“Really?! That’s all you’re going to say? No argument?!” Kore sputtered.
With her hair a forest-green color today, Dessa giggled. “Aside from the fact that taking a former Bureau Agent to a meeting with Jurosso Condi, the boss of the Condi Syndicate, would be highly unrecommended, I feel I must point out the other side of the stupid equation… How is Jurosso going to react toseeingCyrus there?”
“I mean, the man will likely already be aware of the shake up at the North American Branch, so he probably won’t care. He may even find it hilarious that he’s working for us now,” Soren mused, before sneering, “If you could call what he is doing here working.”
“Be nice!” Ender snapped. “Besides, we can have him disguised to avoid problems. No one has yet been able to detect when we’ve used the Perm Shadow Shells, so it shouldn’t be an issue.”
“Let me get this straight,” Cyrus said stiffly, the Fate seeming to finally snap out of his shock. “The plan is…you are going to meet Jurosso Condi, a highly dangerous Cerberus, who is a known fucking arms dealer and drug lord, who, oh, by the way, likes to traffic things andrareCryptids, while you are six months PREGNANT, and happen to be a very rare and almost extinct species of Cryptid that is worth who knows how many millions on the fucking black market! Is that right, or did I accidentally leave some of the stupidity out?”
The Harpy snorted. “Yep, that’s pretty much what his dumb ass intends to do.”
“Toddles!” he hissed.
“What?!” his brother huffed. “I agree with him. While he has been zoning in and out during these meetings, I, and the rest of us, have been telling you for weeks that it’s a dangerous, bad fucking idea, ever since you brought it up!”
Ender glared at the mutinous bastards around the table when everyone started murmuring in agreement. “I need what he has!”
“We could find a different source,” Arco rasped.
“Quickly and easily?”
The Cerberus wrinkled his nose, before admitting with a sigh, “No.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“What could you possibly need from him that would be so hard to get elsewhere?!” Cyrus growled.
“A pixie-powered gem rod.”
The Fate’s eyes grew wide. “Fucking hell, Ender, what are you building?!”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out!” he huffed.
Well, it wasn’t even anything super secretive. Ender was just trying to make a cool laser. Besides, he planned to kill Jurosso later. They’d been tracking the bastard’s operations in the continent, so they could obliterate it when the time was right.
Until then, he’d use the man’s vast reach to get the specific materials he wanted and finally make his giant laser! Because he needed it.
Ender didn’t necessarily have any current plans to use it, but he would have it in case he ever did. And there was a possibility he would. The world was always teetering on the edge of war, no matter how peaceful the humans were pretending to be now! Also, they’d be stealing intel at the same time, so like, double purposes—multitasking for the win!
“Is whatever it is really worth the danger?” Cyrus asked, after staying silent for a few moments.
Ender slowly ran his hand over his extended baby bump. “I know it’s dangerous, but that’s why you are going with us. So we know when something’s off.”
“Killian is going to kill us both when he finds out.” The Fate’s gaze trailed over everyone else, before adding, “And possibly all of you for not stopping him.”
The others winced and started avoiding eye contact, while the two holograms had the audacity to blink out—the cowards! He wasn’t sure if he should be proud or annoyed that the Siren had somehow managed to ingrain a sense of fear in his people.
Ender cleared his throat. “Killian may be your boss, but he is not theirs, and he certainly is not mine.”
“Is that so?” Cyrus mused with a smug smirk. “Then tell him. Tell him exactly what you have planned.”
Ender wrinkled his nose. “No, I don’t think I will. Either way, this meeting is over since things have been decided. You can all leave. Kaisa, go and make sure that the people who are going with me are getting prepped to leave.”
Kaisa, who had candy-apple hair at the moment, nodded. “Want me to pick someone to stay behind, since Cyrus will put us over the negotiated forty-five people limit?”
“Yeah, do that.”
With that said, aside from Soren, the rest of Cryptid Means’ inner circle left.
