Chapter 988 - Who can we trust?

Conversing with the doll proved harder than expected, while it clearly understood Sofia, it seemed to have no way to answer. Even the control it had over the ghosts in its fake street seemed to be quite superficial, so in the end the easiest way to communicate ended up being letting the doll shake once for yes, twice for no.

Sofia asked many probing questions, and little by little, she more or less understood what she was dealing with.

The doll, when asked ‘do you know what you are?’, answered no. And when Sofia dug to understand why it turned people into furniture to imprison their ghosts, the general feeling was that the doll was scared and lonely, so it did what it could to remedy that, nothing else.

Of course Sofia kept in mind the possibility that the doll was lying, and would try to betray them later, but since it was obedient for now, Sofia was open to letting it be the group’s new supporter with its spatial magic and tricks. It could not escape Pareth’s mark anyway.

Gabriela, sleeping on the couch of the random house the group was occupying, was quite a bit surprised when she woke up to the rag doll stretching to reach the next channel button on the tv. She turned to Pareth, who only shrugged. Sofia was in the kitchen making fried eggs, she noticed the interaction. “We found her earlier tonight. She was making people disappear in– in… Well in whatever this city’s called. Turning them into furniture, keeping their ghost trapped in a fake street. Quite something. Do you know anything about it?”

“N- No…” Gabriela answered after a second of hesitation, her eyes glued to the strange doll, which now sat in front of the tv, watching the local news.

“I’ll kill her if she tries anything so you don’t have to worry about it.”

The doll shivered at the casual threat, but it kept watching the tv.

“Alright…”

A few seconds later, floating skeletal hands brought Gabriela a serving tray with a fried egg, some bread, an apple and a glass of water.

“I was not too sure what you eat for breakfast around here, and I’m not the best cook, but hopefully that will do, we leave at sunrise so you don’t have so long to prepare.”

Staring blankly at the overcooked fried egg, Gabriela thanked Sofia and quickly started eating.

“Oh right, the shower seems to have run out of hot water somehow? I can take you to another empty home if you want to wash up…”

The following morning went by in a flash; the doll obediently stayed in Pareth’s storage ring while they flew Gabriela to another main ECA facility, quite a ways further to the south. In the end Gabriela decided to enter the premises alone, unknowingly carrying in one of Sofia’s invisible Myriad eyes stuck to her back. The situation inside was an absolute mess of overworked people running everywhere, but it seemed the local administrators were not surprised to see Gabriela coming back alive. If nothing else at least the ECA’s information network was genuinely impressive. They immediately started assigning Gabriela new tasks without even proceeding with any sort of an interrogation. The first of which was going right back out to hand Sofia another thin folder.

Gabriela gave Sofia her things back, along with a few extra truesight pills, and tweaked Sofia’s communicator to her own frequency so that she could be her new point of contact with ECA, and that was the end of it.

After taking some distance, Sofia opened the new unlabeled paper folder she had been handed, feeling a bit surprised at how smoothly things had worked out.

“What is it now…”

Sofia quickly peered over the documents. It seemed to be a crisis report destined to high-breaking ECA officials. It included a map of the country and surrounding seas with the locations of all ECA facilities and army bases marked down. The bottom third of the map was surrounded by a red circle. Apparently the ECA had lost all contact with that entire vast region for almost twelve hours now, and the scouts sent there had similarly gone silent and not returned. The report described the current situation and what was already planned next, such as the announcement of a global lockdown later in the day.

That was pretty much all there was to it.

The author's publishing page supplied this unapproved copy; reading the chapter at its official home supports the creator.

“Not even a word for me, just the information as-is… So our previous agreements still stand, I imagine. Let’s find a safe place to take our daily pills and go straight south, we can transpose south so it’ll be fast.”

Much further south, a few hours later, Sofia finally found one of the landmarks marked on the paper map.

“This has to be the great triplet lakes… Quite a sight. The silent zone should start just about a hundred kilometers south from here…”

Flying as high up as she could, Sofia observed the distant scenery.

Seems pretty normal from here… Apparently there’s hardly any real large city in this zone except from the three coastal ones to the far south, though. Even that other one is quite far south too.

But the reports said the reconnaissance helicopter all went silent at most minutes after entering the area.

Were they destroyed or just sent to yet another alternate plane of existence?

After flying farther again, pretty much right where the red line was drawn on the map, Sofia had Pareth take the doll out.

“Do you feel anything in this area?” she asked, “Powers like yours?”

The doll shook twice.

“Pareth?”

Pareth gave the same answer.

No? I don’t feel anything either but our senses are unreliable against these things’ powers…

“Let’s go in carefully. If nothing happens for a bit we’ll accelerate the pace and head toward the major road in that direction.”

While they crossed the line on foot, Sofia grabbed her communicator. The other side answered almost instantly, but surprisingly, it was not Gabriela’s voice.

“Hello, E17. Can you hear me well?”

“Remsei?!” Sofia immediately recognized, quite alarmed by this voice. “Who are you? What did you do to Gabriela?!”

Sofia immediately connected to the Myriad eye stuck to Gabriela’s back, which was supposed to warn her if the scientist was ever in danger.

Gabriela was visibly still alive, but since she faced the man speaking on the communicator, Sofia could not see him.

“Nothing, I have merely borrowed her communicator. I am indeed Lieutenant general Remsei. Please allow me to formally apologize on the ECA’s behalf for yesterday’s major mishap at Northern Delta, and to thank you for bringing back a valuable comrade alive.”

“Remsei died that night,” Sofia answered without emotion, “I still have his bones.”

“Y- You do? I would appreciate it if you could dispose of them,” the person on the other side answered, sounding slightly flustered, “It is a well-guarded secret that the higher echelons of our organisation’s command chain have some life-saving means. I did, as you say, perish that night. Nevertheless, I am here now. We are entrusting you with this information in a bid to maintain a mutual trust. I simply needed to inform you of this, and that extra payment for you is being prepared for your contributions with this case and the Interceptor.”

“I understand. Do not let this kind of ‘mishap’ happen a second time, Remsei. Now can I talk to Gabriela?”

“Affirmative.”

Sofia heard footsteps, and a door being closed.

“Sofia! Hey! Sorry about that.”

“It’s nothing. Was that really the same Remsei? Did you know about this?”

“I learned about it earlier today. The exact process is a bit dubious but it is apparently as he says, a very limited number of the high-ups have some means of resurrection…”

“I thought you were pretty high-placed yourself.”

“I am, but I suppose a researcher is still only that. There are at least thirty others with similar clearance, but the true leadership executives can be counted on two hands, and some of them are quite secretive. I cannot say more, however. Why were you calling, did you need anything?”

“Did you get a chance to read the folder you handed me earlier?” Sofia asked.

“Yes. This is one of the major crises we are dealing with here at the moment, information is still very limited, we plan on sending an elite expedition team later tonight.”

“Then let me know how that goes. I have just entered the zone marked on the map, starting straight south from the triplet lakes. Nothing strange so far, but I’m not deep in yet. I wanted to ask if you knew more by now but it seems not, so I’ll contact you again later, do not call first.”

“Understood. You probably don’t need to hear this, but be careful. Whatever is out there managed to cut off the entire region in a matter of minutes without any communication making it our way, it cannot be underestimated.”

“We will be fine, worry about yourself. I do not know how much I trust this new Remsei, I have a bad feeling about him.”

“Then I sincerely hope your bad feeling is incorrect…”

Sofia cut off the transmission.