Double Life

The snow keeps falling around us as Alley and I watch in silence while the paramedics wheel an unconscious Delinquent away on a stretcher. Alley folds her arms nervously around herself, both out of the cold and highly strung nerves, eager to retreat back into the building and to her tiny kingdom in the administrative wing. But morbid curiosity keeps her standing beside me at the entrance of the main building, eyeballing the paramedics hurriedly loading Delinquent into the ambulance before firing up the sirens and racing out of the campus.

"I hope Ken will be fine." Alley mutters to herself unhappily.

"He's not." I remark flatly, "I was listening in to the school nurse when she was talking to the paramedics. They were talking about his windpipe sealing shut thanks to the convulsions caused by the seizure."

Alley scowls in return as she turns around and heads back into the building, "They've got him on an oxygen tank now. Ken's still alive."

"Sure he is. As a retard." I clarify keeping pace with her, "His brain was suffocating while the paramedics were on their way here. Its a lifetime of drooling and staring emptily into space for our Delinquent."

On the other side of the coin, Delinquent is not going to be graduating, ever. Meaning his family will never cut him off as he had feared. Say what you like, but the servant certainly has a sense of irony. Delinquent suffered the end reserved for cannon fodder that had outlived its usefulness.

Come to think of it, which would had been better for Delinquent? The ironic conclusion the servant brought about or the vanilla bad end that most cannon fodder receive? It might seem a flippant question, but I am honestly flummoxed by the implications. In the normal course of things, Delinquent would have been worn away by the world, gradually sinking into the detritus of society like cannon fodder does, until he becomes a beggar or a bum or something similar. Now, he will be waited upon hand and foot for the rest of his life.

As a retard, sure, but you got to take the bad with the good, you know?

Alley stops suddenly with an aghast look on her face. She seized me by the arm with both hands and squeezes tightly, breaking my train of thought.

"Who is going to explain this to the Matsuis?" Alley hisses, close to panic, "How is the Academy going to tell them that the former heir is now retarded?"

Retardo the retarded retard. My mind plays this little ditty as Alley blathers on about retarded people. I lose my composure and begin giggling uncontrollably.

"Its serious!" Alley screeches in my ear, "Everyone saw us lead Ken away during the morning assembly. The Academy will point the Matsuis straight at our direction!"

"So what?" I shrug, "You work for me and I work with ORPO. Ken said it himself, his family wants to suck up to ORPO now. You think they have the time to stand up for Mr Retardo?"

Alley calms down somewhat at my explanation, but suddenly jumps at the implications of what I said.

"I am not working for you." Alley pronounces defiantly, arms folded across her chest, "We are through. No more. Clear?"

"OK." I agree, "Have fun dealing with the Matsuis. By yourself."

Is this the hand of destiny at work? Alley still owes The Voice, so destiny is forcing her into a position where she needs to assist in the quest? How insidious. Alley sighs as she begins to deflate like a damaged tire. Her expression loses all appearance of vigor as it quickly grows flaccid and waxy. Alley really got the message fast this time. Delinquent was cut short while spilling the beans, but he held out long enough to give me a name. A name that the Head of Administration can track.

"Celeste." I tell Alley, "I need you to dig through your records for any reference for such a student."

Alley nods despondently and we head back to her private office in silence.

....

"Transmigrator, I have already run a search through the Academy's records while you were attending to Mr Matsui." The Voice rasps as Alley busies herself behind her computer and begins typing out commands, "There is no such student attending classes at the Academy. This line of inquiry is a dead end."

Alley looks over the monitor and informs me, "I think I have it. There's a Celeste that is in the same year as Ken and Tensei. She's their class representative."

The Voice makes an embarrassed noise as it rumbles in confusion. This confirms it, the records and information regarding the servant do exist. The Voice simply cannot see it. An effect of the servant's power to create Voice-free zones most likely. The printer connected to Alley's computer spools to life and spits out a set of freshly printed documents which she hands to me.

A quick glance tells me these are the Academy's records to a student identified as Celeste Alakahonie. The photo provided as part of the file displays an unexceptional girl with blue hair and an earnest expression on her face. When I say unexceptional, I don't mean that this Celeste is bad looking, on the contrary, she easily qualifies as cute or pretty. Its just that she has this generic quality about her, lacking the presence Big Tits has or the truly striking beauty of the Heroines. Its an inoffensive but forgettable kind of attractiveness I suppose. Any man would say she's hot, but no guy would describe her as their dream girl.

