 
## Planet Secrets

By Trisha M. Wilson

Edited by Colby Trax

A Tale of Following the Ancients

Planet of Riches Volume 1

First Serialized at WWW.COLBYJACK.NET

Copyright © 2014 by Trisha M. Wilson

Cover by Trisha M. Wilson

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Colbyjack.net Serial Tale

Smashwords Edition 2017.10.28

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

##  Table of Contents

Planet Secrets

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

About The Author

Works from Colbyjack.net

##  Chapter 1

I was in college for twelve years before I received my bachelor's degrees.

But don't for one moment think it took me three times the norm because I was stupid. In reality, I'm quite intelligent, if I do say so myself.

It took me so long because I was unable (or one could say unwilling) to choose a major and stick with it.

Oh, I'd be fine in a program for a year or two, but usually when I was only a semester away from graduating, I'd become bored, dislike my classes or teachers, and become interested in some other major.

It's not like the system prevented me from doing this. They actually encouraged it by paying for all twelve years of tuition, housing, food, and a nice stipend to spend on whatever I wanted.

Eleven wonderful years into my post-secondary educational career, and just as I was contemplating changing my major yet again, this time to underwater basket weaving, I was called into the academic adviser's office and "encouraged" to stick with my current major and graduate in a year.

And by encouraged I mean threatened. They actually threatened to cut me off. No more free tuition, no more free food, no free housing, and even worse, no free money. What is the world coming too when you can't get free money for going to school? Have they no pity for the poor college student just trying to find herself?

I guess not. I could tell by my adviser's tone he wasn't kidding. I really did have to graduate or be thrown out. Either option was fine with them. They just wanted me gone as soon as possible.

After I'd gotten over my shock, I promptly began inquiring with neighboring colleges. Would they take me, with all my faults, and allow me to continue studying?

I soon found out the answer was no.

When I met with each of the other schools' advisers something weird kept happening. At first, they would happily welcome me, offering me hot chocolate and cookies almost before I'd even sat down.

But once the normal pleasantries were over, the real interview would begin. How old was I? Had I ever been to college before? What did I hope to major in? How long did I plan on being at their school?

These were ordinary questions and I always answered truthfully. Not that I could have really lied. For all they'd have to do was enter my name into their database and find out about my attendance at Wukie University.

Once they learned I'd been in school for eleven years, their expressions would change. And so would their questions.

They'd start asking me why I'd been in school for so long.

Why I wanted to come to their school.

And, when did I plan on graduating.

The answers to these questions were tricky.

I didn't want to lie, but I felt I had to.

I really wanted to keep getting the free ride, and keep growing my bank account for as long as humanly possible.

If I told the truth, I wouldn't even have had a chance.

So I lied.

I said my teachers were mean to me, the classes too difficult, and I wanted to come to their school to get a new start. I wanted to start over with a new major in hopes of forgetting what had happened in the past. As to when I'd graduate, I became very vague. I'll graduate when I can, I'd say to them. I was unwilling to be definite with a year or any timeframe at all.

Something about what I said must have come across as shady because that's where the interviews would end. They'd say they were sorry but they didn't have any room for me. They thanked me for my interest and encouraged me to graduate from my current school.

Effectively, here's your hat, there's the door, don't let it hit you on the way out.

I knew what they were thinking; it was plastered all over their faces. They thought I was too stupid for their high and mighty schools. They only wanted the best and brightest and to their way of thinking, I wasn't, just because I'd been in school for more than a decade.

I didn't take it personally, but after going through fifteen different schools, I came to the shocking conclusion my free ride was ending. This realization left me in a weird position.

I'd never really believed I'd really have to go out into the workforce. I'd always thought I'd slip through the cracks of the educational system, able to be funded for my entire life.

I mean, being a student is really not such a bad thing. Yes, the homework is boring, but when you only do what you need to in order to pass the class, how much is there really?

Not that some of my classes weren't interesting, because they were. Some of my favorite classes were on astronomy, exploring the heavens and the millions of planets in the universe. I was very sad when I had to change majors again because the last class, Legends of the Universe, sounded like a seriously interesting class.

But now that I did have to graduate, why not take the class? I'd just tack it on with my other classes in Logic.

Later, after looking at my schedule I also decided I might as well finish up my major in Bakery Science. Sure, it would mean I was graduating with three majors, but if I had to graduate, I might as well have fun to the very end because what was life without a little fun?

##  Chapter 2

"One of the oldest legends in the cosmos is of a planet of riches," Professor Addy said as she paced in front of the large classroom. "Planeta Divitiarum is how the Ancients referred to it and they believed that this one planet, out of the ducentillions which exist in our universe, contained infinite riches. What exactly these riches are is unclear for the tomes use extremely vague language and untraceable references, but over the years many experts have speculated as to what these riches could be.

"The majority of these experts postulated that the term 'riches' meant gold, silver, and other precious metals which have been sought after for millions of years. Others believe the planet is dripping in jewels such as natural red diamonds, benitoite, and musgravite." She paused for a second, looking around the room, before continuing.

"There is yet a third, very minor but vocal group which believe the Ancients meant none of those trivial, consumerist objects, instead indicating that the planet was abundant in water, food, metals, and minerals. All of which are items the Ancients would have been in desperate need of, especially during the Great Tendo.

"The Great Tendo, which you'll remember from your other history classes, was the period when the Anarchists were most heavily bombarding the Ancients. This bombardment made it almost impossible for anyone to farm or mine, which would have been necessary to replenish their supplies, especially after the Ancients' own military campaigns.

"Along with the name of the planet, the scrolls, which remain, give directions for one to find the planet in question. But again, these are not the type of instructions which one can follow easily like take a right at the quad, a left at Henning's Café and the Planet of Riches will be the first door on your left."

The class laughed at this. This was an old joke spanning many years. There was no quad, never had been a Henning's Café, and certainly no door on the left. This was, however, where the older students tried to send the naive freshman who didn't know anything. It was always hilarious when they asked for help finding said quad and everyone gave them conflicting directions.

When the laughter finally died down, she continued. "For the thousands of years since these documents were rediscovered, scholars and laymen alike have been trying to follow the directions, but nobody has yet found the very elusive Planeta Divitiarum."

Professor Addy stopped speaking again, breaking the intense concentration that I'd had on her. I was always fascinated with the stories she told us. Every single one was different and new and mind-blowing.

I glanced around the room and saw Meredith Oblinger with her hand up.

By the Ancients I hated Meredith. She always had to raise her hand when things were getting interesting. She couldn't go a half hour without having to say something, even on test days.

She was a thorn in my side.

No, not a thorn, a sword.

She was the ever present sword thrust into my side.

If I could have shipped someone off to the Zandana System, which was well known for its inhumane conditions and high mortality rates, it would be her.

"Yes, Meredith?" Professor Addy said. She sounded as fed up with Meredith's questions as I was. She probably was. From what some of my classmates had said, this was her fifth class with Meredith. Could you imagine having to put up with this annoying creature for five semesters? I couldn't. Or maybe I really didn't want to.

"Doesn't _anyone_ have any idea as to where this rich planet could be?" Meredith's nasal voice grated on my sleep deprived nerves.

I'd been up partying at the Den of the Ancients, the poshest space club in the area. (Space clubs were only considered such because the decor made one feel as if they were in space. There were stars on the walls, the ceiling, and even the windows. The only music they played were those of space musicians, and since most of these musicians liked to imitate the sounds they heard in space, you could almost feel like you were in space.

And if all this wasn't enough for you, the employees of the club wore skimpy space outfits, usually metallic in nature, selling only drinks and food you'd find sold in starbases. All of this added up to a feeling you weren't on your own planet anymore, instead were moving around with the stars.)

Not only were all the men who got into the club loaded, they were also smoking hot. Since I hadn't gotten out of the club until six in the morning, I'd barely had enough time to change clothes and eat something. Sleep, however, would have made me late, and I would rather be blurry eyed and sleep deprived than miss this class.

Legends of the Universe was the most interesting class I'd ever come upon. The prof, Harmony Addy, was energetic, engaging, and a joy to have as a teacher. She didn't give us stupid or pointless reading assignments, her tests were fair and open note, and her door was always open to her students. All and all, she was the best teacher I'd come across in my twelve years of college and I'd had some really good teachers during my time.

It was really too bad this was the only class I had with her. I would have loved to take all her classes – as long as I was guaranteed they'd all be like this one. But, alas, that was not to be. What with the school's administrators breathing down my neck like an old man having an asthma attack. They wouldn't hesitate to kick me out if I didn't graduate this semester.

I wished they'd kick Meredith out. She didn't deserve the free ride. Nobody as grating on the nerves and temper should be allowed to have a free ride.

I saw Addy barely suppress a sigh. "As I said before, nobody knows the location of the Planet of Riches. If they did, it wouldn't be a legend, now would it?"

"I guess not," Meredith said, frowning. When she frowned, which was all the time, it made her ugly face even more impossible to look at. "But you'd think in this day and age, when we've charted ninety eight percent of the universe, we'd have found it by now. I mean, it's not like the Ancients could travel far from Earth, could they?"

"While what the Ancients could or could not do is covered in another class, I will say we should never underestimate what they could have possibly done. Their technology was very advanced for their time, much of which we are only now rediscovering. I think it is completely possible for them to have traveled to the outer rims of our universe, found a planet which we haven't discovered yet, and come back in a relatively short amount of time."

"But –"

"Today's class is not about what you believe the Ancients could and could not do. It is about myths dealing with different and very unique planets. If you have a problem with me continuing with my lesson, you can leave for the day."

Meredith sat back in her chair looking as if Addy had slapped her. I, however, was not really surprised by Addy's words. It had been only a matter of time before she snapped and ripped off Meredith's head with her bare hands.

I was just glad it was in my presence. I love seeing people put in their place.

There was silence for a few moments before Addy started speaking again. "As I was saying, the Planet of Riches, while unique to the Ancients, isn't the only planet to be mentioned in the scrolls of different ancient cultures. Another planet is..."

Addy's words rolled over me. I listened and took in the information but my mind was elsewhere. I was too fascinated with the Planet of Riches to care about any of the other planets she was talking about. Who would have ever thought there could be one planet in the universe which was dripping in wealth?

Even without more information, I could already picture the planet and me, covered in large jewels, glistening with gold.

This mental picture of myself started my hunt for the Planet of Riches.

##  Chapter 3

I had to do something about Meredith. I couldn't take her anymore. She was nasty, disgusting, and had the worst habits I'd ever seen. She couldn't arrive anywhere on time, she wanted me to do everything, and she smelled horrible. You'd think that in this age, she'd know what a sonic shower was, but evidently not.

After two weeks of being partnered with her on a project, and being subjected to her disgusting self, I'd come to a decision: it was either her or me.

There really wasn't any other way forward.

Either she left, died, or quit this class or I did.

And I wasn't going to be the one to capitulate. 'Never give up, never surrender,' that was my motto. And me leaving, that would be a horrible surrender of this unspoken war we were in.

"Meredith," I said casually after making my decision she needed to go away, "don't you find this class difficult?"

"Yeah, but I need it," she answered, wiping her runny nose with her sleeve.

It took everything within me not to throw up at the disgusting sight. Didn't she know what a tissue was?

"You could always transfer schools. I hear that Dong University is a good school." I didn't even know what type of school it was. I really didn't care, I just wanted her gone and if by lying she left, great.

"I've heard that, and I'm really thinking about transferring, but I'm not going to do it midsemester."

"Why not?" Why wasn't she going to leave me alone?

"Oh, you know how it is."

"No, I don't. Explain it to me." I had to grind my teeth together to stop from screaming at her. Maybe she'd be able to come up with a good enough reason for me not to do something extreme – like kill her where she sat.

"I like this school and my roommate and I don't really want to transfer right now. I don't want all my hard work in my classes to go down the tube either."

Hard work? What hard work? I'd yet to see her do a single thing for this class project. I don't even think she did the minor amount of homework assigned by Addy. No, her answers were weak at best, pathetic at worse.

"But just think about how exciting it would be to go someplace different. New teachers give you a brand new start. I _really_ think it would be best if you leave soon. Today even. I just don't think this is a place you should stay."

Meredith looked at me weirdly, as if not understanding what I was trying to say. "No," she said firmly, "I'm staying through this semester." And with that, the subject was closed.

Or so she thought.

On my side of the battlefield, the subject was still open for debate and action.

She was unwilling to leave voluntarily.

That was fine with me, I didn't mind if she wanted to do things the hard way. Well, hard for her.

For me, what I had planned would be very fun.

##  Chapter 4

I started making a list of things I needed to do in order to achieve my goal.

Operation: No More Meredith

1. Find out where she lives

2. Find someone to take her away

3. Decide where to send her

4. Celebrate when she's gone

The first item on my to-do list should have been the easiest of them all. Since we were partners on the blasted project, I decided to suggest that we meet at her place to work. Thus enabling me to get her address and check task number one off the list.

"Why don't we meet up somewhere?" I suggested over the videophone a week after I'd kindly warned her away.

"Why?" Meredith asked, looking bored and completely uninterested in our project. Or was that how her face always looked? Sometimes, it was hard to tell if her facial expressions ever changed.

"Because it'll be easier to work on our presentation. I'll come over to your place and we'll be done in no time." That wasn't exactly true. It would be hours before our presentation was done, if we worked diligently and without interruptions. But a little lie never hurt anyone.

"You can't come here," she said. "Why don't we meet at the library?"

"Fine. The library in an hour?" Damn! Why wouldn't she let me come over?

"Yeah, an hour." The videophone screen went dark.

I got up and paced around my apartment, trying to figure out what to do now. She obviously didn't want me at her dorm. Why? What was she hiding? Was she filthy rich and paranoid I'd steal something of value? More likely she was the messiest, dirtiest person at school and was too ashamed to have anyone over and see how she lived.

If she didn't want to tell me where she lived, I could live with that. It just meant I'd have to find out where she lived some other way.

And maybe dig deeper into who exactly Meredith Oblinger was.

I looked at the clock and saw I still had fifty minutes before I had to be at the library and since I knew she'd be at least half an hour late I had plenty of time to start looking into Meredith's past.

Who knows, maybe if I find something good I could use to blackmail her into dropping out of school.

With that cheerful thought, I grabbed my two year old tablet, booted it up and sat down on my ergonomic, body hugging couch. From experience, I knew it would take a few minutes for it to be ready for my use. Since I was a student, I was given old technology nobody else wanted and was expected to use it for at least two years. If I timed things just right, I might get a "new" tablet before graduation.

I would have bought the latest and greatest piece of technology, but then the system might think I didn't need its assistance and that would never do. The key to living well was milking the system. Every thought I had, every action I took, was geared toward getting the most I could for nothing.

When the tablet finally came online, I started my information hunt by searching for her by name, knowing that if anything damaging was readily available it would show up first.

To my chagrin, nothing came up except her Conmis page. "That might help." I clicked on her name and up came her profile. Since Conmis was the one and only social networking website online, I should have known she'd have a profile. Everyone had a profile from the very young to grandparents who only get around on hoverchairs.

Hell, even I, the person who scoffs at social media, has a profile. Now that I think about it, I think there's a law requiring everyone to have an up-to-date profile on Conmis. Not that I actually keep my profile up-to-date. I liked everyone believing I was forever twenty two and innocent.

Scanning Meredith's profile, a few things stood out at me. One, she only had twenty friends. Anyone with fewer than two hundred friends was considered a loner. Even I, miss personality, had five hundred "friends." Her lack of connections to the outside world told me nobody would miss her if she disappeared. This made things easier. Family and friends always got in the way of a good plan.

Next, according to her "About Me!" page, she didn't have a roommate and was single. Again, a detail about this girl which was conducive to bagging her up and shipping her off.

I continued to dig into Meredith's life, learning more about her than I ever wanted and nothing I read changed my mind about what I was going to do.

On the contrary, everything indicated my course of action was justified on all levels. According to her chat logs, which she'd stupidly left exposed to public scrutiny, she'd been arguing with a guy named Draven about some money she owed him and wouldn't pay back. Why had such a decent looking guy given her money?

I went back in the logs and found that she'd pleaded for the money, saying she was going to lose her precious car. Draven had been reluctant for quite awhile, making excuse after excuse, each wilder than the last, desperately trying to hold her off. He lasted two weeks before finally giving in and lending her the money.

And quite a substantial amount too, I saw with surprise. He'd lent her about what I get each semester for my stipend. Much more than a couple car payments would add up to. That should have raised the red flags for him, but alas it hadn't.

Skimming through the logs, I saw that not only hadn't she used the money for her car, which I wasn't even sure she had to begin with, she'd spent it on a new Sagexphone, the newest and greatest in a long line of intelligent phones.

I myself had looked into the specs for the DXCIV (594) model and had found it lacking any real intelligence. It looked exactly like the previous models, and had only minimal upgrades and even worse security. In fact, I don't know why people keep buying the latest Sagexphone when nothing gets changed. Do they like wasting money?

Now, if you wanted a good intelligent and secure phone, I myself preferred the Protusphone. While not as flashy, or as expensive, as its Sagexphone counterpart, it is very reliable, always on the cutting edge of technology, and allows me to easily enhance its already superior abilities.

For example, I was able to remotely connect my Augeo jewelry to my phone. With one swipe of my bracelet or ring over another phone, tablet, or any other electronic device with average security, I gained access to everything within the device. Passwords, photos, messages, bank accounts, you name it; I've got access to it. I could also track the owner's whereabouts, overhear phone conversations, and generally get to any and all information they transmitted using the device.

From my phone, I could then download the information, and even take control of the other person's electronics, on any device I chose. Didn't want to use my phone to surf a tablet? No problem, I'd just tell my phone that my computer wanted control of said tablet and I could use my computer to search at my leisure.

I didn't use my capabilities often, only when I was really bored or someone particularly nasty annoyed me to the point I couldn't take it anymore.

But I would today. Today I would use my two semester's worth of stipend hack of a phone from the back alleys and my custom made technologically superior jewelry to get the information I needed to finally thrust Meredith out of my life.

Draven, I saw still reading the chat logs even as I imagined Meredith miserable on some godforsaken planet, hadn't been happy when he'd found out what she'd used the money for and had begun demanding the money back. This demand began a series of loan-gift arguments with Meredith somehow always ending up as the victim, even when people pointed out she was the wrong one.

I read as her dimwitted nineteen other friends slowly turned on Draven, wrongly convinced he was the one trying to rip off their friend.

All and all, it was very artfully done. I'd seen better con-women, but she had some skills. If things had been different and she hadn't been so repugnant, untrustworthy, and a complete rat, I might have even teamed up with her on some jobs I'd always wanted to pull off. Oh well. C'est la vie.

Coming out of my own thoughts, I glanced at the clock and realized that if I didn't hurry I'd be super late to our little get together. Knowing Meredith, she wouldn't stick around and wait for me.

Grabbing my tablet and a bag full of project materials, I ran out the door and hopped on the high-speed trolley a block away. It would get me to the library in about three minutes. Pulling out my phone, I activated my Augeo bracelet and ring, indicating that I wanted all the control routed to both my tablet and phone.

With a few taps of my fingers, everything was up and running, ready for me to turn on the jewelry and hone in on my target.

The trolley stopped in front of the library. I got off a second before the trolley began to move, having to shove my way through the resistance I encountered all around me. A few glares at those who didn't want to move also helped make my exodus possible.

Shoving my hair out of my face, I walked up the walkway to the eighty-six story, round skyscraper dedicated to quiet study.

Pushing through the front doors, I stopped at the check-in kiosk. Everyone who entered the Paget Library had to check-in, state their reason for entering, and declare how long they intended to stay. Once the computer inputted your information into the system, you'd be assigned a private study room or directed to the room your group was in.

If you needed to extend the time in your room, there were handy consoles which allowed you to tell the system how much longer you needed.

This system, while at times cumbersome and inconvenient, allowed every student the opportunity to have uninterrupted study time. It also allowed professors to easily check student's excuses as to why they didn't finish homework projects, as thousands of student have found out.

After saying my name, I said, "Meredith Oblinger, group study."

"Class?"

"Legends of the Universe."

"You have allocated two hours. Would you like to extend your time?"

"No."

"You are in room 69-487." Which meant we were on the sixty-ninth floor. Anything below floor seventy was usually quiet. The sixteen floors above were known for being loud and unruly. Think frat parties, but worse.

I turned toward the elevator when a thought crossed my mind. "How long has Meredith Oblinger been here?"

"Three minutes."

I nodded my head and turned away.

A minute later, I was standing outside the door to our private group room. I saw Meredith muttering to herself, jerking her head from her wrist to her tablet to her phone.

She was obviously angry I was – I checked the clock above the door – twenty minutes late. That's what she got for always being late when she met up with me.

And in reality, what did she really have to be angry about? She'd only been here for three minutes, four at the most. It's not like she'd been waiting for twenty minutes, unlike myself all of the other times we'd met up.

Putting a smile on my face, I opened the door.

"Where have you been?" Meredith barked. Her look, accusatory. Her voice, shrill like a banshee. "I've been waiting forever."

"I'm right on time." I make a show of looking at the clock above her head and barely refrained from rolling my eyes at her dramatics.

"No you're not. You should have been here twenty minutes ago!"

"How long have you been waiting?"

"Like fifteen minutes."

"Try four minutes. I am right on time." I put my bag down. Now that I'd decided to get rid of her, I found I lacked any willpower to be nice to her. I could have relented and accepted her claim of lateness, but why should I? If I was late, so was she.

"Ready to get started?" I asked, sitting across from a stunned Meredith. Why was she so surprised? Had nobody ever called her on her horrible habit of lateness? Or maybe it was that nobody had ever anticipated her being late and arrived after her.

"I guess," she said, watching as I pulled out all the project materials.

As we began talking about the presentation, who would do what when, and what we'd say, my main focus was on how to get her away from her electronics. Normally nobody ever left their electronics alone, afraid someone would steal them or infect them, (there were a lot of bad and opportunistic people in the world) but I had to make it so she had no option.

I saw my opening near the end of our presentation "discussion." Meredith, in a fit of anger, had begun roughly packing up her bag, jostling the table with every move she made. Her bottle of Mare was uncapped and a hair's breadth from tipping over as the table moved. I saw it wouldn't take much for the bottle to fall over and douse Meredith with its contents.

Inside, I smiled. This would kill two birds with one stone. Timing it just right, I hit the table leg just enough to encourage the bottle to spill. Meredith jumped to her feet, screeching as a cascade of Mare fell off the table, down her pant leg, into her shoe, and onto the floor.

"Oh, no," I said, trying very, very hard not to laugh. She looked so funny hopping around, trying to get out of the way of the seemingly never-ending flow of Mare.

"Look what you've done! You've ruined my pants! And shoes!"

"I didn't do anything," I countered very innocently. "This is all a product of your temper tantrum. And having an open bottle. Didn't you learn young not to leave liquids open?"

Meredith glared at me even as she began wiping her pants off with her hands. In that moment, she looked so pitiful and had I any sympathy, I'd have helped her clean up the mess. Instead, I said, "Go to the bathroom and clean yourself off. All you're doing is making it worse."

"But my..." She waved her hand at her phone, tablet, and bag.

"I'll watch them." Leave! Just leave!

"Fine," she said, striding out of the room.

"And bring back something to clean up this mess," I shouted after her.

I waited a full minute after the door shut behind her before I moved. I didn't want to get caught going through her bag because I'd been impatient. When she didn't reappear, I turned on my bracelet and ring, and moseyed on over to her side of the table. Her tablet was half in her bag while her phone on the edge of the table, tossed aside like it was nothing.

I passed my hand casually over her phone and tablet, noting the dents, dings, and scratches covering their surfaces. She didn't take care of her precious electronics any better than a drug whore took care of her body.

If I hadn't needed to know everything about her, I'd have been tempted to liberate these poor souls and give them to someone more worthy, like me.

Walking back to my side of the table, I pulled out my phone to make sure I was connected to her systems. When I saw the green lights, I was tempted to start my search, but I forced myself to put the phone away and gather my own belongings.

I was sitting there, watching the dripping of the Mare when Meredith came back into the room. She looked flushed and wet. Her efforts to dry off had been very ineffective. Her shoes squeaked like a duck and her white pants were blue spotted. A child could have done a better job cleaning themself up.

She threw a wad of paper towels on the floor and went back to her bag. "You could have helped," she pouted.

"Not my mess." Meredith gave me a dirty look, shouldered her bag, and stalked out of the room. She never even paused to pick up the blue soaked paper towels.

##  Chapter 5

I was all-aflutter with glee all the way home as I imagined all the beautiful secrets in data form I'd soon uncover. It took all my willpower to not open my snooping software before I was at home and had privacy. Oh, fingers were twitching to see what evil was hiding from me, but I controlled them, just barely. From experience, I'd found there were few things in life which compared to the joy of snooping through someone else's life. I just adored going through someone's "private" journals, notes, and documents, looking for the weaknesses and secrets I'd be able to exploit for my advantage.

Lounging on my couch, I began a cursory search through her phone. I didn't know what I was looking for, but from previous experience, I'd found just scanning through the data would give me a better picture of my target.

And what a target she was, I saw after doing an initial sweep of her phone. While by all accounts she looked like a slob, in her electronic life she was very organized. Each document was in a nicely labeled folder, each program on her desktop organized alphabetically. I hadn't seen anything this neat and tidy since I cleaned up the work of a drunk programmer who'd been very diligent about labeling every step as he went about modifying the software for my jewelry.

(While this programmer hadn't been the nicest person to deal with in person, especially when he'd been sober, his work had been very good, if a little redundant.)

I was just about to activate the GPS in her tablet and phone when I saw her come online. She was on AnoniMess, an anonymous chat room creator. With little more than a name for your chat room, you could create a free, permanent room for only the people you invite. No invite, no access to the room. This kept the cops out, and allowed people who normally wouldn't associate to connect.

AnoniMess was a notorious site where if you had enough money and credibility, you could get anything you wanted or needed.

I had used the site many times, including when I was searching for a hacker to create the very software I was using to spy on Meredith. Ironic, isn't it?

From my hacker friend, I'd obtained the ability to follow my subject into the chat room, enabling me to go back into said room whenever I wanted. This was especially useful when I wanted to contact the people in the room for my own purposes.

I watched as she began to chat with a "Latens" about how "things were progressing." Latens said everything was on schedule and that it would be ready in a week.

Meredith (code name Fumantes) stated that they would talk the day before the delivery and signed off.

I was torn. I really was. I wanted to follow her web surfing, but I also wanted to stay in the chat room and learn more about this delivery. Decisions... decisions....

On my tablet, I punched in a command to copy her history. I'd look at them later, and turned my attention back to Latens. Another person, Atrox was saying how he didn't trust Fumantes and how they didn't need her.

Latens: "We need her money."

Atrox: "I've got a guy who will give us all the money we need. For a cut of the profits."

Latens: "By next week?"

Atrox paused. I could feel Latens' impatience, for it was my impatience as well.

Atrox: "No."

Latens: "When?"

Atrox: "In two weeks."

Latens: "Not soon enough. We need the money by the end of next week. Any delay will interfere with the mission."

Atrox: "But..."

Latens: "We take her money."

Latens signed off the chat, leaving Atrox apparently alone in the room. But I was still lurking just behind the curtain, contemplating taking a chance.

Signing on as Aduro, a name I'd been using sporadically over the last seven years for some of my dealings with the black market and other unsavory characters, I said, "Want to help me make Fumantes disappear forever?"

Atrox: "Why? What'd she do to you?"

Aduro: "Doesn't matter. I know where she lives. What she looks like. Willing to help rid our world of her?"

Atrox: "How much is it going to cost me?"

Aduro: "Nothing."

I waited for his response. The longer it took the more trepidation I felt from Atrox. He didn't know if he could trust me. Hell, I didn't know if I could trust him, but if I could, we would be able to get rid of our mutual enemy.

Aduro: "You can keep the money she gives you. I don't care about the money. I just want her gone."

Atrox: "What would I have to do?"

Aduro: "You know anyone who'd take her to Barathrum?"

Barathrum was a planet of varying extremes. With a tissue paper thin atmosphere, half of the planet was skin meltingly hot while the other half was extremity killingly cold. Only the small land which separated the two extremes was temperate and comfortable to live on.

Not that people went to Barathrum for the climate. They went there for the natural resources. The planet was covered in metals, gems, stones, minerals, and anything else one could harvest and make money off of. But in order to bring in the money, the different companies needed cheap labor. Slave labor as some called the workers.

Oh, technically these people weren't slaves. Slaves don't get paid and these people made enough in a week to pay for their food and shelter on the planet. They just never made enough to get off Barathrum ever again.

Yes, those companies had their workers dead to rights. Whatever they made they were forced to spend in order to survive. And the few that were smart enough to get the funds together and started talking about leaving the planet always had a mysterious accident resulting in their death.

Barathrum was the perfect place for Meredith. Now I just needed Atrox to have someone who could take her there.

Atrox: "Yes. I know a guy with connections."

Aduro: "Contact him. We'll talk again tomorrow, 09:00."

I changed my status to invisible, which would allow me to watch their conversation without them knowing, and stayed in the chat room, watching to see what he'd do next. Would he make contact with his guy via the chat room or would he seek out his associate in person? The answer was the latter I saw much to my dismay. I guess I'd have to wait until tomorrow morning to get my answer.

Turning my attention back to my target, which meant I was looking at her current internet activities, I saw she was shopping for some very expensive shoes. Ugly shoes, I saw when I got a good look at them. Who'd pay that much for such crap?

While she shoe shopped, I glanced over her internet history and saw she'd been going to a lot of jewelry, jewel appraisal, and gem sites. If I'd been dealing with a normal person, I'd have just thought they had a jewelry fetish and been on my way. But Meredith, as I was learning, was not a normal person. She was involved with organized crime in some capacity, thus making her abnormal in nature.

I looked very closely at the sites she'd been to and saw they all dealt with the value of red diamonds, rubies, and musgravite.

Why would Meredith be looking up values for these gems? The answer came to me in a moment of glory: she was buying stolen jewelry.

I began to laugh. I couldn't contain my jubilation. Here I'd been planning the demise of a seemingly ordinary annoying flea, when in reality she was a buyer and/or fence of stolen jewelry.

Isn't fate funny? Wiping the tears from my cheeks and eyes, I went back to my tablet to learn more about my little crook. Now that I knew what to look for, evidence of her extracurricular activities and how much money they brought in, I began the long task of sifting through her documents.

You'd have thought her neatness would make the task easier, but you'd have been wrong. Neatness, as I quickly found out, was much more difficult to navigate than a messy system for the messy system usually kept everything in one or two folders or directories.

The neat person, on the other hand, had folder after folder in every nook and cranny of their computer. It was like a virtual Easter egg hunt where you'd finally think you'd found every egg, or folder location, only to have another one pop out of the woodwork, making you have to rethink your beliefs. You could spend hours scouring for your eggs and never find them all. This happened to me dozens of times. I'd think I knew where everything was only to find a new hiding spot.

I'd been searching for a few hours before I finally glanced at the clock and saw how late it was. If I was going to be up and functioning at 09:00, I needed more than a few hours of sleep.

I severed my connection to her tablet and began plotting what I'd say to Atrox in the morning.

##  Chapter 6

08:57 the clock on my tablet said. I'd been waiting in the chat room for five minutes. My hands were sweaty. My heart pounded. If everything turned out as I planned it, I'd be a very wealthy woman by the end of the week.

08:58. I thought I saw a person sign in, and my breath left me. Then I saw it was just the flickering of an ad on the side of the screen.

08:59. I'm staring at the screen. He's got to come. He hates her as much as I. He'd come even if he wasn't willing to do it. That's how it's done.

09:00. I'm expecting his name to appear at any second. Perhaps he'll come with his guy. Then we can discuss how we're going to get her out of our life. Forever.

09:03. What happened to the last three minutes? Did I pass out and miss his arrival? Where is he? He should have been here three minutes ago. I begin to think he's not going to show up.

09:04. If he doesn't show, what am I going to do? I'd have to find someone to take her off my hands and that would cost me. But if he took her...

09:05. Atrox's name appears on my screen. My speeding heart slows down. Everything's going to be alright. In a few seconds I'd know his answer. All I needed to do was breathe.

Atrox: "I'll do it."

Every worry and anxiety I'd been feeling disappeared as if it had never existed. He'd do it. He had a guy who'd take Meredith off my hands for me.

Atrox: "But it'll cost you."

Aduro: "That wasn't our agreement." How dare he try to get money out of me? I was already going to let him and his friends keep the money she gave him. I just wanted the jewels. But if he demanded money...

Atrox: "He won't do it without money."

Aduro: "He'll get money from the company he gives her to."

Atrox: "He wants more."

Aduro: "How much more?" How much more money did this bloodsucking cretin want?

Atrox: "Five times the finder's fee."

Five times!? Is he crazy? For that kind of money I could hire someone to kidnap twenty people and ship them off to Barathrum. These guys thought they were going rip me off. They were about to learn exactly what they were up against.

Aduro: "Zero times the finder's fee and I don't inform Latens or Fumantes about our plans."

My words were a bluff. I had no real intention of telling Meredith anything, but if Atrox thought I would, there was a chance he wouldn't screw around with me as he currently was. As for Latens, I didn't really care if his buddy knew or not. In fact he'd probably already told Latens all about what I wanted to do after his little deal with Meredith was concluded. But if he hadn't, and he didn't want Latens to know, I could use this threat as a huge bargaining chip.

Atrox: "If you tell her, you'll never get rid of her."

Aduro: "There's more than one way to skin a pest. Your guy keeps the finder's fee, you keep the money she gives you, and we all walk away from this deal happy."

Atrox: "What about the...goods?"

