Double-Blind: A Modern LITRPG

Chapter 158

I went over all of it with the feds watching from behind their panel, in painstaking detail. For the most part, I stuck to the truth. Everything from the park where I first met Kinsley to the open-forum was mostly accurate, excepting any mention of becoming a User that early. Other elements were subtly tweaked.

The encounter with the SWAT officer was abridged somewhat, making it sound less like a one-on-one encounter, more like a mass-shooting I’d escaped after someone next-door was shot. As far as I knew, the officer was still alive, and I didn’t want to risk them tracking me down.

To further muddle the scope, I covered my first encounter with the suits in graphic detail—transposing the bounty that had brought me there, to a mysterious text from Nick that took me across town late in the evening. Claimed that I noticed an expensive looking dagger on one of the bodies, grabbed it, and ran, while the Users present were too busy licking their wounds.

Waller steepled his fingers. “So, you saw individuals fighting with fantastical powers beyond your understanding, witnessed a murder, and your first impulse was to rip off the killers?”

I shrunk into myself slightly. “I get how it sounds. But I’d just lost a job, and it looked valuable. When you don’t know where your next meal is coming from and there are people at home you’re responsible for, you get used to taking what you can, when you can.”

Hawkins' expression softened in what could have been genuine empathy.

Waller’s eyebrows knitted together, and he was about to ask another question when Miles stepped in. “Let’s not get bogged down in that for now. How did this lead you to Kinsley?”

I hid a smile as Waller’s second pen apparently ran out of ink, and he scowled at it in frustration. Then I told Miles, play by play, exactly how that second encounter with Kinsley had gone. How she’d bailed me out from the suits and asked for my help, how I’d originally shot her down until she offered a solution to the shortage situation. And how I’d gotten the idea for the merchant site early.

“How did you meet Myrddin?” Waller asked irritably, apparently tired of the context he asked for.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “Towards the end of the open-forum, a man pulled me aside. I won’t bother telling you what he looked like, because as we know, that doesn’t matter.”

“What was he like?” Foster asked, speaking for the first time. Waller and the rest of the room twisted to look at him. They were too professional to show actual irritation, though their stares spoke volumes.

“Oddly calm.” I focused on Foster as I thought back to Gray-hair, how he’d struck me. “Authentically calm. That stood out more than everything else. Not sure if any of you were present, but the vibe there was… rough. Like a pressure cooker with stuck valve. And in the middle of this barely suppressed panic was this person who looked like he was just set apart from the chaos. Unfazed. Like he’d seen it all before.”

“Why did he single you out?” Waller asked.

I rubbed my forehead. “The flyers advertising the site. We were being careful, but maybe not careful enough. Ellison—my brother—got them from me and passed them out. I’m not certain how Myrddin knew, but he had one in his hand. He might have been the first outsider to access the site, now that I think about it.”

“And how did he approach you?” Waller prompted.

“Casually.” I frowned. “With an air of superiority. Like he’d already completely figured out what we were doing and was interested in getting in on the ground floor. He asked a few questions I either didn’t want to answer or didn’t have the answers to—how many people we had, how we intended to expand.”

“What was your impression of him?” Cook asked, with a knowing smirk.

“Suspicious.” I cocked my head. “Most people strike me that way, at first. Even knowing that, I couldn’t shake it. Something about him put me off. He did me a favor right off the bat, though. Pointed out some shady guy walking into city hall who turned out to be one of the shooters from the hospital, and when I left to follow him, told me he’d find me after.”

“Why do you think Myrddin pointed out the shooter without intervening himself?” Waller asked.

“Not sure. A test, maybe.”

“Moreover, why did you intervene?” Waller pressed, leaning forward.

“Because it felt like the right thing to do? I don’t know.” I bit my lip. “I couldn’t do anything at the hospital. People were dying all around me. The man next door was begging for help before they put a bullet in him. And I just ran.”

I thought about region six, focused on the harsh reality of it, and the tiny skeletal hand grabbing my wrist. Of Iris dead in the lithid’s hallucination. My father’s funeral. I felt almost nothing focusing on each individually, but rotating through them got a reaction, and my eyes began to water. I ran a sleeve across my face.

