//------------------------------//
// The Corporate Archives 
// Story: The Immortal Dream 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

"...Couldn't go to school last night because apparently the teacher took the night off to go to some rally in the Night District, and they couldn't find a substitute on such short notice.  So Ferrous was home all day taking care of him so I could actually get some sleep, but it was still loud enough... Everything I do for that colt, and you'd think he'd have a little more sympathy for his poor day-shifting mother."

"That's why I'm single."

"You've been single since long before we started working here."

"Duh. I've been single my whole life."

"Maybe if you tried something else, you'd have a little more sympathy when I complain about... yawn... things like this..."

"Sounds like a trap. So what did you do to the teacher?"

"What?"

"You know, for skipping school. Tell me you at least filed a letter of complaint?"

"This was last night. I was too busy, you know, sleeping? Besides, it was one of those Zero Armada things. Odds are, half the school board was there already."

"Ugh, them? They know you can be chill with sarosians without-"

"Shh! Are you trying to pick a fight?"

"With who? We're, like, the only ones here."

Well, not quite.

Some time ago, Corsica had expressed surprise that I never went and poked around the Ice District itself to figure out what was going on in Ironridge. Now, stuck being awake during the day with a lot of restless curiosity on my hooves, it was suddenly the only place I could go without being cooked alive, and I decided to change that. So it was that I was shadow swimming under a table in an employee cafe area, my backwards ears perked and fishing for interesting gossip.

This was the third group I had eavesdropped on so far, and all of them told me exactly the same story: ponies were stressed. Not quite badly off, but not happy and content, either. They complained more than they laughed. But they also complained about mundane things, the same kinds of things ponies used to complain about in Icereach: work and scheduling and their social lives. Money and children were more prevalent topics here, but all of these problems were things I instinctively thought of as normal.

No one complained about getting unfairly arrested, haunted by Egdelwonk, trying to appease a child goddess, plotting to break their own kidnapper out of an underground research facility, seeing windigoes around every corner or having every influential faction in the city vying for their loyalty. And I had a hunch I could stay here for the rest of the day and the following night, too, and no one would change that.

This sealed it: I was special. My problems weren't the kind of problems everyday citizens even heard of, let alone had to deal with. And as to why I was special... odds seemed ten to one it was because I had been involved with windigoes in Icereach. The windigoes in Ironridge already knew me.

...Of course, I had no idea why they were interested in me in Icereach, other than that I conveniently happened to get stuck in that cave. Which only happened because the Composer and Aldebaran put me there in the first place, which meant there was a reason before that. Supposedly, that reason had been because the changelings wanted Corsica's friends out of the picture as well, so they could impersonate me. But that was a changeling reason. Not a windigo reason. Right? I still didn't know how closely Leif and the Composer had actually been working together, but given the way they parted during the fight in my old apartment, probably not that closely.

Which meant I was back to having absolutely zero idea what the windigoes wanted with me. All assuming, of course, that I was still sane and there actually was a secret cabal of windigoes running Ironridge.

I shook my head and moved on, swimming out of sight through a doorway. By now, I had a pretty good understanding of the Ice District's shape and layout: it was like someone took a tiered wedding cake, turned it upside-down, and then stacked a second, flatter one on top of it. The majority of the facility was made up of circular layers that got wider as they went up, and the roof of the widest one formed a platform on which the administrative layer was built. It reminded me a little of a giant drill.

The reason for the shape, I was pretty sure, was because the structure was built in a drained lakebed between two mountains, which had once been walled in by the giant dam visible throughout the city. That also explained why the lower levels were so cavernous and open, like the area the train wound through: they were mostly support structures for the real facilities up at the top, built around a tall, vertical core that ran through the center and had something to do with the actual cooling process.

Right now, I was in the widest layer. Each layer was several stories thick, and the closer I got to the top, the more finished things began to look: less empty space and exposed supports and rivets, more even lighting, polished floors made from some gray metal that looked glossy, but gave good traction and wasn't reflective at all. The walls were upholstered with various shades of thin carpet, which confused me for a while until I realized how quiet it was in here, and that they might be noise mufflers. Or just a fashion statement. Even the previous floor had mostly been plainly decorated office space, but I had a hunch I wouldn't have to go too much higher to find halls lit with chandeliers.

