Planetary News: On Earth, the alien abduction group "Aliens Are Real" has been granted permission to start a UFO religion. They will be conducting seminars in the city of Tanzanite, East African Society, every Friday, starting three months from now. Their leader, Finga Myhole, released a video after the news broke thanking the president of Earth, Julius Scissor, for his support and he hopes this will be the start of a beautiful relationship between humans and aliens–when they decide to reveal themselves to the rest of us.
Wolf had spotted Victoria peeking out from the hall The Forgotten Nuns came through while listening to them. The young woman tried to get someone's attention but failed. Everyone looked preoccupied with the gold-skinned nuns, too enchanted to notice anything else.
"Victoria," Wolf called with a low voice after sneaking out of the room. If he hadn't been fast enough, the bishops would've spotted him. A mixture of distraction and luck enabled his easy escape. "Hey, Victoria."
The woman's eyes widened in shock before she ran away from him.
Dammit! He chased her up two flights of stairs and down a hallway before catching her inside an elevator. The door closed, and he hit the 'emergency stop' button. Bending over with his hands on his knees, he took a couple of seconds to catch his breath.
"What do you want?" Victoria asked with a shaky voice. It almost boosted Wolf's fragile ego that someone was afraid of him. It just happened to be the wrong person. "I have nothing you need, sir."
He smiled at her. "But you do."
"Ew!"
"No, no, no. That's not..." He sighed, then pointed at the red cassock in her arms that looked similar to the one the bishops wore. "What's that?"
She tried hiding it under her armpit. "None uh yer business." Looking at the floor, Victoria did her best to avoid Wolf's looming gaze, as though afraid he would learn her secrets by looking into her eyes.
Wolf raised his hands. "I mean you no harm. I'm Wolf, a coyote." He took a step toward her, and she stepped back, hitting the metallic wall. "I saw your video. I'm here to save you." He lowered his hands. "Trust me, I mean you no harm."
He didn't need to spend a significant amount of time with her to know she was hiding something. Moving closer, he put his hand on the wall, staring into her eyes as she trembled in fear. "What aren't you telling me, Victoria?" She gave off eerie energy—the same as The Forgotten Nuns—making his stomach tighten in fear.
When she didn't answer, he asked a different question. "Before me, how many coyotes came here to save you?"
Victoria gulped and gave no answer.
Wolf stepped away from her. "I see." He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stay calm. Victoria didn't need to tell him anything. The answer was on her face. She wasn't skilled in deception, at least, not as good as she thought she was. "Your bounty hasn't been up for long, but the look on your face tells me other coyotes have been here and it didn't end well for them. The only way another coyote can take the same bounty within that time period is if they provide proof that the previous coyote is either incapacitated or dead."
He leaned on the wall, trying to make sense of the jumbled dots in his mind. The pieces were there, but he was still missing something. He turned to Victoria and caught her staring at him. "What aren't you telling me?"
"Someone's already here to save me. I don't know the woman's name, but she came to me in the dining hall and said my father sent her."
That wasn't the answer he wanted. She avoided his question for a reason. But still, curiosity got the better of him, and he needed to know who this mysterious woman was. "What did she look like?"
"She's short compared to you, but she has braids and a mean face."
Wolf chuckled. Victoria was definitely talking about Olivia. The hyena glared at everyone without realizing it. "Anything else?"
"Here." Victoria handed Wolf the red cassock.
"What for?"
"You're right, I haven't told you everything." She walked up to the emergency stop button and pressed it. The elevator's door opened and she walked out. "Follow me. I want to show you something."
Victoria led him to the third floor and stopped outside a green door. "Wait here," she said and went inside. Two loud thuds followed before she returned. "Come in."
Wolf entered and locked the door behind him. Nuns in blue habits and white veils lay on the floor. "Are they dead?"
"No. I knocked them out with this." She showed him a stun gun the size of a baby's fist, designed to help civilians protect themselves from kidnappings and other forms of harm.
Wolf moved his eyes away from the nuns and to the white internet box mounted on the wall, projecting four large holo-displays above it. The first screen showed the city's entrance gate, recording everyone entering and leaving. The second focused on the apartments, revealing the newcomers' conversations and various activities. The third showcased the two dining halls, focusing on the food each person ate and threw away. And the fourth recorded everything in the cathedral.
At the corner of each display, there was a number out of two hundred, stating the amount of cameras each screen had access to. "What is this place?" Wolf asked.
"The security room. They monitor everything and alert The Forgotten Nuns of any suspicious activity."
A metallic table stood below the internet cube with a wide holo-keyboard and a charging outlet beside it. Wolf removed his nano-earpiece. A wire came out of it and connected to the outlet. It would take less than five minutes to fully charge.
"The question you asked earlier, about how many coyotes have been here to save me. The answer is four. And you're right, they're all dead."
Wolf wanted to say something, but Victoria raised her hand and continued. "When you live in Goldhand, you have to be good with tech if you want to survive in The Pits. I was good at it. I mean, I still am. So when I was kidnapped and brought here, the first thing I thought about was asking for help. But my phone wasn't working, and it didn't take a genius to realize they were jamming the signal.
"During dinner, I overheard two nuns talking about serving the ones responsible for keeping an eye on the city. I asked them who these people were and they showed me. I waited for hours before the monitoring nuns left the security room.
"I picked the lock—one of the perks of them using vintage doors—and entered. I connected Lord Orc's phone to the WiFi and went to the cathedral's basement to record the message. But I was stupid. I didn't account for the cameras recording me the whole time."
Wolf looked around the room and saw the small cameras at the top corners. They were hard to be seen at first. But once you knew they were there, you could easily spot them. "Are we being recorded now?"
"No. I told you, there was a woman who came here to save me. The cassock you're wearing was for her. I put the recordings on loop."
"What happened next?"
"After I was caught, I received fifteen lashes to the back and told I had to wait a whole year before I could be purified."
Damn, that was cruel. A least she was still human. "And what about the other coyotes?"
"The nuns told me to act like I was still in need of their help when they came. I would lie to them about knowing how to escape and lead them to the purification room where they'd meet their death.
"This woman was the first one who told me she knew how to escape. I thought she was a coyote at first. But when she talked, I knew she wasn't. Coyotes have this swagger about them when they speak. She was a straightforward and no-nonsense person. She believed what she said."
Wolf loved hearing he had swagger, but the word could also mean arrogant and pompous. Which he wasn't. But most coyotes were. "Why didn't you betray me when I told you I was a coyote?"
"Because you're not here for me."
"How do you know?" Wolf crossed his arms.
"I can feel it."
Wolf sighed. "You're right. I'm here for the leader of The Forgotten Nuns."
"That would be Sister Mary."
He nodded.
"You think you can capture her?"
"I'll die trying."
Victoria pointed at Wolf's earpiece on the charging outlet. "I think it's full."
He grabbed it and put it in his ear. "Wednesday."
"I'm here, Wolf," the AI replied.
He sighed in relief. "I want you to connect to their main system."
"Alright."
Removing the earpiece, he placed it on top of the internet cube. Three wires came out of the tiny device and attached themselves to the cube's empty slots.
"If you want to know how the coyotes kept coming here within a short period of time, I'm sure it's all in there. Your AI has to crack their impenetrable firewalls first," Victoria said.
"Don't worry, Wednesday can break through anything."
"I am in," Wednesday said, making Wolf smile. That was quicker than even he had anticipated. "There's a lot here. What do you want to know, Wolf?"
"Everything," Wolf said.