Chapter 120

Alvin spent the whole morning running around the Eastern Borough. It wasn't difficult to stage a strike in any given factory. The workers were not treated very well, and there was plenty of people dissatisfied with the working conditions, pay, lack of job security, etc. He just had to find out the charismatic defacto leaders of the bunch, bribe them, and then find some of the more influential and long time workers, bribe them, and then find the more radical and violent workers, and bribe them also. If they decided to go on a strike, the others in the factory would also go on a strike, because those people had influence, however limited. If they did not give in to the demands and stage a strike, the three types of people could make their lives miserable.

But in the same way, if the strike went on too long, or the strike was finally called off, these kinds of people would usually get off scot-free, as they had savings to tide through the strike, and their skills and knowledge were more essential to the factory than the unskilled labour of the rest of the workers.

But for this time, he specifically insisted that the strike was only for one day, and considering that the Machinery Hiveminds were also responsible for organising the strike, the people were probably not going to be punished. And based on the missions he had previously been to, he was not optimistic about the factory surviving the fight.

He had already gotten the money from the Machinery Hiveminds, and had used his connections and Frank's help to find the job. The Tintin factory's workers were officially going on a strike. To prevent suspicion, he had a couple of newspapers that would roll out early in the morning the next day report news of the strike.

The preparations for the next day on this part was already completed. So he was rather free for the rest of the day. Hence, Alvin decided to investigate the young girl who could see the ghostly green flames at the scene of the explosion the previous day.

He was quite sure that she was a Beyonder, but the fact that she was unable to restrain her facial expression when he spoke about the ghostly green flames meant that she was still new to the Beyonder's world.

Alvin, who was building a force of his own, was interested in recruiting such wild Beyonders. Plus, the fact that she became a Beyonder meant that she had some sort of adventure. It may be a teacher, ancient ruins, or some sort of sort of stash she found. Either way, she probably could not fully exploit whatever she found. Alvin wasn't above helping himself to those things.

He noticed a few people she seemed close to whom she recognised, so he easily found her identity after a while. The girl was Isabella, the only daughter of a goldsmith who had a shop in the area. Her mother passed away due to complications of childbirth and she was raised by her father ever since. The family of three, including her elder brother had moved into Backlund a few months ago. The elder brother went missing around 2 months ago, and had not been found until now, despite the police being involved, and the father spending a small fortune on bounty hunters. He was spotted in the East Borough by some bounty hunters, so the prevailing theory was that he got into trouble with some gangs and was killed there.

He also managed to find her address.

Alvin wore the Forgotten Cloak for stealth as he visited her house. He first stood a distance away and observed. After confirming the lack of danger via a divination he walked towards the house.

The door was closed, but Alvin easily saw an open balcony on the second floor of the house and jumped in. He had entered the room of Isabella, apparent by the decorations and clothes all around. He did a basic search for any kind of Beyonder items, but found none.

He then walked out of her room, and looked around. There was another room adjacent to the room he had just come out of, but when he pushed it open, it was locked.

Not wanting to pick the lock, he went back outside and climbed up the balcony to the other room.

As Alvin went inside, he frowned.

He assumed that this would have been the missing brother's room. Thus, he expected a typical boys room in terms of decoration and other stuff. He also expected that the place would be covered in dust, having not been lived in for two months.

But this room was strange. While it looked like a room that belonged to a boy, there were things he would expect to find in a girl's room in there. Also, there were clothes belonging to a girl in here.

And there were traces of someone having lived in the room in the past few days. Alvin carefully looked around, but did not find any clues. He then turned around, and reentered the house from the other balcony.

When he walked downstairs, both Isabella and her father were sitting in the living room, reading. Since the explosion, most people who had businesses nearby had packed up their wares and taken a small break. Business owners typically had some savings, and thus could afford to temporarily shut down.

Alvin took out the Dream World Hat and put it on. As soon as he exerted its powers, both the father and daughter fell asleep.

He first entered the dream of the father. After a while, he exited, having gotten the information he needed. He was not a Beyonder or related to Beyonders in any way. He indeed came to Backlund a few months ago, after having been successful in his previous town. The only new information he found was that the man had another daughter called Sophia, who was also missing.

Alvin then turned to Isabella and used the Dream World Hat to enter her dreams.