Quant (ch. 10)

The door handle to the drawing room silently opened by the practiced hands of Tennyson Jr. who'd snuck in many ladies in his teenage years, impressing some before ascending to the bedroom, bedding some right in-front of the fireplace. That night, he'd slipped two women in the room, trailing alongside Delphine and submissively-behind Hypatia. The trio entered to catch the tail-end of some kind of show, seeing the backs of still bodies look on to the main attraction near the fireplace. Hypatia couldn't believe her eyes in seeing Dr. Thorn stripped of clothing and dignity, defenseless before the cabal he was investigating, directly and indirectly. Yet somehow even more shocking was Mr. and Mrs. Parnassus almost literally butting heads, engaged in some dance of domination; that Mr. Parnassus seemed poised to win it threw most present for the loop.

When some invisible force struck Elowyn, all but Hypatia was shocked as the Lioness Parnassus and Quant fell together; chuckling internally, she stepped behind Gertrude to whisper.

"What have I missed?"

"Perhaps the strangest marital spat you'll ever see, the mind-controlling family seems to have turned on one another," Gertrude quietly replied, their whispers a few decibels beneath the other ones trying to make sense of the scene.

"And how did the Parnassus Lioness lose this spat?

"I guess you've not heard of Tennyson's moniker, the Lioness Tamer, or something contrived."

The younger brunette nearly rolled her eyes before catching sight of the so-called tamer gathering his wits from the unexpected conclusion of the very public disagreement.

Tennyson Sr. looked briefly down at his wife, but lingered more over the investor's faces.

"Never a dull argument in the Parnassus household," the patriarch tried shaking off his disheveled vibe, not allowing his flat joke to cause anymore silence before speaking again. "But now that that minor disagreement is out of the way, who had the last bid again?"

"$17.5 million," Cameron spoke, ending a call he'd just made, looking around to arrogantly-ensure his high bid remained uncontested. Receiving no angered or disappointed stares back, he realized that no one possessed his blood lust for Vector, and the others may have even bid for the fun of inflating what the Donatells were willing to pay for one acquisition. He didn't care, and simply waited for Tennyson to make things official.

"Sold, to the-"

"Excuse me," Hypatia spoke up, stepping closer to the front. "Is a late party allowed to bid?"

Tennyson looked at Cameron, then Hypatia, weakly smiling.

"What bid?" Tennyson asked, not realizing what his question had set up.

"25 million," Hypatia spoke calmly, ignoring the flaring gaze coming from Cameron's direction.

"Excuse me, young lady. I believe I had the final bid."

"I believe that's up to our lovely auctioneer here," the smiling younger woman put the Junior's father on the spot. Between seeming impartial and fair to the crowd and appeasing Cameron, Tennyson seemed at a loss. Ready to set her bid aside for the sake of his health, Tennyson Sr. was surprised to hear Cameron speak up.

"Pretty presumptuous to make a supposedly-authorized bid for the family you represent by contract instead of blood," Cameron decided to call out Hypatia's standing in with Alexiou family.

"As it is presumptuous to think that you have a guaranteed claim on this Quant, despite your storied history which isn't supposed," Hypatia countered, still not bothering to look at the man she argued with.

"Going once," Hypatia counted on behalf of Tennyson Sr., puzzled as to what to say, knowing he'd let this linger on too long to stop.

"Going twice." Everyone around the room watched Cameron with baited breath to see if he would counter with something other than an angry stare.

"Assuming the other bidder isn't authorized to go beyond his last bid, sold to the Alexiou representative," Hypatia walked up to crouch next to Richard's comatose body, patting his face a few times, giving him a good smack on his cheek on the last. "And given the in-fighting I just witnessed, I'll need to confer this sale with your better half, once she's awoken."

A few knocks at the drawing room's doors prompted a smirk from Cameron.

"Actually, if the bidding is still open, I'd like to make a new offer. $1.75 million for the Alexiou representative down there, or as she would've been known to us before long, the Matron..."

A few large, burly men dressed in suits walked in the room, part of the Donatell's private security force. Cameron nodded at them, and pointed at Hypatia, and the floored Richard.

