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“Unless they’d infiltrated the Councils,” Felix says. “Which is what Leal claimed. He even—”
“Can I get the notes so I can read them myself?” I glance at the door. “You’re in a rush, remember?”
“Right.” Felix disappears into his room and comes back with the dreamwalker’s antiquated comms.
I take out my own shiny new model and my local phone. “Send them to one of these, please.”
Felix snatches my new comms out of my hands and examines them with the excitement males usually save for the female form.
Maya scowls at me.
“Where are the glasses for this thing?” Felix asks. “And the gloves?”
I explain about the invisible headphones, the contacts, and the nails. Felix looks so enthralled I half expect him to have an orgasm, while Maya’s scowl grows into a death glare.
“I think I’m going to get these once we find Itzel’s grandfather,” Felix whispers reverently.
I blow out an exasperated breath. “Do what you wish. But send me the files now, okay?”
“Oh, right.” He shoots both devices with an arc of his technomancer energy. “Done.”
I turn on my VR and see a new message with an attachment. I open it to find many pages of text.
Fine. I’ll read this when I have more time.
Maya possessively grabs Felix’s elbow. “We’d better go.”
“Good idea,” I say. “I’ll get in touch with you through Itzel once I’m back on Gomorrah and have a free moment.”
As Ariel and the others put on their shoes, I double-check when I need to meet Valerian and do the math on how long it’ll take to get to his company’s offices.
I have about an hour to kill.
“Can I hang out with Fluffster here?” I ask Felix and Ariel.
“Of course,” Ariel says and hugs me without warning.
Before I can recover from her hug, Kit does it to me as well.
Maya coldly waves goodbye, and Felix cautiously shakes my hand.
I wait until they exit, then run to the bathroom to sterilize myself with soap and hand sanitizer. Feeling as clean as is possible without hygieia, I return to the living room and chat with Fluffster until it’s time for me to leave.
One day you should come when I’m sleeping, the domovoi tells me as I head for the door. I’m curious to experience your powers.
“Deal.” Unable to resist, I pet his heavenly fur. “See you later.”
Chapter Seven
In the cab, I sanitize the hand that touched Fluffster’s fur and open Leal’s journal.
Oh boy. There’s a lot of boring stuff here—experiments on his poor birds and pages upon pages of stream of consciousness on mundane issues, including such gross bits as records of his bowel movements.
I search for Soma as a keyword and find nothing, just as Felix warned me.
Disappointed, I settle in and just read. Eventually, I come across what Felix mentioned—paranoid-sounding ramblings about a secret society.
They worship Phobetor, the lord of nightmares. They think him a god. Does he exist? If so, what is he? Could he be a creature that is to Cognizant what we are to humans?
I try to parse that paragraph:
There are worlds where we, the Cognizant, are worshipped as gods. In fact, this happened in the distant past of Earth too. For example, Loki, the god of mischief, was a famous probability manipulator. But what would it mean for some being to be a god to us Cognizant?
The cab stops next to a shiny building, interrupting my musings.
I ride to the top floor, where a large “Bale Inc” plaque proudly announces the name of the company, and approach the front desk.
“Mr. Bale, your guest is here to see you,” the receptionist announces into her phone.
Valerian comes out wearing another bespoke suit. Puck, he looks good in it. Like, cover-of-fashion-magazine kind of good.
Oh, and he must be the Mr. Bale she was referring to. That’s why the company is Bale Inc.
Huh. So if I married Valerian and followed the antiquated coverture custom of taking the husband’s last name, I’d be Bailey Bale.
Not sure how I feel about that.
“Where’s the technomancer?” Valerian looks around as if Felix could be hiding in a corner somewhere.
“Turns out he has another commitment.” I put my hands in a praying position. “Please don’t renege on the deal.”
He sighs. “How about you join us in the meeting room?”
I follow him into a big, glass-encased space where two other men are waiting at a glass conference table. One I already know, I realize—a mustachioed guy who looks like the video game character Mario, but with a scar on his forehead.
It’s Bernard, the human Valerian commissioned me to “inspire” in his dreams. It’s the job Valerian paid me that nice bonus for—as he should have, now that I’m thinking about it. Not only was I busted by the New York Council while doing it, but the job itself was quite complex due to Bernard’s endless trauma loops. The poor guy lost a child to a monster, then himself became monstrous in his revenge.
