261 - Deal or No Deal

“Are you insane?” Jerry asked.

“No,” Lexie said. “It's a pretty good deal. You get something you want, and I get something I want. I think I'm being more than fair."

“You–” he suddenly looked down, realizing the hordes of press currently taking eager photographs of her. “Oh, for the love of–You get in here.”

He grabbed her by the wrist, dragging her through the window before shutting it behind her.

Lexie landed softly on the floor as he turned to eye her with a mixture of suspicion, distaste, and a hint of fear.

“What makes you think you can just come in here and start making demands?” he asked. 

“That wasn’t a demand,” Lexie said. “It was a request. A demand would be ‘Take me to the Alchemist right now, or I collapse this entire building,’ but I didn't want to start things off on such a strong note.”

“Oh, really? You didn't want to threaten me? How nice.”

“No, I did,” she admitted. “I would have if I thought it would get me what I wanted. But then you would just tell my dad or Stella, and I would get in trouble.” She shrugged. “This way, we can more comfortably keep things between us.”

His eyebrow twitched, but Lexie didn’t know if it was annoyance or amusement.

On second thought, definitely annoyance.

“Bold of you to think I wouldn’t tell him anyway,” he said, and Lexie instantly realized her mistake. Drat. Now he knew her father didn’t want her to be here. 

“Why would you?” she challenged. "I know you don’t like me, but you don’t like him either, so you don’t owe him any loyalty."

“I have daughters, young lady, one of them who's only a little older than you. If any of them ever tried to pull what you’re trying to pull behind my back, they would be grounded until they were old enough to have daughters of their own.”

“Oh.” So it was paternal concern that stopped him. She didn’t think about that, and frankly, she didn't have a solution readily available to counter it.

Sigh.

In a way, she missed Vacek. She didn’t have any affection for him, but this would have been a lot easier with him here. He was predictable in his dedication to gaining power and solving instability. He would have taken her up on the offer and figured out how to make it up to her father later.

But Jerry was different. Lexie could sense it from the moment she noticed him crying in his office. Not to mention the fact that he hadn't moved his things to Vacek's office yet.

Like he didn't quite want to accept that the other man was gone.

“And even if you weren’t underage, it's not like I would hire you anyway." He wiped his nose surreptitiously, good thing too, because there was still a booger hanging from it. "Not after the complete mess you and Vacek have made of things.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“You mean apart from completely annihilating our relationship with District 8?” he asked. “And pissing one of our closest allies in District 4?"

“I thought the battle ended and the Sultan technically won."

He scoffed. “This is why he shouldn’t have let a child get involved. Everything’s so simple to you. How could you possibly understand that decades-old conflict doesn't end with one single battle?”

“Then explain it,” Lexie said. "Let me understand. Maybe I can help.”

He shook his head, “Go home. Or I’ll have your godmother come get you.”

Lexie stayed put, crossing her arms over her chest and silently calling his bluff. She tried to get a read on him without her cards, tried to figure out how to convince him to let her see the Alchemist.

He was acting like a proper adult here, but probably if she pushed just the right buttons, he would–

He tapped his hand to his ear, interrupting the silence. 

“Yes?” he said to whoever was on the other end of the line. 

After the other person was done speaking, he responded, “Yeah, she’s here already.”

Lexie’s ear perked up. Were they talking about her or another 'she'?

Jerry’s pointed look seemed to signify that it was indeed about her.

“Alright,” he said finally, and then dropped his hand after he hung up. 

“Who was that?” Lexie asked, but Jerry didn’t respond.

Her question was answered anyway.

There was a quick knock on the door, and then Stella entered. It was the first time Lexie had seen her not in uniform.

She was dressed business casual, in a pantsuit and a pinkish-red silk blouse, looking like a high-powered executive.

Stella didn’t look at all surprised to see Lexie in the office. She looked like a mixture of frustrated and amused. 

“Lexie,” she greeted. “After our earlier conversation, I guessed this might be your first stop.”

Oh, Lexie understood now. Stella had called Jerry because she suspected that Lexie would come here after their conversation and try to get her request through him.

“What tipped you off?” Lexie asked, and Stella snorted, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and steering her out of the office.  

“So is this what you do to your dad, too?” she asked as they walked down the hall. “When he says no, you go looking for someone who’ll tell you yes?”

Lexie nodded without shame, and Stella shook her head. 

“You’re too much like your mother for your own good.”

"You look nice,” Lexie said. “Where are you going?”

“Nice pivot. I have a meeting with my PR agency. I haven’t been there in a while, and they want me to start getting ready to do a lot of interviews and speaking appearances again."

