Book 6: Chapter 6 - The Flight of Dragons (RAW)

Love’s touch turns the simplest heart into a song.

- Attributed to the playwright Vlan di Panoli.

“So, Mister Gilgamesh…” Helena Voss’s words lanced across the room like black ice, every syllable clipped, precise, dangerous. “Tell me what it is you truly want.”

I shrugged my shoulders, removing the communications device from my ear. I let a smug grin bloom slow and poisonous. “Important does not even begin to cover this matter, Helena. You will allow me to call you, Helena, won’t you? And importance demands tribute. I want you to show me how far you will crawl for this.”

Her lips barely twitched, but the small muscles around her eyes betrayed the flicker of heat beneath the executive frost. “We have already offered a figure most people would kill for.”

“ ‘Most people’ being the heart and crux of the matter.” I shrugged, savoring her restraint. I drank in the atmosphere of this place, this temple dedicated to greed. There was power here, and it oozed from the walls like stale perfume. “But I am not ‘Most People.’ And, I am thinking that perhaps ten times that sum would still be a more amenable offer. You seek to cripple others, so a crippling price seems appropriate. Justified even.”

Silence. A beat too long. Good.

“You are overplaying your hand, Gilgamesh,” she warned, her eyes narrowing.

“No, this is merely bargaining. A dance you are too familiar with. I assume you prefer to protect your margins, Helena,” I murmured, picking up an expensive-looking item and admiring it. A small bird, carved from delicate jade, I placed it gently back down. “And trust, Helena, real trust, always comes at a price that can’t be transferred in wire funds.”

Her brows knit in refined worry. “You’re circling something. Spit it out.”

Who cared? I had little use for make-believe money. All of this, this whole setup, was like some lucid dream, until I killed the boss of this dungeon anyway. It was not real, so I might as well enjoy myself, I justified blithely.

I leaned forward, voice dropping to a rasp filled with vice. “Open those pretty legs and prove to me money isn’t the only thing you are willing to give. That is my price.”

A shard of fury flashed behind her eyes, but she swallowed it like broken glass. “I expected… a little more sophistication. With that sort of money you could pay for…”

“Shh, now. You value yourself too lightly,” I corrected with a smug grin. “And, sophistication? From a man who just tore his opponents apart?  I’m not here to pirouette through expected etiquette.” I planted a palm on the dark wood of the desk, close enough to feel the charge in the air. “The truly wealthy care nothing for money. I wish to take something of value, worth more than all Aurum in this city, Helena.”

She exhaled through her nose, the sound so filled with repressed indignation. The black basalt walls stood as the only witness to her next words. “And if I refuse… this rather indecent and unprofessional proposal?”

“I simply walk.” I straightened, letting the threat dangle. “You find someone else. Simple. No harm, no foul. But… I am assuming this is a time-sensitive matter.”

Her chin lifted, but her voice softened, almost trembling with something she would never label fear. “One time. No witnesses. No talk.” 

I was learning that there was a certain attractiveness to a man who knew exactly what he wanted, assuming that he had the presence to pull it off. 

I stepped closer. She was taller, and she looked down at me, a sliver of dominance she clung to like armor. Like a beggar clutching at her rags. Yet her fingers drifted to the top button of her tailored blouse, hesitating, then slipping it free. A pulse beat wildly at her throat.

“One time,” I whispered. “No witnesses. No talk.”

She angled her face away when I tried to claim her mouth, but did not step back. “Just take what you want,” she hissed, voice brittle with rage and something darker. “Then we finish discussing the details of the raid.”

“A raid, is it?”

“No talk, remember?” she challenged, looking me full in the eyes.

Inside me, a spark roared into flame. For all her power and polish, Helena Voss would trade her anything to secure tomorrow’s profit. And power over that, I realized with a certain savage delight, was the truest currency.

***

After concluding our negotiations and taking a brisk wash in the ensuite bathroom, I slipped the communication device back into my ear, doing my best to project cool indifference. This was no easy feat, for against all expectations, Helena Voss herself was fastening the buckles of my heavy armour of black and gold.

“This really is an unpowered Nex suit? No, it is more like something from a museum. It’s so heavy. How do you even walk in it?” she asked, running a curious fingertip along the dark Adamantine plate. “What is it made of? If only I could have a sample…”

“I treat its weight as training,” I said.

She gave me a quizzical look, then tapped a control beneath her desk. A small drone rose and drifted around us, misting the room with a rose-scented spray that erased every trace of our recent rut.

“You realise you never switched this channel off,” Casia’s voice crackled in my ear. “This is a dangerous game you’re playing.”

I ignored the unwanted warning and faced Helena. “Very well, what do you need me to do?”

“Do you have an open line with someone?” she asked, her tone smooth as if nothing had happened between us.

“Casia Whitlock. Solarin’s relative.”

Helena’s brow arched. “The Casia Whitlock? The Net Logicae herself?”

Not understanding anything, I only shrugged.

“I have no intention of paying extra for her involvement,” Helena said crisply. “Our earlier agreement stands.”

“That won’t be necessary, Ms Voss,” Casia’s voice answered, not from my bud, but from the speakers of a wallscreen.

Helena blinked. “We’re running Seventh-Circle security protocols. How did you…?”

“Consider it proof of competence,” Casia replied. “You’ll have my assistance for whatever it is you are planning.”

Helena shook her head, dismissing the mystery. She tapped the jewel at her lapel. “Rain, send Miss Varnell in.”

