Chapter One Hundred and Seventy: Mandatory Quest Decisions (Patreon)

Thirty minutes later, I was back in the drawing room with Anne and Paul.

"You don't have to do this, you know," Paul said. "There are laws against disclosure."

I shook my head. "Bears isn't crooked. Besides, the Mayor was secretly supporting the Grunters…."

“Which is why the mansion escaped notice for so long. We talked about city-scale corruption and why you shouldn’t get involved. Did Frasier ever get back to you about the Mayor?”

“He told me that he’d passed word on to the appropriate authorities, then gently advised me not to interfere.”

“But you got a quest to investigate him today.” Paul cocked his head. “That – changes things. Your power has its flaws, but it’s rarely been wrong.”

“So you think I should investigate?”

“I don’t think you have a choice. What with it being mandatory, and unspecified bad things happening within a month?”

“The change in his behaviour is weird.” I thought back to my Observe of the man, several months ago.

Faction hidden; relationship, disliked; and a Level 24 inventor. Gravitic had only been Level 20….

“Aldiss might be comparable to Grumman in strength. Doesn’t mean he’s actually a bad guy.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s a good guy either.”

“We’ve had this debate before,” Paul pointed out. “I’ve checked Aldiss against most of the well-known ultras in and around Tanisport; he’s been photographed with almost all of them at some point or another.”

“Which ones hasn’t he appeared in public with?”

“Just three, actually. Belessar, Nanocloud and Agni.”

“Ha-ha, very funny.”

“Every other non-villainous ultra has appeared in at least one public event with Aldiss. And some of Grumman’s attacks were at times when Aldiss was verifiably elsewhere.”

“So, he’s with an unknown faction and we have to figure out which ones in the next thirty days, or bad things happen?” Anne summed up. “Sounds like a job for a superhero!”

I rolled my eyes. “Any ideas how to start?”

“Now that we know about the ‘ignore-me’ field, we can ignore it. I’ll start watching him again.”

“What if he detects you?”

“He won’t.”

“You don’t know what kind of sensors he could have.”

“Dad – I’ve been testing my bots against sensor arrays for the last few months. Even pitted them against Quantosphere’s and Panopticon’s sensors at the exhibition. If they couldn’t detect my bots, it’s doubtful that Aldiss – or any gear he bought from the black market – will be able to.”

“As long as your grades slip in the process.”

“Don’t worry, Dad. Multitasking Level Max, after all.”