Chapter 256: Chapter 256

"Well, that is... cute? Adorable? Weird? Scary?" He said as he turned to the side, as if to ask for the answer; in front of him was a holographic screen showing the image of a teenager sleeping with a young woman inside a coffin.

It was the image of Ale cuddling with the cloned body of Alexandra.

"I don't know if I should admonish you for peeping at such a private moment, or worry that you managed to sneak in surveillance into a place that none of the sensors within Aquila can detect." A purple-haired woman said, sighing and turning her eyes to Alexanders from the side.

Alexanders was sitting in an office chair, spinning lazily, while Sapphire was floating beside him.

"I mean... what else was I supposed to do? Even if she isn't my sister, she still is important to Alexa." Alexanders said, sighing, "And besides, she is the only other person who knows what happened there, so we do need to keep her under surveillance."

He still couldn't get over what had happened, the birth of Alexa was... well, it was something that was close to an impossibility achieved through sheer luck and miracles stacked upon each other.

There was no way it could work, and yet it worked. Alexanders was painfully aware of it; he had been trying to achieve it, and he hadn't succeeded. It was part of the reason why he had spread the testing grounds for P4 and the P-series subjects so far and wide across the multiple facilities that he had control over.

The Saintsworths' umbrella was spread almost to all inhabited cities one way or another.

"Well of course I get that, Alexa always causes problems one way or another." And while that was true, it was also a problem in on itself.

Alexanders was aware that Alexa caused problems; she was Alexa. But the thing was... Before he wouldn't have worried about that, it was natural, but... Nowadays, he wondered why that was natural.

Sapphrie seemed to know something, and yet she should not. Sapphire... Was an AI he had... helped create, he would not take full credit for her creation, she was birthed from the fugue state that he was when he managed to rewrite the original SEED code.

He still wasn't sure what that thing did or how it did it, but it was what allowed the creation of the program and what made the woman he was in love with...

And that was another whole deal of issues, was Sapphire real? Not that it mattered to him, he had proven that he could get her a physical body, now all he needed was to ensure the tests was going well.

Alexandra had given him another part of the puzzle. Those cloned bodies lasted long, unlike the others, which turned into ash. And now only the mystery of why Ash?

That annoyed him, not knowing why.

"So? Did you find anything interesting?" Sapphire asked bringing him back to focus.

"A couple of things," Alexanders said, turning away his attention from the screen. The girl was deeply asleep with that... corpse. The psychiatrist would have a field day when he arranged for this video to get to whoever Eversoul got.

That is to say, the psychiatrist whom he ensured was trustworthy, got this file.

"First, Ale is... a true stable AI. How is she like that when the number of server clusters Alexa has access to is... none. It's a question I can't answer." Alexanders said raising a finger, "If we compare the amount of space you take within the server clusters, that is impossible."

"...Are you saying I'm fat?" Sapphire asked narrowing her eyes at him.

"Number two," Alexanders was not taking that bait, besides Sapphire was not fat, Alexanders knew she was within her BMI taking into account her height and whatnot. He had designed the body she would use after all, if anything. She was exactly where she should be, all measures taken into consideration and whatnot. "For whatever reason Eversoul the bleeding heart accepted Alexa into her care, that one I did not see coming."

"... Are you ignoring the question Love? I promise I will not be mad." Sapphire continued prodding at him with her fingers, not that they could touch him, it made him feel weird whenever the holographic body touched him, the electromagnetic interference made him tingly all over his body.

But he couldn't complain because then Sapphire would start shoving part of her body into his, and that was another level of weirdness altogether.

"Number three..." Alexanders decided to continue even if Sapphire already knew he was actively ignoring her stupid bait question, "... Kellet saw Alexa for what she was, the question is, did Eversoul see it like that and decide to ignore it or not?"

That was the interesting thing, as far as Alexanders was aware, most people outright ignored it even when the evidence was staring at their stupid faces. Eleanore had ignored it, and that woman could quite literally pull the truth out of even the most mundane objects... If Alexanders understood the true nature of her Core.

That woman was devious, to claim herself to be the guardian of hell by using the moniker of Cerberus when her power was closer to the Moirai if the glimpses he saw were to be believed.

That woman was not using her Core like she should, not that Alexanders would go out of his way to correct her, it was not his job. And she was not one of his employees.

Unless Kellet also saw the true nature of Alexa and decided to ignore it? That was an option too.