"Since you supposedly own him, my bid sounds like a bargain for the both of you now..." Cameron grinned darkly at the woman, as his men approached her.

***

Muddied senses reluctantly started to clear as eyelids found the strength to open; the light hitting Elowyn's faded eyes was too much at first, begrudgingly-acclimating to the surroundings. Trouble was, her surroundings seemed...indecisive. At first, she swore she was in the bedroom on the Parnassus estate she declared a sanctuary for Richard, but shades of a different place wafted over it from time to time. Convinced she was dreaming, she closed her eyes and let the strange dreams hopefully lead towards more sane ones.

"You're not dreaming, not exactly."

The quality of the voice gracing Elowyn's ears made her blink fully awake, her torso quickly sitting up off the bed, seeing Richard stand next to it, and the sanctuary still bleeding into some semblance of a huge library.

"W-where are we?"

"Where do you think, Elowyn?"

"How did-"

"Myatrika, my Nepali phrasing for 'Marticulate.' A most forbidden technique of joining minds into one."

Looking away from the smuggest expression Richard's ever given her, she continued to stare at the morphing background, her own face morphing several times from disgust in how creepily the scenery changed, to recognition of what she was looking at, to a growing smile in why he thought she should recognize what unfolded before her eyes. She looked down at her body to see the black velvet, and turned to stare at him hard with half-lidded eyes and a sultry smile. The attire of his avatar was incidental, but letting her look and presence affect him long enough, it wasn't a considerable wait before she looked below his neck to see her slave half naked, the other half in leather, just like she'd cultivated their preference to be. Noticing the layout of the sanctuary that was part of her estate, she looked up, and happily saw the portrait she'd implanted in his head, staring back at both of them, her own avatar to keep him vulnerable while she was away.

Elowyn's smug smile knocked every ounce of smugness from him.

"I would have expected a library, honestly. But I can't say I don't love the recdecorating you're more than considering." A soft caress to his face pulled him in for a kiss he passionately succumbed to rather easily, against his own reasoning, shading the background to more of the sanctuary.

"I knew you'd be an excellent kisser when aware, my good man," she uttered hotly in his ear, ready to pull him onto the bed, before another thought gnawing at her enough was finally addressed.

"Not a 'good boy'?" Curiosity got the better of Richard who couldn't help but ask about the expectation subversion.

"All the males in my life make me tire of boys, and their adolescent failings. The Lioness prefers mature, adequate prey to hunt and savor, thank you," Elowyn helped herself to another long kiss, the kind she would have initiated in a victory lap, in a race she'd just realized she didn't remember finishing.

"Remind me again how I got here."

The question shook Richard from the seduction, shaking himself back to a suited attire and more of the library behind them.

"You really don't remember? The auctioning?"

As her puzzled look continued, he reached out with his hands to press fingers against her temples, a small surge of energy bringing pending memories to the forefront. Flashes of everything leading up to Elowyn's descent into Richard's mind brought everything in a rush, her full memory, and considerable fury.

"Tennyson, you son of a bitch!" the typically-cultured woman screamed out loud, the last image she had was her own point of view, looking up from the floor at everyone staring down at her. Concentrating on her husband's face, she continued to curse to herself. "Stupid, ingrate son of a bitch."

Richard didn't bother joining the chorus or curtailing hers, merely allowing her to reacclimate her memories.

"But how did I get-how did you bring me here?"

"A powerful, forbidden Quant technique, a desperate measures for the times," the background started to shift more towards his bunker library structure as he explained in clear lucidity. "If I didn't bring you here, you'd be completely at Tennyson's mercy now, no more sentient than Delphine," Richard added, preempting Elowyn's question of "why?"

"We need to get back there now."

Richard smiled to himself at hearing his captor's panic-stricken voice as he started to look through several rows of books. "If we do, we'll be in the same position we left in, both of us vulnerable and surrounded by those who don't have our best interests at heart. But we have a more immediate problem."

She was ready to scream at Richard as her sense of control dwindled even further than her husband challenging her authority, but merely kept her calm and grimaced. "What's worse than what's going on on the outside?"

