CHAPTER 59 – Karma Police

January 1st.
LAPA.

Euphemia Fontaine stepped into the familiar dorm room, feeling the vertigo of a child who had toured half the world to land back in her humble bedroom.

The flight over had been nice; it was business class, meaning Eppie naturally ate her share and drank her fill for the five-hour flight, arriving at LAPA in the late afternoon.

The dorm room was pretty much how she’d left it.

The place was spotless. Evidently, Josefina or someone had felt the need to spruce the place up while it was empty. Her things were largely where she had left them—not that she had anything of note, and—

The Lana inside her dispelled the optimistic naivety at once.
She gingerly opened her drawers.

Someone had moved her underwear. Lana always stacked her intimates like a hotel stacked cascading towels, and they were no longer arranged in the same way. In fact…

A pair was missing.

EURGH… Her head throbbed.

She then checked the lowest drawer, where she stored her old phone, not the one with Mio’s recording on it, but the one originally given to her by Eric.

“Well, I’ll be damned…”

It was gone.

Someone who could have access to her room? Someone who had proved themselves fully capable of going about LAPA’s electronic security systems? Someone who had access to spare keys because Daddy’s company hired the locksmith and contractors? Could her [Usurper] be any more transparent?

Maybe—the Machiavellian part of her told Eppie—that was the point.
After all, wasn’t paranoia what she was doing to him as well?

Either that or a cleaner had rummaged through her shit, carefully repackaged her stuff, then stole a two-year-old, out-of-date Sony Xperia.

Regardless, it was no big deal, at least logically. There was nothing on it, and there was no cloud account. At best, there were some theatre class photos and a few pictures of her checking her scalp for dandruff. A song or two that everyone’s heard. Eric and Zara are on the call logs. Still, she could feel—

Are you shitting me? She felt the depression, paranoia and invasion of privacy hit at once. Well, I guess that settles who the fuck was here.

Was the [System] warning her against blatant revenge? Or did her fortunes diminish at the precise moment her vitriol was affirmed? Sometimes, she wished the damned thing could trade in its sandbox style for multiple choice.

Still, she had not anticipated that her New Year LAPA gift was a [Causality] hit. Thankfully, Eppie felt confident that her stowed volume was enough to battle any snakes William might toss her way. After restoring her [Dasein], [Vitality], and [Health], she was left with just [128,902] [Causality]. With her streaming [Causality] revenue drying up, her quarterly revenue was in gross decline. That said, she still had an astronomical lump sum in March from Kiritani-sensei’s exhibition, from whenever In the Pines and Dream a Little hit the charts, and from whenever Curon felt ready to find an artist for Doves Cry.

For now, there were also the Goode sisters.

Still, the fact that someone could access her room at their leisure was all kinds of fucked up.

Perhaps… she should stay out until Josefina and the girls returned on the 7th.

For now, she repacked a bug-out bag, changed into cheap casuals, and went to the Old Dorms.

The Stray Cat Society at LAPA was doing well. Despite being a student initiative, its budget had, of late, become generous, allowing the heating to run all winter. In total, eleven cats were living in the basement when Eppie left.

Now, they were plus-four.

She found them behind the food rack as the first person—according to the logs—to set foot inside since the 30th. They were curled up in a mess of curtains the mama cat had pulled from the shelf. The mama cat was new and had evidently been informed by strays of cat society that here was a good place to give birth.

Eppie crouched in front of the scrunched curtains, giving the mama cat and the kitten time to take in her scent.

“Man… Lim is going to lose his mind.”

She sent him a text via his disposable number, role-playing a fellow college Senior from his course. In all honesty, even if William found out, it would only add to his torture. Still, Lim had his plans for the Five Root families, and as Lim himself had said, if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

Then she refreshed the water, replaced the kibbles, scooped out half a ton of poo, then lay on her side with a hand extended toward the newcomers while Mr Chin kneaded her new clothes with its paws.

“Good job,” she said to the new mother. “Mrs… Mesa.”
“Meow!”

Mesa blinked once, slowly, which in cat speak meant obviously.

