Chapter 3-65: Sifting Through the Past (1/2)
I WILL SET YOUR PHONE UP WITH SIMPLE CALL-IN AND OUT, AND AVOID THE OTHER FUNCTIONS, he informed me. SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING WILL BE ABLE TO ACCESS THE APPLICATIONS, AND GREGORIGORI AND HIS PEOPLE COULD DO SO REMOTELY, WITH YOUR PERMISSION. BRAND WITH YOUR MAGIC, PLEASE.
He held it out, a big glowing fingerprint thing there on its screen. I coalesced a Dart around my thumb and touched the screen, which was instantly branded with a jet and silver pattern scattered around my thumbprint. He noted it curiously, but promptly got back to work on things.
There were probably monitoring and tracking things involved with it, but I didn’t care. “Can you download her prior logs of calls and things?” I asked.
YES. DATAFILES AREN’T KEPT AT THE MAIN SERVERS FOR OVERLY LONG DUE TO THE AGGRESSIVE DATA BUILD-UP, SO THEY TEND TO GET WIPED ONCE DOWNLOADED. BUT THINGS LIKE CONTACTS AND PHOTOS ARE OFTEN BACKED-UP, AND CAN BE REACHED WITH THE APPROPRIATE CLEARANCE AND EFFORTS. GREGORIGORI IS GETTING THOSE NOW.
I didn’t actually know if I wanted her phone book, but doubtless it could be mined for contact information that might be useful. The texts and messages could be useful, too, if they could be retrieved.
“Are there any recent messages?” I inquired calmly. Those should have downloaded once her number became active again.
He flipped through something with his thumbs, and slowly shook his head.
Nobody had called her. Nobody had known something had happened to her. This poor girl... the only people she had connected with were some pretty bad people.
“How possible is it that she has a criminal record that has been scrubbed?” I asked calmly. Master Fred paused in his fingertapping. “Come on, look at this face. She would have had to beat people away. The odds she did not exploit it are low, especially after such a resentful childhood.”
I’LL PRETEND I’M INQUIRING DISCRETELY. He switched back to his own phone for a moment, sent that off. ANYTHING ELSE?, he asked in burning letters.
I held up a sheaf of paper. “She was getting five thousand dollars a month deposited into a trust fund bank account, just for her. Given who her mother is, that’s a minor financial sum. But given her age, the income, and the timing, I would not be surprised if she came of age, was threatened to keep her nose clean, given the income, and sent here to America to get away from bad influences, while her past was scrubbed of some bad stuff even harder. If she had a baby on the way, she might not even have been that mad about it.”
He thought that over, and had to agree with it. THE BABY’S ROOM WAS NOT SOMETHING DONE IN SPITE, he agreed. IF THE SHOULS ARE BEHIND IT ALL, RUNNING AWAY WITH THE BABY WOULD HAVE DEFINITELY UPSET SOME PLANS. SEND SOMEONE TO SEDUCE HER IN HER NEW PLACE, THEN TAKE THE BABY WHEN IT WAS TIME.
“And she probably had not the slightest idea, because she didn’t think she had any magic at all.”
I set the mail down. “I’m going to do my two hours of Meditation, and keep going through her things. Do what you need to do. If the city wants you to do something, just leave me a note. This is going to take some time.”
UNDERSTOOD.
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Ed. Note: Shoul rhymes with dowel/foul. Shouls rhymes with ghouls/fools.
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Going through the artifacts of someone else’s life can be pretty depressing, or pretty interesting. It tends to lean much towards the former when you’re in their body.
Being the reasonable, patient, and mature sort of person, I started with current paperwork, digging out everything everywhere, and going through it bit by bit.
There were bills, and receipts of stuff she had bought... I even had the receipts for the electronics which had been stolen, although I didn’t know how useful they were. They were purchased on a debit card, and she had renter’s insurance, so I could probably claim theft... but what was I going to do with electronics I couldn’t use, anyways?
The media bill she was getting was for a top-flight internet connection, so I assumed a lot of online surfing and gaming. She didn’t have to work, so there had to be something she spent time on, and she didn’t make an unlimited amount of money, so she couldn’t shop until she dropped, although the clothing I saw indicated she had a good eye for what would look good on her.
She also had a fair amount of magazines stacked up here and there... clothing and fashion predominated, with society/gossip news too.
Mana was one of them. There was a splashy picture of some gorgeous Caster or another in impractically revealing garb, heading for a party somewhere, with glowing clothing, fluorescent Tats, and illusionary flames dancing about her shoulders.
Part of the world that, had she known how to deal with her Bloodline, she would have been part of.
I thumbed through the pages of it, looking at the names. If mass media had survived in Terra-Luna, Aelryinth probably would have been a frequent target of these kind of publications as the most powerful Caster on the planet...
Naturally I recognized absolutely nothing and no one, but my, did the local high-end go in for the colors for fashion. Black suits and tuxedos were definitely something for the Primos. Powered wore whatever they wanted in terms of styles, even if there was solidarity within Guilds and Schools. Wizards tended to prefer scholarly robes, Sorcerers anything flashy and individual that showed their Bloodline, Clerics ceremonial garb, Dragon Warriors layered uniforms that indicated their achievements and Schools, and Minstrels dressed like entertainers who had magic to accentuate the edge of fashion.
The ubiquitous of attractive Powered meant that simple good looks didn’t attract the attention of the photographers, so the advent of the supermodel and glamour actresses had never really come about here.
The focus was on the Powered, some of whom got into those careers, and would naturally dominate them... what actress was going to surpass a Priestess of Nuava, or actor a Minstrel of Tiirith? It just wasn’t going to happen.
If you had Power, you had the money, the power, the status. These Mana magazines simply oozed the lesson that you should envy and emulate the Powered.
The smarmy commentary alternately gushing over or deriding the contents certainly didn’t help matters... eh?