[REND] B2. 17.3 - An Offer I Might Refuse

“An alliance?” Deen repeated as she looked at me for guidance.

“Both of you,” said Dreyfus.

I continued looking at Dreyfus and Cecilia, unmoving and silent, to show that I was unfazed by their offer. This was one of the possibilities outlined on Deen’s cheat sheet, though it didn’t include the PCM offering to ally with her as well. I could see why they did that—this Dreyfus guy was quick to adjust to the situation. Deen’s instruction on how to deal with this conversation was the same.

“Why am I included?” Deen asked, probably with Gabe’s help. “And what’s this alliance about?”

“Well…” Dreyfus gestured at the large truck that supposedly held Myra. “Your friend over there has told us everything.”

“She has an artificial Core,” Cecilia excitedly said. “And so do you.” She leaned forward, squinting at her “Yours give off quite the energy readings. Oh, how I’d love to—”

“Not the moment, dear.” Dreyfus held Cecilia’s shoulder and gently pulled her back. “As I was saying, we know everything—eh, a lot of things. Some things? Enough to understand the situation and offer an alliance is what I’m saying. You and your friend are subjects of a government experiment on artificial Cores. Myra was constrained to join upon the promise that her seeded sister would be cured.”

“But that did not happen,” Cecilia said. “Kelsey should’ve stayed with us. We were making good progress on her treatment. She’s with you, isn’t she?” Cecilia glanced at me, cocking her head.

I didn’t give any reaction.

Dreyfus continued, “I’m guessing that you’re not a willing participant yourself, masked madam.”

“How can you be so sure?” asked Deen.

“Because you are here with the esteemed and formidable, Red Hood. I can’t claim to know the full story, but, interestingly, the two of you are here instead of whatever organization that created the Cores. That means that you don’t want your… handlers… to know about this. Because… you are protecting Kelsey. You didn’t want them hunting her down, given her state. Am I correct?”

This guy’s good, I thought. His theory wasn’t the truth, but it was an insanely close guess given the information that the PCM had. It was also near the circumstances that Deen believed were true. I could see why this Dreyfus guy became the second-in-command.

“You worsened Kelsey’s condition,” Deen said, “and she can no longer return to her normal life. You’re the real monsters! Your experiments waste the lives of the innocents with no success!”

According to the plan. I had included in Deen’s script to piss off Cecilia if she was present. I wanted to off-balance the mad scientist and hopefully make mistakes.

Cecilia’s left cheek twitched. “Kelsey lost her human form in our custody, but I assure you that it wasn’t our fault. It would’ve happened regardless, as her seeding had already accelerated. If I had more time, I could—”

“You’ll have more time if we’re allied,” Dreyfus said. He turned to us, wearing a big smile. “We are not enemies. Our enemies are the BID and this… organization… which made the artificial Cores. They’re making nonhumans, whereas our aim is for monsters to be human again. Isn’t that noble? Don’t you want to be free of your shackles, masked madam? You and Myra and all your other friends who’ll join us.”

I let out a low growl.

Dreyfus jolted a bit, his smile wavering. But he quickly composed himself. “As for you, Red Hood… we offer a cure. Only, if you want to,” he quickly added. “You may keep your powers, and we’ll not impose ourselves on your decision. But Kelsey wants to be cured, doesn’t she? Kelsey and Myra will both be human again with our help. Reunited sisters. Isn’t that great?”

“You offer nothing,” Deen said. “You don’t have a cure.”

Cecilia erupted. “I’m at the cusp of success, if you didn’t—!”

“Shut up, dear!” Dreyfus grabbed the collar and tugged at her. “Thank you very much. Don’t ruin our nice conversation.” He looked up at me, bowing several times. “Tensions are high. We’ve been… quite at odds with each other lately. But we need to unite against the BID and those who made the Core. The Core might be the most important ingredient for a cure.”

They’re not wrong there, I thought. The Core kept my seeding at bay. How did the PCM know this so fast? They probably experimented on Myra.

“Two birds with one stone,” said Cecilia. “We’ll remove the Cores from those unjustly turned into test subjects—”

That’s rich, coming from her, I thought.