Aduro: "You mean the jewels? Those will be going to a very good home." Mine.

Atrox: "How did you –?" Atrox stopped typing, evidently realizing he'd almost admitted that it was jewels they were giving Meredith.

Aduro: "I have my ways. Do we have an agreement?"

Atrox was silent. I could picture him talking to his "guy", trying to figure out if they could get anything out of me. But they wouldn't. There were enough thugs in the city who would willingly take her off my hands for a minimal price. I didn't need them. It was just very convenient to use them.

Atrox: "Yes, we have an agreement. What is her real name and location?"

Aduro: "Patience. I'll give you everything you need to know closer to the date. We'll talk again the day before the delivery. After Fumantes makes the arrangements with Latens."

Atrox: "Fine." But I could feel he wasn't happy. Nobody in his position would have been happy, but I'd learned to keep my cards very close to my chest. Giving information too early would jeopardize my chances of getting the jewels.

The jewels. I logged off the chat room and allowed my mind to drift away to the various items I would soon have within my grasp. Would they be exclusively precious stones? Or would there be a few one of a kind gems just waiting to see the light of day?

And what settings would these beautiful and valuable stones be set in? I preferred necklaces myself, but I'd never say no to rings, bracelets, pendants, broaches, or earrings.

The possibilities and combinations were endless.

Just like the possibilities as to which planet was the Planet of Riches. This shift in thoughts reminded me of the huge folder named Planet of Riches, which was in the subfolder of a subfolder of a subfolder, et cetera, until it was finally under the large folder of "Projects." If I'd been her, I'd have created a shortcut to get to it easier, but evidently, shortcuts weren't her style because there were none on her desktop.

I connected my tablet back to Meredith's and accessed the directory. At first glance, it looked as if she'd been doing research on the planet for a school project.

But I knew better. Our project wasn't on the Planet of Riches and I'd already noted she'd done no research on our real project topic. So why did she have so much information on this one topic?

As I opened documents and scanned them, I saw the folder was full of books and articles about the planet. Except for one document, Search the Universe, which was a piece of software I'd never seen before.

I opened Search the Universe and the first thing which came up was a query box. "Would you like to continue your previous session?" I clicked yes and instantly was presented with a search box full of search inquiries.

As I read through the search parameters Meredith had inputted, a crazy idea came into my mind.

"No. She's not...She couldn't be..." Half-formed ideas came and went through my mind. But they couldn't be true. Surely nobody believed they could find it by using a program.

"Why not?" The question escaped me before I realized it had formed on my lips. Why couldn't a program be used to find the Planet of Riches?

"But if it was that easy, everyone would have thought of it. And it wouldn't be a myth. But what if they hadn't used the right search parameters?"

This newest question stopped me in my tracks. "That's what she's doing. She's trying to find the planet by using the right search parameters."

I stared at my tablet, lost in the implications. If I found the planet...I would be rich. I'd be a legend. "Who am I kidding, I wouldn't tell a soul. I'd keep the planet a secret and exploit it for my own betterment."

I hit the search button and watched as the results came up. Found: About Seven Octogintillion Planets. "Maybe this won't be as simple as I thought," I said, staring at the outrageously large number of results.

Her search parameters must be flawed. This was the first thought that rolled through my mind. How could her search yield so many planets if she'd inputted the relevant parameters?

I decided to see what the program could do before going to the trouble of copying the entire program to my own systems. Clearing out the parameter's Meredith had put, I started out with the scarce amount of information I knew about the Planet of Riches. It had to have minerals and/or gemstones. A breathable atmosphere was a must. Metal rich.

I thought for a few minutes, trying to come up with some other distinguishing features which would help narrow down the results, but couldn't come up with any so I pushed search.

Found: About Five Duocentrillion Planets.

Really? That many? I relooked at my parameters and had to acknowledge that they had been pretty general. I'd have to get very specific if I was to find the planet I was looking for.

A loud beeping rang through my apartment, breaking my train of thought. Looking down at my phone, I saw a message had appeared on the screen. In bold red letters, the message said, "You have twenty minutes to make it to Advanced Yeast Creations."

"Damn." I thought I had more time before class. Checking the time, I saw my alarm was correct. In nineteen minutes, I'd be expected to present my chocolate babka to the class for taste testing.

(A babka, for people who aren't familiar with obscure yeast products, is a sweet yeast cake. There are many different versions of babka depending on what background you come from, or what style you decide to bake, but the one we were assigned to make was the Eastern Oland version. It kind of had the shape of a tall bundt cake, and was traditionally only topped with icing and decorated with candied fruit. And sometimes rum.

Our assignment, however, had been to think outside the proverbial babka and to do something different. I'd chosen chocolate because I loved chocolate in all it's unique flavors, but also because I'd be staying close to the traditional roots of the babka. I figured that if they'd been making babka's one way for hundreds of years, they've got to know what they were doing, so why try to go completely away from tradition?

But babka making wasn't for the person who was in a rush because the rising steps alone took three or more hours, as I'd learned much to my detriment the first time I'd tried making it. On the first trial run, I'd only given it an hour to rise, total, and, well, let's just say things went badly. It was short and squat and way more yeasty than it should have been.

Giving it it's proper rising time, however, meant having a nice high cake which had the perfect balance of chocolate and yeast. My final creation was perfect and I knew my class would just love it.)

As I got to my feet and walked toward my kitchen, I directed my tablet to copy every file out of Meredith's Planet of Riches folder including the Search the Universe software and then disconnect. The copy box which came up told me it would take two hours to completely copy over everything she had.

That stopped me cold. It should have only taken five or ten minutes max. For it to take two hours...that meant either there was a lot more information I hadn't seen or the program was inexplicably huge.

Another beeping brought me back to reality. Now I had fifteen minutes to get packed up and to my class with babka in hand. That would be a tight timeline considering it would take at least seven minutes via trolley to get to the building my class was being held in. Add to that the two minute rush to the trolley and I had less than five minutes to play around with.

No problem. I'd been under more pressure and still arrived within seconds of class starting.

I shoved everything haphazardly into my bag, grabbed the cake carrier my finished babka was in, and was out of my front door within a few minutes. I really wanted to run to the trolley stop, but I forced myself to power walk. It wouldn't do me any good if my perfect dessert turned into a lopsided mess just because I couldn't control myself.

I made it just in time to catch the trolley and it made record time to Confectionary Hall. Hopping off, I looked at my phone and saw I had three minutes to go up eight floors and into my classroom.

I waited for the elevator to arrive, which took another minute and a half, and watched people walk slower than sloths off the elevator. Didn't these people think that someone might be trying to get to class on time? Some people had no consideration of the needs of others.

The elevator ride took thirty seconds and I was sliding inside the room with twenty seconds to spare.

Professor Bellaria gave me a pointed look, but said nothing. Not that he had anything to complain about. Technically, I was in class on time. If he'd wanted me here earlier, he should have made it mandatory and told us on the first day of class.

"Good morning, class. Today we shall be sampling everyone's babka and sharing what you all learned as you made this time consuming dessert. If everyone will please put their dish on the front table, we can start the tasting."

I followed the twenty other students and put my babka in the middle of the table. I knew from experience that Bellaria would have us move from one end of the table tasting to the other, and I always hated being the first to present something.

When they were all arranged, he took a minute to study them. "Very nice. I can see that some of you put more time on presentation than others. Always remember that no matter what you make, presentation is only second to taste. Let's start here," he said, stepping up to the first babka, which looked to be covered in nuts.

This started a familiar routine. Professor Bellaria would deftly slice into a babka, everyone would take a piece while the maker told about what they had found easy or tricky, and any difficulties they experienced.

Some babkas were lifeless, flat, and contained little to no flavor. Others were too yeasty. There were even a few which looked like their bakers hadn't even used any yeast. They were so flat and without air. But a little over a handful were delicious and perfect.

Mine was one of the delicious ones.

By the time we'd finished sampling and discussing, the class period was almost over. That had to be the best part about these days. Little work except eating and listening and our homework was always the same: read up on our next project so we could discuss it during the next class period.

As the bell rang, Professor Bellaria said, "For next class, read chapter twenty-four and think about what you want to put in your stollen."

Packing up my things, I was steps from the door when I heard my name being called. I turned around and saw Professor Bellaria summoning me back into the room.

He waited until the room was empty before saying, "I won't keep you long. I just wanted to say that you have a lot of promise in this field. Have you ever thought of a future in the culinary arts?"

"No." I hadn't really thought about any career to be honest. I'd simply been trying to slide by for as long as possible.

"I'd think long and hard about it. If you decide to pursue this path, I know some excellent graduate schools which would welcome you, all expenses paid."

I wasn't so sure about that. "I'll think about it," I promised him. And I would. I would really consider his offer for if I could get a few more years of a free ride, I might be willing to go for it.

"You need to give me an answer soon, by the middle of next month at the latest. There's paperwork which needs to be filled out and submitted in order for everything to be approved."

"I'll let you know by then." I left the room with a smile, which grew even larger when I saw that all the files I'd wanted copied from Meredith were finished copying.

Everything was finally coming together.

##  Chapter 7

_The Planet of Riches_ by Gregory Lama, chapter three:

(Professor Gregory Lama is a world renown Ancients' historian who has won awards such as the Founder's International Honor, the Best Ancient Historian Award, and the Klempentine Prize. When not teaching at his alma mater of Purple Stone University, he regularly guest hosts the very popular tv shows, _The Original Ancients_ and _Aliens amongst the Ancients_ , on the Ancients channel.)

"After years of studying the ancient tomes left by the Ancients, I am certain the location of the Planet of Riches, or _Planeta Divitiarum_ as they would have called it, is in an uncharted planetary system centrillions of light years away from the Lar System.

"But if this planet is so far away, how were the Ancients able to reach it or even know of its existence?

"In conjunction with the other documents by not only the Ancients but other early inhabitants, I've found numerous references of intergalactic spacecraft. In recent years, experts have debated their ability to travel amongst the stars and to what extent. While most still believe they could go no farther than the Queen Galaxy, which is about eight light years from our galaxy, I believe differently.

"Through the descriptions I've translated, I believe they could travel much farther than even we can today. In one particular passage of the Ancients _Iter Illustratio_ , it states that the Ancients, 'Traveled beyond the known heavens on celestial ships.'

"While other so-called experts believe this passage refers to their travel across large oceans to uncharted lands, I believe this passage means that they traveled away from their home on intergalactic ships and traveled through space.

"Once the Ancients visited the nearest planetary systems and colonized them, they made their way into deep space, stumbling upon the Planet of Riches.

"After consulting with experts in the fields of intergalactic travel, I believe they would have found the Planet of Riches sometime in the last few hundred years of the Empire's formal existence, thus explaining why the exact location of the planet was not written down and why we have such a limited knowledge as to what is actually on the planet itself.

"For those of you not familiar with this time period in the Ancients' history, the last two hundred years were fraught with civil war, rioting, assassinations, and a constant stream of petty magistrates, each more short lived than the one they replaced. (Things got so bad that at times it was hard to even get a chief magistrate because everyone knew what would happen to them and nobody wanted the job.)

"When the Ancients tasked with reporting their findings returned to Earth, they would have seen the chaos and realized telling anyone of the riches they'd found would plunge their people into even deeper chaos. Also, had they revealed the location to the Anarchists even accidentally, the Anarchists would have had enough resources to retrieve the riches and finance their remaining armies as well as allowing them to purchase outright some of the politicians who were tired of war and willing to do anything to end the years of bloodshed.

"(Upon realization that such magistrates and magistrate aids existed, the chief magistrate cleaned house, appointing only those who he trusted to be on the council. The irony is, however, that even amongst his friends there were corrupt officials which were in the pocket of the Anarchists.)

"These reasons, amongst many others that can be found in any history of the Ancients, are why these space faring Ancients kept the secret of the Planet of Riches, telling nobody what they had found, only writing down vague references to the fabulous wealth they had found all those light years away. They feared the Anarchists and what they'd do with this valuable information.

"Even generations after the Anarchist movement was beaten down, the remaining Ancients with knowledge of this great planet feared that if the planet was revealed, someone unworthy would strip it of its riches.

"Thankfully, such a fear was never realized for nobody other than those early Ancients every laid eyes on the beautiful planet."

## Chapter 8

I was reading one of Meredith's books on the Planet of Riches when my tablet alerted me to activity in the chat room. I'd been monitoring the room's activity, watching as crooks contacted other crooks, jobs were handed out to underlings, and the other general minutia required for the smooth operation of a multi planetary mafia.

I learned a lot about the actions and maneuverings of a mafia. From who contacted who, who ordered what types of jobs, and more importantly, who wasn't in the chat room at all.

Who hadn't made an appearance yet in my mafia chat room?

The head honcho, the godfather, the don, or whatever else you want to call him. Or her. I wasn't actually sure who they took their orders from. Half the time, the pronoun they used was he, while the rest of the time it was a she. Could there be two leaders in this gigantic mafia?

Possibly, but then who makes the executive decisions when there were disagreements? Maybe they flipped a coin or had some other system to deal with such things, but not once had I met him/her in the chat room.

Not that I really expected to, but it would have been fun to see what the underlings would do. How low would they bow, virtually of course, in front of their liege? Would they clean up their coarse language or would they feel safe enough to speak their minds since they might be planets away?

Even though I didn't have the fun of watching the kingpin interact with his minions, I had enough entertainment watching the minions interact with each other.

Latens and Atrox were very high up in the organization, with Latens just above Atrox. They were involved in making a lot of deals and telling almost everyone what to do. They were so effective in their ability to order people around that at times I had difficulties deciding if they were on the same planet. Finally, after much pondering of the issue, I came to the conclusion that if they had been, they wouldn't have been using the chat room to talk to each other.

Chat rooms were a very inexpensive means of talking to people on different planets. If you didn't use a chat room, you had to get a satellite phone which charged you an arm and a leg for the privilege of horrible reception and garbled messages.

You'd think that a people who could travel between galaxies would have a reliable audible communications system, but you'd be wrong.

Watching my tablet, I saw Latens begin to talk with a new person, Omnia, from my invisible perch on the sidelines of the chat room.

(I loved how I could just watch these people make their plans and know they had no idea I was even there. You'd have thought they'd be paranoid that I might be watching, that someone might be watching, knowing I could be invisible, but it seemed to not have occurred to them. This just made watching all the more sweeter. They actually believed that if someone didn't appear in the chat room as online, that they weren't watching. How very...naïve.)

From the first word this new person typed, I felt their power, their importance within the organization.

Omnia: "Status on the money?"

Latens: "Trade happening in two days." The only trade I knew of happening so soon was the money-jewels trade.

Omnia: "Dealing with a reliable source?"

Latens: "Reliable enough."

Omnia: "Precautions?" Did they mean what precautions Latens was making that it wasn't the police they were dealing with?

Latens: "Worked with them before."

Omnia: "Not good enough. Could be mole."

Atrox suddenly appeared on screen.

Atrox: "I've made precautions."

Omnia: "Explain."

Atrox: "She will be taken cared of after the deal goes through. I'll know more details tomorrow."

Omnia: "Define 'taken cared of.'"

Atrox: "Shipped off to Barathrum."

Omnia: "The money?"

Atrox: "Will be ours."

Omnia: "The merchandise?"

Atrox: "Goes to my contact giving me the information."

Omnia: "That negotiable?"

Atrox: "Already tried to. Won't budge on that point."

Omnia: "Pity. Latens, get all you can from them before they disappear. Atrox, keep me informed."

Latens: "Yes ma'am."

Omnia disappeared, leaving Latens and Atrox alone in the chat room.

Latens: "Why didn't you tell me about your precautions."

Atrox: "I didn't think you'd care. As long as you get your money..."

Latens: "I care. I've been brokering this deal for months. You had no right –"

Atrox: "I have every right to protect our interests. I never trusted her. You know that."

Latens: "And you trust your source?"

Atrox: "I don't need to trust them. They give me information. If it checks out, I use it. If not, I'm not out anything. I have nothing to lose."

Latens: "There is always something to lose."

Atrox: "Are you threatening me?"

Latens: "Not a threat. A warning."

Latens signed off, followed a second later by Atrox.

So Atrox and Latens answered to Omnia. Was Omnia the leader I'd been missing? If so, why had she shown up now? Or did she routinely come into the chat room to get updates on important operations?

There were so many questions and no answers. And even worse, no way to get the answers I sought.

I stewed about it for a few minutes before I turned to something more productive such as searching for the Planet of Riches, or as I've begun to think of it, the POR.

Opening my search program, I stared at the search box, trying to come up with some ideas as to what would narrow down the results.

But no matter how much I thought, nothing new came to my mind. As my eyes were wandering around the room, I saw a book for logic class and that's when it hit me. Books and logic. Apart, they were only so useful, but together, they could be a powerful tool. Why didn't I use the information from the hundreds of books Meredith had already provided me to narrow down the planets?

I'd already started making notes on the first book I'd begun reading, a habit from twelve years of college courses, so I had the makings of a preliminary search. Then, with each additional book, I'd add to my search criteria until I had a reasonable number of planets left.

I copied over the preliminary information I'd come up with, taking great pains to be as accurate as possible, and clicked search. Seconds later, something interesting happened. A screen appeared, which I'd never seen before, saying, "Your search will take approximately: 3 Hours 56 Minutes 25 Seconds. Do you want to proceed?"

Almost four hours for my search? I clicked cancel and relooked at what I'd inputted. Everything looked right, a little scientific, a lot specific, but four hours to search all the planets? That seemed a bit extreme.

But what was I going to do? If I simplified my search, I'd never make any headway, but if I kept it the way it was, I wouldn't know the results for four freaking hours.

Even through all my griping, I knew I really didn't have a choice. I repressed search and confirmed that I wanted to continue.

Now I had four hours to kill. I could do homework, but I felt too antsy to get anything productive done, so I decided to go out on a fact-finding expedition.

After donning the requisite black on black with just a hint of black to complete the look, I made my way toward the dorms on campus. Pulling out my phone, I activated the tracking software, which allowed me to zero in on where my target was in real time.

Yes, for all my talk about knowing exactly where Meredith lived, I didn't know the exact location of her home. No problem. I'd bluffed enough times to know what you can and cannot get away with. This was one of those times where your words sooner or later had to be backed up with actual information.

And the time for real information was approaching quickly.

I moved toward the blinking figure on my screen as the night approached and felt poetic. The streetlights lining the sidewalk twinkled on and off as students, staff, and strangers passed them by. They reminded me of an old movie which had traffic lights and street cars. The blinking of the yellow lights at night, incessant, but beautiful in its way, like stars flashing on and off in the night sky.

The welcoming flickering of the streetlights was only enhanced by the blackness of the surrounding land. This blackness was thick, impenetrable, and oh so inviting to me. I lived for the delightful obscurity it provided. While most feared the exquisiteness it presented, I embraced it as a second home. I soaked in the dark as most soak up the sun. The complete nothingness of the night fed something deep within myself in a way nothing else could.

As I got closer to my target, I left the safety of the light and slipped into the darks delightful acceptance. I blended in completely with my surroundings, with even the light shining from dorm windows unable to touch me.

The blinking icon on my phone sped up as I moved closer to my target. When I was within one hundred feet of my target, the icon disappeared. I was directly between two three-floor apartments. Normally, having six separate dorm rooms to choose from would mean I'd have to break into each and every home or watch each one to find my target.

But campus housing was not the real world. In the real world, people didn't have their names on their mailboxes, if they even had a mailbox. But on campus, every student was required to have their name on their mailbox so the school groups could send them fliers and the school could give notices.

The reality of the situation was, though, that nobody ever sent anything in paper form anymore. Everything, and I do mean every single thing that went on at school, happened online, but the tradition of requiring names on mailboxes stayed.

I stood out in the open, invisible to the unobservant, as I read the helpfully lit names on the three mailboxes to my right. Meredith's name wasn't there, so I turned to the other mailboxes, but again, I didn't find her name.

Why couldn't anything be easy? I'd been deliberately trying not to break into people's homes and invade their privacy, but because Meredith couldn't follow the simple rules, that's exactly what I had to do.

But wait a minute. I stopped in my tracks. The school checked on this. It was one of the few things they were religious about. On the first day of each semester, school officials went out and checked id's to mailboxes, making sure everyone had updated them.

How had she been able to get around this almost obsessive desire for address boxes the school had? Perhaps she didn't live here, instead living in some other dorm room, but if that was true, why had my tracking software told me that this was her home base?

There was only one thing I could do and that was break into each dorm and search for signs of her living there. It wouldn't be the fastest process, but it would get the job done.

Backing away from the buildings, I started to plot how I'd accomplish my goal tomorrow, for any attempt to get into the homes tonight would mean certain failure. But tomorrow, when everyone was away at class, would be perfect.

Yes, tomorrow would be the best time for nobody thinks that people will break into their home during the day. Everyone knows break-ins only occur at night.

Or at least that's what the instructional videos every senior in high school is shown said. Crooks only work at night and sleep during the day. Just like vampires. Yes, all crooks are vampires, so why lock your doors during the day when they're asleep in their crypts?

## Chapter 9

It wasn't until early the next morning when I was making my way back to campus that I remembered my search. Opening Search the Universe, which I'd downloaded from Meredith's computer unbeknownst to her, I saw I'd narrowed down the field of choices to 3.5 nonagintillion planets.

Great. I was really on my way to tracking down this one planet. I'd have it cracked in no time.

Not.

I closed the program and returned my thoughts to my plan to get into the apartments without attracting attention. I had a standard way of getting in which was almost always foolproof and if I added in the newest application I'd found while surfing the internet, I should be able to get in and out with no problems.

Unlike last night when I'd been in all black, today I was wearing typical school attire – backpack, stretchy pants, and hoody with the school's name and logo on it. In these clothes, I was indistinguishable from any other student. Not only would anyone who saw me not question my presence, they wouldn't even see me. Students on campus were as invisible as trees in a forest.

Opening the infrared body heat sensing application, which I'd downloaded a couple years ago from a spy website just in case I ever had the need to look inside buildings without the people inside knowing what I was doing, I directed the sensor toward the dorms I passed. On my screen, I either saw black, which indicated that nobody was in the dorm, or a rainbow of reds, yellows, and blues, meaning that someone was home.

This quick sneak peek through walls would be very valuable to me for I'd only enter a dorm if it were empty. Someone home? I'd try back later in the day, but I had a feeling everyone would be out.

On the other side of campus an ice cream social was going on. Who wanted to miss out on free ice cream to stay in their boring dorm studying? I wouldn't. In fact, I was planning to swing by the social after my little B&E.

When I reached the two dorm buildings in question, I took one more look at the names on the mailboxes, hoping I'd missed something in the dark, but I hadn't. Meredith's slimy little name still wasn't present.

Starting on the dorm to my right, I covertly scanned the building, searching for even a hint of a heat signature. I found nothing except for what looked to be a small pet on the second floor.

I'd have to be careful of that dorm. Pets, as a rule, don't like strangers in their homes and were willing to take a chunk out of anyone who threatened them.

I walked up to the third floor's door, which was clearly visible to the outside world because these three dorms were all only accessible from the outside, searching in my purse as I went, making it look like I was searching for the key. What I was really doing was cementing in the minds of anyone who might be watching that I belonged. For who, other than the dorm's resident or a friend of said resident had a key and would enter the room during the day? Remember, criminals are vampires. They never come out when the sun's in the sky.

When I didn't find the key in my bag, I started patting my pockets, miraculously finding the key which had so eluded me. In fact, the only thing I'd found was my lock picking tool.

Putting the thin piece of metal into the lock, I jiggled it around for a few seconds before hearing the click of the lock. Pushing open the door, I began what would become a very familiar routine.

I started with searching the living room/kitchen/dining room, then moved into the bedroom/study and ended in the bathroom.

I hacked into electronics to find out who their owner was, looked at digital pictures to see if I saw Meredith's ugly mug, and even checked email accounts, but none of this produced the results I expected.

Some of the dorms were obviously occupied by boys who'd never heard of cleaning up, or only believed that to be their mother's job. There would be dirty clothes on the floor, dirty dishes in the sink, and tv's the size of boats on the walls. Not that women couldn't be as filthy as these men, they could be, but I'd found that women at least had the common decency to not leave stained underwear on the floor for all the world to see.

One would think that these obvious signs of a man, or men living in the dorm would mean I could just leave, but that is where you are wrong. I couldn't assume anything. For all I knew she could be shacking up with one of these men and used this as her home base. So, as tempting as it was to assume she didn't live in these dorm rooms, I couldn't. I had to cover all my bases and make sure I overlooked nothing.

After searching every single dorm room from top to bottom, I was standing in the last dorm, which was on the third floor of the second building, trying to come up with an answer to my problem, but my mind kept going around in circles. She had to live here. All of my intel told me so and it couldn't all be wrong. I had to be missing something.

I looked around, noting that something seemed off about this dorm. It wasn't that it didn't look like every other college dorm I'd been in today because it was. But there was something different about it that I couldn't put my finger on.

I went back to the front door and made my way slowly through each room one more time. The living room/kitchen/dining room had a wooden frame couch with cushions which seemed to have no life left in them. The coffee table was scratched, dented, and had a lot of watermark stains, in addition to other stains I couldn't identify and probably didn't want to identify. The kitchen area had a half stove/oven, with two old burners, a sink barely large enough to hold a regular sized dish, and a mini fridge.

The bathroom had a tiny, pedestal sink, a toilet, and a shower which would fit one person.

The bedroom/study was just as spartan as the rest of the dorm. The wooden bed frame had a bare mattress on top of it, a small side table, and a stepladder.

A stepladder?

What was a stepladder doing in this dorm room?

None of the other dorms I'd searched had a stepladder in them and with a dorm as devoid of character as this one, I'd have thought that a stepladder wouldn't be part of the standard furniture a student would need.

This got me looking to the ceiling. There had to be a reason for the stepladder, which I was missing. Within seconds, I found the answer to my question.

Just right of the bed was a square cutout which presumably led to the attic. But why? Dorms didn't have attics. There was no reason for them. It would only be wasted space and in these days of conservation, who could afford wasted space?

Pointing my phone above me, I saw nobody. Dragging over the stepladder, which was just off to the side of the bed, I pushed the panel aside and was attacked by a retractable ladder.

That at least explained how she'd be able to get up and down without the ladder I stood on being directly underneath the cutout.

I carefully climbed up, unable to predict as to what I'd find.

And what a find it was.

In what had to be a six foot peak height, I found neatly stacked belongings. At one end was a mattress with a blanket and pillow while on the other was a microwave and dishes.

This was where Meredith lived? I couldn't believe it, unless...yes, that must be it. She's taking the money the school's giving her for rent and pocketing it. Now it all makes sense. She's even more clever than I thought.

I liked my creature comforts, but if you could live without them for four or more years, you could take home a very tidy chunk of change.

This must be how she's paying for those jewels. My mind began racing with other random implications of living in an attic for free before I stopped them. I had to make sure it was Meredith who lived here and not some other student cheating the system.

I finished climbing into the attic and the first thing I saw was a tablet on a small nightstand. I went to it and turned it on. I hoped she didn't have it password protected, but I was disappointed.

"Fine, I'll go through the backdoor." On my own phone, I activated my trusty hacker program, turned on my jewelry and waved my hand over the tablet, which was an older model than Meredith had brought with her to our meeting.

(This older model tablet, which was most likely a back up in the event she broke or lost her newer tablet, had many more advantages to the newer tablet I'd been looking at.

It was easier to get into, for there were so many security holes in the software that it looked like Swiss cheese. These security holes were well known, and my systems had already been upgraded to look for them and exploit them to the point that breaking in was much easier than it would have been for anything newer. Not that my software had any real difficulties with the newer gadgets, but I knew there would come the day when my software would be unable to get in because the security on these items was so advanced and impossible to crack that I'd be out of luck. I dreaded the arrival of this day, and just hoped it would never happen in my lifetime.

There was also a greater chance that she wouldn't have covered her tracks as much because it probably never left home, so there was no reason to worry about anyone trying to hack into it. This would make my hunt for answers much easier than with the newer one.

Also, people were notorious for only starting new neatness rituals with new pieces of technology. It gives the users a fresh start and doesn't make them waste the time which cleaning up their old piece of technology would take. I was hoping this old tablet was a mess, with everything in the one directory people normally put their documents into.)

Within seconds I was searching through the tablet, hunting for some type of identifying information. I quickly found my smoking gun: Search the Universe.

Only Meredith would have this program on her tablet. No normal college student would have the time or inclination to search the cosmos unless they were an astronomy major and even then, there'd be other indications of that major, such as star maps and papers on the makeup of stars.

Instead, I was presented again with her own type of compulsive organization. But at least I now knew where she lived.

I turned away from her tablet and studied her room. She had very few personal possessions, no pictures to speak of, and only a trunk full of clothes. Where was the money, though?

I didn't think she'd trust anyone enough to put it in a bank or let someone else hold it for her, so it must be here somewhere in this very cramped space.

I dug into her trunk of clothes, around the microwave, and under the mattress, but found nothing until I looked in her pillowcase. That's when I hit the jackpot.

Thousand dollar bills. That's the first thing I saw. Thousand dollar bill after thousand dollar bill stuffed around her foam pillow with no care or consideration. The more I reached into the pillowcase, the more loose thousands came out. If they'd been falling from the sky, instead of coming out of the pillowcase, I'd have thought it was raining money. In total, there had to be at least sixty thousand dollars in this ratty, cobweb covered attic.

All of which she was going to trade for those jewels which were probably worth ten times what she was going to pay for them.

My palms got sweaty just thinking about the jewels, their worth, and the money I was holding. How could I let it out of my grasp when the money I held was a good down payment on the life of luxury I was saving for?

The logical part of my brain kicked in even as I thought of everything I could use the money on. If I wanted Meredith gone and also obtain the jewels, I'd have to let the deal go down and then tell Atrox where she was. There was no other logical choice.

If I stole the money now, she'd become incredibly suspicious and bolt. Meaning I'd never get the jewels or her on the slave planet.

Now that rationality had settled upon me once more, I put the money back in its home. I'd been here too long as it was. I could not afford to be caught because I'd been ogling the cash.

Stooped, I looked for another exit other than the way I'd entered, but saw nothing. Hell, there wasn't even a window, so how was she able to get up here without the person below knowing?

After checking to make sure the coast was clear, I climbed down the attic stairs and was making my way through the dorm when something occurred to me. There were barely any personal items.

I glanced back at the bathroom and saw that other than a towel, there was nothing on the sink. No cosmetics, no creams, not even shampoo. Did someone actually live here?

The more I looked, the less I found. I didn't even find any personal electronics other than the standard computer that came chained to each dorm room.

No, nobody lived here, but if that was the case, why was Meredith living in the attic instead of this empty dorm?

A jingling by the front door drew my attention. Someone was coming in and I needed to hide.

The living room was out of the question, there was barely enough room for the small couch, chair, and table, let alone someplace to hide.

The bathroom was out. I'd be a sitting duck trying to hide behind the clear shower door.

There were no closets, for closets would take up space which we can't afford to give to lowly college students. That only left the bedroom.

As the front door was opening, I ran into the bedroom and closed the door halfway. People never entered rooms where the door was halfway shut. They only ever checked when the door was completely shut and they didn't remember shutting it.

I dove under the bed, feet first.

I was just in time, for not two seconds later I heard footsteps coming down the hall.

The steps were hesitant, as if the person sensed that someone else had entered since they'd left. I heard them push open the bathroom door, pause, and then move on to the bedroom door. This door opened. I felt the person's eyes scan the room, taking in every detail.

It wasn't until I heard the person take a few steps into the room that I remembered that the trapdoor to the attic was in the bedroom. What had I been thinking hiding in here? I should have taken my chances hiding behind the couch.

Blue sneakered feet appeared next to the bed. They stood still for a second before turning around in a circle. They waited a heartbeat or two before moving toward the door to the attic.

I heard the scrape of the stepstool and the thump of the attic ladder falling. The stepstool was put back in place and heavy steps went up the ladder. I heard the ladder retract and then waited.

What was I waiting for?

I was waiting to see if she was waiting for me to move.

That's right folks, this could be a trap to get me to show myself, but I wasn't going to fall for it.

I waited for five endless minutes before I made a thump noise with my foot. It wasn't loud enough to normally attract the attention of someone a floor away, but for someone listening, it sounded loud enough to be a gunshot.

The trapdoor opened, the ladder fell to the floor, and I heard heavy footsteps run down the ladder. These same steps rushed out of the bedroom. I heard the steps become fainter and then the creak of the front door opening.

I could imagine Meredith sticking her head out of the door, looking for whoever had made the noise in her apartment, searching the crowds of students milling about below her apartment door and stairs for someone running away or looking guilty.

Obviously not seeing anyone who fit her preconceived notion of an intruder, or even seeing a person because most students were probably at the ice cream social, so why would they be walking past her building to get to their own dorms, Meredith slammed the door closed and stomped back up to her attic. I waited another ten never-ending minutes before shimmying out from under the bed and quietly leaving the dorm.

I knew she wouldn't be vigilant after the false alarm, but I also knew that any loud or suspicious noise would send her scampering after me like the rat she was. That's why I didn't breathe until after I was out of the apartment, down the stairway, and on my way back home.

As I walked, I looked at my to-do list again.

Operation: No More Meredith

1. Find out where she lives

2. Find someone to take her away

3. Decide where to send her

4. Celebrate when she's gone

I'd just completed number one, so I crossed that out, making a mental note she'd have to be taken away from her attic or else the neighbors would be alerted.

Thanks to Atrox, I tentatively had someone who would take her off my hands for me – at no additional cost to myself I was proud to say. Along with that, I knew where she was going, so I crossed out two and three, leaving only step four left undone.

