The Moon's Fangs | 1

22 | burning the midnight oil

Nolan

"Noles, where in Shayd's Ass are you? Father's been pissed ever since getting back from that drawn-out meeting with The Circle. He's come asking for you twice now. If you don't show up soon, he'll figure out I'm covering for you." Nikoe relented through the comm link. "Kind of hard to lie for you, entertain our little sister, and oversee training for both our regiments at the same time. I'm not a fucking juggler. That's your job, you clown."

Nolan crossed the poorly lit bridge, hands in pockets. "Ah, come on. I've covered for you how many times now? Besides, I only need a couple more hours, tops. Tell Orlice she's in charge of keeping the guys from slacking off around the obstacle course. She won't hang all over you if you give her a job. Plus, it's funny watching the new recruits follow her weird little kid orders." He laughed, recalling how their little sister kicked a soldier lazing around right in the spine. She's only seven years old, but she takes the job of being the boss very seriously. It helps that Nolan made sure the guys did exactly as Orlice instructed whenever he put her in charge of anything. They knew if they didn't and it got back to him, they'd suffer the consequences. Nikoe could call him a clown all he wanted, but he ran strict trainings when it came down to it.

As for their father, what was new? The man's always pissy about something or another. Nolan couldn't care less.

"Alright, fine." His brother obnoxiously sighed in his earpiece. "But seriously, what are you doing, combing through the entire underground city? You've been gone for hours. If it's a criminal you're after, just head straight for the seventh district. You're bound to find someone who recognizes the guy down there in that shithole."

Hours well spent, he thought as he pressed his thumb to the corner of the bridge's railing, casually slipping his hand back into his pocket as he stepped onto the final district.

He hadn't exactly told Danika and Nikoe the full story about what happened at Altered. He disclosed just enough to keep them off his back about additional details. If he had tried to explain what he saw... well, they'd probably think he took a hit too hard to the head. The less they knew the better. The less they were involved, the better. Hell, he would've kept the whole ordeal from them if it weren't for D finding Amelia first. He was glad she'd conveniently missed the action involving his newly proclaimed arch-nemesis.

Never - never had he witnessed a Guide be controlled outside of one's body. And to top it off, this Guide wasn't even the color of amber it was supposed to be. What did that mean? Was the Black Market now capable of generating top-grade illegal Guides? No chance Baze had the means for something like that. He lacked the recourses. Even an ambitious high rank couldn't pull off something that successful. Plus, he'd been under the impression Baze's passion lied with plant growth and distribution. A Robin Hood-type figurehead, but with the body of an orc.

If that wasn't just a guise to hide their true intentions, then he had no idea where this girl-snatching thug could have obtained the illegal advancements. He already spent most of his time since losing the two sitting in various pubs on different levels, trying to catch rumors of any potential leads or related illegal activity. If this turned into a dead end too, he might have to manually search through every profile in the database to find a match on the guy. Which would be really flipping hard and painstakingly long since he only caught a look at the top half of the guy's face. But it would be a necessary action since his Guide found jack-squat.

He prayed to the divine Fates it wouldn't come down to that. He had a bad feeling this thug had the wits to cover his tracks and the means to do so with that modified Guide of his.

Illegal Guides in the past have always been defective, corrupt, and caused more problems than anything else. When he was a kid, he remembered his grandfather having to deal with citizens who'd gone completely lunatic after getting some kind of strange surgery by some back-alley doctor who promised to turn their Guides into something... evolved, and even required their patients to get weekly injections.