“—and we’ll use the Cores to cure the seeded,” she finished. “Having Myra fall into our hands—I mean, discovering these artificial Cores, has given me a fresh new perspective. I’m now thrice as confident of curing seeding, and I was quite confident before. Slowing the seeding is my first goal, and I believe it is achievable in a short period.”

I snorted. They should know what I was trying to convey.

“Slowing seeding is desirable to you, Red Hood, isn’t it?” Cecilia asked with a stupid grin.

“Ghroar…?” What was she talking about?

“You sparingly visit Marsh Row while keeping your identity hidden,” said Cecilia. “I believe my assessment is correct that you maintain the life you have before. Your human life. It’s fascinating that you can revert to your human form. Even more so that you want to…” She paused, trying to make eye contact.

She could be wondering if my human side wasn’t fully suppressed. Or if my supposed Adumbrae self actually wanted to try experiencing being a human.  

“If not that, these artificial Cores might be a source of power for you, Red Hood,” added Cecilia. “Working together will benefit us all!” She spread her arms and cackled in a definitely villainous way.

“Pull back a bit on that, dear,” Dreyfus said, lowering Cecilia’s right arm. To us, he said, “What say you? For our survival and freedom, an alliance is best.”

“Where’s Myra?” Deen asked, returning the conversation to my script. No matter what the PCM would say, turn the conversation to Myra’s location. Our priority was finding the blue-haired psycho-bitch so that I could plan the end of this scene.

The PCM’s offer of an alliance was attractive and all, but only an idiot would trust them. Kelsey came to them for help and ended up imprisoned and a test subject. Yeah, I guess they were trying to cure her. But if that was how they treated people they were helping, then count me out. Also, my guts—intestines, stomach, pancreas, whatever—told me that Cecilia was untrustworthy. Even a baby wouldn’t take a candy from her.

Was that how the saying worked? Anyway, I didn’t want to be constantly on guard for betrayal. So fucking tiring.

“In there,” Dreyfus said. “We can’t open her containment because she’ll wake up—she’ll attack us. Once an alliance is agreed upon, we’ll return her to you, and you'll stop her from rampaging. That’s it. We’re not tricking you.”

“Myra killed a lot of your members.” Deen paused, shaking her head. It wasn’t that she was disagreeing with Dreyfus. The tilt of her head, the squint to the side. She was annoyed at her invisible pet floating above her right shoulder.

Her Guardian Angel must be shouting danger. Very loudly. But why?

The PCM didn’t instantly fire at us, and I doubted that they were going to. No trap here, it turned out.

Either the PCM seriously wanted an alliance, or this was just a delaying tactic to keep me from attacking them. If they were going to betray me, they’d do it later, much later, when I somewhat trusted them. Not now. Would be safer for them to backstab me if I actually had my back turned and I wasn’t a growing werewolf—they had intel, probably from the gangsters, that I did have a human form.  

After a couple of seconds, Deen continued, “Does that mean you’ll just… let it go? Forgive and forget what Myra did?”

“Essentially, yes,” said Dreyfus. “Forgiving might be difficult. Impossible, I should say. But we will forget it just the same since we were at fault for detaining Kelsey. Saving her sister was Myra’s goal—we cannot say that she’s in the wrong for attacking us. There’s no need to forgive if we’ll forget, right? It’s an internal issue that I assure you will not impact our alliance whatsoever.”

“If it’s a question of trust,” Cecilia said, “we have more reason to fear you than the other way around. You’re pointing a gun right at our faces, if you think about it.” She gestured at me, from foot to head, heartily laughing. “A very furry gun that keeps growing. You don’t see us complaining that you’re poised to eat us.”

“For we have no reason to complain, dear,” Dreyfus said. “We trust that Red Hood is reasonable. If there’s any hesitation due to our connection to Big Marcy, it’s all but severed. We have opposing goals, you see. You don’t fear Big Marcy; even more reason not to be wary of us.”

“Do you really need our help?” Deen asked. “Ally with whoever supplies you these machines. I know those weren’t provided by Big Marcy.” She pointed at the trucks with anti-Adumbrae stuff.

During our little planning huddle, Deen suggested that she’d try to garner information from the PCM before I struck. I agreed to it because I was also curious about some stuff, like who was backing them. Impossible that a random social movement, albeit crazy, was capable of making monsters and anti-Adumbrae equipment. Big Marcy didn’t have any of them during the docks fight.

