Chương 60: Judge

Fowl. The professor for illusions and trickery. The person heading over a dozen courses with his illusory lecturers.

"Addy?"

"Yeah?"

"Is it normal to get a performance review offer from a professor?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Through the system?" Her eyebrows knitted together. I sent her the quest description.

"I suppose he didn't want to be tracked. Weird that he was willing to spend an entire soulcoin to do it. Only the system and the recipient of a quest know its contents. This seems… suspicious."

"Maybe it is a coincidence. Maybe he really just wants to talk," I said.

"Maybe he wants you to try to 'improve your grades' the old fashioned way," she said in a deadpan voice, accompanied by a retching sound.

"Alright. I'm coming with you."

"It says only one agent—""I. Am. Coming. With. You." Her tone brooked no compromise.

"Yeah. Okay." Fowl wasn't the head for the telepath faculty. There was no telepath faculty, oddly enough. We both took a deep drink of Clem's potion, just in case. For once, I completely agreed with Addy's paranoia. It's alright. Everything will be alright with friends at my side. +++ I knocked on Fowl's office door.

"Come in," came a man's voice. Fowl was a man today. He was stern looking, middle-aged with the sort of face that was professionally crafted to look dispassionate, without emotion. He was sitting at a wide oak table, writing something with a truly Victorian-era-looking quill.

"Brought your emotional support tanuki I see," he barely looked up. There were two chairs ready at his desk. I'd gone over a brief what-happened with Addy on the way here. Addy and I sat down. I was nervous and she was a spring, one moment away from erupting in violence should violence become the appropriate language for this dialogue. Fowl scribbled away. He had a way of ratcheting up tension with that sound. One finger tap-tap-tapped idly at the table.

"There," he said, putting the quill down and finally looking me in the eye. He looked as tired and weary as I felt.

"Samantha Rubens. You have been with us for a little over a month." I nodded.

"And within that month, your level has increased from seven to eight to nine at a steady place." I paused, mentally trying to sort the differences between the real me and the cover the system had given me. Right, the real me had leveled during the cat-mouse-cheese game, so my cover naturally had to level as well. Then my cover had gotten another level… today, because haha, there was no way a level eight could use as many body doubles as I did chasing after Addy yesterday. There were plenty of witnesses.

And I had a feeling that it didn't matter much that the system gave me a single level to justify that. Level seven was basically the same as level nine.

"That is correct." He knows. He knows my level is fake.

"Would you say that, since becoming a Custodian, the changes to your body, psyche, et cetera, have been beneficial? Do you feel any unusual emotions, bouts of anger, insomnia, paranoia? Have you accidentally cast a spell in your sleep?"

"I…" Is he testing me? I'll pretend to be ignorant for a while.

"I mean, the stats are cool. But otherwise, no?" He made some more notes.

"And would you say that, overall, being a Custodian has improved your quality of life?"

"Yeah," I glanced at Addy.

"Absolutely."

"Even though you are expected to fight for earth, all of earth, including people you've never met, or may have grievances with? As a Custodian, you are expected to make the plunge into the unknown, to be the first to make a sacrifice. Does that not unnerve you?" I scrunched my nose.

"May I know why I'm being asked these questions?" What is this charade really about?

"Psych evals are standard form these days for living weapons, much as I disagree that they reveal much about a person. I say that observing people in their day-to-day lives gives much better results. Anyone can lie on paper."

"I'm always up for answering honestly. That's what this entire institution is about, no? Receiving answers to questions, consulting professionals." I leaned forward.

"Trusting that our betters have our best interest in mind, as people."

"A laudable mindset. You would be surprised as to the kind of people who would disagree. But I wouldn't place much weight on their opinions. Say, have you had sex lately?"

"WHAT?" Addy and I yelled in unison. His finger kept on tapping.

"And was it satisfactory? This question applies to you too," he said, pointing to Addy with his quill.

