Chapter 42: Chapter 40: A Date To Remember

“Jameson, when did you say Lucas was going to get here, again?” Anna asked, checking her phone. It was 6:40, and he still hadn’t shown up.

“Relax, he said he’d be here at 6:45. Are you really that eager to see him? You’ll make me jealous.” Jameson teased.

Anna rolled her eyes. “Come on, you know you’d be the same if you were in my situation.” Like Jameson, she and Lucas had been childhood friends. The two had known each other practically since they were born, as their parents were friends and had regularly visited each other, bringing the kids with them. And, like Jameson she hadn’t had any contact with Lucas in months. He had sent a vague message about being away for a while, and that was the last anyone had heard of him.

His parents hadn’t been any help, either. They were just as clueless as he was, and his aunt had vanished at nearly the same time he had, so she was a dead end too. To make matters worse, his parents disappeared shortly thereafter, so, needless to say, Anna was worried. She and Jameson had tried going to the police after Lucas’ parents vanished, but they always gave vague non-answers and said they’d “look into it”. No progress was ever made, though, so the two had given up on the police for the time being.

And then the Shift happened and that had been put on the backburner. The first few days had been kind of rocky, but society sprung back remarkably quickly, thanks in part to the Class system incentivizing keeping businesses operational.

Anna had even started to entertain the notion of the High Arbiter being the Lucas she knew, but that had been proved to be wrong when, just a few days after the Shift, Jameson just ran into Lucas on the street. And, to Anna’s bafflement, he had somehow managed to pick up a girlfriend in the intervening time.

She had a lot of questions, and she was dying to know what had happened to him. Then, once she’d learned everything, she’d make sure to wring his neck. Whatever reason he had, she was sure that it wasn’t good enough to warrant no contact when he had the liberty to be just walking around near his house.

The doorbell rang, and Jameson hurried off to go get it. Anna prepared herself to chew out Lucas, but the words failed to leave her mouth when she saw his date.

It was the High Arbiter. And there was no question that it was really her, either. She had apparently forced the queen of the fae to make her subjects turn back everyone they messed with, and, if the internet was to be believed, the system had some sort of built-in punishment for people who tried to impersonate her.

And somehow that oblivious idiot had managed to land her as a date.

“Um, Anna, right?” The High Arbiter asked. “I’m Lilith. Nice to meet you.”

Anna had to admit she wasn’t as petrified as she would have assumed she would be if she was meeting someone this important. There was something familiar about the woman in front of her; she didn’t act at all like she had in the video everyone got. She seemed…awkward.

“R-right. Nice to meet you.” Anna stammered, belatedly realizing she was supposed to say something.

Then it hit her. Jameson had, in passing, mentioned that the date had been rescheduled because Lucas’ date originally wanted to do it on girl’s night, so he’d asked Lucas to see if she was available later. Had he known who Lucas’ date was? There was no way, right? Lucas just probably didn’t mention it for some reason. She’d really have to give it to him later.

Fortunately for her, Jameson and Lucas walked in then, saving her from the need to say anything more. Jameson looked as composed as ever, but he had to be freaking out too, right?

“Good, I see you two have met.” Lucas said, an uncharacteristic smirk on his face. “What’s the plan?” He asked, turning to Jameson.

“Soon as your girlfriend gets here, we’re going to head out to that one Italian place you like, and then we’ll go catch a movie or something.” Jameson responded.

Wait, what? “Uh, isn’t she already here?” Anna asked, motioning to the High Arbiter.

Lucas gave her a disinterested glance. “Her? No, she’s not my girlfriend. She’s coming with us, though.”

That was even more confusing. The High Arbiter herself was just…tagging along, like a third wheel? Anna floundered, looking for a response.

“Alright! That’s enough!” The High Arbiter suddenly said. “We’ve given her enough of a heart attack, let’s drop the charade.”

Right. That was the only logical conclusion. It was all an act, they were just…

The High Arbiter was approaching her. She gently took Anna’s hand and sat her down in a chair. “Don’t freak out, OK?”

To Anna’s shock, Lucas was…no longer Lucas. He looked almost identical to the High Arbiter; there were a couple of small differences, but Anna was confident she wouldn’t be able to tell who was who if they left the room and reentered.

“Um, I don’t know a good way to phrase this, so I’m just going to come out and say it.” The High Arbiter said hesitantly. “I’m Lucas. She,” the High Arbiter motioned to her clone, “is sort of an alternate personality. Goes by Carmen. It’s a long story, but we are, for all intents and purposes, the same person. Jameson just wanted to pull your leg a little.”

Anna stared at her blankly, then stood up, pointing an accusatory finger at Jameson. “I told you this might have happened!” She proclaimed. “Hah, I was right!” Then, realizing what she had done, turned to the High Arbiter – Lucas – frantically. “Uh, sorry about that. I brought up the possibility while we were looking for you and he said there was no way that could be true. Um…you really are Lucas, right?”

