Page 35 of Warrior's Captive
“How are you going to convince them to follow after you?”
Banujani pressed a button on her wrist unit and instead of a shield snapping into place, a petite, brown skinned, dark eyed human woman settled over Banujani’s skin. The woman stared at Vivian with a calm expression and slightly wild eyes.
“You had a decoy holo of me configured.”
Holo Vivian grinned, teeth a savage slash of white. “Fresh out of R&D. They’ll learn the hard way that neither of us is prey. Come on.”
Banujani rose, stalking toward Vivian with a grace she never hoped to possess, and escorted her to the storeroom.
Vivian froze, staring inside. It was a medium sized gray box, shelves lining the walls stocked neatly with supplies. A vent in the ceiling. Lights flickering on as soon as the door slid open.
Her breath caught in her chest. “I can’t lock myself in here.”
“Vivian—”
She whirled, tried to barrel past Banujani. Bile in her throat, and a haze over her vision. “It’s a cell! No, I’ll go with you.”
Banujani grabbed her shoulders. “My shield is going to give out under the fire I’ll be taking. We planned for covert scenarios, not direct assaults, and it was a sloppy mistake Vykhan is going to kick our asses for.”
“I don’t care about Vykhan!”
“If you are taken or killed, I will offer my life to Haeemah for my failure. And then Tai’ri will offer his.”
Vivian stared into the cold, almost cruel expression on her own face, stunned into momentary clarity.
“You’re strong,” Banujani said gently. “Stronger than you know. Get in that storeroom,yadoana. Wait for instructions.”
Vivian took a deep breath, nodded. “Will you open a comm line so I can hear you?”
Banujani hesitated, then nodded. “But no matter what you hear, you stay put.”
Vivian nodded, stepped into the storeroom and barricaded herself in. “Banujani?” she whispered.
“I’m here,” her voice said through Vivian’s wrist unit.
Vivian settled into a corner and began mentally designing embroidery patterns as she listened to the battle waging outside.
* * *
Thekheter’ssecond, real, interrogation had revealed her role as a limited piece on a larger gaming board, consistent with the pattern of this particular trafficking cell. Her job was to identify potential targets and if possible, get them in place for extraction. She was paid a bounty per head. She knew nothing except for one address, the location of her handler, which changed every three months.
It was a break, and Vykhan had ordered a new branch of their investigation to begin to comb through medical facility records for patients and personnel. Before this, no one had even imagined the traffickers would recruit from among those whose oaths were to heal.
“Fuck,” Evvek muttered, eyes on his datapad. It looked like a youngling’s game, though Evvek was clearly an adult, hunched over it with his gaze trained on the screen. No one blinked, people passing by without a second glance.
They sat on a park bench across from a nine-story building, commercial shops on the bottom four floors, single and double occupancy flats on floors five through nine.
The cloaking technology Evvek had developed was out of R&D and functional for portable use. The slim unit on Tai’ri’s wrist appeared to be a simple comm unit, but in actuality held the illusion surrounding him that he was a slender, nondescript office drone. A lunch container on his lap and a messenger bag added depth to the illusion as he sipped iced chai, one of the earth drinks Vivian had introduced him to.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, deceptively calm. “You need to hurry, Evvek.”
They had to move quickly, not knowing if thekheter’scapture would cause her handler to flee. She was supposed to report in weekly, and had missed her check in call by a single day.
Sometimes the timing just fucking sucked.
His team were on standby, Adyat coordinating, waiting as Evvek attempted to remotely bypass the security of their target. Preliminary scouting confirmed the handler had left his unit that morning, and Corann had orders to track at a distance and report back.
The rest of them needed to get in, search the unit, and get out without alerting the handler to their entry, if he hadn’t fled yet. Better to put him under surveillance, and use him as another fishing line to climb another rung in the ladder.
