Reks Arlen
After initiating a lockdown on his suspect's room, he went back down the hallway towards his lab. With the restoration of his vision, the current state of his home was unavoidable. The layers of dust and grime overlaying everything in sight acted as an ominous prohibition to what he'd soon learn.
Leveling villages and tropical forests and converting all that life into uncharted deserts doesn't happen overnight, let alone in a decade.
"This place is a damned mess. Begin a vacuum seal on all unoccupied rooms," he instructed his Guide, walking through the lab and down the opposite hall. The quiet hum of the vacuum created white noise as it sucked the dust particles up through its cleaning system.
Once that was in motion, Luk pulled up a hologram projection of the interface a couple feet in front of his face, along with video footage of the suspect sitting with a blank expression on the bed.
Reks paused before reaching the master bedroom.
He narrowed his gaze on the live clip, studying her little hologram form. The girl could have been Ellison's twin, if not for the absence of moonlight-white hair and glacial eyes, along with a couple minor details. He had been sure it was because she wore a glamour disguise, but those could only be activated with a Guide. And this girl was Guideless.
Impossible, or unheard of at the very least.
He stared harder, trying to pick out the differences between the two. This girl, Amelia, her skin tone looked a couple of shades darker and had a splash of little brown freckles across her nose. Most orleizens didn't have freckles, only some seasoned off-planet soldiers and researchers whose prolonged missions kept them under specific suns came back with a handful of the little blemishes.
He was certain Ellison didn't have freckles. However, the two shared the same upturned eyes, high cheekbones, small nose, cupid lips...
Reks ran a hand through his damp hair. He had planned to use the ovo during the interrogation, just like he had done countless times in his role as vitiate. But he couldn't bring himself to do it this time. Not when she looked the way she did, not when she blubbered so sincerely.
Blazing stars... He pinched the bridge of his nose.
As the humming sound of the vacuum ended in the bedroom, he opened the door and made his way to the closet. Not a speck of dirt was left in the room. Good as new.
"Alright Luk. Pull up Ellison's status and location." Reks pulled his attention back to the interface, touching and dragging things on the holographic screens.
His Guide complied, searching the system. After a couple minutes went by, he wondered if Luk still suffered an aftershock from the paralysis. It normally didn't take long to find her location, unless she was in the Void. He kept himself busy during the wait, finding his spare uniform shirt.
~I am experiencing... difficulty finding the empress.~
The way Luk phrased it, it was as if the synthetic snake was biting its tongue. "What do you mean by difficulty? Like she's gone back to the Void?"
~It's hard to say.~ Luk drew out.
At the same time, movement in the suspect's room caught his attention. She was banging on the door now, calling out to him about thinking she had internal bleeding. Where had that accusation come from? He hardly laid a finger on the girl. Well, now that he thought about it, she did look pretty banged up once his vision resurfaced. And she did mention running into trouble with the crystalline monsters.
YOU ARE READING
The Moon's Fangs | 1
Fantasy{star-crossed romance/forced proximity/18+} Normally, intergalactic drama doesn't reach into any place as backwater as the Milky Way Galaxy, let alone a planet as primitive as Earth. But an exception is made in Amelia's case. She is thrown into a d...
