World Keeper

Chapter 953: Doppel Trouble

Chelsea hummed lightly to herself as she read through the research notes that Thea had submitted to her. Everyone was coming up with their own ideas for how to create the next generation Void Core, based on the spell diagram that Dana had submitted. I have to admit, those sisters are good. This one has a bit of trouble with the stability from what I can tell, but the theory behind it is sound.

Sadly, an unstable system was unacceptable for the device that they were wanting to create. They needed failsafes for everything that they could feasibly create one for. If their new generator went critical for any reason, it would lead to an annihilation event spanning light years. And that’s assuming that it didn’t just punch a hole through to the void.

With that in mind, Chelsea marked down the problems that she had noticed, and sent it back to Thea. With her and Nora working together on the project, she was sure that she’d have a new revision within just a few days. On the other hand, the others are more cautious… they’re submitting less reports because they keep looking over their own work to find flaws. Or they’re just not confident enough with what they have to show it.

Chelsea shook her head at that, tapping her keyboard to pull up her terminal. When she did, she blinked in surprise, seeing a notification in the bottom corner of her screen. Clicking it, she opened a message that had been sent to her over a secure channel. While she read through the message, her face gradually distorted, scrunching up as her fists clenched.

“You appear to be highly stressed. Is there something the matter?” Three-fifty spoke up when he noticed Chelsea’s current state.

Chelsea nearly flinched at his sudden voice, glancing around before looking at the message again. “Yeah, just… give me a moment. James! We need to talk.” She stood up, James’s eyes going wide at the message. He jumped up from his seat to follow her out of the lab, the smaller kitsune leading him away from the others and to a more secure area.

“What is it, Chel?” James asked, though closed his mouth when Chelsea held up a hand. He followed her to the end of the hall, into a hidden elevator, and down to a secret bunker that… James wasn’t quite sure when she had it installed.

Once they were in the bunker, Chelsea ran over to a console, tapping a few buttons as mechanical locks could be heard clicking into place. Afterwards, she turned around, facing James with a serious expression. “Show me your soul.” She said in a firm tone.

“Show you my--” James’s eyes went wide when he saw just how serious she was. Realizing that there must be something going on, he focused, a misty pearl forming from the center of his chest. Once it was fully formed, it hovered a few feet in front of him, and Chelsea walked over, eyes flashing blue as she analyzed it.

“What was the last project that you worked on before coming to this world?” She asked in that same tone, her eyes never leaving his soul.

“It was a new warp drive.” James answered truthfully. “We were experimenting with implementing space folding to travel massive distances, but the drive exploded during the initial test.”

Chelsea kept staring at his soul, nodding her head. Suddenly, she formed a fist, slamming it towards the white pearl. James’s eyes went wide, his body stiffening. However, he did not stop her.

Chelsea’s fist stopped less than a centimeter from James’s soul, and she glanced up at him. “Good… you’re you.” She said in a relieved tone, pulling her hand back. “You can put that away now.”

“Right… why was me being me ever in question to begin with?” James couldn’t help but asked that, pulling a chair over to sit in. “What happened?”

“There was a splinter in the ninja group.” Chelsea shook her head, recalling the report that she had just read through. “A group researching what should be a Saint energy separated from the ninjas, and have now gone rogue.”

James grumbled when he heard that. “Rogue ninjas, just what everyone needs. So, I take it that the energy they were creating is used for disguises?”

“That’s right.” Chelsea confirmed. “They called it Masked Soul. Those who were most familiar with the energy either defected or were killed, so the information that I was given is limited. What I do know is that this energy allows someone to disguise themselves as another individual, down to perfectly replicating their memories and soul. When used offensively, it is even capable of achieving a sort of brainwashing effect, though the strength of that effect is unknown.”

“And you thought that they wanted to impersonate me?” James asked, Chelsea nodding her head.

“It’s a reasonable assumption. They’ve been after your work since your work began. If this is the old remnants of those dissatisfied with the state of things, they could go after you or any of the others. That’s why I brought you here, isolating us. If you were an impostor, I have enough weapons in this bunker to ensure that nobody other than the real James would be able to leave.”

James gave a small nod of his head. “But, you’re in the Admin Room, right? Couldn’t you just check me through Dale’s system?”

Chelsea shrugged her shoulders. “You’re not one of his assets yet, so I can’t directly investigate you. If I tried, and it worked, I’d know for sure that it wasn’t’ you. But if it failed, it might be a result of the energy temporarily bringing the user out of Dale’s assets by mimicking you. I can’t be sure if I don’t know the details of the energy.”

“It could take me weeks of Standard time to go through the logs and find where the renegades ran off to, assuming they didn’t use any tricks that would throw me off.”

“Is… that even possible?” James asked doubtfully. “There’s nothing that can avoid the eyes of the Admin Room, right?”

“That depends.” Chel let out a sigh. “If the brainwashing aspect of this power allowed them to fully convert another being to their cause without any visible indication, it could easily be missed while following that person. If I missed just one instance of something like that, it would allow an entirely unknown cell to form. The system can find show me anything I want to see, assuming I know what it is that I want to see in the first place.”

“Right…” James nodded grimly. “What about the others?”