"Statistics show that Custodians with an active sex life have a 45% decreased miscast chance, and double the life-expectancy of their lonesome peers. Though if either of you dies a true death, those statistics get flipped. Studies support this." Even with all six eyes focusing on the minutia of his expression, I couldn't figure what in the world made him think that was an appropriate question. Addy was right to come with me. This guy was a creep.

I was moments away from blowing up in his face when she pinched me in the thigh. Addy gestured down with her chin. She was staring at the point where Fowl's finger had been incessantly tapping on. There was something written in the margins of his notes, scrawled in large letters.

'Act natural. The pactmaker is listening.' I froze. Slowly, I turned to Addy. Her jaw was set.

"That sounds like crappy science. Who wrote that?" she asked. Translation: Who is 'he'? Fowl kept his neutral tone as he continued.

"I assure you, it was a man of quite some renown and magical talent. He knew seven fae dialogues, and was a master of a million demonic words and phrases. I am fairly certain he studied in this very college." An important wizard. The pactmaker is an important wizard among us.

"More renowned than you?" I asked.

"Please. I may have a large number of dissertations, but I am specialized in logistics, and day-to-day matters. Admin, and so on. I dare say this man is the leading figure in any field, let alone mine." More powerful than Fowl. Fowl — this Fowl at least — is trying to blow the whistle on him. It was hard to believe, and not just for me. Addy huffed. She put a hand on the table, silently eying the door behind us.

"I don't much believe in the words of puffed-up pencil-pushers." Why should we believe you?

"You don't have to. Statistically, you can always leave it up to chance." That one's pretty literal.

"I am telling you this because, as Custodians of earth, it is critical that you know your strengths and weaknesses." He scrawled something else on the paper.

'You can't beat him. He is prepared. You are underleveled.' I frowned at the paper. Did he mean I was underleveled at level nine? Or did he know my real level, and was giving that advice in spite of it? I was probably the highest level first-year on campus, but in absolute terms, I was basically as able as a graduate student. Setting aside my rare essences of course. With those, I was on a post-grad level. And still, that was not enough?

Whoever he's talking about is more powerful than the wizard who has over a dozen of his illusions teaching class simultaneously. Assuming this isn't also a ruse to get us to do something rash. The chief principle of illusions is misdirection after all. I hate this. Either way, it would be best to notify Becca, Orianna, Mason, everyone. Something is going on behind the scenes that involves a fae drug lab, a strong wizard, and… me. Why me?

"I believe that our strengths are sufficient. As for our weaknesses, well, if anybody tries to exploit them, then they will regret it." Because the implied weakness was the bond between Addy and I. I was not giving that up. Her strength was mine, mine was hers. Sometimes we were on the same wavelength on a level that was almost eerie. There was a knock on the door. Idly, I realized that we'd both already stood up.

"And that concludes our session," he said, producing a smile that didn't quite fit his face.

"It's been a pleasure. I do hope you are correct, but in the case you aren't… well, there's no way out but down, is there?" <<That's a threat, >> Addy texted me. I nodded. We left his office, brushing shoulders with Professor Wugwort. She was another one of Fowl's illusory clones. I could've imagined it, but as the door closed behind us, I noticed the faintest hint of a ghostly string attached to the top of her head, disappearing into the ceiling above.

Addy and I stared at each other for a brief, nerve-wracking moment. <<Mental text only, >> she said. <<Agreed. >> I paused for a moment as we made our way through the Academy. <<I was shot at during practice outside of the dollhouse, recently. >> <<Someone tried to kill you? >> <<Yes. It's an awfully direct method. Compare that to the fake illusory Sam that abducted you last night… >> <<I still can barely believe it. >> <<I think that might be the hint we need.

Illusory-Sam might have belonged to Fowl, who was trying to lead me to naturally discover the fae druglab. That's at odds with getting me out of the picture. There are two forces at work here, and at least one of them wants me dead. >> <<That doesn't mean that the other one is on your side, >> Addy said with a huff. I nodded. <<We need to get the others in on this. Orianna? >> <<She's asleep, >> Addy responded a bit too quickly. She was keeping tabs on her. I snorted. The rivalry was alive and well.

