Chapter 75: We Need a Plan
The Hat Lady had successfully escaped the prison and the Capital District. She was on her way to Carrington City in a flying vehicle she had stolen from the Alset plant. She wanted to seek help from Demadrian. When she arrived, she saw the huge wall they were building around the city. She made herself and the flying vehicle invisible. Then she flew over the top of the wall.
She and the flying vehicle remained invisible as she landed at the back of one of the Alset warehouses. She got out of the flying vehicle while remaining visible. On exiting the flying vehicle, it became visible once again as she was no longer in contact with it. She remained invisible the whole journey to the Alset mansion. Once she arrived, she snuck into the mansion. She remained invisible as she snuck around looking for Demadrian. It was not long before she heard his voice. He was in the library playing a board game with Benny.
Demadrian felt a tug on his arm, and then he felt something pushed into his hand. He opened his hand to find a small piece of paper. There was a message on the paper. It read, ‘Meet me in the big bathroom’.
‘Would you mind?’ said Demadrian to Benny. ‘I need to use the bathroom urgently.’
‘It’s the beans, isn’t it,’ said Benny as he farted loudly.
‘Yeah,’ said Demadrian as he got up and left the room.
Demadrian entered the largest bathroom and shut the door behind him. The Hat Lady became visible. She was on the edge of the bathtub.
‘Why would you come here now?’ asked Demadrian as he frowned at her.
‘I need your help,’ replied the Hat Lady. ‘I escaped the Capital City prison.’
‘What did they frame you for? Wait, you probably did commit some sort of crime,’ chuckled Demadrian.
‘We need to stop Tiberius,’ said the Hat Lady.
‘Since you’re so good at breaking in and out of prisons, why didn’t you just break into the palace and finish him off?’ said Demadrian as he placed his hand on the tiled bathroom wall.
‘Really, I’ve been in prison. I’ve been isolated from the outside world since before the Grand Final,’ said the Hat Lady angrily. ‘I am in no position to pull off some stealth kill. Even if I could, that would be stupid. Your family would be blamed, and you won’t have this comfy prison anymore.’
‘Ha, care for my family,’ retorted Demadrian as he turned to leave the bathroom. ‘You have gone out of your way to destroy my family.’
‘He will destroy everything. We have to work together,’ said the Hat Lady in a desperate tone.
Demadrian stopped just short of the door. ‘You’re right, working together is our best chance, but how can I trust you after everything you’ve done?’ said Demadrian.
‘You can trust me to act in my own best interest,’ replied the Hat Lady. ‘Stopping Tiberius is definitely that. Beyond that, maybe you shouldn’t.’
‘I’m not sure that’s enough for me to go on,’ said Demadrian as he reached for the door handle.
‘How about this,’ said the Hat Lady. ‘I'll tell you the truth about me. The whole truth.’
Demadrian turned around and faced the Hat Lady. He stared at her for a few seconds and then nodded his head.
The Hat Lady told her whole story from when she was young right up to when she became a technician. She even revealed her real self to him, which included revealing her blue eyes.
After she had finished telling him her story, Demadrian put his arms around her. He told her that after head count, he would take her to the tunnels, where they would meet with a few others to come up with a plan.
A few hours later, after the evening head count, Demadrian took the Hat Lady down into the tunnel beneath the mansion to meet with Jenna and Benny.
Jenna was not pleased about the meeting or the Hat Lady’s presence.
‘Jenna, you have to trust me on this,’ said Demadrian firmly to Jenna as he held the Hat Lady’s hand. ‘She’s with us 100%.’
Jenna sighed in frustration.
‘Yes, it is always better to work as a team,’ said Benny as he pumped his fist.
‘This is Benny,’ said Demadrian to the Hat Lady. ‘He’s very reliable.’
‘You’re making great progress,’ said the Hat Lady. ‘The previous few times you introduced him, you referred to him as this guy.’
‘I’m different now,’ said Demadrian. ‘That’s mostly thanks to you.’
