An audience with a King

Eyes squinting, lips pursed, Emilia King crossed her arms on her desk as she peered at each of the three young women across the way. It wasn't that the story that Kelly, Ivy, and Beth told was unbelievable to the fiery-haired heiress to the King fortune--she'd been the central figure of plenty of unbelievable tales herself. The so-called Witch of Spiral City always seemed plenty eager to seek out cases of unknown phenomena and supernatural shenanigans, going so far as to fly the trio to her estate on short notice when Kelly wrote about some interesting behaviors from technology similar to the neural harness her tech division had been cooking up. All of that worked to the trio's favor, but Emilia clearly felt something was lacking as she looked across the way at three nervous and fidgeting girls, two of whom wore unusual remote headsets and were being partially puppeteered from an incredible distance.

"You know, I'm always happy to hear about defects in a competitor's product," she finally began, after much deliberation. "I'm aware of the Interleaved Personality whitepaper, and I'll admit it's fascinating to see one, maybe two of you who might actually be experiencing the effects of long-distance mental entanglement firsthand. But let me be perfectly frank with you: my philanthropy only extends so far, and all I've heard so far is that you want me to fix--free of charge--something that is Hideki's oversight. All so, what, two of you can remain in a state of attraction that you'd configured on your own without worrying about being attached to an essentially helpless and comatose body?"

Kelly scoffed at Emilia's assertion, her own fiery hair almost seeming to flare up as she leaned forward and tapped on Emilia's desk. "That's such an unflattering way to put it! I mean yeah, you're about right, but don't you think that having access to two of these state-of-the-art Ascend headsets and people in this interleaved state would accelerate your own cognitive enhancement division?"

Emilia reached into her desk, and pulled out a familiar-looking facemask, with the same black bezel that Beth and Ivy attempted to hide with their hair. And then another, bezel-free model... and another that sat over an ear. "The consumer model you're using is slightly out of date, I'm afraid. I certainly don't have any trouble acquiring Hideki technology when I want it, the latest came from one of Reiko Hasegawa's reveals for the V9 headset thanks to some of my other contacts. So, all you can offer me is the state of your minds. That is, all you can offer me is a problem. I can't undo whatever it is that Hideki's done so you can freely use the masks without concerns about the health of your other long-distance half."

Beth and Ivy shifted a little, looking at each other. Ivy turned back to look at Emilia, putting a hand on Kelly's shoulder before the budding journalist could offer a rebuttal on their behalf. "Uh, Miss King. Maybe this will sound a little weird, but we've heard, y'know, stories. That maybe there's some really, uh, strange stuff going on here. Since you're one of the big Three-M companies and all... maybe there's a way to, uh, not fix this like how you're thinking, but a way to go further with it."

Emilia quirked an eyebrow, tapping her fingers together. Ivy's words apparently piqued her interest. "Go on. A Three-M company? I'm not familiar with this."

"It's something we talk about at school," Beth piped up, biting her lip. "When we think about what colleges to apply to, for what careers we want. It's Yabusa, Hideki, and King Enterprises. Yabusa is 'Machines', they have some of the most advanced artificial intelligence and robotics departments. Hideki Labs, but even their tech, seems to tinker with biosciences and changes to living matter, so they're said to create 'Monsters'. And King Enterprises... well, with all the rumors of occult rituals and secret societies and ancient artifacts..."

Emilia waited patiently, although she could already connect the dots.

"It's 'Magic," Kelly finally said, leaning forward. "And we would bet you have some sort of magic that could do way more than untangle some brains! We're talking about finding a way to connect these split-bodied pairings into like, I dunno, some magical combination. Like, drink a magic potion and then they're all normal, but like a new normal." Kelly, as the only girl of the trio who didn't really have much of a stake in the game, seemed content to push forward with allegations of magical methods because it not only piqued her interest, but she could make a good story out of this for her journalism portfolio.

A smile finally began to form across Emilia's face. "This is far more acceptable, although I guess I need to work at reining in some of these rumors, true as they may be. So, you don't want me to pull you out of the rabbit hole, you want me to help you dig deeper."

The trio nodded, although Kelly nodded more eagerly than the others. After all, she wasn't going to be anything but an observer to some strange phenomena!

"I suppose I could try something that would be beneficial to both sides... I have plenty of items in my collection that could still use further testing. I have ways to **** one person into various states of combination with another, although you will become employees of King Enterprises should we continue. I wonder... yes, yes that will do nicely."

The girls held their breath in anticipation for Emilia to propose an idea.