I had a feeling this would lead us to more trouble, opening up the lore of the criminal underground that I was better off not knowing.

“Those are provided by Euphonia’s group,” said Cecilia, looking up at me.  

She had mentioned that name when we first met her, saying that Red Hood should know this person. An alias, no doubt. And, most likely, an Adumbrae. This Euphonia was probably well-known among Adumbrae and people connected to them. However, despite all my searching, nothing came up about an Adumbrae or a scientist with that name.

I merely tilted my head left and then shrugged. Let Cecilia take it how she will.

“It’s true,” she said. “We have contact with them. Quite a close contact. But a business one, not alliance material.” She pulled down the collar of her shirt until she revealed the lining where her own neck attached to her current host's torso. “Recognize this? Euphonia’s handiwork, isn’t it?”

Euphonia also made the human-monster jigsaw creatures? And it seemed that Euphonia didn’t have dealings with Big Marcy for some reason, only the PCM. Too much worldbuilding that I wasn’t aware of. Pissed me off.

Help me out here! I flicked my eyes at Deen. Hopefully, my best friend's telepathic connection still worked even though I had a different identity.

“What about the drugs?” Deen asked, understanding that I didn’t know what Cecilia was talking about. I had told Deen about these pills since she didn’t know about them. “Does Euphonia provide them, too?”

Good save, Deen, I thought, glancing at her again as approval. It didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of what’d happen tonight because I’d be killing these people. But I didn’t want to look uncool, not knowing stuff.

“Those are my creations,” Cecilia said. “And I’m quite proud of them.”

“What do they—?” Deen held the right side of her head. She was covering her ear.

Her Guardian Angel, again? The warnings were becoming stronger. It seemed that the longer we stayed, the more dangerous it became. But that didn’t make sense—if we were walking into a trap that we couldn’t handle, the Guardian Angel should’ve protested much earlier. And I was growing bigger and stronger; shouldn’t the danger lessen because of that? Was the Guardian Angel worried that I’d eat Deen? I didn’t do that last time, and I have more control now.

A possible explanation was that the PCM was preparing some super weapon that could knock me down. Maybe it needed like several minutes to charge up, and they couldn’t do it beforehand for some reason? That was why the Guardian Angel blared only now.

Shouldn’t the Guardian Angel tell us how to handle the trap? It knew that Deen and I wouldn’t leave simply because it said so. In fact, Deen would intentionally go into danger so that Gabe would adjust its instructions accordingly. Something wasn’t right…

“Are you alright, masked madam?” asked Dreyfus.

“I was asking about the effect of the drugs that you’re selling,” Deen said as she kept glancing at me. Was she expecting me to make a move?

“They make a person less susceptible to seeding,” said Dreyfus. “A test run, of sorts. We do have to mix in hard drugs to entice—excuse me, masked madam? Are you unwell?”

Deen had bowed while covering both her ears. This must be the loudest that her Guardian Angel had been. “Red Hood…” She looked up at me. “Do it. We have to leave soon.”

Barely a nanosecond after Deen spoke, I grabbed Dreyfus and Cecila, my fingers closing around the top of their shoulders and necks. Then I roared with all my might, feeling my throat vibrate as the air emptied from my lungs. It was the signal for Overdrive to open fire.

My roar dazed Dreyfus. His eyes were out of focus; he probably didn’t realize he was about to die as I clamped on his head. My fangs cut his neck and spine. His skull easily broke as I chewed it, filling my mouth with its pieces as well as flesh, blood, and earthy-tasting, mushy gray matter.

Cecilia wasn’t as affected by my roar. Trying her trick for a second time, her neck and head detached from her body, shooting up and leaving a trail of blood, as if a squid shooting ink as it escaped. I let go of her body and reached for Cecilia’s head, easily catching it.

While I decided whether to close my fist and crush Cecilia’s head or put her in my mouth, I heard a sound that made me stop.

It was faint. Very faint. Super far away.

I wouldn’t have picked it out of the sound of gunfire and shouting if it weren’t so familiar. Where had I heard this before? At the docks! Was this a helicopter coming our way? Multiple helicopters.

Was Deen’s Guardian Angel warning us about this?