Chương 214: B4. 12.2 - Date with a Mad Scientist

"Do you eat regular food?" I asked Cecilia, who was walking beside me. Though she had a good half a foot over my height, her hunched posture made her look shorter.

"Can your seventy-one percent efficiency stomach handle solids, or should I buy pureed fruits or something? Baby food?"

"I can eat regular food, as you put it," she replied.

"But I prefer those easy to digest, for now. I wouldn't risk eating Mexican food until after I'm made whole."

"You've eaten Mexican before? We're talking about the cuisine?" I glanced around. Everyone briskly walked to the start of their day.

"Like, you don't mean the spinal fluids of a Mexican guy, do you?" Cecilia half-chuckled, half-coughed.

"Burritos, tacos… There's a Mexican restaurant across the PCM headquarters."

"Huh. I don't know why you eating Mexican food sounded weird to me." I couldn't recall a movie with a villain who ate a burrito. Mexican food just didn't have an evil vibe to it. As a white girl, I had an inherent weakness to spicy food, or just spice in general, so I hadn't really tried authentic Mexican food. What were Mexican desserts?

"Don't be surprised that I have access to the same sorts of nourishment as you do." Cecilia slowly turned to me.

"What… do you eat?"

"Uh, regular food, too," I answered. Was that too nonchalant a tone I used?

"Were you thinking that this—" I touched my chest "—changed my eating habits?"

"I wasn't referring to your little secret. Or other secrets you might have." I ignored her last sentence.

"I want some bread for breakfast. And hot chocolate." Was it a mistake to bring Cecilia along? On the other hand, I thought it'd be fun to have a verbal tussle with a mad scientist. Hinting and scheming things. Talking with Keke was entertaining while intellectually stimulating. I was still pissed that I technically lost that one—the verbal tussle, not the actual fight. My go-to café in Vegas, a couple of blocks from my place, was called Divergent Boulangerie.

They had donuts with the sweetest pineapple jam feeling. Sounded odd, donuts and pineapple, but it became my favorite after Mom bought it for me. Divergent Boulangerie had a long wooden table by its window by the street and four circular tables in the middle. All the seats were occupied, and a bunch of people crowded in front of the display cases, choosing their orders. Unfortunately, I couldn't join them.

"That's a long line," I mumbled, peering through the tinted glass door with a fancy coffee cup and croissant decal.

"We should find another place."

"I'm capable of standing in line," said Cecilia.

"My body is at seventy—""I wasn't worried about you. I just don't want to be surrounded by people. I'm, uh, I'm… claustrophobic." Just throwing out a fake weakness. When the time came that Cecilia would betray us, she might think of trapping me in a small space to break my mind. It wouldn't work, and I'd surprise her with a reversal. And saying that I didn't like people close to me sounded less cool as a weakness.

"We'll look for another place," I said.

"There's this newly opened café I saw on Snippet." I was turning into a social media girlie. Just checking if there was anything about the frat boys on Snippet—news spread faster through social media than the actual news—but got bombarded with targeted ads instead. I wasn't saying no to sweet pastries.

"So… how do you process food?" I asked, aiming to reduce the awkward silence while walking. Cecilia probably didn't consider that things were awkward between us. But I just didn't like the dead air. If this were a movie, we'd just immediately cut to our destination and continue our conversation there. Most people wouldn't pick up how bizarre the flow of some movie dialogues was. And Cecilia's previous anatomy piqued my interest. She was a jigsaw puzzle made of human and monster parts.

Her current body seemed boring in comparison.

"Process food? I have a digestive tract," Cecili said.

"Same as you do."

"But you were a head. Literally. I guess your throat was connected to all the usual pipeline." Another busy block from Divergent Boulangerie, we entered a narrow alley shaded by tall buildings on either side. There was supposed to be a small café hidden at the end of it, a hole-in-the-wall store that turned out to be pretty chic.

"Anachronism," Cecilia read the café's name.

"Sounds pretentious," I said.

"They can call their store anything they want if they serve good food." Opening the door, I was greeted by an industrial interior with gray cement walls. Not sure if the exposed pipes lining the ceiling were real or decorative. To my right was a sign saying they didn't have wi-fi. We should talk to people like it was the 1990s. The vinyl record playing added the finishing touch to make this place worthy of its name, Anachronism. Just a couple of people in line. And there was an empty table in the corner.

