Uncharted Waters (Chapter 7)

Finding a human charm addict in a slum of uncharted was a lot more difficult than it sounded. If it were an undercover agent, a tourist, or even a newcomer there wouldn’t be anything easier. Regardless of the amount of bribe money at their disposal, it always left a bitter aftertaste. Plus, there was no telling when it would abruptly come to an end. Charm addicts, on the other hand, were a guaranteed source of income so the locals tended to protect them.

A few more talks with Summer increased my tab and also earned me earful from Sky not to use C’s as my personal call center. However, it also got me some interesting information. The vicinity to Saint Julian had been quite beneficial to the slum, creating a whole mini industry in addition to the “free the spirit” tours. There were the general touristy locations, made to look worse than they were sometimes even involving make-belief raids—courtesy of the local authorities. The established clients were located much further in the area, hiding in a neighborhood that had the appearance of being well off by slum standards.

I spent hours going through the local food stores that served human food, searching for any trace of the uncharted that had met up with Celsius’ sister. At first it almost seemed that she never did any shopping of her own, but with enough persistence and dedication, I finally came upon a place with her essence on the door handle. It was strong, fresh, suggesting that if she wasn’t in there, she’d left minutes ago. Unfortunately, right at that time, my wristcomm chimed.

Having H-Sec call while being in an uncharted shop was among the less appropriate things that could happen. If it were anyone else, I’d ignore the call, or turn off the device altogether. In this case, though, all I could muster was to flash a smile and move my left hand to my ear.

“Waters, where are you?” Clayton asked. Holding the device so close to my ear automatically decreased the volume. Sadly, that wasn’t enough to get rid of the sound altogether.

“Out and about,” I tried to sound casual. “It’s a bit difficult to buy what you’re searching for here.”

My best bet was to pretend that I was doing a favor for a friend. I’d covered the suit with a layer of myself, masking the H-Sec emblem. Even so, I’d hardly pass for anything other than a jester.

“Anything you can share? Turns out that Celsius frequently skipped Saint Julian’s. Records were fixed.”

“You don’t say?” Several people were already looking at me. I tried to get to a more secluded area of the shop, pretending to search for a brand of plankton.

“Going through friends and family was a bust. Most of them haven’t seen him in years, the rest are lying they didn’t, though a chat with their lawyers turns out they haven’t seen him in weeks. The eyes in the sky haven’t been able to spot him. The tech-mages are trying to solve the mess. The lieutenant and the captain are off to inform the regional governor how someone has bypassed Oracle security. It’s a bit of a mess.”

“Isn’t it always?” Picking a box of plankton, I went to another shelf.

“The RI came through, though. The charms are very high-quality stuff. Too high quality for an uncharted to have made. Nexen is out to pay a visit to the usual suspects. With luck something will shake loose.”

“Things rarely do.”

“That’s not the bug news, though. Turns out you were right. There were traces of a security container at the scene. The RIs estimate it was about the size of a small suitcase made or reinforced fiber-steel. Whatever it held was a lot more valuable than what Ellcron claimed they had lost.”

“Well, that’s interesting, but—” my eyes fell upon an uncharted a few steps away.

She had put quite a lot of food in her plastic basket. Normally, that wouldn’t be suspicious, except nearly all of the food was human.

Instinct made me reach out into her basket and grab one of her belongings. Although sloppy, that was the fastest way to confirm her essence was that of the person I was looking for.

Maybe it was my wristcomm, or maybe she was able to see through the thin layer covering me and spot the crest on my suit… whatever the case, she immediately shifted into water, letting the basket and clothes fall to the ground.

“Damn it!” I shouted, chasing after the escaping pool of water. The suit gave me a serious disadvantage. In different circumstances, I’d have gone full water as well. However, there was no way I was leaving a H-Sec suit in a place like this, not when it also held my temporary pass.

Dropping the box of plankton, I ran towards the door. The girl was way ahead of me, pouring away along the street. Luckily for me, she didn’t seem particularly good at this. If I were running away, I’d slide along the walls of buildings, jumping from one to another, making sure that my pursuers couldn’t travel in a straight line.

“Waters?” Clayton asked through my wristcomm. “What’s going—”

Sorry, Clay. I tapped the device off. Our conversation was going to have to wait.

Reaching into my pocket, I took out a handful of charms and activated them all. None of them were able to make me as fast as my target. However, they were able to hide my essence, and when chasing someone panicked, this was a big advantage.

I leaped against a wall, pushing myself onto the roof of the opposing building. Just because my target was on the street didn’t mean I had to follow her there. To further make myself invisible, I also used a chameleon charm on myself. Strictly speaking, their usage was forbidden, but we weren’t in the metropolis area anymore, so I doubted anyone would care.

The change had its effect. After several hundred feet, the girl made her second major mistake. Thinking she’d lost me, she briefly switched back to her humanoid form. The chameleon charm did its work, rendering me completely invisible from a distance.

That’s it, I said to myself, slowly moving closer. Calm down.

The uncharted looked around. After a while, she looked up straight at me. This was the point at which rookies panicked and tried to hide, revealing their location. I’d done that a few times and knew that the best thing to do was remain perfectly still. Either the charm was going to do its trick or not. There was no need to make things easier.

Just show me where you’ve stashed him, I thought.

For several seconds she stood there, uncertain what to do, after which she started walking. Her pace was fast, though by no means running. I followed her along several streets, watched her enter a building from one entrance and exit through a window. It was almost impressive for an amateur. Ultimately, she took me to the place I needed to be at.

The house was still in a state of construction. Someone rich must have thought it was a good idea to have a mansion in the middle of the slums. My guess, it was someone who wanted to take a few business shortcuts. Apparently, someone had disagreed—backers, competitors, local authorities—leaving the structure in a state of semi-completion. Right now it wasn’t a place for someone to spend a fully functional life in, but perfect for someone to hide, especially if they were high on charms.