‘I brought some juice packets and a small box of cookies,’ said Benny as he held them out to the others.
‘That’s Benny, always thinking of others,’ said Jenna as she stared across at the Hat Lady.
‘I don’t believe Hadrian or any of your family is guilty of the stadium atrocity,’ said the Hat Lady.
‘Then who else could have done it?’ asked Jenna.
‘It was the enforcers,’ said the Hat Lady. ‘To be more exact, it was Tiberius and his inner circle.’
‘I spent plenty of time in the North,’ said Jenna in frustration. ‘I never met him or even heard of him before.’
‘Father knows him well,’ said Demadrian. ‘He knows how awful he is. That’s why he sacrificed himself.’
‘You owe it to him and yourselves to take action against Tiberius,’ said the Hat Lady.
‘Let me guess,’ said Jenna as she stood up. ‘You plan on overthrowing him or even... or even killing him.’
‘I really wish it was that simple,’ said the Hat Lady. ‘He is extremely well protected, and he has everyone working for him. He controls the enforcers, the media, the new business sector, and even the House of Divine Knowledge.’
‘She’s spot on,’ said Demadrian as he held up a diagram he had drawn earlier. ‘I mapped his network and how he’s controlling them.’
‘What about Ryan?’ asked Benny.
Both Jenna and Demadrian frowned.
‘That’s it! You nailed it,’ said the Hat Lady. ‘Tiberius gained legitimacy from Ryan. Ryan could help remove that legitimacy.’
‘He’s still very popular,’ said Jenna as her face lit up. ‘We can take the evidence that Tiberius was responsible for the stadium disaster and for killing his wife, Saliyah.’
‘There’s one small problem,’ said the Hat Lady. ‘We don’t actually have any evidence we can show Ryan.’
‘We could falsify some evidence,’ suggested Demadrian.
‘That’s absolutely out of the question,’ said Jenna as she and Benny both folded their arms in disgust.
‘I’m fine with that,’ said the Hat Lady. ‘It just needs to be good enough to convince him.’
‘Who would present this evidence?’ said Jenna as she glared at the Hat Lady. ‘He doesn’t like or trust any of us. And how are we going to avoid the head counts?’
‘I can go,’ said the Hat Lady as she sucked on the straw of the juice packet. ‘I’ll shapeshift into someone he does trust.’
‘You’re unbelievable,’ said Jenna as she waved her arms around and Benny waved his finger at her.
The next morning at the prison, Tiberius decided he would visit the Hat Lady.
He strolled up to cell seventy-seven and peered through the window in the cell door. ‘Come on, don’t be shy,’ chuckled Tiberius. ‘You should feel honoured that the governor of Sapey has come to visit you.’
James, who had been returned to his previous cell, began laughing.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Tiberius asked James in an annoyed tone.
‘I said something that made her really mad,’ said James as he continued. ‘She hasn’t spoken since.’
‘Hmm, makes sense,’ said Tiberius. ‘How long has she been invisible?’
‘I’ll tell you if you can get me some juice,’ said James as he pushed his face against the cell door window.
‘Geez, you’re deteriorating fast. How pathetic!’ said Tiberius as he peered through the window in the cell door.
A guard appeared in the corridor. He had arrived to collect the breakfast trays from under the cell doors. James pushed his tray under the door. The guard collected it. However, the guard went straight past cell seventy-seven.
‘Hey, why didn’t you collect the tray from this cell?’ Tiberius asked the guard.
‘This cell is not on the breakfast list,’ replied the guard in a nervous tone.
‘She turned everything invisible,’ shouted James.
‘Get all the senior enforcers on duty down here now,’ commanded Tiberius.
Ten minutes later, around half a dozen senior enforcers and another dozen enforcers arrived at the cell.
‘Can any of you tell me what is going on with this cell?’ demanded Tiberius.
‘The prisoner is inside the cell,’ replied a senior enforcer. ‘She just chooses to remain invisible, permanently.’
