I fill him in briefly on the story.
“Currently, she’s sorting out my paperwork at home,” I finish.
Tony looks askance at the piled-up papers on my desk. “Can she come in here after and get this lot sorted?”
“The urgent stuff gets done.”
“The urgent stuff is the surveillance system you’re working on, we both know that,” Tony says. “Get your big green butt out of here, I’ll cover.”
“You’re okay overseeing the volunteer sheriffs without me?”
“No problem.”
“How’s Kazmo going?”
“Brilliant. He was the right choice for level six.”
Kazmo is a lion shifter, an engineer who works in the manufacturing areas. He’s keeping close watch on the extra munitions being sent to Sparkle from the factories down there.
Tony’s walkie-talkie goes off. He leaves the room briefly.
“What’s up?” I ask when he returns.
“A brawl on level nine last night. A naga got into a fight with a behemoth for calling him spineless. It’s all under control.”
“Good. I’m going to check the screens before I go.”
“Sure, then scarper. I’ll let you know if I need you. But I won’t.” Tony hops off the stool and exits.
Next, I go and check the screens in the control room. I’m proud of the set-up I invented, which means we have video surveillance on all ten levels. Now we can monitor exactly what is being portaled up to Sparkle on a daily basis.
I watch as crates of items from kitchenware and furniture, clothing and food stuffs are packed into a portal at the commercial factory zone on level five.
Next, I scan to the lower levels, where we mine the raw materials: iron ore, copper, titanium, silver and even some gold, which gets turned into jewelry by our artisans on level four and then sent to the fancy shops in Sparkle.
Finally, I call up Kazmo on level six, where the munitions factories are located.
“Howdy boss.” His big smile fills the screen.
“What’s happening?”
“There’s a dozen more containers of guns and ammunition being sent up daily than a month ago.”
I tighten my lips. I wish we could just block the supplies, but that would draw too much attention. We need more intel before we act, but it’s hard to be patient, when every load of munitions we let through feels like signing our own death warrant.
We need to get the bugging devices set up above ground, urgently. Place them in the offices of the of Sparkle elite.
And that task can only be undertaken by one person.
Jax Summers.
Peripheral humans who work in the Labyrinth are fitted with devices, chips that program them into submissively doing their jobs for the authorities up in Sparkle.
But not Jax.
His chip is long gone. A fake chip beams out false information. A holographic fake Jax is all the humans get to see.
It’s my cleverest invention yet.