"The technique I performed to get you here is called Transference, it's a rarely-known technique, and even more rare to attempt. One of its conditions of success is proximity, as in the one performing Transference and the one pulled into it need to be close at all times. The trouble is, I don't think anyone on the outside would care much about that condition, even if they knew."

"And what happens if we're pulled far enough away from one another?"

"Theoretically, one or both of us would be pulled into raw subconsciousness, potentially lost forever in the uncharted depths of my brain."

"...and if it's only going to be one of us, it would be me since I'm currently away from my own body?"

Richard merely nodded at Elowyn, without any hint of the ironic satisfaction of taking her with him in a metaphysical sense if he were to be subjected to his auctioned fate.

"And what can be done to rectify the situation?" She asked, keeping a measured tone, driven to get out of this predicament. As dire as the peril described sounded, Elowyn was silently thankful avoiding the peril seemed in the hands of the most competent man she'd known.

Richard didn't answer until he found the answer he was looking for in one of his books. "The way our physical bodies were left, the best thing we can do right now is to grow our inner bond, to make the connection as strong as possible. The stronger we make it, the more we'll safely stay in this space, and be able to leave when it's to our advantage outside of here. Gaining an advantage outside of here might take some miracle, but it's better than nothing."

"And how are we supposed to do that?"

"Meditating," he mused to himself, looking down at how his Quant outfitting shifted to his exercise attire. Elowyn looked at his clothing shift, and closed her eyes while taking a deep breath. Opening them, her clothing also shifted to her yoga attire that she used to meditate in every morning. Part of the background shifted to reflect one of the rooms of the Parnassus estate, mainly the one she used to privately exercise. Getting onto the bed, both Richard and Elowyn sat facing one another, crossing their legs. Richard's hands reached out to hold hers, the Soombakiya energy present, but circulating through both of them, beginning to build the bonding that would safeguard them for the time being.

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine," Richard intoned.

The words made Elowyn's eyes open in annoyed slits, part of the background shading into the laboratory she'd spent so much time trying to undo that phrase.

Eyes closed but aware of her feelings, Richard smiled as he continued.

***

Hypatia stood at the back of a broom closet, leaning against the wall in annoyance, occasionally glancing over at the bulky, suited guard standing in-front of the only exit. More than a head taller than her, he constantly looked down at her, either looking as annoyed as she was, or catching lecherous glances when he thought she didn't notice.

"I don't suppose you'd happen to know why I'm being detained like this."

"I believe they're checking your credentials as we speak, miss."

"Do you know how late it is in Greece right now? The Alexious won't take kindly to a call this late."

"It shouldn't take them that long to confirm your identity, miss."

"And if for some reason they find out that I'm not who I say I am, you'll stop being polite and calling me 'miss?'"

"If you've deceived the Donatell family in any way, politeness is the last thing you should be worried about, to be honest."

She couldn't help but chuckle to herself. "And if they truly believe I am who they truly think I am, do you know how much you should be worried?"

The small sound of a scoff was the guardsman's only reaction.

"This Matron they think I am, disruptor of all the important families gathered here, a background based on thorough experience with Quants. I'm sure you've heard of those, right?"

"I've been told what to do with one if I happen to catch them on-site," he flexed his muscles suggestively at his sides to illustrate his license to do severe harm.

"What's that, stick them in a closet and watch them as carefully as possible?" Hypatia spoke in a bored-out-of-her-mind tone, stroking her pearls as if looking for something to pass the dreadful dragging of time.

His expression nearly changed, angry that he had to babysit this spoiled, mouthy brat, but most likely proving that she did belong amongst the elitist snobs.

"That's the thing I hear about Quants, they can size up a person long before they're ever noticed, let alone sized up in return," her tone changed, trying to bring up something of interest to subdue the boredom.

"There's a lot to size up with me, miss."

"And very little to size up with me, like one or two things of importance, I'm sure." She didn't look while her fingers stroked a single pearl, then two at a time, then three. The guard finally noticed how intricate each row of pearls was, and how her fingers seemed able to draw a few out per row, a growing number at a time.