Her phone buzzed.

Are you back?

I am back, she typed. How are things?

In all honesty? Not great.

“Oh shit…” Eppie fought down the instinct to call.

How bad? Was it the mean cat?

The replies took a while to come, meaning Lim was busy with something.

The meanest cat.
His mate was gone for Christmas.
He was antsy as hell.
Kept bullying the black cat.

“OH FUCK,” Eppie felt her hands grow cold. Was this a repercussion of what she did with Valorie? Clearly, Val was away precisely because Vaughan wanted to use her to teach Eppie a lesson, but still—

How bad? She typed.

Bad. But someone stopped em.

Where’s blacky now?

She’s gone back to the shelter.

Alright. I’ll go check up on them.

Eppie put down the phone.

Eppie picked up the phone. She had to check her email before she went to see Simone again.

She immediately went to the apartment’s internally locked mailbox and, lo and behold, there were the Disney passes, as promised.

Thank you, Maddy, you angel. She sent a prayer skyward toward her Media Manager, without whom her life would be so much more chaotic.

This time, she also sent over emails of thanks.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Alrighty then,” she hefted the weight of the Park Hopper Plus packet, feeling nostalgic. Beneath the courier plastic, she could see the classic cardstock peeping out of the protective packaging. Just in case, she unravelled the plastic and checked the dates.

They were correct. And Maddy had evidently gone the extra mile as well. There was a little care package attached to a tote and a Photo Pass. A separate card said “Compliments of Sony Music Entertainment,” in case the girls wondered who had sent them this generous gift.

Holding the tickets, Eppie allowed the anticipatory revelry of meeting the girls with tickets in hand to overwhelm the fact that some bastard had snooped through her underwear drawers.

Eppie stepped off the pricey New Year Taxi.

She had no choice, because Denise was the kind of woman who had a window of 1 PM to 5 PM, after which she was back at work.

Like Denise herself, Broadway Manchester on New Year’s Day was quiet in the way of neighbourhoods that don’t get days off. Everything was open, and everyone milled bout their business, whatever that may be. The neighbourhood’s mood remained hostile, which was why Eppie especially wore her K-Mart coat to hide the warmer clothes Curon had gifted her.

She called out from the wirelooped fence.

The lemon tree in the middle of the yard stood where she’d last seen it, bare and dignified in the January cold. The house looked no happier than before. The security bars on the windows were the same defiant yellow.

Denise opened the door in her in-between clothes, her hair wrapped, a dish towel over one shoulder. Her face cycled through three expressions as recognition dawned: surprise, and then her characteristic unguarded warmth

“Eppie!” The woman was an angel.

“Hi, Mrs Goode. Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year. You look great!” She ushered her inside. “Come in. Come in, it’s freezing out.”

The house was warm and smelled of something with onions. The living room was full as always. Renée was at the table with her worn school books. Cora was cross-legged on the floor, drawing with crayons. She was drawing Mickey.

Jesus Christ. Eppie drew in a lungful of warm breath. That is A LOT of Mickeys.

Mickeys covered the fridge door, then migrated onto the walls, then the doors. Cora was really getting very good. Her family projections were truly spectacular. In a museum, the plaque might read as such:

Cora looked up, saw her, then the little girl’s face reorganised itself into guileless delight.

“EPPIE—”

She launched off the floor. Eppie caught her with one arm, swinging the girl easily with her [Strength] until Cora pressed her face into the side of her bosom like an affection-seeking vampire.

Renée watched from the table. She closed the book over one finger. The girl was friendlier now, but still far too serious. Eppie figured that, maybe, after Disney, some of the Tabula Rasa might still be there.

“Hey, Renée.”

“Hey.”

And then from the short corridor, Simone appeared in the doorway of the bedroom.

In her casuals, the dancer looked all legs. Eppie breathed out. If Simone had come out bandaged or with bruises, she had a mind to call Lim and tell him it was time to put William on Plan B. Thankfully, Simone was just tired-looking. She was just a girl in her own house, in hoodies and socks and dancer’s shorts, whose facial expression held more surprise than dread.