It had been a morning of many things already, and I'd been distracted trying to set up a more permanent pathway to some of our holdings, when I heard from the Duke:
[11:46] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): Hello!
[11:46] Hiro Shatner-Orr (hiro.shatner): smiles
[11:46] Hiro Shatner-Orr (hiro.shatner): OMG....we have had a accident duchess...in the Sphinx Library...
[11:48] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): Well, foo--I'll be right over.
[11:48] Hiro Shatner-Orr (hiro.shatner): no worries...
What on earth...on any earth...had happened??
[11:49] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): Oh no
[11:51] Hiro Shatner-Orr (hiro.shatner): well [11:51] Hiro Shatner-Orr (hiro.shatner): the death ray demo didnt go so well [11:51] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): I...see....
I could see. There was a lot of damage in that room...
[11:51] Hiro Shatner-Orr (hiro.shatner): the rocker girls and the tesla bots are doing clean up
[11:51] Hiro Shatner-Orr (hiro.shatner): they put a force field around the incident...
[11:52] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): Well, good!
All those draped bodies. So still. Blood on Gearhaven ground. How did this happen?
[11:52] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): How many did we lose?
[11:52] Hiro Shatner-Orr (hiro.shatner): uh...
[11:52] Hiro Shatner-Orr (hiro.shatner): no GH staff...
[11:52] Hiro Shatner-Orr (hiro.shatner): but...
[11:52] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): I count five, but....that's a LOT of discharge
[11:53] Hiro Shatner-Orr (hiro.shatner): five clients...
[11:53] Hiro Shatner-Orr (hiro.shatner): sit and talk for a minute?
[11:53] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): CLIENTS? Oh no!
We found seats in one of the library chairs behind us, and he explained he'd been commissioned to build a death ray for...someone. He wouldn't say who. He wouldn't meet my eyes.
I looked through the field at the repair bots. Heard the crackle of discharge, smelled the ozone on the air. I looked back at the Duke.
"So...this was a commission?" He nodded. "And then--?"
He sighed. "I was called away. Someone at the gates who shouldn't have been there. I went to check and--I heard an explosion."
Hours later, I returned to the library, having seen the debris being carried off, the investigators processing the bodies, all the official questions and answers and paperwork necessary for the passing of a being...or a concept. All that was left now was that odd splash of old blood, burnt into the wood of the floor. And more questions than answers.
And how did all this tie in with the witch bomb I'd seen earlier, being floated up from the labs to the Grey Area?
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