I kept hidden around other ponies, but got the vague impression I didn't need to: not everyone wore an employee identification badge, and no one looked particularly wary. Additionally, there were no security guards. I wasn't quite sure what I was expecting - this was a high-class professional working environment, supposedly, not a forced labor camp. But with the overbearing eccentricities of Cold Karma's overlords...

Actually, scratch that. The police could teleport and show up anywhere within seconds. They didn't need guards.

Curious what these ponies actually did, I shifted my focus to the offices themselves. Cold Karma was much more generous than Icereach, in that respect: individual offices branching off from hallways, rather than crowded communal work rooms that in hindsight were clearly designed to distract the engineers as much as possible and help ensure Icereach got nothing done. Most of them were empty for the day, but most had windows I could peek through, and I saw enough writing on chalkboards to determine this was a financial department.

Made sense. Even if Cold Karma cheated and used windigoes for air conditioning, they still had to sell their services and track who was paying what.

I wondered what Icereach would have looked like if they had been concerned with turning a profit.

While I was thinking, a pony walked past me, and I didn't notice in time to hide. It didn't matter, though. A middle-aged stallion in a business suit with a briefcase and hat that looked like they weren't tailored with Ironridge weather in mind, he acknowledged me with a glance and then moved right along. No indicator I was somewhere I shouldn't be. No conspicuous hat-tipping like in most of the Day District, either.

Come to think of it, I hadn't exactly passed any Do Not Enter or Authorized Personnel Only signs on my way here. I just... rode to the last station on the train line, got off, and followed the paths that looked like they were intended to be used. With my official Cold Karma train pass, given to me by Egdelwonk, no less.

Maybe I was being silly, and really was allowed to be here?

I resumed my wandering, trying to look like I had somewhere to be yet wasn't in a hurry at the same time, choosing randomly when I came to intersections and seeing what there was to see. The financial wing was huge, with helpful signs occasionally posted at intersections showing me my way around subdivisions. Payment disputes. Subscription management. Internal cost reimbursement. Accounting. Down one floor, a sign at a staircase told me, was the marketing and customer relations level.

Maybe I should have stopped to read the signs before instead of sneaking and focusing solely on ponies. This was a place ponies worked, after all, and probably the pinnacle of Ironridge employment. Of course they'd make the building easy for their employees to navigate.

I passed an office with an open door in a little wing dedicated to fast-tracking important customers. Inside it, two muscular ponies were working with some boxes, a supply cart waiting for them in the hallway. It looked like they were preparing the office for a new arrival.

You know... I had a good head for numbers. And even if I didn't, I had a talent that could let me learn most anything in a flash. Why couldn't I just work here, like a normal pony?

I must have passed hundreds of offices already on this floor alone. Enough ponies clearly worked here for these jobs to be considered normal... Actually, Ironridge was big enough that they were probably pretty prestigious, but the kind of prestige normal ponies obtained. I doubted the denizens of these offices had to contend with the daily eccentricities of Lilith and Egdelwonk and the police, though. What was it about me that couldn't just wind up crunching numbers in a clean, cozy place like this, treated by the higher-ups less like a toy and more like a cog in a machine?

For that matter, who even ran this place? Lilith was the Director of Societal Planning. Samael and Estael were Directors of Public Security. Egdelwonk was the janitor, which I suspected meant lead propaganda artist. Emblazon, who Corsica told me was the Director of National Defense. Where did ordinary, day-to-day corporate operations fit in there?

"Let me tell you something, Halcyon: Cold Karma is a madhouse. It stopped being a legitimate institution years ago and is now a front for a bunch of clods with agendas of their own."

Egdelwonk's words echoed through my mind. According to him, they didn't fit in. Yet, here they were anyway... Maybe this was a place where Cold Karma's bosses put their craziness aside and let business be business enough to remain in control. Or maybe they just ignored this place altogether, and it was let to the middle managers with real heads on their shoulders.

Speaking of Egdelwonk... I rounded a corner and passed a trash can, and gave it a suspicious glance. I couldn't tell for sure, but odds were fifty fifty he was inside, watching me and biding his time.

I put a wing to the pocket on my coat holding his pre-written contract. Signing it would be akin to bolting myself to a runaway train, I knew, but at the same time... Corsica was working for him. And I knew I'd regret it if I gave Lilith or the police another chance to come poking around in my business.