I watched the uncharted slide beneath the entrance door. That was all I needed.

“Clay,” I said after activating my wristcomm. “I think I’ve found the son.”

“Hold on. You’re in Clear Swamp?”

“I tracked someone who might be a go between him and his sister.”

“Might? That’s not your usual style, Waters.”

“Fine, I’ll go in to get you a confirmation.” There was no way I wasn’t going to get the suit ruined. “Send someone to hop by unless I call you in the next minute.”

“Waters, you can’t just—”

I cut the call again. Sometimes, it was better not to hear all the trouble I might get into. If the kid was there, everything would be forgiven. If not, I’d look pretty stupid, although I doubted I’d get more than a serious warning. I had established a connection between Marsha and the uncharted girl, after all.

With the charms I had, it would be easy for me to drill a hole in the wall and squeeze through, leaving the suit behind. However, that was the uncharted P.I. approach. Since the suit gave me a whole lot of new authority, I decided to act differently. Climbing down from the rooftop, I made my way to the building’s front door and knocked.

“Better open up,” I said. “If I’ve tracked you here, it means a fleet of rune carriages are on their way. The only question you need to answer is, do you want to open up for me or for them?”

I could hear arguing inside. It was natural for people to feel uneasy when presented with such an option. Sometimes it would be accompanied by a combat charm on the door.

After a few seconds, I heard the sound of the latch move. The door opened.

I’d like to think I wasn’t someone easy to astonish. Living through a massacre and the low that followed had made me see a great number of unpleasant and unusual things. Seeing Celsius at the door in his underwear perfectly well with no telltale signs of charm addiction was not something I expected.

“Is it true?” he asked. “Are the guards on their way?”

“It goes a bit higher than that, kid,” I tapped on the H-Sec crest on my shirt. “Let’s talk inside.”

Celsius grabbed his hair, as a sudden outburst of rage flushed his face red. Even so, he was smart enough to step back and let me pass. Now that the gig was up, fighting was going to do him no good. Still, I kept my left gripping a charm in my pocket, just in case.

“Nice place,” I said. For once, it was true. The livable section of the building didn’t seem to lack much. There were paintings on the wall, a lot of charting equipment and a double king-sized bed. The uncharted girl was also there, sitting quietly on the edge.

I was just about to compliment her attempt, when I suddenly noticed—the sheets of the bed were waterproof.

“You’ve a deviant?” I glanced at Celsius.

“Here we go again.” He slammed the door. “So, what? There’s no law against it!”

In effect, there were several laws. They just didn’t affect humans. Although, the scandal would be enough to get anyone ostracized from society. Although we copied the human’s appearance, sex between them and water spirits wasn’t a thing. From what I’d heard, the effort was high, and the gratification was low. Then again, who was I to judge?

“How long?” I asked.

“Three years,” the girl said. “And almost two months. Cel needed a place to hide after ditching Saint Julian. I helped.”

“And things moved on from there,” I finished for her. That was definitely weird, though not the reason I’d come. “I’m not here for that. I’m her because of what happened to your father.”

“Of course.” Celsius sat down on the edge of the bed. “Even when he gets offed, that fucker messes up everything.”

“You were seen shouting at him in a few places. Did you have one of your shouting matches the morning he died?”

The anger dissipated from his face, replaced by the distorted masque of sadness and regret.

“Yes,” he whispered, looking down. I could smell the teardrops in his eyes.

“It wasn’t about money, was it?”

“No. It was about Rain. I knew he’d never approve, so I just wanted to cut all ties with him. The fat fucker wouldn’t have it. The Ellcron NDA allowed him to control my life until I became twenty-five or started working for the corporation. All I wanted was to have nothing to do with him, but he kept on going about the scandal it would cause, as if he was one to talk.”

Quite the family drama. I wouldn’t take a lot of poking to learn another secret or two. Sadly, I didn’t have a taste for gossip.

“What exactly happened?” I asked.

“I waited for him to get home. Since he was avoiding the topic anywhere in public, I thought I could have a man-to-man conversation at the apartment. I hoped he’d be drunk. It would have made things easier.”

“Did he usually come home drunk?”

“Heck no. The coward wouldn’t dare. He wanted to. He’s been doing so bad at work, that there was talk of demotion. If that happened, my mother would divorce him, and he’d end up in some two-room loft near the watermark. That’s why he brought work home. It was his last chance to prove he was adequate at something.”

There it was again—the theme of the missing device.

“What happened next?”

“We argued. I’d have hit him if that would have helped, but seeing how pathetic he was, I didn’t.” He paused, brushing off the teardrops from his eyes. Next to him, Rain put her arm around his shoulder. “We went to the kitchen and got a charm from his stash. I mocked him about it. I said that he’s worse than me if he had to rely on those things. He pressed it against his temple and…”

“I get the picture. So, the charms aren’t yours?”

“Are you kidding? I know what that stuff does to you. Maybe I had a few back at school, but I kept away. You can’t get a job if you get hooked on those.”

“And you’re no idea where they came from?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Only that he had a steady supply. The junk was on the kitchen counter non-stop! Even when I dumped all of it down the drain, the next day there’d be more.”

I was just about to ask him about the Ellcron suitcase when I heard the sound of carriages landing outside. Clayton had come through, as always, even if it was a bit sooner than I’d have liked. Still, I was just the consultant; I didn’t get a say in operational control.

I stood up, went to the door, and opened it. A dozen H-Sec agents were there in full uniform and protective gear. At this point, the only thing I could do was step to the side and let them get on with their jobs.