“Ally, tell Lady Duplica the truth about the PAC data. Can you do that for me?”
The woman tries to keep a polite smile, but when her eyes meet that of her intended audience, Allison Jaqueline Worley feels the bone-chilling abhorrence looking back at her, causing this smile to be replaced by a defensive glance at the ground. “I lied. I know of a villain or two that had the ability to permanently delete PAC data, but I never personally figured that out. I know how to get around this seeming irreversibility, like any good Jekel, and bring them back anyway, but I’m not skilled enough to initiate the destructive process. I was bluffing to keep myself alive.”
Cat interrupts this to give her opinion on the matter. “Good! Then we can blast your—”
“Duplica, stop,” AB commands. Since he’s begun to speak, however, he asks his own question. “Ally, do you realize what little effort you put into this scheme today?” She slowly nods. “For all the planning you’ve been doing, I firmly believe you didn’t even include half of what you’ve been looking forward to for over a millennium. Why was that? It’s okay to admit it.”
Despite the kind invitation, she doesn’t want to cooperate in answering this. However, she begged for this moment, so she tightens her fists and forces the words out. “I can’t win. I knew I’d lose anyway.” When prompted about this, Ally shocks Cat by saying, “While my main enjoyment in having you forever was to continue my unspeakable fun with everyone in the universe, the other reason I chose to digitize people was to not add numbers to the Drawing Board.”
This confession makes sense to Duplica. She explains the rest. “Even if you captured every one of the several trillion people in the universe, that still wouldn’t matter at all compared to the endless number of warriors from countless storyboards that now live in the Drawing Board. On top of that, each one of these residents, which now includes the boy you murdered, by the way, has become an Infinite Warrior and is immune to all your tricks. The moment you opened up the gate to that flood, your death and that of all your nasty little trash dolls would be so sudden that I can’t even give you enough credit to call it a slaughter. It’d be like stepping on a speck and calling that a battle.”
Ally nods.
Walking up to her enemy, Cat vents in Ally’s face. “Then you can die knowing that you were a worthless piece of trash who could do nothing but lie and hurt people and manipulate, all for a cause that you knew from the start wouldn’t work, but you were just too foolish to stop because you’re hopelessly addicted to yourself, Ally. You’re nothing but the failure of a failure of a clown. Now, go to oblivion, denied the privilege given to all your slain. Die for the pain you’ve cause my son.”
For this, Cat is violently spun around and slapped by a very angry older sister. “Catherine Antonia Sky Rug,” Abigail belts out, “you are speaking WAY out of line and disgracing EVERYthing you stand for. So, do us all a favor and perform the most heroic act you can do right now. As one who can see where her conversation is going, having once been in her shoes myself, I’m telling you to shut your mouth and listen!”
Duplica is not genuinely ready to cooperate, but she sees she has no choice, so she crosses her arms and whispers, “Fine.”
Keb and the System Director kindly step in front of Ally to talk to her, though subtly blocking her view from the distraction that she shouldn’t have to put up with right now.
The System Director tells Allison, “You understand that this conversation wasn’t supposed to go so smoothly, right? Originally, AB or myself was going to step in and reason with a monster, having the same chat we once had with the original Allure’s minion that became the wonderful Eppie whose crazy granddaughter is I.C. Mendez. It is this same chat that Adam and Michael Baylor had with your very creator, Victor Grille of Storyboard XL.
Inner Man Theatre 