"Quants supposedly treat sizing people up like mathematics, and to them math is like some chess game, one move after another forming an equation that adds up to whatever their target is. If there was a chess board between you and the Quant I'm supposed to be, could you determine how many moves my side is making in a short period of time? Is it the same decisive speed of yours? Is it twice as fast? As we'd be playing, would it seem like there's a strategy to win?"

Something about the pattern of pearls combined with Hypatia's prattling combined in a melody of theorizing something that may not have been, but he found it hard to mind since he wasn't bored out of his mind anymore, following the patterns in her speech and pearls.

"How many moves was it that crossed your mind? Two? Four? Five? Three? Six? How well is the game being played? How much attention are you giving every piece in motion?"

Sly fingers accurately counted the exact number of pearls to segregate before letting them fall, the sound of each collision oddly satisfying.

"Are you paying as much attention to your pieces as you are mine? Do you notice all your pieces are black, shiny, and onyx, being places here and there and off the board, as much as you notice my pieces are pearly, shimmering, eye-catching white, getting closer and closer to your side, closing in on your side, on your defenseless pieces like your king?"

The guard barely noticed the clearer the sight of pearly white was, with every step Hypatia took to close the distance.

"The game being played is coming to a close as my pieces close in on you. The pearl Queen closes the distance, eliminates all obstacles to your king, ready and waiting to hear your surrender, because you knew how this game would end, because a Quant would've sized you up by now, knowing that it would take three...two...one..." Hypatia counted down the pearls in one hand, using her other to crane his head down a little further, and then jerking his head a little forward with a whispered "Sleep!"

Quick suggestions kept him on his feet, and aided him softly to his knees, where she could speak much easier to the subdued guard, and size up the situation beyond the closet.

***

While the occupants of the drawing room were left in slight disarray, Tennyson Sr. had been summoned to his own office like a subordinate by Cameron.

"You let that little bitch extort me out of more money," the Donatell head seethed while he was on the phone with a contact with the Alexiou family.

"Keep your voice down please," Tennyson seethed back, trying to show actual backbone after being dragged from one appeasement to another. "If your assertion is correct, she wouldn't have the money to bid and her claim would've been moot anyway, which we will confirm for sure right now."

"I really don't care if she is or isn't-"

"You will if she is. In case you've forgotten, the Greeks can be extremely unforgiving when their representatives, especially family, have harm come to them. No need to start a conflict over a business disp-hello? Yes, I apologize for contacting you at this hour. Yes, I'm aware of the time and apologize, but I just wanted to ask if any representative or Alexiou family member was scheduled to come to the Parnassus estate for-oh, you did. Your daughter...she mentioned attending....I see...oh no, no, no of course, there's been no issue. Your daughter is fine. We just wanted to make sure no one else was trying to impersonate being a family member on your behalf. Of course, I'll hold."

The air slightly deflated from Cameron's sails, he merely took the concerned look Tennyson Sr. shot his way. "We have his daughter locked away in a broom closet, which the Alexious will not take kindly too." In the back of his mind, Tennyson seriously considered handing Vector over to the young girl at a discount to smooth over the sheer discourtesy shown that evening.

"Send them a few Dolls or Obsessives, or whatever they're called for incentive, or as an apology."

"Would that smooth things over with the Donatell family?" Tennyson countered, knowing that would momentarily silence his investor. He didn't wait to see the expression across the table as someone across the Atlantic returned to the phone.

"Yes, I-your daughter was in-contact with whom?" The wheels started to turn in Tennyson's head, quickly followed by a harsh realization. He mumbled the end of their call with a "thank you for your time" before leaving his office to head for the broom closet. The pair rushed to find no one in it.

***

Several minutes prior to the overseas phone call, one of the Donatell's guards entered to pull Junior aside. The Parnassus scion was tasked with keeping investors calm while his father sorted things out elsewhere. Hearing that his father asked for him, he kindly stepped away to exit the hallway, walking into a instant hypnotic triggering Alaga Garnu at his ear, courtesy of Hypatia.

"Hello my Proper Parnassus," she held him still, whispering rapidly to him to bring his full trance state back after being in mostly a waking trance since Elowyn and Richard both collapsed into oblivion.

"That's a good boy. Where's your mother now?"