But I was a long way away from celebrating. She needed to exchange the cash for the jewels, come home with them, and then get grabbed by Atrox's man. Then I'd have to confiscate the jewels before Atrox tried to double cross me and take them for himself.

Only after all that was done could I celebrate.

And what a celebration it would be.

##  Chapter 10

Fumantes: "Do you have the package?"

I was eavesdropping on the deal between Meredith (Fumantes) and Latens, her mafia contact, from behind the comfortable wall of invisibility. I knew that as long as I kept myself, Aduro, offline, they'd never know I was watching them cement their terms and conditions. I loved watching deals go down without people knowing. It was just so empowering.

Latens: "Do you have the money?"

Fumantes: "Yes. And you?"

Latens: "Yes. Tomorrow we'll meet at 21:00 at Park Sylvia."

Park Sylvia was a wooded, unkempt park on the bad side of the city, right in the middle of mafia territory. Normal law-abiding citizens wouldn't go to that park during the day, much less at night. The area was so dangerous, in fact, that even the police wouldn't patrol it.

Fumantes: "No. We meet in front of Custodela at 20:30."

Custodela was a very popular nightclub on the street that separated the good side of town from the bad. Everyone who was anyone or wanted to be someone went there including mob bosses, celebrities, wannabe celebrities, and the petty bourgeoisie.

Because it was so popular, there was always a line wrapped around the block which made newcomers think they were close to getting in because the end of the line started at the entrance. In reality they had to go all around the quite large block to get in, which wasn't likely to happen during the course of the night.

(For those who've never seen a line literally go around a block and end where it had begun, it is quite a sight to behold. Along the three sides of the building which don't have entrances, there are venders circling like hawks, selling everything from food and drink to a person who would willingly stand in line for you while you used a restroom which was a couple blocks away.

If you weren't willing to pay for the person to stand in line for you, instead depending on your friends to let you back in, the restroom visit, which would have been complementary, instead cost you seven dollars. Don't want to pay the seven dollars? Well then you can walk to the next closest restroom which was seven blocks away and only pay three dollars, but it wasn't nearly as nice and you'd have to make your way though a couple dark allies to get there.

In addition to these venders and the opportunistic restrooms, the club itself projected images of what was happening inside the club for those outside waiting in line. But that's all they were, images of men and women dancing and having a great time. If you wanted to actually hear the music being played, for a small fee you could pay to get a direct linkup to your phone, off of which you could listen to the music. That, in addition to the images, was enough to make up for not actually getting into the club itself.)

Entrance into the club was so sought after that some enterprising minds had figured out a way of making money by selling their spots to the loaded club goers. Starting at the crack of dawn, groups of entrepreneurial souls would camp out at the beginning of the line, taking up the first thirty or so spots.

When the first group of people finally showed up to get in line a few hours later (if you wanted to get in you really had to be in line by late morning at the latest), they would offer the newcomers their spots for a reasonable price. Most of the time, these people would give the spot holders the money, thus ensuring their entrance into the club that night, while the holders would move to the back of the line.

The only holdouts were the people at the very front of the line. They always waited until the club was just about to open before they sold their spots at a premium price. These spots were so prized that there were auctions for them, with the holder making more in one night than a regular person made in half a year.

As the day progressed, and they gradually moved back farther, the prices would increase and by the time the night ended, they would have their pockets full of cash for holding spots in line.

While it sounds like it could be a boring job, in practice it was quite interesting. You're always wheeling and dealing. You're constantly moving around, having to hustle to get the best next place in line before someone else does.

Then there are the runners who run up to the incoming club goers and encourage them to pay for a spot. These little salesmen get a cut of the business so they have extra incentive to help sell as many spots as possible.

Even with all these comings and goings, I knew the real reason Fumantes wanted to meet there. Tomorrow night the club had a huge mafia party planned.

(These mafia parties were well advertised by both the club and the mafia itself. Usually called, "Victory Parties" for the sake of propriety, everyone with any connected brain cells and knew anything about who usually frequented the Custodela knew that "Victory Parties" was just code for mafia party.

This particular party was obviously celebrating some type of recent victory the mafia had just had, and while the exact details of said victory weren't being released, and never would, it had to be a huge victory for the type of celebration the club was advertising.

And as with every mafia party, they just made Custodela even more happening than it normally was. The same entrepreneurial souls who sold their spots in line not only got in line earlier than usual, they also doubled or tripled their normal prices for the spots they saved, depending on how many people were expected to show up.

They weren't the only ones raising their prices. Everyone involved with the club and its surrounding businesses increased prices because they knew people would be even more desperate than usual to get in or baring that, feeling like they were part of the action via the projections and music.

If the Custodela could have arranged it, they would have had a mafia party every single week because business was so profitable. Even the minor celebrations were flocked with outrageously long lines. In fact, a couple times I wondered if they just made up a reason to celebrate in order for everyone to make a few more bucks, especially when things were a little too quiet.)

Security would be at its highest, so even if Latens had wanted to pull something, he wouldn't have dared do it there. The security at the mafia gigs were more trigger-happy than any other security team on the planet. They were more than happy to kill one of their own who showed a gun as they were to kill a stranger. It was all the same to them.

(This trigger-happiness extended to the venders. Because businesses was so profitable on these nights in particular, there were many accounts of venders killing each other for prime spots and paying patrons. You'd have thought all this death and mayhem would discourage the average partygoer from going to Custodela during these parties, but somehow, they seemed to think that all the violence and death was exciting and cool, thus making the club even more popular. I guess some people just had weird taste in entertainment, but for me, seeing people kill each other was not the way I wanted to spend a night out.)

When Latens hadn't answered after a minute or two, Fumantes said, "Or no deal."

Latens: "Fine. Custodela at 20:30. Don't be late."

Fumantes: "Just don't forget the merchandise."

Fumantes got off and Atrox, Latens' mafia coworker, came on as if he'd been watching the entire conversation, just like I had.

Atrox: "Who does she think she is, dictating when we meet?"

Latens: "She thinks she has leverage. Which she does."

Atrox: "For now."

Latens: "Where's your snitch?"

Atrox: "Not snitch. Informant."

Snitch? Oh, I know he just hadn't called me a snitch. I turned my status from invisible to online.

Aduro: "I'll second that motion." I wanted to make it clear from day one to Latens that I wasn't a snitch. Never had been and never would be. I was just an informant with an interest in his deal with Meredith.

Latens: "Who are you?"

Aduro: "The person who's going to give you enough information to get rid of our little friend."

Atrox: "What is her real name?"

I thought for a second on the best way to give him the information. I could just put her name in the chat, but then anyone who was lurking in the background would know who we were talking about, including Meredith. And if we tipped her off, she would run off before the exchange went down.

No, I needed to provide the information in a smarter way.

Aduro: "Give me an email address and I'll send you the information."

Latens: "Why not provide us with the information now? Don't you have it?"

Aduro: "I do, but you'll only get it if I get an address."

Atrox: "atrox@hic.rete. Send the name there."

I pulled open my alternate email account, which was completely untraceable just like the chat room I'd been using to talk to Atrox and Latens, and was one I only used on special occasions, and I typed in two magic words: Meredith Oblinger.

I sent the email and went back to the chat room.

Aduro: "You get it?"

Atrox was gone for a few seconds before he said, "That's her name?"

Aduro: "Yes. But don't bother trying to find her address. It won't show up."

Latens: "How can we trust you?"

Aduro: "How can I trust you? You could have her wacked right after your meeting, taking the jewels and the cash."

Atrox: "We won't do that. When do we get her address?" Why weren't they going to just kill her for everything? I mean, if I was in their position, it would have been very tempting.

Aduro: "Why not?"

Latens: "Use common sense. Nobody would trust us if we worked that way. We have a reputation which must be upheld at all costs. Now, when do we get her address?"

I guess his answer made sense, but I still worried that they'd grab her before I had the chance of getting at those jewels.

Aduro: "I'll email you the information an hour after the drop." By then she should have hidden the jewels wherever she was going to keep them because I didn't believe she'd keep them in her attic apartment. Not one bit.

Atrox: "Why must we wait?"

Aduro: "I want to make sure nothing goes wrong before sending you the info." If they were too stupid to figure out that I wanted a nice lead time, then that was all on them.

Aduro: "Though I do suggest that you pick her up someplace else. Her home is not ideal for kidnappings. It'll be noticed."

Atrox: "Noted."

Latens: "Don't double cross us." And with that fun warning, Atrox and Latens signed off, leaving me alone in the chat room.

I went back to my email and wrote a delayed email for tomorrow night. It would send an hour after I pushed a button on my phone. That way, if the drop really didn't happen until 22:30, it'd wait until 23:30 to send it to Atrox.

Inside the email I put her dorm number, that she lived in the attic, and how exactly to get to the attic. I also added a request to be informed when she was safely in custody and off planet. I wanted to know the minute I could start celebrating my successful extraction of the annoyance.

I left out the part that the dorm she went through was empty. Why give out more information than was necessary?

When I'd completed everything necessary for tomorrow, I went back to refining my search parameters to find the POR aka the Planet of Riches. I knew that eventually I'd have to be down to a workable amount of planets but the amount of work necessary to do that was becoming obnoxiously long.

By now, my search parameters ranged to a couple hundred different items and took about five hours to get through every planet and I was still only down to 75 vigintillion planets. I was making some headway, not enough to make me happy. I needed to come up with a plan to narrow down my possibilities faster.

How was I going to do that?

## Chapter 11

_The Planet of Riches: Closer Than You Think_ by Sallimay Ekane, chapter two:

(Sallimay Ekane is a geologist who got her doctorate in ancient geology. Her specialty area is the geology of the Ancients' world, and interpreting Ancients' landmarks. Ekane spends most of her days out in the field, getting up close and personal with the landmarks she is constantly trying to identify from clues found in old manuscripts.)

"There has been wide speculation as to where the exact location of the Planet of Riches, hereafter known as POR, is. When experts aren't discounting the idea of its existence entirely, they widely postulate that its centrillions of light years away in a galaxy far far away.

"But none of their conjecture could be further from the truth.

"With a lot of research under my belt, I am happy to say that I have found the location of the POR. It is here, on Earth, the third planet in the Lar System.

"I know this is a great surprise for readers, but it is true. If you take the time to read the ancient documents and have an accurate translation, which most people don't bother to do when they research the POR, you will find that there are continuous references to geological formations which are all here on Earth. The Hoftmeyer discovery, in particular, was critical to coming to my conclusions and finding the similarities between the written scrolls and nature.

"For example, the Atlas Mountains, as they are known today, were called the Great Desert Mountains for their location near the Sahara Desert. Another example is the Yangtze River. The Ancients' documents call this river the River from the Ice Gods, for it originates from glaciers.

"These are only two examples of hundreds of parallels I have found from the documents to our world today. There are some formations mentioned which could not be found, but the explanation for these discrepancies is quite easy. The Earth has gone through many natural and manmade disasters, in addition to the natural evolution every planet goes through. These processes of evolution, on top of the thousands of others which have shaped our daily lives, have changed the landscape of our planet, destroying natural geographic features which would have definitively indicated that this was the POR.

"(Examples of such evolutionary changes can be seen all around us, from the shrinking and growing of mountain ranges over the course of millennium, to the landslides and volcanic eruptions which carve into our landscape, changing the flow of nature in drastic and unpredicted ways. I shall be going slightly more in depth as to how these changes have affected the hunt for the POR in this book, but for a complete history of the evolution of this planet, you are referenced to my book _The Natural and Manmade Evolutions of Earth: What People and Mother Nature have Done to Shape our World._ )

"With the parallels I have been able to find in the plethora of ancient texts, documents, manuscripts, and carving available to study, however, I am one hundred percent confident that the planet Earth is the POR."

## Chapter 12

Professor Pravus was late again.

It was Friday afternoon and he was supposed to be here at 13:00. It was 13:15 and everyone was becoming restless, including myself. If he wasn't going to come, he could have informed someone.

I had things to get ready for tonight. I had to pick out my clubbing outfit. I had to make sure it disguised me well enough so Meredith wouldn't recognize me, but it also had to be practical enough so I could follow her afterward wherever she went and eventually grab the jewels.

In addition, I wanted to get another search going on my Search the Universe software before I left because I didn't want six hours to pass without it working for me. I just hate wasted time, don't you?

The door to the classroom swung open and a windswept man stormed to the front of the classroom. "Sorry I'm late. You wouldn't imagine what a fascinating discussion I had with Professor Salum about his sea exploration program. You wouldn't and couldn't imagine because he has yet to release any of the information to the student population, which you are part of. And since he won't tell you anything about what he's doing, I surely can't because you are all students, but I will tell you that the sea exploration program has some quite interesting logic dilemmas which tickle the brain and energize those little grey cells.

"And such interesting logic dilemmas are part of today's class. Though your logic dilemmas are completely different than those of Professor Salum's because we are not working in the sea exploration program, or will have anything to do with it. If you'll give me a second, or more likely a few minutes as that would be more chronologically accurate, I'll hand out your semester project instructions."

Pravus dug into his bag, pulling out different stacks of papers. Of all my professors, he was one of the few that clung to the tradition of giving out paper assignments. I knew other students had begged him to just email the assignments to us, but he refused, saying, "The only way to get the assignments is to be in class because if you aren't in class, you should be and thus don't have any care for assignments you are obviously missing. I refuse to stand or sit for those who won't come to class.

"Logic dictates they won't learn the material well, or at all, if they don't attend my lectures. Thus, I pass out the assignments in paper form increasing the probability that those students who want to learn will come to class. Those who don't attend, and as a direct consequence don't receive the assignments, don't have the drive to learn or else they'd be in class getting said assignment."

Yes, a logic teacher who was a stickler for...well...logic.

And attendance.

And paper assignments.

"Here they are as you can obviously see for your own eyes," he said triumphantly as he pulled a monster stack of dead trees out of his bag.

He gave the pile to the person in front of him, who in turn passed it to the rest of us. "This semester, well in reality every semester since I change my lesson plans very rarely, I have an exciting project I want you all to do. And by want, I really mean must insist you do or else you won't get a passing grade and a less than passing grade means you'll never graduate in this field of thought.

"This failure aside, however, I want you to pick something interesting, any topic at all which interests you, or a topic you believe will greatly interest me, and create a logic problem from said topic." His smile widened as our confusion grew. "I can already see the moths flowing into your brains as you panic, unable to comprehend what I mean. Let me give you two examples before you are completely unable to grasp what I want.

"Last year, a student took his love, or should I more accurately say obsession, for minerals and extrapolated, through logic and the vast scientific knowledge he'd come to gather through his years of study, as to where minerals should be present on a planet which had yet to be explored.

"Another student, in the same class incidentally, who was almost insanely interested in archaeology did his project on the most logical place for King Mater of Livens to have been buried.

"Neither project had any real results for such an archaeological excavation would cost more money and time than any of us have, and wouldn't have been feasible to expect in such a short a time as a semester, but it was the process by which he came to his conclusions which gave him the grade he finally received. Which was very high for your information, because of the excellent work he did.

"I would like you all to email me your topic by 09:00 on Monday and then have a write up as to how you plan on completing your project for next week to turn in. Turn in as in on paper, in person. I will not accept any plan which is electronically submitted, or submitted by a friend and/or classmate of someone who designs not to show up for class. There are a plethora of ideas and information in the packet which has been passed out to you by your fellow classmates.

"I'm letting class go early so you all have plenty of time to logically figure out what you're doing as a project topic. If any of you have any questions, please feel free to come talk to me until I leave this room. If you don't have time, or inclination to wait that long, you may also see me during my posted office hours, which are posted on the door to my office. Or, if you have even more questions, you may see me during both times. I would never wish for anyone to say they didn't have the time to work through their logical conundrums with me present in the room."

While everyone in class was grumbling and packing up their things, I stayed in my seat. An awesome, unbelievable thought had crossed my mind. My search for the Planet of Riches. Could it...? Would he allow me to...? I had to know before I left because if he let me then I was home free. Hell, I already had some of the project done!

I waited until the few people that had questions finished before I approached Professor Pravus. "Professor, I had an idea, a wild idea, and I was wondering if it would be something I could do for this project."

"What is this idea you had?" His eyes were gleaming as they always did when he was intrigued.

This was my one chance to sell him on the idea, so I'd have to be careful with my word choice. "I've always been interested in the Planet of Riches and my idea was, that is if you'll allow me to do it, to see if I could find it, through logic of course."

"The Planet of Riches...a very interesting topic, if I do say so myself." He paused for as second, stroking his tiny, almost nonexistent beard. "Never had a student even think of tackling it before, not that I know what my students are thinking. Do you realize how difficult it will be? And by difficult, I do mean impossible."

"I've got some idea, but I don't have to actually find the planet, do I?" I needed this point to be crystal clear. If I had to find the planet, I'd do my project on something very easy, like how to find certain plants on other planets.

"No," he said slowly, "you don't have to find the planet, but I would like you to have some possibilities as to which planet it could be."

"What if I gave you a list of planets, say a couple thousand possibilities. Would that be fine?"

Pravus frowned. "It would be but I'd have to see that you'd made every effort to narrow it down further. In this case, I'd like you to keep me apprised at every step of the process because you may not even be able to get down to that few of a number. I've read a few books on the subject and even the best scholars can only narrow it down to a few hundred thousand possibilities.

"Yes, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of making your project be more effort based and less results based as the others will be geared toward. If, that is, you are serious about doing this as your project because if not, then this entire line of thinking is speculative at best."

Not to seem too eager, I said, "At this point, I'm pretty sure that's what I want to do. But I think I'll sleep on it and make my final decision this weekend."

"Good, good. Let me know by Monday. Do you have any other questions which I can answer in this room?"

"No, I think that's about everything. Thank you."

I wasn't able to keep the bounce out of my step as I left the classroom. He'd gone for it, and more importantly, wanted to be part of my project. If I played my cards right, I might be able to get him to do some of the work for me and end up with a great grade because of the work I'd already put in.

This newest development just made me want to work harder to find the POR. Could this day get any better?

Then I remembered tonight and I felt like I was floating. Yes, this day could become much better.

## Chapter 13

I'd been in line outside Club Custodela since 19:30, dressed in my best clubbing clothes. My bright blue sequined top, which revealed a lot of skin, paired with a tiny black skirt, low-heeled black boots, and a navy blue purse made me blend in very well with the other bubbling people waiting for the club to open.

I was at the end of the line, only a few steps away from the front door, exactly where I wanted to be. From here, I'd be able to see everyone as they came in and out of the club.

Time ticked by slowly. In an attempt to stave off the overwhelming boredom, (though how anyone could have been bored with all the noise of the crowd, the cries of the vendors trying to sell their goods, and the preclub opening projections being broadcast must be hard to imagine. However, if you've been to one of these preopening events, you've been to most of them because they were all the same. Sure, the actual goods sold might have varied slightly, and the projection might have been unique to the club you were outside, but the atmosphere was the same. In fact, I didn't know how the line standers and the vendors stood it day in and day out. Myself, I could only take so much noise and hubbub before just tuning it all out.) I passed the time refining my search parameters.

I was just deciding which percentage of titanium I should put for the planets crust (0.5% or 0.75%) when the front doors opened. Ten bouncers, all muscular, tall, and mean looking stepped out. They reminded me of the security surrounding a chief magistrate or a president. No nonsense and always on the job.

The clock on my phone said it was 20:15, fifteen minutes past when the doors of the club should have opened. Why were they so late?

The crowds by this point had been exponentially growing in restlessness, far surpassing the impatience they'd been displaying though the hours of wait they'd endured.

People were shoving in line in hopes of obtaining a better view of the club front doors, as if just being able to see them would enable the doors to open sooner than they would have otherwise.

Those not shoving were grumbling to their companions and continuously looking at their phones and watches. I could just imagine that they were complaining to their friends that the doors should have opened a long time ago and comparing times as to how much of a delay had already occurred.

The vendors did their best to calm the impatient and irritated masses, hocking their goods even harder than I'd ever seen them do so before. They seemed oblivious that their actions were increasing the frustration these people were feeling for how many times did you have to tell someone you didn't want another pot sticker before the pot sticker vendor left you alone? Did it take five times, or ten? What about twenty? At thirty times, were you justified in attacking said vendor just to get him off your back?

(I wasn't immune to this impatience and frustration. In fact I felt it even more keenly than the rest of the crowd because I knew what was at stake. I knew that if something went wrong with this drop I'd never have those jewels, or the satisfaction of knowing Meredith was out of my hair. This worry, however, didn't stop me from loving the irony of the situation. Latens was always harping on how I, or Meredith, shouldn't be late when here was a club he probably helped run, or at least had some influence with, and it was opening late on this very important night. Was I the only one who saw the huge hypocrisy in this situation?)

To the great respite of the crowd, so much so that you could actually hear them collectively exhale in relief, the front doors separated like the parting of the Red Sea.

And with the opening of these doors, came out the reason for the tardiness. Two men, obviously not bouncers, confidently walked out the front doors of the club. They were complete opposites from one another. Where the first man was very tall, the other was barely taller than me. The first was on the heavier side, while the other one was so thin I feared I'd be able to see his bones. The former dark, while the latter was fair. One lighthearted, the other serious. (Or at least that's how I perceived it from the flickering expressions passing across their faces as they scanned the raucous crowds which were salivating to get inside.)

The first man, the one who was tall, heavy, dark, and lighthearted, carried a briefcase at least a foot deep, much deeper than normal briefcases. How many jewels could you carry in such a case? If they opened the case, would the sparkling of the gems blind you?

I yearned to be blinded by their beauty, but I had to wait. Meredith would be here and then this show would get on the road.

I began my current search for the Planet of Riches before putting my phone away in my purse and turned so I kept the two men just within my line of sight.

Which was Latens? Was he the lighthearted one with the briefcase? Something inside told me it was. Atrox, I'd come to imagine, was a much more serious minded person. But if the other man was Atrox, what was he doing here? I'd thought he was on some other planet.

Maybe I was wrong. The person carrying the jewels could be a bodyguard while the short man was Latens. Neither of them could be Latens, for Meredith would never know if the person she was meeting indeed was Latens.

A woman carrying a very bulky pocketbook strode confidently toward the club. I had to do a double take for Meredith had never looked so free and fun loving, while at the same time appearing so professional.

Her hair was curled in ringlets which bounced with every low healed step she took. Her dress lacked any of the reflective surfaces normally worn by partiers, but was still low cut and short enough she'd have been able to get into the club had that been her plan.

She walked right up to the two men, but before I could see any more, the women behind me shoved forward. The line into the club had begun to move and my lack of movement had upset the women behind me.

"Move," one of the women ordered as the gap between me and the person before me grew. I took a few small steps forward to appease the vapid masses, my eyes glued on Meredith and the men.

I was too far away to hear anything and that was unacceptable. Digging into my bag frantically, I acted as if I was getting a phone call.

I put the phone to my ear. "Yes? What? You've got to be kidding me?" I ran a suddenly agitated hand through my hair. "But this is my first night off in –" I stopped speaking and began nodding my head. "Fine, I'll be there in a little bit."

Hanging up my phone, I stepped out of line and walked toward the trio. Meredith was opening her pocketbook, tilting it so the men could see inside. I stopped under a light by the front door. I was now just barely within earshot of them. I don't think they noticed me, but to be certain they wouldn't care about my presence, I got on my phone again and began to type. To anyone looking at me, I appeared to be engrossed in my phone.

"Is it all there?" the tall man asked, all the humor which had been in his face gone.

"Of course it's there," Meredith said in her superior nasally tone. "And the package?"

"Complete," the shorter man assured her.

"I will be the judge of that," she said. "Where can I inspect the merchandise?"

"There is a room just inside the club."

"Then let's go."

The men turned and gestured for Meredith to walk before them. It felt reminiscent of an old movie where a famous movie star was ushered into a fancy restaurant by her date.

And I wasn't the only one to notice such star treatment. A group of five tall men, who by their looks were from a very different part of town than those which the local mafia controlled, pushed forward as if to follow Meredith and the men into the club.

"You'll have to wait your turn," one of the bouncers said, holding up a hand.

"We've been waiting a very long time. She has not."

"You still have to wait." Two more bouncers joined the first one.

My senses were beginning to tingle. This was starting to look like a standoff between the Jets and the Sharks. If cooler heads didn't prevail, things wouldn't be pretty.

And if they did start to fight, how would Meredith get out with her jewels? Was there a backdoor to the club? I couldn't remember seeing one, but you never knew with these places. There could be any number of ways out which weren't known to the general public.

I began to panic a little. What if Meredith got away from me? How would I ever know where she hid the briefcase?

"No! You will let us in now!"

"If you can't wait calmly and quietly, you'll have to leave." More bouncers had arrived, making the fight now fair, if indeed there was going to be a fight.

"We paid good money to get in and we're not leaving." The men behind the lead talker cracked their knuckles. They were ready for a fight.

This was not what I needed. Without acknowledging the fight to be, I walked away from the club, even as my mind spun. What do I do now?

But I didn't even have time to think about a contingency plan because the fight broke out faster than I'd expected.

Flesh hit flesh. Bodily fluids flowed through the streets. People screamed and scrambled away from the chaos.

That was enough for me. I wasn't sticking around to see more.

I started running around the side of the building when I saw my opening into the club. With people pouring out of the club to see the fight, nobody would notice me slipping in.

Changing direction, I pushed my way against the flow of traffic. I felt like a fish trying to swim upstream only to be buffeted by hundreds of obstacles. At times, it felt like the current was too strong and I was traveling in reverse. A few times, I was even thrust toward the combatants, toward the mayhem, but I persevered and finally came onto the other side of crowd.

The entrance hall to the club was dark and cloaked in heavy drapes. If I kept walking, I would have entered the strobe lit music pounding arena where more than one person's innocence had been shattered.

This wasn't where they'd have gone. That much I was sure of. There had to be some rooms for business to take place. Even if it was just an office or a break room for the employees, all they'd need was someplace quiet and private.

I saw no doors, no indication whatsoever as to the direction they'd gone, so I went into the club proper. One of the men had said there was a room just inside the club. I was now, technically I guess, just inside the club, so where was this room?

With the darkness, strobe lights, and the general mess left by the patrons when they'd rushed outside, it was hard to see anything clearly, but nothing really screamed "door" to me.

At least five minutes had passed since I'd last seen Meredith and the men. Who knows what could have happened by now. The men could have killed Meredith, she could have killed one of them, or even more unlikely, everything could have gone off without a hitch and Meredith had left via an alternate route. But if that was the case, where were the men? Wouldn't they be curious about what was happening outside?

None of this speculation, however, was going to do me any good unless I found that room fast.

I strode into the main part of the club/dancing area, but the farther I went, the less I saw. There were no doors, only tables, chairs, a littered dance floor, and those same heavy drapes which did nothing for the look of the club and were oddly spaced around the room.

So odd, in fact, that if they hadn't been drapes I might have thought they were doorways to other rooms.

That thought made the light bulb in my head go off. The drapes. Of course. How stupid could I be?

I ran up to the nearest one and pulled it back, revealing a door which blended so well into the wall that the only thing which gave it away was the doorknob.

I began to turn the knob when my common sense kicked in. How would I explain my presence if I burst in on them or anyone else for that matter?

I needed to get everyone out of the building. Only then would I be able to follow Meredith.

I spotted a fire alarm halfway down the wall. It would be so cliché if I pulled it, but did I really have any other choice?

I yanked down the alarm and at once the strobe lights stopped, the house lights turned on, and the music died. Every door in the building opened, pushing the drapes out of the way. Rain began to fall.

Rain? I looked up and saw the sprinklers spewing cold, fire-quenching water from the ceiling.

As I stood there like an idiot, looking up at the sprinkler, a man ran out of one of the concealed rooms and straight into me. I fell to the ground, landing hard.

There was a grunt from the man before he reached down and picked me up as if I weighed nothing. I looked into his face as I regained my breath.

It was the short man who had been with Meredith. His already serious face had turned grim, but he wasn't panicking as most people did when they heard a fire alarm.

"Let's go," he grunted again, dragging me out of the club. Every step he took splashed through puddles of water, but none of the drops seemed to touch him. He was so graceful and mesmerizing in his confidence that I forgot to resist his manhandling.

I was rudely brought out of my trance when he shoved me out the front door and into the crowd.

"Watch it!" I cried, grabbing the nearest person to stop my fall.

The woman I was holding onto complained I'd wrinkled her shirt but I didn't care. The very rude squat man had disappeared back into the club, closing the front doors behind him. Didn't he know that with the fire alarm going off, everyone should leave the building? He mustn't have been as bright as I'd thought.

Dripping wet, I pushed through the crowd to the sidewalk across from the club, angry at myself. Not only hadn't I seen the trade go down and hadn't followed Meredith to her hiding spot, I was now going to have mafia thugs mad at me because I hadn't sent the email.

The email!

I frantically searched for my phone, pushed the button I'd created which would send the email in an hour, and sighed in relief. The email might arrive a little late, but it would at least arrive.

But what was this blinking message on my screen? I enlarged the message. "Target has traveled outside their normal area." Target? What target?

Meredith, of course! I could have slapped myself for not remembering I could track her from my phone. How stupid was I?

I went into my tracking program and brought up the map of Meredith's current location. She was about a mile from the university, getting closer as I watched the screen. She was probably on a trolley to be moving so fast.

No, where she was headed wasn't going to help me find those jewels. I needed to know where she'd been. I pulled up a static map and laid Meredith's path for the day onto it.

She'd had a very busy day, I saw at once. Normally she stayed by campus and from what I'd seen she always went to the same places every day. Class, home, campus restaurant, campus grocer, etc.

Today, it looked like she'd traveled around half the city. I couldn't search all that territory for a briefcase. If she had indeed kept the jewels in the briefcase, I wouldn't have. What if the thugs she'd bought them from had placed a tracking device in the case? Then they'd be able to track them, and her, and that's the last thing she wanted.

No, I'd have put them in an ordinary shopping bag which nobody would look twice at.

On top of Meredith's movements, I put the trolley map and saw that about half of her traveling had been via trolley. Well that made sense, I thought sarcastically to myself. The high-speed trolley was the only way ninety-nine percent of the population was able to go long distances.

I needed to start thinking and not panicking. Panicking wasn't going to get me those jewels.

Every location that corresponded with the trolley I deleted from the map. This left me with a few places earlier in the day, the club, and every place she'd been after I'd lost her. Fortunately for me, neither of the earlier locations showed up later on so I ignored them.

Zooming into the immediate area, I studied the map, trying to orient myself. I wasn't as familiar with this area as I was other parts of town, but I'd bet it wasn't all that different. All the shady parts of town had back alleys, dingy doorsteps, vagrants, hookers, and gang activity. No area was immune except the gated suburbs and even they were beginning to get more gang activity within their white towers.

Once I knew where I was, I started walking in the direction Meredith had gone, ignoring the screaming of the fire trucks, the flashing of the police cars, and the arguing voices.

I'd only gotten past the fire trucks, however, when a cop grabbed my arm. "Miss, we were told you were inside the club when the alarm went off. We need to talk to you."

I gritted my teeth. Those jewels were slipping through my fingers every second I delayed. I did not have time to talk to this berry.

"Officer," I said in my kindest, sweetest voice, "I wasn't inside the club. I was at the very end of the line and then that horrible fight broke out and there were all this pushing and shoving. You must have me mixed up with someone else."

"Then how did you get all wet?" He had me there. I'd forgotten I was soaking wet and probably looked like a drowned rat.

"When the fire alarm went off, some jerks started spraying their water bottles all over the place and it went all over me. And this was my best outfit." I turned up the whine, hopefully making it painful for anyone trying to listen to me. "It's ruined! I'll never be able to wear it again! I –"

"Sorry to have stopped you. The witnesses must have meant someone else. Night." The berry turned around and walked back to the crowd which was still hovering near the crime scene. One of the bouncers had evidently been killed in the mayhem.

But the dead and disfigured weren't my problem or interest, so I continued down the road next to the club, trying to find the location Meredith had exited with the goods.

I kept one eye on my phone, while the other was on the lookout for thugs who were combing the street for targets. I knew how they think. A young woman, alone, soaking wet just screamed, "VICTIM."

My phone suddenly vibrated, letting me know that within five yards of my present location Meredith had walked.

There was nothing here, however, except for the building walls, a potholed street, and one single, solitary tree. She couldn't have come out here. The wall was solid. Could my phone mean she'd been inside the club, on the other side of the wall?

I squinted at the screen, trying to see how close I really was to where she'd been but no matter how large I blew up the map, I didn't get any more information.

Let's say she did leave the club through the solid wall, where had she gone from here? I turned my back to the wall and began to follow the path my phone told me she'd taken.

But I quickly found that her path didn't make a lot of sense. I had zoomed in as far as I was able and saw the tiny curves and turns she'd made which had no correlation to the world around me. Some of them didn't even make any sense.

Why had she made a dramatic curve when nothing was in my way? How had she walked through a boarded up building? There was no opening, no way in and out, so how had she done it?

The farther I traveled, the more confused I felt. There must be something I was missing, something so painfully obvious I should have realized it earlier. But nothing came to mind, leaving me no choice but to follow her path the best I could, unsuccessfully searching for where she could have hid the jewels.

I'd been walking and searching for about an hour when I reached a brick wall. I'm not talking metaphorically or psychologically, I'm talking literally. Right in front of me was a very tall, very dominating brick wall, stopping any progress I hoped to make.

"How'd she get past this?" I asked aloud even as I tilted my phone, trying to get a little more light to see the map. Even though my phone was backlit and extremely clear in even these conditions, I was hoping that some other light source would reveal something I was obviously missing. There had to be a logical answer as to how she'd gotten around the wall.

According to my map, Meredith had walked straight through the brick wall and had kept going for at least another thirty yards before turning right and walking to the nearest trolley stop.

