Chương 184: B4. 1 - A Furry Announcement

I was getting the hang of holding a marker with growing claws, but my penmanship was atrocious. It reminded me of the awkwardness of holding chopsticks for the first time. The important thing was that the messages I wrote on pieces of long bond paper were readable.

'Corebrings are responsible for deaths.'

'I tried to save you.'

'Corebrings are not humanity's friends.'

'I'm on your side.'

'Make the Corebrings leave the—' I crumpled the last piece of paper. A call to action seemed pathetic. I didn't need the help of others. I'd just let people congregate around me, Red Hood. People needed a figure, an idol, and it was pretty much guaranteed they'd do crazy things once they got one. Adumbrae content creators were eager to make videos about Red Hood. One of them even wore a shirt with a Red Hood design.

Since I saved her from becoming a statistic of collateral damage during the Corebring fight, she'd definitely push the narrative I wanted, even if only to gain followers. Being saved by an Adumbrae would definitely be something to brag about online. Stupid to brag about it, but irresistible to do. Human nature. Plus, there were videos of Red Hood fighting back the flood of tendrils made by a Corebring. By making my own video, I'd confirm that the werewolf was really me.

I'd make this whole thing go viral, or whatever term kids these days use. No amount of censorship would stamp out the content. Well, the government could push really hard against this, but that'd sort of 'legitimize' the concept of a good Adumbrae that the people in power wanted to hide. And there was only so much that authorities could censor stuff before it'd trigger the Constitutional rights gene that every American should have.

"I'm sorry, but that barely looks legible," said Deen, wrinkling her refined nose at my handiwork. I glared at her. She met my eyes with her striking gray eyes, a not-so-common color and probably a hallmark of a main character, and raised her brow.

"What? It's true, isn't it? You should've let me write them." I snorted out of my long snout, blowing back Deen's golden locks. Then I growled in a tone that didn't need explaining.

"I know we've discussed this," Deen said.

"You don't want the penmanship traceable to either of us. But it could be better. I could fake my penmanship to look like—" I grunted while checking what I wrote one last time. Deen sighed.

"You're right, you're right. I'm not going to impose myself on you." It was equal parts fascinating and weird that she could guess what I meant to say.

"I'm sorry," she added.

"I'm changing myself as promised." It was around noon on Saturday, several hours since Deen made her promise. Good that she was trying to stick to it. But her bossy and controlling self would eventually emerge, and I was ready to act all hurt. My best friend wouldn't be able to suppress her nature. To be fair, she did have a point when it came to making these notes. I could've written them with my left hand or something. But I had already finished them, and that was that.

I picked the papers off the kitchen counter and walked to the living room. Deen followed behind me. I noted with glee that I was a few inches taller than her, not even counting the ears on top of my head. I had a bigger bust, too. A bit immature to be competitive about that, but this was another human trait. I should teach a class about human nature because I am such an expert. Deen had set up the living room for our little 'Message from Red Hood' video. She moved everything away from the wall.

We debated earlier whether the BID could trace the paint of the wall to this building, so Deen taped a white blanket to the wall. No way anyone could guess our identities with that, right?

"Are you ready?" Deen asked. I stood in front of the white blanket, feeling terribly uncool. I gestured around my waist, signing that Deen should just capture my upper body. A full body video might look like I was a hostage mouthing the demands of my kidnappers.

"Yes, yes," Deen replied, probably misunderstanding my signing. A relief that she couldn't always read my mind.

"And I'll use the lowest resolution of my camera. Are you ready?" I turned left, eyeing my reflection on the wall mirror on the other side of the room, next to the hallway, and looking monstrous enough. A few minutes had passed since I had transformed into my Blanchette self, letting the transformation progress a bit. My limbs had grown longer, and my body more muscular. Patches of fur blossomed here and there. I wanted to be more like a partial werewolf than a woman who had found a creepy mask.