...There was another trash can just inside the door of a darkened office. Slightly more private, not that anyone was around at the moment. I slipped through the ajar door and peered inside.

"Unlike you to pay me a visit," Egdelwonk said, reclining among some office trappings that probably belonged in the recycling instead, the rim of the can distorting my field of view and making it impossible to tell how big it really was inside. "Quesadilla? Someone threw a perfectly good one in here the other week and for the life of me I can't figure out why." He proffered the offending item with his single bat wing.

"No thanks," I said, not needing a sniff to tell he wasn't kidding about its age. "Listen, about that contract you gave me..."

He fixed me with a perfect stare. "Yes, it's still valid, but choose your next words carefully. I've been known to make up for a lack of creativity in my underlings with creativity of my own."

I pulled out the document. "Are you saying you suddenly don't want me to sign this?"

Egdelwonk sighed. "Halcyon, Halcyon, Halcyon. I recognize you've been shirking Lord Egdelwonk's patent-pending How To Use Your Noodle training for the last year and a half, but tell me you at least read the fine print?"

I turned the paper over. There was no fine print. Just a crayon drawing of Egdelwonk's face, and the text, also in crayon: Employment contract valid if and only if Halcyon wants it to be. First come first serve, losers!

Egdelwonk waited patiently for me to understand something I didn't think I was going to get.

"Halcyon," he eventually said flatly. "You are currently in possession of one pre-signed genuine limited edition no-buts I-was-here-first get-out-of-jail-free card courtesy of yours truly, guaranteed good for ruining one overzealous recruiter's day and perhaps a lot more depending on how you use it. I recognize you have an agenda in Ironridge and are pursuing it with limited resources, and likely think of siding with me as a tactical decision to improve the resources at your disposal. Good choice, excellent judgement, standing ovation, yay. But how well you use those resources is much more important than the resources you have."

I stared again at the contract.

Egdelwonk rolled over in the trash can. "Now go spin in a circle and think for a moment about what I've already given you, and only come back if you really can't come up with anything interesting to do with the ability to join my team anywhere, rather than alone with me in a private meeting, which you already passed the interview so you don't even need a contract to do."

I didn't spin in a circle, but I did think, and quickly, I realized Egdelwonk was right. Utilizing an existing job offer to screw over a rival that wanted my services at an inopportune moment was terrible business ethics, but around here, in the topsy-turvy climate of Cold Karma, a way to get ahead was a way to get ahead. I could, for example, use the contract as an easy out if I ever got stuck in another place that respected Cold Karma authority, like the jail... or Lilith's secret school. Which I was planning to break back into anyway to go rescue Leitmotif. And besides, waiting to sign on until I absolutely needed it had the double bonus of letting me potentially stay unaffiliated if I luck went my way.

"...Thanks," I said to the trash can. "You're pretty weird, but... Well, let's leave it at that."

"Taken as a compliment." Egdelwonk poked his head up above the rim. "That said, if you're so eager to start, I wouldn't be opposed to giving you your first assignment before we officially get going. Like reading ahead in the coursework while you're still on break! No pressure, of course. Interested?"

I hesitated. "Sure?"

Egdelwonk beckoned me closer, cupping a wing around his mouth to muffle his voice. "This one is cherry-picked personally for your interests," he whispered conspiratorially.

My backwards ears perked. That had better not be a bad thing...

"Barnabas' Self-Defense Emporium," Egdelwonk said. "An establishment I believe you have some personal history with, and perhaps a healthy grudge or two. Now, here in Lord Egdelwonk's Junior Dumpster Despot Corps, normalcy is generally frowned upon, but the ignorant masses tend to love it, and civilians getting randomly framed and arrested during weapon-shop explosions is very abnormal. So I want you to investigate and get to the bottom of that incident."

I took a slight breath. Really, I had wanted to know what was up with that, but with all the things that happened to me that night, it had been far too easy to drop it from my priority list and just vow not to visit Blueleaf again.

Well, so much for that idea.

"I've already cracked the case myself," Egdelwonk explained, "so I'm confident it's nothing you can't handle with a little corporate immunity on your side, and also very curious as to what you'll make of what you find. One free hint: Barnabas' marefriend is the estranged daughter of a Night District insurance mogul. I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun with this one, and remember we're not officially affiliated until you do use that contract so don't go stomping in there unless you're willing to spend it to bail yourself out. Ta-ta!"