“Oh.” She remembered what Doyle had said, “That’s to fix up the association's reputation, right? After everything happened?”

“Yup. After busting our asses every single day to stop world-ending threats, somehow, we’re still the bad guys.” She said it offhandedly with not a single trace of bitterness, almost as though she expected this. As though it were her lot in life. 

Lexie felt bad. 

“I’m sorry,” Lexie said.

“It’s okay, hon. I’m used to it. What we don’t need, however, is you going around causing even more trouble.”

“Did I really mess things up in District 8?”

Stella sighed. “District 8 is a very difficult case. The relationship was always strained, but that wasn’t your fault. It was Vacek's fault for taking a gamble like that.”

“What’s happening now? Is there gonna be war? I thought the totem I stole was supposed to make everything better for you.”

“It did. But it also made things worse.”

“How?”

“If I tell you, are you going to go off on your own and try to fix it?”

Was she that obvious? “No?”

“Ha. You don’t even sound believable.” Stella materialized a few teleportation orbs in her hand and said, “Here, take these. Your dad told me you’re not supposed to strain yourself by using your powers often. You can use these to teleport when you need to.” She winked. “You should buy a bunch. You can probably afford them.”

With a hair ruffle and a salute, Stella stood there until Lexie activated the orb to take her back home.

Well, that was one mission down.

Two more to go. Duru still hadn’t responded to the request, and Lexie reached out to Doyle to ask if there was usually a delay in response.

“Sometimes,” Doyle responded. “It depends on how busy they are.”

Lexie let out a breath of frustration. Now what was she supposed to do with her time? 

Well, move to item number two.

Researching the ethical implications of human experimentation and how to alleviate them.

The automatic response was, of course, listing all the core concerns, including violation of autonomy, risk of harm, exploitation of vulnerable populations, lack of fair distribution of benefits, and the ease with which it could be used to justify cruelty.

Ways to alleviate that would be through informed consent, transparency, independent oversight, and a rigorous risk-benefit analysis, but how could she do that if she wasn't even sure what she was doing? What she was doing had only been attempted by the Alchemist, who, for all she knew, had a high fatality or injury rate before his string of successes.

That was already putting her in the red.

Of course, the Eldritch side of her told her that she shouldn’t necessarily care. No advancement was made without casualties, even those by the magnanimous Fae. People were bound ot get hurt, but more people would benefit than if she stood by and did nothing. 

And it wasn’t like she had a moral opposition to hurting innocent creatures. After all, she’d hurt a lot of them while in the dungeon. What made humans better than the trolls or gnomes or heck even the lightning zombies she’d killed?

Not everything she’d gotten rid of had been trying to kill her first. Some of them, like some of the lightning zombies, had simply been hiding from her, and Lexie had killed them for the heck of it. 

An uncomfortable feeling curdled in her gut. It wasn’t quite guilt, but it was regret.

She had been so wasteful. Needlessly cruel.

But if she were to conduct human experimentation now, she could ensure that no one got hurt unnecessarily. It would all be for a good cause. The end would more than justify the means. 

Yet, she couldn’t forget about Tate's look.

"Argh," Lexie threw herself on her bed.

Her brain swung back and forth like a tennis ball, and then she realized that she hadn’t asked Tate a very important question.

Maybe that would help give her an answer.

She bolted up from bed and headed out to his room.  

He was at his desk this time, reading. 

“No library today?” she asked him. 

He shook his head. "I have everything I need for now."

"Need for what?”

Instead of responding, he asked her, “What do you want?”

He didn't say it rudely, but there was an abruptness to his words that told her she was interrupting.

Still, she poked at him just for the heck of it. "Why do you assume I want something?”

He raised an eyebrow. Lexie pursed her lips, holding out at first, and then finally admitted, “Okay, I want something.”

“Surprise, surprise.” Tate tried and failed not to look smug. 

“Okay, I just wanted to ask kind of a heavy question,” she started. “Knowing what you know about how the Alchemist’s powers would affect your body, do you regret what you did? Would you still have made the same choice? That is, of course, also assuming that my dad couldn't craft you another body and you would remain a mundane for the rest of your life. If the Alchemist was your only choice to gain power, would you take it again?"

He chewed the inside of his cheek, staring up at the wall. He stared for so long that she almost thought he'd forgotten the question.

Then he spoke up quietly, speaking in a tone that reminded her a little of Aiden.

"There’s a beauty in acceptance of things that you can’t change.”

Lexie felt a little disappointed with the answer, even though she told herself not to be. “So that’s a no, you wouldn't have made the same choice?”

Tate shrugged. “Maybe I could have gone about it a different way, met you and Aiden earlier, and trusted that you would help shield me.