Just pre-emptively countering some claims that I was a copycat. I held my stomach. Trepanner's Corequip should be inside my body… I think? Not sure where stuff that I ate went. Maybe I could ask Spooky Erind the next time we'd meet. I turned to Deen and nodded. Let the cameras roll. I should return to my real body soon and send the Corequip back to another dimension.

"Starting in three, two, one." I looked into the tiny circle on the back of Deen's phone and did a little animalistic swagger. Then I held up the papers. I dropped the first one, displaying the next. And the one after it. I exaggerated my movements while switching notes. I did a snarl. A little growl. Slightly open my mouth to display more of my fangs at the last note. Just a few seconds of footage. Too long would give the authorities more stuff to analyze.

"And, cut," Deen said.

"Good work, Erind." That wasn't good work! My insides churned as I physically and mentally cringed. A fearsome Adumbrae displaying notes? The video was supposed to rile up people against Corebrings! Instead, they'd just think that the werewolf looked dumb holding up papers with awful scribbles. I took off my mask. I was back to my Erind self, dropping a couple of feet in height in an instant. I'd like to think I was five feet tall, but the truth was probably an inch less.

Add in my very petite frame, and I could get mistaken for a teenage boy without my long, wavy, black hair. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. I scrunched my button-like nose before giving Deen a grin, showing off my cute bunny teeth that were really cute. Have I mentioned that they were cute?

"Uh, Deen… I was thinking," I said, careful not to show my disappointment at the video.

"What if we just dubbed over the whole thing? It'll be much better for messaging than just some notes."

"Like, you'll growl and look intimidating while we have a voice talking about the crimes of the Corebrings?" I nodded.

"We'll use a voice changer. We can say more than just a few sentences."

"The same issues with putting a text over the screen will be present," said Deen.

"People will think that it's a different video of Red Hood that was edited. In fact, people can erase the audio and switch in their own. Who knows what they'll say, pretending to be you. I think the video's fine. See for yourself." I forced my eyeballs to look at the fucking lamest video created in the entire existence of the universe. And… it wasn't that bad. Kind of funny to see a werewolf holding papers with awful handwriting, but my appearance was scary enough to offset a large portion of the silliness.

The low resolution did some heavy lifting, giving it a found footage vibe. Could probably give some people nightmares.

"Looks good," I said, though I still wasn't satisfied with it. Not that I wanted a reshoot.

"The low resolution will make it harder for people to edit what I've written on the paper."

"We'll leave the video as is," said Deen.

"Editing it with voices or text might leave something traceable in the file. I'm not an expert in computer forensics, but I think we'll commit fewer mistakes if we stick with simplicity."

"Not being an expert is all the more reason to keep things simple." I remembered seeing a movie about a drug cartel. They used cheap old phones for communication so they wouldn't get traced. Did that really work that way? I had no idea. But I also didn't want to search for an editing tutorial on the internet so close to releasing this video. That might get flagged as suspicious. We'd use this video because there were no other alternatives. Part of me wanted to be in front of the camera as Erind.

A quite thrilling prospect. Thankfully, a larger part of me thought it was super dumb, even if I wore a hoodie, a face mask, and shades. Deen also wouldn't agree to it. I didn't want to use Pino because no one knew who she was. Also, there'd be the same problem with the unmoving mouth. I thought of asking Kelsey to give the message, but she might get recognized. In the end, I resigned myself to the fact that this'd be my debut video to the world. There were other videos and pictures of Red Hood scattered elsewhere.

However, we'd make sure this one would be widespread, countering any attempts at censorship.

"Do you think Auron will agree to help us spread this?" I asked, wondering if my ideas were too crazy sometimes. We could also ask him to help us make the video untraceable because it was to all of our benefit.

"With the right amount of pressure and intimidation, I think he'll agree," Deen replied.

"He claims to be on the side of humanity. It might mean that he's not fond of Corebrings."

"Whether the PCM likes Corebrings or not, I'll bet all the croissants in the world that the Corebrings don't like them. By now, the Corebrings should be fully aware of the PCM's experiments. If we can package this as distracting the Corebrings, Auron would be game for it." And that was the main goal of this video—to distract the Corebrings, as well as the BID. A super big distraction if everything went well. After my mini-clash with the Corebrings, there was now a large target painted on my back.