Kind of like the Bitch at the office back home now that I think about it. How is she and Wonder Boy getting on these days?

Forget about them, I've got larger problems to deal with right now. I start scanning through the records and begin absorbing the salient points. Celeste Alakahonie, human-angel mixed race, good grades overall but zero magical aptitude. Just like Gallant. So that explains why the servant has been hiding away all this time. She would get a face broken in any direct confrontation with me. The servant's only available powers would be the unique abilities she inherited from her ancestor.

Father's an executive veep of a multinational, currently staying in Mumbai II with the mother on work. Celeste got into the Academy as a rich kid then. Brief description of the parents, contact number in case of emergency, blah blah blah.

Hold on.

"Are you sure this is right?" I ask Alley, holding up the page I'm reading.

Alley looks bemused as she answers, "Yes? I don't see why not?"

"The record shows the Mr and Mrs Alakahonie as one hundred percent human." I say, "But their daughter is mixed race. There's obviously a problem."

Alley scans the monitor one more time upon hearing my objection before finally declaring, "There are no amendments to the record that I can see. As far as the Academy is concerned, the information is correct."

I stay silent and keep reading. Celeste's address is listed as the Academy dorms, but there's a note, stating that she does not actually live there and that its only a mailing address. The reason for that is because her parents rented her a room on campus and the tenancy has not yet expired.

I have some answers now, but hardly enough.

....

The sea breeze whips across my face as I lean against the SUV while idly sipping a beer. I am back at the slip road by the side of the coastal highway, just above The City's sewerage outlet. In the distance, I see a large luxury yacht that resembles a warship more than a civilian vessel at rest, exuding a gentle halo from the lights illuminating its interior. A single red signal lantern mounted on the yacht's exterior blinks hypnotically as the full moon gazes down in silence. Who has the money to buy something that ostentatious?

STANDART. The words are painted in large bold letters on the yacht's side. Look, there's nothing standard about that vessel. Or maybe its meant to say that the yacht's sets standards? Or perhaps the ship itself is a standard bearer. Who knows.

"I followed your suggestion Transmigrator," The Voice cuts in, "and performed a search not on the name 'Celeste' but on her personal details that you dictated to me."

"You got a result?" I ask while chucking the empty beer can into the sea.

"Yes." The Voice confirms, "A very unusual one at that. I still could not find a 'Celeste Alakahonie' but I managed to track down a 'Celeste Chanellor' instead, who shares the exact same birthday, eye color and blood type as the Celeste in Unity Academy."

The Voice continues, "The information I received also indicates that Paul Chanellor, the girl's father, was a Host veteran of the Millennium War. The mother, Liza Chanellor is human."

"An adoption case?" I muse, "The Academy's file should have at least mentioned that. Why was this adoption omitted from the record?"

"It gets even stranger." The Voice rumbles, "Paul Chanellor had been working as a builder and Liza a clerk. Their financial position was best described as precarious. Celeste Chanellor was in no position to enter Unity Academy. Then there's the information blackout I ran into."

"Information blackout?" I query, "Like the way you cannot see Celeste Alakahonie's records?"

"Yes." The Voice confirms, "There appears to be a cut off date to all information relating to Celeste Chanellor. Once that date is passed, I cannot find any further information regarding her or the parents."

"More proof that this Celeste is the servant." I note.

The Voice concurs, "Agreed. My theory is that the cut off date is when the servant awakened her powers. She first obscured her activities and then changed her identity after I had been blinded."

I swallow hard, "Hey, you think the servant offed her real parents to upgrade and hide her tracks from you?"

"Actually no." The Voice surprisingly denies that possibility, "If the servant had her original parents killed, I would be able to track them, since their corpses would fall under my dominion. As a matter of fact, I am confident that whatever happened to the parents, they are most certainly alive."

"She could have stashed the bodies in one of Fate's places of power." I suggest.

The Voice hums, "Its possible, but remote. There is also another issue that requires our attention. The protection from the servant's power that you requested."

"I need a sample from the servant herself before I can complete the work."