<<I just messaged Becca, but her response was all garbled. I think she's doing some mimic transformation stuff that's screwing with her mental texting. >> <<Which means no-one at the dorm is awake. >> The weakness Fowl had ascribed to us didn't just apply to Addy and I. I had other friends I cared about too. Hurting any one of them would be devastating. We quickened our stride. <<I'm buying some glasses with inbuilt cameras for everyone, >> Addy said.

<<The system can't intercede in Custodian-on-earthborn-person conflicts, so we're going to record every step of our lives the old fashioned way, starting—>> Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. We reached the hallway in front of our dorm, only having to stumble through two spatial anomalies on the way. It was Wednesday, an evening on a weekday. People were returning from their classes, and yet the corridor was oddly empty.

Our communal laundry basket was sitting in front of the door. On the white plastic exterior, there were speckled dots of red. Blood, was the first thing I thought as Addy's nostrils flared. I pulled out my Lucky 7, she pulled out her katana. We stacked up on either side of the door, which was open by a crack. I pushed it open with a creak. There was nothing but darkness on the other side. <<Body double first, then us, then another pair of doubles. >> Addy nodded. The first two Samanthas went inside.

"Happy—ack!" Three steps in, one of them was pierced through by a flash of soundless, heatless lightning. We rushed inside, the figure in the dark illuminated just long enough for me to make out a wand, and dozens of mimics crawling in the dark. The sound of the ur-mimic laughing at me echoed all around, clawing at my mind. Addy threw herself in front of me, the next blinding lightning bolt hitting just as my sights settled on a blue-tinged outline of a human. I fired. One bullet was all it took.

The figure yelped, sagged to the floor, and then it was dark again. I could hear Addy swearing, fumbling for the light. My eyes were slowly adjusting, even as I wiped something warm off my face. The light flicked on. There was no blood on the ground. That had been an illusion. The mimics too. All that was real was the one person lying on the floor, a head-sized hole in their chest, dead as a doorknob. I… what? My time bandaids arrived too late. There was nothing I could do. They were dead. Dead.

And I was the killer. I killed them. Me. There was no hiding this. Students were already gathering at the door, phones or AR visors at the ready. Their looks were worse than any physical wounds.

"Holy shit, the Custodian went out of control!" someone in the back said as I curled up smaller and smaller. I didn't mean to, I… I'm not.

"Fuck off!" came Addy's voice. She was panicking. She turned to me, face blanche.

"I, er… he shot first. Right, Sam?"

"I don't think that matters." The person was still clutching their wand. [Magic sparkle wand] A magical wand of sparkling! Pretend to be a wizard! Become the center of attention at parties! Shoot lightning, fireballs, water-spouts, and more. * *All magical phenomena are illusions and have no effect on the real world. **Illusory light may still cause temporary or permanent blindness. Store out of reach of children under the age of 12. +++ I should've noticed something was off with the lightning immediately.

I should have. But it was dark, my blood was pumping, and in that moment, nothing felt as real as the threat to the people I cared about. And if someone told me that I was going to shoot a human being outside the dollhouse for the first time in my life, I would have called them… not crazy, but yeah, basically that. I should've checked if Addy was wounded by it or not. Fuck. The victim was a runner, one of Fowl's apprentices, one of his clones, a real one.

Among the many, many Fowls managing the Academy, only a good two-thirds were made of pure magical trickery. The reason why I couldn't look past some of their disguises was that they were made of flesh and blood. When the original Fowl died eight years ago, he left behind a legacy: A book filled with his knowledge on soul-surgery, and the seven walking, thinking, tangible copies of himself that had resulted from his experiments.

The process was thus: Take a piece of your own soul, mash it together with that of someone else, incubate, then infuse it into a preserved human body. The body had to have belonged to someone with magical potential, and a fully filled-out organ donor card. The result was a soul puppeteering a body around in a manner awfully similar to that of a Custodian. Which was existentially terrifying, knowing that Custodians were by all technicality undead. The original Fowl was an odd sort.

