Chương 186: Act 3, Chapter 40: A lesson of risk management

Day in the story: 15th January (Thursday), night-time Gertrude Monkey I heard the tear in the fabric of space as it was created when Noxy claimed the power over the night. And I saw it being stitched together anew as my vision returned to me.

The Watchdog that fell—despite being torn into two halves by my pistol's shot—was briefly trying to blindly find some sources of sight for itself, but upon failing to do so, it drew its last breath, removing the blocks it had established between the eyes and the brain that interpreted the images. I untangled myself from the thing that dragged me through the concrete toward the monster and took Noxy, removing the animation from him and placing him back in my bag.

"Penrose!" I shouted, remembering him trapped underneath the creature, prompting Thomas in the back to run toward the carcass to get him out. Only to be reminded of the wonders of magic, as my former mentor turned entirely flat—like a page in width—and literally flew like paper from below the creature, only to pop like a balloon back into his former three-dimensional self.

"Well done, Gertrude," he told me, turning around quickly to take count of all the people he had paid for, who were now standing after regaining their own sight. He quickly found their leader, with whom he had an altercation before the Watchdog stopped it. Pablo was brushing off the dust that had settled over him while he was cowering in the fucking corner.

"Look at me!" Penrose shouted, and the single note he held in his hand stretched like a rubber band toward the man, turning sharp at the other end and impaling the worthless piece of shit in the neck. Penrose dropped the banknote to the ground. It clunked against it like a metallic spear and remained looking like one, as Pablo slid downward a few inches along its length, gasping for air and desperately trying to stop the bleeding or avert the damage.

His eyes were bulging, while the nightmare in the sky brought my attention back again. Big Beholder was hit by a battery of ground-to-air missiles far from us, and as parts of it began falling to the ground, it moved its tentacles to the front. A swarm of particles moved away from them toward the source of the attack, lightened by the brilliance of white Shadowlight that connected them to the flying colossus.

"Listen to me, dogs," Penrose said, turning to the men.

"Your former leader thought he was in charge here. He was mistaken and was paid what he was due. Who among you is the next in line?" He said as Pablo stopped moving entirely.

"I don't think we have time for this, boss," Ramirez said, as he too apparently regained consciousness at some point. And he might have been right. All around us were the signs of a massacre: mutilated bodies, destroyed cars and buildings, fire raging on one of the vehicles, water sprouting from a fire hydrant, and a scene from the apocalypse in the air farther out.

"Who?" Penrose repeated the question, and one of the eight men who had managed to stand up moved ahead of the group.

"I am the only squad leader left, sir."

"What's your name?"

"Tobias Finnick, sir."

"Tobias, you are responsible for them. You have thirty seconds to check if any of those still on the ground can move with us. If they can, you force them onto their legs and we march on."

"Yes, sir!" the mercenary shouted, and without a single word his group spread out, checking on those still ground-bound.

"There are probably twelve of us left from the forty that started just—what? —forty minutes ago?" Phillip recounted, coming back closer to me, Thomas, and Ramirez.

"We don't have vehicles and are still more than halfway toward those bridges to the Mirrored City. On all counts, I should cut the losses, reorganize, and just start over from scratch, leaving all those in the hotel to die."

"I'd have done it," Thomas said.

"I know you would. I'd do it too, but the unknown factors are eating at me. Rei's torn through the note—he is, or rather was, alive when he had done so. His situation called for backup. It is dire, but maybe something we can amend with the numbers we still have, if we get there."

"Only us, sir," Tobias said, bringing his fucking ragtag team closer to us. They were smart enough to collect some of the weapons those people had left behind.

"Move out," Penrose declared, and the mercenaries divided themselves into two groups—one that stayed behind us and one out front. We matched them as we began walking at a quick pace north toward the InterContinental, which could already be seen above us in the Mirrored City.

"We could have waited for daytime," I told Phillip.

"We would have driven through like on New York's streets. I am telling you."

"That might be right, but time's running out. I've already poured too many resources into snagging that building for myself. I'd be furious to show up and find it a lost cause because I waited around for the sun to lend a hand. Looking back, this was a fool's errand from the start. I should've sent you in alone and teleported us straight to the front."

"I'd be dead as hell if I faced any of those things alone. It was you who wrecked its ability to regenerate." I pushed on his ego a little. Truthfully, maybe it would've been better if I'd gone solo—but then again, probably far more disastrous too.

"Hard to say," Thomas muttered.

"All we've got to do now is walk a few miles."

"Those 'few' can stretch a hell of a lot when you're on the building-bridge. Those things aren't just doors—they're entrances to a massive splinter, and the rules there? Totally different from Ideworld or Earth."

"Fuck," came a whispered curse from one of the men in our rear guard.

