"This is Amaro Boselli, and as son of the archdemon he will be our savior."

He looked at me, those intense, night-black eyes piercing me, and said, "Amaro Boselli is the being that can give us the ability to weaken the hold of higher demons. Amaro Boselli can give us the ability to equalize the power of all the citizens of Satanoni--and perhaps of all of hell itself--so that our society will not have these castes and every being within will be able to choose its own path."

The warmth of Bjorn's hand on my shoulder became the fiery heat of everyone's stares on me, the weight of the social gaze burning through my flimsy defensive posture, through the clothes hiding me from everyone. I could feel all eyes on me, and it scared me. 

Amaro Boselli can give us the ability...

Amaro Boselli will be our savior...

I shrank back ever so slightly, and Bjorn's hand fluttered on my shoulder. He turned to me. Was that concern in his eyes?

I couldn't take the stares, the social pressure, the flood of new information.

I saw a door, and I fled through it.

I collapsed against a wall in a dimly lit hallway and slid down to a seated position. 

I sighed. I needed to think. I needed to recuperate.

My cheeks felt wet and I touched them. Crap! Had I been crying in front of everyone? This couldn't be happening.

And what was Bjorn saying? Giovanna had tempted God to kill a man? Who?

It hit me.

Giovanna tempted God to kill my father. He had died of cancer, but for a being such as God, creating cancer was no issue. It made sense. It was no less than I would have expected of her. 

By tempting a being as powerful and holy as God to sin, she elevated herself to archdemonic status. 

And as her son, I had some sort of implicit connection to her as an archdemon. I was different from the other imps because no one else was the child of an archdemon. Perhaps I was the only archdemon's child--I wasn't sure how many archdemons existed, but I doubted there were many.

It made sense.

It made sense why I was the 'savior' of the imps.

But why did it have to be me? By birthright, I was this 'savior.' 

I didn't choose it.

Giovanna did.

How did I even be savior?

"Hey," said a voice.

I jumped up, coming face to face with Bjorn.

"I'm sorry," I said. "For freaking out there. I just..."

"That was my fault," said Bjorn firmly. "You did nothing wrong. I should have asked you before putting you in front of a crowd. Fear of crowds isn't a super uncommon thing."

He sat down next to me, his shoulder almost touching mine, his body warmth soothing against me. Which was simultaneously pleasing and annoying because now I was ever-so-slightly aroused in addition to frustrated and overwhelmed. 

I didn't tell him that, though.

I gave him a wan smile. "Are you the director of this... organization?"

"Yeah," said Bjorn. He grinned. "Not to brag or anything, but I was the one who founded it. I died in 2015, twenty years ago. The first five years were slavery. The next five were the formation of this organization with a group of slaves I'd escaped with. I was lucky to have found a couple of Izanamian and Wulcan slaves because they built technology to amplify and direct illusion magic around this place and to unlink us from the government. For the last decade or so, we've been trying to find something to catalyze the capability of our revolution, and now we've found you."

I pursed my lips. "So what does this 'savior' job entail, exactly?"

"Well, here's the thing," said Bjorn. "The U.S.I. doesn't have higher tier demons, but we do have aliens among our ranks from planets where technology and magic intermingle. And while magic can be powerful, its laws still intersect with scientific laws. Magic is actually a form of energy, did you know that?"

He was smiling, a faint upward curve to his lips. What he mentioned was an interesting idea, magic being scientific. I kind of wondered if I'd be able to read something about it here. 

I smiled back slightly and Bjorn continued talking. "Scientists from the planets of Wulca and Izanamia are building a device. Something which can be used along with the bond of creation linking you to your mother to lower her power level to tier-six--a Reaper demon--and elevate all of our imp powers to tier-six as well. That way we can equalize our society so that imps no longer need to be slaves, because everyone's power starts off equal. I mean, we can't abolish the process of tempting up to higher statuses, but this way everyone can have proper jobs. This society doesn't need to run on forced labor. The United States of America was able to abolish slavery. Hell should be able to also."

