Reroll

The day goes well… I honestly lose track of how many people my proxy cures. With Mass Healing, Ranged Healing, and support from Circle Casting, Alice gets half a dozen people cured per casting.  Mass Ranged Diagnose as a Swift, Mass Ranged Restore as a standard, followed by another Diagnose (and repeat from Restore if it didn't stick) to make sure the ailment is gone.  Two rounds take twelve seconds, and fix up six people most of the time.  Sometimes the dice don't cooperate, but it takes just over two seconds, on average, to process a sick person.  The hardest part is managing the line, but the folks the CEO has assigned are good at that.

And - miracle of miracles, we actually clear out both lines (the hospital bed line and the public line) in less than eight hours.  Specifically seven hours, forty-five minutes, despite the police interruptions (well, the Inquisition with a police escort).

So in that last fifteen minutes, I finally take questions from the press.

“Alice, what ARE you?”

“As I said on the Rosie O'Brian show: I’m human… or at least I was.”

“What happened?”

“I had an Event, along with a number of other people. But there are people hunting people who have had such Events, so I will give no answers to questions I think might, maybe, be used to track the others down.  So… ‘no comment’.”

“Some would say you're paranoid…”

I have Alice cut that off, “On my first public appearance to heal, I was SHOT IN THE FACE by a bear of a man; this is a verifiable fact bt most standards of evidence: There are plenty of videos of it on UsTube, and hundreds if not thousands of direct witnesses.  When I was interviewed on the Rosie O'Brian show, a bunch of identical bears of men in FBI uniforms and full riot gear raided the studio… who all carried copies of the same badge.  That was caught on the studio cameras and seen by the studio audience: Again, this is verifiable. Today, a police officer escorted by more identical bears of men arrested me, recorded by J5 news.  The bears of men in police uniforms with the police officer, the bears of men dressed up as FBI agents, and the bear of a man in civilian clothing who shot me are all seemingly identical to each other. I don't believe EVERYONE is out to get me, but at this point it should be obvious that SOMEONE is. I have made statements about who is after me that you probably can't verify… but when everything I say that you can verify is true… you probably ought to at least entertain the notion that I'm NOT just some lying crazy woman… even when the claims are as out there as a flying woman who hands out miracle cures.”

I get a laugh from the crowd at that last line, seeing as how Alice is flying while answering questions, and just spent about eight hours handing out miracle cures to thousands of people… on camera.

That goes on for a while, they ask questions, I have Alice answer them as I feel comfortable.

During the questioning, my Perception ‘Al’ flags me on an old tattooed man with very dark skin in a silk business suit with an earpiece hanging at the back of the crowd.  When he closes his eyes, I see he has weird eyes tattooed on his eyelids… and when I check, he radiates Divination magic.  He stares at Alice with his eyes closed for a few minutes, and walks out.

I have Alice quickly close the conversation with the press, put her away, and follow.

He looks around a bit once outside, heads to an empty alleyway, and begins a conversation; my Perception ‘Al’ feeds me what's said to him via his earpiece.

“So: What is she?  How do we catch or kill her?”

“She isn't. You can't catch or kill ‘Alice’ because there is no ‘Alice’ in the first place.”

“She shows up on video. There are thousands of witnesses.  She cured diseases and replaced missing arms and legs.  She wore handcuffs.  A police woman frisked her… three times.  And you're telling me she doesn't exist?”

“That's right.  There is nothing there.  ‘Alice’ is an illusion. Normally there's some physical vessel - a doll of straw, clay, mandrake root, or something else at the core bound to the power as a focus and a physical reality in case the illusion needs to shake hands or something. For ‘Alice’... there's nothing.  Just pure Arcanum… lots of it.”

“How is that possible? What legend allows it?”

“Wrong question. What you should be asking is ‘Where is the Arcanum user that spawned it?’ - which is outside the scope of what I can tell you.  He could be anywhere.”

“He?”

“Yes.  Few women would turn someone into that much of a toy.”

“Well… that's something, anyway.  Your usual fee will be transferred in an hour.”

“Hmm.  Next time, slaver.”

As he hangs up, I turn on a Ring of X-Ray vision… and the man jumps, closes his eyes, and  looks around.

“Impressive…” he speaks to the empty air, “I can feel your eyes upon me, yet cannot see you… what are you hiding behind?”

I still see what I'm after, though.

I pull Alice out of storage, and use her as a mouthpiece, “Does it matter? You know the real person is hiding nearby,” actually, I'm standing a few feet from you… apparently he can't beat my Mythic ring, which is good to know, “I figure solving your little problem with your slaver takes priority.”

He raises an eyebrow, eyes still closed, “Oh? And what can nothing do about the man with his hand on my leash?”

“I can remove that bomb in your head.  I've done it before.”

He waves a hand dismissively, “That wouldn't help matters. They'd just catch me again, and either kill me or replace it.”

“I can also hide your aura and reshape your body.  They'd be starting over in trying to find you, and you'd have one less tell to hide.”