He dove back into the trash can, and with a puff of office clippings, he was gone.

Huh. Well, that had been a meeting. And a whole lot less unnerving than our first two encounters, too.

...After a moment's thought, I realized why: Egdelwonk himself hadn't actually changed. I was just more used to how things were done in Cold Karma. That realization was both comforting and frightening at the same time.





I continued my exploration of the Ice District, slowly working my way upward - some time ago, Corsica had told me the most interesting things were all found at the top. The way up was a conspicuous staircase near the train station, and when I eventually took it, I quickly wondered if I hadn't been wasting my time not coming here first.

A long, grand hallway greeted me, twice as wide as a street, paved with sizable tiles of glossy black stone with white mineral veins and gold filigree. Three stories up, a cross-ribbed, barrel-vaulted ceiling hung a row of chandeliers, white light reflecting down off the beige roof. Two tracts of red carpet bordered the hallway, each one running back past the staircase, which was narrower than the hallway it joined. The hall ran straight out from the Ice District core, and at the end, a window loomed, broad daylight illuminating razor-thin crossbeams that at night would disappear and make it look like an unbroken, building-sized sheet of glass.

For a long moment, I was awestruck. This was not the kind of architecture I often got the chance to see.

And yet, here it was, open to everyone. I looked back down the staircase; the train platform was only a short walk away. More ponies were here than the lower floors I explored first, albeit still not a lot. None of them looked at me like I belonged, or like I didn't belong. They all just went about their business.

I liked it here. Though it would probably look a lot cooler at night.

The window called to me, and so I walked closer, past alcoves in the wall containing statues of ponies. Many, I recognized: Lilith, Egdelwonk, Samael, Estael. Junior Karma.

Jamjars.

That one gave me pause, and I wandered over to inspect it. On the plaque, in microscopic print beneath her name, was In honor of substantial contributions to weapons R&D.

Weapons research and development? Jamjars had a hoof in the Cold Karma door because she was helping them make weapons? That didn't fit at all into the picture of her I already had. It didn't conflict with anything; I didn't know how she was involved here, it just didn't tie in anywhere either. Weapons, weapons-

No. It couldn't be the Whitewings.

And then, with a shiver of true cold, I remembered some evidence I had collected from the hideout while imprisoned by Aldebaran: a bit of yellow fur, taken from a vent in the hot tub.

Jamjars had yellow fur.

The sample was back in my room in her house. I couldn't do a check to see if it was the same shade of yellow. Not now, at least. My heart was beating out of control, though. Jamjars was supposedly Graygarden's mistress, but had implied she had no interest in him personally and was only in it for the connections. She had goals in Icereach. Like maybe a hideout to be close to...

Jamjars was friends with Kitty. Kitty was probably a windigo. The Composer was a windigo, and apparently connected to the owner of the hideout, who might be Jamjars.

Aldebaran wanted to kidnap us and stash us in Jamjars' hideout. Graygarden had been easy to convince to let us go. Jamjars offered to let us come to Ironridge and stay in her house. Graygarden had been the connection that gave us that opportunity. Was it all connected?

Jamjars was hunting Writs of Harmonic Sanction. Jamjars talked often about Starlight. In the hideout, I found three writs stashed away, along with a letter that made mention of Starlight's well-being. It was all connected.

No, no, no no no! I had to have made a mistake somewhere! Ironridge's propensity for conspiracies was getting to me, I was seeing ghosts around every corner, I was... I...

I leaned against a bench to remain standing, my head down and my eyes unfocused. All this time...!

No one could learn what I had learned. No one. Not until I knew who it was safe to trust, which might be no one. Or it could be everyone I had thought untrustworthy up until this point. I needed help. I needed...

No. I could do this.

I wasn't the same conflicted, half-formed filly I had been during the Aldebaran incident, when my own ambitions and my old self's fears had caught me between them like a vice. I was talented. I was rational. I was skilled.

Summoning my focus, I pulled myself back together. First and foremost, I needed to figure out Jamjars' endgame. Or, maybe I already knew it... I needed to figure out how me and my friends played into it. It was entirely possible that Jamjars, while underhanded and deceitful, counted us on her side and had for us no ill intentions.

