Chapter 967: What I Present to the World

Spiritual damage lingered, beyond the capacity of healing magic to repair. This was something Jason was intimately familiar with, but his latest spiritual injury was mild. Holding shut the rip in the universe had strained his prime avatar, but within a couple of days it had largely recovered. He spent that time in his astral kingdom, in his house by the waterfall.

Far from crippled, just not up to another fight, he spent most of the time cooking. He set up an outdoor kitchen on the sprawling deck that jutted into the gorge. A rotating roster of his friends and family came by for sampling purposes, although Nik and Emi’s presence was near-constant. Emi was already an excellent cook, having learned from her mother, just like Jason. They were taking the opportunity to induct Nik into the culinary arts.

Now that the magic levels on Earth were rising, magical variants of familiar ingredients had started to appear. He was incorporating them into the farms he had set up around his main planet, although he hadn’t had time to collect a lot of Earth produce. For the moment, most of the farms still grew Pallimustus plants and fungi.

Along with fields of vegetables there were mushroom caves, hanging gardens filled with vine fruit and sprawling orchards. He had chosen ideal climates, scattered across the planet and linked by portals. The influence of the living forest Arbour made for idyllic growth.

There were still fires to be put out, from the ongoing diplomatic efforts to the fallout from the battles in Melbourne and the Sindh Province. Jason’s recovery offered him some rare downtime, but not all of his friends were as idle.

Farrah had been going over what happened with the manipulation of the grid, alongside grid operators from the various Network factions. Jason put those thoughts aside, concentrating on good food and good company. He suspected what she would find, but she was still working on it. He did his best to avoid dwelling in it until she was done. Even so, the old rage churned like magma beneath the earth, building up pressure on the way to an eruption. He knew that wasn’t helpful, healthy or productive, so he did his best to let it go and focus on what was.

***

While Jason was recovering, the contingent of diplomats, intelligence officers and faction agents continued their visit to the astral kingdom. Their trip had taken them to the cities of New Water and Arbour. They took aerial tours around the planet and even travelled into space in an unexpectedly spaceworthy dirigible. They saw a planet created and then terraformed in a display of god-like power. They toured the new planet, visiting mountaintops and vast tablelands. They walked around, touched the grass and ate fruit from trees. Then they left and the planet winked out of existence, as if it had never been.

***

US Secretary of State, Claire Danvey, watched footage of preliminary debriefs of the US members of the contingent now returned from the astral space. She had a room set up for the purpose in her temporary lodgings in Asano Village. The contingent members would go through weeks, if not months of debriefs, analysis and examinations for potential compromise.

Having come to a decision, she had petitioned her government to allow her to visit Asano’s kingdom for herself. A conference call pushed off her debrief footage and she made her case to the president and to CIA Director Barstow.

“Madam Secretary,” Barstow said. “We have no idea what Asano is capable of in that place. If our people are to be believed, he can make a planet as easily as a sandwich. Either that is true, or he has the power to convince people it is. Either way, it’s a short hop to accepting that he can pluck state secrets out of your head, if you put yourself in his place of power.”

“I would make two counterpoints,” Claire said. “One is that if he wants to know something, I don’t think we can stop him. You’ve seen what just that shadow creature of his can do. Do you know the full capabilities of the people he brought to Earth? I don’t, but I bet they have magic that would run loops around any protection we have.”

“So, you advocate giving in and surrendering anything he wants?”

“No. What I suggest is that we avoid approaching him in the ways where he’s more powerful than us. Than anyone. Confronting him with main strength is not just pointless but counterproductive.”

“She’s not wrong in that regard,” Barstow said. “I have a small army of analysts going over the Pakistan footage, but the early assessment is that no native Earth force could have stopped those monsters. Possibly not even if you combined them all together. We’d have to resort to magically enhanced nukes and turn the whole area into a radioactive pit.”

“What we need,” Claire said, “is to approach this from another direction. Director, what is your analysts’ take on Asano diplomatically?”

