CyberCinder
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Chapter 354: Public Servant
🕑 Added 2025-10-18 11:00:54 +0000 UTCThe amount of eyes that stare as I walk down a simple path is unnerving. It’s only a few dozen, but the people they’re attached to are a very strange bunch. Some have a healthy glow and a little extra weight to their faces. Others look so gaunt that I can’t imagine they’ve been eating more than one sparse meal a day. Worse of it all are the families where the looks aren’t equal.
Some parents are so much worse off than their kids. Some kids are worse off than their parents. All the kids are different kinds of traumatized. If I wasn’t sure this was the place for refugees before they get relocated, then I definitely am now. I try my damndest not to catch their attentions by staring. It’s a strangely heavy ask.
“I wonder how many refugees the resort takes in…” I quietly wonder to myself.
“None,” Call cuts in. “Not publicly, at least, before you get the wrong idea. One of your buddies–Noland, I’m pretty sure his real name is–donates so much money to charities that a dozen cities owe him their safety. Helps when that… uh… April? Is that her name?”
“March.”
Call clicks his tongue. “I knew it was a month. She’s built some wonderful things to keep people safe, and none of it can be traced directly back to them. They don’t get any of the credit, but they save at least three times as many lives as the Preservation and HuSt put together.”
I… can’t tell if he’s lying. He’d have no reason to, honestly, but that’s not enough. I’ve seen the people that the resort takes in; everyone that isn’t safe to go anywhere else. Class-havers and their families, friends, or anyone that the Preservation or HuSt could use against them. Makes sense that everyone else would just go wherever it's safe.
But until I get back and can see it with my own eyes, I’m not going to believe anything.
“Shelby, eyes up,” Call says seriously. “I’m getting a notification for a flyover. See for yourself how much the Preservation cares about these people.”
Flyover? I crane my neck skywards, but there’s nothing new blocking the light. Pearl grumbles to herself quietly about something I can’t make heads or tails of, and then I feel it. Not in my awareness, but through my feet. Getting stronger and stronger until it feels like a constant minor earthquake.
I twist around searching for the source of the rumbling. Everyone around me runs for cover under a suspiciously placed gazebo that glimmers with protective magic. I nod in their direction.
“Should I?”
“I’d say so. Let me go give them some words to calm them down,” Call confirms. “I’d bet most of these people haven’t been here for one of these. Poor kids must be scared sick.”
With his okay I quickly jog for the gazebo, armor coiling around my body and restricting my movements in ways that I’m not quite used to. Even if the thing fits me nice enough, I won’t have a full range of movement while I’m stuck in it. Another reason why I shouldn’t get into any fights while wearing it.
Once I’m within earshot, Call’s voice clicks in my ear. “Please, don’t panic. This is a routine defence check to make sure all the aircraft are still operational and not touched by the apocalypse.”
A young girl sniffles, her eyes as wide as saucers. Her mother discreetly puts herself between me and the girl, her body tensing up from what I can only assume is pure protective instinct. Another woman beside her tries to shy away. She feels like magic.
“What’s happening?” Another child asks–a boy, this time, with hallowed eyes and sunken cheeks. There’s no emotion in his voice whatsoever. Just… nothing.
“Well, son, every now and again we need to make sure the aircraft are safe to fly. If we don’t, then we could have a serious problem on our hands,” Call explains. “I don’t pretend to know why we do it all at the same time–that’s a question only my boss’ boss could answer, I’m afraid.”
The boy nods mechanically. “Thank you.”
Then he just turns and watches the trees shake. An older man that looks strikingly similar to the boy kneels down and hugs the kid, but even that doesn’t get a reaction. A single silent tear trails down the man’s cheek. It hurts to imagine what happened to these people. Hurts to imagine that it’s still happening to people around the world.
While Call talks to the people, I try to extend my awareness out of the suit with no luck. But there should be luck; I just felt that woman’s magic a second ago, so my awareness can get through this thing. Can’t reproduce it at will, though, even though I can still feel her trying to shy away from my gaze.
“She’ll get caught.”
Pearl’s words hit as hard as they need to. “I know.”
“Should we try to help her?” Pearl asks. “I don’t know if that’ll make things better or worse.”
I don’t know, either. The Preservation will find out she has a Class–that much is obvious. Question is what they’ll do to her when they do. She’s obviously not in any place to fight back, and in most cases, I can imagine them welcoming her with open arms and a boatload of propaganda. That changes if she has a Class they want to make an example of.