But how'd she get through the wall? Had she flown over it or dug a tunnel under? I felt the brick wall, trying to find a trip or hidden door which would magically open and let me through.

Before I could find the way through, I heard the click of boot heels echoing down the alley.

"Look what we got here, Uri," a tall, leather clad woman said from beside an equally tall and leather clad man. There was a second man standing on the man's other side. The scars on his face made him look hideous.

"Looks like a lost lamb to me. Are you a lost lamb, lass?" I saw the predatory look in Uri's eyes, the same look that was in the woman's eyes. The other man's eyes were empty of all emotions.

"Not lost." I moved sideways along the brick wall slowly, trying to gain some distance between me and the leathered thugs.

"You look very lost, lamb. Why don't you come with Uri and me? We'll get you warm and help you find your way." Uri snickered and chills went up my spine.

"No, I'm fine. I'll be leaving now." I kept my voice strong. Any weakness on my part and they would pounce on me in an instant.

"No you won't, lamb. You're coming with us." Uri pulled something out of his pocket, but I didn't wait to see if it was a knife, a gun, or something worse. I turned and ran down the street, which was lined on one side with tall, rundown apartment buildings and the other with the enormous brick wall. I was so grateful I'd went with these low-heeled boots instead of some of the other flimsier pairs of shoes I had been considering. I'd never have gotten anywhere in them, probably being caught within seconds of the start of the chase.

"Get her!" the woman cried. Boot heels clicked on the cement like a galloping horse's shoes. I felt like prey about to be cut down at any second and to emphasize the point, the gun I'd only had a glimpse of went off.

I ducked my head, looking for another street to turn down or a doorway to hide in. "Don't shoot her you idiot! We need her uninjured!" the woman screamed.

"Shut up, you cow! We won't have any merchandise if she gets away! Ez, catch her!"

I heard heavy breathing. It sounded as if it were right in my ear and on the back of my neck. I felt a burst of adrenaline and ran a little faster, but it still wasn't enough to get out of the scarred giant's grasp.

His hands grasped my arms, jerking me to a stop. I struggled, trying to loosen his grip, but it did no good. He was too strong.

"Stop," he growled, shaking me. I felt like a bobble head from the force of his shake, but I continued to fight back. I lashed out, twisting my body first one way than the other, kicking backward, trying to get his shin.

None of my efforts resulted in anything except being shaken more and dragged against his massive body.

Ez picked me off my feet and turned us around so we faced Uri and the woman. The woman came up to me and hit me across the face.

I was barely able to stop myself from spitting and yelling at the woman.

"Don't bruise the merchandise," Uri said pulling the woman away from me.

"She'll be fine," the woman spat. "Ez, put her with the others. The night's still young and we have more girls to get before dawn."

Ez, with me still hovering above the ground, walked me away from the predatory pair.

##  Chapter 14

_The Planet of Riches Within_ by Misty Fields, chapter one:

(Misty Fields is a world renowned spiritual healer, who has a collection of spiritual books. Her latest, _Searching for Riches,_ is a bestseller on fifteen planets. When not writing or meeting with her celebrity clients, Ms. Fields enjoys spending time with her husband, Moonbeam Forest, and her children, Stardust, River, and Henri.)

"What most people don't realize is that the Planet of Riches is not a place, it is a concept.

"The Ancients were a highly analytical people to be sure, but they were also very spiritual. If you don't believe me, look at the thousands of gods and goddesses they believed in and worshiped. We've seen other groups, such as the Anarchists, who worshiped nobody but their own kings and their repository of myths and legends are very slim to nonexistent. Indeed, if the Anarchists didn't have the myth of Belli and the legend of Osk, the brilliant and fierce warrior queen, they would have had no myths and legends to speak of.

"But the Ancients were not like their enemies. They believed in gods and goddess and repeated their legends and myths as if they were actual people and events. The detail in their oral histories is so amazing that it would be impossible to believe they weren't incredibly spiritual.

"With this fact firmly in place, I relooked at all the known authentic documents from the Ancients, discounting the Hoftmeyer discovery for none of those documents have been authenticated. (I believe any researcher who uses the Hoftmeyer documents and believes they are actual Ancient documents needs to have their credentials reexamined. Anyone looking at the scrolls in question could tell the writer was looking back at the Ancients, not one of them.)

"Through my studies, I found there was theme of talking about the inner being as a physical place. For example, Otium for centuries was believed to be an actual place of peace and tranquility where the Ancients would rejuvenate. Now, after the transformative work of Monique Bosetti, we know Otium was a state of mind, not a place found on Earth or any other planet.

"It is my firm belief that the Planet of Riches is also a state of mind. The person who finds the real Planet of Riches is the one who has achieved a perfect work-life balance, is content in what they have, and has no needs left unattended.

"In our busy lives, finding such a balance is very difficult, but not impossible. It does take time, dedication, and a firm belief that when we reach the Planet of Riches within ourselves, we shall be richer than any amount of money or material wealth.

"In the rest of this book, I will be helping you achieve the inner peace and prosperity needed to reach the Planet of Riches within yourself."

##  Chapter 15

Ez carried me down a very dark block before he finally set me down to open the doors to what looked to be an old fashioned root cellar. A root cellar? Who had a root cellar in the city? Didn't those things go out of style about a hundred years ago?

The door was barely opened a crack before I was shoved in. The door slammed shut behind me.

I fell onto the stone steps and felt pain shoot through my knees. Damn, my knees were never good and they could not take abuse like this. I heard the bolt, which he'd pulled back to throw me in, being slammed closed.

"You frisk her?" Uri's voice asked.

There was a slight pause before Ez grunted in affirmation. "Good," Uri said. "Let's get hunting."

Frisk me? Ez hadn't frisked me. Why had he lied?

Thoroughly confused, I eased myself to my feet and was greeted to a tiny, flickering flame from an old oil lamp. Really? An oil lamp? Who used oil lamps in this age of technological marvel? It was probably some crazy who thought using outdated equipment meant getting closer to his roots, roots which he was liable to set on fire with his oil lamp.

By the light of the oil lamp, I was able to stumble my way down the steps to a group of women, girls, who had also been captured this hellish night.

The girls, most of which appeared to be underage, were all clad in club clothing, though what club they could have thought they were going to was beyond me. Clubs were very strict at keeping the underage out. If caught, either by the mob or the berries, they could be shut down, burned, or the owner killed. So where had these little girls been going so late?

As I got closer to them, they huddled together even more, acting scared that I might be with the ones who'd thrown me in here with them.

I gave them a disgusted look, which I knew they wouldn't be able to make out well in the dimness around us, and pulled my phone out of my pocket.

"Typical," I griped. The one time I really needed reception, I had got nothing. Turning back to the girls, I said, "Any of you have reception?"

"They took our phones before throwing us into this dungeon," one of the older girls said. That must be why Uri had asked Ez if he'd frisked me, to stop me from calling for help. With as busy of a night as this one, however, he must have forgotten. Ez hadn't sounded like the brightest bulb in the shed, so I guess it wasn't that surprising.

"This isn't a dungeon, it's a root cellar," I said absentmindedly as I took in my surroundings. The six girls filled up the small space almost completely. If Uri and his friends brought in any more girls, we'd be packed in here like sardines.

"Have any of you found a way out?" I didn't hold out much hope they'd say yes, otherwise why would they still be here?

"We haven't found anything except this grate," their spokesperson said. "Move away so she can see." There was some shuffling of the girls before I saw what she was talking about.

About a foot above the ground was a very ornate, Steampunk looking ventilation grate which was about a shoulder's width long and tall. (The grate's ornamentation reminded me of the Steampunk style which was portrayed in the highly popular tv show called _Lost in the Past_ , where a group of space dwellers fell through a blackhole which took them into the past. The show itself was only marginally interesting to myself. From the little I did see, I was fascinated with the architecture and ornamentation they portrayed on everything from buildings to clothing. This grate reminded me of this embellishment which has sadly gone the way of the past. They really didn't make things as nice as they used to.) I rushed to the rectangular grate and put a hand in front of it, feeling the flow of cold air coming at me.

"If we can get the grate off," I said, feeling around the edge, trying to find some way to release the grate, "we can get out of here."

"But you don't know what's on the other side," one of the girls whined. The whining grated on my nerves. I'd always hated those who whined. "It could lead nowhere."

"And what harm would that cause?" I asked. "Or do you want to be sold into slavery, prostitution, or worse?"

"What's worse than slavery and prostitution?" another girl asked.

I wanted to groan in pain. These girls were children. Babies even. And it was up to me, as the adult, to get us out before Ez came back.

I kept feeling around the grate, noticing that it wasn't firmly attached to the stone of the wall, but there also wasn't much give. I could get about a finger under the edge, but that was all the space I was given.

Sitting back on my heels, I thought. What could I do to pry the grate off the wall? What I really needed was a crowbar or a screwdriver. But I never carried those with me. But I did have a knife – never left home without it.

I reached down and was about to pull the knife out of my boot when I paused. Why should I use my stuff when these girls might have something we could use – and break – instead? Not moving from my place, I said, "We need something to pry this grate off the wall. Does anyone have anything thin, like a knife or screwdriver?"

"I have chopsticks," one of the girls said, pulling said chopsticks from her hair and passing them to me. I looked down at them and saw that they were made of stainless steel, not plastic. _Perfect_ , I thought.

"I need one of you to stay by the door and listen for anyone coming. I need another person to hold the oil lamp by me so I can see what I'm doing."

"You're going to get us killed," the girl who'd been so pessimistic before said. The others ignored her and did as I said. Two girls went to the cellar door while another grasped the light off the hook and brought it over my head.

"Oh, you've finally figured out what's worse than slavery and prostitution? Good for you, but right now I have to get us out of here."

I strained my eyes, trying to see the gap I knew had to be on the side of the grate, but the light was just too weak. "This isn't going to work," I said, sitting back on my heals. I looked at the girl holding the lamp. "You got a phone?"

The girl shook her head. "They took them all before throwing us into this pit," she said.

"Right, forgot about that. Then we'll use the light from my phone. It's got to be better than this piece of crap." Now I knew why everyone had flocked to electric lights when they'd been invented.

The girl set the lamp back on its crate and grabbed my phone from my hand. She tilted it over my head, illuminating the grate much more than the oil lamp ever could have.

Under this light, I slipped one chopstick on the right side of the grate, getting it easily in place. "Hold this," I told Miss Pessimistic. Her shaking hands took the chopstick. Maybe she wasn't as confident and hardnosed as I'd thought.

The second chopstick was harder to get into the side of the grate than the first one had been. I worked and twisted the stick, trying to get it in every which direction I could come up with, but nothing seemed to work.

I was just about ready to scream in frustration when the person holding the light said, "Let me try."

I gladly changed spots with her. If she could get it in, she was welcome to the glory. All I wanted to do was get out of this hellhole.

The girl had just started working on the grate when one of the children by the door said, "Someone's coming," and rushed away from the door. I put the lamp back on its hook and made everyone stand in front of the grate, hiding Pessimistic, who still held the chopstick behind the grate.

I needn't have worried, however, for Ez just threw his latest victim into the cellar as he'd done with me, closed the door, and walked away.

The girl who'd been thrown in looked petrified, but we didn't have time to hold her hand and tell her everything would be fine. We needed to get out of here before dawn, or whenever they happened to come back to move us whatever came first.

The girl who'd taken over trying to pry the stick into the grate began to frantically work, jabbing the stick here and there.

I watched her work, willing her to be more successful, but I stayed silent. Yelling, crying, or even noise in general, wasn't going to do any of us any good.

The girl was successful faster than I'd expected, soon she had the tip of the chopstick under the metal grate.

"Good," I breathed, exchanging the lamp for the chopstick. "Now, on three we pry it off the wall. One. Two. Three."

I pulled with all my might on the chopstick and I saw the grate bow out a little.

I kept pulling, along with the other girl, expecting it to come off at any moment.

The girl suddenly stopped pulling, breathing heavy. "It's not going to work," she panted.

"You give up too easily." Were all girls so easily discouraged? What was happening to today's youth?

"Move out of the way," the girl who'd gotten the chopstick into position for me said. "I'll do it myself."

The girl really put her heart and soul into pulling on the stick, trying to get the grate off. I went back to work and after a few minutes of pulling, I heard the scrape and groan of metal ripping away from stone.

I felt the grate loosen a little. Dirt and crumbled stone fell to the floor. The middle of the side of the grate where the stainless steel chopstick was pulling on it like a stainless steel hook, (which it had become by now because the steel had bent some at the tips, creating a hook which allowed us to pull easier, with the end of the chopstick working as a handle we could grip) was bending beautifully. In fact, such wanton destruction of property had never been more gorgeous than it was at this moment when I could almost taste freedom just a few pulls away. "Come on, come on."

With one big pull, my side of the grate came off. I fell to the floor, suddenly exhausted. But after a second's rest, I got back to my feet and went to help the girl who was still working on her side.

I thought about just bending the grate open enough so we could all squeeze through, meaning we wouldn't be bothering with removing the entire grate, but dismissed this thought almost immediately for a few reasons. One, was that it would take a lot more energy than it was worth to bend the metal back enough to create the hole we'd need to get inside. And second, it was just simpler to take it off. We could pass through without the hassle of someone getting cut on a sharp edge or complaining the hole wasn't big enough for them to get through. With the entire grate off, there would be no complaining because there was nothing we could do about the hole size, but with it on, they could complain to their hearts content until I finally snapped and killed one of them. So, all and all, it was just better to take the whole thing off, for everyone's sake.

With the two of us pulling with two different chopsticks and a little help with our fingertips, the second side came off much easier. (In retrospect, we might have had an easier time getting this side off if we'd just wiggled the grate back and forth, thus loosening it from the wall. But at that second in time, I was more interested in doing what I knew would work, not taking a chance at what only might have a chance of working.)

There were excited murmurings from the other girls, but I stopped them with a glare. Now was not the time to make lots of noise and attract attention. I pulled out my own phone and put it into the vent, trying to see how far it went, but it was too dark to see anything.

"I can't see what's beyond the light," I said, "but we're going to have to take the chance. I'll go first and –"

"No," Pessimistic said, "I'll go first."

"Fine." I didn't put up much of a fight because I knew sooner or later we'd come to another grate and the first person would have to break through it all by themselves. If she wanted to take on that responsibility, she could have it.

I watched as she began to make her way, headfirst, into the dark shaft, the light from my cell phone barely enough to illuminate even a fraction of the vent. As children, they were so small boned I didn't think they'd have any trouble maneuvering in and out, but for me, it was going to be a tight fit. And if the shaft got any smaller...I didn't even want to think about what that would mean to me.

One by one I watched as the seven other girls left the dark cellar and crawled into the dark tunnel.

As the last girl disappeared, I began to make my way through the hole when something came to me.

When they returned, they'd know exactly how we'd gotten away if I didn't do something to cover up the hole. Once inside, I wouldn't be able to replace the vent, so I needed to move something to conceal it.

I tried to recall what had been in the cellar before I'd turned off the lamp and hidden it away and remembered seeing some barrels. If I placed them in front of the opening, Ez and his friends might not even realize the vent was there in the dark. Even if it only delayed pursuit for a few minutes, it was better than leaving an obvious exit revealed for all to see and follow. Anything I did to delay them was better than doing nothing.

Fumbling around in the semi dark, (for I did have my phone tucked into my cleavage, allowing me to get some light from it) I found the barrels and rolled them into place. When I finally had the hole surrounded, I squeezed back to it and began the painful processes of fitting into a square vent never meant for people.

I pushed myself into the vent shaft headfirst, ignoring the scrapes I got from the metal border the grate had been attached to and friction burns from dragging my hips against the sides of the opening. These were minor pains I'd nurse when I was safe. The hardest part to get through the rectangular vent shaft opening was my hips, for they were slightly broader than my shoulders. I had to twist and turn them, putting them at an extreme angle before they got through. I was just lucky that the vent shaft was wider than the vent opening, meaning I didn't have to crawl through it sideways. Not much bigger, mind you, but enough so I was able to crawl normally and not hit my head every three seconds.

Once in, I crawled at a brisk pace, or as fast as you can go when you're crawling entirely on your elbows, belly, and knees, all of which immediately started hurting, and tried to ignore the immediate claustrophobic feeling which pressed in upon me.

It wouldn't have been so bad if I'd been able to actually get into a high crawl, where I could use my hands to support me more so than my elbows, but what really bothered me was my knees. They'd already taken abuse tonight and repeatedly banging them on hard metal was not helping any. At times, they screamed out in pain, cursing they'd ever been attached to me, but I ignored them the best I could. If I wanted freedom, I had to suck up the pain and keep moving.

But the pain wasn't the only physical discomfort I had to deal with. Do you know how difficult it is to crawl in low heeled boots, a short skirt, and a low cut top? If not, I'll tell you. It's very uncomfortable. The skirt kept riding up as I moved my legs. After the first few attempts at pushing it back into place, I gave up. It was just going to continue riding up and there was nothing I could do. It wasn't like anyone was behind me to see anything anyway, so why was I trying to protect my modesty?

As for my boots, they were so slick soled that they got no grip at all. Frankly, I'd have been better off taking them off and just going barefoot, not that bare footing it was a good idea especially when I didn't know what was in front of me, or under me, but at least I'd have gotten some traction, which was sorely lacking with these beautiful shoes.

If anything, the top was the least of my concerns because other than slipping down to show even more skin than normal, and riding up a little from the bottom, it stayed in place. While I'd have been much more happy to have a long shirt which wouldn't have bared more of my skin to the elements, as long as everything stayed where it was supposed to, I was fine with the uncomfortableness I was left with.

As for the claustrophobia, I tried to ignore this too, but it was harder than I'd like to admit. The walls were right there, giving me no breathing space to even think about. It didn't help that with every breath I took my chest would push against the floor of the vent and my back routinely brushed against the ceiling of the vent, enhancing the no excess space feeling. How I got through it, however, was by believing that instead of being in an enclosed space, I was in a larger space, going toward something. As long as I could go toward the exit, the vent wasn't confined and I had a way out. This worked most of the time, but there were those moments when I could feel the walls pushing in on me. Thankfully, they were few and far between.

I was so quick in my crawling maneuvers in fact that I met up the rest of the group in a few minutes.

"Faster," I urged them. "We haven't got all day."

"We're going as fast as we can," one of the girls whined, but with my constant prodding and urging, they picked up the pace.

I have no idea how far we crawled or how long it took, but it felt like we covered miles of dusty, dirty, bug infested vent shaft without ever coming out.

The girls kept complaining they were tired and they needed to rest, but every time I reminded them why we were in this shaft, they would go for a little longer without voicing their fatigue.

Finally, Pessimistic gave a cry of relief. "There's a grate! And light!"

Excitement filled the air, but I burst that bubble fast. "We still have to get past the grate, _and_ not meet anyone else, so don't start celebrating yet."

"How are we getting past the grate?" Pessimistic asked.

"There is no we. It's you. Break it out."

"But –"

"There are no buts. You wanted to go first. You get the responsibility the person in the lead always has. Get the grate down, make sure nobody's coming, and hop out of the shaft."

Pessimistic pouted, but my heart had long ago hardened to those who failed to help themselves. Or those who didn't think about the future when they made hasty decisions, as she'd done.

When she saw nobody else would, or could, come help her, Pessimistic began weakly banging on the grate. The sound vibrated up the shaft, making me suddenly aware of how vulnerable we were.

"Try to be quiet!"

"You be quiet! I'm the only one doing anything to get us out of this horrible place!"

"Do you want everyone to know where we are? If you do, then keep on being loud!"

Pessimistic didn't reply, but she was quieter with her efforts. I heard her grunting and groaning, but I didn't hear the grate moving.

After a minute of no progress, I had to say something. I could feel time running out. "Can you turn around and use your feet to push the grate out?"

"I don't know. It's pretty tight in here."

"Oh, try," one girl begged. "I feel like the walls are closing in on us! We've got to get out of here!"

"Fine," Pessimistic huffed. There was much moving around and griping, but she was finally able to somehow turn around. I silently thanked my luck she'd insisted on going first. I'd never have been able to turn around in the shaft.

With her feet now in a good position to kick at the grate, the grate had no more resistance to give. After four or five powerful kicks, it clanged to the stone floor below.

All of us in the shaft held our breath. Would someone hear the noise and come investigate what it had been? If we were lucky, we'd be entering into some type of sewer pipe nobody cared about.

But...if it was a sewer pipe, wouldn't we be smelling the scent of excrement and whatever chemicals were used to destroy said substance? And hear a splash when the grate fell into the unholy pool of poo?

There was no smell, other than the must and dirt which I'd become used to and no splash. Instead, I heard a loud clang, as if the grate cover had hit cement or brick. I was very grateful there was no splash or reeking stench of sewage because if there was, I'd have been in deep trouble. I didn't want to be walking around in that stuff on the best of days, and those days would be in a hazmat suit with its own air circulation system. Could you imagine me walking around in a short skirt in this crap which would probably go up to my waist at the very least? I could and I shuddered at all the infectious diseases I'd have been wading through, so you could say I was very, very grateful not to hear a splash. In fact, the thud was such a beautiful sound which I was thanking my lucky stars for.

We waited for about a minute and when we didn't hear anyone come running Pessimistic began to shimmy her way out of the vent.

I heard her feet fall to the ground, the sound like a gunshot in the shaft. A second later, she said, "It's clear. Come one."

One by one, the girls in front of me crawled out of the dusty shaft, until I was the last one left. Sticking my head out after slipping my phone back into my skirt pocket I took in my first good clean breath of air in what felt like ages. Two girls were there, grabbing my shoulders and arms, holding me steady as I tried to wiggle my way out of this sardine can someone liked to call a vent shaft.

Again, I made it all the way to my hips before I began having problems. "Maybe it you turn...no the other way...or what about...?"

"Damn. This hole must be smaller than the other one. You're just going to have to pull me out," I told them grimly after a few minutes of maneuvering which wasn't getting any closer to freedom.

"But we could hurt you," the girl on my left said. She looked absolutely petrified at the thought of hurting someone. Obviously she led a very sheltered life, for hurting others was unavoidable in the real world.

"Pull," I ordered them. We were wasting valuable time. A little pain now was better than more pain when they found us.

The girls glanced at each other, trepidation on both their faces, before they gave halfhearted pulls on my arms.

"That's never going to do anything," Pessimistic screeched, storming over to them. "Here, you two take that arm and I'll take this one. We'll have her out of there in no time."

The look she flashed me was positively primal. I saw she wasn't afraid of hurting someone who stood in her way. They gave me one very strong yank, and I came out of the shaft as if I'd been lathered in butter.

But all was not well. Not only did I almost fall on my face, but my hip dug into the sides of grate and I felt something pierce my left side.

The girls helped me to my feet, and once up, I put my hand to my side, trying to feel if the cut was large or small. Unfortunately I wasn't able to tell much without looking at the injury.

However, that would have to wait until we were someplace safe. I looked around and saw that we were indeed not in a dingy sewer at all, thank the Ancients. Instead, we were in a well-crafted, underground tunnel. The pointed barrel vaulted ceilings had to be at least ten feet tall at their peak, making them look cathedral-esque in their majesty. The cement walls, which encased us were smooth and without any of the normal flaws associated with underground cement work. In fact, they were so clean and beautifully white that I'd have expected them to be in a home or apartment instead of underground where nobody was able to enjoy them. This whole space seemed a shame not to share with the world, but that was how it always was, wasn't it? The beautiful was hidden away while the bland and boring was out for all the world to see.

The ventilation shaft we'd fallen out of was probably one of dozens which allowed air into what would otherwise have been a stifling space. I could see little beyond the cone of light given off by the one light above our heads besides concrete, which faded into the ever-darkening shadows. The other lights remained steadfastly dark. They must have been motion activated. Or perhaps just burnt out. Who knew until we started in a direction?

"Which way do we go?" a girl asked. She was huddled against one of the others, looking as frightened now as I'd seen them in the cellar.

I looked right and then left, trying to come up with some direction. When I found nothing to differentiate one direction over the other, I decided to guess. I was just about to start the old rhyme about the Ancients and toes when I realized my phone was buzzing like crazy. Pulling it out, I saw that while I still didn't have any reception, it was trying to tell me Meredith had traveled near my present location.

It all came to me suddenly. This tunnel must have been how she'd escaped the club and gotten around the brick wall.

Turning back to my phone, I saw we were only a few blocks from the nearest trolley stop. I could get them there, and then I could search this tunnel and find the jewels.

"This way," Pessimistic said, pointing to the right.

"That'll take us right back to them," I said. "This is the way out."

The six girls looked between the two of us, obviously unsure who was right.

"And how are you so sure you're right?" Pessimistic asked.

"I have perfect direction. If we go this way, we'll be at a trolley stop in a little bit. If we go that way we'll end up under some club and you know what happens to underage girls at clubs don't you?"

I didn't wait for an answer. I started walking the direction I'd indicated was the way out and after a few steps, heard the others fall in line behind me. A quick glance over my shoulder told me all six sheep had decided I was the correct one. Only the pessimistic sheep was standing there, looking after us. Her confidence, which had been so high only seconds before, was lying at her feet, ready to be shattered.

My sheep and I were only a few lights away from her before we heard her run to catch up to us. She never said a word, never gave an excuse as to why she changed her mind. She simply brought up the rear, acting huffy and unhappy.

Every step we took, my phone vibrated, letting me know I was finally on the right path. I looked around, hoping there would be more tunnels which would intersect this one, or someplace else appropriate to hide the prize.

All I saw, however, were ventilation shafts. So many in fact that they were too numerous to count and each grate was decorated and sized different than the last. Some had faces of realistic animals, while others were just representations of animals which may or may not have been alive at one time in the world's history. Others were of shapes and lines so theoretical and conceptual in nature that you'd have thought an abstract artist had been given leeway to create them. These abstract grates were side by side with those of unknown people's faces carved and created in such loving detail that you knew they meant something to someone. But whether those lovers of the unknown faces were alive anymore was the real question. I thought not or else they'd have been down here worshiping these faces, keeping them shiny and clean instead of dusty and cobwebbed covered.

The ones which weren't recognizable were very ornate in a general sense with each made in a completely different shape and size than the one before them. Some were as tiny as my purse, and as perfectly circular as could be, while others looked to be the size of doors, rectangular to the point of exaggeration. There was no rhyme or reason as to why they were the size and shape they were. For some of the largest ones were near the ceiling, while the minuscule ones near the floor. If I'd been the one to design such a weird system of grates, I'd have done it the other way around, or else had a healthy mixture in their placement. But who knew the thought process behind the maker? I surely didn't.

We were passing one when I noticed that the larger vents actually had what appeared to be handles and that's when it hit me. These weren't just ventilation shafts. They were doors connecting other tunnels to this main one.

How could I be so unobservant? I should have noticed that ages ago. But my mind didn't stop at that feature. It kept going as if it were racing to catch up to the cheetah that had all the information on its back.

If these grates were also doors, then wasn't it possible to hide a package just inside of the door, or one of the smaller vents, and nobody would notice?

This created a lot of territory, especially since she could have hidden it anywhere. I'd have to come back later with a microchip detector which was specially designed to pick up the small signals the microchips which were embedded in jewelry sent out.

(These microscopic microchips were placed in every piece of jewelry worth stealing. The cheap bobbles most people buy for their girlfriend or boyfriend weren't worth the time or energy to microchip. But the expensive pieces, or anything over a couple thousand dollars, had a microchip embedded, enabling them to be found if they're ever lost or stolen. This microchip detection system has cut down on the number of "stolen" jewelry claims by ninety-five percent, much to the insurance companies' happiness.)

That did mean, however, I'd have to barter with Darius. (Darius was a good friend who was always willing to help a friend in need. Especially when it was beneficial to himself.) But he owed me a few favors. It shouldn't be too hard to get him to lend me his detector for the day.

After a long while, the tunnel began sloping upwards. I could tell we were probably ascending to the street, so I had the others stand a little back and I went ahead. I didn't want any of us doing anything stupid, like walk up on Uri, Ez, and that evil woman.

But my fears were for not. After going up a half dozen steps, I came to a very large grate, one that looked like every other sewer grate in the city. I peeked through the bars and didn't see anyone.

I went back down the stairs to where they'd been waiting. "I don't see anyone, but that doesn't mean someone couldn't be out there. Everyone stick together and stay quiet."

We crept to the grate and I looked through it again, making sure it was still clear. I opened the door slowly, expecting screeching and grinding sounds, but they never appeared. Someone had oiled the hinges so they barely made a sound.

I got out and waved the others to hurry. While they almost trampled over each other, I brought up the map of trolley stops and came up with the direction we should go.

When the last person ascended, I shut the grate door, making sure to not close it all the way. I didn't want to have to deal with the grate being locked when I came back later.

"Trolley stop is about a block away." Dawn was now approaching and the streets would shortly become busy with morning commuters hurrying to their cubicled offices for another day of grinding and unthinking labor.

We ran toward the stop and as we got nearer, we saw the trolley come closer and closer. I started to yell at the driver to stop and the others followed my lead even as we picked up our pace a little more.

Our antics must have caught the driver's attention because he stopped five feet away from the stop, opened the door, and waited for us to hurry aboard.

"No need to rush, little ladies. Would have been around again in twenty minutes."

None of us answered him. I sat down at the first available seat, clutching my side even as I tried to get enough air to make the stitch in my side go away. My hand brushed my hip and pain shot through me. My injury. I'd completely forgotten about it in the rush to get to safety.

The movements of the trolley went by in a whirlwind. I don't know when the children got off or what part of town they lived in and I didn't really care. Our solidarity only went as far as the trolley. Once we were speeding away from danger, they were on their own. Hopefully they'd learned not to go walking at night in horrible neighborhoods.

I'd learned where Meredith had been and that was well worth the incident with Uri and Ez.

Finally, after my mind stopped swirling about, I began to pay attention to where I was and where the trolley travelled. Incredibly, if I got off in five stops, I'd only be twelve blocks away from Darius.

I'd go to Darius, he'd patch me up, I'd get the detector, and then I'd come back, in the light of day, and find my jewels.

## Chapter 16

The street I was on was very quiet as I walked toward the very high rise, very expensive apartment complex Darius lived in.

Or to be more accurate, it was a _condominium complex_ which was run by the complex's syndicate. This syndicate, made up of shady businessmen, lawyers, and other prominent people of the world, was responsible for keeping their little slice of heaven safe from all the evil in the world.

And also those who happened to paint their doors the wrong color.

For once someone paints their door, who knows how many more rules those scoundrels will be willing to break?

Don't they know they can only paint their door two colors?

White or ivory.

Those were your choices.

Not blue or green, or god forbid black.

No, no, no, if we start letting people get away with these small infractions, next they'll change their doorknobs to some other color than stainless steel, like gold or purple, and start putting decorations outside their door to celebrate holidays.

Or just for whimsy.

No, the patriarchs of the syndicate cracked down harshly on any expression of individualism, thus making it the most monochromatic building I'd ever been in.

But then, it also was one of the easiest places to get into without a key or having anyone buzz you up.

That's really the secret to living in a community of residences. The more run down and decrepit the place, the better the locks and the harder it is to break in without trouble. But as you went up in price and niceness, concerns for safety and crime went out the window.

It was someone else's responsibility to worry about these baser things, not the wealthy homeowner who just dropped a fortune on new artwork and had friends who were CEOs of big, important companies. Yes, someone else was responsible for safety, that's why you pay good money to the association to take care of those things.

I wanted to laugh.

Safety was just one of _those things._

Like garbage removal and pool cleaning.

It was a thing to be relegated to someone else.

A someone else who, in turn, subcontracted the work to another person.

A subcontractor who, in turn, stood to lose nothing if the job was performed incorrectly.

All they cared about was getting paid at the end of the job.

What was it to them if the security wasn't exactly fool proof?

As long as it was good enough for the people who'd hired them, it was good enough for them.

But when someone put a flower pot in front of their door, in the communal hallway, all hell broke loose. People screamed about how you weren't allowed flower pots and how it was against all the rules of conformity and that if you didn't remove the horrible thing this instant, they'd sick the HOA (Home Owners Association) on your nonconformist ass and get you kicked out.

I smiled at the idea of a nonconforming flower.

It would be something Darius would do just for the hell of it.

I turned the corner of his street and saw the hustle and bustle of the morning commuters who were up and hurrying about. The morning craziness made my entrance easier than if I'd tried to get in during the afternoon hours.

I kept walking at a steady pace and pulled out my phone, pretending I was working. When I got to the front door to his complex, the doorman hurried to open the door for me. I mumbled my thanks, still looking and tapping on the phone.

I didn't put away my phone until I was in the elevator, which could have really used some fun colors to break up all the blah-ness around me, rocketing up to the thirty-fifth story. Stepping out into the white on ivory hallway, which led to three different condos, I went to the only door facing the back of the building.

I smiled at the tiny butterflies which lined Darius' front door. He'd always had a touch of the whimsy, even when we were younger. Bet the HOA just loved them.

The door opened, revealing a man a few inches taller than me with a pleasant face and a wide smile when he saw me.

"Ana!" he exclaimed, pulling me into a full body hug. "It's been too long. When was the last time I saw you?"

"Lakeview, year and half ago," I said, pulling back. "Let me look at you. Why, you haven't changed at all."

"But you have, you gorgeous woman you. But then, you always seem more beautiful than the last time I've seen you."

Darius shut the door behind us, guiding me into his home. And what a home it was. Fully modern in style, it had two bedrooms, two and half baths, a kitchen any chef would be envious of, and enough windows to take in the spectacular view he was lucky enough to have.

"You're too kind," I murmured. I knew he said that to all the ladies, but he had a way about him which made a girl really believe he meant it when he said it to you.