‘Fine, go in and bring her out,’ ordered Tiberius.
‘You gave us strict orders not to ever open this cell door,’ said the senior enforcer, sounding very nervous.
‘Yes, I did!’ shouted Tiberius. ‘Yet some idiot opened the door and let her out. Now you all choose to lie to me. Am I right?’
‘I’m so sorry, governor,’ said a senior enforcer.
‘Gather all the guards and enforcers who were on duty the day she was allowed to escape,’ said Tiberius as he gestured to two senior enforcers to escort him back to the palace.
James began laughing again.
Around an hour later, the guards and enforcers who were on duty the day of Hat Lady’s escape gathered in the prison courtyard. Percival arrived in the courtyard to carry out Tiberius’ punishment on the guards.
‘I want all of you to form groups of tens or closest to that,’ said Percival.
The guards and enforcers promptly formed groups of ten.
‘Each of you will pull a straw,’ said Percival. ‘Whoever pulls the shortest straw in the group shall raise your hand.’
The guards and enforcers selected their straws. At the end of the selection, one raised his hand from each group.
‘Thank you for volunteering to take the punishment for the group,’ said Percival in a serious tone. ‘The rest of the group, start hitting the volunteers until I blow my whistle.’
With no hesitation, they began punching and kicking the ‘volunteers’. The volunteers groaned in pain as they fell hard to the ground.
Percival blew his whistle and shouted, ‘Enough!’
One overzealous enforcer continued to kick a volunteer.
‘When I command you to stop, you will stop,’ shouted Percival as he rushed over to the overzealous enforcer.
‘He ain’t dead, is he?’ rebuked the overzealous enforcer.
Percival pulled out his baton and hit the overzealous enforcer in the face, knocking him to the ground. He repeatedly hit him until he was bleeding badly, and then he stopped.
‘You ain’t dead yet, are you?’ shouted Percival as the overzealous enforcer spouted blood from his mouth.
‘This punishment is not intended to kill anyone,’ shouted Percival as he walked back to his previous position. ‘It is to demonstrate that you are responsible as a team. The failure of one is the failure of all.
‘Yes, sir,’ shouted the enforcers and guards who were still standing.
‘Take the injured to the infirmary,’ said Percival to the senior enforcer nearest to him. ‘Next time the groups will be smaller and the beatings longer.’
Percival turned and left the courtyard.
At the palace, Tiberius was flustered. He had ordered his security to be doubled and for some of the senior enforcers to act as his doubles.
Tiberius headed into the library to ponder over his next move. Shortly after, Sanguine entered to talk with his son.
‘Son, you are the governor of the Sapey. You will always have a target on your head,’ said Sanguine as he approached Tiberius.
‘She is no ordinary threat,’ said Tiberius as he turned to face his father. ‘She is cunning and now very vengeful.’
‘I have taught you how to deal with formidable foes,’ said Sanguine.
‘Yes, I know. Put myself in their position,’ said Tiberius, sounding frustrated. ‘Use their logic to determine their next actions.’
‘She has been locked in a prison cell for weeks,’ said Sanguine. ‘She is weak and lacks the necessary information to come after you. What will she do next?’
‘Regain her strength and acquire information,’ said Tiberius.
‘What are her options?’ asked Sanguine.
‘She will turn to those she feels most likely to help her,’ replied Tiberius.
‘And those most capable of inflicting damage upon you,’ added Sanguine.
‘There is no one,’ snapped Tiberius.
‘The masses support you because of Ryan’s endorsement,’ said Sanguine. ‘If you lose that, you will be in trouble. Our clever friend will figure that out at some point.’
Tiberius smiled broadly. ‘Thank you, father,’ said Tiberius. ‘I know exactly what I need to do.’
Sapien Loop: End of an Era
Sapien Loop: Frozen in Time is the sequel to the book Sapien Loop: End of an Era. Sapien Loop: End of an Era is available on Amazon, in collection series on my @spectrumecons account, and in individual chapters in my @captainhive account.
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