she looked out her own tinted window and grimaced at the answer she found: Maybe she was just jealous that Wise had someone to bring to his room and she did not.