“And if I try to disable you permanently, you’ll just become a cyborg and will remain a thorn in my side.” Kodai shakes his head. “No, no, that’s not going to do. Any ideas, Tesla?”
She lowers her gun so it now points at his back. Tesla shoots her hand out, touches his temple with her other hand, and smiles. “Got it.”
She fires the first shot into the man’s back and another into the back of his head.
Before Kodai can say anything, Tesla explains her actions. “Since he was shot, his life chip was put in a distress mode, which can be accessed by any humandroid who may arrive on the scene without his verbal or digital approval. His name is Itachi Uchiha, and his known associate is Gintoki Sakata, the owner of the pink salon that you had me put out of business earlier today. I believe this was retaliation.”
A moving image of Tesla entering N-Cats and taking out the humandroids comes to him. Gintoki Sakata acted fast. I should have been ready, Kodai thinks as he surveys the damage again.
“Is there any way for the authorities to trace that you accessed his chip?”
She shakes her head. “Everything I do is masked. All MercSecure agents are fashioned in this way.”
“Good. Please kill anyone else that is alive and delete all surveillance that links you and me to the scene. I will meet you on the rooftop.”
“Understood.”
“How long do you think it will take?”
“Two minutes, tops.” She points her gun at Kodai’s thug, Yagami, who’s pressed against an overturned table and breathing heavily. One headshot later and he’s done for good. With a quick swivel, she does the same for anyone in the room that is still alive.
“Ready?”
She nods, and they head to the kitchen.
“Anyone in here?”
Tesla does a quick scan of the room. “Clear. Let’s check the freezer.”
Kodai opens the freezer door and the chef runs out wielding a knife. Bang! He’s dead before he can take two steps back into the kitchen.
“There will be other witnesses,” Tesla says. “You will likely appear on their feeds, but I don’t believe there will be anything incriminating in them.”
“Anyone who exits through the front or back and isn’t an authorized employee has their feed wiped.”
Tesla turns her head to him as they exit. “Wiped completely?”
“No live feeds allowed in the hostess bar. This is common in these types of establishments; it prevents someone from coming here and reliving or sharing what they experienced at a later date.”
The door of his aeroSUV opens on its own and Kodai gets in the back. Tesla gets in the front and speaks to the vehicle for a moment, instructing its auto-drive functions.
“Where to?” she asks.
“Our plans have not changed,” Kodai says bitterly as the vehicle lifts into the air. “Ryuk’s place.”
Chapter 27: Get Woke
Ryuk is beside himself as his mind jumps from Tamana standing over him with her blade, to his doppelgänger looming over her shoulder.
It was Kodai all along.
“Your brother is the twat running around parading as you? Fick me, Marbles!” Hiccup throws his hands into the air. “What in the actual fick is going on here!?”
Zaena harrumphs.
“Sorry, Princess, like any normal mitherficker, I’m just a bit shocked by this sudden revelation.”
“Craziness!” FeeTwix says. “So that means … ” His eyes flash blue. “Your brother has something to do with NPCs coming to our world.”
Empress Thun stands from her throne.
Her guards and her attendants turn to ash and a lock appears on the large door behind them. Even though there are no windows in her throne room, thick velvet curtains fall from the walls, further insulating the space.
Her two baby griffins remain on their pedestals, sleeping as if nothing is happening.
“We need to speak to Sophia,” Ryuk says, his throat suddenly parched. He takes a deep breath to steel himself, to remind himself of where he is and that there are people looking to him for guidance. “Sophia will know what to do. That’s why we’ve come here, Empress, we’ve come to Porthos to meet her. We didn’t know Zaena was royalty; we didn’t know that my brother, as you say, is the one that is parading around as me. We came here simply to speak to Sophia.”
Empress Thun locks her dark eyes onto Ryuk. “If it is Sophia you need to speak to, I will call her here.”
A blinding spark in the center of the room gets Hiccup bitching about UV rays.
“Sheesh! Warn us next time!” the goblin growls. Before he can say anything else, an outline of a woman bathed in light takes shape at the center of the spark.
Sophia Wang Level 99
HP: 7399/7399
Mana: 3976/3976
ATK: 751
MATK: 1983
DEF: 1341
MDF: 4485
LUCK: 108
Sophia has elven features and puffy black hair. Her flowing white dress is embellished with golden thread and her feet are encased in a pair of sandals adorned with fluttering Pegasus wings.
Sophia performs the same full-body prostration the Mitherfickers suffered through earlier. Empress Thun places a foot on the top of her head, and once she’s done, the Mind Mage turns to them. “Hello, Ryuk.” She offers the others a tight grin. “You all may call me Doctor Wang.”
“Finally,” Hiccup says as he rubs his hands together, “we get to meet the good doctor! Fick, we’ve heard a lot about you, lady, believe you me. Probably enough to make your elven ears twitch even if we were a continent away. Hey! Dammit, Liz, keep your fickin’ ghost paws to yourself!”
Sophia gives the goblin a troubled, distasteful look. “I thought that removing the word ‘fuck’ from the goblin vocabulary would be a good thing,” she says to herself, yet loud enough for everyone else to hear. “Apparently, I was dead wrong.”
“Hold the fick up. You’re the fickin’ Mind Mage who did this–” Hiccup keeps speaking, his jowls flapping up and down as no sound emerges from his mouth. His face grows red as he points a finger at Sophia and starts silently yelling.
FeeTwix laughs. “You have got to teach one of us that spell!”
“You’ll have to be a much higher level to learn Silence of the Fools,” Sophia says.
Hiccup stomps his feet and crosses his arms over his chest.
The Mind Mage shrugs. “I can permanently take away his ability to speak, if you’d like.”
Ryuk looks from Sophia to FeeTwix. Next to the Swede, Hiccup is making an X with his arms as he looks to Ryuk with pleading eyes.
Hiccup: Don’t do me dirty, kid. I’ve always been there for you, thick and thin. Hell, I’m practically your fickin’ wingman! I’m the one that got you off those training wheels and put you on that fat hog. Now look at your ass, all grown up. A couple of fickin’ hours from now and you’ll be knee deep in Enway’s churro!
Zaena: You are a despicable creature.
Hiccup: Love you too, Liz.
“That won’t be necessary,” Ryuk tells Sophia, instantly regretting the words that come next. “Please restore his ability to speak once we’re finished here.”
Hiccup: Thank you, Marbles! See, Liz, that’s called chivalry. Get woke!
Sophia’s eyes flash white. “What is it you’ve called me here to discuss? If it is easier, I can simply read your thoughts.”
“That won’t be necessary, Sophia,” the Empress says. “Ryuk can explain.”
Ryuk steps forward and swallows down the nervous energy swelling in his stomach. This is it, the moment he’s been waiting for, and his thoughts race as he thinks of how he should begin. An image of his brother flashes before him and he casts it away.