Kinsley tensed at my side. I was confident I wasn’t showing anything on my face, but she’d seen me go blank like this before. After briefly considering switching to I thought better of it. I wasn’t sure I could maintain my composure without my default title.

If you said the word enemy, Aaron’s smug face would usually be the first association in my mind. He was rarely at the estate when I visited Daphne, but when he was, he’d been kind. Eager to play the father figure and give advice. The faux parental aspect was strange, but I put up with it because his lessons were fascinating to me, fundamentally different from anything my parents and therapists had taught me.

In my mind, he’d occupied the same space as Estrada. A valued adviser with no parallel. Which is why the betrayal cut so deeply.

Aaron had tried to hang the entire Quad Sigma clusterfuck on my mother’s neck. Accused her of misusing company resources to create what the news at the time called the most dangerous black market in the history of the internet, solely of her own volition. Thankfully, the DA wasn’t an idiot, and offered to knock down the charges against her from what could have easily been life in prison in exchange for her cooperation if she testified against her former boss and associates.

A few of them went down. Low security bids for a handful of years—I think the highest was three. But save a lifetime ban on trading equities and six years of probation, Aaron got off scot-free, all his gray money undoubtedly secured in the Caymans.

It’s stupid, but I used to fantasize about hacking him, wiping out his savings, ruining his life. The idea eventually led to a two-month stint, during which I discovered I had no talent for computer science or programming, let alone hacking.

Aaron slowly let his hand drop, grin diminishing to an apologetic half-smile. “Of course. I saw the video before I came here. It wasn’t the best quality. You looked familiar, but I didn’t put it together until now.”

Was that even possible? Maybe. But I fucking doubted it.

“Do we have a problem?” Tyler looked between us, concerned.

“No problem.” Aaron shook his head. “Matthias and I have some history. I wasn’t always a lawyer. A lifetime ago, I ran the hedge fund, and his mother was one of our employees.” He glanced at Tyler. “I’m not certain how much you know about finance, but hedge funds generally operate in something of a legal gray area. As such, they present a juicy target for overeager prosecutors looking for another notch on their belt. Most of the charges were dropped.”

Because you sold out your associates. Including my mother.

“…clear overreach on their part—but ultimately, it was my firm. My responsibility. It would be totally reasonable if he resented me for the part I played.” Aaron frowned, all sympathy and regret. “If you’d prefer, I can recuse myself. Pull another representative from the city council. They may not be as familiar as I am with the area. But it’s more important that things run smoothly.”

“They let you practice law?” I asked, genuinely shocked.

Aaron smiled. “Life’s little ironies. My firm is just down the street, and I live on the other side of the region. I was trapped in here with the rest of the ungifted during the transposition. Same shelter as Lizette.”

When I didn’t react, he explained. “Tyler’s wife.”

I tried to ignore the fact that by fortifying the region, I’d unintentionally saved Aaron’s life. There were things that didn’t make sense that took precedence. I’d assumed for as long as I knew of them that Aaron was a high-up in the Suits’ hierarchy. Daphne’s presence was too strong of a connection, and I was certain I’d overheard one of the mooks tell Daphne her father would be pleased that first night in the alley.

But if that was true, what the hell was he doing here, in a region that had missed the fortification deadline? They had a surplus of lux in region 3, and I doubted that was all they had. If they wanted to avoid suspicion, they would have just waited until late into the transposition to fortify.

So, what did that mean? Was it possible there was some sort of power struggle within the Suits? Had they left him to die as a part of some internal coup?

“Do you want to move forward with the meeting, Matt?” Sara interjected. “Or roll the dice with another member of the City Council?”

Kinsley nudged me.

I shook my head slowly, then stuck out my hand. “No reason to hold on to pre-system baggage, right?”

I had no doubts that whoever Aaron selected would be firmly in his pocket. And at the end of the day, I’d much rather deal with the source than a proxy. As unpleasant as that source might be.

Aaron returned my handshake with both hands, his megawatt smile returning full force. “I’m so glad you feel that way, Matthias.”

“I go by Matt these days.” I wheeled the chair backwards and slid into the table, resting my arms across it. “And now that I feel completely underdressed, why don’t we get started.” I signaled for Kinsley to send the message containing the developmental options for the region.

All three of them pulled up their UI, reviewing the options. I went over it as well. A message appeared.

I glanced up from my reading. Tyler caught my eye, and gave me a reassuring nod. In the aftermath of the transposition, I’d forgotten how much I liked the man.

The Suits were going to find out one way or another. They knew I had a connection to Daphne. It was possible sending Aaron in particular was a straightforward flex, letting me know that regardless of where I went, they were still watching. But it felt more complicated than that. Plus, when it came time to broach the topic with the Adventurer’s Guild, Tyler was going to fly off the handle when he discovered how brazenly they’d stuck a thumb in his eye.

“Tough.” Aaron commented, looking around the room. “None of these options are shoe-ins.”

“Dark Lord’s Descent—for one thing it’s too long, so let’s just call it DLD—looks promising,” Sara said, still engrossed in her reading. “If we make Region 14 our primary base of operations going forward, a single User shouldn’t be much of an issue.”

You say that because the only special class you’ve dealt with ran away and jumped in a car.”

“You’ve never dealt with a special class.” Aaron said.

I stared at him, gobsmacked, as he paraphrased the exact point I’d considered.

“And you have?” Tyler asked.

“No, but I hear things.” Aaron leaned back in his chair, his hands steepled. “The Ordinator is the big one we all know about, thanks to that little dog and pony show the Overseer put on. But he isn’t the only one. And from the reports I’ve heard, these fucks hit hard. Maybe you get an idiot who runs out in the street, screaming that he’s the Dark Lord, and the problem takes care of itself. Maybe you don’t. It’s a total roll of the dice, and I don’t like betting when I don’t know the odds. Don’t get me wrong, I think consolidating the Adventurer’s Guild here is still a good move. Fourteen lacks a guild, so it’s free real estate. And we could certainly use the protection.”

“I’m inclined to agree. Vetoing that option.” Kinsley swiveled back and forth in her chair, glancing at me for confirmation.

“Same.” I added.

What world did I slip into?

“There’s already too much we don’t know.” I continued, “Adding another variable would be unnecessarily dangerous. Fourteen didn’t fortify in time, so every option is going to have a drawback. There are too many benefits for the special class not to be a significant threat.”

“I like the way you think.” Aaron pointed at me.

Die in a fire.

Tyler nodded, “I agree that the risks are too high. We’re in accordance, then.”

“Then that leaves us with two options,” Sara skimmed through the invisible text.

/////

Tyler and Kinsley both made strong arguments for positing that if we had a system in place with Users prepared to assist with any quest that had dire consequences, or was about to be failed, we could mitigate any potential spiral.

Aaron and Sara both argued for Aaron seemed to consider the resource curse a total myth, and even if it wasn’t, argued that it was most damaging to nascent countries, and we were too developed to be affected. I pushed back, stating that by the standards of this new world, we were underdeveloped. Something Aaron vehemently disagreed with. Sara was less concerned with that, more uncomfortable with the idea of increased penalties for quests, guessing any system we put into place would be easily overwhelmed if the time limits were as unforgiving as the option implied.

Which, of course, left me as the swing vote.