Chapter 119: Chapter 119

Rain. Buckets and buckets of it fell from the heavens, blanketing the city with a coldness so uncharacteristic of summer.

It was familiar to Artemis, this rain, but he could not recall when he had seen it, when he had stood in it. It hadn’t been as a child, or as a young adult, yet no matter how he pressed his overly taxed mind, he could not dredge up the memory.

And that frightened him.

For it wasn’t the rain that he feared but something else that loomed in that mist, something that no one else around him seemed to sense, not even the all powerful Arthur Penn.

Artemis shifted the large black umbrella he was holding to his other hand and looked out at the traffic. Or rather, the lack of it.

Traffic density on the island had declined slowly early on, but more recently it had dropped like a stone. Shops had closed, so had schools, and even the normally dense green vegetation that sneaked a living between overpasses and piping had wilted. The whole city was dying.

And the rest of the world? Artemis had heard that things weren’t any better out there, though he’d firmly stayed put these past two years right under Arthur’s nose.

He needed to regain the trust he’d lost. Needed to...

The thought deserted him and he stood dumbly as the rain came down. It was happening more and more often, the memory lapses, the incongruent thoughts, the complete shutdowns. It wasn’t just the city that was dying...

No. That wasn’t true.

Artemis straightened.

Arthur Penn had a plan and as much as it was brilliant, it was necessary. Necessary for the city and for the world. It was the only way for things to return to their proper place, back to their proper course. It would succeed. It had to. It was inevitable as history.

That reminder laid to rest the anxiety that had been building in his throat all morning and he turned with purpose and went back inside. What was the point in keeping guard outside anyway? All that did was insult the power of The Unity and of Arthur Penn.

... And it was this false confidence that made it so much easier for the start-up participants under the name of Kunpeng to make their unannounced arrival.

It was no longer raining outside but none of the group relaxed as they made their modest entry into the ostentatious building. The place had grown since the last time.

They were a small group, as befitting a small, humble start-up trying to make their mark on the world with some revolutionary open source software, with Bran leading and Zhan, Coral and Melody behind him. It was gutsy for them, especially Bran and Zhan, to just waltz in , but both had taken precautions, adjusting their appearance to ward off casual recognition, and Coral and Melody weren’t known to The Unity.

Some kilometres away but connected over discrete phone lines were Yidi and Tuesday for coordination and off-field assistance.

As for the real muscle of the operation, a group of freshly human-transformed loong and their leader the jiaolong, they were holed up in a van just down the street, ready to move when they were needed, a tablet tuned to a currently non-livestreaming channel between them.

Bran approached the front desk.

"We’re here for the presentation, but we’re a bit late..." he told the receptionist, getting out and sliding a business card over the desk. In the minute it took to cross the lobby he’d seen her receive two calls and sent a co-worker off to do something. She was clearly too busy to care much.

She glanced at the card. "Kunpeng, is it? I’ll have to make a call. Please wait."

She made a gesture and Bran and his group shuffled to the side of the front desk as the woman started to make another call.

The lobby was busy with at least three other groups of participants and at least one large contingent of press or at least online personalities. No, ’influencers’, Bran reminded himself. He had to keep up with the times.

A motorcycle squeaked to a halt just outside the revolving glass door and Bran forced himself not to turn and watch as the food delivery man came in.

He was dressed in full motorcyclist gear with a helmet and large, heat-resistant food bag in hand, and he made a beeline for the front desk, completely ignoring Bran and his group standing to the side.

When he reached the reception, he slid open the visor of his helmet and smiled.

"Hi. I’m here to deliver food for-"

The receptionist, clearly annoyed, paused her phone calling for a moment "Floor?"

"Uhh..." Misha made a show of looking at the long docket taped to the bag. "Twenty... three? I think?"

The receptionist’s gaze flicked over the motocycle helmet and the horns on the top, dismissing the horns as ornamental, likely the last vestiges of some anime geek.

"Here," she said, sliding a lanyard with a yellow card attached to it over the marble. "Keep this pass with you at all times and show it to security if they ask. Just go straight to deliver the food. Don’t even think about trying to sneak in and getting classified information." She said all this with a clipped, almost memorised manner that spoke volumes about how many times she’d had to repeat it, then returned to her phone call.

"Will do," replied Misha, taking and slinging the card around his neck. "Thanks."

Then, again, without a glance at Bran, went to the elevator lobby, made sure to flash the yellow lanyard to the security there and got into a waiting lift.

Bran followed Misha with his eyes, burning that image into his mind, knowing full well that this was likely the last time he’d see him, then forced himself to look away right as the receptionist got off the phone.

She reached under the table to pull out an open box full of, this time, blue cards on lanyards and set them all on the desk for Bran. "A spot has been reserved for you so if you could all wait with the rest of the participants over there." She gestured.

Bran picked four cards, thanked her, then, together with the others, meandered over to the crowd, distributing the lanyards as they went.

"Should I try to..." Melody made a subtle gesture to the other participants.

"Yes, but stay safe," murmured Bran.

Melody grinned and set off to tease out the latest rumours.

Bran moved toward the edge of the crowd and out of the view of too many prying eyes. Zhan and Coral went with him, giving more cover.

When they reached the wall, Bran lightly patted his chest and a small but human sized object fell to the ground from his jacket.

Bran crouched, in a pretense of tying his shoelaces, and handed Mini Colin the roll of talismen.

"Remember, safety comes first. Outer layer first, then inner. Take more time if you need to," he said quietly.

The little guy gave a solemn nod and disappeared into the shadows, talismen tucked carefully under his arm.

"Think it’ll work?" asked Zhan when Bran rose.

Bran considered how to respond.

"Yeah," he said finally. "It has to."

Bran didn’t immediately reply. Over the almost two years of living in the same building as the guy, Bran had grown to appreciate his perspective and took what he said seriously.

And did he have doubts about Misha’s place?

Yes, of course he would. It was a crazy, haphazard plan with a hundred things that could go wrong but right now, maybe that’s what was needed. No, it was definitely what was needed. Their enemy had all the advantages in the world and the only way they’d be able to steal one back would be to do something that even they couldn’t expect or plan for.

"You shouldn’t," said Zhan without waiting for Bran’s reply. Misha’s good with this kind of thing."

"He helped me out with a problem I’d struggled with for over a thousand years," explained Zhan while not really explaining. "He has a knack for fudging his way through things."

"That’s one way to put it," Bran said with a bemused smile at the memory of Misha’s prior ’fudgings’. He turned to Coral. "Right. You should be doing livestreaming. Do you need help with anything?"

Bran didn’t know the first thing about this ’livestreaming’ business, but he’d dropped in once or twice to their makeshift studio on the island and saw that it looked like a pretty complicated process that needed many hands.

And before Coral could answer Zhan had pulled out their camera and dropped it in Bran’s hands. It was a heavy camera and already hooked up to some more complicated looking machines over on Zhan’s end.

"Hey, Zhan," said Bran as he started up the camera. The screen in the centre flickered on revealing... nothing. Follow current novels on novel~fire~net

"Cap’s still on," said Zhan.

"Ah." Bran turned the camera in his hands and found the ’on’ switch.

"Are you in contact with Morgan?"

Zhan visibly bristled.

"I’m not suggesting anything," Bran said quickly. "I’m just wondering if you’re able to get a message to him."

Zhan thought for a moment, then remotely checked the volume on Coral’s microphone.

"Maybe," he said quietly.

Bran turned the camera around, unscrewed the cap on the lens then pointed the whole thing toward Coral.

"Good. Ready when you are."