"Fuck, indeed," Penrose echoed, eyes scanning ahead. We hit an intersection just as a convoy of tanks rumbled down the street, heading toward the chaos we'd just escaped. National guard—or whatever the hell they were—decided to join the party against those eldritch horrors. A few helicopters hovered above: police, army, and even a news chopper peeking in for the scoop.

"You think this is why Yamashiro called for help in the first place?" Ramirez asked, eyes tracing the city suspended above us. It didn't show a scratch of damage, so hopefully that wasn't it.

"We'll know when we get there," Thomas replied. Meanwhile, my gaze flicked to Elle. She seemed fine, all things considered, despite me having borrowed a piece of her brain for a while. Her so-called reptile brain had kept the essentials running—breathing, heartbeat, survival—while I hijacked the higher functions.

"You can embody money, the way Lebens do with food, right?" I asked Phillip after a few minutes of walking. The city around us was eerily normal—people either glued to their phones, tracking the news, or giving us a wide berth as we marched past with our numbers and weapons.

"Curiosity killed the cat, Gertrude," he replied, almost lazily.

"You're playing that card now? Seriously? If I wanted you dead—truly dead—I could have left you there against that creature," or teleported you somewhere you couldn't escape. The point still stood. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Embodiment is one of the soulmarks I possess, yes," he replied, confirming my suspicions.

"Neat. Though value manipulation? That's just stupidly amazing."

"It is," he said, but the edge in his tone hinted there was a catch.

"Can you combine the two?" I asked.

"Make the coin weightless and take on that trait?" Curiosity rose within me, so I pressed one more question.

"I'm afraid, my dear Gertrude, that this will remain a secret for as long as I deem necessary." His answer felt like both a confirmation and a subtle warning. Surviving the watchdog attack had been possible for him, though the loss of sight was crippling. If he had a way to endure that, perhaps escaping from the ocean's depths wasn't impossible either. If I ever needed to remove him for good, it would have to be a way that denied him any direct access to money.

"You're already planning contingencies in case you face me," he noted.

"Yes," I said plainly.

"I don't want to, but it would be reckless to let you do whatever you want without a fallback."

"I don't like this division between you two," Thomas interjected.

"I preferred when we were one team."

"Is that so?" Penrose countered.

"Do you know that our dear Gertrude negotiated your independence from me for the task she's handling right now?"

"Yes, unfortunately she told me. Not my idea, sir."

"Oh, I know, Thomas. I know you both well enough to understand that." Thomas exhaled, a breath he'd been holding tight, weighed down by what I previously told him.

"I still consider us one team, though. Otherwise, I'd be tearing through the Domain of Artistic Creation to get that necklace. Since we're on the topic of sharing… would you care to disclose if you still have it?"

"Tucked away tightly, where no one will ever find it. Didn't think you were still interested."

"I'm not. Not really," he lied.

"I understand the value of specialization. I'd rather master my own Domain first before branching out. I assume you're doing the same? Or have you already used it?" His question was interrupted as a mercenary at the front halted abruptly, raising a closed hand. We all ducked instinctively, flattening ourselves against the wall.

"There is something big coming," he whispered. Cars tore around the corner ahead of us, engines screaming as they tried their best to outrun whatever was behind them, but we stood patiently without moving a single muscle. People followed the vehicles in their attempt at an escape—stumbling, falling, dragging one another along the pavement in blind panic. No one looked back for long. Whatever they had seen behind them had convinced them that witnessing it twice would be a mistake. Then the thing itself appeared.

It slid into view from the cross street with a silence that felt so fucking unnatural for something so vast. A shape that should have roared, groaned, crushed the air beneath its own weight—yet it moved in a complete silence that defied the common logic. It made me grit my teeth in anticipation. It towered over the street, easily the height of a four-story building. At first glance it resembled a skeleton.

Its bones were metallic pipes twisted into obscene geometry, girders bent into ribs, rails torn from train tracks and fused into a spine. Entire fragments of vehicles clung to it—half a bus dangling from a shoulder joint, a crushed sedan embedded in its torso. Chunks of asphalt and broken pavement hung between its limbs. Its movements were just bloody wrong. Limbs folded and extended at angles that ignored the limits of joints.

Each step rearranged its structure slightly, metal grinding and reassembling in slow shifts, as if the monster was continually rebuilding itself instead of moving. When its head turned, a gaping structure unfolded from the upper mass of pipes, opening into a colossal maw formed from bent steel beams and the jagged remains of railings and street signs.

In one vast, careless sweep of its arm made from lampposts, axles, and entire segments of guardrails—it gathered several screaming Shadows from the street and dropped them into that impossible mouth. Their screams echoed briefly. Then they stopped. The creature turned into our street. Two enormous headlights where eyes should have been—great circular lamps torn from the fronts of trucks or trains—swept across the buildings like searchlights.

