Illusion Report

Once the Vulture has locked onto a target, it commits completely — body and soul — convinced without a shadow of doubt that it *is* the original person.

"...So, when it was looking at me wearing Green’s face, it never once considered that I could be Brianna. As far as it was concerned, *it* was the only real one. The moment it took my shape, it turned around and asked me who I was — I had no choice but to say I was Secretary Green. Maybe because my situation was unusual, it didn’t inherit all my memories. It said it had barely managed to escape from the Nest and needed to find its father immediately."

A sound caught in Westley’s throat — like someone catching a whiff of something that turns the stomach.

Brianna had long since stopped caring.

He found even the Vulture’s version of her revolting? At this point, she was in a worse position than the Vulture ever was.

If she had the choice, she’d rather be the Vulture.

"Where is it now?"

As Westley asked, Brianna heard the rustle of fabric — he’d gotten out of bed. Jacqueline’s voice came through, muffled and indistinct, asking what was going on.

"...Good news," Westley pulled the phone away, his voice distant as he answered her. "The Vulture I’ve been waiting for — it’s finally here."

So he’d told her about that too, Brianna thought.

"It didn’t trust me — said it wanted to see you on its own. It’s heading to the main building right now," Brianna crouched down and patted around the waist of a corpse until her fingers closed around a gun.

She’d almost missed the body entirely at first glance — human forms threaded through each other, head through torso through head, a tangle of mangled flesh stacked like segments of some enormous, man-shaped worm.

It took her a full two seconds to realize the shorter end was where the original body began.

"Don’t worry, Dad,"

she said, in a tone that might have been reassuring, walking toward a table in the corner of the hall. "It’s taken my form, and it genuinely believes it just escaped from the Nest — it won’t have any reason to mean you harm. It won’t hurt you."

Westley was quiet for a second or two before he let out a low "Mm."

"That much, I do believe," he said, his voice dropping. "After all — she’d be a daughter to you."

Brianna’s mind went briefly blank.

"Right... yes." She said it softly, then pressed the mute button.

"S-Secretary Green?" From beneath the table, a man lay with his eyes screwed shut, drenched in sweat, voice hesitant. "Is that you...? What — what’s happening? Are we safe?"

Brianna raised the gun.

The bullet snapped his head to the side; his neck bent at an angle it wasn’t meant to, and a spray of red and white slicked the floor beneath the table. The gunshot was deafening — but she imagined the sound of bone fragments striking the table panel was something else entirely. Wet. Brittle.

She’d let her composure slip a little just now. Said a few things no one should have overheard.

But that was fine. All these deaths could be laid at Fu Tailan’s feet.

And honestly — lines like *she’d be a daughter to you* — this man had heard that, and surely thought death was preferable. She’d done him a favor.

Brianna unmuted the call and carried on. "It doesn’t trust me, so it wants to see you alone. I’ve got a few loose ends to tie up in the security center — I’ll be over in a few minutes."

"Get here fast," Westley said. "Even wearing your face, it’s still a Resident. I don’t like it."

He was impatient — desperate to let the Vulture copy him so he could seal himself inside the safe room.

"Once this is over, whatever you want — it’s yours." Westley’s voice shifted, carrying something that almost sounded like genuine feeling. "These past days haven’t been easy for you. You’ve given a great deal. I know you’ve been carrying something heavy inside..."

A pause. Brianna made a sound — "Mm" — thick with it. Her throat tightened. When she reached up to touch her face, her fingers came away wet.

Huh. How about that.

Green’s body was actually crying?

And not a polite sniffle, either — the real thing, shaking and earnest, like she’d been genuinely moved. Wasn’t that something.

So this was what people meant when they said someone could cry on command.

All Brianna had done was think *crying right now would be useful* and the waterworks just opened up, smooth as anything, like flipping a switch — so convenient, so remarkably easy to use.

If Brianna had still been wearing her own face, it would have been pressed against the phone right now, pale and cool, regarding Westley with a strange, fresh curiosity.

"Thank you, Dad." She said it softly, obediently, through the tears.

Her face was soaked. Her shoulders shook. She crouched down and put a bullet in another head.

Not very smart, really — he’d heard the gunshot, hadn’t broken free of the thought and died from it, so surely he’d figured out the Illusion had worn off, and yet he still hadn’t run. Well. She’d put him out of his misery. Life was hard enough. Come back as a Resident next time. May your next life be a kinder one.

Westley, it seemed, had concluded she’d muted herself out of embarrassment — the crying, obviously.

"We still have a road ahead of us. When we succeed, Dad will make sure every wish you have comes true."

"Okay. Okay, Dad." Brianna’s voice caught. "Oh — actually..."

"Hmm?"

"Where do we make contact with the Vulture?" She opened her mouth and let the question slide out.

"What do you mean?" Westley seemed momentarily thrown — clearly too giddy to be thinking straight.

"Once the Vulture copies you, it will be absolutely convinced that *it* is the real Westley — and that you’re the impostor. The Vulture."

Brianna wiped away the tears that had served their purpose and explained, "Because its personality, its memories, its entire way of thinking will become identical to yours. So the moment it transforms, its first instinct will be to get into the safe room before you can."

Westley understood.

"If it gets in there first, you’d have no way in, right? The safe room would lock down — stop accepting authentication entirely — wouldn’t it?"

A third one who’d slipped through the cracks — this woman was sharper than the others. She’d sensed something was wrong and was crawling toward the back door without making a sound. Really, Fu Tailan — what was going on with her work?

