Ethos Code

Chapter 14

"But Iria!" Atlas whines. "It's 3 AM, and we aren't gonna win a fight with one of the Numbered anyway, can't we sleep?"

"And let someone die?!"

Vanta sighs, heading to her room to change. "C'mon, Atty. We'll sleep in the car. I'd feel like the worst person possible if I chose rest over someone's life."

He groans, running off to his room too.

In the car, Atlas and Vanta sleep in the backseat, Atlas' head on Vanta's, his steady breaths wiggling her bangs when he exhales.

"Since when have they gotten so close?" Iria teases Kiyoshi, who yawns.

"I think he made her soup." He mumbles.

"How's your head?" She asks him.

"It is no longer hurting a lot, so I think I am a bit more fine right now." He tells her. "I slept a lot."

"Sleep is always good," Iria tells him, yawning. "Jealous of those two back there." She gestures to the slumbering Atlas and Vanta.

"They cannot pretend to be hating each other when they are asleep." Kiyoshi grins, his shoulders bouncing with a silent laugh.

They park at their destination, an all-night club in a shady part of town. Atlas and Vanta wake up from the loud music seeping through the walls, Vanta startled and flustered by Atlas' head on hers. Bright purple and red lights peek through the guarded door as wasted young adults leave and enter with unstable knees and half-lidded eyes.

"Please be 02..." Iria mutters, getting out of the car. "This place is so packed we'll need it to be someone his height just to find him...".

"He's that tall?" Atlas asks.

"A skyscraper..." Iria yawns. "Shorter than you. Atlas, taller than your average Joe."

"So that makes me a mega-skyscraper?"

"You're a sequoia," Iria tells him, her voice slow and sleepy. "Unless you want to be a building."

"Tree it is." He laughs, getting out of the car, Vanta following his lead, her movements leisurely as her consciousness regains itself. Kiyoshi stays inside, typing away with his window rolled down.

"I hacked into their security cameras." Kiyoshi tells them. "I can see inside the building."

"Good." Iria tells him. "Everyone have their IDs on them? With exception of our resident minor? Iria points to Kiyoshi.

Atlas and Vanta nod, pulling out their wallets.

"Keep your weapons hidden, and follow my lead. Kiyoshi, stay in the car and watch, let us know if you see anything suspicious." She tells him.

They show their IDs to the bouncer and head inside. Old pop hits blare through the speakers, dim colored lights shine down from the ceiling, and drunks pack themselves like sardines in every inch and corner of the space. Iria shows Atlas and Vanta a photo of the target, a young woman with overgrown bleached hair, and they all start their search for her.

"Should we split up?" Atlas shouts over the music.

"It's one of the Numbered, that's a terrible idea!" Iria yells back.

The group sticks with one another, pressed back to back as they all observe the crowd for shady figures and suspicious activity. The air is thick with body heat and the smell of alcohol, as if it would take a single match to set the room ablaze.

"The file says the target has a short stature." Iria tells the others. "Wish she was taller, spotting a short person in a crowd is like finding a needle in a haystack."