Chapter 89 Nico #2
It seemed Donatello hadn’t been blowing smoke up our asses.
He must have had some really good, really high-level contacts.
The forty-eight-hour deadline came and went with a notification from the government that since shifters were turning themselves in at such a high rate, the deadline would be extended until most had come in voluntarily.
Once this happened, the interviews with Viola became a little more forced.
You could tell she was irritated that the final crackdown had been delayed, but she was doing her best to act the part of the worried philanthropist.
The news still had stories almost every day about feral shifter attacks throughout the world.
Historians were brought in to discuss shifter history and if there were any reports of similar occurrences in the past. For the time being, the state of emergency hadn’t been declared.
We were still able to move about freely as shifters, though we did get some dirty looks when we ventured into town for gas and supplies.
On the fifth day after we returned home, I sat in the living room with Maddy, her parents, and Abi. One of the news programs had an interview with a shifter expert. We tuned in because we recognized her as one of the only people who consistently defended us.
The reporter brought the expert on stage with a quick introduction.
“Tonight, we welcome world-renowned shifter historian and cultural expert Doctor Bianca Jamison. Doctor Jamison, thank you for joining us. Can you give us your take on this crisis, and where you think it originated or if there are any parallels throughout history?”
Doctor Jamison looked to be in her early forties with very short blonde hair and glasses. She looked exhausted. It didn’t surprise me. This was the third or fourth interview I’d seen her give today alone. She was on an almost nonstop media tour, trying to give the public our side of the story.
Jamison nodded and adjusted her glasses.
“Thanks, Charles, it’s great to be back.
I do want to say that the shifter population has been living side by side with us for centuries.
The earliest record of them is in ancient Egypt.
There are some who believe that the animal-faced gods of the Egyptians were actually the representations of the earliest shifter populations.
“What we do know from genetic tests is that at some point, thousands of years ago, a genetic mutation occurred that allows them to shift their bodies into those of animals.”
“Magic?” the host asked.
Jamison winced. “As a scientist, I deplore that word. The actual process and how they are able to pass on the gift to their offspring is still a mystery to us. There is also some confusion as to why some align with certain animals. The presence of dragon shifters is…” She sighed.
“…very hard to explain as that animal is not recorded anywhere in the fossil record. We’re getting past the point here, Charles.
We’re here to discuss this current crisis and how it resonates with anything that has happened throughout history. ”
“Correct. Are there any parallels? Folk stories? Ancient writings or carvings? Any hint that this same thing has happened in the past?”
Jamison shook her head once. “Not one. There has never been a written instance of a shifter suddenly, and without explanation, going feral. There is no evidence of this. Becoming feral is incredibly rare, Charles. I don’t think your audience understands how rare it is.
Television and movies use the idea of a feral shifter as a good source of drama or action.
That is simply not true. Of the entire shifter population, only point-five percent begin the process of becoming feral each year.
Most of this is due to being ostracized from their packs, the loss of family structure, mental health, or substance abuse issues.
Of that point-five percent? Only one percent actually do go feral.
We’re talking about point-zero-zero-zero-zero-five percent each year.
That’s a little less than a thousand people each year—in the entire world.
And those poor people go feral slowly over the course of weeks or months.
Most are able to get the help they need before becoming some raging animal, as we’ve seen. ”
“I like this lady,” Maddy’s dad said, pointing at the screen.
“Doctor Jamison,” the host continued. “What is your theory as to what has caused this strange spike in behavior in the shifter population?”
Jamison took her glasses off and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
She put them back on and said, “Look, Charles, I’ve been talking to several of my peers in other fields and…
well, none of us have ever seen or heard of a disease like this.
Bacteria, virus, fungus, prion? Nothing.
In fact, I have a close friend who is in the infectious disease field, and he can’t even get his hands on the research of The Monroe Group or CDC.
This is highly, and I do stress, highly irregular.
Typically, with something like this that is considered a crisis, every available lab is asked to help research and find a cure or treatment.
Similar to what happened with the COVID-19 pandemic.
This? It’s almost like it’s being kept under lock and key. Or…” She trailed off, looking dejected.
The news anchor frowned. “Doctor? Um… or what?”
She sighed. “I wonder how truthful these people are being. I have suspicions that one of the groups telling us what is going on is not being completely forthcoming. I don’t want to say more than that due to libel laws, but I think people should be questioning this more than they are.
We, as a society, can’t let our deeper prejudices be brought to the forefront due to faulty science, panic, or supposition.
It’s not healthy, it’s not fair to shifters, and it’s not who we are as Americans. ”
The news anchor nodded once, decisively. “Fantastic closing words, Doctor Jamison. We look forward to having you as our guest again soon. We have to take a break, but we’ll be back again after these words from our sponsors.”