I had swallowed one of Trepanner's Corequips, and the Corebrings thought I had another Core. I had to assume that the Corebrings had abilities far beyond human forensics. Maybe one of them could talk to ghosts or something? Or maybe they could scan the brains of the gangsters in prison and pull out memories that the gangsters themselves didn't realize they had. Fighting the Corebrings head-on was impossible. Hiding would be a super hassle, though I'd do some of that.

But my main defense was to prevent my real identity from getting discovered in the first place. I had to slow down the Corebrings, if completely stopping them was impossible. Deen wasn't a believer in my paint-the-Corebrings-as-bad-guys plan. We couldn't market test the idea, but we had readily available proof—President Goodwin won the elections. His supporters were big proponents of American sovereignty and were definitely opposed to the idea of relying on Corebrings for help.

A few hours ago, it was officially announced on the news that Corebrings had arrived in La Esperanza to help the BID deal with the Adumbrae problem. Small protests bloomed in different parts of the city. The people were quickly dispersed, with the National Guardsmen around. Still, this showed promise in my idea. All it would take was a small but very impactful spark to start shit. And I hoped my video would be it.

"Let's fix this place before Mom arrives," I said, removing the tape attaching the blanket to the wall.

"Thank goodness the paint didn't peel off. I don't want Mom to lecture me before returning to Europe." Mom's short vacation was about to come to an end. She took a rare break from work to check on her beloved daughter, seeing if she was safe after the first Adumbrae attack experienced by La Esperanza for over seven years. What ended up happening? More Adumbrae attacks while Mom was here. Turned out it was becoming less safe. She wanted to stay with me.

That definitely wouldn't work; main characters should have their parents away so they could freely perform shenanigans. I insisted that I could take care of myself—I was a strong and independent woman, completely reliant on Mom for money. Mom should continue her work. Then she had an amazing suggestion.

"Why don't you go to Las Vegas?" she told me while we were on the phone an hour ago.

"Stay at our condo there while the government solves the problem. A week or two. More if need be. I'll sleep soundly knowing my daughter is away from a city infested with Adumbrae." I don't think the government can solve this problem, I had thought. I was prepared to make the problem bigger.

"But what about law school, Mom?" I asked, already agreeing with her idea in my head. I could lie low in Vegas without abandoning my life.

"I expect Eloyce to switch online," Mom replied.

"Believe me, many parents will send their children away from the city. Rich businessmen, politicians, they'll all clamor for online classes to protect their children. And I'll join them."

"Oh, Mom. Don't do some clamoring." We both laughed. Just mother-daughter things.

"Will we go with your mother's suggestion?" Deen asked, bringing my mind back to the present. It was uncanny how she could guess what I was thinking. Then again, it was more likely to be a coincidence than a connection between our Cores.

"I'm still not sure… Wait. What do you mean by 'we'?" Deen shrugged.

"I'm going with you to Vegas. I'm not abandoning my friend."

"That's not abandoning…" I trailed the end of my sentence. This might actually be a good idea. Prudent was the more apt word. There was a long list of people hunting for Red Hood. Statistically, someone was bound to discover my identity someday. Heck, Dario might figure out that I was an Adumbrae. He already knew who I was. Deen would provide protection. Put a big asterisk on that, given what Gabe had done to me, that betraying, invisible bastard. But there was no denying I'd be a whole lot safer with Deen around.

A whole lot more annoying, too.

"I'll think about it, Deen," I said.

"We'll observe how things go."

"It had been ages since I've gone to Vegas," Deen said.

"It'll be a fun road trip. A Leska will drive you the entire way. You should be honored."

"Ha and ha. You'll definitely be the most beautiful driver on the road. Anyway, what about that other thing? We have to decide what to do with it."

"I thought we already decided to give Auron the USB drive."

"Yeah… But don't you want to see what's inside?"