He'd lobbied for his clones to be seen as their own people, which the Society granted. Denying them human rights while upholding those of Custodians would have been hypocritical. He died satisfied, having refused life-extension spells to the end. His clones spread throughout the Academy, all being predispositioned towards magic, and helped both in the expansion of the system, and the research and development of magic as a whole. With time they made more of themselves. In a way, this was how he attained immortality.

How did I know that? Well, Fowl had to reveal how his magic worked in front of court. Because I was being prosecuted for first degree murder. I was in court, in the defendant's seat, many hands rubbing my face in the hopes that it would wake me up from this nightmare. With a heavy thud, my state-mandated lawyer sat down next to me. Except it wasn't my lawyer. It was Mason, Addy's giant werehedgehog cousin.

"So, good news and bad news," he said.

"Bad news is that your lawyer got in a car accident. The good news is that I'm your lawyer now."

"What?"

"I was chosen as a Custodian two years after passing my bar exam."

"How old are you?"

"Forty." I gave him a look. He looked like he was in his late twenties. The perks of getting a high amount of Body early on.

"Colorful life." He smirked, and moments later, the court session began. Unlike many courts in the US, there was no jury here. The participants were made up of the judge, who made the final decision on laws and facts, four assessors who were respected members of local society that would deliberate together with the judge, but had no legal authority, the defendant and their lawyer — Mason and I — and finally, the prosecution. A prosecution which was made up of two lawyers. Two to one Mason. They looked professional.

Whenever the tall one glared in my direction, it was enough to make me feel small and insignificant. I knew Addy was somewhere in the crowd of onlookers. I really would have preferred her by my side, but I couldn't exactly sit in front of a judge, hugging my emotional support tanuki, and not come off as at least a little bit unhinged. It'll be fine, it'll be fine. I'll just use [One moment] to fast forward until this whole thing starts. I'd rarely used that spell for speeding my subjective sense of time up.

Mostly I slowed it down to dodge bullets. The trial began. A vampire Custodian from the left stepped up, made some hand motions, and chanted a spell." Truth Zone." The court area glowed. A wizard stepped from the left, and did something similar, except he used a wand, and tossed a handful of salt in the air." Zone of Truth."

"Now nobody can tell lies," Mason whispered.

"Though with two active at a time, it might be hard to ignore intrusive thoughts."

"Oh great, I love being treated as an experiment," I said with a sniff.

"Case in point." Mason stood up, having used his Custodian stats to quickly read through the case files in minutes.

"Your honor, the defense pleads self defense with reasonable suspicion of immediate and serious danger to Miss Rubens and other dorm members." What followed was a straight presentation of the facts as seen by Addy and I, using both our testimonies, and that of several other people. Key pieces such as our talk with Fowl, and the following lethal encounter in our dorm, only had myself and Addy as witnesses, a fact which the prosecution tore into relentlessly. The prosecution rose.

"How can anything that simply takes away one life be construed as a mortal threat to a Custodian with multiple stocked, instead of merely an inconvenience? Your spider shot someone because not shooting them was inconvenient."

"Objection: Spider is a dehumanizing moniker," Mason said.

"Objection sustained." The judge — a short man with rectangular glasses on a lanyard — said with dispassion.

"The prosecution is henceforth to refer to the defendant in a more respectful manner."

"I don't really mind being called a spider," I said to Mason in a meek voice.

"I'll take anything I can get to make them look bad, incompetent, or disingenuous," he shot back.

"They're defending what is obviously a setup to paint a newbie as some psychopathic criminal. And I know that's not you, Samantha, we all do, but they've put their foot down so we put down two. It's us versus them. Look at the assesseurs and you'll understand what I mean." I looked at the four assistants to the judge. Inspector BlazeBlue was up there, picking her sharp teeth with a conjured claw made of ice while leveling death glares at one of Fowl's clones sitting on the opposite side of the judge.

