Inside was a huge, dome-like chamber, three-hundred feet high at its apex and double that in diameter. It was dimly lit, but throughout the vast space, Kas could see hundreds of circular desks with an equal number of lone workers trapped in their centres. The desks followed the room's perimeter in a large circle, with another slightly smaller row inside that one, then another and another until they reached the round glass heart of the room which looked to Kas like a giant black marble.
'This way,' the captain said. Kas followed him across the floor, cutting through the rows of desks towards the room's centre with the two soldiers following close behind. Kas looked around at the workers confined within their desks and saw they were surrounded by low angled monitors built into the desktops. She tried to get a glimpse at one of the monitors but she was frustrated to find it was eye-locked to its user. All she could see was a blur of indistinguishable shapes and colours.
It took a full minute to reach the centre of the room where they finally arrived in front of the giant black marble. It was at least twenty feet tall and so lustrous Kas could see her own distorted reflection in its surface. A shudder filtered through her spine when she realised it looked like a scaled-up X1 computer.
The crisp white outline of a door suddenly appeared on the marble's side and began tilting towards them in a slow and smooth motion. It touched the floor and became a ramp. From within the sphere stepped the slender shape of a woman, silhouetted against the bright white light of the marble's interior.
As Kas's eyes adjusted to the light, she saw the woman to be a tall and stern creature in smooth white skin and a blood-red skinsuit. Her silver hair was cut short in a style that imbued her with frosty sophistication. Kas put the woman somewhere in her early forties and thought her face had a touch of familiarity to it, but she couldn't quite work out why.
'Captain Mack,' the woman said.
'Governor Swanne,' the captain replied.
'What's happening with the ship?'
'It's in hangar-one awaiting repairs.'
'Repairs can wait. Is the C-Ram retrievable?'
'It is... but we are still awaiting approval.'
The woman called Swanne held out her hands as if nothing more needed to be said, but she said it anyway. 'Consider it approved.'
The captain hesitated. 'Forgive me, Governor, but approval has to come direct from the Federation. Have you contacted them with this?'
'The Federation is a little busy at the moment to be worrying about such trivial matters, don't you think?'
'Law's still law, Governor.'
The governor didn't respond to that. Instead, she turned to Kas and looked her up and down like she was something she might buy. 'So, you are the bounty hunter.'
'That's right,' Kas answered, though it wasn't a question. Swanne smiled warmly and turned back to Captain Mack.
'Thank you, Captain. You may leave us.'
The captain nodded and turned to the two soldiers. 'C'mon guys, let's go.'
'Not them!' Swanne barked, her voice unleashing surprising power. 'They can stay.'
The captain looked back at the tall woman in the doorway and raised an eyebrow. 'If that's what you want, I'll order my men to stay here.'
A sneer registered on Swanne's face, but she managed to turn it back into a lukewarm grin. 'I think you may have misunderstood your position when I gave you the job here, Captain. You are not in the army anymore. All soldiers here are under my command. I thought I had made that clear.'
The captain seemed to think hard about responding but apparently decided the wiser action was to just walk away before Swanne could patronise him any further. He was soon seen shrinking into the distance, leaving Kas trapped between the governor and the two masked soldiers.
Swanne's eyes immediately returned to Kas, shimmering a brilliant, unnatural green. She stepped almost seductively down the ramp until she was close enough to Kas to grab her by her throat. Up close, Kas saw that her skin was extremely smooth, almost synthetic, and realised that although Swanne looked somewhere in the region of forty, she was probably much, much older.
'Your name is Kas Balera, correct?'
'Correct.'
'You trained in the Lysan Academy for three years.'
Kas tried to cover her surprise, but she wasn't fast enough.
Swanne smiled. 'I used to be the Commandment there.'
The question of why Swanne looked familiar suddenly made sense. Kas had never met Governor Swanne, but she now recalled seeing pictures of her during her time in training.
'Not when I was there,' Kas replied.
'No. Otherwise, I imagine we would have remembered one another.'
'So how do you know I was there?'
'I have access to a great deal of information here, Miss Balera. A great deal.' The governor's green eyes started to glow as they began darting from side-to-side. Kas realised they were bionically enhanced. The governor was reading, pulling knowledge out of the air just like the money handler had done back in the Artisseum. 'Your assessment scores were high... very high... but you did not graduate. Why not?'
'The academy didn't suit me; I didn't suit the academy.'
'And it took you three years to realise?'
'Didn't take me three days. But I got what I wanted.'
'And what was that?'
'A free education and federal combat training.'
The governor looked back at Kas and the green glow in her eyes faded. 'So you're a federally trained bounty hunter. Congratulations. And how do you like it, the life of a glory seeker?'
Kas chewed on the question for a moment and didn't like the taste. She decided to try one of her own. 'So what is this place? Nobody has been kind enough yet as to tell me where I am.'
'As they shouldn't. But I don't see the harm in telling you now since you're already here. Welcome to Eidol, Miss Balera.'
'Eidol? Never heard of it.'
'I would be concerned if you had. We are a private facility. We don't like to advertise our whereabouts.'
'Why not? You got something illegal going on here?'
Swanne grinned. 'Hardly. Eidol is fully sanctioned by the Federation.'
'Oh yeah? Sanctioned for wha--'
Kas stopped herself short when her gaze was drawn to a gleaming shape moving in the marble's doorway. One of the bio-mech panthers had arrived at the top of the ramp and was looking back at her with an impenetrable stare that quickened her pulse. Unlike the other panthers which had been black, this one was entirely silver. And it was big, almost twice the size of the other three she'd seen. Swanne saw Kas's anxiety and smiled.
'Her name's Kymeira. Beautiful, isn't she?'
'Not sure that's the word I'd use.'
'You're not a fan of bio-mechs.'
Kas forced herself to look away from the beast and back at Swanne. 'You could say that.'
'Then I'm afraid you won't like it here very much. A major part of our facility is dedicated to creating bio-mechs. We have over five-hundred panthers on patrol around Eidol.'
Kas's mouth dried up instantly. 'And what are they patrolling, exactly?'
The question seemed to please Swanne who had a knowing smile on her lips. Instead of answering, she looked over Kas's shoulder and addressed the soldiers.
'You two, stay here.' She turned back to Kas. 'You, come with me.' Without waiting for a response, Swanne turned and walked back up the ramp as elegantly as she'd descended. The silver panther stepped aside and followed at her heels until they'd both disappeared into the brightly lit marble.
Kas looked at the open doorway and wanted nothing more than to turn around and walk back the way she'd come, but a nudge from one of the soldiers encouraged her towards the ramp. With hesitant feet, she consented.