28. Nico

The cloakedsolo zips through the water. I won't tell him, but it's pretty smart how he's using the currents flowing off the buildings to keep us from being noticed. We're past Braesen dome, a brass monstrosity with large-winged animals molded onto the side of it, before I turn off the cloaking device on myself. My eyes have been flitting to the massive crack on the side of the front glass. "Nice crack." I touch it. A few more blows, and I would have been through. An impressive feat, seeing the glass isn't supposed to be able to break at all. Then again, neither was the glass on top of the Maelstrom.

"Fuck you. I was trying to help you."

"I know that now. But in retrospect, it's a good thing you didn't."

He nods and takes a sharp turn to the right, following the faint wake of a solo that passed this way before us. Honestly, he's good at what he's doing. He's picking up everything. He's piloting almost as well as Holter does.

Darting between two of the agricultural domes, he follows a group of larger fish until he cuts through another two smaller, older domes. Back in Glyden, he wouldn't say where we were going before the silos. He pulls into a dome that appears flooded. If this is the place he keeps his highest tech, it doesn't seem safe at all. There was no access code on the opening, and the bottom of the dome is a mess of junk.

"Hold on," I say.

I'm not strapped in. I've been in too many situations where I needed to pop out of a solo and shift, and a restraint would have killed any time advantage. I slide flat against the door as the solo turns on its side. I have to brace my feet against the floor to keep from going flying. The solo rises, and then he flips back flat. Here, there's air above the solo.

Eros wears a cocky smile. "I did say ‘hold on.' Stay here. I'll grab what I need and be right out."

"No, we move together." We went over that detail before. Going alone is for heroes, and I've had enough of being a hero. We need to get the job done. Get the tech that can analyze the Vitrom governor's box and get the hell out of here. This mission already had one too many stops.

"Fine. This way." Eros shines a dim directional light, the same kind we used on missions to keep the light high enough to see but low enough others couldn't make it out. The walls are damp. He puts his hand on the door, and an invisible biometric scan opens it.

I touch the door. We had some amazing tech on board the Centauri but nothing like this. "I wouldn't even have seen it."

"Exactly. The security council likes to keep the best toys for themselves."

"I can see that." I'm not often impressed, but that door was something else. The rest of the room is small but dry. There are only a few things on a shelf and a table in the center of the room. Eros pulls a case out of his inside jacket pocket.

He places a device in the center of the table and positions the case in the middle of it. "I'm scanning it first before I open it." Eros unlocks a drawer with his palm. He places a capsule next to Tristan's. "This one has poison in it." He lets it sit on the table for a minute. The two look a heck of a lot alike, down to the shade of paint.

"Damn, they're almost an exact match."

"I'm sure that's not a coincidence. Now you see why I didn't open it in the apartment."

"Fuck." I scrub my hand over my face. "Right. Need me to do anything?"

"Not touch anything. I want to get out of here as fast as possible."

I nod. I'm not used to being out of my element, but I get it.

He scans it. "Gas. But there's something else in there." He opens the drawer and puts it next to the other one. "It's not a gas I know enough about to open. I think we should leave it here and get the hell over to the silos and back to Zaffiro."

"Agreed."

He loads us up with a high-tech trident each. The thing is perfectly balanced. I arch my eyebrow at him. Again, I'm impressed. This is the finest trident I've held in my hand. The fact that the security council is holding it back from our military is infuriating.

Leaving, I fasten the safety restraint this time.

"I normally turn the other direction," says Eros. "You got off easy. But I didn't want your ass in my lap."

"Thanks," I grunt.

The agricultural area of the city is huge, and while we're heading to the silos, we're almost as far away from them now as we were in Glyden. This time there's no airlock, no semi-abandoned dome. We both peel off our clothes. Eros retracts the roof of the solo, and we swim out of it.

This way. He circles up the inside of the silo to an airlock door. We talked about what would happen next. The airlock is rudimentary, an old one. Surprisingly, it hasn't been replaced. We squeeze in together. It's just a transition to air, no second lock as a precaution to keep things from flooding and no freshwater rinse.

The airlock opens to a chamber inside the top of the silo.

"It's about fucking time. You're getting slow in your old age," a voice says. Michio and Forrest appear out of the ether. There's a white disc on the center of each of their chests. The individual cloaking works even better when it isn't being shared.

Eros pulls Michio into a hug, and I greet the governor of Stele with the traditional arm gesture.

"What the hell happened?" Eros holds his older brother's shoulders.

"We have a lot to explain. But you're sure you weren't followed?"

"Yes. There's no movement in the city. I've never seen it like this, not even when we believed the Vikings were going to get through our defenses." Eros shakes Michio a little. "What the fuck happened?"

"That's a long story."

"Boil it down."

"Forrest got wind that another agent working for a security council member was planning something, a hit on a governor or stealing tech—the source wasn't clear."

"I didn't know who to trust. Not even my own agent. So I turned to Michio. I procured the cloaking devices for the two of us. I was hopeful that with Michio's youth and agility, he would be able to help me."

