Season 6, Chapter 20

CELESTE

Celeste awoke in her bedchamber, and sat up in bed, glancing around quickly to see if she was alone. She wasn’t.

Titus sat in the chair opposite her bed, his gargantuan form dwarfing the piece of furniture almost ridiculously, like a watermelon in an egg cup. The chair seemed to be holding up, though. Helio’s craftsmanship was truly impressive.

“Titus…?” said Celeste, straightening the nightgown she found herself in. Her body ached far less than she might have expected, but her head was still slightly under the effects of whatever substance Jacques had used on her. “What happened? …after I…?”

Titus shrugged. “I took you back here and put you to bed.”

Glimpses of memories started to come back. Titus had tracked her down, possibly at Helio’s behest, with his impressive tracking skills from the Wastes. And he had…what?

“What happened with Jacques?!” said Celeste.

Titus shrugged again.

“You…let ‘im go?”

“Left him there. Bound up.”

“Titus, he is a skilled escape artist. I’m sure he got free the moment you left.”

Titus shrugged a third time. “Didn’t seem like much of a threat.”

Celeste was once more awed at the combat prowess of her large friend. (Were they still friends? she wondered. Or…something more…?) Jacques was a dangerous man and it seemed that Titus had handled him as if he were a mere insect.

“Gave him a new tattoo,” said Titus.

“You…what?!”

Titus twirled his dagger idly. Realization set in.

“Just something for him to remember me by. And think about the next time he lays his hands on you.”

Celeste’s face flushed, hearing Titus sound so…protective of her. She had always been very independent, at least after Jacques’ betrayal, and had never needed protecting, but she felt so safe around Titus. And clearly Atlas was dredging up denizens far more perilous and unexpected than ever before.

“Thank you,” she said simply.

Titus nodded.

“Found this on him,” he said, flicking a card across the room. Celeste caught it deftly.

“S” was all the card read, with a strange animal artistically mocked up across the background. Interesting. Perhaps Helio could see if it contained some hidden information…

She supposed she had better tell Helio and Holly about these developments, although the shame of having been subdued (and so easily! Though perhaps they didn’t need to know that) stung. Whatever, Celeste told herself — this was business, and besides, they clearly already knew something had happened, if Helio had sent Titus after her.

“Who was he?” asked Titus, after a moment.

Celeste balked at the question. How much to tell…? She wasn’t sure she wanted to let Titus in on this. But…no, it wouldn’t do to have secrets. Not anymore. Not from Titus. She could say a little bit.

“Un homme from my past,” she said simply. “Magician, thief, spy. Calls ‘imself the Charlatan.”

Titus nodded, wordlessly. He no doubt realized there was some complicated history there, and had decided not to pry further at this moment. Celeste was grateful for that. She was still recovering, after all, and honestly felt a bit weak.

A knock sounded on the door.

“Come in,” Celeste said, after making sure the nightgown adequately covered her, and the door swung open to reveal Emmett’s avatar.

“Miss Celeste,” he said cheerfully, “Hope you’re doing all right. Brought you some breakfast — eggs, bacon, a croissant, and some orange juice.”

Celeste realized she hadn’t eaten in ages, and her stomach quickly reminded her that body very much needed the energy.

“I especially recommend the juice,” continued the AI. “The oranges are from Helio’s sky garden, and the Vitamin C will do you wonders.”

Celeste nodded her thanks, and Emmett showed himself out.

“Do you want some space?” asked Titus gruffly in his blunt fashion.

Celeste pondered a moment, then shook her head. “No, you can stay. I – I’d like that.”

Season 6, Chapter 21

HELIO

Helio sat in his makeshift war room, really just a converted conference room. To his right sat Meridian, the hulking automaton dwarfing the chair in which he sat (but the chair gave no objections; Helio’s design let it hold the weight easily, and he had also wisely made the chair unable to talk). To his left “sat” Holly, her projected hologram perfectly aligning over the chair. Holly enjoyed playing with her hologram status; while her simple but attractive face never changed (needed to be an icon for Helio Corps advertising), her hair did. Some days she’d make it light brown, others black, others blonde, still others purple, but most days, like today, she had it shimmer faintly through all the colors of the spectrum. Her “body” was clad in traditional Helio Corps red and white, but the dominant color of her outfit was the white. An attractive reversal, Helio noted. Perhaps he should consider an adjustment to the HC color scheme.

Meridian drummed his fingers on the tabletop, sending reverberations through the room. Helio had just finished recounting what he knew of Titus’s daring rescue of Celeste.

“We don’t know who was behind this?” asked Meridian.

“No,” said Helio with a sigh. “Just some guy from Celeste’s past and a card marked S.”

“I’ve run a search,” said Holly. “Nothing I can find in any database on either of these. This Jacques — has he had other names in the past? It wouldn’t surprise me. When Celeste is feeling better, we should ask her. And do you have any idea how many search results have an ‘S’ – ?”

“Probably at least twelve,” said Helio dryly. “And we don’t even know if this was Omni or not. Celeste said she doesn’t think she reached the facility in the first place.”

“Best to assume the worst,” said Meridian. “Omni stopped her because they have something they really don’t want us to know about.”

“I can’t infiltrate their network remotely, either,” added Holly. “Their security is…quite good.” She looked slightly embarrassed.

“Okay, so where does that leave us?” wondered Helio aloud. He answered his own question. “We’ll probably want to step up our own security in the meantime. Meridian, do you have anyone that could get us some info on Omni?”

The automaton shook his head. Helio wasn’t surprised. Meridian had mysterious ways of knowing much of what went on around Atlas, but did not tend to pry into the innermost workings of the other Trusts, especially one so clandestine as Omni.

“Okay.” Helio pursed his lips and frowned. “Holly, I guess keep working and keep thinking. We should step up security, though. Physical security…oh, Holly, can you have the windows on the entire third floor looked at? And cyber security — although our post-rodent precautions seem to be working.”

He sighed. “As authoritarian as it sounds, we may even want to have our personnel have tracking devices on them in case something happens to them. Yes, Meridian, I know many of your employees are robots and presumably have that functionality already, that’s wonderful. The bottom line is, we have no idea what’s going on, but presumably it’s something — people don’t just get kidnapped for no reason. So we should try our best to be ready for anything.”