Thunder

Chapter Eleven - 1

The kar, thankfully, was more beautiful than it had ever been, perhaps since it was built and customised down in the depths of C.A.T. Gina One, right at the tip-top of Z9's favourite list, had picked her out some more clothes, the most expensive and luxuriant that Z9 had ever worn, or perhaps seen. Her dress, a black darker than the Abyssal Cluster, was sparkling with in-laid fragments of diamond cracked out of the bottom of a cave deep under a mountain range on J'uruld, said to cost seventy thousand Zale, or as much as a casino dealer working for Chale Dogra would earn in just under a decade. The polish that had gone onto her four pairs of shoes that had been sent ahead of her and put into her room in one of the grandest hotels in Celestria, a building so tall it had to have its own protection against meteors (not that any got into striking distance of Celestria, but it had one just on the off chance regardless), cost three hundred Zale to begin with. C.A.T had made sure that Z9 was properly fitted out with the most expense that they could get away with, in order to completely blend in with those moving around The Lounge. They wanted her in there and getting the information out of Dogra without him knowing, and coming back alive if at all possible. Z9 didn't think that Gina One would let her live if she damaged the dress.

The Lounge was sectioned off from the rest of Region 2, itself the second-most expensive and classy Region of Celestria. Nobody lived here, at least not for long. It was strictly for working and relaxing. Nobody could afford to stay in The Lounge if they offered permanent accommodation, not even the biggest of stars. And the stars wondered often why anyone would even want to.

The most elegant lines and curves were woven, rather than built, into the grand architecture that rose up around the smoothest roads Z9 had ever driven on. Underneath the kar the road lit up with a soft, pale glow, an under-kar spotlight on anyone privileged enough to enter the exclusivity offered.

Unlike other areas of Celestria, The Lounge displayed no large advertising banners for the latest Halo technology, or great boards of reports from the other areas of The Empire. Each building stood tall and proud on its own, separated by great, empty swathes of golf courses or mirror-still lakes. The Lounge was exactly as it was named on the box; a place for lounging around and ignoring the hustle and the clutter of the rest of Celestria.

The hotels were gargantuan and Z9's destination, a hotel by the name of Ventus, could be seen even the eight miles away that Z9 was from it. Its roof, like that of a shimmering, orange-tinted bubble, rose proud between twin pyramidal peaks made of glittering stars.

'Dogra's apparently been sighted in one of those pyramids frequently over the last few days,' Gina One said through the kar's Halo-Core, her head appearing beside Z9. 'They're twin casinos registered as one building, so we know he goes into them but not which one.'

'Can't you just hack the security cameras? Isn't that what you guys do? Get the Marks on it or something. Isn't Mark9 only working for you because he hacked his way in?'

'How employees come to work for us is of course confidential information, young lady,' Gina One replied, pouting slightly. 'but even the Marks can't get in. The Rouge Pyramids seem to have some of the best security systems in existence.'

'Well isn't that just lovely?' Z9 remarked, cruising alongside a Torkaxion in a Viper Air Huntress, the equestrian head chuntering away to a head projected from beside him in a similar manner to the agent in the BlackSpirit beside him.

'I don't care how you do it, Z9, but you need to get him talking. Whether it's in his bed naked or with a gun to his head, we need to find out what he knows.'

'About the box?'

'The box doesn't matter now. My three obituaries do. I'd like to light three bodies knowing that they were exchanged for information, not hung, trapped and lost for free.'

'I've got it,' Z9 said, switching off the Halo-Core. Overhead the sky flickered back to night, the blackness now complete. Z9 was only dimly aware of the change, but deep in the back of her mind told her that she was moving away from a road and beginning to sail up a river into a jungle of madmen, the ascension in Celestrian Region being in actual fact a descent into a heart of darkness.