I gestured at Cecilia to reserve it for us while I ordered—I finally had some use for Cecilia. Despite being pretentious, the store had a pretty good-looking selection of bread and pastries. But good-looking didn't automatically translate to good. And they might've been too creative with their creations.

"Miso Mushroom Cruffin…" I bent down to make sure that I read it correctly. A bubbly woman, wearing an apron with the café's logo, stood beside me, pen and paper in hand.

"A cruffin is the baby of a croissant and a muffin," explained Bubbly Apron, as if she could read my mind.

"It does look like a flaky muffin. What's the miso and mushroom part? This is savory, isn't it?"

"Yes, ma'am." She instantly earned my respect by calling me 'ma'am'. She didn't assume I was a high-schooler or something.

"The cruffin is filled with ground mushrooms and glazed with white miso." Not wanting to appear uncultured by asking what 'miso' was, I instead said, "I'm looking for something sweet."

"Why don't you try our new Soy-Sauce Caramel Puff? It's a perfect blend of savory and sweet." The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Caramel… and soy sauce?" Bloodlust bubbled inside me. I wanted to decapitate whoever thought of this combination.

"Don't worry about the soy sauce, ma'am," said Bubbly Apron.

"We use a high-quality soy sauce that gives our pastries a rich, almost smoky depth, on top of the mild saltiness. The saltiness brings out the sweetness of the caramel."

"Yeah, they do put some salt in desserts…" Aunt Jemma had gifted me a box of chocolate chip salted cookies for my birthday. I loved those. Unfortunately, soy sauce was a bit too much for me.

"What about your cakes? Something simple."

"I recommend our Black Pepper Yuzu Carrot Cake." Bubbly Apron pointed at an innocent-looking carrot cake that didn't outwardly hint at its bizarre name.

"It's a tiny crack of fresh black pepper, ma'am," she added, already guessing my first question.

"We fold it into the cream cheese frosting for an unexpected warmth. It's not spicy at all." What the fuck was 'yuzu'? A Japanese something? Would I sound dumb if I asked? This might be the fear of the unknown that I've heard about. The door of the café beckoned to exit. But leaving after asking so many questions made me feel guilty, for some inexplicable reason. No, it wasn't the sort of guilt plaguing people who've committed crimes—I had no idea of that feeling.

Manifesting her mind-reading powers once again, Bubbly Apron explained, "Yuzu is a citrus fruit native to East Asia. Highly aromatic. Think of it as a Japanese lemon. Many carrot cake recipes include lemon, balancing the sweetness with a tarty zest."

"I-I'll take a slice of that yuzu carrot cake thing." Adventurous Erind was taking over. I ordered other items with barely comprehensible fusion names. For the drinks, I had my coveted hot chocolate, some stupid detox juice for Cecilia, and coffee for Deen. I'm such a good friend for not forgetting about her.

"Would that be all?" asked Bubbly Apron.

"Yes. To go, please."

"Please have a seat while waiting for your order, ma'am." She's actually super nice, I thought. Very rare to encounter in the city, especially among the service industry people. One time, I came across a friendliness ranking of all the states. Nevada was nowhere at the top of that list. It wasn't in the middle either. And among the cities in this state, I wouldn't bet that Las Vegas would be voted to have the most hospitable people. Checking my phone, I didn't find any text messages or missed calls.

Deen was still asleep. I did leave a note, but thinking more about it, she'd probably still overreact that I had gone out with Cecilia.

"I ordered watermelon juice for you," I said, sitting across the unassuming mad scientist. She was people-watching with a creepy grin. The people vacated the table nearest us with uncomfortable looks.

"I assumed your seventy-one percent efficient digestive tract would want to avoid caffeine."

"How considerate," said Cecilia.

"I don't have money to repay you." I waved my hand.

"My treat. And all the other stuff I'll buy in the grocery later." Additional expenses feeding my pet mad scientist. She was human, partly, so she shouldn't be covered by Rule #12—that Rule was to prevent me from experimenting on animals as I grew older. People disapproved of it, Mom told me.

"How do you make money anyway?" I asked.

