Chương 216: Act 3, Chapter 65: Money-made star

Day in the story:??? It better not be two weeks after we got here Gertrude Monkey"I am not a fool, Alexa. I know that you are planning on killing me because of my safety measures," Penrose said. We were walking for the sake of moving forward. First, to avoid the coldness of an eldritch being forcing us to move, and second, because we knew it was a way to reach the lobby and the reception, sooner or later. He was also, of course, very right about my thoughts.

"You are a fool," I answered, overcoming the difficulty. I realized now why I had given up and let my memories fade. For as long as I resisted that cold, prying touch that wanted to meddle with my mind, my Authority was evaporating. I had been trying to conserve enough energy to be able to move. I wondered how many cycles had gone like this to get us to this point, and whether he had already told me about his transgressions against me, and I had simply forgotten.

"I do think about it, and I will do it if any one of those people is hurt," I whispered back, as my breath was hard to steady.

"So if you are afraid of me, you better kill me now."

"I will not do such a thing. My head's been fuzzy and my thoughts unclear, but that missing clarity is coming back to me now. You might not believe this, but even that retaliation against the people you hold dear was something I made for you, rather than against you."

"Are you joking?" I answered. Ramirez stopped briefly upon hearing that, probably turning to see his boss's reaction, but he soon resumed pushing me forward. I kept my eyes closed to minimize the energy I needed to function.

"Fear guided me in that decision. Fear for your safety. With me gone from the world, and friendship or love, however you want to call it, weighing you down, you would become weak. You know it just as well as I do."

"I… don't need your… protection." I coughed at the end, blood landing in front of me on the floor. Not a good sign.

"It's something I set up some time ago, and I still believe it's the right path."

"Why? Why do you even bother?" I asked him.

"What is the meaning of this question, Alexandra?"

"Why are you afraid that I would be unsafe? You—" another cough interrupted me.

"—try to show me that love or friendship is a liability. What guides you, then? Why do you care about me?" I asked, and the silence that followed was unbearable. It lasted so long I began to wonder if I had lost my hearing, or my ability to speak, and had only thought the question instead of saying it aloud. Finally, though, Thomas stepped in as my savior.

"That's a good question, sir. Worth an answer."

"And I am looking for a proper one," Penrose replied. Sophie. Peter. Danger. I tried sending it through again.

"Some questions are profound in their simplicity, and difficult to meet with a proper answer. This is one of those for me, so I've begun to wonder… why are you even still alive, Alexandra?"

"What do you mean, sir?" Thomas asked again. There were voices ahead of us. Muffled steps of people in slippers moving through. Families with children, looking for something fun to do. Something one could find in a hotel very unlike this on a normal day.

"The first time she betrayed me, the way she had, with a deliberate action against my wishes, I should have been done with her. I would have been with anyone. You know this best, Thomas."

"Yes," both he and Ramirez answered in unison. I thought it too, if I was being honest.

"And yet, she lived. Then she attacked you and maimed Rei, and for that, all I took was an eye from good Peter. Hardly a proper repayment."

"I'd beg to differ," I replied, with a dry breath.

"You have every right to, because apparently love can add substantial value to something seemingly worthless."

"Is this about Pete or me?"

"More about him, because with you there is still value in keeping you around. Well, there was when you were still… functional. And yet the risk, in a fair assessment, far outweighed it for me. So why do I keep you around?"

"Go to a shrink, for what I… care."

"I saw you, you know," he continued.

"In the sky of the Domain I had taken, there were two faces made of stars. One of my Mikey, and the second of you. Ever-shifting to fit the character you played, but unmistakably yours." He paused. Maybe he expected something from me, but I wasn't going to give him anything. He was an actor, and a good one. He could fake feelings better than a person with real ones ever could.

"Maybe I have indeed misplaced my feelings too," he finished when he realized he would not get a response. After that declaration, none of our small group dared to speak. We moved through the current of other occupants of this hotel, all of us silent, until we finally reached the lobby, with its monuments of people on pedestals. I had felt them getting closer for quite a while.

"Get me closer to those statues, Ramirez. Please," I told him, and he pushed me closer to one of them. I reached for it within my aura, my soul extending along the thread that connected us, pulling back whatever had been given from me with a quick snap. I took a sudden, deep breath.

"Finally," I exhaled, unbothered by the pressure that had been pressing onto my chest as it dissipated.

"Go to the next one. Bring me, one by one, to all of them, if you will." A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Of course," he replied. The best driver on Penrose's payroll was now the chauffeur of my wheelchair— not the worst deal. The next one brought back feeling in my arms, up to the elbows. The ones after that gave me my whole upper body, stomach, pelvis… and of course, my back. The final ones made me realize just how much I had missed being able to wiggle my toes, how little Authority it actually took for me to move, and how close I had been to simply ceasing to exist in this body.

I stood up from the wheelchair and lost my balance for a moment. My legs weren't used to holding my weight anymore. Thomas caught me and helped me straighten up.

"I need a piece of paper," I said, "and something to write with."

"Are you going to paint something magical?" Ramirez asked, while Thomas simply walked off toward the front desk to get what I needed.

"No. I need to tell you what's going on here in a way that won't bring whatever passes for security in this place down on us. It can't be spoken. That's for sure. The last time we tried, you all lost your memories, and I'm still fighting to keep mine, even now."

"Fight with whom?" Penrose asked. I made a gesture of zipping my mouth shut.