"So, what's happening? You still in school?" Darius had gone to the same school as me, graduating two years earlier. He'd been very impressed at my longevity and ability to fool so many people.

He'd only managed to get six years out of college before they kicked him out. His mistake? Dating a school employee who not only worked at the university, but in the Office of Ethical Behavior, who'd squealed on him after he'd broken up with her for another woman.

Actually, his mistake hadn't been dating the employee.

It'd been boasting what he'd been doing.

When he told me his blunder, I couldn't believe it. If I'd learned anything in this business, it was that you keep your mouth shut and never boast to anyone who's not in on the con with you.

So, after six years of an easy ride, he'd been flung into the real world with degrees in Shrub Shaping and Bathtub Installation. It wasn't all bad. With those seemingly useless degrees, he'd created a very profitable business called "Shrub and Tub."

(In all honesty, I didn't know how he'd been able to make a go of it, combining foliage and baths, or if he even combined them all that much, but if it paid the bills, I was all for it. Far be it for me to knock someone for having an unorthodox business model.)

"Yeah, but this is my last semester. Unless I get into a graduate program for the culinary arts. I'm still evaluating what my best choice is."

"Graduate school? Let me guess, all expenses paid?"

"Of course. Who pays for school?" Darius and I looked at each other knowingly before we started laughing.

But laughing wasn't a good idea because it brought my attention back to my side, which I still hadn't gotten a look at.

Darius saw me put my hand on my side and wince. "What's wrong?" He surveyed my dirty, unkempt appearance as if seeing me for the first time since I'd arrived on this doorstep. "What happened to you?"

"Oh, you know, went to a club to follow someone, lost said person, and then when I tried to track them, got caught by snatchers and had to escape with seven other girls."

Darius whistled. "Wow, you had a way more interesting night than I did. But what happened to your side?"

"When they were pulling me out of a vent shaft, I got caught on something. I was hoping you could patch me up."

"Let me get the first aid kit." Darius left the room into what I knew was the powder room while I sat on one of the bar stools lining his kitchen island.

(Darius's powder room was unlike any powder room I'd ever seen before. Where most people's powder room was just a place for their guests to use the facilities, this one fulfilled this requirement and went way beyond.

Upon hearing the word "powder" in the name of the bathroom, Darius had decided to make it a literal powder room, as in with hidden guns and a munitions stronghold.

To complete his dream bathroom, he'd cut into the walls, creating hidden compartments everywhere the eye looked. Above and behind the toilet, underneath the sink, in the ceiling, in the shower...you name a place and you'd find a crammed hidden shelf or cubbyhole there or in the immediate vicinity.

Now, with such a unique bathroom, Darius would never have told anyone about it and that normally would have transferred to me, but I've got a nose for when something isn't quite right and something about the room just screamed that he was hiding something. So naturally I began poking around, trying to figure out what was making my spidey senses tingle and I found one of the secret compartments which was full of ammunition, enough to start his own mini war with the HOA.

Upon questioning him, Darius tried to act all surprised at the ammo's presence, and when I didn't buy that story, he tried to tell me he was just holding it for a friend, but I saw right through it all and soon got the truth.

And the truth was that my pacifistic friend was a gun lover. If he saw a pretty gun, or one particularly shiny, he had to add it to his growing collection. And with the growth of the gun collection, he'd bought ammunition to fire out of said guns because "they were a set and you can't break up a set." His words, not mine.

So, whereas most people just had a guest bathroom, Darius had a guest bathroom/hidden guns and munitions stronghold. There were worst things to keep in your bathroom, I guess. On the bright side, at least I knew that if we were ever attacked in his condo and I needed a gun or more ammo, that I didn't have to go any farther than the powder room.)

"How'd you get caught by snatchers?" Darius asked from the other room. I heard him rummaging around.

"I was lazy. I'd been tracking my target when I hit a brick wall."

"You got stuck?" Darius asked walking back toward me.

"No. I hit a literal ten foot tall, foot thick brick wall. I was trying to figure out how my target had gotten around it when the snatchers snuck up on me."

"And caught you when you ran. Yeah, I've seen how they operate, but how'd you get away? Where are you hurt?"

"My hip." I lifted up the left side of my shirt, revealing the very top of the gash. And a thin piece of metal which had pierced my skirt on its way into my body.

"Damn, girl. That's nasty looking." Darius' usually cheerful face had turned grim as he examined the wound. "I think the only way to dress the wound will be to take out the metal."

"You think?"

"No need to be sarcastic. Just wanted us to be on the same page. You in pain? Need any meds?"

"It barely hurts. Get it out."

Darius considered the metal for a minute more before he grabbed the end and started to pull it out. I stared out his windows, which faced a huge park. Shoots were starting to push up from the black earth and the trees were flowering.

As I gazed upon the beautiful sights, my eyes were drawn to one specific tree. It had to have been a few feet taller than the other trees around it and its flowers were a beautiful dark blue.

"What type of tree is that?" I asked.

"Which tree? I've got a lot of them outside my window, in case you didn't realize."

"The tall blue one," I responded, my eyes tracing the tree's majestic lines and quiet beauty.

"It's a Jacaranda tree. The one you're looking at was specially bred to have that deep blue color."

"How do you know?" I asked looking at him.

In his hand was the piece of metal he'd just extracted from my body. A fraction of its length was coated with thick black clotted blood. It must have gone in about an inch, with about a half inch protruding. It had penetrated my body a lot farther than I'd have thought.

He put it aside, and then pulled my skirt down enough to see the full extent of the damage.

"The wound doesn't look too bad. Grade one should suffice," he said, digging though the first aid kit, looking for the grade one wound healer.

Grade one would heal minor scrapes, cuts, and wounds. Everyone had a grade one healer. It was like having band aids in the olden days. If you couldn't even afford a grade one, you must have been dirt poor and would have sponged off a neighbor if you needed to be healed.

Grade two could semi heal medium deep cuts and wounds and was only available to people trained in medical fields. The normal consumer would get treated with a grade two at a doctor's office. If you had an injury even worse than medium grade, you probably already had to go to the hospital, but only a grade three healer would do you any good. Those were only available in hospitals and on the black market.

If you were really special, and had all the permits, you could get a very high tech healer which could treat all three grades with the flip of a switch. They had just come out a year or so ago, and went for so much money they weren't practical for the everyday hospital to buy. On the other hand, it was very cost affective where space was at an extreme premium such as ships, mobile military units, traveling doctors who catered to the filthy rich, and illegal clinics which were constantly on the move. But even though I fit in none of those categories, I'd been intrigued. If I could have afforded it, I'd have invested in the paperwork to get one. You never knew when you might need to be patched up.

But since I didn't have one of the newest and best gadgets, or anything over a grade one, I'd made friends and business connections with those who owned their own grade two or three. They'd heal me if I really didn't want to go to a doctor or hospital. But I'd have only gone to them if I was completely desperate, or wanted by the berries. They weren't the best of people to rely upon if you wanted to stay alive. I think over the years I've known them, their success rate has gotten up to about thirty percent for the really critical patients.

When you compare that to the ninety seven percent survival rate of the hospitals, which would you rely on?

Darius finally found the healer, turned it on, and held it over the wound. "I'm not sure how long this could take. Your wound isn't extensive, but it is deep."

The healer made my skin warm and tingly. I knew that was the healer mending, knitting my skin, muscles, and whatever else back together.

"The tree?" I prompted Darius when the buzzing of the healer got to be too much for me to take.

"The tree? What tree?"

"The tree outside your window!"

"Ah, that tree." There was a smile hovering around his lips as if he was happy to have gotten a rise out of me. "Yes, the tree. What did you want to know about it?"

"How do you know it was specially bred for its color?" I gritted my teeth. He'd passed over a particularly sensitive part of the wound. The heat from the healer made it feel as if someone had shoved a warm poker into it.

"I asked Heli."

"Who's she? Your girlfriend."

" _He_ is the doorman. You might have noticed him when you snuck into the building?"

"Not really. I was trying to make myself as unnoticeable as possible at the time, if you remember correctly."

"Well Heli, my nongirlfriend, mentioned it to me last spring when I said how striking the tree was from my window. His father had been the grounds keeper for the park and commissioned the genetic breeding for the tree. There's only one other blue flowering Jacaranda tree on the planet."

"Is there? Where?"

"Bratus. It's the city's sister city. I think we're about done," he said, waving the healer over the wound one more time before shutting it off. I looked down and saw he was right. The wound, which had been bloody, red and inflamed from being scraped, had disappeared. All that was left behind was some tenderness and a thin red line.

"Thanks," I said, feeling a lot better. I hadn't realized how nervous I'd been until he'd finished. I usually wasn't squeamish about things like this. What was wrong with me?

I yawned, tiredness suddenly weighed heavily on me. Maybe being tired had contributed to my squeamishness.

"Have you eaten today?" Darius didn't even wait for an answer. He just began to pull out a couple of pans before turning to his refrigerator.

"No. Not since last night."

"I'll feed you and you can tell me all about your night. Don't leave out any details."

"Only if you let me borrow your microchip detector."

"Of course you can borrow it. What are you trying to find. Jewels or cash?" The same microchips they put in jewels, they put in large denominations of money. Any bill of a thousand dollars or more was microchipped so some thieving employee didn't make off with the money before it left the treasury.

"Jewels. It all started with this girl from class, Meredith. She was so annoying..."

## Chapter 17

By the time I'd finished with my story, Darius was no longer smiling. "Do you even know who you've gotten involved with?" he asked, his omelet untouched before him.

"No and I'm not involved with them. They're just helping me out with Meredith."

"Oh, you're involved with them. If they ever find out who you are, they'll own you for the rest of your life, which could be considerably shorter than if you'd just left them alone."

I yawned again. Darius always did have a flare for the dramatic and usually I was all for playing along with him, but not today. Today I felt like getting the detector, finding the jewels, and going to my home for a long nap.

"You need to pay attention," Darius snapped. "These people are horrible. I've heard of them and –"

"Cut to the chase. Who are they?"

"They're the Planet Mafia." Darius looked at me expectantly, as if waiting for me to react.

The name rang some bells, but I, for the life of me, couldn't remember who they were. "The Planet Mafia...?" I asked vaguely.

"You don't know who the Planet Mafia is, do you?"

"No, I don't. They sound familiar, but..."

"They should sound familiar. These are the guys who took out Ozi when they thought he was snitching to the berries."

Ozi had been a close friend of Darius, so close they'd almost been brothers. Unlike Darius and I, Ozi had always been deeper into the game, willing to do anything to make a dollar.

"That must be why the name sounded familiar," I said, trying very hard and failing to keep the image of Ozi's emaciated and broken body out of my mind. "But wasn't Ozi involved with the PM's?"

"Same people, shorter name. They're on every habited planet, running ninety percent of the slaves, drugs, and overall crime which happens. And you had to get involved with them?"

"If what you say is true how could I have avoided them? Controlling ninety percent doesn't leave a lot of room for anyone else."

Darius didn't say anything. His eyes were unfocused and teary. He must have been thinking of Ozi. Even after three years, the memories stirred up feelings and emotions which shook him to the core.

"Thinking about it won't make him come back," I said quietly.

Darius' pained eyes met mine. "I know. But did you have to get involved with them?"

"It's not like I did this on purpose. I had no idea who those guys where when I saw them contacting Meredith. They could have been with any mafia. And, as I keep telling you, they have no idea who I am."

"They might now," Darius said, taking our plates.

"What do you mean?" I suddenly felt scared.

"What did I take out of you?" he asked instead of answering my question.

"A piece of metal..." My answer was almost a question. It had to have been just a simple piece of metal. What else could it be?

"Take a better look at it. It's not _just_ a piece of metal." Darius brought the object in question to the island and set it right in front of me.

I was loathe to touch it, but forced back my sudden revulsion. It was only a piece of metal. It couldn't hurt me. It wasn't alive, so why the reluctance?

When I finally picked it up and it didn't suddenly come to life, I felt like laughing at my sudden foolishness. It was inanimate, as I'd known it was. Nothing to worry about.

I turned the hunk of metal around, looking at it, but not seeing anything about it that made it special or worrisome. "Well?" Darius asked, obviously waiting for me to connect the dots.

"Well what? There's nothing here."

"Yes there is. Look at the end that was sticking out of you. Don't you realize what that is?"

I looked at the end he'd indicated, but I didn't see anything except that it was a little thicker at that end than the end which had been inside me. "I don't see anything."

"By the Ancients you are blind at times. That is a microphone and video recorder. State of the art. It can transmit a signal to the other side of the planet with no problems."

My skin felt cold.

A microphone.

And video recorder.

Then they must have... "If you knew this, why did you let me tell you everything? Now they know who we are! And where we are! Don't you know what this means?"

"I'm glad that you're finally realizing how serious the situation is, but you don't have to worry about this one. I made sure it wasn't working right after I took it out of you. You probably disrupted the transmission when you yanked it out of the side of the vent. But what I'm worried about is the others."

"The others? What others?" I looked around the room as if I expected tiny microphones and video recorders to come popping out of the woodwork.

"The ones in that tunnel you used to get out. If there was a recorder in your vent, I'll bet anything that there are even more cameras in the vents. You did say there was an abnormal amount of them, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Then that's how they probably keep track of what's going on. The cameras tell them when there's movement and they can follow where anyone goes."

A sudden thought came to me. "It could also show me where she hid the jewels."

Darius banged his fist on the island. "Is that all you can think about? Those damn jewels? What about your own hide? Don't you have a care for it? They could be even now trying to figure out who you are, where you live, and who you're connected to."

"But they won't find anything, will they?" I gave Darius a knowing look. Over the years, I'd become quite adept at wiping away most evidence of my existence, leaving behind just enough as to not create any suspicions. So, if the school wanted to verify my grades, they could, but if anyone wanted to know my current living address, that information was curiously absent from the system and all they would find was my last known address.

Even though we both knew all the steps I'd taken, Darius didn't seem impressed. "They could still find something. You don't know them. They have people _everywhere_ who are willing to do _anything_ to get the information their bosses want."

I shrugged off his concerns. "If, and I do mean a huge if, they look at the video feed, all they'll see are eight dirty, scared women, trying to get out of the tunnel. Nothing more. There's no reason for them to dig into who we are and why we were there."

"But you're going back," Darius said. "They'll see you for a second time. This time not acting so innocently. They'll know you're there for some nefarious reason and hunt you down to find out why you were in their tunnel."

"Not if I disrupt the video feeds and put them on a loop." The idea had come to me even as I said it to him. That was the answer to my problem. Put the video's feed on a loop, make as little noise as possible, find the jewels, get out, and put the video back to normal.

Darius didn't look as impressed with my plan as I was. "You know they're motion activated so there is no video to loop. And you don't even know where the feed is being transmitted to. How do you expect to get in and out without them seeing you?"

I sighed aloud. He did have some good points and he was right about everything, but sometimes I think humans, as a race, make problems harder than they really are. "Who says we have to do anything? Alright, you're right about them probably being motion activated, but that doesn't mean they'll know who I am. Especially if I cover up my face with a scarf or ski mask."

"I can just picture it," Darius laughed, his mood lighter despite the subject matter, "you skulking around dumpsters as you approach the entrance, ski mask in hand. Then, when you're finally within sight of the door, pulling on the mask and walking as cool as a cucumber into the depths of the underworld."

"What's so funny about it? I intend to do just that, except for the skulking part of course. I've never skulked in my life and I don't intend to start now."

"You can't be serious. You can't go back there! They'll send someone after you! You'll never get in and out safely!"

"I will if you come with me as backup," I said. Darius looked surprised, as if I were asking him something foreign, but I wasn't. We'd had each other's backs for countless situations and everything always went alright.

Darius looked away from me to his windows and the beautiful view he had. I knew he really didn't see the view. He just didn't want to look at me as he thought. "I wouldn't ask, but now I know who I'm up against. I'd like your help."

He stayed silent, mentally trying to figure out the pros and cons of helping me. As time stretched, I knew he was trying to come up with some very good reasons not to help me. But I needed him, so that meant pulling out the big guns. Guns I didn't want to use, but he'd given me no choice.

"You wouldn't want anything to happen to me, would you?" I paused for a second. "Like what happened to Ozi."

"Don't go trying to use him to sway me," Darius rasped, sounding suddenly furious. "That's low..."

"It might be, but I need you. Are you in or out?" I forced myself to sound and look hard. He needed to know I was serious about my plan and I wouldn't take no for an answer.

"I'm in, but only because I don't want anything to happen to you," he said looking very grim and angry.

"Fine. You have anything I could change into?" I did not want to continue to walk around in these clothes. If I could have burned them without drawing attention to myself, I would have, but burning clothes was illegal and now was not the time to trample over minor laws.

"We can't go now," he said, looking slightly panicked, but this time I understood his fears. Darius, for all his take-charge attitude, didn't like to do anything without a plan. I, on the other hand, liked to go by the seat of my pants, figuring things out as I went.

"Why not?" Maybe he had a good reason to delay.

"Because...because....you obviously haven't sleep in days and need to rest before we track down the jewels."

"Wrong answer. I'm tired, but the longer the jewels are out there unguarded, the farther from me they could be. What if Meredith decides to move them? We'd never find them then."

Darius was quiet for a second, trying to find some other excuse, but he must have failed to find any. "Fine, we'll go now. I might have something you could wear."

Darius stomped out of the room toward his bedroom and I followed, afraid he'd do something drastic, like jump out his window.

## Chapter 18

"I don't like this," Darius hissed as we neared the entrance/exit of the tunnel system.

"So you've said a million times," I hissed back, looking around to making sure nobody was paying us any attention. Not that there were a lot of people around to avoid.

Other than the homeless, the housewives and househusbands who were shopping with their children, and the odd gangster who walked around trying not to be noticed, we were alone.

"It should be around the corner. We should put the masks on now."

"No, what we should do is wait until dark so we blend in better with our surroundings." I glared at Darius and his lips compressed, keeping more of his scathing words to himself. I made sure he pulled the mask out of his back pocket and began to put it on before I put my own mask on.

The mask was made of a super soft and light fabric, but it did limit my vision as all masks do. In fact if I hadn't had this problem, I would never have noticed it was even covering my face because it was so light and soft. This slight flaw was to be expected, however, because you could only make a ski mask so thin before they lost their effectiveness.

I felt hands on my back. "Hurry up," Darius urged. "I don't want someone getting suspicious of us and calling the berries."

"The berries, the berries, is that all you're worried about?" I griped, even as I walked faster toward the entrance.

"No, I'm really worried about the mafia. But since I can't convince you this is a horrible, horrible idea, I need something else to worry about."

"Then worry about finding the package." We'd finally arrived at the grate and after another look around I opened the door and descended the stairs. Now that we were actually inside the tunnel, neither of us was going to speak. We wanted to give the microphones nothing to pick up except the beeping of the microchip detector Darius held.

I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and waited for him to come beside me. Darius fiddled with the detector for a minute or so before the beeping started. The microchip detector worked along the same lines as a metal detector. When it got close to its target, it would beep faster and faster and when it was right on top of the target, the beeps would turn into one long continuous beep until the detector was moved or turned off.

Darius nodded his head and we started the long walk down the tunnel. Every so often the detector would go off, but I eventually figured out that it must be the microphones and video recorders generating false positives.

But that didn't stop my heart from pounding whenever we got a hit. Every time the beeping picked up speed, I was sure this time we'd find it, but every time I was let down.

We had just passed the vent I'd used to escape that hellhole of a root cellar when the detector began beeping. I waited for the beeping to stop like it always did when it picked up something else, but it didn't. If anything, the beeps got faster and louder the closer we got to a small black vent which was about a foot from the floor.

Darius crouched down and shut off the detector. He ran his hands around the edge of the vent, looking for a way to get the cover off.

His hands finally found the lip on the right side of the cover, which was bent out, enabling him to get his fingers under the edge. He gave the cover one great pull and it came off so easily that Darius stumbled backwards, lost what little balance he'd had to begin with, and rolled onto his back.

I moved closer to the vent shaft, excited to see if the jewels really were inside. I bent down, shining the light I'd brought with me into the shaft. At first I didn't see anything, but then I saw something shoved about an arm's length into the shaft.

My breathing sped up when I saw the black briefcase, which was jammed into the vent at an angle, reflected in the beam of my flashlight, but I steadied myself. I didn't know they were in there. It could just be some random briefcase its owner had discarded. But in my heart, I knew it was the case full of my beautiful jewels Meredith had no right owning or touching or even breathing on. Yes, here was the case of my pretties, I could feel it within my bones.

I thrust my arm into the vent until my shoulder was jammed against the lip of the vent. My ear and temple were pressed tightly to the cold cement wall. So tightly in fact that my earring was digging into me like a needle, making me wince in pain. But even this wasn't enough to get the case out of the vent. I flailed my hand up and down, trying as hard as I could to grasp the case, but it was too far away and my arm wasn't long enough.

Finally giving up, I pulled my arm out of the shaft, backed up, and faced Darius. I nodded my head and waved my hands at the hole, indicating I wanted him to grab the case.

He approached the hole with more caution than I had. Using my light, he took a good look at his goal before putting his arm into the shaft. His entire arm disappeared from view and I could see the concentration in his eyes as he tried to grasp the briefcase.

He quietly swore, his words muffled by the mask. His head was flush to the wall and I began to worry. What if his arm wasn't long enough? How were we going to get it out?

But all my worry was for not, for Darius pulled out his arm gripping the briefcase handle after a few seconds of ritualistic mumbled swearing. I may not have believed much in the power of prayer, but I was huge believer in swear power. The more you swear, the more things work out the way you want them to. Don't know why it works, just that it always does.

He sat on the floor with the case in his lap and I came to his side. He looked at me and I nodded, trying to tell him without words he should open it to make sure it was all there.

And that this was the case we wanted.

It wouldn't do to take something that wasn't the jewels. All we'd end up doing is making someone else very, very angry and I did not want any mafia members coming after me over a case I wasn't even interested in, no matter how much money was contained within.

He released the latches and lifted the lid. At first all I saw was some tiny sparkles from the minimal light, but once I shined my light on the insides, my breath was taken away at the beauty before me.

Diamond encrusted rubies, emeralds the size of a child's palm, jadeite and blue garnet laden tiaras. The King Lace I broach next to an Iuven ring. A Late Min tiara nestled next to a Early Min necklace. The sheer size and scope of everything before me made want to jump with glee and that was just the first few pieces I could see.

I reached in and lifted the top layer up, revealing...nothing except empty spaces which had held bracelets, rings, and necklaces. My hands were shaking. This must be a mistake, for surely the briefcase had been full when she'd taken possession of it. Where had the missing items disappeared to?

I lifted to see the last layer of jewels and saw it was only half-full. A brocade bracelet, a dozen or so Vetu pins.

While the beauty was still breathtaking, I felt numbed to the bountiful harvest before me. My mind was swirling with possibilities and scenarios as to what had happened to the others. Yes, the jewels before me were worth close to a half million dollars, but where were the others?

Darius hadn't taken his eyes off of the jewels since he'd opened the case, but I'd known he'd be enamored by their shininess. I snapped my fingers in front of his face to get his attention. He shook his head like a wet dog before looking at me.

I leaned down and breathed into his ear. "Half are missing."

His glazed over expression cleared some letting me know he was returning to the real world. "Here?" he breathed.

"Maybe," I answered back. I shut the case, making sure it was closed tightly before removing it from his lap. I held out a hand and helped him to his feet. He tilted his head down the tunnel, in the direction we'd been walking. I knew he was silently asking if we were to go on to continue searching or go back now that we'd found half the treasure.

The decision was simple. I turned my back on the exit and took a step forward. I wanted to go on. I had to search the entire tunnel. There was always a possibility she'd hidden the rest of the jewels in another vent, lessening the chance of losing the entire lot to a miscreant.

Darius pulled the detector out of his pocket and the beeping started again.

Time to continue the search.

##  Chapter 19

"Where could they be?" Darius asked when we were on the trolley speeding toward his condo.

"I don't know. Maybe she brought them back to her place." I was tired, pissed off, and confused. I'd been so sure all the jewels would be in that tunnel. I guess there was some comfort in being half-right.

I pulled out my phone to reexamine her path from the day before. Meredith traveled from the club, through the tunnel, to the trolley, and then to campus after making the necessary connections.

But nowhere along her travels did I see somewhere she could have hidden hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gems.

"You're tired, love. You need some sleep before you can figure it out. I'll help." Darius pulled me into his arms, his hot body warming me. I hadn't even realized I'd been cold.

We swayed a few minutes, our bodies following the trolley's start and stops as naturally as if we were on the high seas standing on a yacht.

"But what if they take her away before I've found them? They could be lost forever," I asked, voicing my innermost fears. The trolley riders around us never even hearing me for they were too busy with their own worries to care what we were doing.

"You could ask them to delay for awhile until you figure it out," he suggested, his voice just as quiet, but penetrating the din well.

"They aren't going to listen to me," I said, fighting to keep my eyelids open. "They could have already taken her after the trade. Who knows what's happened."

"You asked them to let you know when they'd taken her. Have you gotten an email?" he asked.

I tapped on my phone for a few minutes before answering. "No, though I did get an email confirmation that he'd received my information."

"So, they haven't done anything yet."

The trolley stopped and we got off. "No they haven't. But what excuse am I supposed to give to have them delay? It's not like they owe me anything. In fact, I'm the one who brought up the idea of getting rid of her. They'll think I'm getting cold feet or that I was just playing with them."

"To what ends?" Darius asked, looking confused. "It's not like they sent you any money. You got nothing out of the deal. They did. If nothing else, you might get some idea as to how long you have until they grab her. If they're doing it today, then we'll have to move fast. But if they're not going to move on this for a month, you can be a little bit more methodical."

He was right. It couldn't hurt to ask them the question. It's not like they'd be able to do anything if they didn't like me asking.

"I'll do it. You're right. I have nothing to lose by asking."

"You're right I'm right. You should –" Darius stopped midsentence and suddenly pulled me toward him, spun me around, and pushed me into the brick wall which had been behind him. Darius was right in front of me, his nose mere inches from mine, his arms boxing me in.

"What do you think you're doing?" I asked, suddenly feeling both angry and confused at the same time.

"Building entrance. Mafia thugs. No, don't look!" Darius ordered, looking very stressed.

"How am I supposed to see anything if I don't look?" I asked, trying to figure out if he was joking or not. I didn't think Darius would joke about something like this, but he did have a weird sense of humor at times.

Darius huffed. "Look, but don't be obvious."

I wanted to smack him upside the head, but I didn't. Instead, I lifted my free hand and threaded it though his hair, pushing it out of his face as a lover would. Giving it a tiny yank, I said, "I am the queen of subtle."

My hand still playing in his hair, I lazily turned my head so I was looking toward his building. Past the busy professionals and the kids on hoverboards, I saw three very large, very thuggish looking men talking to the doorman. They looked like extras for the famous mafia melodrama on tv everyone was infatuated with and couldn't get enough of. You'd think having a real mafia presence in real life would be enough for these people, but evidently not because the drama 'The Chien Crime Family' brought in not only the viewers, but the big bucks.

Next to the extras was the taller man I'd seen at the club last night. The man I'd thought was more likely Latens and not Atrox because I didn't picture Atrox as lighthearted. That lightheartedness I'd perceived to see while they stood on the front steps of Custodela seemed to have disappeared.

"Definitely mafia," I said, smiling brightly into Darius' face. I wanted anyone looking at us to think we were just young lovers engrossed in each other. No reason to look twice at us. "I recognize one of them from last night."

"Damn. What are they doing here? Could they have followed you to my place?" Darius asked, starting to sound panicked. This was just what I didn't need. A panicked Darius was a sloppy Darius and when he was sloppy, he was capable of making more mistakes than a drunken accountant. His mistakes would lead them right to me and I couldn't let that happened. I needed to make a plan, quick, and calm him down or else he'd get me found out.

And being found out by the mafia was so far down on my to do list that it didn't even make the cut for the top thousand things I wanted to do in my lifetime.

"Anything's possible." I put the briefcase into my other hand and slipped my hand into his, tugging him down the street, away from his building. "Come on, honey, we don't want to be late, do we?"

"Of course not," Darius said, his voice tight. "Where are we going to go?"

"My place. It's safe. You can try going back to your place later," I said, trying to come up with some idea of how I was going to keep Darius from freaking out about the mafia being after him. This was like his worst nightmare come to life.

(Literally. He'd once told me about a reoccurring nightmare he'd had just after Ozi's grizzly death. It involved him being tracked down by the same mafia thugs who'd killed Ozi coming after him at his home and gutting him like a fish. It had taken him months of internet therapy to get the nightmares down to about twice a month. I could just imagine how these events would bring them back with a vengeance.)

"The wolves are at my door and you want me to go back?" Darius sounded incredulous and his disbelief made me want to scream.

Now I really wanted to smack him in the back of the head. "Grow a backbone and suck it up. They're probably there on some other business or it could be a coincidence. Either way, you have to go back sooner or later because you are not staying at my place for more than a day or two. I don't do roommates," I said jokingly as possible even though it was true.

"When did you get so pushy?" he asked, his mood lightening a little. I didn't mind being called pushy. In fact, if he'd called me a pushover, I'd have been insulted, but being pushy meant I was doing something right.

"When I started being around spineless wimps who think they're so big and mean. Don't worry, dear, it's not just you. It's most of the men in our profession. They appear to the world to be the kind of men who always know best and must certainly be in charge of everything in every situation, but behind closed doors, they are racked with self-doubt and crippled with indecision.

"But the women I've meet, they really take charge and make the critically important decisions without a second thought. They don't crumble when the pressures on or when nobody's looking," I said, what to the world would have been a very huge rant to a man who'd dropped everything for me. Most people, men in particular, at this point would have been stark raving mad, wanting blood and revenge.

Darius just laughed tiredly, his face lighting up. This was a long standing byplay between the two of us and he knew that while I meant ever word I said, I didn't mean it in a mean way. At least not toward him. Other men, however, were another matter.

"And how would you know if they did crumble when nobody's looking? Nobody's looking at her," he asked, playing his part in our game of words.

I elbowed him. "Hardy har har. Let's get going. We need some sleep before we figure out what the heck I'm going to do."

"What _we're_ going to do. We're in this together, love," he said, giving me a side hug, which warmed me to the core.

I smiled, feeling as if the whole day was brighter than it had been just a few minutes ago. "Yeah, sure we are."

## Chapter 20

Darius and I were back at my apartment before I emailed Atrox, my mafia contact and favorite untraceable chatting partner, about when he planned on picking up Meredith and if he could put it off for a while. Almost immediately, he responded saying the person he'd contracted wouldn't be able to get to her for about a week, so I had until then to do whatever I wanted to do to her.

I thanked him and turned to Darius. "I have a week."

He was surprised. "That long? I'd have thought they'd work faster than that."

I shrugged. "Slave traders are busy grabbing unsuspecting souls to ship off. Unlike the usual crowd, Meredith is going to take some time and energy." Though I really hoped it wouldn't take that much time and energy. I wanted this taken care of soon. I really didn't want to have to deal with some prolonged search.

"Time, energy, and smarts, if what you've told me is true." Darius yawned and his shoulders slumped as if he were exhausted.

"We're both exhausted. I have a guest room you can sleep in," I said, pushing myself out of the plush chair which hadn't wanted to let me go. It had been so tempting to just sleep there, but I knew my back would have hated me for giving into the temptation.

"Thanks, love. What would I do without you?" he groaned, getting to his own feet.

"Probably fall on your face from exhaustion," I said leading him down the hall. I pushed open the first door, revealing a room with no decorations, a bed, a dresser, and a chair.

The room was so spartan, and very unlike what one would normally think of as a guest bedroom, because I didn't want any of my visitors to get the impression that they were welcome to stay longer than a day or two. I didn't do long term visitors, or roommates. I'd had a roommate early on in my educational career and it hadn't turned out well.

Since that unfortunate incident with that roommate, I'd vowed to make my guest bedroom as uncomfortable, and unwelcoming as possible. That's why I only had only three pieces of furniture inside, and if I wanted to be completely honest, the dresser wasn't even for my guests because all of the drawers were full except for the tiniest one. Having a spartan and very uncomfortable room had encouraged more than one lingerer to get the hell out of my place in a sensible timeframe.

"Nice decor," Darius quipped.

"I could give you to the couch if you prefer." I made a move to close the door, but Darius stopped me.

"Just kidding." He walked into the room, gave a big stretch, groaned, and turned to face me. "Wake me in eight hours, will you?"

"Who am I? Your mother? Set the alarm and wake yourself," I said leaning against the door jam.

Darius gave me a heated look, which brought a laugh to the back of my throat. "No, you are definitely not my mother. Sweet dreams, love," he said before beginning to get undressed.

I gave him a small smile and shut the door behind me. Now that I was alone, or as alone as one could be with someone else in their apartment, I felt the full weight of my fatigue fall upon me.

I walked to my own room and saw the time. I'd been awake for over thirty-six hours. No wonder I was tired.

But before I could sleep, I needed to do something about my briefcase full of jewels. I set the case onto my bed and opened it. The light in my room, which was just above my bed and the case, struck the stones in just the right way, allowing them to sparkle to the maximum. Every facet was revealed and ready to be displayed for all the world to see.

They were just so beautiful, so blindingly hypnotic that my tired mind was lost in their endless wonder. I picked up a necklace and caressed it, the cold gem searing against my hot, moist flesh. It was beyond my wildest belief to even have imagined that such marvels of nature even existed, let alone that I was touching them.

"And they're all mine," I whispered. They would be added to my collection which I'd built with much love and care over the course of my life. Only the finest specimens were good enough for me.

