Chapter 19: Faith in The Fantastic Delusion

[Annette Rosenthal]

Annette enters Ariel's office after her party. It's back to work now, but the party was a good distraction. She hates to admit it, but she had a very nice time. It puts her in a good mood, though for her, good moods never last very long.

She approaches Ariel's desk. "Mr. Moderator, I want to thank you for the party. You really shouldn't have." She says in an unusually kindly voice.

"I am also glad about the new monitoring system. I am glad that you are finally taking the rebel threat seriously." She adds. "But, more must be done about it. I am sure that Li Violette is some rebel leader."

[Ariel Tal Shachar]

"Li Violette is a busy woman. I doubt she would have time for such a feat." The Moderator replies. He looks up from his work and pushes his glasses up his thin nose. The glasses don't seem to stay on well. "I mean no offense to you, but the rebel threat is more imagined than real. I think communism is a bogeyman under your bed. I certainly don't see much of it." Ariel replies with a faint smile.
He gets up from his desk and pushes the chair in. "But, I will hear you out. What do you think must be done? We will soon have a spy system in place. Every major corporation in the world has its own army. There is now a new prison in Rome. What more can be done?"

[Annette Rosenthal]

"I'm old. I know the world and what it used to be like. You only know Manalism and a world without countries. You only know...Manala Crystals, teleportation booths, the Economic council." Annette reminds him. She watches him carefully and folds her arms across her chest. Behind her is the robotic cat that Momo gave her.

The robotic cat approaches Annette and rubs against her leg, making a mechanical purring noise.

"People forget history."

The cat purrs.

"I want you to create a monster or...some super being that can destroy the rebels. Something more powerful than the Invisible Hand. They are mostly humans and many humans are weak, stupid, and flawed. Flawed in so many ways. When push comes to shove, you can't trust humans. That's why I use androids...for my Creditors."

[Ariel Tal Shachar]

"I think the greatest threat to all of us is not the rebels, but each other." Ariel replies to Annette. "If I did not believe that, I would not be the Moderator. In any event, even Creditors can malfunction. Nothing is without flaw."

He bends down and pets the mechanical cat. He smiles, even though the cat is not real. He then stands up tall to face Annette. "Annette, I believe that the Eyes of God will be sufficient. I also believe that the prison will serve as a deterent for some rebels. We have angels, demons, dragons, and even ..a God on our side. There is nothing that can be created that will surpass what we already have. Now, please leave. If conditions change, I may consider your advice. But for now, I am not particularly concerned."

[Annette Rosenthal]

"Just dismiss me, like I'm some senile old woman. But, you'll come crying to me someday...and I'll say, I told you so. Li Violette is a witch and we should burn her." Annette says maliciously. She picks up the robotic cat into her arms. "Come on, Pudding. We don't need this."
Annette leaves with the cat and does not turn back. She walks right out of the HQ to the Economic Council to her refuge in the nearby Global Bank.

[††Venice "Cephrien" Ashgrove††]

Cephrien walks towards the window and softly touches the glass with one of his leather-gloved hands. The noise has stopped.. everything has gone silent. It would appear that the fighting is over. From what it seems, there has been minimal damage done to the area. He isn't sure how many of the meeting attenders had escaped or how many were captured.
He doesn't know why, but the images of Hilja and Freakboy briefly flicker in his mind.

Right now, He needed to check in with Li and update her on the situation. For now, it was safe to call it a successful operation.. since it could have gotten much uglier than it did.

"Think about it." He speaks to Tristan, never taking his eyes away from the window.

"We'll meet again."

The image of Ophelia, the flower woman briefly flickered in his mind as he turned from the window and began to walk down the hall, his footsteps echoing until he disappeared into the nearest shadow.

[Dinari Dollar]

"Momo seems to be going to the bathroom a lot. I hope she doesn't have food poisoning or like...some stomach bug. I definitely don't want to get some kind of stomach bug." Dinari whispers to Max. He doesn't think that Momo heard.

"Hey, we should ...do something fun in London after we are done with the meeting stuff today. Do you have any cool hang out spots or anything there! Or...we could go bug Calithin Crest and ask him to entertain us. We should do that." Dinari suggests.