Hawkins approached, gave me a sympathetic nod and passed me a tissue box.

“I’m sure you guys already know what happened with the shooter and the Adventurer’s Guild, so I’ll spare you.” I made a show of blowing my nose, then allowed my expression to harden. “Because after that was when everything went to shit. I met with a friend at this Turkish coffee place. His name was Nick.”

“Was?” Waller prompted.

I brooded. “Hopefully not past tense, but it’s hard to say. It turned out, Nick was a User, and he’d brought two others with him. They’d found a door to something called a “Trial,” and he wanted my advice on strategy.”

“Why would he consult a civilian about that?” Waller said. He didn’t roll his eyes, but I could hear the skepticism in his voice.

“Because we were friends, and he often came to me for advice? And hardly any people were organized and connected to experienced Users that early? Not really seeing the issue there.” I dulled the retort slightly, but Waller still bristled. josei

Good. He wasn’t unflappable.

Waller tapped his pen against his notepad. “What happened next?”

“I made a mistake.” I stared down at the ground. “Myrddin approached me again after the meeting with Nick. He’d followed me from the open forum, and pointed out the fact that Nick had a tail. It took me a minute to get a look at him, but it was one of the suits from the alley.”

“Yes, yes, your mysterious shadow organization.” This time Waller did roll his eyes.

“What was your mistake, Matt?” Hawkins asked, shooting Waller a subtle look of reproach.

I swallowed. “I was already in over my head with the market. The timer was counting down to the transposition event. I wanted to help Nick without putting myself in trouble I had no business in. Even though I still felt like something about him was off, Myrddin kept pushing to join us, and we didn’t have anything resembling muscle to back Nick up. Kinsley sent him to a dungeon on a trial run, and he passed with flying colors. Brought back an ungodly number of valuables and gear and looked relatively unscathed. So, I asked Kinsley to send him to shore up Nick’s party before the trial.”

“I’m guessing it didn’t work out so well?” Waller prompted dryly.

“This is where we get into the weeds a bit.” I pursed my lips. “Because I don’t know what really happened. Only what Myrddin told me. According to him, the trial itself went fine. It was only after that everything went to shit. They were ambushed by the suits. One of Nick’s companions died, the other retreated into the trial itself before it collapsed. Myrddin said, before they took him, that he heard one of them talking about adding Nick to something called The Court.”

The table stirred at that. Mile’s leaned over and whispered something into Hawkins’ ear, and she nodded. Cook and Foster looked at each other uneasily.

”It’s working. You’ve thrown in enough curveballs and referenced events and outside knowledge that their uncertainty is growing. They knew nothing about the suits, but it seems like they’ve known about the court for some time. Hawkins, Cook, and Foster, are all worried that Waller is about to burn you as a source.”

As if he sensed this, Waller looked around the room irritably, and the chatter died. His cold gaze returned to me. “Myrddin told you this. And then what?”

I blinked. “Then the transposition happened. I rode it out with the rest of my region. Kinsley and Myrddin were messaging, but I wasn’t privy to their conversation. You’d have to ask her.”

“You know we can’t. She’s been stonewalling our inquiries and I’m guessing that someone told her to do so. How were you able to secure region 14?” Waller dropped his pen.

I shook my head. “That was as much a surprise to me as it was to the rest of you. I have some theories, but they’re not pertinent to this.”

“Of course they’re not.” Waller studied his notes.

I glanced at Miles, confused, then back to Waller. “Have I offended you in some way?”

Waller folded his glasses and placed them in his chest pocket. “Let me get this straight. Myrddin never had any interaction with your family. He briefly interfaced with your friends, who are now conveniently either missing or dead, leaving the only people alive who had any meaningful long-term contact with him you, and the politically insulated merchant girl who is accumulating a sizable fortune and a small army. Is that right?”

“There’s nothing convenient about it. But yes.” I said. There was no point in giving him anything more to latch onto. I let confusion filter into my expression as I looked at Miles for help. “What is this?”

Miles glanced away.

“Don’t look at him. We’re having a conversation.” Waller stood to his feet, leaning over the table. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a clicker. The projection screen whirred to life. He motioned towards it. I looked over, sure I was prepared for everything.

I wasn’t.