“He’s naïve. Unversed in realpolitik. His adherence to certain principles is undermining the ability of his representatives to—”

“That is my assessment as well,” Claire cut her off. “Jason Asano responds to trust, loyalty and friendship. Speaking with his chief representative, Annabeth Tilden, it is a source of frustration for her. Asano’s approach has served him well in the other world. Politics are simpler there, by all accounts, with personal power and personal loyalty being lynchpins. That approach hurts him here. Earth geopolitics are more sophisticated, with decentralised power. Over there, it’s not about the force you can muster but the force that you are. Individual power over the consensual. That means more idiosyncratic personalities and less answering to disparate interests.”

“You’re saying that he’s used to the politics of god kings,” Barstow said.

“Perhaps not that extreme,” Claire said. “Although yes, sometimes, from what I’ve gathered in my time here. A better analogy might by a rogue dictator. Someone we need for a military base, or as an intelligence asset. Or because the lunatic has nukes.”

“What are you suggesting?” the president asked.

“We meet him where he is. He might become an ally, but never one who goes an inch beyond what is strictly necessary. In his mind, we’re still the Network. The people who dug up Jack Gerling and sent him to kill Asano’s brother, his lover and his best friend. Whatever his diplomatic intentions, on some level, he sees us as an enemy. If we keep treating him like a potential enemy, he may well become one. If that happens, we lose. He can hide his people where we can never reach, and move through our nation with impunity. With the power at his command, he and his friends could crush the military and civilian infrastructure of the continental United States in a week. If that. Then he’d likely go to work on any essence users they didn’t take out in step one.”

“That’s a bleak picture,” the president said. “Barstow?”

“We’re still doing combat analysis of the Pakistan footage. Preliminary results support the secretary’s assessment.”

“You’re telling me that a few dozen people represent an existential threat to the United States?”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“Only if we keep treating him like one,” Claire said. “We need to stop trying to make an ally, because he’ll never trust us. We need to make him a friend.”

“And how do you suggest we do that?” the president asked.

“We trust him first.”

“It’s not an unreasoned approach,” Barstow said. “Our profile on Asano suggests that the only people able to sway him are his friends. If we become one, then we might gain a measure of the influence we have thus far failed to.”

“You think it’s that easy?” the president asked.

“No,” Claire said. “But I do think it’s that simple.”

“She’s right,” Barstow said. “Our best information is that Asano responds to straightforward earnestness. We would essentially need to have one person who befriends him, and have them serve as an unofficial ambassador.”

“Won’t he see that coming if someone makes an approach?” the president asked.

“Yes,” Barstow said. “And even if he’s so oblivious as to not, Anna Tilden isn’t. But our profile suggests that he won’t care, so long as the approach is genuine. Tilden is the problem, but her existing friendship with the secretary would make the secretary the natural choice. But there is both difficulty and danger in this approach. It won’t be easy to make him see us as a friend, and once we do, we’ll have to be one. If Asano feels like we’ve betrayed him, he’ll become that existential threat.”

“You advocate this approach, then?” the president asked Barstow.

“We all know that Asano’s arrival will prompt some manner of revolution in magical knowledge. Farrah Hurin and Rufus Remore overturned centuries of essence user training in a few years. Essence users from ten years ago are stronger than those with decades of experience. This time, he’s brought people who can push magic, and eventually magitech, forward by leaps and bounds. We can’t afford to be on the periphery of that movement.”

“Do you think we would be?”

“I think that if we use the strategies that have worked for us in the past, Asano will declare war on us. Then win it. Then have a sandwich.”

“That’s why I want to do this myself,” Claire said. “I’m also high enough in our government to both be accountable and hold people to account. Anna Tilden becomes an asset, instead of an obstacle. Friends matter to Asano, and I’ve taken early steps in building a cordial relationship. But Director Barstow is right about the dangers. If we do this, we have to be earnest. To be a friend, and not just act like one.”

On the screen in front of Claire, the president leaned back in his chair.