Claustrophobia

Chapter Four - Genesis - 3

Z9 turned left, away from the stairwell that Ser-Serad had descended, and back the way she had came.

If I go down there now, she thought, and she is working with Ser-Serad, then my cover is blown wide open. I can't afford that, not yet at least.

If she's working independently, that's a ridiculous coincidence.

And if she's completely innocent in all of this... well then she's fucking awful at timing.

Z9 pondered where to go from there, having now abandoned her current mission for the mean time. She found the staircase up the floors and took it, heading back to her cabin. She ran her hand along the balustrade as the other passengers walked past, her rings glinting in their eyes as she climbed. On her floor she checked the time. The night was beginning to come on fast, but it was still relatively early. Time enough to go for a complete, corridor by corridor wander of the ship. They wouldn't be stopping at anywhere until late tomorrow, when they landed on Crorst.

DyGleyre, Mysen and Ser-Serad are all definitely on board, she thought. I need to know if the other two are.

She got to her cabin, walked in and went to her closet. She removed two of the three guns, Alphas, a 52 and a 54 (hating that her 58's hadn't been smuggled in), and took out a few more, small recorders from behind them. She shoved them in her pocket, restocking her supply.

'Should have taken more in the first place,' she whispered to herself.

She knew from the blueprints she had memorised in Infosleep and through personal examination, that her room had no surveillance in it. The corridors did, but the cabins not. The only decent places, it seemed to her, for murder.

I know that Kron is physically the weakest, Z9 mused. He's got a condition which makes his bones weaker than ordinary. He's probably got another passenger as a guard, however. I can't get him alone so easily.

I need my own source of knowledge. I need a spy of some kind, someone to unknowingly get me information.

A face came to mind instantly. She turned and prepared the bed.