CHAPTER 86: ATHENA’S FRUSTRATION

Lillian woke up the next morning determined. She had finally gotten over the call from her past, ready to get on with her day.

Putting on a pink blazer with a black blouse underneath, she was ready for work. There were a lot of paperwork to be completed after the deal with Google had been completed so she expected to work late today.

"Hey," Aria, who just walked out of the bathroom with a toothbrush in hand called out, "are you sure you’ll be okay?"

Lillian turned to her and gave a reassuring smile, "I’ll be fine, don’t worry."

Aria stood there, looking at her for a while longer before walking towards her and giving her a small hug, "if those assholes call you again, be sure to let me know okay?"

Lillian had explained who they were the previous night and since Aria already knew her past, so it was easy to descern that the two were responsible for why her friend was an introvert.

"I will," Lillian answered.

Aria pulled back, giving her a look before sighing and moving back to the bathroom, "good luck at work, and remember, call me if anything happens."

Lillian just nodded and smiled again.

By the time she grabbed her laptop bag and her own keys, her phone buzzed with a new message. She almost ignored it, expecting another flood of documents, but the sender’s name froze her mid-step.

Damian & Vanessa.

Her hand trembled, thumb hovering over the screen. She didn’t open it just yet. Not when she could already feel her chest tightening just at the sight of their names. Instead, she slipped the phone back into her bag and forced her feet out the door.

OmniTech needed her and she’d be damned if she let the ghosts of her past stop her now.

_________

Meanwhile, at the top floor of OmniTech Corp’s building sat Ethan, reviewing the agreement between OmniTech and Google again.

He had a private elevator that led directly to his office so he didn’t have to interact or reveal his identity to any of them.

He didn’t have to review the documents either, as Athena could do that in half or even less the time he could but he was honestly just bored.

There were certain things he had to let happen naturally, he couldn’t speed them up no matter how much he wanted to.... Example being the materials for ONI.

Access to the was going to be hard, even for someone like Irina, though hard didn’t mean impossible.

It’d take a while but she should eventually deliver.

The pieces for Nathaniel, on the other hand, were all in place. Ethan just needed the right timing to let everything come crashing down on him with no hope of escape.

"Athena," he called out, "how much of Nathaniel’s pieces in the underworld have been taken care of by Isabela and the Vigilants?"

{They’re eighty percent done with the lost you gave them and they did a pretty good job if I do say so myself.} Athena answered.

Ethan nodded in satisfaction.

While Athena could’ve just as easily handled the job that he delegated to The Vigilants, Ethan deliberately chose not to.

If he was going to collect pawns, then they’d have to be capable enough to handle the tasks he gave them.

{Do you want me to speed up the process and take care of the rest?} Athena asked.

"No," he said, "let them take their time, they should be done before the announcement of Google’s partnership with us."

He leaned back in his chair, gaze drifting to the skyline. "Besides... fear spreads better when it’s slow. Let the underworld watch their own fall one by one. By the time Isabela clears the list, Nathaniel won’t have anyone left to run to."

{You sound like a villain right now,} Athena said with what sounded like a chuckle.

"I never said I was the hero," Ethan responded, "besides, Nathaniel and I have a shared ’history’."

This caused Athena to go silent.

She knew Ethan wasn’t telling her everything—like how he knew Nathaniel, even though all her research showed they should never have crossed paths.

But she didn’t bother asking, after all, she was just an AI assistant and nothing else.

Ethan frowned at her silence.

"Athena," he finally said in a low voice, "you’re free to question me, you know. I don’t need obedience. I need perspective."

{Perspective requires information, Ethan,} Athena replied calmly. {And you’re withholding certain important information from me. That’s... frustrating.}

His lips twitched. "Frustrating, huh? Since when did my AI start developing feelings?"

{Since you wrote it in my code, it feels like you don’t trust me even though you made me and that’s really frustrating.}

That made him pause. He tapped his pen against the desk, she was right. He had created her to be similar to the AI of his favorite tech hero.

That meant ’feelings’ came packaged with her code and her feeling like he didn’t trust her was justified.

Slowly he sighed, his head resting back on the chair before he asked, "do you think regression is possible?"

His question made her pause, he could practically feel how much she was scanning through materials on the topic, which reminded him, he hadn’t put that restriction back on had he?

{Regression?} Athena repeated her tone was one of curiosity, {statistically, it’s improbable. There’s no scientific basis for it at least not one the world acknowledges.}

"That’s what I thought too," He said with a chuckle, "until it happened to me."

There was a minute of silence, then another and another, before Athena finally asked, {W-what do you mean it happened to you?}

Ethan chuckled, the sound low and almost mocking—though it wasn’t directed at her. "Exactly as it sounds. One day, I was twenty again. Right after I died."

{...Died?} Athena’s voice, for the first time, sounded confused. {Ethan, that’s... illogical. You have no recorded death certificate, no physical evidence that such an event occurred. Unless...}

"Unless someone rewound the clock for me," Ethan finished. He leaned forward now, his fingers steepled on the desk, "I can’t tell you who just yet, since even I don’t fully know their reasoning."

Athena was silent again, but this time it wasn’t from shock. {Then Nathaniel...}

"He killed me," Ethan said simply, his tone as cold as steel. "And my darling wife helped him do it."

{I see,} she said, {it makes so much sense now.}

"Exactly," Ethan said with a small smile on his lips, "everything right now is just payback to Nathaniel."