"Very well," Brian said. "Sophie, Matt, the time has come for you to prove your worth to our organisation.""What, helping to uncover Alex"s secrets wasn"t enough?" Alexis interrupted.
"Sophie may enjoy your contributions to discussions, but I do not," Brian said to her sternly. "I would advise you to remember who is in charge here, genie."
"And I would advise you to, oh great and wonderful human," Alexis said sarcastically. "To remember that the only reason you have power at all is because of Lexia over there. You know, when I met Lexia, she was such a sweet girl. Loved making people happy. But now look at her."
"She serves me obediently."
"Yes, a little too obediently. Hey Lexia, remember Babylon? Remember showing me the gardens you built? How proud you were of them? It wouldn"t surprise me if he"d wiped your memories of it. Of everything. Turned you into his mindless slave, who"s only any good for granting wishes. Do you remember me, Lexia? Do you!?"
"She won"t speak without my permission."
"Then give it to her! Give her some freedom, at least!"
"Sophie, your genie is being rather noisy," Sarah interrupted. "Do shut her up. I can"t abide listening to her."
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"Alexis, go back into your lamp," Sophie commanded her.
"Oh come on Sophie, don"t pretend that you don"t agree with-"
"Alexis, in your lamp! Now!" Sophie shouted. Alexis just stared at her.
"Your wish is my command, Mistress," she said in her most sarcastic voice possible, before she returned to a cloud of light-blue smoke, which was sucked into Sophie"s handbag.
"Now then, to business," Brian said. "Now as you know, one of our goals is to collect genie lamps. Well, we"ve discovered another one. Or rather, we discovered it many years ago, but its owner refused to join us."
"Who is it?" Sophie asked.
"Jacob Larson," Brian replied. "Born in 1922, a British man living in the countryside of Kent in a very large estate. He went from being relatively poor, until, in 1950, he made a fortune on the stock market. Not long after, he married a girl named Eléni. His genie, of course."
"How do you know?"
"Because he told us, of course. He told his story to Alex"s father Robert in 1952. It was at that point he refused to join us. Ever since then, we"ve been waiting for an opportunity to take Eléni"s lamp for our own."
"And now"s the time?"
"He was 93 last month. He"s not got long left. And we think his time is coming very soon. Like us, he has given himself eternal youth, and he used to be very active out in public, doing things like charity work. But recently he"s been seen stumbling a lot. Like he"s dying. And now he"s not going out in public at all. He will likely be dead soon. The job we want the two of you to do is to recover his lamp once he dies."
"But that could take 5 more years for all we know!"
"It will not. We promise."
"How do you even expect us to do this?"
"Well, for you and Alexis, we would like you to join his harem. You see, despite being happily married in public, we know that he has a rather large harem in his mansion, consisting of hundreds of girls. We figure no-one will notice two more popping in."
"And me?" Matt asked, speaking up for the first time, but still sounding annoyed.
"As I said," Brian continued. "Jacob does a lot of charity work. He has a meeting today with a man from the NSPCC, who is going to ask him to increase his contributions to them. Or he was, until, as if by magic," the rest of them chuckled at this, "he dropped down dead. So now Matt is going to take over from him, with Lumiosa as his PA."
"And what exactly do you hope to achieve by this?" Matt asked. "You"re hoping he"ll drop down dead while we"re there?"
"Yes. Or if not, very soon after. The important thing to remember is that, when Jacob dies, Eléni will be sucked back into her lamp. You two must get it before anyone else rubs it."
"So are you in?" Neil asked them both.
"I"m in," Sophie said. "I can"t speak for Matt though."
"Fine, I"ll do it, but I don"t think it"ll work," Matt said.
The two of them pulled out their lamps, and rubbed them. Lumiosa emerged on her knees in front of Matt, while Alexis reclined on a sofa she materialised for herself.