Lucas nodded. “I go by Lilith now, but yes. If you need some more proof, this one time in third grade we were on a field trip down to the river and –”

“Right, right, that’s enough, I believe you!” Anna said, cutting her off. “No need to bring that up again!”

Lilith smiled in relief. “Good. It’s really good to see you again. The past few months have been so crazy that it’s just…nice to hang out with my old friends, you know?”

Anna looked her up and down. “I’ll bet.” She paused while looking at Lilith’s chest, then frowned. “That’s…not fair. You’re bigger than me.”

Lilith blushed. “Hey, that wasn’t my choice!”

“Well, technically–” Carmen began.

“Shush!” Lilith said, silencing her clone. “That’s unrelated and you know it!”

If she wasn’t convinced that this was Lucas before, she was now. That was the exact same flustered look he used to get whenever anyone would tease him.

“Wait,” Anna said, realizing something, “if you’re not…your own date, then who is?”

“Tis I!” a voice proclaimed from behind Anna, “The great goddess Kali Clements! Bow be–”

“We’ve already been through this.” Lilith said, exasperated. “You’re not going to introduce yourself like this to everyone I know, right? And you called yourself Kali Clements again. It’s still only been like a week and a half.”

Anna whirled around to face the voice. She…recognized her. It was the woman that had been standing behind Lilith in the broadcast. The Administrator, she had called herself. So, taking stock of the situation, Anna had somehow ended up in her boyfriend’s living room with the two most important people on the face of the planet. One was a friend so old they were practically like siblings, and the other was, apparently, that friend’s date.

“I’m just teasing.” Kali said, walking over to Lilith and giving her a hug. “I’m not dropping the Clements unless it’s actually making you upset, though. Saying it just makes me so happy that I can’t help myself!”

Lilith sighed. “Fine, I’ll allow it, so long as you don’t try and introduce yourself like that to any world leaders or anything.”

“I can live with that.” Kali said, giving Lilith a quick kiss.

“You guys, uh, weren’t inconvenienced by the rescheduling, right?” Anna blurted out.

Kali frowned. “I had to move back a couple of important meetings, yeah.”

“What she means is that she’s moving back just lazing around at home. Her schedule’s almost completely free, she just wanted to help Jameson pull your leg. And before you get too mad at him, he didn’t want to bring the idea up when he had it, but I made him, and then Kali thought it would be funny, so we did it.” Lilith corrected.

That was…awfully childish for someone who was in charge of the known universe. Wait, didn’t that make her god? She hadn’t thought about it before, but that was almost exactly what Kali was. She’d have to make a note to keep an eye on the religious climate in the future. There was probably going to be an upheaval soon. She wasn’t religious, but it never hurt to keep an eye on current events.

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All the same, she gave Jameson a look that said they’d have words about this later, then turned her attention back to the girls. “That’s a relief. Girl’s night really isn’t worth changing any plans for, much less important ones.”

“Don’t worry, we know.” Lilith soothed. “If it was a hassle, we wouldn’t have done this. Anyway, knowing you, you’re probably lowkey panicking about who we are, but you shouldn’t be. I’m still the same person you grew up with, and she’s just my girlfriend. And we’ve got a couple of spells up that’ll hide our more…conspicuous parts to anyone that doesn’t know us well, as well as a bit of recognition scrambling, so as far as everyone else is concerned we’re just another couple.”

“Yeah!” Kali added cheerfully. “And, despite what I said earlier, I’m not actually a god. That’s just a little joke I like to play. I was never one for standing on ceremony, so please don’t.” She detached herself from Lilith and walked over to Anna, proffering a hand. “Nice to meet you!”

Anna took the hand a little gingerly and shook.

“So,” Kali said, “I believe Italian food was mentioned?”

---

They made it to the restaurant around 20 minutes later, and, seeing as they had no reservation, they had to wait for a further 20 before they were actually seated. They had mostly made small talk during the intervening time; Anna really wanted to ask Lilith more about what had happened, but she figured that a public setting was, perhaps, not the greatest place for it.

Fortunately for her, that changed once they sat down at the table. “So,” Kali said, “I’ve set up a barrier, anyone else won’t hear what we’re saying, they’ll just think we’re talking about…something not important. What exactly they hear will depend on what they would expect a bunch of friends at a restaurant to be talking about. I’m sure you both have a million questions, so fire away!”

“So…” Ana began hesitantly, “Judy and your parents are fine, right? They all just sorta…disappeared.”

“Yeah, they’re fine. Remember the blurred out people in the video? That was them, plus a few friends.”

“Oh, that makes sense. You wouldn’t believe what the people on the internet have come up with in regard to their identity. Your family came up on the list, of course, but so did the family of every other Lucas Clements people could find.”

“It’s fun to read the theories!” Kali added. “Especially the crack theories. People just seem to like throwing random names out there and you get some funny stuff as a result.”

