These elites hadn't reached the pinnacle of the underworld by taking a corporate line like 'pending verification' at face value. They would never simply brush tonight's revelations aside.
They would launch their own investigations. They would test the waters.
Didn't Obsidian Sun love hiding in the shadows?
Didn't they enjoy scurrying around like rats in the dark, pulling the strings of chaos?
Now, no matter where Obsidian Sun tried to hide, there would be countless eyes tracking their every move.
Their peace was officially over.
Beneath the mask, Jasper's lips curved into a slow, satisfied smile.
The show had only just begun.
...
As the buyers finally filtered out, the auction hall settled into an eerie quiet.
Malachi Vance and the intercepted command terminal were hauled away by the ship's administration.
The Asset Transit Hub was fully cleared.
Jerrick gave a swift hand signal.
The mercenaries surrounding the quarantine pod moved with lethal precision, escorting Specimen Fourteen toward The Quarantine Tier along the pre-cleared route.
Director Kaelen remained behind to oversee the venue lockdown and final transfer logs.
The entire route was locked down by Jerrick's hand-picked squad, the security tighter than a military vault.
Jerrick took the lead, his eyes fixed firmly ahead as he reviewed the updated tactical pathways.
Agent Knight, the operative who had briefed him on Malachi Vance's identity, jogged softly to catch up. "Captain."
He shot a cautious glance at the ship's personnel trailing nearby. Once they had established a safe buffer zone, he slipped a matte-black terminal the size of his palm from his tactical vest.
The device bore no insignia, though the edges showed signs of forced mechanical entry.
"Captain, we pulled this off the cloaked figure as well," Agent Knight murmured. Jerrick's gaze dropped, his expression darkening.
He had already surrendered the device used to issue commands to the medical mole.
But now, his subordinate had bypassed the administration entirely, secretly delivering a secondary piece of hardware.
Clearly, this held intelligence that Project Zero-Transit could not be allowed to see.
Jerrick took it smoothly, his face an unreadable mask. "What did you find?"
"Unlike the command terminal, this device contains an isolated, hyper-encrypted partition," Agent Knight reported his voice dropping to a whisper We believe this is their secure line for receiving classified internal intelligence."
"When we took him down, a remote wipe protocol had already been initiated We managed to sever
uplink just in time, salvaging a a cache of temporary files before they could be purged."
Jerrick tapped the screen, his thumbs flying as he brought up the recovery interface.
"It looks like direct intel forwarded to him by The Raven-Obsidian Sun's absolute
authority on this ship," Agent Knight explained.
Jerrick's fingers paused.
The Raven?
That was his ultimate target for boarding this vessel.
His eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.
Agent Knight leaned in even closer. "I realized they've been running a deep-dive investigation on someone."
The moment the words left his mouth, Jerrick opened the partially corrupted file.
The header of the dossier practically screamed at him.
[Target: The Panacea.]
Jerrick's eyes grew cold.
Obsidian Sun was investigating The Panacea?
Honestly, it wasn't a shock.
The woman had caused nothing but absolute hell for them tonight, humiliating the
entire syndicate on a global stage.
It would be a miracle if The Raven wasn't looking into her.
"Captain," Agent Knight muttered nervously, "Higured... since you seem pretty intensely focused on this Panacea woman, I should bring. this directly to you first. You can decide if we hand it over to the administration or not."