Custodian versus wizard, clear as day. The other two assesseurs sitting next to them seemed more impartial, but only at first glance. [Mireya Casper, Associate] [Oliver Mussard, Associate] Miss Casper was the owner of the eponymous Casper's, and her restaurant served almost purely Custodians. Oliver Mussard was a wandmaker. He made wands. Exclusively for wizards and wizard-apprentices. It's not just about me. It's about Custodians in general. I really kicked open a can of worms, haha.

This is the opposite of how I wanted my stay at the Academy to go. I wanted to make friends, not enemies. And yet, as I observed the court proceedings flow past with increasing indifference, I noticed something odd. There was another ghostly wire connecting nearly every clone of Fowl's head. And all of them disappeared in the ground below. Odd. I've never seen that before. I rubbed my eyes and it was gone. When I looked down, the back of my hands were glinting with the slightest hint of fairy glitter. I paused.

"Hey. Rico. Can you give me some more glitter?"

"Depends," he said.

"Would you see it as a small or a big favor?"

"It would be the biggest favor in the world." +++ I can see them. I can see the connections. The Fowl clones are connected to the pactmaker, they have to be. And I was the only one who could see it. I tried rubbing some fairy dust into Mason's face under protests, but all that gave him was a rash. My eyes had that zing, that special something that made it and the fairy dust click. What were the odds that I was a pixie, just… extremely big? I don't have wings. Probably not that.

Watching the Fowl clones as they were variably called up as witnesses, joined in with the audience, or sat on their assistant seat next to the judge took up most of my time now. Every now and then a surge of light traveled across the wire's arcs from one head to another. There was no change in receiver nor recipient, except for the odd raised brow, frown, or smirk. Is it like mental texting through the system? I looked up, looking for any sign of a wire sticking up from my head as well.

It's only the clones, and not all of them. The Fowl who invited me into his office didn't have one. And every now and then, the wire of one of the Fowls in the daisy chain pointed straight downwards. The trial was taking place in a court in Anatanarivo on the ground floor. There was no basement. W here are they pointing? And to whom? I rubbed another helping of fairy dust into my eyes while around me the court grew heated with discussion.

"How do you explain the presence of the Fowl clone, and his reaction to being caught intruding in an all-female dorm, an all-female Custodian dorm?"

"The victim made a cake for their friend's birthday party. They simply got the dorm number incorrect. It happens all the time, given the constantly swapping dimensions of this academy of yours, no?"

"And yet their first action was to point their wand at Miss Rubens and fire two illusory lightning bolts? Due in part to the awfully realistic countenance of said lightning bolts, and the heretofore unresolved sleepwalk-cases—"" — ah yes, your hypothetical gnome druglab living in the walls."

"Prosecution, this is your final warning. A bit more decorum, or the court will be forced to reduce your time speaking."

"Thank you, your honor. Due to all the above, the system has yet to recognize miss Ruben's actions as murder."

"Because it doesn't recognize artificial life that doesn't stem from it as earthborn, and thereby sees no need to defend it. The system is an automaton, it is literally in the name: system. Not a person, not an intelligent being capable of reasoning. It is a machine, and its laws are known to actively cross ours at times." You could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed. +++ Becca A few days had passed. The court still didn't have a clear verdict.

The news had reached online, and there was outrage, coming from everywhere, aimed at everyone.

"It's bullshit. A sham. A setup." I watched Addy pace in circles in the dorm, well out of kicking distance. A trashcan had already become victim of her outrage, leaving a dent in the wall. It was not drywall, but solid bricks.

"The judge is bought, the jury is bought, and everyone is too stupid to see their fucking jerkass bias!"

"They're not a jury," Orianna noted.

"And you're saying that because your bias is solidly on your girlfriend's side." Addy shot her a look. Orianna hid behind her tablet.