Second: I needed concrete evidence that I was right. I was almost positive, and the letter with the Writs of Harmonic Sanction was all but irrefutable... though since Jamjars' old friends like Valey and Gerardo also knew about Starlight and cared about writs, it wasn't ironclad. I had to be more certain than I was now.

Third, I needed friends. I could do this alone, but I didn't want to. Whatever hidden power struggle was going on in Ironridge, whatever the true form of the cocktail of machinations I kept climbing in and out of, I needed to find someone on the inside and stick with them. Remotely palatable options? Jamjars, Egdelwonk, Valey.

...Oh, and Leitmotif. Since the Composer betrayed her, I doubted she wanted to be affiliated with any side that caroused with windigoes. Maybe she was a nuclear option. But maybe a nuclear option was what I wanted.

And fourth... Fourth, I needed to find the Composer. I was almost certain the Composer wasn't Kitty, just because the logistics would be impossible for the day I arrived in Ironridge: I saw the Composer out in the hallway with Lilith, and immediately after I saw Kitty in Jamjars' house. And I had been in Kitty's basement, and hadn't seen anything that screamed 'power armor remote control terminal'. But that didn't rule out Jamjars having two windigoes on her side. I needed more information.

I looked back at the hall I was currently in. Information... I was so close to understanding the Cold Karma factions and what was really going on here, I could taste it. If I could know what each group was really fighting for and why, and where the boundaries between them lay, that would make navigating this mess so much easier. For now, I had to keep exploring. Corsica told me she learned a lot up here. The best thing I could do, given my situation, was to learn.

So I got up and kept walking, as though I hadn't just woken up and noticed I was still in the trap Aldebaran set six months ago. I did come to Ironridge to put my regrets over failing back then to rest, after all. I had wanted a do-over.

Far be it from me to complain now that I had what I wanted.

My hooves were steely as I reached the window. The hall widened further, two staircases descending on either side and joining up with the floor. When I looked back, they rose up two stories, then converged across the main hall's roof and went up further. At a guess, that was where I would find the executive suite.

I checked some more signs, and resumed my climb. This level seemed mostly dedicated to research: most of it meteorological, but some of it unnamed. Lots of control rooms, too. Go figure a company that prospered from Ironridge's extreme heat would be interested in studying the climate. They probably wanted to be well aware of any trends that could signal a cooling... provided they weren't trying to avert them in the first place.

Laboratories, though. I was at home among those. I continued upward.

On the level that rejoined the two staircases, I found something interesting enough to stop and check out: a sign advertising the corporate archives. So far, Cold Karma had been remarkably lax about letting a non-employee like me wander wherever I chose, but surely there was a boundary somewhere, right? The corporate archives had to contain all manner of secrets meant to be hidden from the public eye. So I wasn't exactly expecting to get in, but... I was curious to see what it would look like when they tried to keep me out.

Answer: they didn't.

The corporate archives were so open, there wasn't even a door in the entryway. I walked through, and suddenly I was in a large, gear-shaped room, the tines of the gear forming aisles between a circular arrangement of shelves along the outer wall. On the other side of the room, I could see the hallway continued into another section of the archives, and at the end of each aisle was a screen, the kind that in Icereach were used for video conferencing, connected to cameras and with terminals acting as switchboards.

In the center of the room, the floor dipped in a depression. In the middle of that was a pedestal, and posed proudly on that was a Whitewing.

I narrowed my eyes. Corsica had been up here. There was no possible way she hadn't seen this. I wondered how much she knew that she wasn't telling me for my own peace of mind.

Probably just as much as I wasn't telling her. Though I wouldn't put it past her to have figured out even more.

We needed to put our heads together one of these days, and by one of these days I meant next time we were both awake and in the same room. If there was anyone I could trust, it was her and Ansel. But for now, it was the middle of the day, and I had come all the way up here already... Might as well stay and see what the archive had to teach me.

Each aisle, I realized, was labeled according to one of the company's main divisions. I waffled for a moment between Egdelwonk's and Lilith's, before choosing the latter to investigate first. Getting another chance to talk to Leitmotif and learning what I could about the Aldebaran incident was more important than ever. And since Lilith-

As if reacting to my presence, the screen turned on.

A mare appeared - sarosian, early-mid twenties, mane done up in a single braid that hung off to the side, thick-framed glasses, standing before a thin grove of orderly, vibrant trees. "Welcome to Cold Karma," she said, curtsying deeply.

