Chapter 235 Talk.

Chapter 235: 235 Talk.

Within twelve hours, the analytics were in, and the numbers were absolutely staggering.

I sat at the kitchen island of the chalet, nursing a mug of black coffee and scrolling through the trending feeds on my phone.

The beauty of the internet is that you can always rely on millions of bored people to suddenly declare themselves expert scholars on archaic, mystical bullshit they’d literally never heard of until five minutes ago.

Occult artifacts? Forget about it. The conspiracy theorists were eating it up with a spoon.

I tapped through a dozen video essays and live-reaction streams, nodding in quiet satisfaction. It was all complete garbage, of course.

Anyone who correctly pointed out that the glowing box looked suspiciously like spray-painted resin had their videos buried with fifty views.

But the guys screaming into their webcams about how the cube was an actual Atlantean super-weapon or a backdoor portal to the underworld? Millions of hits.

Vanessa was trending right alongside it. Clips of her blasting the smoke away and standing tall against the ’demonic threat’ were looping on every major news network. Her brand was officially forged in fire.

We had delivered exactly what The Jester paid for. You love to see it.

"You appear to be in remarkably high spirits, sir," Glacia observed, gliding into the kitchen with her usual flawless posture.

"Sure am," I said, locking my phone and tossing it onto the marble counter. "This whole job is tracking perfectly so far. The press swallowed the hook, the line, and the sinker. Vanessa looks like a superstar, and we look like a genuine threat."

"I am immensely pleased to hear it, sir," Glacia said, offering a cool, polite smile. She paused, reaching into a sleek silver folder tucked under her arm. "On an administrative note, I have compiled today’s roster of prospective applicants for you to interview."

And just like that, the high of a successful heist vanished, instantly replaced by the grim reality of management.

"Oh. Fantastic," I muttered, taking the printed spreadsheet and scanning the names.

Nothing jumped off the page. No big names, no obvious heavy hitters. Just a list of colorful aliases that sounded like rejected comic book pitches.

"Psyren is already waiting for you in the living room," Glacia noted. "I will begin filtering the candidates through the gate security and sending them in whenever you are ready."

"Sounds good. Thanks, Glacia."

I grabbed my coffee and made my way down the hall toward the main meeting room. The heavy oak doors were propped open.

Inside, Psyren was slouched deep in her chair, her heavy combat boots propped up on the polished mahogany table as she flicked rapidly through her phone.

On the floor beside her, Nibbles was currently chewing loudly on something that looked suspiciously like a femur. I decided it was best not to dwell on where the mutant frog-shark had found it.

The punk telepath glanced up, flashing me a sharp, jagged grin.

"Ready for another thrilling day of human resources, bossman?"

"Just vibrating with anticipation," I said dryly.

I took my seat at the head of the table, tapping the hidden switch under the armrest.

My customized Polaris helmet deployed from the collar of my armor with a smooth, mechanical snick, locking over my face and tinting the room in a faint red hue.

I reached out and tapped the screen of the ruggedized tablet sitting in front of me.

"Rhea-Search? You online?"

The screen booted up, a pixelated smiley face blinking onto the glass.

:)

"Good," I said, turning my visor toward the double doors. "Alright. Let’s get this over with. Send the first one in."

A couple of minutes later, heavy footsteps echoed in the corridor. The first candidate shuffled through the doorway.

He was dressed in what looked like heavily modified, industrial mining gear. Thick, dust-caked canvas overalls, steel-toed boots, and a heavy-duty hardhat rigged with a dual-filter gas mask that completely obscured his face.

He carried the distinct, oppressive vibe of a disgruntled blue-collar worker who had finally snapped under the weight of minimum wage.

Not bad. It was a cohesive, grounded theme.

"Hi, welcome. Take a seat," I said, gesturing to the chair opposite me.

"Thanks," he mumbled, his voice muffled by the thick rubber of the mask. He pulled the chair out and sat down stiffly, keeping his hands resting squarely on his knees.

I glanced down at Glacia’s printed list, then over to the tablet. Rhea-Search was already pulling up municipal records for local seismic disturbances.

"So. You’re the... Underminer?" I asked, double-checking the alias.

The guy shifted uneasily in the leather chair. His heavy boots scraped against the floorboards. "Actually... not really."

I paused, slowly looking back up. "Come again?"

The Underminer was visibly sweating. His shoulders were hunched tight up by his ears, and his gloved hands were actively fidgeting, wringing together in his lap.

He didn’t look like a guy ready to pitch an evil alliance but more like a guy waiting for a firing squad.

