“That one… that felt weird. It blocked all of us, but from what I can tell, no one else. That seems directed,” Felix admitted.
“I would agree,” Lily said, folding her arms across her chest. “As far as I can tell, and I’ve dug quite deeply, that was directed only at you five. That’s odd, to say the least.”
Felix frowned and placed his chin on the tops of his hands, resting his elbows on the desk.
“Alright. So, two out of those three things weren’t aimed at us. The third was, but in a passive way. There was no direct threat in it, other than that we couldn’t get in touch with anyone,” Felix murmured. “But no one would have known of the attack until it happened. That wasn’t exactly planned. It doesn’t make sense.”
Kit sighed and pressed a fingertip to her temple.
“I say let it lie for now. We’ll keep looking into it, but there isn’t much we can do with it. It’s more or less an unknown,” she said.
Felix nodded his head glumly. “Lily, please consider that your takeaway. Press your contacts, see who bought that service if you can.”
Lily nodded and scratched something into her notepad with her pen.
“Any other questions about the whole thing?” Felix asked. He wanted to make sure no one left anything on the table.
Felix noticed Kit was now staring at Miu, who was staring back at her.
Trying to let whatever was going on continue without calling attention to it, Felix turned to Victoria.
“I read your report. You more or less broke contact immediately and vanished. They weren’t interested in you,” Felix said.
“That’s right. Strange as it is, it simply ended. Though I do hope no one comes calling for us to pay for that rooftop,” Victoria said with a smirk.
“Hmph. Alright. If there’s nothing else we’ll continue on. The next item I have is that I wanted to talk about our progress. Figuring out why they were so interested in you, Kit, is definitely one of those topics,” Felix said. Hopefully she was done finding out whatever Miu wanted her to know.
Kit’s eyes broke from Miu and locked onto his.
“I… no. There is no progress at this time. I’ve been sitting there every day in the counselor’s office, talking to high schoolers day after day. None of them know anything more than we thought. In addition, the few times I’ve seen a hero across the street, they were clearly being shielded,” Kit said.
“In other words, Wraith really did a number on us with that suicide swan dive,” Felix said.
“Yes. Yes, he did. But… we still have options of course. Lily has been in contact with a number of hackers. Data thieves. The vast majority of them are willing to take a paid job with Legion. Apparently the benefits and protection are worth more than their own personal freedoms for most. Lily, it’s your project, would you like to take it from here?” Kit asked.
Sighing, Lily ran a hand through her dark hair, pulling it to one side.
“I don’t mind at all,” Lily said without a hint of unpleasantness.
The two of them had actually been playing nice for the last month or so. To the point that Felix wondered if they’d had a conversation on the side.
“I just wasn’t sure if I wanted to bring it up quite yet I suppose. Mostly because I’m not done. But… I do have a dozen or so… individuals… who are willing to sign on to Legion. They’re primarily interested because we can get them whatever equipment they want.” Lily paused as if considering. Then she smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “That and the fact that I told them that we can teach them whatever they want. Predictably, a number of them said kung fu.”
Felix closed his eyes at the predictable answer and felt a sigh trying to break free.
“Alright. I suppose that’s all good news. I assume you have a plan for them?” he asked.
“Fairly simple one. Smash through the server on the Hero side of things, and see what they have in their systems. It’s not exactly rocket science or a mastermind type of scheme, but I think it’ll do,” Lily said with a small vicious smile. “And I may tell them to leave a few things behind. Maybe download their files. You know. Corporate espionage?”
Felix opened his eyes and quirked a brow at her.
“Maybe I’m being a little vengeful,” Lily said placatingly.
Felix didn’t say anything but just stared at her.
“Ok. Yes, I am. Do you not want me to do it then?” she asked, looking annoyed.
“Nope, just keeping you honest. Be sure to redirect all their web-traffic from their web page to something different. Like 4chan,” Felix said with an ugly smile.
“What is—you know what, I don’t want to know,” Lily said, sighing. She looked down to her paper and scratched something in quickly. “I’m sure they’ll know what it is.”
“Great. So… back to the point at hand though… we have nothing. Right?” Felix asked.
All around he got slow head nods.
“I suppose that takes care of that for now. Let me know if you make any headway later on.” Felix glanced down at his blank terminal.
Really wish I had brought an agenda or notes or… well, anything.
“The last thing I have is more about our actual business. Legion, that is. I know part of the whole reason we moved here was to try our hand at diversifying ourselves. I mean, all it would take is for Skipper to change employment regulations or something along those lines and we’d be well and truly fucked,” Felix said. It was a bit blunt for him, but that was the situation.
Kit and Lily exchanged a look. Lily pointed at herself with the pen, to which Kit nodded.
Lily pursed her lips and tapped her pen against the pad of paper.
“Finance is fine. Our growth is stagnant, but we were expecting that. There’s only so much business any pawnshop can do after all,” Lily said. “As far as our new venture is going… it’s going well? I’m not sure how to put it into a perspective we could measure.”
Felix grinned and held his hands apart in front of himself. “Try. I promise I won’t fault you for not having a power-point ready for me. Though, hey, in the future, power-points are great. Especially ones with graphs I can paper walls with. Bright colors and attached numbers. Love power-point decks.”
Lily looked nonplussed. With a slow blink she continued on as if he hadn’t spoken.
“We’ve got a number of high school children who are interested. Enough to easily fill several classrooms if we follow the original college plan. The negotiations we started before coming here are progressing well enough. Though now that we’re here, they seem rather… tight fisted… to say the least. They’re looking for any and every loophole to deny us the school campus,” Lily said.
Felix couldn’t help but nod.
It made sense. It was the exact same thing he’d do in their place.
Except he might have sent Wraith to kill them all.
Maybe I should send Miu instead? I mean… she wouldn’t mind, would she?
Casting his eyes to Miu, he found her staring at him unblinkingly.
Or… maybe not using the insane assassin is a better idea.
Quickly looking back to Lily he made a dismissive neutral hand motion at her.
“Alright, that’s close to what we were expecting. Anything else?” he asked.
Lily scratched a fingernail back and forth against the paper in front of her.
It raised Felix’s nerves. Something was on her mind.
“Not really. The accreditation is all done. We’ll be on par with everyone else.”
Uh-huh… so what is it that’s wrong?
“Lily,” Felix said, waiting for her to lift her eyes to meet his own. “What?”
Pressing her lips together into an angry line, she held up a hand and pointed at him.
“Don’t do that,” she said.
“Don’t do what?”
“That.”
“That what?” Felix asked, confused.
Lily growled and leaned back in her chair.