“Can you tell what Class she is?”
Pearl squints, then shakes her head. “She’s not doing anything with the magic; just trying to keep it hidden. If we expose her now, things could get way worse. But… Call should have information on these people, right?”
“You’d think, but if the Preservation already knew about this, they’d have her in a cell or in training.”
“Hm, good point. So do we just… leave it alone?” Pearl grimaces as Call starts to wind down his speech. “Wait, he’s done? I haven’t seen a single airborne anything fly by.”
Neither have I. And as Call puts the finishing sprinkling of excuses and half-assed explanations on the lie that is ‘the flyover’, I catch everyone else looking to the sky with as much confusion on their faces as I feel.
“Um…” one of the mothers trails off. “Where are the planes?”
“They’re all stealthed using magic,” Call explains with rehearsed ease. “The rumblings should stop about… now.”
As if on cue, the rumblings start to die down. Not all at once, but as if the thing that was shaking the earth had started moving away from us instead of towards us. I bite my tongue to keep from saying anything as the scared people look around, a little bit less trust in their faces compared to before. Can’t blame them at all. Invisible planes sounds exactly like the kind of lie someone would come up with to cover their much worse truth.
Call’s voice clicks. “It’s time to go.”
I slightly raise my chin at the woman hiding herself. Her eyes widen ever so slightly and she tries to shy away even further, but she can never hide herself well enough. Not when the Preservation already has her surrounded. But this isn’t my place to scare the shit out of her. Instead, I make a mental note and turn to leave.
“That woman; the one behind the mother and daughter,” I start.
“I know,” Call interrupts. “She has a Class. I’ll find you her information for when you get back to the room.”
He knows? “Is she safe?”
“That all depends on what Class she’s trying to keep secret, where that information is made public, and to who. If she’s something simple like a wizard or a knight, then she’ll be fine. But if she’s one of the more complex Classes… or even a psychic…” he trails off with a sigh. “Then I can’t guarantee anything. Can’t even make contact with her, since she’s the responsibility of someone who’ll definitely sniff out anything I try to do.”
“Complex,” I state dryly and make my way back to the beaten path. “So what are you covering up with that shitty ‘invisible planes’ lie?”
Call goes deadly quiet. When he finally talks, his voice sounds like it’s being pulled out of his throat with a fishing hook made of bone and strung to spidersilk.
“What do you mean?”
I raise an eyebrow and gesture upwards. “There weren’t any planes up there, is what I mean. From the looks on those people’s faces, they weren’t seeing any planes either.”
“No… planes? …Oh. Oh, no,” Call whispers. I can almost hear him blanching through his voice alone. “They got me. They fucking got me. When? When did I… it can’t be recent. If it was, none of this would be happening. They wouldn’t let me… Shelby. When you get back to the room, you need to purify me with the strongest stuff you have. Please.”
Desperation rolls from his voice in waves. “Call, explanation, please.”
“Psychics,” he murmurs. “Those families are within-the-week new. If both you and them didn’t see the planes, it’s because you haven’t been subject to the psychics yet.”
“I thought the Preservation denounced all psychics,” I quip sarcastically.
Call laughs bitterly. “You and I both know that was just for publicity’s sake. All the really powerful psychics are up there–and if there’s one powerful enough to implant a thought into every citizen’s mind, then we need to be terrified of them.”
I shudder, memories of Illumisia using a psychic to ‘test’ me before the city quest began. It was utterly terrifying, and it could’ve easily been so much worse; anything that makes you think and feel things that aren’t there is unbelievably dangerous. Puts a real dampener on all of Call’s efforts here, too, since they might already be known.
“There’s a chance I’ll have to pull you and everyone you can get out of here if your operation is compromised. Understood?”
“Yeah, understood–understood all too well,” Call murmurs. “What if they already know everything that’s happening, and they’re just using me to try and get at the resort? I could be putting everyone you know and love in danger.”
Ain’t that the truth. But if it is the truth, it’s an unavoidable truth, so we just have to keep on assuming that it’s false. Even if it makes every step I take towards the place where I’m getting the papers feel a dozen times heavier. We don’t even talk the rest of the way, just stare silently out of the faceplate of Call’s helmet like it's a car windshield and we just argued over something petty yet very personal.
“Take the right, then it’s door two,” Call finally speaks, breaking the silence. “Then beeline it back here and purify the hell out of me. I feel so disgusting with this possibility hanging over my head.”