I cut a look over to my right. Psyren had lowered her phone. She was sitting straight up, her eyes locked intensely onto the guy in the gas mask, her brow furrowed in deep concentration.

"Right," I said, letting the silence stretch for a long, uncomfortable moment.

My passive magnetic field flared to life, humming beneath my skin.

I silently locked onto the iron bolts securing the table, the steel shanks in the guy’s boots, and the brass air-fittings on his gas mask. I was ready to lock him down in a fraction of a second.

"Then who the hell are you?" I asked, my voice dropping to a flat, dangerous register.

"Okay," the villain stammered, taking a harsh, shaky breath that rattled through the mask filters. "Please... please don’t be mad."

"Mad?" I said.

The Underminer’s bulky, dust-covered body suddenly shimmered. The canvas overalls and heavy boots distorted wildly, like a television screen losing its signal.

"Why would I be—"

The illusion collapsed.

My chair slammed violently backward into the wall as I bolted to my feet.

It wasn’t a disgruntled miner sitting across from me. The disguise had melted entirely away, revealing a slender, hairless figure that looked like an anatomical mannequin painted a bruised, slick shade of bluish-purple.

Huge, bulbous yellow eyes with reptilian pupils stared back at me in terror.

I knew exactly who I was looking at. It was the shapeshifting mimic that Micheal Carter had hired to replace Psyren during the mall ambush.

The same freak I had strung up by the wrists in the sub-basement and tortured with liquid mercury to get the location of the black-site.

I thrust both my hands forward.

The conference room erupted into metallic violence. Every single stainless-steel pen on the table, the metal letter opener, and a dozen heavy iron paperweights ripped themselves off the mahogany and shot into the air.

The metal violently contorted, flattening and sharpening into jagged, razor-thin blades. They swarmed around my shoulders in a deadly, floating halo, every single point aimed directly at the shapeshifter’s throat.

"Wait!" she shrieked, throwing her slick, blue hands over her face and cowering back into the chair. "I know what you’re thinking! Please! Just hear me out!"

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t pin you to that wall right now," I snarled.

"It was a misunderstanding! I swear!" she begged, her voice cracking with desperation. "I’m not here for revenge! I don’t want to fight! Please, please don’t hurt me again!"

I kept my hands raised, the ring of blades vibrating with lethal intent. I didn’t take my eyes off her, but I shifted my focus to the telepath sitting beside me.

Psyren was glaring at the shapeshifter with absolute, unadulterated venom. Bright, neon-pink hearts of psionic energy were throbbing violently in her irises.

She had her mental claws buried deep inside the mimic’s head, tearing through her thoughts.

Psyren’s jaw tightened. She let out a long, frustrated hiss through her teeth and gave me a stiff, microscopic nod.

"She’s telling the truth," Psyren ground out, clearly hating every syllable. "She’s completely terrified."

I let out a slow, controlled breath. I lowered my hands an inch. I didn’t drop the weapons, but I let my magnetic grip ease enough to bring my chair back over.

I sat down heavily, resting my forearms on the table. The halo of jagged steel blades continued to hover ominously around my head, tracking the shapeshifter’s every flinch.

"Alright," I said, gripping the armrests until the leather creaked. "Talk. And if you lie to me, or if my telepath even thinks you’re lying to me..."

"I’d never! Cross my heart and hope to die," the mimic swore frantically, pressing a hand to her chest.

"Psyren will be the judge of that," I warned. "And she’s not feeling particularly generous today."

The shapeshifter winced, casting a deeply nervous glance at the pink-haired psychic.

"I... I really am sorry for what happened to you," she whispered.

"No, you’re not," Psyren snapped back, flashing a vicious, predatory grin. "You’re just sorry you got caught. But if you even think about spinning us a fairy tale today, I can make you forget how to breathe."

The shapeshifter swallowed hard, her yellow eyes darting around the room like a trapped rat. She fidgeted nervously with her hands, picking at her blue scales.

Normally, I wouldn’t trust a single movement. Mimics were master actors.

They survived by blending in. Body language, vocal tremors, nervous tics—it was all just a physical performance she could manipulate at will. Shapeshifters made a living out of selling a lie to whoever was watching.

But she couldn’t lie to a telepath.

I had let this bitch walk once before, back when she spilled the details on Micheal’s underground array. I had kept my end of the bargain and let her run.

But if she was stupid enough to walk right back into my lair to mess with me again, I would have zero moral objections to burying her in the flowerbeds.

I leaned forward, the floating blades inching closer to her face.

"Start talking," I growled.