I can hear Little Krill's voice in my head now. If they knew there was going to be an attack, why didn't they stop it, cancel the plans? But a Dorian would never give the upper hand to an enemy. "You had the element of surprise."

"Yes."

"And that's why you didn't invite any of your family members."

"But me," grumbles Eros. "You could have given me a heads up."

"I did tell you to come alone."

"You did. But my mate didn't come with me. She was invited by Porcia, the Koralli governor's mate. Whom you obviously didn't warn about anything."

"The only ones we were sure weren't involved were the two of us and Castor. He's had his head so full of courting your mate, there's no way he would be involved in a coup. Once you and your mates showed up, he was totally in the clear. As were all of you." Forest pulls up a three-legged stool from the corner of the building and sits.

"And you knew the building was going to come down?" Eros asks.

"Of course not." Forrest stands, his hand to his chest. "I would never want citizens to be killed."

"No, we had the cloaking device because my source said there was going to be a diversion before whatever happened. I never imagined the whole dome coming down. I would never have run into the administrative building." Michio's head shakes.

"That's one hell of a diversion." I nod at the Stele governor.

"Absolutely. And what do you need a diversion for?" The older male's eyes widen. "To do something else. But what is there to do in the Maelstrom? We don't keep anything of consequence there. Nothing but what citizens bring in."

I give him another nod.

"That's what Nico thought too. The tech the governors bring in," Eros says.

"Yes, when the first crack appeared and people started to scatter, Michio and I went to the lobby and into where the lockers are—were. Someone else cloaked was ripping them open."

"Did you—" Eros begins.

"I intercepted him. Fighting when you can't see your hands is not easy, especially when you can't see your enemy. I didn't mean to—he fell against one of the locker doors he had torn apart, and the sensor for the cloaking device fell off him. He had a large hole in the side of his neck. He was dead before he hit the floor," Michio growls.

"Who was it?" I ask.

"Honestly, I have no idea."

"We also have these." Forrest holds up a bag of tech, blocks, tablets, and weapons. "We figured if they wanted them, we wanted them. The whole thing didn't take long. The dead male had already gathered everything. It was Michio's idea to come here and not go home. But we also don't want to turn any of these on, not when the silo isn't shielded. It's only a matter of time before we're found—we turn them on, and it's going to look like we're the masterminds of the whole thing." Forrest taps the bag.

"We solve who did it, and we can clear your names. The list of dead is short. Tristan Bellucci of Vitrom is one," I say.

"Damn. It wasn't him. But the city won't miss that bastard." But I catch the look in Michio's eyes and know what this means. Eros is free.

"No, definitely not Tristan. The others on the list of dead are a Seolfor parking attendant, who was seen helping others escape; a Tinom clerk, Dimitri Oragon, found on the upper levels; a Vitrom guard; and a cousin of the Braesen governor."

"I knew Oragon. It wasn't him. Damn shame. He'll be missed. Braesen wouldn't be mixed up in something like this. It must be the Vitrom guard." Forrest nods.

I don't glance at Eros. He has to be thinking what I am, which is that the Braesen aren't the innocent, friendly animal-lovers that everyone's always thought them to be. They're the true power-hungry dome. And they're going to try to pin this rebellion on others.

"Still, we should talk to both families." Eros is being a lot more diplomatic than my gut says is necessary.

"Somewhere in here is the answer to everything." Michio takes the bag from Forrest.

I can't help but think that explaining this is going to take more effort than fighting off the giant eel and coming back from the chasm. But then, I trusted I could do that; we can do this as well. "You can't stay here. This sector isn't scanned often, but with the lockdown, no amount of personal cloaking is going to keep you from being blown to bits if they decide to terminate a threat."

"Why do you think I sent you the message? I knew you would have somewhere to take me."

"Why would your brother have a safe... You." Forrest points. "You're a security council agent?" That was definitely a question I had never heard asked before.

"Not anymore." Eros's tone dropped. Yeah, he didn't like being asked, and I don't blame him. It's a rotten shrimp shell of a thing to ask. Even here. Even now.

"Bellucci's. I understand. I will never say a word. I'm in debt to you. I swear upon my lost mate's soul, I will never utter a word."

Eros extends his arm to Forrest, and they seal Forrest's vow. "I'll take you to my tech hut. It's shielded, and I keep emergency food supplies there. No one but me knows the location of it. You'll be safe there for a few days. The two of you can spend your time analyzing the data from the tech you found while we come up with a plan to clear your names. Let's go. Nico, I'll be back for you in an hour. If I don't return after a day, make your way into the agricultural dome. You'll find an old Zaffiro male living there. Tell him I sent you. He'll help you until the curfew is lifted."

"Eros." I call him back into the room. "Don't come back for me. I'll use the cloaking device and make my way to Zaffiro. I have a stop I want to make first."

He glares at me. "Stop? Where?"

"Braesen. I know someone in Braesen who might have the answers we need."

Eros glares at me, but I'm not giving him any more than that. "You come the fuck back. Sunshine wouldn't like not having your disgusting face around."

He gives me a curt nod and slips through the silo's airlock. I wait until they're gone and slip out. Enough with playing coy.