He considers, “You certainly hide your own well, and demonstrated you can reshape flesh… but I would be starting over too.  And then there's the trust issue.  Can I trust someone who hides from me to dig around in my head and choose who I will become?”

I have Alice roll her eyes… I'm not clear on just how much he is seeing with those tatts, but whatever, “Can I trust someone involved in hunting me to see me?”

The man chuckles, “Touché. Still, that leaves us at an impasse, does it not?”

I consider, and my Sense Motive ‘Al’ speaks up, “He legitimately wants out of the deal he's stuck with.  He does have some other concerns… but he really wants this.”

I think for a bit, “I have a deal with the hospital, and believe I can get some seed money from them for you… maybe thirty grand.  I can also drop you off anywhere in the world, and… if you wish to go somewhere ‘civilized’, I can even arrange for some decent fake ID, although that last bit will take a while, depending mostly on where.”

The man rubs his chin, his eyes still closed, “There are many places that would last quite some time… make it fifty grand, let me pick what I'll look like, and you have a deal.”

I am mostly confident I can swing that; the monthly budget is a hundred grand… “For that kind of investment, I'll also want all the information you have on the Inquisition.”

He waves a hand, “Pfft. I was planning on giving you THAT anyway. I expect you'll make better use of it than I, ‘goddess’.”

I have Alice chuckle, “A deal, then.  Would you like me to remove the bomb now?”

Again he raises his eyebrows, “You have a surgery bay handy?  Sure, I have time now.”

I have Alice shrug, “It's unnecessary.  You just need to let me.  Here…” I reach into his head and pull out the tiny little bomb planted just under his brain, “Hold out your hands….”

He does, and I drop the bomb into his hands.

He actually opens his eyes to look, “That easily?”  He pauses, “You're not hiding behind anything, are you?”

I have Alice match my expression, and smile, “I'm not, no.  So, the body…” I manifest an illusion of him as he is now, standing before a plain white background, “What would you have me change?”

He considers… “You really do this easily… more ichange is better… I think I'd like to try out being white…” I shift the illusion to match as he continues, brown hair, green eyes… a little darker skin than that…” I continue making updates, “Can I see this nude?”

“Sure…” I strip the clothes from the illusion.

The man frowns, “How did you know about that scar… remove that, please…”

I have Alice answer as I update the illusion, “I was looking for the bomb in your head when you felt my eyes upon you; compared to seeing through your skull, your clothes are nothing.”

We go back and forth for a bit, then I pause, and have Alice speak for me, “You know what? I can actually hand you the controls for this; here…” I wipe the illusion, make another, and use the Shared Magic feat to grant him ownership of a new audio/video illusion.

He has some fun with it - giving himself purple eyes, blue hair, and such - then gets down to business. He sets himself up as a young muscle man, starts to take a breath, then pauses, “Hmm… the more different I am from myself, the better…” he switches the model to that of a young woman of modest proportions,  and spends some time tweaking… when he's done, I'm looking at an attractive Korean woman of *just* above average proportions.

I have Alice raise an eyebrow, “Are you sure? That is a BIG change.”

He nods, “Yes… it will make it much harder for anyone to connect my new self with my old.”

“Okay…” I snap a few pictures of the illusion with my phone, setting up for passport and DMZ style pictures, “Do you have a name in mind?”

“Cho Areum.”

My linguistics ‘Al’ fills me in, “Beautiful Second, or Beautiful Beginning, depending on context… and both would fit here.”

I nod, “Planning on visiting Korea?”

He shakes his head, “No.  Hawaii. I won't be too out of place.”

I write a few things down in my phone, “Okay.  The new driver's license, birth certificate, and social security card shouldn't take too long.  Meet you back here in a week, Ms. Cho?”

He shakes his head, “A few minutes; I need to grab your information from my hotel.  The ID can wait: With the tracker out I need to be dead now.”

I have Alice nod, “Okay.  I’ll wait here a bit.”

I stay where I am, call for my personal starship, and Ms. Cho is back in less than ten minutes, a briefcase in hand, “Here you go…”

I stow the briefcase in Warp after taking a brief look inside: Several notebooks full of handwritten notes, plus a couple USB sticks. I have Alice smile, “You have been planning something like this for quite some time, I take it?”

“Indeed. I have a lot of data.  It's yours now,” He takes a breath, “I'm ready.”

I invisibly nod and cast, shifting him under her clothes, tossing a few low profile benefits with the change: Fast Healing, some damage reduction, wingless flight, breathless, pressure immunity, a few other odds and ends… nothing obvious.  I consider, and create a basic outfit, which I have Alice hand over, and then hit her up with a permanent glamour to hide her magical auras forever.

“All done,” I relay via Alice, “and our ride will be here any minute.  We'll need to fly up to her, though, there isn't room for her to land.”

Ms. Cho frowns, “I can't… I can fly.  Huh.”

“I figured I'd toss in a few minor bonuses.”

She considers as she changes, “Ah… how big is your ride?”

“About the size of a large house, but most of that space is engineering related.” I get the notification on my armors comm, “Ah, and she's here.  Come on…” I fly her up to my ship.