"Right... yes, it has to be contained first. We sort it out after I’m inside." Westley said. "You can handle it, can’t you? Pin it down? You’re not in a woman’s body anymore — subduing a Vulture shouldn’t be beyond you. And something this sensitive — I’d rather not involve Dylan and the other bodyguards."

"But what if something goes wrong? How would I tell them apart in the moment?" Brianna asked.

Westley paused.

"I can’t grab it from the start — the moment it makes contact with me, it won’t copy you anymore. Once it’s done, it’ll move, resist, struggle... the second either of you shifts position, I lose track of who’s who."

That looked like the last of them. No survivors left standing. The gun was empty. She’d seal off the side building on her way out, just to be safe.

"What are you thinking?" Westley’s voice dropped, cautious, probing.

With his personality, suspicion was inevitable — but suspicion didn’t matter here. The real question was whether his paranoia outweighed his will to survive.

"Let me think,"

Brianna pretended to consider it before speaking. "Well... what if you brought it into the safe room before making contact? Once it’s copied your appearance — if everything goes smoothly and there are no complications, I’ll bring it back out. If I can’t confirm which is which, I won’t take anyone out at all... That way, at the very least, you’re completely safe no matter what happens. Isn’t that right?"

"That won’t work," Westley rejected it immediately, as she’d known he would.

Letting anyone else follow him in — no bodyguard present — even if it was his own flesh-and-blood daughter, the idea made him deeply uncomfortable.

Brianna smiled without a sound and didn’t rush to push back. "Then what did you have in mind? I’ll follow your lead, Dad."

She half-listened as Westley went back and forth, hedging and circling around nothing, while she bent down and took a long look at the Alpha.

Fu Tailan had said something strange into the Alpha’s mouth earlier — strange enough to suggest she had a personal acquaintance living somewhere inside its stomach.

But no matter how long Brianna looked, she couldn’t make sense of the darkness, couldn’t tell what, if anything, was in it. Fu Tailan really did seem to have a few screws loose. Sometimes she came across as more of a Resident than actual Residents did.

"Can you not move anymore?" Brianna pressed mute and addressed the Alpha.

It seemed, in fact, unable to move. Unable to respond. Even those human eyes had gone still, fixed in place.

"Really? But your mouth..." Brianna said. "It’s been getting bigger, hasn’t it? That black opening was nowhere near this large before."

The void now gaped wide enough for two adults to step through side by side.

But even if she asked, the Alpha had no way to answer.

"Well. You were the one who wanted to come inside the building. Whatever’s happening to you now — I don’t know what it is. Don’t look at me."

The Alpha didn’t move.

"...Well?" Westley’s voice came through the phone, impatient. "What do you say?"

"Oh," Brianna unmuted and said, with an air of complete indifference, "Whatever you feel comfortable with is fine by me. Keeping you comfortable — that’s what matters most. Everything else is secondary."

Westley paused again. "What do you mean, ’everything else’?"

"Oh, small things. Like your bodyguards believing what the Vulture tells them and opening fire on you instead,"

That one was aimed at his idea of bringing the bodyguards in.

"And once the Vulture takes your form, your clothes will be identical down to the last detail — there’d be no way to tell you apart by sight. I might even get it wrong and help the Vulture into the safe room by mistake."

That was her answer to marking the Vulture or tying a rope around it — not that Brianna had any idea whether the Vulture could actually copy clothing, but that was beside the point.

Westley was growing irritated. Survival was within reach, and yet he still had to clear one last, maddeningly uncertain obstacle first.

He turned it over in his mind, then suddenly said, "Hold on. I’ve got another call."

Brianna had been about to step out, but she turned back, scanning the wall of monitors until she found the reason Westley had put her on hold.

Fu Tailan — Brianna herself — was standing at the top floor stairwell entrance, keeping a deliberate distance of more than a meter from Dylan, the head of tonight’s security detail. Not closing the gap — almost certainly to appear harmless and cooperative.

Dylan had his eyes fixed on her. One hand on his weapon. The other holding his phone to his ear.

Even without sound from the monitors, Brianna could fill in the words perfectly well.

*There’s a "Brianna" here asking for you. She says she’s your daughter...*

Something like that.

Fu Tailan knew, of course, whose identity she had taken. It was Brianna’s.

And if she’d found her way to Westley Manor, she was clearly tangled up in the Nest Dominance Game. She’d almost certainly learned who Brianna was — Brianna’s former identity was no secret.

She would tell them that she was the urgent matter Secretary Green had mentioned. That her arrival was something Secretary Green was fully aware of, had personally prepared for —

On the monitor, Dylan nodded and ended his call, but kept the phone in his hand.

Brianna raised her own phone a moment ahead of him, watching the dark screen, waiting.

Seconds later, Dylan’s name lit up the display.

Brianna couldn’t help but smile.

"Hello?"

"Secretary Green?" Dylan must have already gotten confirmation from Westley — his guard had come down a notch. "There’s a Miss Brianna here to see Mr. Westley. He says he’d like to wait until you arrive before letting her in..."

"Yes, I know." Brianna answered, all business. "I’ll be there shortly. Tell her to wait."

On the monitor, Fu Tailan looked up toward the camera — as if she’d heard every word.

Brianna’s own face looked back at her, wearing a smile she hadn’t seen on herself in a very long time.

All right then.

If you’re going to kill him —

do it wearing my face.