"As far as I have been told, you were discovered by Admiral Portinari on the remote Planet Etonia?" Director Johnson asked with a smile.
Dante's eyes narrowed. "Director, I asked you to explain what you meant about being coerced."
Director Johnson's face froze as he clenched his fists under the table but maintained his smile. Beatrice glanced at Dante with a surprised look for a split second before feeling angry again and looking away.
"To answer that, we need to build up facts, I'm sure you understand, right?" Johnson answered with a forced smile.
"No. I just want to know the raw details of what you meant without adding anything else. Otherwise, I'd like my ID and passage to leave." Dante spoke as he folded his arms.
Johnson's eyes twitched. He clearly didn't expect this fellow to be so difficult to deal with. Was he really an uneducated person?
"When a pure human born outside the control of the Earth Bureau's purview is found, they are supposed to be handed a standard contract from the Human Council in order to grant them special rights and protections afforded most pure humans." Johnson began after taking a deep breath to calm himself.
"However, the terms in your contract are vastly superior to what is usually offered to any pure human of your stature. So I am liable to believe that they offered you more benefits in exchange for something else, which would invalidate the contract and free you of such unlawful terms." Johnson finished with an amiable smile.
Dante listened to it all and went silent. He lowered his head and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths before opening them again. He glanced at Beatrice, then at Johnson, then sighed.
"Director, with all due respect, if I wasn't so weak, I would punch you in the face."
Director Johnson, who had assumed Dante was about to say what he wanted to hear, froze and became confused.
What the hell, where did this come from?
Even Beatrice was surprised and finally stopped sulking to glance at Dante, who looked at Johnson with direct hostility.
"You're a really good fellow. You clearly have some beef with Beatrice and want to undermine her, having chosen the weak and unremarkable little me as the tool to achieve this."
"First off, your words made it seem like signing a contract in the first place is something illegal, trying to drive a wedge between us and make me doubt her."
"Secondly, you say 'offered to a pure human of my stature', so clearly in your eyes, I am a lower class being and have been from the moment I crossed that door. You only smile at me because you want something from me."
"Thirdly, you want to undermine Beatrice through the contract and probably claim she abused her position, which would have the effect of voiding the contract we signed. Even if you were right and I was tricked into doing something extra, you yourself said it, the terms are extremely good. Losing that would be more harmful than good."
Dante sneered. "So in this entire farce, the only one benefiting would be you. Under the guise of freeing me from oppression, you would be able to get evidence to attack your opponent while either swallowing up the extra benefits meant for me or passing them to someone else."
Director's Johnson face changed greatly as he exploded and slammed his hand on the table.
"How dare you?!'
Beatrice had a look of suspicion as she glanced at Director Johnson and quickly manifested her holographic browser to check something. When she saw what she wanted, her expression became frosty.
"What a good ploy Hector Johnson. You have a nephew who is 13 and in the queue to enter the Eternal Academy!"
Just by revealing this, everything could be understood. Dante's heart became cold because he had only said those conjectures out loud to close any gap that appeared between him and Beatrice.
In truth, he was as lost as a lamb. When Director Johnson first spoke, he suspected that Beatrice was guilty of foul play which was why he resolutely did what he did. After all, he didn't have any side in this conflict except his own.
My guy, he only knew Beatrice for a grand total of slightly over 24 hours. There was no way he was going to trust her like a life-and-death friend when he didn't even know everything about her.
She had seemingly done him good, but Dante couldn't gauge the value of her 'kindness' because of his ignorance. It could entirely be that everything she did so far was an obligation and she was stringing him along.
It could also entirely be that she was strangely generous to him and that wasn't any better. Whatever the case, good or bad, he would be able to tell once he had access to the Etranet and could understand the information posted there.
This was why his citizen ID was necessary. This fellow spoke as if what Beatrice did was wrong from the onset, something Dante suspected already, so he took the risk of offending Beatrice to find out more.
However the moment the fellow spoke, Dante knew that this was just a meager political spat between two factions or two persons, and he was just a medium to execute the ploy.
When he understood this, he panicked slightly because while it didn't absolve Beatrice of any doubts, it meant that he had estranged their relationship for no fucking reason and that was detrimental.
So he quickly made his stance clear, directly insulting the fellow and displaying hostility to show he was on Beatrice's side. His later conjectures were to make it seem he was a clever bloke who had seen through the ploy from the start and wanted to out him.
But hearing Beatrice reveal this information, his heart went cold because he realized he was likely right. It was that feeling when you swerved your car and avoided a fatal accident, and realized that you could have died just then.
If Dante didn't have a architect as a father who taught him the importance of understanding the minor details as well as a chemical engineer for a mother who taught him to always observe and deduce, who knew what he might have done?
Dante stepped back and stood beside Beatrice. "I thought as much. The moment I entered, he frowned when he saw me, meaning that I was far less than he expected, which probably gave him the idea that he could deal with me."
It made sense, but Dante was not sure of this. He was just speculating, but given the circumstances, a speculation like this sounded like damning evidence.
Beatrice snorted. "I've already reported everything that happened here to the Human Council. Expect their answer soon!"
Director Johnson paled. How the hell did things reach this point? All he did was try to use a mediocre-looking pure human without any background to try and one-up Beatrice, his rival from the Eternal Academy.
As far as he knew, even if he was right, Beatrice would only receive a slap on the wrist for the offense and he would be able to torment her verbally whenever he saw her, relieving some of the dissatisfaction in his heart.
But things had spun around and he was now the one frying on the pan while his backing was nowhere near as solid as hers. Before the human council, even Beatrice could be a little fearless, but he was the same as any dog on the street!
His eyes flashed with hatred. Sitting in a position like this involved a web of interests and decisions that no one could easily account for.
In other words, in his tenure of working for the Earth Bureau, he had definitely offended some people who didn't dare touch him because of his position and those he offended them for.
But once he lost his position, he lost his value. Who would waste energy to protect him? What benefits would they get from it? He was basically an abandoned dog without even losing his job yet.
He and his entire family might suffer a calamity. They certainly will not die since every pure human was as precious as a 1000-year-old ginseng.
They also would not be forced too low since every pure human had sufficient welfare, but even if you had money in your pocket, it wasn't nice to be beaten up every day by hooligans, was it?
Director Johnson breathed deeply, but did not do anything. Attacking Dante or Beatrice would yield even worse consequences and trying to tamper with the system for petty revenge wouldn't work with Beatrice's background.
As such, the man took a small tube and tossed it to Beatrice, pointing to his door.
"There is your ID and your AI Chip infusion. Now get the hell out of my office before I call security!"
Dante and Beatrice shared a look and left the office, smiling smugly on their way out.