Apocalypse Villainess? Nah, I'm Nice

In the Base Chief’s office, Marcus Monroe sat comfortably on the sofa while Paige Summers gave Claire Chapman a puzzled look.

”Why is she at our base?”

She had just returned to the base and was planning to go home to wash up before finding Claire Chapman to share the good news. But before she got the chance, she saw a woman sitting by a flowerbed.

After a moment, Paige Summers recognized her. It was Maisie Joyce!

She had seen her once before, through a window, during her nighttime infiltration of the Citadel in Southreach.

Even though it was only a single glance, Paige Summers had an excellent memory and wouldn’t have forgotten the woman’s face. Still, it had taken her a while to place her this time, simply because Maisie Joyce’s transformation was so drastic!

Before, while her looks had been plain, her sophisticated temperament and intellectual style of dress had given her a certain appeal.

But now...

Thinking of Maisie Joyce sitting there in a daze, looking for all the world like a living, breathing skeleton, Paige Summers couldn’t help but shudder. Maisie was now so emaciated she was unrecognizable—nothing more than skin stretched over a skeleton. Her face was ashen, and her modest eyes bulged unnaturally, like two small, unlit light bulbs. The dead look in them was plain to see; her eyeballs were utterly still. When she’d heard a sound, her entire face had turned, stiff and mechanical!

Remembering the Joyce family secrets she had overheard that night, Paige Summers knew exactly who was responsible. She had to have been tortured into this state by Leo Joyce!

’But why is she here?’

Claire Chapman ran a hand through her short hair and leaned back against the sofa. ”Leo Joyce is a real piece of work,” she mused. ”If he hated her that much, he should have just killed her. But no, he kept her alive to torture her slowly. It’s no surprise she escaped when she couldn’t take it anymore. I feel sorry for her...”

Paige Summers shot her a contemptuous look.

”Cut the crap and just say it. What did she offer to win you over?” ’As if you’re overflowing with sympathy. No way! You must have gotten something good out of it, and it can’t have been small!’

Claire Chapman chuckled, giving her a look that said, *You know me too well*. ”Let’s just say we hit the jackpot this time,” she said brightly. ”Who would’ve thought Maisie Joyce was a computer whiz! Her gift for defecting was a complete base surveillance system. And not only that, she brought eight people with her—every last one of them an expert in the field! The other captains and I have gone over the system proposal and their demonstration again and again, and we all agree it’s viable... So, even though her identity is a little troublesome, we’ve decided to let them stay for now.”

That was a lot of information to take in, and Paige Summers couldn’t quite process it all at once.

’Computers... surveillance systems... How long has it been since I’ve even heard anyone talk about that stuff? I figured that with the apocalypse making materials so scarce, that whole field of technology must have died out.’

’I never expected someone to still be an expert in it.’

”Did she design this system, or was it the other people?”

Claire Chapman replied, ”Mostly her. We asked a lot of questions during their team’s demonstration, and she was the one who handled all the trickier ones. It looks like she’s the one in charge.”

Marcus Monroe rubbed his chin and chimed in, ”This system... I’m guessing she originally prepared it for Leo Joyce, right?”

Claire Chapman clapped her hands. ”Exactly! That’s what I was thinking!”

She suddenly sighed. ”This woman is really something else. I asked about it—those eight people were either trained or recruited by her. She gathered them together years ago, supporting them in secret while they did some serious research, all behind Leo Joyce’s back. My guess is she planned to get rid of May Joyce and *then* reveal her work. That way, even if Leo eventually found out she was responsible for May’s death, he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to kill her. In fact, he’d have to treat her like a prized asset! The only thing is, May Joyce did end up dead, but Maisie herself was so thoroughly tortured by Leo that she lost any ambition to see her plan through.”

’She really is formidable... this Maisie Joyce...’ Paige Summers thought to herself.

’Come to think of it,’ she reflected, ’back when she tricked May Joyce into leaving the city to meet her doom, May would have been as good as dead if we hadn’t shown up at the base when we did. She would have eliminated her rival and kept her own hands clean. You can’t underestimate that level of cunning!’

’To pull off schemes right under Leo Joyce’s nose and keep him completely in the dark... especially a man as suspicious as him, who already despised her...’

’That’s an incredibly difficult feat.’

’Even I couldn’t have managed that.’

After thinking for a moment, Paige Summers said, ”Are you sure she’s sincere about defecting? She looks like she’s lost the will to live. If she has a death wish and just wants to use us as a weapon against Leo Joyce, then we can’t keep her. A person like that is capable of anything, and I don’t want her messing up our plans.”