I shut the case and went to my walk-in closet. I knelt in front of my shoe rack. I lifted up my Feddie boots, revealing a small keypad set in the wall. Punching in the code, I heard a small click and the shoe rack swung toward me, revealing the inside of a safe which was safely secure in the wall and so flush with said wall that anyone not knowing it was there would have missed locating it.

(From what I've observed, mostly through shows and movies, people who have safes like putting them in the floor of rooms and because of this, I chose to have mine in the wall behind my shoes. It was new, it was different, it was innovative, and it was so unexpected I expected nobody to ever think to look in the wall. I mean, would you?)

When I usually do business which isn't the most legal, I'd have put a score like this one in a more secure location, but I hadn't wanted to reveal the location to Darius. Besides, I wanted to wait until I had all the jewels.

"In you go, my pretties," I cooed, putting the case in the otherwise empty safe. The rest of my pretties were in my underground vault, a much more secure location than this safe, but I was in a pinch, so it would have to do. Once inside, I closed the safe, repositioned my boots to cover up the keypad, and closed the closet door.

I was just slipping into my soft bed when my phone went off. I glanced at it and saw the planets program asking me if I wanted to start a new search. "I can't think now," I muttered, ignoring the inquiry. "I need sleep."

## ***

My heart was pounding. Pounding so hard I thought it was going to jump right out of my chest.

The brick wall behind me dug into my back and shoulders. The pain felt good. Real. Realer than anything around me had felt in a lifetime.

My hands balled up into fists. My nails digging into my palms. More pain. More reality.

Reality was pain.

Reality was hurt.

Reality was revenge.

I stood in the dark alley, still as a statue. I was waiting, waiting for my nemesis to make a move.

To make a mistake.

I took a few shallow breaths, trying to calm my heart, but it kept galloping along. It refused to relax.

After endlessly waiting, Meredith appeared, stepping out of a doorway. She wore all black, making it almost impossible to see her well.

I took a tiny step forward, my foot barely scraping the concrete beneath me. She turned her head and looked right at me. My small noise had given me away.

Meredith pulled out a gun, black and deadly, and shot at me. I ducked around the corner, her bullets missing me.

Her shots stopped and I heard footsteps running, but I stayed put. It could be a trap, a horrible, horrible trap.

The footfalls became distant. Soon, I couldn't hear them at all. I peeked around the corner and saw nobody.

I felt relief and panic. I needed to know where she was hiding the treasure! I ran the only direction she could have gone, disregarding my own safety.

Men, demons, and hell beasts came out of the woodwork, following me slowly like zombies, and mummies. The huge hell dogs were being held back by their deformed masters, but I knew they were salivating, imagining sinking their teeth into my body as they'd dream of sinking them into a nice, juicy stake.

Now, I not only had lost my target, but I was being followed by evil. If only I could fly away from the danger.

At this thought, my feet left the ground and I floated. Every second that passed, I flew higher and higher into the air. Soon I was out of the beasts' arm range. And then their sight.

They disappeared, vanishing as the fog.

I flew over homes and high rises, going up and down every alley and road with such unrelenting speed that all below me began to blur together. But the harder I searched the city, the less likely it seemed I would find her. She'd disappeared, vanished. How could that be?

Furtive movement caught my eye. As an eagle zeros in on her prey, I zeroed in on Meredith. She was at the door to a warehouse, looking over her shoulder. The door opened and she left my line of sight.

That didn't bother me, for now I knew where she was. I swooped down, wishing I could go through walls.

The closer to the warehouse, the more I wished. Tingling went through my body and I was transparent.

I wanted to laugh at my good fortune. Whatever I wanted, I could do. I didn't even flinch when I flew through the walls of the warehouse, for I knew my will was stronger than any wall could ever be.

I'd just passed through the wall when something came down on top of me. I began to flail in the dark, trying and failing to get out from underneath whatever had attacked me.

I sunk to the ground, for the net, the spider's web of cruelty, was as heavy as a hundred stones. I was flat on my front, the oppressive weight of the stone net keeping me down, but I continued to struggle.

The harsh glare of a spotlight suddenly shown down upon me. It was blinding in its brightness, making my eyes feel as if they were going to spontaneously combust from the unimaginably blinding light. I closed my eyes against the burning pain, but even that didn't work, for the light kept shining through my eye lids, not willing to be cheated from is prize.

I continued to struggle against the net, averting my face from the harsh glare and that's when I heard it. The cruel and sadistic laughter which was suddenly all around me. It started quietly, but quickly grew until it was deafening.

But even then I continued to struggle. I couldn't let them win. I had to get away.

When I saw their shadows fall over me, however, I knew it would do no good. I was well and truly caught. I ceased my feeble attempts at freedom.

Meredith and her zombie henchmen were around me, pointing and laughing. Her face was suddenly beaming with ugliness, the blackness of her soul revealed for all to see.

She lorded over me, her shadow falling over my face. "You silly girl! You'll never get my treasures! I've hidden them where nobody will ever find them."

" _I'll find them," I stupidly gasped. It was becoming harder to breathe, the net's weight crushing me. "I'll find them."_

Laugher. Evil cackling laughter encircled me. It was everywhere. It bounced off the warehouse walls, the floor, the ceiling.

Then it was in my head. Echoing and echoing and –

I woke up gasping for breath. Sweat drenched my body even as I shivered. I felt as though I'd really been under a ton of rocks, my life being crushed out of me while Meredith, revolting Meredith, stood by feeding off my pain.

She was like a vampire.

Except instead of blood, she fed off my anguish and desperation.

"I should kill that bitch, but Barathrum is just what she deserves," I muttered, thinking the slave planet with extreme and horrible conditions held every ounce of misery she was owed.

I couldn't get back to sleep. Glancing at the clock, I discovered I'd slept all of six hours. I convinced myself it was plenty of sleep, especially after going a day and half with none, as I stumbled my way down the hall and into the bathroom.

I showered, ate breakfast, and was working on my newest planetary search when a very rested Darius came out of my guest bedroom.

"Sleep well?"

"Fabulous," he yawned. "You know, I've been thinking and I don't think those mob guys were there for us."

"You sure didn't think this way yesterday. And if they weren't there for us, then why were they there?" I asked distractedly, still typing away on my tablet.

"Maybe one of the HOA paragons has been dealing with them. I'd love it if all of them were knocked off their high and mighty horses," he said looking hopeful. However, if the HOA was dealing with the mafia men, and they weren't part of said mafia, they'd probably be knocked of their very tall towers, literally, and the horses would be fine. This made me feel better. I hated it when poor animals were injured because of stupid humans.

"I bet you would," I said with a smile.

"What are you doing?" Darius looked over my shoulder.

"Working," I said. I wanted to shake my head in disgust. You let a guy stay over to avoid being fodder for the mafia and what happens? They want to know what you're doing every second of the time and fondle your electronics. If he was having electronics withdrawal, why didn't he just play with his own?

"On what?" he asked, still hovering right over my shoulder. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and saw him bouncing up and down on his toes, trying his damndest to see what was on the screen. Why couldn't he be like other guys who were more concerned with a girl's cleavage than what was on her phone screen? I guess I got what I deserved by having a friend with such a sharp mind.

"I'm searching for something." I tilted the screen away from him. It wasn't that I was hiding what I was doing, I just didn't want him to know about my hunt. I mean, obviously I wasn't hiding it because it was on the screen, which he saw until I tilted it away from him because I didn't want him to see what I was doing.

Wait...did that mean I was hiding it from him or not? I was going with...not.

I was not hiding my hunt from him because it was possible, theoretically, for him to see what I was doing on the screen, thus it wasn't hidden.

"What are you searching for? It looks really complicated," Darius said in a tone which, to me at least, seemed to question my ability to do anything which was complicated or required brain power. He couldn't be questioning my brain power, because that would be stupid. He knew me better than that, especially after everything we'd been through together. Maybe I was just seeing slights where they didn't exist.

"It is. Don't worry your pretty little head about it. Tell me more about your dreams of the mafia involved HOA paragons," I said, wanting Darius' attention on something other than what I was doing.

Darius shrugged. "It's not so much a dream as it is a hope. Or a wish. Or a wish-dream."

I looked up. "A wish-dream? What have you been smoking?"

Darius smiled and began to hum. It sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it until he sang, " 'A dream is a wish your soul makes, when you're deep asleep.' "

"But you're not asleep. You're awake and this is the real world."

"Doesn't matter," the gleeful Darius said. "It could still come true."

"Whatever." If he wanted to imagine his troubles were even now being wacked by the mafia, who was I to burst his bubble?

"You're just jealous because –" Darius' phone began to go off. He looked at the screen and said, "Got to take this. Yeah? What? But how? You what?!" Darius turned away from me and began to pace. "Don't you know that'll kill it? What were you thinking? Don't do anything else until I get there. No, I'll be there in...in twenty minutes. Where are you? Ok. Yeah, I know where that is. Just...don't do anything else. No, tell them to stop. You'll only make it worse."

Darius punched the screen with his finger. "Sometimes I wish we had those old phones like you see in the movies. I'd really love to just slam the phone. Disconnecting with a push of the finger feels so unsatisfying."

"I know what to get you for your birthday," I joked. "You got to go?"

"Yeah. My lead on a very large job just screwed up royally. Wouldn't know how to properly prune a _Halesia tetraptera x 'Scepter' truncatum_ if it came with a detailed instruction manual," he said, sounding disgusted with his man.

"And what kind of tree is a Halestia whatever?" I asked, trying not to come off as confused as I was.

"It's a Purple Scepter Silverbell, a very very rare tree which is only able to grow in a few distinct areas in the world. And we were lucky enough to get the contract to prune one and this guy is screwing it up!" Darius said, his voice rising in both disbelief and outrage.

"I thought you got the weekends off," I said, seeming to remember him bragging that now that he had a job he got weekends off, while I was always working because I had homework. And I was trying to distract him. It wouldn't be good if he went into this delicate situation and wasn't in control. Who knows what damage he might be able to do to the tree, not to mention the man, in this kind of mood.

The look Darius sent my way said he was disappointed at my naiveté. "You'd think, but being the boss doesn't really mean I get days off. I can be called at any time for a shrub or a tub problem. You wouldn't believe some of the shrub problems I've been called in the middle of the night about."

"I don't think I want to know. Call me if you hear anything about those mafia guys who were at your place?" I asked, wanting him to know I was there for him.

"Of course. I won't be able to keep the good news to myself," he said, his eyes dancing with mischief.

I laughed. He was always so sure of himself when it came to others' misfortunes. I walked him to the door and gave him a hug. He was a few steps down the hall before he turned around. "I almost forgot. Keep the detector. It's on your counter."

"Thanks. I'll get it back to you as soon as I can," I said, already plotting what I was going to do with it.

Darius waved off my words. "Not necessary. I've been thinking of upgrading for a while and this gives me the excuse. And don't forget to let me know how your hunt goes," he ordered.

"I will. Take care," I said, hoping he did, though I don't know why I was worried. He had a tendency of always getting out of even the most dangerous of situations unscathed. I'd have to ask him how he did it one day.

Darius sent a jaunty salute my way before leaving. I shut my door and went back to narrowing down my planetary possibilities. Every time I attacked my search I felt more pressure, more frustration. Frustration which built up with every iteration of my search as I found I was quickly running out of solid criteria to add and tweak.

Sure, every book I read had different numbers and ideas as to what the planet looked like and where it was probably located, but even these differences were tiny when actually looked at side by side. I mean, how big of a difference is an aluminum content of five percent versus five and a half percent? Not much when you were using ranges.

I finally finished my tweaks and set it to working. In eight hours I'd find out how many planets I had left. I really wished the program could remember which planets it had eliminated and only search the planets the last search had identified. Then I'd only have to wait a few hours instead of a third of a day.

That done, I turned back to my more immediate problem: Meredith and her sneakiness. I brought up the map of where she'd been since I'd last looked and saw she hadn't left campus. Indeed, she'd gone from building to building with apparently no rhyme or reason.

"But that doesn't tell me where she put those jewels," I huffed. "Where would I put the remaining half of the gems?" I got up and paced.

"If it were me, I'd have put them in my underground safe along with everything else important to me, but this isn't me. This is Meredith. Unpredictable, stupid, wouldn't know sense if it knocked her in the head Meredith. Where would _she_ put it?" I asked myself aloud.

I looked back down at the tablet which was on my kitchen table. Meredith's path from the club to her home highlighted. "I've been over every inch of that tunnel, found the case, so the rest can't be there. From the tunnel, she went to the trolley. Is there any place on a trolley to hide something?"

I pictured the trolley I'd been on only hours before as I wandered around my kitchen and living room. There'd been the driver, the chairs, poles, and...that was it. "There wasn't anywhere. Was there?"

My memory began to play tricks on me. I couldn't remember if there'd been cubbies under or over the chairs. Maybe there was someplace a person could hide a nondescript bag. "But she'd be taking an awful chance of someone finding them or even throwing the bag away," I said, stopping before my living room window, looking out of it but seeing none of the beauty which was before me.

My mind vacillated between the impossibility and the tiniest of possibilities. "Damn, I'm going to have to go on all the trolleys that patrol the area, aren't I?" I went back to my table and grabbed my phone. With a quick search to the trolley service's website, I saw they rotated eleven different trolleys on that route.

"Eleven?" I asked aloud, staring at my phone with incredulity. "Wouldn't it make sense to have one or two trolleys exclusive to the route? Why, in the name of the Ancients were there eleven? I'm going to be spending all my spare time on trolleys." I wanted to bang my head into the wall. Or my kitchen counters, since they were closer.

"But where else could they be? I really don't think she hid them on the trolleys as there are really no place to put a bag full of gems on said trolley. It's too fraught with unknowns," I said, trying to convince myself that I was wrong about the trolleys. I really didn't want to ride on them all just because of a hunch.

"And if they're not on the trolley, then where could they be?" I asked, pacing again, agitation vibrating throughout every inch of my body. "Well, she could have brought them home with her. It wouldn't be the most ideal thing to do, but as I've proved today, it will do in a pinch."

I paused, my mind trying to picture that excuse of a home Meredith resided in. "So, if I go to her place, where would they be? The attic is too small to hide them in and there isn't any place to hide a safe. That leaves the apartment below. There's nothing under the bed, but what about the rest of the place?"

I hadn't thought to search the apartment, not that I'd really had the chance with her coming back early.

I began ticking off my fingers as I listed what I'd come up with already. "I've got the trolleys, her attic, her apartment...is there anywhere else that she's gone that could have them?"

I studied her movements on the tablet one more time, again noting she'd been wandering around campus. "Campus...campus...could she have put it someplace on campus, like in a classroom or study room?" I asked aloud.

It was possible, but how would I even be able to get into a study room checked out to her? Those things were locked down tighter than the proverbial Fort Knox, whatever that was. I knew because I'd tried before to get into someone's study room, for legitimate reasons, and I'd been denied at all points.

"But I was going through the proper channels that time. If I used some nefarious tactics, I might be able to get in, assuming she even has a study room. As to her classrooms, those should be simple enough. I can get her schedule off the school's website and search the rooms during the day," I said, already seeing the work ahead of me. And then another thought came to me.

"Am I missing any other place?"

I thought and thought and paced around my apartment and stared at the map of her movements, but no other locations came to my mind.

Now that I had a list of places the jewels could be hidden, where should I look first? I glanced at the clock and saw that the day was fading away. While I could start my search of the campus, riding the trolleys might be a better idea.

"Then I can stop my paranoia that the bag's been right under my nose the entire time." I went back to my tablet and made up a list of all the different routes I was going to have to take.

"This is crazy," I muttered, looking at the map of where I was going to have to go. "It's going to take hours to get to each of the lines and then scan the trolley effective enough to be convinced they aren't there."

I felt myself going into a funk, but I forced myself out of it. A bad mood was going to just make this worse than it already was.

"And neither is sitting here staring at this map. I've got to get off my butt and start." After making sure my tablet and phone were loaded with things to keep me busy during some of the long layovers, I left my home and began the tediousness of my search.

## Chapter 21

_Secrets of Planeta Divitiarum_ by Francesco Griffin, chapter six:

(Francesco Griffin is an investment trader, mainly concerning himself with interplanetary commodities markets. He has extensive knowledge in what makes commodities valuable and is an important contributor to the _Commodities Project_ on the Wealth Channel. When not running his highly successful business, Griffin is at one of this many homes on a plethora of planets.)

"The most common question I get asked is what is _Planeta Divitarum_ (PD) like? What makes it the Planet of Riches? What makes it so special? Why do so many people speculate about it and hunt for this planet when there are so many planets in the cosmos?

"Let me answer your questions. PD is unlike any other planet for many reasons. The legend and mystique that has built over the thousands of years since the Ancients' civilization ended has enhanced what might have otherwise been a mediocre and not unique story of a city or civilization of enormous wealth.

"But the mystique isn't what makes it special; it's the scope of the story. PD is not just a city, it is a planet. A planet dripping in jewels of unimaginable wealth, size, and prominence.

"Just picture it: streets lined in red beryl emeralds, brilliant sapphires, alexandrite, and other jewels of every color and size as we would border a street in stone or concrete.

"Towering buildings glistening in the sun as the jewels sparkle from the tiles of roofs and balconies. People dripping in glistening wealth, which clung to every nook and cranny of their bodies for not only were the jewels used as decorations and attractors, but also part of the very fabric of their clothing. Their clothes are woven from the most precious of metals, as we would weave fine linen. Even the meanest of garments is worth more than an affluent neighbor could make in their collective lifetimes of work were they to try to buy or make the same garment anywhere else in the universe.

"The jewels, which are both sewn into the glistening garments, which shown bright and beautifully in the full power of the sun, and draped and layered across the wearer, are just as stunning as the clothing. It probably takes a dozen men months of polishing to bring out the hidden qualities these gems aren't willing to reveal to anyone not willing to give them the blood, sweat, and tears they deserve.

"Every single jewel worn by these people is a priceless work of art any collector would be willing to sell their families to possess. But on this world, every person is lucky enough to own these gems. Every person is a collector of art and beauty. Every person rich beyond imagining.

"The possibilities and situations one can come up for the use of these gems are infinite and never ending. This society would probably use gems for anything and everything including their electronics, energy generation, and perhaps even food replication.

"The wealth this planet flaunts and uses so unthinkingly is beyond anything we could ever comprehend. I imagine that some of the things they do with their gems would shock and be abhorrent to us just as things we do with some of our everyday objects would be objectionable to them.

"The very fact they are so gem abundant probably has something to do with their planet's placement within their solar system. I'd imagine that they live closer to the sun, but with a thicker atmosphere which enables them to survive. Their planet is also mostly water such as ours and most likely had a very volcanic phase which enabled some gems to form in such abundance that they use them as we would rocks.

"In fact, such abundance might mean they don't see themselves as wealthy, just burdened with lots of shiny rocks. I know everyone reading this might say that this very thought is wrong and likely sacrilege, but we know from experience that people who have an abundance of something, such as water, take it for granted that it will always be there and don't properly appreciate it unless something happens to lessen the supply.

"Who know how these people treat their 'shiny rocks' and we'll never know until we find the PD."

## Chapter 22

I got back home a few minutes before midnight, ready to rip off Meredith's arms and legs with my bare hands. That's how great my night had been. Not only hadn't I found my bag of treasures, or anywhere to hide them on the trolleys, but I'd traveled to some of the seediest and nastiest parts of the city.

Do you know what type of people you meet in these areas? I do now. I'd been groped, whistled at, harassed, and propositioned for sex – and that was just by the nicer people I'd encountered.

The nastier gremlins – they didn't deserve to be called men or even people. In fact, I was going to think of them as animals, but that would be giving animals a very, very bad name and that's not fair to all the decent animals in the world. – The nastier gremlins had done, or tried to do, some things which I refused to even think about. I was just lucky I'd brought my taser with me and I wasn't afraid to use it.

I desperately needed a shower and sleep or else I'd be useless at my classes. Classes...classes...wasn't there something I was supposed to do for one of my classes by tomorrow?

I stopped in my hallway, going through my different assignments, trying to remember what I'd forgotten and then it hit me: Logic project topic. I still hadn't emailed him my confirmed topic idea.

But I had nine hours to do it. How long would it take to send him an email? A minute? I could do that right before I left for class.

Sleep, on the other hand, would not wait for anything.

I was happily dozing in the shower when a siren began to go off. I jolted awake, slapping the shower off even before I knew what I was doing.

What was that siren which blared through my apartment? And why was every light in the my place blinking?

The fire alarm! Of course!

Why hadn't I realized? Panic ran through me, first at the thought of not getting out in time and then at the thought of my lovely jewels being melted and deformed in a blazing inferno.

But common sense quickly overcame my fears. The safe was fire resistant. Even if there was a fire, they wouldn't get touched by the flames.

I grabbed a towel and tried to dry myself off even as I pulled on clothes. Once dressed, I jogged to my door, only stopping long enough to grab my tablet and phone. I paused at my alarm system, which I'd designed myself, and punched in the code which would allow real firefighters and berries to get in without injury. Anyone else trying to get in would receive a nasty surprise or two.

I ran down the stairs and onto the sidewalk in front of my building. The street was packed with people, either from the building or there to watch the potential fire. Didn't they know they were making it impossible for the firefighters to get to the fire when they stood in the street?

Like a good potential victim of a fire, I crossed the street and waited on the sidewalk. Not only was I staying out of the way so the professionals could do their job, I also had a great unobstructed view of the building.

And when I looked at the building it hit me. I couldn't see any flames. Not a one. And where was the smoke? Didn't smoke come with fire? Come to think of it, I hadn't smelled any smoke in the building when I'd been evacuating.

Something about this was fishy. I pushed my dripping wet hair out of my face and took up residence under the nearest street light. Its glowing rays falling over me, I activated the cameras in my apartment. I wanted to see what was going on, for I suspected the supposed "fire" was no normal fire, if there even was a fire in the first place.

I went from camera angle to camera angle and didn't see anything disturbed, but when I went to the view from right outside my front door, my suspicions were confirmed. Two men wearing janitorial uniforms were coming out of my neighbor's apartment with large bags in their hands.

They looked up and down the hall and then walked to my door. "Don't do it or you'll be sorry," I muttered even as they began to jimmy my lock.

I hit the purple button which had appeared on my screen even as I watched them fight to jimmy the lock. There was something very satisfying about watching them have a hard time getting in. It made all my efforts finding military grade security locks worth it.

Fire trucks and police cars roared onto the scene. Berries yelled for everyone to get away from the building, to get out of the street, to let the firefighters do their job.

I ignored the confusion around me and watched as the thieves finally popped the locks on my door. They were breathing hard and swearing at me.

(But not hard enough for my satisfaction. When I replaced the locks, I'd upgrade them to the super secret military grade locks I'd passed on before. Those, nobody would have had a chance getting through.)

Who locks their door when there's a fire alarm?

I do.

One of the thieves went straight to my bedroom while the other began to ransack my front room. But their invasion of my space didn't bother me as much as it normally would have.

When the one got into my bedroom, I closed the door behind him, sealing him in and separating him from his friend. I watched as he whirled around and tried to open the door. He began to bang and yell to his partner in crime, but his partner didn't hear him.

His partner was too busy dealing with his own problems. The second my bedroom door closed, my grandfather clock, which was normally silent at all times, began to go off. The bonging was loud even with the fire alarm going off.

The man in the front room jumped, startled at the sound, and went over to the clock when it didn't stop bonging after a minute. He ran his hands along the front of the clock, trying to open the door which was keeping him away from the weights.

His touch activated the defensive mechanism. Two large, very heavy, and very sharp gravity driven axes crashed down from each side of the clock's front. The blades sliced through his arms, severing his hands and forearms from his body. He stared down at his bleeding stumps before he began screaming.

(This trap was based on an old movie I'd seen ages go. When I'd seen how ingeniously simple it was to activate and deactivate, I knew I needed a replica, which the man at the clock shop had been happy to make for me at an additional fee. What he didn't know was that I'd taken out the lightweight, blunt axes he'd put in the clock and replaced them with my killing blades.)

Meanwhile, my bedroom had begun to fill with a gas which would knock the thief out and then suffocate him. The gas would fill the room for only ten minutes before harmlessly venting outside. The gas would only be effective during the time it was in my bedroom, ensuring anyone who went back into my bedroom afterward would be unharmed.

Thief began to cough, covering his nose to stop inhaling the gas. But it did no good and he slowly fell to the ground in a graceless plop. I knew it wouldn't be long before he was dead, a victim of his own greediness.

(This trap was from my own ingenious design and was purely something I'd created and tested on my own. Nobody, other than a few construction workers who'd created the vents for me, had been in on it and even they didn't know the real reason I'd had the vents installed. Seeing my work of art work so well gave me a very happy feeling inside.)

And speaking of cleaning up, I needed to call someone to clean up my apartment before I could return. The man in the living room alone was making quite a mess with all his flailing about. I wish he'd just die already.

Though, he was dying a lot faster than my old roommate had when she'd been attacked by the same clock. She'd taken forever to die from exsanguination. Even though she'd lost just as much blood, which was really quite a lot now that I saw this thief's blood make such a mess, something within her had just kept hanging on. But even with this little delay, she hadn't coated the apartment in blood like this guy was. That had been one of the things I'd actually liked about her, she'd been unwilling to force her untidiness on others.

Maybe next time I'd stay away from the blood based traps. They just made too much of a mess and really did take much too long to take effect. My poison trap, however, had been clean, fast, and effective, just what I wanted when taking someone out. Yes, poison really should be my method of choice in the future.

Ignoring the pain and anguish the man in my living room exhibited, I pulled out my phone to call up my friend who would clean up this mess. He'd been there when I'd needed him with the bloody roommate situation, and I just knew he would be there for me now.

"Yeah," the deep, gravelly voice on the other side barked.

"Morti? It's Ana. I need you," I said, biting my lip, praying Morti wasn't busy.

"How big is the job?" he asked. That's what I loved about Morti. He didn't ask any questions except those that pertained directly to his job. No, how'd it happen or why'd it happened. Just how many.

"Two men, but one was bleeding pretty badly," I said.

Morti grunted. "When do you need it done?"

"Immediately, if you can. Though, it might be a few hours before I get access to where they are," I said, knowing that giving him as much information as possible early on was the only way to get the job done quickly.

"Location?"

"My place." I gave him my address and apartment number.

"Security?" he asked. I could hear scratching on the other end of the line, as if he were taking notes.

"I'll disable everything when your men get here," I assured him.

"Payment?" he asked.

"Normal drop off location after the jobs done," I guaranteed. This wasn't the first time I'd had to get rid of dead bodies. Morti was the best at these types of things and because he was the best and completely discreet, he was very busy and very rich. You wouldn't think getting rid of bodies could be so lucrative, but it was.

"Fine. I'll have two guys over there in three hours," he promised.

"Thanks for squeezing me in," I said, extremely grateful he'd been able to get this job into his busy schedule.

Morti grunted in reply one last time before hanging up. It would take his men three hours to get here and another couple hours to clean up, and I refused to go back to my place before they were gone, so what was I going to do? I needed sleep.

And I wasn't going to get any around here. The fire trucks were finally leaving, but by the looks of the berries, they'd be here a while.

I walked away from my building and commotion to the nearest capsule hotel. I could rent a capsule to sleep in for a few hours, go back to let Morti's people in, and then sleep until they were finished.

My heavy head had barely hit my pillow before my alarm went off, letting me know I needed to get up. It was very hard to pry my eyelids apart because all I wanted to do was to fall into the sweet oblivion of sleep.

I couldn't, however, because I had two dead bodies in my apartment. "Damn thieves," I cursed as I dragged myself out of the hotel and up the block back to my building. The berries and the gawking onlookers were gone, leaving the area as quiet as a cemetery.

In front of the building was a black van so plain it couldn't help but blend into every other van in the world. I walked up to the passenger side window, which had rolled down when I approached, and said, "Nice night for a party."

"But what would we do with the zombies?" the man replied.

"Invite them? How you doing, Levi? And the wife and kids?" I asked, beaming at the man.

The man got out of the van and gave me a big hug. "Good, good. I've been great, actually. Business is really booming. Honey's real good, too. Been doing some side jobs when the kids are at school," he said, looking very proud of his wife, which he should have been. Honey was a great woman and he was lucky she'd agreed to marry him, considering.

"And I bet she's been bugging you to take a vacation," I said, leading them up the stairs.

"You know it," he laughed. Honey was always bugging him to take a vacation because she thought he worked too hard. "And you? How've you been?"

I gave him a weak smile. "Good. A little sleep deprived, but overall, things are looking up."

"I'm glad. You deserve it. So, what's the deal with tonight?" Levi asked, getting down to business.

"Fake fire alarm so they could burgle the building. Burglars went into my place and got a little more than they bargained for," I said, getting into business mode myself.

We were now standing outside my door. "Anything we should know about?" he asked.

"One's in the bedroom, other is in the living room. Living room guy is missing his hands and the blood needs to be cleaned up. Bedroom guy was gassed, but it's fine for you to go in," I assured him.

"What type of gas?" Levi asked, pulling gloves out of his bag.

"Sleeping and suffocating. It only has power for about ten minutes and this happened about three hours ago." I wanted them to know they didn't have anything to worry about. I'd never do anything to harm Levi. If I did, I knew Honey would gut me like a fish.

"So with proper ventilation, the room should be clear. We'll still make sure it's habitable for you before we leave," Levi assured me. "What should we do with their loot?"

"Leave it and I'll figure out how to return the things back to their owners," I said, already coming up with different ideas as to how I could do it, but as of yet not coming to any decisions.

"Ma'am?" the other man asked in a surprising soft voice for one so large.

"Yes?"

The other man swallowed nervously. "Is there anything we should watch out for? In the apartment, I mean?"

"Ana, let me introduce you to my newest assistant Ray. Been on the job for about a year, but still learning the ropes. Ray this is Ana. A very good client of Morti's," Levi said.

"How you do, ma'am?" Ray asked, still sounding nervous.

"I'm fine, except for this little situation. As for the traps, if you give me a second, I'll deactivate them," I said. With a few taps of my fingers, the security system went silent, all the traps disabled. "You can safely go in now."

Levi reached for the door. "Thanks, darling. We'll get this place all cleaned up for you in no time. Will be like nothing ever happened. I'll send you a message when we're finished," he said.

"And lock up. Be sure to say hi to Honey for me," I said.

"Will do." Levi opened the door and stepped through with Ray right on his heels. I was only a few feet away when I heard Ray say, "Dear Ancients. What happened to him?"

Levi laughed. "A woman who doesn't want to be messed with. This is a lesson to you, son. Don't mess with women. There are stories I could tell you..."

I tiredly smiled as I left to go back to my capsule. It was good to see Levi again. A shame we only saw each other at these types of occasions.

Oh, well. Couldn't do anything about it. But what I could do something about was sleep, that sweet oblivion which called my name like a siren luring sailors. And I wanted to be lured. Dear Ancients, how I wanted to be lured.

##  Chapter 23

I was in the library, trying to get some work done when my phone went off. At first I thought it was the alarm letting me know yet another of my searches were done, but it wasn't. (I was down to about sixty-eight decillion planets. I had great hopes of being into the millions by Christmas.)

It was my "Meredith has left her home" alarm. For the past day and a half, I'd been watching her. Other than going to her classes, she'd been staying in her attic more often than normal, thus seriously impacting my ability to search her place.

But now it looked like luck was on my side. I followed her blinking dot and saw she was leaving campus. Perfect. If I hurried over there, I should be able to do a thorough search before she got home.

I rushed out of the library, jumped on one of the cross campus trolleys and kept one eye on my phone to make sure she didn't change course and return to her attic while I was en route.

She was still moving farther away from home by the time I got to her dorm. I did the whole fake searching for my key thing and got in as easily as before. You know, for someone supposedly so smart and deep into the illegal trade, you'd think she'd have installed a better lock on her door. Maybe she just dabbled, I speculated, as I closed the door behind me.

I looked around the room I'd just entered and saw nothing had changed from my last visit. Also, nothing really screamed "hiding place," though with no personal touches or signs of someone living here I wouldn't have expected a noticeable place to hide objects, so I'd have to do this the hard way.

For the size of the dorm and lack of furnishings except for the second hand school provided furniture, it took me a surprisingly long time to search every nook and cranny. Just as I'd think I'd looked everywhere, my imaginative mind would come up with someplace else to look and no amount of reassurance and denial would stop my mind from telling me that I had to look. It could be inside the couch, or under the cushions, or inside the oven, or shoved on top of the cabinets, or between the mattress and box spring, or...my mind had endless possibilities. But I finally looked in all them, finding nothing.

I made one more check on her location before pulling down the attic ladder and climbing up into her hidden space. Again, the room looked exactly as it'd been when I'd been there days before, but I knew at least one thing had changed: there shouldn't be any money in the pillowcase. She should have spent it all on the jewels, of which I was in possession of half.

_But how do you know if you don't look_ , the voice in my head whispered to me. I didn't. So I went to the pillowcase and looked. To my surprise, there was still money there. Not as much as before, but at least a couple thousand dollars.

"I have to leave it here," I told myself even as my fingers itched to grab the money left so carelessly. "If I take it, she'll know someone was here. Then she could take off. If she takes off, then I will never get rid of her. And if I don't get rid of her properly, I'll spend all my free time searching for her until the job is completed." I shuttered at the thought of this nightmare coming true. At all the time wasted because I was greedy and couldn't wait until she was gone to take what I wanted.

That fear more than anything made me put the money back and walk away from it. I searched the rest of the room, but found nothing. No sign of the jewels or anything else in fact, and this made me sit back and think.