“She was awesome,” Abi murmured from the far side of the couch.
“She was,” I said, wondering if Viola or one of her people had been watching.
The next morning, I got my answer. A news report flashed across the screen, announcing that famous shifter expert Doctor Bianca Jamison had been killed overnight.
The report said it was a home invasion gone wrong.
Of course, that was bullshit. Viola had orchestrated her death.
She couldn’t allow the wrong narrative to take over.
She had to keep things on track. Any voice of dissent had to be silenced.
I showed Maddy the story over breakfast. She read it three times before slamming the laptop closed in disgust. “This is such bullshit,” Her voice was filled with venom and barely-contained rage. She looked at me with dark, cold eyes. “You realize the only way this ends is with Viola dead, right?”
Shrugging, I took my plate to the sink. When I turned back, she still looked ready to kill. I held up a finger. “There’s one other way.”
“What?”
“You take away her power. How do the royals have any power? Their money.” The thought had occurred to me the other day when we’d been talking to Donatello on the phone. Money was power. “Take away the money, and the power disappears.”
“How the hell do we do that?” Maddy asked.
“Luis is working on that.”
The next day, Luis and I were at his house on the computer.
He’d used his research knowledge from being a private investigator to dig into the royals’ finances.
It was a tangled web. He’d worked for nearly twelve straight hours, had called every financial or banking contact he had, and had even texted Donatello, but even he didn’t know everything the royals, or their public persona, The Monroe Group, had their fingers in.
Luis leaned back and rubbed his eyes, then pointed at his screen. “Bro, this is intense. I’ve never researched the business dealings of a company this old. Especially not one trying to be this secretive.”
I sighed in frustration. We needed something. Some place to start. “What do we have? Anything at all?”
Luis clicked through his computer. “Looks like most of the original business stuff has been to time, but most big families back then did a lot of shipping and trading. If I had to guess, they traded goods like tea, spices, and precious metals. Once the threads start to pick up in the early eighteen hundreds, it gets easier. You won’t be surprised by this, but Viola’s ancestors were big into the slave trade.
It seems that they made a huge amount of money back from the late-eighteenth century and into the nineteenth.
They were smart, though. They must have seen the tides shifting and diversified right before the big abolitionist movement pushed through the United States.
They went into the typical rich guy bullshit for the times.
Newspapers, railroads, and shipping. Stuff like that. ”
“What about now, though?” I asked.
“Things get interesting around the time of the First World War. A division of their holdings began to pump tons of money into military sciences. After the Second World War, they liquified all their assets and then reinvested in three main areas. Medical science and philanthropy.”
I stared at him. “You said three. That’s only two.”
Luis gave me a sly grin. “That third one was very well hidden. The third area they pumped money into was private for-profit armed services. Basically mercenaries. If you thought Blackwater was secretive, they have nothing on these guys. Their private military was used in everything in the second half of the last century, from the Vietnam War to the war on drugs. They are good, and they command a high price. Those three areas, along with the stocks and bonds they’ve accumulated over the decades, have increased their fortune exponentially.
Even their philanthropic efforts nets them money.
People donate a shit ton to them, but they only use a fraction of that for actual good. The rest? Right in the pocket.”
“Jesus Christ, are you serious?” The sheer size of their operation was astounding. It made me feel like a little fish in a very small pond with a hungry great white shark circling.
“I am. They’ve got money everywhere. Offshore accounts, Swiss banks, Chinese holding companies.
, I even found out they own an entire banking chain in South Africa, and that’s probably only so they can launder their dirty money from their military operations.
This is not going to be easy. They’ve got over a dozen different income streams. Cutting them all off is gonna be a hell of a job. ”
I sat for a moment, thinking. We wouldn’t be able to do this on our own.
We needed help. Lots of it. “I’ll call the alphas again and tell them you’ll be in contact.
You need to get their guys to help out. Anyone they have.
Hackers, bankers, programmers, whatever.
Get them on this. Once they understand what it could mean if we’re successful, I bet they’ll be like dogs on a bone. ”
Luis sucked at his teeth, looking a little worried. “The help will be welcome, but is it enough?”
It was all I had, and we had to work with it.
There was no way to know if it would be successful, but we couldn’t roll over and die.
The alternative was to run and hide on Donatello’s island or commit murder.
Killing Viola would be like cutting off the head of the snake.
The way Maddy had been feeling lately, I was worried she’d be the first one to try to go for Viola.
Maddy’s hatred towards her was palpable, but I wanted to do everything in my power to get this over with before it reached that point.
Taking a life, even one of a hated enemy, was a deep, dark hole to go down.
I didn’t want that for Maddy, not unless there were no other options.