"So... why do you even tolerate that woman anyway?" Sapphire suddenly asked, "I get Kellet, she is useful. But I never understood why you even entertained Eversoul. At first I thought that you wanted to bed the woman and laugh at her face, but then... You never did."

"... I really have no idea what's going on in that head of yours. Sometimes, you just say the most unhinged and weird crap ever." Alexanders said astonished, "Also at what in point did I ever show any smidge of interest in Eversoul?"

Granted, he kinda grew with Eversoul?

As much as one can grow with someone roughly in the same generation. Eversoul was slightly older than him, but then again, what is a couple of years here and there? Not that they would make that much of an impact on either him or Eversoul.

No wait, Eversoul was pure unadulterated human, she would grow old faster than him wouldn't she?

Heh, that was a thought, at some point in their older years Alexanders would look way younger than her, then he would have one extra thing to use to bother that woman.

"You gave him the key to your kingdom." Sapphire stared at him emotionlessly, "You quite literally gave her a key that can open almost all the doors within your company."

"But that is the wonderful thing isn't it?" Alexanders said, smiling evilly, "That only opens the doors that she can walk up to, so not any of the important ones... at least not mine anyway. And only 'within my company', that key is worthless for my private property. She could walk to one of my private laboratories, and the door wouldn't materialize or open, so she would think it wasn't mine."

Alexanders laughed at that, Miriam Eversoul had actually walked by a few of his private laboratories, places were he had stuff that was actually illegal, but since the card hadn't reacted to them. The woman just assumed they weren't Saintsworths property and walked away.

That stupid keycard was the best thing he had ever thought, and he had to thank the old foggies of the council for it.

"You know what I meant," Sapphire said snapping her fingers and materializing a new holographic screen, "If it had been anyone else you would have never allowed them to speak to you like that, or even make demands out of you."

The video was a recording of something that had happened a couple of hours ago, or well, not that far into the past. It was a video of Miriam Eversoul running through the hallways in her search for him.

Of how after she had found him,, she started first berating him for not rescuing Alexa, then moved on to describe how terrible brother he was. And how he didn't deserve having Alexa as a sister.

It actually irked him somewhat, if he was going to be honest.

The woman knew nothing about their situation or how complex it was, he had... not dealt with it that well, and had even proposed to Eversoul the idea of introducing Alexa to Alexanders Father, to Thaddeus Saintsworths.

That had given the woman some pause, no one sane would introduce or even bring the attention of Thaddeus to anyone they cared about.

At the end of it Alexanders was fed up with it, and while Sapphire was right, usually he would have made Eversoul's life a living hell, even if the woman was useful or not.

He had not done that.

"Now that you say it... You are right," Alexanders said, thinking about it. Why hadn't he?

Alexanders felt a slight headache forming at the forefront of his head and mind.

Was it because Eversoul was Alexa's mom?

But she was not, she was someone who Alexa had just met. There was no guarantee that Eversoul would even look in Alexa's direction, and that was another part of the puzzle, wasn't it? Why had Alexa arrived there? Outside Eversoul's office.

If the idea was to get Alexa closer to him, then she could have teleported to his apartment, if the idea was that the council didn't find out about her, then she could teleport to any of his private laboratories.

Hell, she had arrived near one of his private laboratories. She could have landed in the middle of Lab 4. Or even in the middle of Lab 0.

Granted, arriving in the middle of Lab 0 would have put Alexa in a more tricky situation, but at the end of the day that one was also under his purview, they would have folded to his orders... Or become part of the test subjects.

It wouldn't be the first time that a bad apple (And by that, we mean someone who didn't know his place and didn't listen to Alexanders commands) was turned into one such example.

So why? Why was Alexanders wary of actively antagonizing Eversoul?

"Love?" Sapphire asked in a worried tone, "Your lightning is leaking..."

Alexanders pulled himself out of his reverie once again only to find that his eyes had turned into golden lightning, again.

"Why the heck does that keep happening?" Alexanders said taking a deep breath and recentering, since he had pulled those Core Skills from the fake memories that the theater master had put on him, this was happening more often. "... is it Alexa? But why?"

And every time it was because Sapphire had asked something about Alexa, or because he himself was questioning something related to Alexa. If Alexa was the trigger... why was it?

"Do you know?" Alexanders asked to Sapphire, the only other person who didn't seem to be affected by the irregularities around his sister.