I took a step back. Was this live, or-?

"Once, before the heating of Ironridge began," the mare said, the camera zooming out and floating high over a fog-filled, mountainous valley, "the ponies of the night were a vibrant and prosperous race. They built thriving metropolises at the peaks of mountains..."

The camera panned upward, showing a mountaintop aglow with light, backed by a starry sky that shimmered with exaggerated galaxies and purple hues. It zoomed in, circling the mountain, and I saw a citadel with bastions and ramparts, luminescent vegetation, steep terraces and white stone bricks and stained-glass windows, draped with veins of luminescent, midnight-blue crystal that flowed through it like blood vessels. Hundreds of batponies flocked in the skies, more than I had ever seen together at once, and multiple airships were docked at the city's lower levels.

"Tight-knit communities that lasted through peace and hardship..."

All of a sudden, the terrain changed, and I was looking at a yellow city with incredibly tall, square buildings and a deep, sapphire-blue sky. Beneath the skyline, a street had been taken over by batponies, market stalls lining the sides that sold rich tapestries and pottery and artistic wares.

"Monastic conclaves in the harshest climates imaginable..."

To my shock, the camera turned to a sight I knew well: Wystle Tower, on the outskirts of Icereach. My home.

"For the past thousand years, these civilizations enriched the world, creating art and culture that were envied from the Griffon Empire to Yakyakistan. But all that came to a crashing, terrible halt during the Twilight of the Gods. Many scholars estimate more than ninety percent of the world's sarosians perished in the cataclysm. And many of those who survived were blamed for the destruction, and withdrew from society to escape persecution."

The camera returned to that yellow city, only now, the street it had shown before was burning. I didn't see any batponies. All there was were other ponies, and the remains of the market stalls.

Yelling reached my ears. I felt a chill.

The camera returned to the glowing mountaintop city, only now it was different. The vibrant cosmos had been replaced with an ordinary twilight. The vegetation had lost its otherworldly glow. The veins of blue, once bright, were now a dim emerald, and all the ponies had vanished without a trace.

"How quickly the world turned on those who survived. But we at Cold Karma do not believe in forgetting our heritage. At the Division of Societal Planning, we seek to engineer a future where sarosiankind no longer stand on the brink of extinction."

Next, the screen moved to a sterile classroom I was pretty sure belonged to Lilith's underground school. "To sarosian families, we offer incentives like a world-class education and free medical services, tilting evolutionary pressures to favor the ones who need it most. The law of the jungle is our enemy and our tool. At Cold Karma, we believe in planning our way to a better society."

With a heroic, uplifting fanfare, the presentation concluded, leaving me slightly stunned. These corporate archives weren't repositories of business secrets at all, then. Those must be kept somewhere else. I was pretty sure the place I was now - and the reason it was so easy for me to get there - was a propaganda machine for tourists.

Well, some parts of Cold Karma, I knew little enough about that even propaganda might be informative.

"Having fun?" a familiar voice said behind me.

I jumped, having been snuck up on. "Corsica!"

It was she. "Guess you're finally poking around up here," she said with a toss of her raspberry mane. "Like what you see?"

"Listen," I interrupted. "I need to talk to... I mean, what are you doing up here in the middle of the day?"

"Research for a project for my job," Corsica said. "Classified, unfortunately. Who do you need to talk to?"

I took a deep breath. "You. I've... figured out some stuff that's really important, and I know you've been doing stuff too. We need to be on the same page."

Corsica raised an eyebrow. "That bad?"

I nodded.

She gave me a harder look. "Bad enough that you want to run headfirst into them? One of Egdelwonk's first lessons is the Nobody Says, Nobody Knows rule. If you never mention you've figured something out and you never act on what you've figured out, to everyone else it'll be like you don't know at all. You sure you haven't figured out anything you'd rather just... leave in stasis?"

I hesitated. "Maybe? But I don't think it's going to leave me in stasis. Remember last night? Well, now two nights ago? There are things I wanna do."

Corsica sighed. "Well, there are things I wanna do too, that I've been leaving off the table while everyone else has fun with their lives in Ironridge. But if you're ready, you're ready. Let's go find a place to talk that's slightly less bugged."

"Right." I followed along, my old suspicions returning that Corsica might have put together even more than I had.