This couldn't have been her first deal, could it? Even as I thought this, I dismissed it for where had she gotten all the money to pay for the jewels, not to mention the connections to deal with Atrox, a gangster with a lot of contacts and friends in high places, if this were her first deal? No, she must have done jobs in the past. This was definitely not her first rodeo, but from what I could see of her behavior, she hadn't done this more than a handful of times.

But if that were the case, where was the evidence?

_The same thing could be said about yourself_ , a little voice in the back of my mind said. _Nothing in your apartment points to your extracurricular activities. Maybe she has a hidden vault of her treasures._

The voice was right, I realized. If someone was to look at my place, they'd never imagine I'd ever done anything wrong because everything I'd acquired over the years was hidden. My furniture was nice, but not too nice and fit in well with the image of a student who'd saved their money from their stipend and a job to buy something which would last. My clothes weren't designer made, but not thrift store bought. The only luxury items you might say I had were my shoes, but this too would be keeping in line with my image of a woman who liked to shoe shop. Nothing about my life, from the outside, told anyone that I wasn't exactly what I appeared to be: a student.

Meredith's lack of possessions, other than her necessities, would have normally not been surprising for a poor college student...if she'd actually been living in a dorm. But she wasn't. She was living in this attic space, hiding her home from all who might be looking for her. If I hadn't been suspicious enough before by not finding the jewels, now I was certain.

Meredith must have someplace to hide her items. But how was I going to find it? I'd gone over her movements and she hadn't gone anywhere she shouldn't have.

"I'll have to follow her," I muttered, even as I began to leave the attic. "It'll be a nightmare, but that's what I've got to do."

My phone began to vibrate as I exited the dorm. She was back. In fact, she was very close. Hell, we were right on top of each other. Why hadn't I been alerted sooner? I should have known the second she placed a foot back onto campus.

I began running down the stairs. I knew that anyone passing by to their own dorm would see my panicked actions, but I couldn't worry about them, or the possibility of appearing panicked. Hell, this was a dorm. Students were always running because they had slept in and were now late for class. Me appearing panicked and harried would fit in perfectly with my persona. However, I still needed to get as far as possible from this place before she saw me. My cover would give me some leeway in the public eye, but none with Meredith.

But I didn't have time. I'd just passed the second floor door when I saw her at the foot of the stairs. She stopped briefly to clean her shoes on the grass next to the path before she started toward me.

There was nowhere for me to hide. I couldn't dive off the side of the stairs, landing in the grass surrounding them, because she'd see me and question my weird actions. No, what I had to do would take every inch of backbone I possessed.

I boldly walked down the stairs, coming face to face with Meredith halfway down. "What are you doing here?" she asked harshly. It was as if she owned the staircase.

"What are _you_ doing here?" I asked her back, trying to put the burden of being in the wrong place on her.

"I'm...I'm...visiting a friend," she answered. Bingo, it worked just as I wanted.

"Well good for you. Now if you'll excuse me." I made to walk around her, but she grabbed my arm.

"Where do you think you're going? You haven't answered my question!" she almost screeched.

"I don't have to do a damn thing for you except work on a project with you. I certainly don't have to answer your questions." I pushed past her and walked off with my head held high, as if I were the moral victor of our encounter.

I was, to a point. She really had no right to question why I was somewhere. I'd only asked her what she was doing there because she'd asked me, but I'd never had any intentions of answering her questions. Who did she think she was? She was a toad. No she was the wart on a toad. No she was –

_Whoa there_ , that little voice said. _Don't go getting all melodramatic._ I was getting myself into a huff over nothing. I really needed to calm down and think clearly.

But was there anything really to think about? I shook my head even as I walked away from the person who filled my thoughts. There wasn't. I hadn't found my treasure by my own searches, so I had only one recourse left: following Meredith's every move.

## Chapter 24

Day five of Operation: Follow Meredith and I was frustrated and furious. I'd shadowed her every move except when I'd had to go to my own classes and so far nothing. Not one single solitary thing had come up.

Was she on to me? I didn't think so, but she must have noticed that I seemed to be around more often than before. Or perhaps she'd felt my eyes on the back of her neck. I certainly hoped I'd know if someone was stalking me.

However, from what I'd seen, Meredith wouldn't notice a house until it fell on top of her. She just wasn't that observant to the world around her. I'd tried to be covert in my actions, but even so, she still should have realized something was different.

She mustn't have felt anything wrong, however, because I'd seen no signs of discomfort coming from her. Not once did she rub the back of her neck or look around to see who might be watching her, or even use a compact to see what was going on behind her. She was oblivious to all but what she was doing, which helped make my job easier.

But something was different today. Not with me, but with her. She was looking around more, acting more suspicious than I'd ever seen her.

Maybe today would be my lucky day.

I yawned hugely as I wearily followed her. I hadn't been getting much sleep these days because she kept some interesting hours. How she got by on only three hours of sleep every two days was beyond me. I was downing handfuls of coffee pills just to keep awake and those things had a horrible tendency to create hallucinations in long term users, a side effect I was only just beginning to have. As for Meredith, I think her wakefulness was natural. I hadn't seen her use any stimulants to keep up this crazy pace, which just made me more aware of how abnormal she really was because a normal person would have fallen down into a coma by now, or would be so hyped up on pills they'd be jumping off the walls.

(I was somewhere in the middle since I knew what taking too many of these stimulant pills could do to a person, but if I didn't stop this soon...well, I didn't want to think about what would happen.)

I'd come to the conclusion she must be a vampire who could be out during the day. What other explanation could I come to based upon the evidence?

I wonder if I got a large stake and stabbed her in her cold lifeless heart, if she'd explode in a burst of dust as death welcomed her into its grisly arms. Or maybe I'd soak her in a bath of holy water and watch as she screamed in pain before going up in flames. That might be fun too.

My musings were pushed away when Meredith made a surprising turn toward the back of campus. All that was back here was one building for classes and trails through the "woods." (They weren't real woods. They were manmade with every tree, plant, and pond planned out and executed by hired men. They'd even gone so far as to import the deer, birds, and other wildlife to make the woods more realistic. Except they'd forgotten that, in the wild, animals aren't all micro chipped, tracked, and forced to stay in a specific area. The natural woods, which had been alive and thriving for hundreds of years before the campus was planned, thought of, or even a glimmer in the great great grandmother of the founder's eye, had been cut down because it'd been too unruly for the campus founders.) Maybe Meredith had hidden her stash in one of the grottos or along one of the paths which crisscrossed in a perfect grid pattern in the unnatural nature space behind the campus proper.

One thing I did know, I had to be on my toes. The farther away from the heart of campus we journeyed, the fewer people we encountered. At any moment, she could turn around, see me, and scamper.

In an ideal world, I'd have been doing my best to stay undercover and out of her radar at every possible moment. Her speed and the complete purpose in every step she took made this ideal situation go out the window. In addition, if I tried to hide, I'd have to take my eyes off of her. I knew if I took my eyes off her for even a second, I'd lose her and my only chance of finding where she'd put my pretty jewels and all the other items of value she'd obtained illegally and was hiding from me. What was I going to do?

_What I had to do_ , I answered myself. _You keep following her and make sure she ignores you._

And if she notices me...I'd deal with that when I had to.

I kept pace with her while I began digging in my bag. Somewhere in there, probably at the bottom, was a wig which would alter my appearance so much that she'd never know it was me. Add in a limp and glasses, and she would be never the wiser.

(If I'd been in my right mind, and not so sleep deprived, I know I would have thought of the wig, glasses, and limp well before this point. However, disguises had never been a favorite act of mine. I preferred standing out in the open and letting the person I was pursuing ignore me to their extreme detriment. In this situation I felt that the deeper my cover, the better it would be for me and since I was going to be so close to her, I needed the wig and other accessories.)

I finally found the wig, combed down the hair a little and put it on. The second it settled on my head, I felt more comforted. I was even happier when I found the silver rimmed glasses I'd selected to go perfectly with the wig as it made me look like just another one of the many innocent academics which were meandering around campus.

I'd just finished pushing the glasses onto my face when Meredith looked over her shoulder. I knew she was looking at me, but I pretended to be deep in thought. To add to the illusion I was trying to create, I started muttering to myself as I'd seen other academics do when they were trying to figure out whatever they were trying to figure out. I'd learned from watching others watch these people that those who talked to themselves always seemed to be underestimated and given a wide birth. I knew she'd never look twice at me, but just to be sure, I stopped and began to wave my phone around as if possessed by the spirit of a million failed cheerleaders, my wild mannerisms enhancing my appearance of craziness beyond measure.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her smirk at my antics and keep walking. I continued to wave my phone as I followed her, speaking loudly and overdramatizing my hand gestures even more as if I were in a heated debate with the trees around me in order to improve the genuineness of my act.

Meredith came to a fork in the path. I expected her to take a left which led into the "woods" but she took a right toward an oddly shaped building.

_What building was this?_ I asked myself. For the life of me, I couldn't remember what building this was. I'd never been in it.

In fact, the more I tried to come up with an answer as to what building it was, the less I seemed to recall. All that really came to me was that there'd been some new building built a few years ago, but everything had been very hush-hush. No ground breaking ceremony, no open house, no come and see what we've done and how it'll enhance our campus. It was almost as if the school didn't want anyone to know about the building.

But that couldn't be right. Schools always want to show off their newest and shiniest toys and wasn't that what a new building was – a brand new shiny toy?

As we turned the corner and I saw the building well for the first time, I had to admit to myself that the building was very shiny, but also very unusual.

All the other academic buildings I'd been in had been rectangular with plain exteriors and interiors, and had enough classrooms to hold a couple thousand students.

This one wasn't in the shape of a rectangle, or any other shape that was readily recognizable. There would be a curve for a yard or two, which would then jut out into a triangle, looking like a duck's beak, before going back to another curve. However, no two curves were the same shape or length or even in the same direction. Some curves went horizontal while others were vertical. More often, however, these curves were at differing angles.

However, don't for one moment think the protruding shapes were all alike because they weren't. There were simple triangles, eagle beaks, avocet beaks, and even half formed ideas of triangles, where there would be a portion of the triangle, but the rest was missing as if there hadn't been enough money to finish the design. These too were at odd angles which seemed to have no rhyme or reasoning.

If this craziness wasn't enough, there were flourishes all over these curves and corners. Flourishes which seemed to have been added with no care for whether they enhanced or detracted from the overall design of the building. It almost felt as if the architects and designers had said, "I think I want to put a flower design here," and had done it, not even caring what was next to this design choice.

Looking at all the different styles, it felt as if a group of artists with different preferences had come in and put in elements from their favorite art periods. There was tribal art intermingled with classical Ancient elements. Inge with Min. Even some Simplistic and Animal patterns were incorporated. It was unimaginable that anyone would believe such a mismatch would look good, or that it was appropriate for the outside of an educational building.

If all that wasn't enough, I couldn't for the life of me tell how many floors this monstrosity contained for the windows were placed in such a haphazard arrangement it was impossible to know where one floor was supposed to have ended and another begun. Had the designer and builders been high as a kite when they'd created it? Who had they bought off or killed on the board of regents in order to be allowed to create such an architectural disaster?

Then another, and even more disturbing thought came to the forefront of my mind. What if this monstrosity had been designed this way on purpose? If this was the case, why hadn't they celebrated the creation of such an interesting creation? There had been no parties, no press event, no photo ops at all. Surely the architect, builders, and school would want the world to admire it as its sheer size and audacity seemed to suggest.

However, if showing it off to the masses was the university's endgame, why was it hidden in the back of campus where nobody went? In fact, I felt like I was on a different planet all together. There were no people around. No talking or mumbling or anything associated with people and what they naturally did. In fact, there was no noise at all. Even the sounds of the natural world were surprisingly absent.

There was just an eerie silence surrounding the area. I felt that if I made any noise whatsoever, I'd be struck down my some unknown force.

I didn't like this feeling.

It wasn't natural.

It wasn't right.

I wanted to run as far from this place as possible and never return. Something was definitely wrong here.

Meredith, on the other hand, appeared to not feel the wrongness of it at all. She continued to walk confidently toward the entrance as if these surroundings were something she dealt with on a daily basis and was so used to that it felt second nature.

This complete ease in the face of blatant wrongness was just more proof in my belief that she was a vampire. Weren't vampires always at ease in all the unholy places of the world?

She had just approaching the door when I stopped to study the sign announcing that this abomination of a building was the "Secrets of the Ancients" building.

I got closer to the sign and started asking it questions as if it were an information window. Even as I did this, I hoped she wouldn't realize the crazy lady with the silver glasses and limp was going to follow her inside. If she looked back at this point, I wanted her to think I was lost and too crazy to worry about. I couldn't afford her being spooked or else this would have been for naught.

Then I realized what I'd just read on the sign. Secrets of the Ancients building? That was an interesting name for a building because every other academic building was named after the majors taught inside. Confectionary Hall housed all the culinary arts involving sweets and baking. Cosmos Plaza held every class which had to do with the universe, the planets, stars, and everything else out there in space.

But Secrets of the Ancients? There was no major on whatever secrets the Ancients might have had. There weren't even any classes about the Ancients except for the historical and religion classes, and these were purely for those deep within the history and religious fields.

Why would the school have built such a weird building for majors the school didn't even have?

My confusion fueled my curiosity and when Meredith disappeared into the building, I ran to the door, opened it quietly, and stepped through just in time to see Meredith make her way down one of the five hallways which branched out from the front door.

Even as I followed her, I questioned my count. Five hallways? That couldn't be right because what type of building has five different hallways right at the front door?

In fact, where were the classrooms? Since I'd started down the hall, I hadn't seen even one doorway or window.

This was very, very weird.

And creepy.

I resisted the urge to rub the back of my neck. I felt someone, or something, watching me, following my every step, but I couldn't see or hear anyone. I didn't even see any cameras, not that I'd be able to see the tiniest of the cameras that were made today, but something within me told me it wasn't the eye of a lens which followed me.

These invisible eyes weren't the only thing which bothered me about this building. There was something very wrong about the floors, not that you'd know by just looking at them. To the naked eye, they looked like regular white tile floors, hardy and able to withstand thousands of students traipsing over them for decades.

They even acted like regular floors for when Meredith walked upon them, they squeaked in response to her tennis shoes. Every step she took I heard because of this squeak.

I too was wearing tennis shoes. (I realized soon after I started following her that I'd need to wear comfortable footwear or else I'd never make it.) The noises Meredith's shoes made had me thinking mine would make the exact same noise.

I was wrong. My shoes made no sound whatsoever. They didn't squeak or click or make any other noise which would have announced to Meredith that someone was following her. This confused me greatly for my shoes should have made some type of noise, even if it was just a result from brushing a shoe across a surface. I mean, her shoes were making a great deal of noise, so why wasn't mine?

I could come up with no logical answer as I followed Meredith down many winding hallways and through doors which appeared out of nowhere. Some of these halls seemed to dead end only to suddenly veer into another direction. Stairwells went up and down haphazardly, sometimes leading to nowhere. Other times, the stairs led up into the heavens, going so high I couldn't tell where they ended.

If I'd had more time, I would have enjoyed pitting my wits against the master of this labyrinth of twisting halls and spiraling stairs. I would have loved to seek out more of the labyrinth's secrets and learned the reasons as to why objects appeared and disappeared at random.

However, my prey was moving very quickly through the twists and turns of this maze. I was convinced that if I lost sight of her for more than a handful of seconds, she'd disappear completely and I would never find her again.

I was just about to follow her around yet another corner when I heard Meredith's footsteps stop. I peered around the corner and saw her standing in front of a plain wall. From where I stood, there was nothing to distinguish this wall from any of the other walls we'd passed since entering this crazy building. So why was she standing in front of this particular one?

Meredith looked around for a second, failing to notice me peering around the corner, before pressing her fingers against the wall before her. To my extreme surprise, a keypad appeared and she began typing in a combination.

My brain was urging me to get closer, to see what she was putting into the keypad, but if I moved out into the open, she'd know I'd been following her. I was just grateful at this point that the building had decided to cloak my footsteps, so Meredith didn't wonder who was responsible for the second set of footsteps which seemed to be following her.

It was at times like this I wished I had x-ray vision. Or better yet an invisible camera I could remotely control. I'd have had that thing above her head and recording what she was typing so fast she'd never know it hadn't always been there.

After she'd typed in eight or nine numbers, she pushed the keypad back into the wall and stood waiting. I watched the space around her, trying to see if anything started moving, but saw nothing.

Meredith moved away from the keypad and walked to a staircase I hadn't noticed before. Had that always been there or had it appeared when she'd entered the code?

She walked up the staircase, and I moved fast, unsure if it would disappear the second she got off. I ran up a few steps, grateful that the stairs seemed to be of like mind as the floor as my pounding feet made no sound to speak of, before I saw her again.

She was making her way steadily up the winding steel staircase. Her footsteps landed heavily with every step she took, announcing her presence to the world. She was more than loud enough to cover up any sounds I might have made from brushing my hand against the railing or my clothing rubbing against each other.

However, I never heard any sound emanate from myself.

This spooked me.

How was this building able to stop sounds from coming from me and almost enhance Meredith's noises?

As I followed her, I tried my best to time my movements so there would be the least chance of her noticing someone out of the corner of her eye. I knew I was playing with fire and that she could notice me at any time, but for some reason she was so focused on her goal that all forms of common paranoia had flown out the window.

Did the building have some control over this as well?

I pursued her as we climbed the spiral higher and higher. From the different size landings, which appeared on both sides of the staircase, we must have climbed at least ten stories. However, I felt that this must have been an optical illusion. I most definitely wasn't as tired as I should have been if I'd actually climbed up ten flights of stairs.

Even when I accounted for differences in floor height and vault locations, I still knew I hadn't climbed up as many floors as my mind was telling me I must have. Something here was very wrong, but for the life of me, I couldn't pinpoint the cause of the cognitive dissonance.

Well before the staircase ended, Meredith stopped ascending and went onto a very tiny landing. It was barely large enough for her feet to leave the stairs. Again, she faced a plain wall, but now I knew what to watch for. I knew there must be keypad somewhere for her to enter a code.

I crept closer until I was directly below her, staring up at her though the steel grated staircase. She didn't look down and I didn't move. We were both too engrossed on the code she was entering to notice anything but the keypad. As I obviously couldn't see the keys, I attempted to memorized her hand movements. If necessary, I'd try to copy them in order to enter wherever she went next.

She'd barely finished entering this newest code when the wall opened. She stepped through the opening and the wall closed behind her before I even thought about chasing after her.

Did I repeat the code and follow her in or did I wait for her to come out? Damn, I really wished I knew what was going on behind that door.

I was about to follow her in when the door opened. Meredith came out and began coming down the stairs, taking every decision out of my hands.

I ran down the stairs and jumped onto the first landing I came to. This landing, thank the Ancients, wasn't like the landing Meredith had gone into. Where hers had been very small, so small her feet had barely fit on it, this one was large, about three feet deep and at least six feet wide.

As I hopped onto the landing, I saw that there was a little hiding spot on the right hand side. It looked like a "u" shaped alcove with the three walls surrounding it, the smallest protecting me from the stairs. If Meredith paused and looked up and down the landing, she'd see me immediately. However, if she just glanced as she went down the stairs, she would never know I was there.

But I needn't have worried because she was so unobservant, she didn't even look for anyone else. She just continued down the staircase until I couldn't hear the squeaking of her shoes or the pounding of her feet any more.

By the amount of sound she was making, it felt as if the building was amplifying it so I would know when she was out of my sight, but why would it? If Meredith had all these codes, which revealed its secrets, wouldn't it be more loyal to her?

_It probably doesn't like her any more than you do,_ the little voice in my head said.

This could have been true, but I wasn't going to take any chances. Even after I believed she was well gone, I waited. If she'd left so quickly, she could come back just as fast and I didn't want her catching me as I entered her...what? Her locked room? A locked hallway to another locked room? What exactly was it I was going to try to break into?

After what felt like an eternity, I decided it was a safe bet that Meredith wouldn't be returning. I ascended the staircase to the floor she'd been on. I stood where she had and searched the wall, trying to see where she'd pressed for the keypad to come out. The wall, however, appeared unbroken. I ran my hands across the wall at waist high, pushing into the wall every few inches. The trigger had to be there somewhere.

I finally made the keypad appear, but was disappointed it had taken me so long to find it. What I saw on the keypad made my tiredness wash over me like a wave. What I'd revealed would have been an earth shattering mystery in itself anywhere else. In this fun house maze, however, what I found was just another annoying, and energy draining, obstacle which needed to be overcome before I could continue my quest.

Instead of letters or numbers, the pad had symbols, symbols I was not familiar with in the slightest. Questions popped into my mind, but two stood out and refused to leave without being asked. What were these symbols and what were they doing here?

You'd have thought I'd have seen some indication of their existence upon my walk from the front door to this staircase, but I'd had none. The walls, which had been blank canvases, had given me no idea that keypads and strange symbols were within their depths.

The more I studied the symbols, the less I understood, so I tried to ignore them and attempted to move my hand as she'd moved hers. This was a difficult task as I'd been below her and unable to see which exact symbols she'd pushed. However, since I did have some idea as to her hand movements, I was able to come up with what resembled an idea as to which symbols she'd pushed. This accomplishment was no mean feat considering how exhausted I was by this time, but the firm belief that the treasure of my dreams was so close helped keep me sharp and my brain still working.

One problem, however, which came to my mind quickly was that even though I had a feeling for her motions, this didn't tell me if she'd pushed a symbol more than once. However, this possibility just gave me a headache and was an added worry I didn't need, so I ignored the possibility. If I couldn't get in, and only after many failed attempts, would I consider this as a viable solution to my problem. As of now, however, I was just going to assume she'd pushed each symbol only once. It was just easier that way.

Following her hand motions, I pushed nine symbols before a light on the keypad began to blink. Why was it blinking? Had I entered the right code?

I pushed the keypad into the wall and waited for the door to appear, but it didn't. I must have entered the code wrong, so I tried the code again, this time stopping after the eighth symbol.

This time the light didn't blink. I pushed the keypad back into wall and waited with baited breath. After what felt like an eternity, the wall opened, revealing a very small entryway. I stepped into the entryway and the door shut behind me, sealing me in.

Instead of worrying about being trapped, I found myself standing enraptured by the sight before me.

Glistening gold.

Shimmering silver.

Gleaming gems.

It was all more than I could take. I'd never seen so much raw wealth and so much breathtaking beauty in one place.

I felt as if I'd been struck by lightning.

My fingers and toes tingled.

My mind stopped thinking.

My eyes glued to the vast wealth only inches from where I stood.

The gold and silver wasn't just in the form of coins and bars, but was also found in sculptures and jewelry.

The gems, lose and set, appeared so flawless they could have been paste. But there was a primordial quality about them, a divine brilliance which flared so fiercely from their very depths which spoke, nay, screamed their genuine nature.

The sculptures were every size and shape imaginable. A few were barely taller than my knee, while others towered over me like a giant.

A pair of statues took up more floor space than any of the others. One was of four children laughing together. Their figures had gold and silver veins running through their every limb, while their eyes contained luminous tiger quartz which made the children look a little possessed. This possessed look might have been the sculptor's intent for all I knew, but it did make me feel uncomfortable.

The other large statue was of a couple sitting in regal thrones surrounded by cats. The couple looked only faintly familiar and for the life of me I couldn't place them. They were probably a minor god and goddess which were worshipped by one of the Ancient offshoot cults which kept popping up. Their jewel adornments were spectacular, drawing me in with their depth of color. The only reason I wasn't completely ensnarled by it was that there was so much more to see that my eyes kept jumping around, unable to focus on one item for more than a second.

"I found it," I breathed, unable to keep the words within myself anymore. I'd found more than I'd ever expected. Who'd have thought Meredith would have so much?

And of such quality! I had many pieces of equal or greater quality, but what I saw here was mind numbing.

My eyes jumped from one shelf to another, trying to absorb what I was seeing but it was impossible. My pulse beat hard and fast. My breath came in pants. My head felt light and airy.

My vision began to go black.

I needed to calm down before I passed out. I leaned over, putting my hands on my knees, taking steady deep breaths. The blackness which had been creeping up around the edges of my vision began to slowly fade.

When I felt more in control, I stood up and finally took the last few steps necessary to enter the vault. That's right, I'd been almost completely overwhelmed by the least sliver of the vault's wealth visible from just inside the door. So much so that I'd almost been incapacitated to the point where thinking ceased and uncontrollable celebrating, once I became conscious again, began.

It was all just too much. My eyes began to glaze over again and I could feel my mind becoming cloudy. I forced my overwhelming feelings back. If I let myself become carried away, I'd never know if the jewels I sought were here.

_But does that really matter?_ I had to ask myself.

Before me was so much more wealth than I'd ever need. Did a few baubles really matter in the grand scheme of things?

I mean, how was I even to know for sure what had been in the case Meredith had left behind in the tunnel Darius and I had explored mere weeks before? Yes, I had the imprints and an idea as to what I was looking for, but would I recognize them amongst all the other pretties in this room?

I would, I acknowledged to myself. I would recognize them as a mother knows her children. I would just...know and since they were my children I had to keep searching for them until I found them.

So, in the end, I had no other option. When I started searching for something, I had trouble stopping. If I didn't find it, I'd constantly think about it, trying to figure out what happened to them and if I should have looked somewhere else for the objects in question. This made it hell for me when I lost even a sock or a shirt, but jewels of incredible wealth and splendor? There was no comparison to the tizzies I could, and would, work myself into.

I began lifting open boxes seemingly at random. Every single box revealing even more treasures than the last. A jade encrusted Oland necklace. A broach belonging to Queen Lace I. A cameo of the first and only king of Oustlandia. After awhile, I had to harden my heart and mind to these beauties or I'd never find what I sought.

Untold time passed before I finally found them in a box with other priceless jewels. I saw the Queen Lace III necklace first. With its over shaped squares which stayed consistent all the way around, this necklace had been the easiest for my jewelry software to identify from the impressions left in the foam. Everything about this necklace from its design to its shape was a legitimate one of a kind. There were no knockoffs or copies. There was only one exactly like it in the world and it was before me.

I pulled out my phone and brought up the matches the software had created for the foam slots.

One by one, I ticked off the items until there was no doubt about it. These were the jewels I'd been looking for.

Each piece might have been from different time periods, different dynasties, and in different styles, but their amazing cut, and superb clarity marked them as originals. And my software told me they were matches.

This find made me breathe a sigh of relief.

Now I could relax.

Now I could celebrate.

Now I could send Meredith away with all my blessings.

Surrounded by my soon to be newest acquisitions, I grabbed my phone, which I'd set aside to caress my beauties and sent Atrox, my mafia contact, an email. I wanted to let him know he could pick her up whenever it was convenient for him. I also wanted to thank him for the delay he'd afforded me. Without his gracious cooperation, I might never have found these pretties.

"And that would have been such a shame," I cooed to them. "For you are so very pretty, aren't you? And you need to be shown off, not lost in a claustrophobic old vault forever. I can't wait for you all to meet my own beauties. I think you'll all get along splendidly."

They would too, just as soon as I could get them all together. Oh, it was a foregone conclusion that these babies were mine the second I set eyes on them. There was no way in hell I would let Meredith continue to sully them with her hands and very presence. No, now that they were mine, they deserved to be revered and loved as much as my own babies in their very secure, temperature controlled vault.

Unfortunately, this brought up another issue. How was I going to move all this stuff? The gold bars alone were at least twenty-five pounds each and there was enough jewelry for at least eight trips.

And that didn't even count all the other incidentals. How had she smuggled the statues into the building without someone seeing?

I tried to come up with some type of answer, but every scenario I came up with was as unlikely as the next.

And those scenario's led me to another huge problem: access. How was I going to get back here without the first code? It was all well and good that I knew the code into this individual room, but what about the stairs? I hadn't seen what she'd pressed and if I left, I'd be taking a huge risk of never getting back here again.

But I'd have to leave sooner or later. I couldn't spend the rest of my life in this room, so what was I going to do?

Hundreds of ideas came to me in a rush, making my head feel bogged down and heavy. Each was more ludicrous than the one which came before it.

I was certain there was no way to force the stairs to stay down, and I knew I had no way to hack into the keypad and make it reveal its answers because I'd left my hacking jewelry at home. I never dreamed I'd need it, which had been a mistake. I should have brought them along, just in case something like this came up. If only there was a way to know what the code was before I left this room.

Then, the most ridiculous idea came to me.

What if she'd written the passwords down on her computer and forgotten to delete them? We all know from childhood not to write down your passwords and if you do to keep them somewhere safe, but what if she'd written them down on her computer, thinking it _was_ safe?

I pounced on my phone, my hands shaking so badly it took me a few tries before I was into my virtual copy of her computer. I skimmed through the file structure and nothing struck me as having passwords.

Then I decided to do the silliest search I'd ever dreamed of, because nobody was that stupid. I punched in the word "password" in the search field and hit search.

Of course this search found nothing, but this didn't stop me. If I was going to try the obvious, I couldn't give up without trying more keywords. "If it's not under password, what could it be under? Key code? Pass key? Code that drops the stairs?"

None of these brought up any results.

"Alright, she's trying to be tricky. I can live with that. What about this building? The Secrets of the Ancients? Wonder if there'll be any hits to those words?"

To my great surprise there was exactly one hit. It was a subfolder of her miscellaneous folder. I opened the folder and found there were two documents inside.

Instead of conforming to her normal file name structure, such as "History101254-Essay-HowtheAncientsWontheWar" or "PlanetofRiches-Book-ThePlanetofRiches-GregoryLama", which were very conscience naming structures enabling you to know exactly what was inside the file before you opened it, these two documents were named with numbers. From what I'd seen of her other files, all of them followed this precise naming structure. None other deviated.

This unique diversion from the norm peaked my interest.

The first file I opened made me smile with glee. It was the passwords I'd been looking for, or at least I assumed it was. Why else would there be two sets of eight numbers and letters. If I was going to write down a combination, it would have looked like this. After my second of glee, however, my smile began to droop.

These passwords were in code.

Great. One more obstacle in my path. As if I hadn't already overcome enough barriers, escaped enough crazies, lost enough sleep on this wild journey, I now had to contend with coded passwords. Hadn't I done enough to prove myself worthy of this glorious bounty? What more did the Ancients what? Blood?

One more problem and I swore I wanted to bang my head against a stack gold bars and give the Ancients all the blood they desired.

Why couldn't anything be easy? Why, why, why was everything with this woman a thousand times harder than necessary?

I had a pity party for about a minute before I pulled up my big girl pants and really looked at the coded passwords. They were both eight figures long, so no help distinguishing them via length.

Those symbols...what were the symbols on the keypad to the vault? Maybe if I figured out what they were, I'd be able to figure out which code belonged to the door and which to the steps.

I was so excited by this point, it didn't even enter my mind that these lines of code weren't the passwords I sought. That they could have meant nothing. No, I knew these codes just had to be what I was looking for. I felt it within my bones and I always trusted my bones when it came to something as important as liberating treasure.

I opened an internet browser and searched for "ancient symbols." Even as I hit the search button, I realized how pointless such a search would be, even before the results popped up on my screen less than a second later. Millions of pages of results came up. There was no conceivable way I would be able to search all these pages. Finding what I was looking for would be like finding a needle in a planet covered in nothing but hay.

With so overwhelming odds, I decided I needed another approach to my hunt, so I selected the results of an image search. I knew I'd never be able to describe what they looked like, but a picture, well a picture is worth a thousand words. Or, as in this case, it was worth a lot more than the standard thousand words. A lot more.

I scrolled down the screen, trying to find something that looked like what I'd seen. I must have gone through twenty pages, and was about to stop the search, thinking it was a fruitless waste of time, when I found them. It was a very tiny picture, but one of the symbols caught my eye because of its distinctive curves and lines.

I clicked on the picture and was redirected to a horribly setup website called "Keepers of the Secrets." What made it horribly setup wasn't the fact that it had grey text on a black background, though that was hard enough to read, it was the fact that there were only two main pages, if you didn't include the sign in/membership fee page. This meant that if you wanted to delve deeper into the site to find out more information, you'd have to hunt on these pages for the one link which would take you to the page you were really looking for. Not that these pages were easy to follow, because they weren't. It felt like a five year old had just started writing and whenever they saw something shiny, changed topic and started writing about something else.

And the name they gave themselves! I wanted to laugh at such a lofty and silly sounding name. Keepers of the Secrets? What were these people playing at? Who exactly did they think they were?

I read the first blurb at the top of the page I'd landed on, not bothering to hold in my laughter at this point. They thought they were "The last line of defense in the protection of the secrets" of...who?

I read a little of the front page dribble to satisfy my own curiosity, skimming over their misspelled mantras and hocus pocus gobblygook and found they were much more than your garden variety Ancient conspiracy head cases. No, deep down in their heart of hearts they really believed they were safeguarding the super secret secrets of the Ancients.

However, you only got this privilege if you paid the nominal membership fee. I smiled at this. A fee to protect the secrets of a society which had been gone for thousands of years. How quaint. I don't think I could think of a single better way of making money than the scam these conmen had come up with. They were shysters after my own heart.

In addition to this beautiful fee, the new member had to pledge never to talk about the Keepers of the Secrets, or KOTS as they liked to refer to themselves, because the first rule of KOTS was not to talk about KOTS.

This had me fighting back my laughter. Really, their first rule was the first rule of _The Ancients Pact_? Really? They couldn't have come up with something better than that? You'd think someone signing up for this society would realize you shouldn't talk about secret societies, but I guess some people just needed these things written out.

Or maybe the point in writing down this rule was for people to do the exact opposite. The brilliance of these masterminds behind KOTS flashed before my eyes. When you tell people not to do something, especially not tell others about a secret society or any secret for that matter, that is the first thing they do. One member will tell all his friends about what a great organization he just joined, thus getting them to join. This leads to more members and more profits for our original conmen. The simplicity of it took my breath away.