"... You want the answer?" Sapphire asked in a serious voice, her face devoid of mirth or playfulness, "It is quite a big spoiler."

Spoiler, that word yet again. Sapphire had used it before when he asked if Alexa was actually dead or not, when he brought the body of Alexandra back to the facility and attempted to revive it.

He was pretty sure at the time that Alexa was not dead, but since she didn't show up anywhere he had attempted to get that one back to the world of the living to ask it questions.

Sapphire had asked if he wanted the spoiler or not. He had answered no then, and would answer "No," in a negative today too.

Sapphire's face was filled with grief, even if the holographic projection was normal and devoid of emotion, but Alexanders could see it, behind the electromagnetic waves. The actual emotion of Sapphire.

Grief, relief, love, care, sadness.

He still couldn't translate quite well the most complex emotions, but was able to understand these at the very least, and since he was the one doing all the calculations... He wasn't even that sure if his interpretation of the human mind was that good.

He wasn't able to offload the calculation to the Saintsworths data servers for two important reasons, number one. Sapphire would know, and he didn't want her to know that he was able to do this quite yet.

He... wasn't insecure about Sapphire's feelings or anything, but when your girlfriend could craft a fake face to hide her emotions, you didn't have that many ways to know if she was angry with you or not. More so since the voice was also artificially crafted... He wanted an advantage dang it!

Also, the High Council of the Saintsworths would use this for evil and to manipulate the masses in a highly amoral way to tamper with the politics and whatnot. He wasn't 100% sure how they would do it, but he was sure it would be a highly illegal and stupid way to use his technology.

He was the last boss of this era. If someone was going to do something highly evil, it would be him, and he had standards. He was not going to do kids' cartoon plans of using emotional manipulation to do evil. If people feared him, it would be for the right reasons!

Yes, that was his excuse and he was sticking by it.

"Okay then, you will find the answer soon. I believe in you." Sapphire said with relief as she cheered on him, "I am giving you hints here and there, so you will manage."

Right... hints, he suspected it was why Sapphire was pointing his attention to these details, so the reason why he tolerated the highly rude antics of Eversoul was one.

He knew for sure that he didn't love the woman, nor did he want her as a friend, even. But there was a reason why he had given her one of his ten secret labs.

There was a reason why he wanted her in his most prized project, the Aquila project.

"Well, did you check on what I asked?" Alexanders said turning to Sapphire yet again, pointing with a finger to the screen where Ale was sleeping in the coffin.

"Yeah, there are no records of anyone that matches the physical descriptions of Alexandra Saintsworths or Ale Saintsworths, nor are there records of any Saintsworths going missing... Besides the ones we made up, that is." Sapphire said turning to Alexanders, "They are as real as they get... Or as real as me anyway."

Alexanders had made Sapphire search for records of disappearance of people with the personality traits that Ale and Alexandra had shown, he... of course hadn't digitized consciousness of people to get the base for his AI projects.

Well... not for that project anyway. The human mind was... not very malleable (Most of the time), one needed a certain type of mind to survive the act of digitization. So far the number of people that could survive that was a number he could count with either of his hands.

P9 being the most obvious example. That one was crazy, so he wasn't sure if he should really count them or not.

"So... Ale and Alexandra... Where the hell did they come then?" Alexanders said turning to the screen, "I... Do you think Alexa devoured a mother and daughter at some point and used their mind as model?"

"You aren't even entertaining the idea that they are like me?" Sapphire asked halfway surprised, and halfway confused, "Why?"

"Because you are a miracle," Alexanders answered, "Alexa is... an irregularity, but two is as much as I am willing to tolerate as the whims of fate. More... more would mean that there is something inherently wrong with our reality. And that is a thought I don't feel comfortable having."

Alexanders didn't like that, the idea that as many irregularities could crop up around him like nothing. He would need to move his plans to deal with the theater master and the scrambler if that was the case after all.

If... And this was a very big if.

If his theories about how their Core Powers actually worked were real, then that would explain where the heck had that pair of daughter-mother came from. It would not explain why they were that loyal to Alexa though.

Unless nothing of their original forms remained? That would... That would be something he would need to deal later, find their original forms and families and get them some severance money or something. Give them a country or two?

What the hell are you supposed to do when you are apologizing for turning someone's family into... Whatever Alexa had done to Ale and Alexandra?

"Why do I do this to myself?" Alexanders couldn't help but sigh and wonder aloud.