CHAPTER 76: 76

"Do you take milk and sugar in your coffee?"

"I drink tea."

Ling took another cup from the stack next to the coffee machine and filled it with hot water from the nearby kettle before dropping a tea bag into it. "Milk?" she asked.

"Please."

Ling smiled and carried both Bran’s cup and her own cup (of coffee) to the table, setting them gently down on the glass. Bran brought his hand up under the table and pressed his palm against where the cup sat on the table. The glass was cold. He kept his hand there.

They were out of the underground area with the eyeball monster and instead in a crisp and clean room that smelled of both frost and magic. Bran knew they still had to be underground, yet one entire wall of the office was clad with glass that let him gaze out at the city, or at least, a city. So far, he hadn’t spotted a single landmark he knew.

"Did Malcolm tell you about me?" Bran asked the woman sitting opposite him. This table and its two chairs were set in an open area of the office on the other side of the room from the main desk that Bran assumed belonged to the owner of the office. Did that make Ling not the owner since she hadn’t even motioned to sit there? Was she a subordinate perhaps?

In all honesty, Bran’s mind was still buzzing from all the things this woman had told him and he wasn’t quite sure if he was keeping up.

"He did," replied Ling. "He said it was quite the pleasant surprise to meet you all those years ago at the Cloud Flame Manor."

"Sure." Bran could still feel no warmth from the coffee cup just a centimetre away through the glass. He let his hand drop. Then he raised his gaze and locked eyes with Ling. "What about Misha?" he asked.

For the first time, the woman’s calm, cool demeanor broke and Bran saw a sliver of true emotion slide out between the cracks. Then it was gone. "What Misha?" She asked. "I don’t know who you mean."

She clearly did and Bran’s heart ached for his lover. He could still remember the daze Misha had fallen into after revisiting his mother’s grave, this Chau Ling’s grave.

"You’re not a very good boss then," said Bran, "if you don’t even know the name of the person your people are targeting. What if they end up making a mistake? Are you going to take responsibility?"

Bran was just vamping at this point. He wanted, needed, more information, yes, but he was also still wrapped in the clutches of barely concealed fear. The monster with all the eyes, the one that felt so much like Misha, disturbed him too much.

"What matters are results," replied Ling.

"Even when you’re dealing with things you don’t understand?"

"Ha! Don’t understand?" Ling chuckled. "You little, little boy. I understand more about magic than you ever will."

"Oh? Then why would you need the Baize Tu to control Misha?"

Ling’s brow furrowed and Bran realised that she had no idea about Morgan and Zhan’s actions, or at least, not the ones concerning the ancient text. Find the Baize Tu wasn’t her plan. It was Morgan’s and perhaps Zhan’s. Interesting.

But before either could begin to interrogate the other, there was a knock at the door and Morgan walked in, followed by...

"Arthur!" Ling exclaimed in a tone that was presumably warm but ended up feeling icy cold.

"Ah, good to see you both here, safe and sound," said the bald man with the warmest of smiles. His gaze lingered over Bran and Bran felt himself go cold.

Arthur patted Morgan on the shoulder and turned to Ling.

"You gave Morgan here a real scare," he said. "He even thought our Bran here had escaped!"

Bran flinched at the word ’our’. Why did he know that look, those eyes? Where had he seen them before?

The bald man beamed even wider. "Now, I believe introductions are in order."

He clapped his hands together and made a swishing motion with his hand.

Immediately another chair appeared at the table spaced evenly between Bran and Ling. Arthur turned to Morgan. "I think I’ll have an espresso," he said. "Best get it from the cafe upstairs. I heard the cleaners complaining about mould in the coffee machine here."

Morgan turned and left while Ling looked dubiously at her cup and pushed it further away from herself.

Unaware of the turmoil he’d just caused, Arthur sat down like the most extroverted Pretan man you’d ever met. Bran wasn’t even sure he’d ever met anyone from Pretan who was this damn extroverted.

The bald man held out a hand. "Arthur Penn," he said. "I assume Ling here has told you a little bit about our venture here?"

Bran hesitated then shook the man’s hand. Strangely, his skin was even colder than Bran’s.

"She told me a bit about the, uh, skeleton in your closet. She said that you had altruistic plans for it."

"Correct," replied Arthur. "Ms. Chau here is a good teacher."

Ling smiled.

"Has the good teacher given you any examples of these altruistic plans?" asked Arthur. He looked between Bran and Ling.

The former looked away, ignoring him like a bored teenager, while Ling shook her head, though her attitude wasn’t that much better.

"Ah, well." Arthur rose and went to the desk, going behind it to rifle through its drawers. From how familiar he seemed with where everything was, Bran guessed that this office was his. Was he the big boss? "Ah ha! Here we are."

The man straightened, having pulled something from the drawer, and came back over to the table. He held the item out to Bran.

It was a smartphone.

Bran looked up at him, then at the phone, then decided he didn’t owe it to the guy to warn him about his ability to fry technology and took it.

Nothing happened.

Bran stared at the bright screen and the abstract wallpaper that looked kind of like sand dunes. He switched hands and still the machine continued to function like normal. He swiped at the screen and it immediately changed to reveal a keypad.

"Four zeroes," said Arthur. "I like to keep things simple."

Spellbound, Bran keyed in the passkey and was greeted by a fully functioning, digital, electric device that was a lot smaller than him. He swiped back and forth on the homepage.

Arthur sat back down.

"Right now," he said, sounding like an overly excited technology enthusiast introducing the newest product, "a small thread of energy is being siphoned from - what did you call it? - our little skeleton in the closet, and channeled here to directly and imperceptively counteract your erratic electromagnetic nature. As you can see, this allows you to be like everyone else and use the second most important invention of the current age."

Bran decided not to ask what the first most important invention was and instead set the phone down on the table.

"Thanks," he said, "But I don’t like accepting gifts from strangers. Especially those who’ve kidnapped me."

Arthur looked to Ling with a kind of naughty expression that a child might have when they’ve done something wrong. "Kids," he said and Bran had the sudden impulse to break the window and jump out of it.

"Mr... Penn, was it? I have no idea what you guys are doing here and I frankly don’t care. I just want to go home," said Bran.

The door to the office swung open and Malcolm, no, Morgan, returned with a takeaway coffee cup in each hand. He set one down in front of Arthur then retreated a metre away to drink his own. No one made a move to pull up a chair for him. Bran almost felt sorry for him.

"I get it, Bran, I really do," said Arthur after taking a sip of his espresso. "It’s hard being away from your friends but I must insist, Bran, that you stay until after our product launch event. Once you’ve finished watching the show, you’ll be free to leave."

"Show? I’m not sure who you think I am," said Bran, raising an eyebrow, "but I don’t have any money to invest in your company. Me seeing or not seeing your product launch makes no difference."

Arthur smiled. "Oh no, I assure you. It’ll make a world of difference."

Bran folded his arms. This guy was infuriating. He made it sound like Bran even had a choice in the matter and wasn’t being held here against his will. The bastard. "Oh? And why is that?" he asked in an even voice that even he was surprised he could muster.

"Because then you’ll be able to see how we’re going to change the world, make it a better place. Custom solutions for everyone’s problems, no more off the shelf solutions that barely work half the time. What we want to do, is revolutionise the way people live."

When it had become clear that someone was after Misha, Bran had come up with all kinds of motivations in his head as to why (illegal creature trafficking, illegal organ harvesting, very illegal mind control stuff) but he’d never considered that it was a startup looking to get some venture capital shot into their veins.