Witch of the Web

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Silence.

Numbing, smothering silence.

I can see the looks on everyone’s faces, but I can’t hear a single thing aside from Crys’ words over and over and over.

You’re going to need this to save your parents.

Save your parents.

Parents.

I must’ve misheard them. I mean, how could that not be the case? My parents are dead. Long dead in fact. I watched them die. It was one of the last things I saw before fleeing into the cold embrace of the night. 

There’s just no way they’re alive. No way at all. 

Right?

“-ou mean by that?” Summer’s voice is the first one that becomes clear as I return to my full senses. 

“Exactly what I said. Her parents are alive… in a manner of speaking at least,” Crys replies in that matter of fact way that belies the differences between humans and SAI.

Sure, humans and SAI are very close in a lot of ways, but by the simple virtue of the way they come into existence, they process information and prioritize different emotional responses completely different from us. So, of course Crys probably doesn’t understand how much of a total mind fuck this is.

“Explain. Now!” I snap as my eyes lock onto my fAIry godparent. I immediately feel bad for lashing out, but I hold the anger on my face for a little longer.

Crys gives me a lopsided smile before crossing the distance and wrapping me in a hug. “My apologies Rose, I thought you knew. I thought they’d made contact.”

I gently, but firmly push them away. “This is not explaining.”

“Right, so when your parents left Willow’s protocol with me, they also left me with one of their secure communicators. Remarkable code these things are,” they explain as they pull a small orb from their jacket pocket. “It doesn’t do much in the way of detailed messages, but it’s good for short alerts.”

“What the fuck does this have to do with my parents?” I shout as my frustration bubbles up from my core. Summer and Felicia hold onto my shoulders to help me calm down a bit. “Sorry…” I whisper.

“It’s quite alright. Now, as I was saying, this secure communicator can only be contacted by them. Only they know how to reach it and only I, as the coded holder of it, can receive the message. So imagine my surprise when four days after I received word of their death, the communicator lit up with a short, simple message.” They handed the communicator to me which had the most recent message pulled up. 

‘Alive. Digitized. Captive.’

At some point I’m helped into a chair as my entire sense of self is pulled out from under me like a rug in a cartoon. My parents are alive. Digitized, but alive. 

I’d be more upset about the digitization part if it wasn’t for the fact that I can easily exist in both meatspace and Lanadel at the same time with little issue. What really is getting to me though is the fact that they’ve been held prisoner by LOG all these years for who knows what reason. 

LOG has always been a source of anger and hate for me. They stole my life from me and continued to be a thorn in my side since then. But I thought I had reached the limits of my hatred for that odious organization of offensive overbearing ogres. I’d thought that there were no new depths to which my opinion of those dickbrained cocksuckers could sink. 

1. Was. Wrong. 

The cozy little home around me begins to shake as my fury manifests in an earthquake. Only the combined efforts of all four of my lo- my close companions is able to calm me from the raging inferno of pure malice that I feel within me. What replaces the fires of hate in my soul is no less vicious. A solid core of cold contempt sits inside me, waiting to be utilized in the destruction of my enemies.

“I’m going to tear their entire organization to pieces and then dance on their scattered corpses.” I don’t yell. I don’t scream. I am focused and steady.

“Give me the protocol. I have some fascists to destroy.” I hold my hand out expectantly. Crys goes to hand me the protocol but Summer holds up a hand, stopping them. “Protocol, now. I won’t ask again,” I reiterate. 

“Hold on,” Summer says softly, carefully, as if she was trying to calm an angry tiger. “You have every right to be angry, but you need to focus your anger and point it where it belongs,” she instructs. “People could be hurt, inno-” 

I’m about to fly into a rage at the absolutely bullshit take when Felicia puts a hand on both of our shoulders. “Summer, no. Wrong tactic.” She turns and looks me in the eye. “She’s right, for the wrong reasons,” she explains. “Wiping the entirety of LOG out will take too long. The real fuckers responsible will get away before you ever get to them. You need to go right for the head and remove it. Let the rest of the snake crumble without it.” 

“Fuck,” I hiss. I hate that she’s right, but she is. If I want true justice, no, fuck justice, if I want proper revenge, I need to be precise and careful. None of that waving my nonexistent dick about that got me caught once already. I need to track down my parents and then rip apart anyone who’s even looked at that project. 

“Right. You make a good point. I’ll stay focused,” I agree. Summer looks less than pleased with my motivations, but I can’t say I fucking care. I care about her, Felicia, Crys and my parents. And my parents have been captive for over a decade. I’m not taking the moral highroad here. 

Crys nods, satisfied with the outcome and hands me the protocols. Once they’re in my hand, Willow immediately installs them and blinks out of sight.

“This might take a while,” Crys explains. “Why don’t we get settled in while we wait?” 

I’m not really all that eager to sit around, but I suppose I lack a choice.

Me and my girls all take a couch while Crys takes a high backed chair that looks almost throne-like. 

“Audacious much?” I tease. It’s just the sort of thing to take my eyes off this fucking mess of a situation I find myself in.

“When you’re the grand architect of your own corner of Lanadel, you can judge me for my decoration choices. Until then, you may bask in its glory,” they snicker. 

“So tell me about yourselves,” Crys asks after a few minutes of awkward silence. “How did you all wind up with each other?”

“Well, that’s a funny story,” Summer starts before Felicia cuts in.

“I gave Willow’s containment drive to Rose to crack, she ran off with her, I tracked them to Summer’s house, kidnapped Summer and then Rose tied me up until I agreed to work with them.” Felicia’s deadpan delivery is only ruined by the slight smile on her lips.

“Felicia!” Summer gasps. 

Crys laughs heartily in response and the three of them go back and forth, discussing the journey thus far.

Meanwhile I just simmer in anger and try to avoid being too obvious about it. Delilah must know my parents are captive. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was her idea. So she’s target number one. Her toady can get fucked too. 

The top dogs at LOG gotta go as well. And I bet I can dismantle their infrastructure so whoever’s left can’t pick up the pieces. 

My scheming is interrupted as Willow pops back into existence. She looks around before blinking several times. She looks up at me with a warm expression. “Everything seems to be in order,” my formerly voiceless familiar says. 

End Chapter 28