Moments later, Solarin strolled through the door, a wicked grin on her face. She leaned in and murmured, “Our comms are all linked.”

“Then you should have switched yours off,” I growled, forcing a smile.

“Well, if I may begin?” Helena snapped a lacquered fingernail across the desktop. A holomap flared to life, bathing the basalt walls in violet light. “The target is Ingram Research Facility Urkusu-17, three hundred Rau below the western spill sector. It is classified as an R-three weapons lab.” She sliced the air again; concentric rings expanded, revealing service shafts, coolant arteries, and guard posts. “Primary objective: secure their latest bio-weapons and extract with said bio-weapons. Secondary: Securing as much data on their project from offline information nodes within the facility.”

A part of me truly admired her professionalism. You would never have guessed that just a short while ago we had made the beast with two backs in this very room. There was a certain erotism to reducing this fine specimen to the level of a common whore.

I rolled my shoulders, pauldrons settling heavily upon them. “How much time will I have to accomplish these goals?”

Casia’s calm voice threaded into the room. “I’ve already lifted the tunnel schematics. They look like a good infiltration point. But what of the lab’s physical defences?”

“First, to answer Gilgamesh’s question, Ingram has contracted with Apex as a level 3 supporter. Should they run a red alert, Apex will be given a level 3 call-to-action notice. We can expect him to arrive in ten minutes under normal conditions,” answered Helena.

“That hardly sounds like enough time to do anything,” I snorted.

Helena pointed at a pulsing red vein on the map. “As Miss Whitlock mentioned, there is a tunnel that can provide access. A maintenance tunnel, K-79, links the sewage sink to their main facilities. Forgotten and ideal. According to our GAI, a Dragon flight is forecast to cross into this sector within the next 23 Arks,” Helena said, running a hand through her dark hair. “The Inner’s intercept grid will pivot skyward, batteries one through seven locked in mid-tier burst mode. They will also launch the interceptor Nexs. But it won’t be enough, and they will be forced to call for assistance—a level 4 call-to-action, which, with some luck, Apex will prioritize this over the lab’s emergency requests.”

Voss really was testing my patience with all her goobledie-goop nonsense, but Solarin seemed to be drinking it in.

Irritated, I decided to ask a question. “Who or what exactly is this Apex?”

Solarin leaned against the door frame, arms folded. Her eyes flicked from the map to Helena, then to me. “A powerful Meta. The strongest, toughest, and fastest Meta. He is capable of flight, can punch a Drag out cold, and is the only Meta capable of withstanding their breath with no protection.”

Helena’s smile carried razors. “While he is a truly formidable opponent, you will not be required to engage him—only to extract with the bio-weapons. One moment while I check something.”

The dark woman punched a few numbers into a screen on her desk. “Based on your latest combat data, Gilgamesh, our GAI predicts that you have only a 1.5% chance of beating him in any given combat scenario. Of note, your chances rise to 2.3% if you fight him underground, where he cannot use some of his abilities. Still, I recommend you do not fight him at all.”

That sounded more like a challenge than anything else.

Solarin snorted. “All of this is based on the prediction that ‘Vader Drags actually show. Forecasts are guesses, Miss Voss. If the flight shifts, the grid never engages.”

“Probability curve favors a seven-to-one alignment. I will monitor in real time. If the Drags veer, I can trigger a dummy alert from Sector Twelve. The grid will still engage,” Casia suggested.

I flexed my fingers in my gauntlets. “Now, where do I have to go once I have acquired these bio-weapons of yours?”

Helena expanded a lower layer of the map. “Here, at these coordinates. We will send a transport to pick you up.”

Solarin’s gaze hardened. “That extraction point is dangerously close to the Forest. Not to mention, you're gambling all our lives on staggered coincidences.”

“Success in this city is built on orchestrated coincidences,” Helena countered.

I chuckled. “Dragons or no dragons, coincidences end the same at the edge of my blade. Just point me in the right direction. But I have two requests.”

“And they are?” Voss said archly.

“One, I will not be assaulting this place like a coward from the sewers. I detest places like that. I, Gilgamesh, will mount a full frontal assault by myself,” I stated proudly.

“The laboratory is sealed with High-Entropy Zerosteel Alloy blast doors; even you will not be able to get past them in time,” she said with a shake of her head.

“You need not worry about that. I will do to those doors what I did to Shear. They are no barrier to me,” I claimed coldly.

Helena pursed her lips. “Very well, then. I did not factor that into my calculation. Also, a full frontal assault by a single agent will send a definite message to Ingram should they think of reprisal operations against us. What is your second request?”

“Casia, you will return my weapon to me. My weapon, Zariyah, hungers. Zariyah thirsts for war and death,” I demanded. “Make arrangements with Helena before I depart on this mission.”

“Very well. I will coordinate with Casia and have this Zariyah weapon delivered to you if possible. I suggest that Miss Varnell avail herself of our armory if she wishes to come with you.”

Helena deactivated the map. “This raid will begin in ten Arks. Rest in one of our rooms or pace here like caged beasts, I care not. I will retire elsewhere. In eight Arks, you will be escorted to launch bay fifteen.”

“Are you sure you do not wish for my company?” I sneered.

Her response was an indignant snort. Sometimes, there was no pleasing certain women.

Casia’s final note came, soft yet surgical. “I will feed live comm telemetry and counter-intrusion support. Solarin, route your device through my uplink; your instincts paired with real-time data will cut the odds.”

I turned toward the corridor to find a room to rest in. “Zariyah is non-negotiable. Wake me when we must fly under the wings of Dragons.”