“Wait, why haven’t you told me about this?” Lilith asked.

“Because it hasn’t been important.” Kali responded. “You’ve had a busy few days.”

“But, yes, Judy’s fine, and my parents are fine.” Carmen said, then gave Anna and Jameson a smirk. “All three of them.”

“Uh, what?” Jameson replied.

Lilith sighed. “That’s another long story. The important thing is that everyone’s safe. You’ll…probably not have a lot of contact with them, though. They’re living with me, because the magical government wants to use them as hostages. That’s why I was picking up all our stuff.”

Anna tilted her head. “What? Is that what you were doing when Jameson found you? He wouldn’t tell me.”

Lilith nodded. “Yeah. Some…stuff happened, so I don’t blame him for not wanting to talk about it.”

Jameson scratched his neck. “No, that’s not it, I just didn’t want to worry her. Or give her any hints on what you’ve been up to.”

Anna rolled her eyes. “Should I be concerned about this stuff?”

Carmen shook her head. “It’s all under control. I’ll let you know at the first sign of any danger. Of course, by then I’ll probably have beheaded that…woman myself, so there’s really nothing to worry about.”

Anna was instantly worried. She knew Carmen was supposed to be an alternate personality, but…she couldn’t even grasp the Lucas she knew giving a death threat, let alone one so serious. And Lilith didn’t look to be objecting, either. Wasn’t she supposed to be the original Lucas? He wouldn’t have let that slide…right?

“Um…are you OK?” Anna asked. “That seems…harsh.”

Lilith sighed again. “She’ll come back. I mean, even if she didn’t, we would probably still severely injure her, but she…deserves it.”

Anna swallowed hard. “Who are we talking about?”

“Titania, the faerie queen. She showed up while Jameson and I were moving stuff away. There was a fight, and…here we are. I’ve told her not to attack you guys, and I’ve got a surveillance ability that’ll tell me as soon as she tries. As long as we’re not in the middle of a fight that somehow needs our undivided attention, which we shouldn’t be, one of us will teleport in and stop her then and there. The chances she actually tries anything are pretty low, though, at least for the time being. She’s a bit too busy to plot that.”

So, she had forced the queen of the fae into reversing things. And, presumably, Jameson was there for it. He weathered her gaze admirably, glancing off to the side as if to pass her withering stare elsewhere. So, that was another thing to add to the list of “things to chew Jameson out about later”. That was way too important to hide for a prank.

But she could tell Lilith didn’t want to talk about it right now, so she didn’t press the issue. Instead, she listened, fascinated, to the story of how this all happened.

They were interrupted, briefly, by the server coming to take their orders (Lilith and Carmen both ordered the same pasta Lucas would always get, and Kali got a soup), and again when the food got there, but for they were able to get through the story in the hour or so they were there.

Kali insisted on paying for their meals, as she apparently had saved enough money to buy a small country. Espionage paid well and she didn’t have anything to spend it on, she had told Anna, so it was just sitting there doing nothing.

They then left for the movies. Once again, Kali insisted on paying for everything, and soon they were watching a zombie flick. Kali was clearly enjoying pretending to be scared and snuggling up to Lilith, while Carmen and Lilith seemed mostly unimpressed.

“Horror movies not do it for you anymore?” Jameson teased once the movie was over. “I remember they used to keep you up all night.”

Carmen shrugged. “They’re a lot less scary when you not only have the ability to beat any of the monsters into the dirt but are also basically the monster yourself. I’ll have to show you when we get back to the house, it’s wild.”

“Come to think of it, are zombies real?” Anna asked.

Yes. In fact, you are technically talking to one. Mae replied. She had been silent most of the night, save for when Lilith had introduced her. She apparently hadn’t had much to add to the conversation, so had chosen to remain silent.

I am the most knowledgeable about our biology. Mae explained in response to the unasked question. So, I figured I should be the one to explain.

After that, they went back to Jameson’s house. Lilith showed off her Eldritch Abomination Skill, and then they played cards. Lilith had ensured her that all sensory links had been temporarily broken and that mind magic was disallowed to keep things fair, but Carmen won most of the time anyway.

Her poker face was too good, and she knew everyone else’s tells, so it wasn’t exactly a fair contest. She chose to sit out after a while, and the games quickly became a lot closer.

Another hour or so after that, and the double date was over.

“That was fun!” Kali said. “We should do this again!”

“Yeah.” Anna muttered idly. It had been fun, but it had also been draining. Try as she might, she still wasn’t completely comfortable around the Administrator. Not because of the person herself, she was super friendly, but because of her station. Regardless of her claims otherwise, she was still functionally god, at least in Anna’s eyes. Well, either way, she probably wouldn’t have to worry about it for another couple of weeks.

“Perfect! Does same time next week work?”

Or not. She took a deep breath. Only way to get comfortable was to be around her more. “Sure, why not?”