For a moment that light washed over everything, then the monster's hand rose and pressed against the side of a nearby building. Fingers formed from twisted scaffolding closed slowly. The structure crunched and concrete shattered. Windows burst outward. Debris rained down onto the pavement in a form of dust and falling brick. The colossus continued forward, uninterested. Each enormous step carried it farther down the street, the headlights shrank with distance, fading into the dark maze of streets ahead.

Penrose and I were the first to peel away from the wall, just as police cars tore through the intersection, chasing after the giant. Thomas followed next, along with the men Phillip hired, and Ramirez finally started moving once he realized he was the last one still standing there.

"I bet that thing wouldn't be here in daylight," I said to them. Still, my thoughts drifted to Shadow Sophie, who claimed it was relatively safe to live in a city. Maybe that was true if you could wake up again after dying to something like the creature that had just passed us. Maybe then the world did feel safe enough. Personally, I'd rather face things like that from as far away as possible.

"I recollect that a question I asked was left unanswered, dear," Phillip said, forcing me to borrow the help of an external brain to remind myself what he meant.

"No, I did not use it yet, and I am not planning to anytime soon," I replied plainly reminded by artificial mind.

"I don't want to risk other Domains influencing who I am."

"Is that what happens in the case of the necklace as well?" Penrose asked.

"I have no idea, but that is my assumption."

"Assumptions are dangerous things." Phillip turned to me, his eyes appraising.

"In the case of Ideworld, we're left with nothing but them and half-baked theories from people who certainly didn't try too fucking hard to get it right."

"Can you be less provocative, Gertrude?" Thomas cut in again, which only made Penrose smile.

"I'm not," I answered.

"It is what it is. Ideworld is a fucking mystery. Even that giant. It moved by constantly rebuilding itself, and it made no sound. What the hell?"

"I see your point," Penrose replied.

"There's no real difference between that and what I've been doing most of my life, though. It all reduces to a simple thing I call risk management."

"Care to explain how to manage risk you know nothing about?"

"That's only a problem if you treat everything like business. People in suits follow one approach to it, acting as if it's purely a math problem. That works within a narrow frame where you have references to rely on. But out there on the street, and definitely out here, where the unknown is everywhere, risk stops being something you calculate. It becomes something you move. So next time something unexpected happens, don't just ask how to make it safe. Most of the time that's the wrong question.

Ask yourself who should be standing closest to the explosion instead, and how that might benefit you." He laid out his thought process. He had never explained it this plainly before, but he never really had to. The idea was buried in his other lessons, something ingrained in Alexa and, through her, in me. Something we relied on without thinking too much about it.

"It's exactly what you did when you turned EoT against me," he added.

"Yes, but I fail to see how it applies to anything we did today, Phillip." He was getting better at not wincing when I said his name like that.

"You're putting yourself at risk of dying just to reach this hotel. Hell, you let me use you to finish the watchdog."

"That's the unfortunate truth of life, Gertrude. Sometimes you have to get your own hands dirty, no matter how good a manager you are. Whether it's a calculation meant to minimize a threat, or a matter of what I'd call danger logistics." I took that answer as deflection. Misdirection. He was here because he was sure he couldn't be killed easily. Something in his powers made him feel that way. And I would have to figure out what it was.

"So all those people who died today, they were the 'insteads' you used to move the risk to?"

"No, of course not." He said it louder, making sure the rest of the mercenaries heard him.

"That would be cruel on my part. I really planned on having a smooth drive through the city, but sometimes even the simplest chain of events, ones that could be accounted for, end in spectacular calamity. It's not like I pushed any of these people to their deaths either. On the contrary, my dear, I fought to keep them safe whenever I could. I managed the risk for them, placing it onto myself and you. That's what a good leader does.

Knowing when to become the shield, and when to be the one who demands sacrifice while carrying out a grander vision."

"Meh," I replied.

"Excuse me?" He widened his eyes, stroking his silver beard. We were passing a large group of people in such a hurry to get somewhere that they didn't even notice we were armed to the teeth.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just meh. I think this relocation of a threat thing is just another form of calculation made on the spot. You see an opportunity to make something better or easier for yourself, and you take it. There's no need to dress it up as something greater."

"I am disappointed, my dear. You of all people should understand the benefit of appearances, and how the things we do and say, and the way we do and say them, are of paramount importance." Alexa would. But in this body I was someone else, however ironic that might be.

"Sir," one of the mercenaries in the front called out, breaking our dispute.

"We're at the midpoint. Should we proceed into the building?" He gestured toward the bridge stretching all the way into the Mirrored City above.

"No, not in. We are going onto it," Penrose replied.