Chapter 38 - Minor Insurrections (III)

Never let it be said that Uari had zero regards for human life.

It was obvious that he had some. Otherwise, it would have been in his best interests to make himself scarce and leave even Caera behind as an obstacle on his way to freedom with Iria. Skedaddling off to Centralland would put him out of reach for a while.

But no. Uari had some amount of conscience for his fellow human beings, so Option Three it was: Caera would accidentally 'reveal' herself in the middle of the civil war in Wren and some of the Gravts would come for her. Once it was confirmed that she was the 'real' one, he was certain that a significant task force would come to retrieve her.

At the same time, aware that the sale of the Twin Earrings had been made public, a secondary wave of Uari's decoy clones would be released into the wild again on Aiam Adhick's command to pull even more people away.

Out of the sixty people Caera had claimed was around the base, they estimated that maybe half would remain. Thirty was better than sixty, and those who remained would likely be the ones focusing on defence instead of pursuing people. Notable people around the base would likely be Ozcar and Valen, but they didn't have combat-based abilities.

The recent logs noted that Ghost was likely there too, working on the tank of nucleogenic bacteria or whatever.

There was a chance Ghost would be waiting for him. There was a chance there could be a trap lying in wait.

He had to get in and out without being noticed, at the least likely times and with the least likely possibility of being discovered.

The only option that would work against a genius who could plan out as many actions as possible was to exhaust their resources, and that meant throwing as many balls he could into their field, curved or not.

He continued working as Kirvan Socte over the next two days, dosing his poor victim every night to ensure she wouldn't wake up. Kirvan had no family and no real friends, and hopefully, she wasn't subject to random visits from random people. He'd had no time to make sure other than a cursory check over her chats and account, so he could only pray.

The second and third days were more focused on attempting to find potential sources of conflict around Gejuth, and those he found plenty. The Gravts helped maintain some semblance of order around the area and were involved in policing—or, well, vigilante-ing—residents who were causing trouble as well as other miscellanies.

Tasks that they had picked up over the past few months had included finding lost pets, running food trucks for the poor, and helping the elderly in general.

It was odd for an organisation that had decided that human experimentation was okay as long as they had what they wanted, but the fact that they had taken those four people from Wren the way they did was concerning.

All four of the missing people had, over the course of a week, told everyone around them that they'd been scouted for some kind of job, and then had left and never returned. They had no family, and so this would have been normal.

All the jobs they listed were different, but this kind of anomalous scouting in Wren of all places was so abnormal that he wasn't surprised people had begun to raise whispers. Overall, the whole effort reeked of inexperienced people superficially following the direction of someone more experienced.

Truly a terrible way to be outed. Ghost ought to hire better people.

But it was Wren, after all. The residents couldn't afford to ask many questions. What right did they have?

Gejuth displayed an overwhelming number of conflict-ridden areas regardless of whether they were big or small. From rental disputes and affairs to major gang wars, there were a hundred and one people on-edge who could be tipped over into instant violence.

From what Caera had told him, Ghost had set up a 'triage' system for cases like that, with personnel being sent out based on the severity of cases. Too many cases meant that all of them would simply finish what they were doing and gravitate over to the most serious case altogether.

If there were too many minor cases calling people out, then Ghost would simply call them back. That was why the cases would need to be big enough that they couldn't ignore it, potentially all things that could affect the Gravts.

Ideally, one of them would be something that could affect them enough that Ghost would be forced to elevate the priority of the case above whatever she was doing back at base for the safety of the Gravts or Gejuth.

He'd have to balance it with the fact that Ghost could likely call various members back at any time due to Glasses' teleportation.

So, something that would affect the entirety of the Gravts, but a situation in which it would be useless to call back any members of the pursuit teams.

There were two glaring things Uari thought fit those criteria.

The first was their crappy sewage system, which hosted all sorts of filthy diseases barely kept away from the already-miserable Gejuth population. There was a gang that was unhappy with Gravt vigilantism. They would make good scapegoats.

The second was the ailing power grid. The grid fed all of Gejuth, but it fed it badly.

It also fed a portion of the Gravt base. The radioactive nucleogenic bacteria they'd stolen were likely being used for…other purposes. Disrupting the grid would probably fell a lot of their work and functions, and probably wouldn't be dangerous.

Either would work, really.

So why not both?

He'd had about a week or so until Wren was ready. That was more than enough time to put things into place by then, to wheedle some people and push some buttons without anyone being the wiser about what he was doing.

He packed up his stuff from where he'd made himself temporarily comfortable in Kirvan Socte's home, and fed the woman a last nutrient pack and a healing pill before releasing her from her bonds. The woman turned over immediately to stretch unconsciously and hug a bolster.

When she awoke, she would feel only slightly sore. She would likely notice several days' worth of memories missing, but see that she had posted on the forums she frequented. No one would have said anything different to her at work, and no one would have sensed anything different.

The worst that could happen was for her to go to a doctor to get her memory checked out, but since Uari hadn't done any memory wipes or implants, nothing would be found either.

Kirvan Socte would return home still confused, but would then return to her novels and put anything that didn't make sense to the back of her mind.

In the meantime, Uari would be raising hell in Gejuth.