Interstellar Spark

Chapter 20

Brian blinked and asked, "Where's that?"

Michael grinned, silent.

Brian marveled, "You've blown your cover, yet you're so calm. Don't you realize our faces will hit every street screen soon? The whole city will hunt us."

Michael chuckled and said, "Don't worry,I've got tricks."

Living on a perilous planet had forged his unyielding will. The danger seemed trivial, even thrilling.

The wing-car settled at a roadside lot. Across the street, a massive digital billboard cycled through sultry figures, dazzling in kaleidoscopic hues. A logo blinked: Rave Bar.

Michael perked up and asked, "We're here,join the fun?"

Brian stared, baffled. How could this man, cornered, crave revelry?

This "Firebird" grew ever more inscrutable.

Aglaia lounged in her crate, her sensors sweeping the ship's every hum and signal.

Soon, unease prickled her—not from odd data, but from none at all.

Any in-system flight demanded constant satellite chatter for traffic and updates.

Only one answer fit: the ship had cut its receivers.

Why? A chill crept through her.

Natasha's enhanced brainwaves pulsed over, wryly noting, "Augments must be cheap here if they're chauffeuring us to the lab."

Aglaia jolted awake and shot back, "No—we've got to seize this ship and bolt. They've seen through us."

Antimatter lasers flared from her flex-muscle, vaporizing the crate's lid.

She grasped why comms were dead: secrets too dire for them to hear.

Massimo was mustering forces against them.

No precious Augment would ferry mere "normals" otherwise.

Some slip had unmasked them—she didn't know what. Now, she'd face Massimo head-on, ready or not.

An egg-shaped dome lowered from the ceiling, halting just above Scarlett's neck as she sat in a metal chair.

This was the intel bureau's interrogation hall, bristling with tech to wring every secret from a mind.

Laura, the Augment beauty and bureau chief, helmed this herself—a sign of Michael's weight.

Scarlett sat alone under the "memory probe," wired in. Beyond transparent walls, a hundred experts manned tiered stations, each tending intricate devices.

Laura, petite yet sharp, gleamed with cunning in her golden eyes. She shunned combat gear for a sleek, fiber-metal jacket and pants—jet-black, baring her navel, a stark contrast to her gilded skin. She radiated allure and menace.

After Morthos and Danny, she ranked among Massimo's trusted elite.

She stood with a dozen officers on the fifth tier, peering down at Scarlett—a speck in the hall's heart.

Scarlett's body, hooked to the system, drifted into a haze as it tuned her vitals.

Laura, signaled all was set, ordered, "Start the memory scan. I want the last few days' cells."

The hall's lights dimmed to pitch black. Only the instruments' eerie glow danced around the probe, outshining any lantern.

A wide screen flared on the wall facing Scarlett's entrance. Images flickered—linked yet disjointed—from her mind's depths.