Maybe I would have just been Aiden's assistant. Like your friend Abernathy. Maybe if I hadn't been so power hungry, I would have solved my problem without needing to risk my life.”

Lxexie sighed and went over to flop herself on his bed, which had no smell. Like Tate. That was so not the answer she was looking for. 

She'd wanted him to give her permission to experiment on humans, damn it.

Now, she felt even more conflicted.

Just then, her phone dinged.

She took it out eagerly, crowing when she saw she had a response from Duru. 

D: Weapon type, use, and delivery location.

She didn't want delivery. She wanted to meet him.

Lexie: Can we meet up so I can explain what I want?

The answer was instantaneous.

D: No. If you're not a serious customer, I will disable this link.

"Shit."

"What's wrong?" Tate asked.

"I'm trying to meet up with the guy who crafts the Eldritch technology, like the one Patriot used to summon the beast at the arena. But he doesn't do meet-ups, apparently. Only delivery."

"Is it online?"

"Yeah. On the Undernet."

Tate bit his lip. "I might be able to help. Give it."

Lexie got up and handed him the phone. She saw mist form over it, and she asked, "What are you doing?"

"Trying to trace the message," he said.

"You can do that?"

"Sometimes. It depends."

Another message beeped on the screen.

D: If you don't respond with exact answers to my question in the next thirty seconds, the link will be disabled and your device blocked.

"Shoot, he says I have to respond," Lexie said.

"So respond."

Lexie thought about it. What did she really want that she couldn't get?

Lexie: I need a device that helps Eldritch stay on Earth outside of a dungeon. Not to cause harm, simply to exist, like a human would.

That likely wasn't what he expected. It took him almost three minutes to respond.

D: Why?

Lexie: I have an Eldritch friend who's in trouble. I want to bring him to Earth to stay for a few weeks, but I don't want to use traditional methods.

Another stretch of silence. Lexie wondered if this was out of his wheelhouse. Maybe he only exclusively did battle tech. But he wasn't telling her no. At least not for now.

"Just keep him talking," Tate said. "Currently, I'm getting impressions of them. Where they are. Busy marketplace. Looks a little familiar, actually."

"Okay." It seemed that Lexie was effortlessly holding him on the line anyway, since he was still thinking.

In the meantime, Xena called her other phone.

"Hey, tropical or winter?” Xena asked when Lexie answered. 

“What?”

"I’m picking the theme for our private quarters on Ronan Fae. I was thinking winter to keep the theme, but then I thought, we are gonna be on an island, so tropical makes sense. Or does it sound too cliche?"

"No, tropical sounds good." Lexie didn't like the cold.

"Okay, that's three votes for tropical. Dewie's still waiting to hear back from his parents."

"I can't believe they're coming with us. It's gonna be so weird. I wonder if their marriage counselor's coming too."

“Ha. Be nice. Dewie said they’re getting along better.”

“'Better' to Dewie means they’re not actively chucking grenades at each other.”

“Well, they’re not going to let him go without them, so what can we do?"

"In that case, maybe we should go with a winter-themed. Snowballs hurt a lot less than grenades."

Xena chuckled and then hung up. 

Lexie went back to watching Tate as he worked, wondering what was taking Duru so long to respond. The answer is probably going to be a 'no.'

She didn't know how to let Eldritch live on Earth outside of the Oath.

If Lexie herself didn't know how to bring Pvilycht here in defiance of the oath without attaching itself to her or having him stay in the dungeon, then Duru probably wouldn't know either–

D: Done. A Hundred and Fifty Thousand credits. A longer stay might accrue more credits. Untraceable transfers only.

Lexie blinked in shock.

Lexie: Wait, you really found a way? How?

D: You'll see after you pay.

Lexie: So I'm just supposed to take your word for it.

D: Yes, that's how it works. Send the money, send the general location for delivery, and I'll create a secure delivery link whose password I'll provide you with.

Lexie: How about a half payment?

D: No can do. If you're not interested, I will disable the link.

Lexie: No, I'm interested.

She had tons of money lying around. She just had to keep him on the line.

Lexie: It's just...I feel like maybe I need more in terms of assurance.

D: ...Half payment upfront, then full payment before you receive the password. Deal or no deal?

Lexie: I want to deal, it's just that I'm having doubts. How did you figure it out so quickly?

D: I see you're not a serious customer. Goodbye.

Lexie: No, wait. I'm serious. Making payment now.

Except Lexie didn't know how to make an untraceable payment. Before she could ask, Tate hissed his success.

"I got him!" Tate announced.

"Where?" Lexie asked.

"Taybal Market. District 4. Not too far from The Shatters."