Chapter 9

Jael looked at him in a stupor, unsure if he had heard him correctly. He didn’t doubt his statement. Camm had the resources and know-how to get things done. He had worked plenty of deals over the course of his years that enabled him powerful leverage in negotiation. Jael had his own connections, and was a well-known businessman within the city of Rhod. Camm knew this and was using it to his advantage.

“It’ll be dangerous territory,” Camm warned.

“You have someone in mind?” Jael asked.

“I have a client coming in from the Duskrider that owes me a good deal of money for a synthetic loan I fronted him. He’s sent me the contact info of his new driver. Says she’s human.”

“A human magnacycle operator?” Jael asked, confused.

Camm looked up from the celltab and let out a hearty laugh. He navigated through his celltab. Jael received a notification that a new contact was added.

His lottery ticket had come in.

———————

Shel waited for Lena to return until midnight. He stood motionless in the darkness for hours, waiting for her to return upon the game trail. He had heard a scuffle within the perimeter in the early afternoon, but still he stood motionless. Even if he could have intervened, a member of Verus would have fried his internal CPU within minutes.

When she failed to return, he removed all traces of their camp before departing. Her bike sat parked where she had placed it before their trek into the forest. A sharp blade shot from his hands. He sliced a wide cut into each of its tires before incinerating her note. He transformed into his mobile form and sped away.

The posts Lena planted had sent their geographic data to Shel’s internal hard drive. In the early hours of Monday morning, Shel entered a small port in the massive pyramidal structure of Fenix, Inc. Camm waited in the lower bay of the complex. Camm paired his celltab with Shel’s internal storage and downloaded the new information.

“Did you destroy the accessory?” Camm asked. He studied the holographic image that had appeared above his celltab. It displayed a cutaway of a hillside, exposing a network of burrowed tunnels and rooms beneath a V-shaped hill.

“There was no need.” Shel answered. “It never returned to the designated meeting spot. Presumably, it was captured by Verus and destroyed.”

Camm smiled. “Shame. Verus claims another victim.”