"That's a funny way to think about it," I murmured to myself. "It's odd to think hell could be anything like the U.S.A., but the U.S.A. went through something similar before, too, except based off of skin color rather than propensity toward sin. I guess you can find strange parallels between even an afterlife and the normal world."

"What?" he said. I did not realize I'd said that aloud.

"Sorry," I said. "How will I use this device?"

"Well..." Bjorn looked uncomfortable. "That's the part which you might find... difficult. You have to touch both Satan and your mother with it."

"She's not my mother," I said, almost automatically. "She's just the woman who gave birth to me."

"Sorry," said Bjorn. "I..."

"No," I said. "Don't apologize."

I stood up. I needed to think, and being next to Bjorn's warmth was kind of making it hard to focus. 

What did I feel about doing this? About getting close enough to Giovanna to touch her with a device?

She was an archdemon. I'd be fully at her mercy because her power was absolute.

And I knew there was only one way to get close to her.

Giovanna's thirsts.

I trembled as I realized that to do this, I'd have to let Giovanna near me sexually again. And perhaps Satan, too, if I couldn't figure out another way to get close to him.

I didn't want to do that! I had let myself die to escape those things Giovanna did. I'd tried to escape slavery so she wouldn't do those things to me.

And here I was, back to letting myself be used by her as a sex toy once again. A sex toy by both her and Satan, perhaps. And it scared me, so much. I felt the overwhelming feeling of the knowledge I'd have to use my body in ways I had always hated using.

But I couldn't just refuse Bjorn! This entire revolution was depending on me. I couldn't just say, "I won't do this." That would be a huge middle finger to the decade of searching they'd done for me. However much work they'd put into finding me.

"I-I need someplace to think," I said, looking down at him, and I knew I was on the verge of tears. "I-Is there a bedroom or something for me here?"

"Yeah, we're in an abandoned hotel so there's lots of space," said Bjorn uncomfortably, standing slowly. "Listen, I'm sorry we're asking you to do this--"

"But you need me to," I said, my voice flattening in the way it did when I tried to hide my feelings. "I don't want to, but I will. Just give me a little bit of space."

I looked into his eyes, pure black but still showing his emotions the way human eyes would. "I promise I'll do this. I just... need time."

"I'll show you to your room," Bjorn said. "Follow me. You can remain there for the rest of the night--though there isn't much of that left at this point--but you'll have to be awake tomorrow morning to receive information."

We went to an elevator to the fifth floor, and he took me to room twenty-eight.

"It's right across from mine, if that's fine," said Bjorn, gesturing at door twenty-nine. "I also need to unlink you from the government's database."

"What do you mean?" I asked. I touched the door and it opened.

"Your soul panel can be tracked." He held up a blue sphere. "Just touch this with your finger and it won't be anymore. Our illusion spells are designed to conceal everyone in here even if their soul panel is still linked, but you may have to leave this place for any number of reasons. So just touch it."

I touched it, feeling an odd tingling all over my body as my soul panel unlinked from the government, and then said, "Why would I leave this place?"

"Well... we offer everyone who comes into the U.S.I. the option of being an agent," Bjorn replied. "We offer tests to allow people to become fighters for imp freedom. Now, if you're going to be the instrumental part in taking down the government, you're going to need to be sneaky, and skilled. So you'll have to become an agent, because you'll need the necessary skills. You'll need to go on missions to hone your ability, because you're going to have to sneak into Satan's mansion and touch both Satan and Lady Giovanna themselves, and that's going to require a lot of skill because they are two of the most heavily protected residents of this city."

I shut the door. I couldn't take the weight of what he asked me to do anymore. It was all feeling like too much. I knew I was panicking. I knew I would let everyone down. I knew I wouldn't be enough. I knew I'd let Bjorn down.

I wasn't cut out for this. I couldn't do it.

I gripped my temples and slid down against the door, and let the sobs out of my chest. Reading, crying, showering, and sleeping were coping mechanisms for me. 

I gasped for breath a few times and got up to take a shower. I needed warmth and cleanliness.