The King's Knights

Chapter Forty-Seven: Janice Atravain

It was a bar.

Practically every possible cliche in the universe. And it came complete with a blue-skinned Astarri girl dancing seductively.

Renfield picked a table reasonably out of the way, and they sat down. Arcturus felt like they would probably get listened in on anyway. And he wasn't giving the Astarri a second glance. Neither was Renfield, whose species was a-sexual and reproduced without mating.

"Are you sure that Janice can help us?" asked Arcturus, wondering if he was wasting his time here.

"Here or nowhere, kid," said Renfield. "You having second thoughts."

"Yes," said Arcturus. "But I don't feel like we can decently do anything else. Not if we can help it. The public does need to know what is going on here. Their tax dollars are being used for... all this.

"It's their choice whether they do anything about it."

"Technically speaking, it's our choice," said Renfield. "You can't make a choice you don't know you have. But I take your point, kid, and you're right. We can't decently do anything else.

"But let's try and do it properly. No talking about this until after negotiations."

"Have you been here before?" asked Arcturus again.

"Never in my life," said Renfield. "I didn't do much work on Kadan, and I used the portal near Namina when I was here last."

Arcturus found himself suddenly very angry.

He wasn't sure why.

Drawing out his phone, he began updating his journal. He decided that the second he was off Kadan, he would post what he'd written down publically. He had the pictures to show for it. Maybe a bit of information every day to gradually attract attention.

Grimoire didn't know what he was talking about anymore.

And people had to know what was going on here. These people did not represent the Demoration. The fact that people here thought they did was a problem. Arcturus was going to blow this whole story wide open.

Fate halted as he considered this. What is the difference between Fate and Arcturus? He seemed to think of himself as Fate when he was being coldly logical. And Arcturus when he was being more emotional.

This kind of posting could cause major problems for Demoration, couldn't it?

Why shouldn't it, though, thought Arcturus. If the Demoration had acted this way, the government would have had to be held accountable. The free press existed to keep people accountable and prevent this coverup. And judging from how blatant it was, it had to be pretty deep.

Couldn't that endanger Arcturus?

It could hardly endanger him more than it was already. And anyway, once the story was out, it would cause even more problems if Arcturus died. Grimoire was bluffing in the hope of shutting him up. He probably should have just offered Arcturus a flat bribe. Arcturus might have accepted that or at least considered it a contract.

Really, why should Arcturus be grateful to a huge corporation for not killing him?

Renfield probably could have set this up with a bit of footwork.

So he owed them nothing.

They probably couldn't do anything to him.

And he had a moral obligation as a citizen of the Demoration to do something about this.

"I'm having third thoughts," said Arcturus. "Grimoire doesn't strike me as someone who knows that much. I feel like he threw this together at the last second.