"Hello, Uari."
His heart sank. That likely meant she was on the other side of his little feud—and he had walked right into her office, daughter in hand. Betraying nothing, he raised an eyebrow and challenged her words by saying zilch. His daughter, sensing the tension, followed suit.
The woman sighed, sitting herself down on the imposing black chair. Its back was twice her height. "The base contacted me, and said you were to be returned and wiped again if seen." She paused again and studied his reaction carefully. There was a hidden urgency in her tone, mild desperation that belied her seemingly-calm nature.
Uari only shrugged, heart pumping, as he considered how he might be able to escape the building. Had he been tricked? Had the boutique owner been in the loop as well? How far did things go, and how high? This building must belong to someone of status, and for them to have someone even here could only mean their reach stretched relatively far, relatively wide.
His arms tightened around his daughter, and her hands clenched in his coat in return.
The woman, seeing that they weren't replying, leaned forward and began to speak in earnest. "Uari, I knew you before the deep dive. We were close; you even told me about little Iria here."
He squinted. There was nothing in his gut that said either to trust her or not; that meant Old Uari hadn't developed a strong enough opinion on this woman to guide him. That meant she might be lying, or it could mean that the feelings just weren't mutual. It was no point in her favour that she knew his daughter—Iria, Iria—because these people had been the ones to bring her to him in the first place.
What did they think was going to happen, exactly? That he would roll over belly-up and listen to them because they brought Iria to him?
"Prove it. Right now."
She sat back in her seat and began to recite. "Uari Orthen. You're a Searcher living in the slums of South Southernland. You have a daughter, Iria."
"That's not new information—"
"Don't," her eyes narrowed into poisonous slits, and Uari was overtaken by an immediate feeling of apprehension, of a despairing nonononono don't make her angry, "interrupt me."
Uari shut his mouth. Where had that come from?! He was alert before, but now his senses were on overdrive. The animal instincts that he thought himself above immediately screeched to the forefront and overwhelmed every other thought except to abandon everything and flee desperately.
Her eyes relaxed, and the tension disappeared. The threatening feeling abated. She continued on, as though she hadn't almost made him shit his pants from a single squint. It was only after that he'd had enough sense to check on his daughter, who was shaking mildly in his arms from the extreme threat that had been levelled upon the both of them.
"You were sent on a deep dive mission. You were supposed to continue on as a Searcher for a while but you figured out something was wrong, and you came to look for us."
Uari wanted to say, again, that this wasn't new; he kept his mouth firmly closed instead. Iria stared at the woman, openly and curiously, seemingly over her fear now that they were conversing.
Her smile thinned. "Your thumbdrive—it's a SanDesk, isn't it? I've seen it before."
Yes, okay, she definitely knew something. Thumbdrive brands numbered in the tens when he was conducting his research. He opened his stupid mouth: "That doesn't prove anything."
She paused, and he was subjected this time to a stare so cold even his daughter shivered. That was his second warning. Did he have a third warning, or was his next infraction going to be his last? Uari was torn between morbid curiosity and never finding out.
"You also own nine plants."
Oh, that was blatantly untrue; he owned eight plants, maximum. The triumphant look must have shown on his face.
"One's in your toilet bowl, you idiot. It needs to be submerged in water to survive. You showed it to me once; it was disgusting. I never want to see it again."
Alright, so she knew more about him than even he knew about himself. Regardless, it didn't feel as though he had much of a choice other than to stay and work something out: she already knew too much about him, and she likely held the answers to a few questions he could use.
"Okay," he said, slowly. "Let's say I trust you just a little bit more. What do you want?"
The jovial look dropped entirely from her face, and despite the pastel apron, she looked every inch like she belonged in that severe room. "What the hell are you doing, Uari?"
He didn't know how much to answer, and so he replied hesitantly: "...rebelling?"
He was expecting a harsh rebuke—perhaps in the form of violence—but all she did was close her eyes and lean back in her chair. "You always were a stupid one." It was said in exasperation, but Uari heard fondness in the undertones of her voice. He quashed the indignance bubbling up in the back of his throat.
His dumb mouth would be the death of him one day, but today would not be the day.
She stayed in that position, inhaling slowly and deeply. Every time Uari made a small move, a single eye cracked open minutely to reveal a sliver of black so deep it was almost obsidian. Uari, smartly, kept his mouth shut and let her think.
When she reopened both eyes, several minutes had passed. She looked like she had made up her mind reluctantly.
"You know, I owed you a great favour."
Uari didn't remember that. He nodded eagerly in agreement instead.
"I know you don't remember, you flaccid, brain-dead peanut." How creative. "But I owe you a favour regardless, so this time and only this time will I do you ONE favour."
"Can I take a rain check on—" "Hmm?" "Can you please look after Iria for two weeks?"
"I'd do it without the favour but you might want to check your phrasing."
"...can you please look after Iria for two weeks without informing anyone that we were ever here?" He corrected, feeling like a petulant schoolchild beaten into submission.
The jovial look was back on her face abruptly, like he had hit Ctrl-V on his Interface and pasted it on there. It was terrifying. He didn't say anything.
"I'd love to look after Iria here! She'll make lots of great friends."
The woman reintroduced herself as Mistress Hykel and took them personally on a tour of the facilities. Uari was immediately swindled of his daughter's affections upon introduction to the room of high-end interfaces she would have access to during her stay here.
"I can buy you a nice Interface too," he muttered angrily under his breath as she made quick friends with the other children there. He was promptly removed from the premises when he attempted to fight a small child for Iria's attention but was reassured at least that she would be well cared for by Hykel.