[Amelia 20]

Amelia watches Annika go. She readies herself to chase after her, but, does not. She only watches the other Creditor escape. She stands there a long while. Her thoughts are jumbled. She glances over at Heikki, who is laying on the ground. Something tells her to pick him up. There is no reason for it, or for much of anything that she does. She just does, slinging him over her shoulder and getting his blood on his back.
"Don't you bring me any flowers..." She starts to sing, but she doesn't know the rest of the song, or what the song is. She just walks with Heikki over her shoulder and starts searching for Bonifaz.

She saw Bonifaz and Archer run off together. She starts running in that direction.

[Max Alexander]

"Indeed." Max agreed, "She certainly does excuse herself a lot."

Max ate a scone. They were getting close to landing. "I do not really do a lot locally, to be perfectly honest. London has kind of died. There are many things to do around my home though." Max suddenly felt the plane about to descend.

"We should be landing shortly."

[Tristan Tuzanic]

"I'll think about it." Tristan says. When Cephrien leaves, he leaves as well. He leaves the school and heads to the nearest Trendy Pizza. He enters alone and orders a whole pizza for himself. He feels like a failure. He isn't sure he can just leave the Manalists so easily. It will require more thought. It felt good to think about it though. His pizza arrives and he starts eating it by himself. He feels like crying.

[Momo Kurokawa]

Momo takes her seat and buckles back in. She can feel the plane is starting to land. She looks out the window and thinks about the work ahead of them...and ahead of her.

"As we speak, I have some of my machines headed to Helsinki. I am going to take over SOTA. The company is weak and there is no sense having two companies that build similar things. They are the ones who build Creditors for Global Bank. I've always wanted that contract and I'm tired of having them standing in my way." Momo announces.

"I am going to have some of my robots...kill Keitoleinen." She says confidently.

[Dinari Dollar]

"Uh....really?" Dinari asks. He is pretty shocked by this revelation. "Is your company powerful enough to take over his?" Dinari adds. In these days, a takeover usually means physically taking over the buildings and land of another company, as well as sometimes killing and capturing the owner or head scientist from that company. It's been a while since anyone took over anyone else's company. The Moderator usually frowns on it because it ends up destroying too much and just causing too much chaos.

[Momo Kurokawa]

"I overheard Calithin and some elf looking man talking to one another at the end of the party. The elven man suggested killing Keitoleinen. I've been thinking about...trying to take over SOTA for a long time. I thought that now would be a good time. The conversation sparked something in me. I will be the one to destroy Keitoleinen and I will make SOTA mine." Momo says confidently. "But don't worry, I am fully committed to helping you both with the Eyes of God."
She continues to look out the window.

[Kith Keitoleinen]

Kith teleports back to Helsinki and walks up to a funeral home. It is after hours and the funeral home is closed. He decides that this is where he will get the head for Keitoleinen. Keitoleinen won't know that he didn't actually kill the person. Although, come tomorrow, someone might become upset to find a decapitated corpse.

Kith approaches the funeral home's entrance, which is of course, locked. He decides to break a window, so, he wanders over to one of the basement windows and smashes it with a large rock. This sets off an alarm.

Kith hurries inside the building, since his time is limited. He slips through the window into a room filled with empty caskets.

He keeps looking. He rushes through that room to another, where he does find a corpse that just got a makeover. He quickly lobs its head off with his sword and carries the thing back out the window.

He figures that police must be on the way so he sprints away from the funeral home, head in his arms. The head is of an older man, which Kith doesn't notice until he is far away from the funeral home.

Head in his arms, he walks the short distance to Keitoleinen's mansion to present him with the prize. Hopefully he doesn't realize that it was from a dead body.

[Hilja Kukkanen/Sasha Pisarev]

"I think France is a good idea. Or, we could head back to Armin's place in Helsinki. Personally, I would like to go back to Helsinki and since many of us live there, we would be near our jobs." I suggest. I have nothing against Salome's idea, but I want to put another suggestion out there as well.

I look around to see if anyone else has a suggestion.