Kira swiped at both ears with her sleeve, attempting to wipe away any evidence of red.
“Detailed, as always,” Raider said, squatting next to Finn.
The two fell silent as they scanned the torso and limbs.When they found nothing suspicious, they flipped the body onto its stomach to examine its back.
It didn’t take long before Finn and Raider spotted something protruding from a spot between the shoulder blades.
It looked like a spike, almost blending in with the synth armor around it.
“Is this what I think it is?”Raider asked, looking sick as Finn pulled the spike off the body.Tendrils with feelers and suckers came loose with it.
“If you think it’s a Haldeel mimic, then the answer is yes,” Kira answered, keeping her hands in her lap as Finn held it up for the rest of them to see.
Although it had Haldeel in its name, it wasn’t actually of Haldeel origin.Not entirely anyway.
The mimic was something the criminal underworld of the Consortium had reverse engineered for their own, less than upstanding, use.In actuality, it was a pretty interesting piece of tech.The mimic enabled its user to take on the appearance of their target.
Being of human design, there were limitations, of course.There needed to be a certain level of resemblance for the device to truly map the original’s features onto the copy’s.
Raider eyed the spike with fascination.“I’ve never actually seen one of these in real life.”
“That’s because they’re outlawed on all Consortium planets.”
The only way Raider would have run across one was if someone was using it to try to infiltrate any of the ships he’d served on.In that event, it was unlikely he would have realized unless the mimic got caught.
Raider slanted Kira a questioning glance.“You act like you’ve run across a mimic before.”
“You could say that.”
It wasn’t something she wanted to discuss in present company.
Raider was smart enough to know that.He left the subject alone as he took the Haldeel mimic from Finn to examine it closer.
“We need to inform Harlow of what happened,” Kira told Finn.
It made her uneasy to think of the doppelganger in their Nexus.Who knew what other places he’d visited before their interruption?
“I was thinking the same thing,” Finn said, already tapping on the forearm of his synth armor as he stepped away to contact Roake’s Overlord.
Kira listened with half an ear as Harlow’s deep voice filled the room.
“Speak.”
“We’ve identified the person who infiltrated the Nexus,” Finn murmured.
“Who is it?”
Finn glanced down at the doppelganger’s body with a grim expression.A House was defined by the loyalty of its members.Questioning that loyalty, even tangentially, would put a bad taste in the mouth of everyone involved.
“You need to find and lock down Caius.”
Stark silence echoed down the line.
“Do you have any idea what you’re suggesting?”Harlow rumbled in a carefully controlled voice.
Finn turned away from them and lowered his voice.“A few minutes ago, someone wearing Caius’s face attacked the emperor’s son.”
“Is the boy still alive?”