“That’s why I brought you here first. You have your detection energy. World Sight, as Dale calls it. It’s a Saint level energy devoted purely to detection, and it can theoretically see through anything. I want you to scan everyone in the lab to look for any tiny trace of an unknown energy signature. If it isn’t something that you can immediately identify, I want them quarantined. Keep in mind, this energy is made to blend in, so it might be hard even for you to sense.”

James nodded his head again at Chel’s answer, closing his eyes in focus. He sent his senses back up to the lab, taking his time to run an in depth scan on everyone. Truthfully, this was more information than he really wanted to know about any of them, but such a thing couldn’t be helped at this point.

He scanned their physical bodies as well as their energy pathways, all of their items, and even investigated their inventories. Whenever he saw a new energy type, he immediately reverse engineered it in his mind to determine what it was. They were all chosen because they were innovators in developing new energies, so it was a given that they had their own progress.

Thankfully, after ten minutes of constant scanning, James let out a long breath. “Nothing suspicious about any of them.”

Chelsea nodded, though her face didn’t show signs of relaxing. “Good. Though, if they’re not coming after us, they’re probably preparing for their big move.”

“Big move?” James asked, blinking.

“That’s right. According to the report, the Masked Soul project was scheduled to be shut down after one of the lead researchers made the comment that even the Keeper could be copied by this energy. From the information that remains, the research team involved rebelled against the decision, killing the project overseer and wiping out all traces of their research. After that, they began to blend in with their peers to escape. So far, there isn’t any knowledge on where they are.”

“They want to take the Keeper’s head?” James went wide-eyed at that, before a dangerous look entered his eyes. “So… you need me to make a move?” James knew fully well what would happen if the Keeper died, having been through that once before himself. He had been given his second chance once already, and knew he wouldn’t get another.

“Not yet. We don’t know where they are. Not even you could scan everyone in the various worlds to look for an energy source you wouldn’t be able to recognize.” Chelsea rolled her eyes as she said that. “I’m going to send a message to Olympus, asking them to enter a light lockdown, using their Administration Room selves to verify anyone that enters. In the meantime…” She rolled her neck, her eyes sharp. “I have camera footage to look through.”

James couldn’t help but blink at that. “Do you even know where to begin? What cameras would you look through?”

“All of them.” She answered simply, an almost feral grin coming over her face. “I’m going to look through all of them.”

“That’s… yeah, I’ll leave you to that… you’re going to need all the focus you can muster.” Naturally, ‘all of them’ was somewhat of an exaggeration, and James knew that. Even if it was Chelsea, she would not be able to look through all of the billions of cameras in Deckan alone, let alone all of the other worlds. However, if she narrowed her parameters to avoid overlapping areas, as well as keeping to areas of active foot traffic, she would be able to somewhat manage one world at a time. Granted, there would be so many cameras that even Chelsea might miss things if she spread herself that thin.

“Yo, Brian, I’m heading out for the night.” The lycan detective spoke up, standing up from his desk and stretching. “I told you this was open and shut. Want to grab a drink? On me.”

Brian looked up at that, blinking, before letting out a slight chuckle. “You go on ahead, Marx. I’ve got to wrap this up. Memory recovery’s never a fun business.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The lycan nodded his head, walking out with his hands in his pockets. As he did, Brian seemed to get back to work, until the police chief called out to him from his office.

“Officer Pike! My office!” He shouted, Brian jumping to his feet and running over.

“Yes sir?” Brian asked, standing at attention before the chief, an ursa with a muscular frame.

“Got another case I want you on.” The chief said, grabbing a folder and setting it on his desk.

Brian blinked in confusion, looking down at the folder. “Sir, I’m still wrapping up the Houlson case. We need an elven specialist to recover the suspect’s memories.”

“I’m putting someone else on that. The evidence all points towards the neighbor, and this is more important. I’ve heard a few disturbing reports of potential identity theft.” Brian’s eyes twitched wider, staring at the folder. “Been getting calls about a rampant case of twins.”

“Rampant case of twins?” Brian responded, as if confused. The chief let out a sigh, leaning back in his chair.

“That’s right. Seeing identical people in the streets, or seeing someone turn into someone else after passing them by. Probably just some kids playing with ki, but altering your appearance to impersonate someone else is still a crime.”

Brian nodded his head at his boss’s words, turning and looking out the window of the office. He let out a soft sigh, grabbing the blinds to close them. They were sloppy. This is why you don’t put researchers in the field. 

“Officer Pike?” The Ursa asked, immediately on guard after the office went darker.

“Don’t worry, I don’t think this case will get anywhere.” Brian’s voice spoke up calmly, though it was somehow coming from directly behind the commissioner. Before his boss could react, Brian’s hands were on the sides of his head, fingers digging in like claws and pouring a black energy into his body.

Brian had already isolated the sound in the room, ensuring that his cries wouldn’t escape. The black energy sank into the man’s body, before pulling a white pearl from his mouth. This pearl floated into the air, and Brian could feel a faint connection with it as a body grew out around it.

Soon, there was another ursa standing there, looking identical to the now-deceased chief of police. “Dispose of the body.” Brian said in a cold tone. As the chief’s doppelganger had been created in an ‘avatar state’, it retained all of Brian’s past training, nodding its head with a gruff expression.

“Got it. Let the others know to be more careful out in public.”