"You and I need to settle this, old man. I need you, I know that, and I think you need me, but hopefully that won't always be the case. And maybe you really did all of this because of some misguided love, but I can't believe that. I'm sure the only person you love, in this world or any other, is yourself. Funny, isn't it? You had thrust your own Shadow into a soul core, never even knowing the face of your true love."

"That's enough, Gertrude," he said.

"My tolerance has its limits."" Does it? Really? Is that something you want to teach me? That I should have limits too? That I should deal with those who push me there and force my hand?" He didn't answer that, but he spoke anyway.

"You're drawing Authority from those figures. Why? Is the lack of it, what kept you paralyzed?" Now it was my turn to stay quiet. I didn't want him figuring out that I was just a Persona, pretending to be real, running on a finite supply.

"I don't know why, but something latched onto me and drains me faster than it does you when you fight it. My soul is at its end, wrung out to the last drops, stretched to the limit. So even those tiny bits help."

"Here you go," Thomas said, handing me a ballpen and a notebook.

"Thanks, big guy," I said, sitting down on a sofa. I opened the notebook, rolled it to the first page, and wrote in large letters that mouths had to stay shut. No speaking about what was written on the next pages. Then I turned it around and wrote that there was no exit from this place, and that even the idea of leaving was being erased from our minds. Cold began creeping in again as I sat there. Whatever kept us here didn't like this. Not one bit.

"You saw that?" Ramirez asked, making me turn my head. I hated that I didn't have enough Authority left to make the tattoos work.

"What?" Thomas asked, looking at a part of the ceiling Ramirez had pointed out.

"Some shadow moved there, strangely. And by shadow, I mean a bloody literal one, not a person from Ideworld." That made Penrose look up as well.

"Rei!" he shouted, drawing every eye in the room toward us.

"Yamashiro! Come back down to us!" he added, not caring at all about the scene he was making. I, on the other hand, finished the third page. It stated that we should prepare a trap and stop moving entirely, ignoring the cold and the unease, until whatever fed on it came for us.

"Is it really him?" Ramirez asked.

"Could be," Penrose replied.

"He learned how to hide in shadows some time ago, and he could always force them to move. Maybe he figured out how to combine the two. But this place made him forget."

"Can't see that flicker anymore," Thomas said.

"Whatever," I said, handing the notebook to Phillip first.

"You can have your reunion later. Read this in your head and pass it along. The first person who reads it aloud gets a bullet to the head."

"That's going to be hard, considering we don't have any guns," Thomas said. Penrose nodded at the third page, then glanced around as if expecting something to strike. When nothing did, he passed the notebook to Thomas. I moved toward the counter.

"That, I can partially fix," I said.

"Hello," I greeted the clerk, cutting the line. No one protested. I was fairly sure most, if not all, of the people here were just projections made by the hotel itself. A puppet show, meant for people like us.

"My name is Gertrude Monkey. I left my bag here for safekeeping. I'd like it back now."

"Of course, Miss Monkey," he replied, reaching under the desk. As he turned, his form flattened almost completely from one angle. A strange shadow, indeed.

"How long have you been working here?" I asked.

"For as long as I can remember, miss," he said, handing me the bag.

"I can believe that." I took it from him.

"Isn't it cold for you, standing there all day?"

"No, not at all, miss." I left without another word. If he didn't feel the cold that came with stillness, he wasn't human. Not even a human shadow. When I returned, the others had finished reading and were already discussing the threat.

"Do we even know what to expect?" Ramirez asked.

"People? Monsters? The walls closing in? What? How do we prepare a trap for something we don't even understand?"

"Good questions," Penrose said. I was already thinking ahead, though, looking at the statues around us.

"Listen, Phillip." He didn't like being called that, but he let it go.

"Are you able to change any value of money? Like anything at all?"

"Maybe," he said.

"What do you have in mind, Gertrude?"

"I need Authority to function properly for whatever reason, and I can already feel my strength leaving my body after my brief rejuvenation."

"How can money help with that? I can't buy you that, you know it."

"Give me four banknotes," I asked, and he pulled a roll from his pocket and handed me what I needed. I placed them one over another in a knot-like overlapping pattern, forming a perfect square, then started folding them carefully until they took the shape of a spider—a form so ingrained in my mind, after Alexa's countless trials and errors, that I could do it with my eyes closed by now.

"This is art," I told him, and an invisible link of shadowlight appeared between me and the origami. I immediately felt dizzy because of it and fell. Ramirez helped me back onto my feet, but I pointed to the wheelchair again, and he guided me into it. I reached within my aura for that piece of art and sent just a tiny bit more Authority into it with a simple Animation order— to twitch a leg. It moved, following my command, right as I lost feeling in my arms and legs again.

"This money is now art that holds my Authority, so hopefully there is at least some of it within. You get me?"

"Fuck!" Thomas shouted.

"She wants you to increase that, sir."

"Yes," I whispered, my chest tightening again.

"Make it as big as it can be, so I can release it back to me." We needed each other to get out of this situation. I knew it, and he knew it, which meant there were two deadlines now. One for my family—I should start using that word—and the second for me and him.

"Fine," Penrose said and touched the spider, its single leg still moving. At that same moment, I felt the possibility to oppose his attempt to interfere with my power, but I let him do what he wanted this time. I felt the change immediately. That minuscule amount of my power I had left behind, just a small shining point of shadowlight, became a blazing star within my aura, and I was already pulling it back into myself.

With my strength back to full, it was time to plan how to kill whatever ruled this hotel now, and the man that planned to take its place.