"Your equipment at Barstow must've cost millions. I doubt the laboratories at Eloyce have machines comparable to yours." A bit of flattery to loosen her tongue.

"Several ventures." Cecilia ticked off her fingers.

"The tamer ones include supplying rejuvenation serums to the wealthy. Supply performance-enhancing drugs, both for sports and sexual intercourse."

"What the hell?" I blurted.

"I can also make organ replacements, a combination of machine and biological parts printed cell by cell. I assume your next question would be how I came to join the PCM? Quite simple. They posed a challenge to me—turn a monster back into a human, the reverse of my other experiments. I couldn't refuse it."

"I wasn't wondering about that." My eyes wandered to the other people in the small café. They wouldn't be PCM members planted here—Auron couldn't pull that trick again because he didn't know we'd come here. Only one person had entered the café after us. Not sure if a tail or not.

"I wanted to ask where you hide your money," I went on.

"You must have millions stashed away in various offshore accounts." A secret lab and offshore accounts, this was the life of a villain that I wanted. Same as not having actual plans for a lab other than for aesthetic purposes, I also didn't care about money—I wanted to have offshore accounts to say that I did. Most people wouldn't understand. It came with the role.

"Do you want me to pay for my board and lodging?" Cecili asked.

"I surmise that it isn't money you want. The cure. Isn't that your aim? Do you have anything to say to me without the prying ears of your friend?"

"N-no. No-nothing at all." I looked away. The stammer was perfect. Laying the crumbs that I was hesitant to reveal my secret. Cecilia had to go first and say what she knew about me. Clarification—what she thought she knew. If I were in her shoes, what would I think of the discoloration she saw on my neck? Would she suspect that I was an Adumbrae? If so, why would I hang out with Deen and Myra, the people with artificial Cores?

"Is that so…? Pity." Cecilia's smile drooped a little. I bowed, focusing on my phone. Cecilia wasn't prepared to confront me. My guess was that she suspected I was lying, but wasn't exactly sure about what. Maybe she thought that my Core was different. Special. Or mutated. So that's what miso is, I thought, scrolling through the description. Fermented soy beans. What would that taste like on pastry?

"Erind…" Cecilia twiddled her thumbs in front of her while trying to make eye contact.

"Was that crystal… part of your Core?" Got you, bitch, I celebrated in my head. If Cecilia had believed my story about the crystal's origin, she wouldn't care about me. The mysterious Adumbrae in my tall tale was with the Professor's organization. Correctly thinking I was the source, Cecilia wouldn't leave us anytime soon. She willingly attached the hook to her mouth—I sucked at fishing metaphors. This wasn't my original intention, but I'd take advantage of the situation.

The alternative was admitting to Deen that it was wrong to show the crystal to Cecilia. No way that was going to happen.

"How can that be?" The best way to increase Cecilia's suspicion was to answer her question with another.

"I don't even think I can break this," I added, touching my chest.

"I mean, I haven't tried. Have you?"

"I tried with your friend, I confess. I wasn't able to chip even a small sliver of a sample."

"The crystal really came from an… Adumbrae." I whispered the last word.

"Somehow, I don't believe your story. Intuition. Mine rarely failed me. Your precious souvenir was different from your friend's Core. However, it could be the case that your Core is different from the others. You want answers. I can provide them." I vigorously shook my head. I opened my mouth but didn't say anything. Cecilia leaned forward.

"We can learn more if you let me continue examining the crystal."

"But Deen told me to… She was angry that I showed it to you. I don't want another fight between us." Deen and I didn't fight. This was yet another hook. And Cecilia bit it, too.

"She doesn't have to know, dear," said Cecilia.

"A secret between us. You obtain answers. I obtain the answers I seek as well—your precious souvenirs had provided the most delectable questions. And your friend, unknowing of anything, won't be angry at you." I'm so great at improvising, I mentally praised myself. With this setup, Cecilia was focused on luring me away from Deen. Cecilia wouldn't think that I was the dangerous one. That all of this shit was part of my schemes! Schemes to mess around. No grand plan whatsoever. But schemes, nonetheless.

"We shouldn't talk about this," I said.

"I-I can't—" As if following the script, Bubbly Apron called my name. I stood up.

"Let's hurry back to the condo. Deen's probably awake by now."