Era of Madness

Ghost London's last nightmare 4

In an entirely different part of Ghost London, in a spacious room, Erica was sitting on a large comfortable chair, a grim expression on her face. Sat in front of her was a slim man wearing a black suit with a bow tie. A top hat was placed on his head, while an elegant black lustrous cane rested on his knees. On his thin nose were laying round sunglasses, but they couldn't fully hide the dark blue and golden glow emanating from his eyes.

"Care for anything else to drink? Tea? Soda? Coffee?" he asked Erica.

None of them were wearing a suit. For an unknown reason, it seemed as if the mist was unable to penetrate the room.

"Yes, I'd enjoy a black coffee" Erica replied. "And a milkshake too"

"Sure, your wishes are my commands" the man replied as, out of nowhere, he made a porcelain cup of coffee and a plastic cup of milkshake with a straw appear.

Erica calmly took both, sat back in her chair, and then spilled the coffee toward him, throwing the cup at his head in the same time. The coffee simply evaporated before touching him, and he nimbly catched the cup by its handle. He then turned it toward Erica, revealing that all the coffee had magically reappeared inside.

"So you weren't gonna drink it? Well, good thing I love black coffee" the man said as he took a sip and immediately coughed. "Actually, I think I mistook with milk coffee... urgh, so bitter. Could you also throw the milkshake so I can get rid of this taste?"

"Nah, I asked this one to drink it" Erica replied as she took a sip. "Now, since it seems like you won't let me go help Tyler and John anytime soon, would you have the kindness to explain me why the fuck you abducted me and keep me in here?"

"Hmm, excellent question... but isn't the answer obvious? If I actually did let you go with them, there wouldn't have been any fun, would it? After all, even if in the current situation, you don't exactly represent the biggest threat, well, with your 'particularities', to say it like this, Mavarel wouldn't have had even a single chance to retaliate"

Erica frowned:

"When did you realize?" she asked.

"When? On Glactia-62, obviously" the man replied. "It just happens that back then, I met one of the stellar commanders, and guess what? They told me something very interesting, that I 'got noticed during my little puppet show'. What's interesting here is that they didn't say that they were the one noticing me. Which is actually pretty logical: I made sure to leave no clue, so how could a stellar commander learn it from that far?"

He crossed his legs as Erica couldn't do anything but listen:

"So, only one explanation was left: someone that was directly implicated in the terminal battle accident spotted me, someone that was tied to the Andromeus-Silveren empire... to the cult of Silence" he said.

The man had just given a capital information as if nothing: the number one public enemy of the galaxy and the third global superpower, the Silence cult and the Andromeus-Silveren empire, were tied!

Yet, Erica didn't show any surprise, for the simple reason she already knew as much about this as one could. Her face darkened even more as he continued:

"You were the only one there that fit the criteria. And to make a stellar commander move that fast, you'd have to be someone as important as them. However, as much as I know, you don't match the description of any of them, nor of an equally important person" he said. "Therefore, by elimination, your identity is pretty obvious, isn't it?"

Erica finished her milkshake and sighed:

"Well, I guess I can't deny anymore, you saw through my disguise, congrats. And judging by how this stellar commander gave you all these hints, I get there's a traitor among the seven?" she asked.