"W-which is entirely reasonable, of course. Considering you were there, and, well, yep. Becca, some help?" I probably wasn't going to be much help either. I'd slept through the whole thing, only woken by a bang. My body was bubbling, boiling with a misplaced indignant feeling and a need for revenge. Someone was going to hurt for this. Someone was going to pay. I caught myself imagining vats of acid and the kinds of torture that wouldn't be out of place in a medieval household's description of hell.

Some Custodian I am. The main problem was that the system was unwilling or incapable of producing the sort of evidence that would have immediately acquitted or damned Sam. This was an encounter between two earthborn lifeforms; there was no place for system agency. And besides, it couldn't record what we could see through our own eyes. There were specific glasses and lenses made for that. Orianna and Addy were wearing them now, but that didn't help much given that the big pieces of evidence lay in the past.

The largest piece was also the one with the most intriguing ties to everything odd happening around campus: The drug lab. I shlorped down from the fridge and oobled my way to the door.

"We. Go." I said in that robotic, autotuned voice.

"Find. Clues."

"I'd rather find who's behind all this," Addy said. And still she followed Orianna and I. When we arrived at the water tower with the abandoned wizard's hut atop it, there was no sign that anyone had been here. Documents were stacked in crates and shelves. Just about the only thing suspicious about this was that someone was keeping this abandoned place so orderly.

"Is. This. The. Wall?" I asked Addy. Then asked it a second time, because she seemed to be in a bit of a funk. She blinked, looked around.

"Yes. That wall there. There was a gap of light. Easier to see at night." Orianna helped pull down the blinds until the room was entirely dark.

"Well, well, well," Orianna said.

"There's nothing there."

"There was," Addy said.

"Maybe if we—" The ground shook. A pen rolled off the office table. Metal squealed from outside.

"Uh."

"That's the water tower," Addy snarled.

"Someone's trying to—" The room tilted forwards. I didn't have to tell Addy twice to tear the door open, though she did forget all about evacuating Orianna. Probably because she could fly on her soulbound balls. Balls which she didn't have with her." S-summon—" I heard her say, knowing that it would be too late. Expand. My body mass grew to its original size, which by now was the volume of 2 average sized humans. I gave myself the texture of a carpet and the softness of a downy filling.

It was a fall of roughly twenty feet. Orianna sunk deep into my body with an 'oof!' while Addy just slammed into the ground, hulk-style. Angrily, she glared at the water tower that was in the process of dismantling itself. And with it, any chance to find the druglab behind the hut's walls were washed away. The hut lay crumbled in a heap of bricks and old shingles. People were coming out of nearby huts and the Academy main building to gawk.

"Someone's going to get a very angry few letters by concerned parents," Orianna said with a nervous laugh.

"W-what are the chances that the old water tower crumbles just as we're inside it?"

"Small," Addy said with a huff.

"I suppose I have no choice but to believe that someone really is out for our lives," Orianna said.

"More than before." If we weren't Custodians, we probably wouldn't have survived that. Maybe tearing down the old tower would raise more suspicion than just leaving us to walk in circles. But then again, connecting the dots between this and that would take quite the damning evidence. Our recordings didn't even help much since they just showed us going inside, and then the building start to collapse. Worst case, they could be used against us to declare that we were why it broke down.

Fighting mimics was so much easier. At least when they reveal themselves, you know exactly what to do. This kind of threat is… new. And since the system isn't making any quests for it, it's either a non-issue, or something it can't interfere with. But why Sam? And why now?

"We're back to square one," Orianna groaned, lifting herself from my soft cushion and flicking through various feeds on her system.

"We're better off gathering more people with expertise in tracking, magic, and so on. Or, y'know, we could just leave this to the real professionals. With this much noise, I bet that some higher level Custodians might start investigating all on their own."

"Assuming they're not all swamped by saving the world in a billion places," Addy grumped.

"My mentor used to say that the real battlefield isn't even on earth, but —" Addy cut herself off. I watched as she stared at something on her system interface, eyes going wide and hands shaking. Orianna had just sent us both a livestream of the court case.

'Custodian Samantha bound for Cauldron.'