After I'd gorged myself on the utter stupidity the rest of the rules of KOTS turned out to be, I turned my attention back to my original reason for being on their website. They had images on their website which matched the symbols on the keypad which allowed me entrance into Meredith's vault. Symbols only they, and the crazy creators of the monstrosity of a building I was in, seemed to know about.

They called the symbols Pre Manic and described the language as "ancient pictograms which were representatives of the written language of the earliest of the Ancient's Pre-Mane period."

(The Ancient's Pre-Mane period was a period which most reputable scholar's, historians, and researchers don't even believe existed. In fact, most of these authorities believed the supposed Pre-Mane period was just an excuse for laymen to split up the Post Vetu period from the Mane period. Where these people thought to even fit in a Pre-Mane period was beyond comprehension.

As to the name of this written language, since these crackpots were the only people to even acknowledge its existence, I didn't have another name to call these symbols or pictograms or whatever else you wanted to call them. Pre Manic was just as good of a name as symbols, though thinking of them as symbols was easier after thinking of them as such all this time.

Though, now that I do think of it, the name Pre Manic does fit the KOTS organization perfectly, especially if you substitute manic for possessed. They were possessed with the crazies.)

I found the symbol meanings hidden deep within a long rambling dissertation detailing every one of a thousand ways in which the establishment, which included "scholars," "historians," and "archaeologists," were all completely wrong and the KOTS were absolutely right. (This exposition also happened to include how the establishment had been covering up any finds which would prove the KOTS key points were correct for generations. Absolute dribble if you asked me.)

I bookmarked the article for a later date when I needed the release of watching grown adults argue about whose twisted hallucinations of the truth were more valid. I always love reading the conspiracy theories of the deranged and possible crazy, don't you?

My amusement at their hair-splitting turf wars faded when I found a passage arguing about the significance and meaning of each symbol. According to the KOTS, each symbol represented both a number and at least two letters. The only differentiation between the different states was in the slight tilt given to the symbol when it was written.

For example, if you took the symbol for the number one and the letters "a" and "w" and tilted it to the left thirty degrees, then it was a one. However, if you had tilted the same symbol sixty degrees to the right, then it was an "a". To get a "w", you had to tilt the symbol sixty degrees to the left.

A tilt? That's all that meant the difference between a letter and a number in the crazy written language of Pre Manic? What happens if you had a really sloppy scribe who couldn't tilt worth a damn? I knew what would happen.

The nearly "illiterate peasant" would get to guess as to the meaning of a message, which looked to be just a bunch of random letters and numbers. Meanwhile, the "scholars" stood around nodding their head wisely as they "translate" the message for the confused "illiterate peasant."

I could just see those same "scholars" patting the "illiterate peasant" on the head, telling them not to worry their pretty little heads about trying to decipher the obviously confusing messages. We, the extremely educated, the sophisticated men of the world, will tell you _exactly_ what it says so you never have to learn to read properly, or write with the proper tilt. Everyone knows an "illiterate peasant" such as yourself has no need to read or write and besides, reading is really only for the educated and wealthy anyway.

Why would you want to read? What possible reason could you have? No, trust us elders and wealthy people not to swindle you. Or lie to you. Or make up "prophecies" about how you need to worship us or the world's going to end when in reality, these "prophecies" are tallies of how many cows and sheep are on a farm.

I stopped myself from going on.

There were just too many cliché's and deceptions that could come with a tilt differentiation. If I were a dishonest person in a world with such a screwed up writing system, I knew I'd use my ability to properly read to get ahead in that world. And make some money. For, in the end it always came back to money. Was there really anything else to come back to?

For now, however, I needed to focus on my symbols and what their slant had been.

I closed my eyes, trying to remember what the symbols on the keypad had looked like, but I couldn't remember exactly. At the time I'd been more interested in getting inside than inspecting the symbols.

Maybe if I wrote down the combination in the order of the button presses, I'd come to some conclusion. I took out a stylus and opened a drawing app on my phone. I thought hard and wrote down everything I could remember. When I compared my written symbols to those on the site, I found there were a lot of differences.

"I'm going to have to go outside and copy down the combination from the pad. If something goes wrong and I can't get back in here, what do I not want to leave without?" I asked, my voice as forlorn as I felt.

I looked around the room and everything my eyes touched upon I wanted to take with me. But I'd already established I couldn't take everything. It wasn't practical. It wasn't sane. It wasn't even possible, I thought as I saw more objects than before.

"I've got to take the jewels. If I leave without them, I might as well never have started this search," I said aloud. I put the box full of jewelry near the door. "And how about a bar of gold and one of silver? I can hide them in the woods and come back for them if they become heavy." I placed a bar of gold and a bar of silver next to the box containing the reason for my presence in this vault.

"Anything else?" I took one last long look at the incredible wealth laid out before my eyes. Every piece was so special, so beautifully unique I wanted to clutch it to my bosom and never release them. I couldn't do that, though. I simply didn't have the strength, or ability to bring it all with me at this second. If only I'd thought to bring more bags with me, maybe then I would have been able to take with me more of my babies. I hadn't thought that far ahead, however, never dreaming Meredith would have collected so much loveliness.

"No, I don't think so," I said sadly.

These words hurt my heart. Just the thought of such wondrously exotic beauties being locked up forever in this Ancient forsaken temperature controlled vault in the heart of this ever-changing building for all eternity made me want to cry out in pain. This wasn't where they were destined to end up. They should end up with their own kind, adored and worshipped as only I could properly do. They should end up in my safely guarded vault and praised for their beauty. Nobody should be left here without hope of being released from this cell disguised as a vault.

I pushed back all my feelings of longing, desire, and acute despair. Feeling such deep emotions with the raw intensity coursing through me could only distract me from the here and now. And distractions would only lead to mistakes, mistakes which would cost me all I longed for.

I opened the vault door after one last tearful look behind me and placed my treasures just outside.

When I was completely certain I had everything I wanted out on the landing, I shut the door.

I felt a moment of panic, as if I'd forgotten something important inside, but it quickly passed.

Everything was ok. Nothing had been left inside that I couldn't live without. I had the jewels plus some other souvenirs.

I bent down and reopened the case which contained the jewelry. Their twinkling sight, more than anything, brought me some measure of relief. My babies were right beside me. They weren't locked in the vault. Everything was going to be fine. I had what I'd been looking for.

And I'd be able to verify this fact once I regained access to the vault.

I took a few deep breaths to calm the panic flowing through my veins.

I brought up my hands to access the keypad and saw they were trembling. I took a few more deep, calming breaths, and concentrated on controlling the trembling of my hands. It took a few minutes, and many happy thoughts, but soon their shaking calmed.

When I could use my hands again, I released the keypad and compared the symbols to those from the KOTS website. The first thing I noticed were that the keypad symbols were not slanted one iota. They were straight up and down, just like any letter in the alphabet.

"Scribe should have practiced tilting better," I mumbled, trying to come up with some reason as to why they weren't tilted. "Why go to all the trouble of putting the symbols on the keypad if you're not going to do it right?"

The lack of answers was frustrating, but then an idea came to me. What if the scribe had done this on purpose? I copied down the entry code from the keypad. Then, I punched the code I had just copied back into the keypad to verify it worked and reentered the vault. When the vault door opened, I brought in my pile of goodies from the landing so no thieving bastards would be able to make off with it. People today just couldn't be trusted to leave unattended items alone.

Once inside, I sat down and compared the symbols I'd copied down to those from the website. I then proceeded to write down each symbol's numerical and letter meaning. Then, I reopened the document which contained the passwords and compared them to what I'd written.

Unsurprisingly neither password matched up to what I'd come up with, but I did notice that if I started at the end of the first password and went backwards, it would be the same. That must be it. This password went to the vault door while the other went to the stairs. Using this premise, I quickly figured out what the other password should be, "Baring any unforeseeable tricks."

With the password problem out of the way, I opened the second, and only other document in the folder. A feeling of immense appreciation toward Meredith for her incredibly obsessive organization skills flowed through me.

This was beautiful.

No it was beyond beautiful.

It was the Holy Tiara of documents, and I had it all.

What had I found? I'd found nothing less than a complete list of everything she had in this vault, how much she'd bought them for and what they were worth at the time of the acquisition.

Simply reading down the value column and doing some very rough math it was obvious I had hundreds of millions of dollars worth of items around me. "And they'll be all mine when you're out of the way," I said with glee, rubbing my hands together in almost uncontrollable excitement.

But I couldn't stay here gloating. At any second she could come back and I didn't want her finding me inside her cave of treasures. I grabbed my things, resealed the vault and headed down the stairs. I took great care to make as little noise as possible, for the building gave off the feeling that noise was not only not acceptable, but that it wouldn't be permitted.

Even if my steps did attract attention, however, I still wore my camouflage, the wig and glasses. However, these precautions didn't mean she couldn't come back and see through them in a second.

This thought made me stop mid step. I needed to change my look again for the eventuality of Meredith returning. I took off my wig, putting it in my bag, pulled my hair back into a bun, and left the glasses on. Now if she saw me, she would believe the similarity in the glasses was a coincidence because the crazy lady she'd seen before had different hair color.

When I reached the end of the stairs, the entire staircase disappeared. I don't know where they went, but it was as if they'd never been there to begin with.

I rubbed my eyes, gazing into the space the stairs should have been. I was just so tired; I didn't know what was going on anymore. If I just got some sleep, ten uninterrupted hours sounded blissful, I'd be able to figure out this newest mystery.

However, I wasn't going to get any sleep until I focused all my remaining brain power on solving the mystery of getting back up those stairs whenever I wanted to. Stumbling a little from exhaustion, I went to the wall Meredith where had punched in the code and began my search.

Like the keypad for the vault, it took me longer than I would have liked to find exactly where to push on the flawless wall to reveal it. Also like the other keypad, there were the unique symbols from the KOTS website. Checking my notes frequently, I slowly entered the password. After I'd entered the eighth symbol, I pushed the keypad back into the wall. I turned to watch the space where the steps had been before, but naturally they chose this moment to not reappear.

"Of course they aren't there," I mumbled to myself as I revealed the keypad again. "If they were there, it would have made everything way too easy. And the Ancients forbid anything is easy."

I typed in the password again and tried to will the steps to appear, but they didn't. Had I mistranslated the password? I compared my translation to the website and saw I hadn't mistranslated anything.

"Then I'm reading it wrong. That's the only answer. What if instead of reading it backwards, I'm supposed to read it the way it's written?"

It didn't hurt to try, so I attempted to reveal the stairs again. To my everlasting joy, this time I was successful. The staircase appeared as silently as it had disappeared, not that I actually saw it come out of hiding. One second it wasn't there and the next second it was. I never saw it descend from the ceiling or rise out from the floor. I didn't even see a wall open in order for the stairs to move into place. They just appeared. There was no explanation as to where they went when not in use.

At least no explanation I was able to come up with at this second.

I wearily went up a few steps to verify these were the correct stairs. Once assured I hadn't accidentally revealed some other staircase leading somewhere I didn't want to end up, I began the long journey of getting out of the building and home.

I planned to bask in my success tonight. Perhaps not tonight, I amended as I yawned. Tonight I would sleep like the dead. Tomorrow...tomorrow I would party, indulging in tons of soothing music, decadent chocolate, and alcohol.

Lots and lots of alcohol.

And chocolate.

Baskets full of chocolate.

## Chapter 25

I was merrily listening to music and sipping my wine when my tablet alerted me to a new message on my super secret email account. I thought about not looking at the email and just enjoying my night of success, but then another message came in, something unheard of in the years since I'd created the account.

Lazily logging in, I saw the messages were from Atrox, my neighborhood mafia friend. The first one ordered me to go the chat room immediately. The second said he needed to talk to me about Meredith, or to be more precise Fumantes, since that was the only name he knew her by.

Meredith? What could Atrox want? I went to the chat room, logged in as Aduro, and found Atrox and Latens, Atrox's associate, waiting for me.

Aduro: "What happened?"

Latens: "Did you let her know we were coming?"

Aduro: "Are you crazy? I'm the one who wants her gone!"

Atrox: "She got away from our guy. Do you know where she is?"

Aduro: "How'd she get away?! I thought you were professionals!"

Atrox: "We are. We underestimated her. Her location?"

Aduro: "Give me a few minutes. I'll see what I can do."

Taking a huge gulp of my wine, I opened my tracking program, bringing up her current and past locations. I saw that after she'd left the Secrets of the Ancients building, she'd gone toward her dorm room, but about halfway there, she'd abruptly veered away, going into the nearest building. From there, she'd gone from building to building, most of which she had no classes in.

Once on the other side of campus, she'd gotten onto a trolley which went down into the suburbs. Not someplace she'd been before. After awhile, it looked like she'd gotten off and began wandering around the suburbs, going in and out of stores.

The last reading I'd gotten, she'd been inside of a grocery store, but that had been fifteen minutes ago.

Aduro: "When and where did you lose her?"

Atrox: "Twenty minutes ago. Corner of 1578th and Chips."

I brought up the map, enlarging it onto the grocery store. The store was about three quarters of a block down 1578th Ave from Chips.

Aduro: "Try Eho Grocer on 1578th. My information puts her there as of fifteen minutes ago."

Latens: "Stay on the chat while we check it out."

I looked at his order in disbelief. Like I'd really get off when I didn't know what was going on. What did he take me for?

But I didn't say anything. I just sat on my couch sipping my wine, watching the dot which was Meredith. I saw it begin to move, first around the store and then out the back door, but didn't type anything to Atrox.

It could be his men grabbing her and making a quick getaway, though how they'd get her out of the grocer without her kicking up a huge fuss or anyone noticing something was wrong, especially in a neighborhood like that with all its clean cut lines and low crime rate, was beyond me. Didn't mafia thugs just stand out like sore thumbs in such neighborhoods? I didn't know because I'd never lived in one, but maybe the inhabitants just ignored anyone who wasn't like them. Perhaps if you didn't acknowledge the stranger in your midst, they simply didn't exist.

The dot continued out of the back loading zone for the store and began to weave through a series of alleys before stopping.

I went back to the chat room.

Aduro: "Do you have her?" I couldn't take the suspense anymore. Either they didn't have her or they needed to have me transmit her newest location.

Atrox: "What are you using to track her?"

Aduro: "Her phone." I wasn't using the signal from her tablet because that was still at her attic, obviously not in her possession when she began running.

Atrox and Latens didn't say anything for a few minutes, leaving me watching a blinking curser, needing information.

Aduro: "What has gone wrong?" Something must have gone wrong or they'd be sending me thanks and celebrating a successful hunt.

Latens: "Found phone, but no target."

Aduro: "Damn. She must have dumped the phone and gone underground."

Atrox: "Is there anywhere she could have gone?"

I began to type in no when I thought of her vault of treasures. If I were going underground, I'd go to my stash of goods. They'd be easy to sell, bringing in much needed money I'd need to hide out while my enemies hunted fruitlessly for me.

I jumped to my feet and was out the door before I even realized what I was doing. I was on the trolley the next time I answered Latens and Atrox.

Aduro: "Have an idea. Going to check it out now. Have anyone near campus?"

Latens: "Where are you going? Are you hiding her from us? If you know where she is and don't tell us, I'll –"

Aduro: "I don't know where she is. I said I have an idea. Can't you read? Now answer my question."

Atrox: "We have people who could get to that location within ten minutes. Where would you like them to meet you?"

Did I even want them to meet me? If she was there, then I'd need them to grab her and haul her away. However, if she wasn't I'd be letting them know there was something interesting inside the building.

Decisions...decisions...

Aduro: "Send them to the Super Sciences building. If I see her, I'll let you know where you can direct them. If not, I'll let you know."

Atrox: "Understood. ETA eight minutes."

The trolley had barely come to a stop when I jumped off and began to run towards the Secrets of the Ancients building. I didn't care if people looked at me strangely, or noticed which direction I was going. All I cared about was getting to Meredith's vault as fast as humanly possible and making sure she hadn't taken anything.

But what could she take? I asked myself as I dodged around walkers and hoverboarders on the main path. Most of the pieces were heavy and burdensome. It would take someone with the ability to lift very heavy objects easily or a dolly to move them anywhere.

_Except for the gold and silver,_ the tiny voice reminded me. _While it was heavy, it could be moved without anybody noticing._

No, not the gold and silver. She couldn't take my gold and silver. It was mine now. I'd found it fair and square and no two bit bitch was going to take it from me.

I passed the last fork in the road, every step taking me that much closer to the Secrets of the Ancients building.

Up ahead I was barely able to make out some dim lights which were shining through the trees. I was surprised the lights weren't brighter. If there was one thing the school was particular about, it had to be the placement of lighting along every path, outside every building, and throughout every inch of parkland. Very few areas were dark or dim. The only exceptions were the dorms and only then because so many students had complained they couldn't sleep with a three thousand watt spotlight shining down on them through every window.

(The campus had tried putting blackout shades on the dorm windows, but this had just presented another host of problems. While the shades kept out the light from the spotlight, they also kept out the natural sunshine, which was essential to a third of the student body. Without the sunshine, they'd have all been late for class and their jobs, if not missing them entirely.

Campus officials had pointed out that the reason alarm clocks had been invented was so people wouldn't be late for their classes and appointments. The riots and frequent shade plastering on these officials' home windows, however, was enough to get the spotlights taken down and all mention of using shades disappeared.)

In fact, I suddenly realized that once I'd turned on the final fork, the path lights were a lot farther apart from each other than they should be. And they were dimmer. They felt as if they only gave off a third of the light any other light on a path on campus gave off. This was just enough light to guide, but not enough to penetrate the dark.

However, I was only fully able to appreciate how incredibly dark it was when I found myself nearly stumbling off the path in the sudden darkness. Something about the darkness didn't feel authentic.

I slowed down, not liking the feeling I was walking into a trap. After a few steps, I forced myself to pick up speed.

I had to ignore my misgivings. My random fears and paranoia were just slowing me down and preventing me from focusing on what was really important: making sure she didn't get any of my loot.

My determination and drive to overcome my completely irrational fears went out the window when I received my first sight of the building's façade.

It looked haunted.

Haunted and possessed.

The few lights surrounding the building were rendered dim and hazy by a sudden mist. Where this mist had come from, I don't know, but it seemed to be only around the Secrets of the Ancients building and the immediate path leading toward it.

Each window in the building was similarly hazy, the light shining out barely reaching the outside of the window let alone the grass.

Even as I stood there, I saw shadows pass in front of the windows. Indescribable blobs which appeared ghostlike in the strange fog. Intellectually, I knew they couldn't be ghosts. However that didn't mean I was completely confident they were human either.

The figures I saw, or to be more accurate thought I saw, were so lacking in definition that I found it hard to predict what manner of being I might come in contact with when I finally entered the haunted building before me.

The building, which had been weirdly shaped and eye catching in the light almost seemed to radiate darkness tonight. An idea in direct opposition to all that is possible in the universe.

Instead of spotlights, which might have illuminated the building at night and made it stand out from the pitch black woods which surrounded it, there appeared to be spotdarks. Spots of almost impossibly deep blackness, where one could wonder if the spot was absorbing all the available light like a black hole in order to sustain itself.

One of these spotdarks was directly over the front door.

Or where I remembered the front door being. It was impossible to tell if it was still there because of the complete blackness in this area.

Noises from the surrounding trees sounded louder than normal.

Crack.

Pop.

Screech.

Howl.

Howl? There weren't wolves out here...were there?

Trees rustled and I felt a sudden chill run down the back of my neck, across my shoulders, and down my arms. Something inside me told me the chill wasn't from the wind which had whipped up suddenly before disappearing as fast as it had arrived.

I did not want to keep going.

I really did not want to keep going.

I didn't know what I'd find if I kept going.

Who'd I'd find if I kept going.

But I also didn't want to stay here. Who knew what might come out to greet me if I continued to stare at this building like a simpleton? I could be mauled by a wild beast. Or worse yet, I'd chicken out and run away with my tail between my legs.

I was surprised at how hard it was to take my next step. I had to make a conscious effort to even pick up my foot to take the step.

My foot felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds.

With a total commitment of all my mental energies, I raised it and put it down less than a pace before me.

Just doing this simple act, picking up my foot and setting it down before me, felt as if I were pulling my foot out of quick sand, but that little movement paved the way for the other foot. If I could move one foot, I could move the other.

And if I could move that one, then the next one would be easier yet.

I could do it.

I would do it.

I would march into that building. I would catch Meredith red handed. And she would be captured, shipped off, and out of my hair forever.

No haunted house was going to scare me away.

Nothing could beat me but me and even then only when I allowed myself the luxury of resigning from the field of battle on my terms.

Never would I walk away on someone else's terms.

Summoning all of the courage within me, I stormed to the front door, fumbled with the handle a second before yanking it open, and stomped inside, where I saw nothing had changed. It was just as bright and sterile as before. I gratefully embraced the normalcy after the abnormality of the outside world.

It took me a few minutes to recover my breath, but once I had, I started the long and winding trek to the wall which would reveal the staircase.

Many times I felt as if I had lost my way. More than once I doubled back for walls and halls seemed to arbitrarily rearrange themselves with no rhyme or reason as to the moves. Halls I hadn't noticed would appear out of nowhere and halls I'd seen just hours before were gone.

My winding journey to the wall which would get me up the stairs felt longer and more epic than it had been when I was following Meredith, but eventually I reached it.

When I reached the stair wall there was not a soul to be seen, so I punched in the code as fast as I could and ran up the stairs. Up, up, up the winding staircase I ran. I moved so fast I was panting by the time I reached the landing outside my vault.

I bent over and put my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. I breathed in life giving oxygen through my nose and breathed out through my mouth, feeding my starved lungs.

Once I could breathe without wheezing, I opened the vault.

"That harpy!" I screamed as I saw what the beast had done.

I stormed around the vault, trying to come to terms with what I was seeing. How had she done it? How in all that is holy had she moved a three hundred pound gold and marble statue?

(A three hundred pound statue with three gold and silver jewel encrusted sand cats which sat perched at the feet of a sitting regal man and woman. Zilpha and Silas from the PraeAnarchist art movement.

The few other known sculptures which contained their likenesses were from the Nouveau Laxo movement. During the Nouveau Laxo movement, their likenesses changed dramatically to the point they were shrouded in sheets of pure white linen and began resembling the Ancient gods and goddesses more so than the individualism they'd radiated in previous PraeAnarchist pieces.

According to Anarchist legends, Zilpha and Silas were the first woman and man in the world, created from the desert sands of the Cindra and raised by a sand cat mother until adulthood. From the desert, they emerged into a lawless land where their children and grandchildren had become like the animals Zilpha and Silas had worked to be better than.

The entire first book of the Anarchist's holy book, the _Libertallious Honestrum,_ was about Zilpha and Silas' travels, trials, and tribulations as they combated lawlessness and returned order to the world they'd helped create.

The sand cats, who were their constant companions while they battled the evil in the world, were said to bring good luck and prosperity to those who gazed upon them. Because of this, they were one of the central motifs of the Anarchist's, and were found on every building, in every painting, and were written about extensively in the texts.

But what made this statue unique and infinitely sought after, was the presence of Zilpha and Silas. While they were very important to the Anarchists, their Adam and Eve, their likenesses were rarely depicted. Or at least not many statues and paintings showing them had survived the wars and purges to present day.)

I wanted to kill her. How dare she steal my Zilpha and Silas statue? It had to have been one of the most valuable items in here.

That stopped me. What if it were the most valuable?

I pulled up the spreadsheet of vault items on my phone and saw that the statue was not only the heaviest item, but also the most expensive.

My eyes grew when I saw how much it could sell for. With that much money, she could get a ticket from here to the very edge of the universe and still have money left to live on for a few years.

"How'd she get it down a winding staircase without any help?" It was impossible. Nobody, short of two or three very strong men, could have gotten it out of this vault. "But...but if she didn't have help...how'd she get it up here in the first place?" I said slowly. My eyes strayed to the other very heavy statues. "How'd she get any of this stuff up here without help?"

I was missing something. I had to be missing something very important, or else...there was no or else. I was missing some key piece to this puzzle.

I slowly rotated, searching the four walls for some exit or elevator or...something I'd missed before. But I didn't see anything. All I saw was wall.

_You only saw wall on the outside of this vault, until the keypad came out_ , the little voice in my head said. The voice was right. There could be a secret panel I had to push or a lever I needed to pull to activate a hidden elevator or open a secret passage.

I ran my hands over every inch of the walls. I pushed against the wall every inch or two, hoping to find the hidden catch which would release the wall. I was sure the catch or keypad or some other such mechanism which kept the walls in place was the key to the mystery of the missing statue.

Nothing came to the surface.

Nothing appeared.

Nothing even moved.

I leaned my head against a wall, trying not to wallow in my misery. If there was a secret something, I couldn't find it and no amount of searching was going to reveal it, so what now?

"I guess I should tell Atrox about this newest development," I grumbled, imagining how Latens would react. He'd blow his top, if I was any judge of character.

I grimly smiled. At least I wouldn't be the only one upset at the turn of events. I'd gotten the feeling they wanted her gone as much as I did.

I grabbed my phone and I logged back into the chat room under my assumed name. As I'd expected, Atrox and Latens were there, waiting for my update.

Aduro: "Checked and she's not where I thought she'd be. But I do know that she's gotten away with an Anarchist statue worth thirty million dollars."

Atrox: "What does this statue look like?"

Instead of writing down all the details, I decided to email him a picture of it from a quick image search. It wasn't really hard to find pictures online because after it'd been stolen every news agency in the sector had plastered its likeness across their front pages for all to see.

Once I'd found a few good ones, along with the exact specs, I emailed them to Atrox.

Aduro: "All the information I have on it I just emailed you."

Latens: "How sure are you that she has this object?"

Adruo: "One hundred percent. If she sells it, we'll never catch up with her."

Atrox: "This is a specialty item. Only a few people would be willing to buy it, especially hot. If she contacts them, they'll let me know."

Aduro: "Good. Let them know right away. I have a feeling she'll try to get rid of it quickly."

Latens: "Don't you have any other idea as to where she is?"

Aduro: "No. She's on the run. She won't go anywhere she's been before."

Atrox: "Let me know if you find out anything."

Aduro: "I will if you will."

Atrox: "Agreed."

I got off the chat and decided to email everyone I knew in the business that I was on the lookout for Meredith. I gave them a description, a photo, and an idea of what she might be trying to sell. I promised a reward to anyone who could give me information as to her whereabouts that ended in her apprehension. I knew the reward would entice the greedier of my associates to actively look for her. The more eyes, the better. That was my motto.

But what was _I_ going to do?

## Chapter 26

_The Planet of Riches_ by Gregory Lama, chapter fifteen:

(Professor Gregory Lama is a world renown Ancients' historian who has won awards such as the Founder's International Honor, the Best Ancient Historian Award, and the Klempentine Prize. When not teaching at his alma mater of Purple Stone University, he regularly guest hosts the very popular tv shows, _The Original Ancients_ and _Aliens amongst the Ancients_ , on the Ancients channel.)

"Now that we've exhausted the subject of where the Planet of Riches is located in the universe, let us turn to what is on this planet and how said riches came to be.

"From contextual clues found in the Ancients' scrolls, I've come to the conclusion that the Planet of Riches is covered in gold. From the very highest mountaintops to the buildings built by man to deepest riverbeds, everything the eyes touches is gold. In fact, there is even more gold than this because of what the eye isn't able to see, such as in the deepest of the sea beds and miles under the ground, here too is gold.

"Obviously this overabundance of gold indicates that in the past, this planet had been near many supernovas in nearby planetary systems, which enabled the planet to be showered with metal containing dust clouds. These clouds most likely engulfed the planet for millions of years, locked in the sun's heat, melting the gold. There would be gold lava flowing out of control, touching every inch of land, bubbling and boiling in an unstoppable manner. To the layman, it would appear as if the planet was covered in volcanoes which continuously erupted. To the scientist with an eye for detail, however, one would be able to see that the gold did not come from the few volcanoes on the planet. Instead, the lava, which was liquid gold, came from an outside source, which was obviously a gold dust cloud.

"Once the planet was out of the cloud, the heat which had been captured would finally be able to escape, allowing the gold to gradually cool until it formed sheets and sheets of gold which are everywhere one looks today. The sheets would differ in thickness, depending on how close they were to the epicenter of where the most gold touched down on the planet, with the thickest layers being many many miles thick. (The best guess our scientists could come up with is a maximum depth of a hundred miles, with the average depth being more in the neighborhood of fifty miles thick.)

"And if this cloud wasn't enough to wet the voracious appetite of this gold eating planet, I believe there was a comet of nothing but gold whipping around the universe. Along its unending path, it collided with the Planet of Riches, adding its bountiful essence to the already flourishing planet.

"All of these events, along with the possibility that it might have had some interactions with a black hole or two, have shaped its landscape and makeup. This planet has seen more in its lifetime, more changes, disasters, and evolutionary events than anyone can imagine. So much so that it is impractical to speculate upon them further until one actually finds the planet in order to study all which has happened to it in its long and varied past.

"(However, one event which is not possible, no matter how many scientists and astronomers bring it up is the idea that this planet is a rogue planet. A rogue planet is a planet which does not orbit a star. These planets have been ruled out as mythological and have no place in modern science.

"To put it even more simply for people who don't understand large words: Rogue planets do not exist. They are a figment of your overactive imagination and are impossible in every sense of the word. The Planet of Riches is not a rogue planet, has never been a rogue planet, and will never be a rogue planet.)

"Indeed, I don't believe there is a place on the Planet of Riches which isn't covered in gold, including its core which is surely made up of liquid gold, even if the inhabitants have removed a layer or two in order to build roads or buildings. If my suppositions are correct, I would also guess that they treat gold as we treat dirt, making it worthless to them.

"If we were only able to find the planet, I have no doubts that we would be able to trade their 'worthless gold' for something else they needed, thus making ourselves incredibly wealthy and helping this poor planet get out from under the mountain of gold forced upon them.

"How one planet could be both blessed and cursed is beyond me, but this planet has it all. I would not even be surprised if they gladly let us take all the gold we wanted for no other reason than to take it off their hands.

"Oh, how lucky we'll all be when that day comes."

## Chapter 27

Obex's Bar.

A tiny place consisting of a "u" shaped bar, nine chairs, one bartender, and an alcohol display behind the bartender.

This wasn't one of those trendy places where people were loud and chatty. People didn't order the newest in alcoholic concoctions or look for something new and off the wall to drink. This definitely wasn't someplace which was all the rage and had lines around the block.

This was the very tiny neighborhood hole in the wall where locals went at their designated times, got the same drink they always had, and drank in peace because that was what they'd come to expect. Visitors were few and far between and only came in once before realizing they weren't welcome.

If you wanted to make friends, or chat with some about your problems, you'd come to the wrong place. This bartender was not your friend. He was your bartender. He got you booze. He did not let you bend his ear and lay out all your problems at his feet. That was not part of his job. His job was to sell alcohol. Period. End of story.

Obex's Bar was not my normal type of place, but after two weeks of searching for Meredith, I felt like I needed a drink. A drink and a quiet place to continue searching for the Planet of Riches. I was getting somewhere on that search, at least. And I was slowly working on emptying the vault in that haunted house of a university building.

Too bad I wasn't having as much luck with my search for the harpy.

Since her disappearance, nobody had seen her. It was almost as if she and her statue had vanished into thin air.

I knew she'd have to turn up sooner or later. According to all my contacts, and my own efforts in trying to find her, she hadn't gotten off the planet, that much I knew for certain.

So where was she?

That question had plagued me every moment of the last fourteen days. Day in and day out, when I wasn't focusing on my other search, my search for the Planet of Riches, I was thinking about her. And I didn't like it.

I wanted the headache known as Meredith gone so I could use my time more constructively than trying to figure out where such an irrational person would hide.

I was sipping my drink, soaking up the quiet atmosphere. Except for myself and the ever vigilant bartender, there was only one other person in the bar. He was sipping his drink in the corner. His head was down and he'd yet to make eye contact.

The quiet, but present elevator music playing in the background, along with the booze, helped my muscles loosen from the constant strain I'd been under.

I was almost feeling human again when my phone beeped, the sound drowning out everything else.

The bartender and patron didn't even glance my way.

I seriously thought about ignoring it, but that beep could mean something important had just happened.

You'd have thought I would be ecstatic to get a message from Atrox, to hear the beeping of my phone announcing news, but there had been so many false starts in the last two weeks, I was beginning to expect the worst, not the best.

I sighed as I dug into my boat of a purse to find the reason for the beeping. Even as I pulled out my phone, I was thinking I needed to downsize my purse. Did I really need all the crap I carried around on a daily basis?

I inwardly shrugged as I navigated to my email. I probably did. It never hurt to be prepared for any eventuality and if I got a smaller purse, I'd have fewer supplies at my disposal.

My mind got back to business once I stopped the noise and saw that I'd received an email. It was from Atrox, my mafia contact, demanding I go to the chat room.

What did he want now? If it wasn't him, it was his mafia friend Latens always badgering me. Had I seen Meredith? Did I know where she was? Had I heard anything from my people? Blah, blah, blah.

I took another sip and tried to decide if I really wanted to answer. I really, really didn't want to, but I should. I owed Atrox at least that much because he'd been such a good sport at religiously keeping me up to date with his every step and dead end lead in his persistent failure to locate Meredith.

Even reading or thinking her name made me want to scream out in frustration. I hated getting Atrox's failure updates as I'd come to think of them. Each time I had to sit through a briefing just made my blood boil that much more. I mean, really, how hard was it to find one pathetic woman?

I logged into the chat room as Aduro and saw Atrox was waiting for me.

Aduro: "Yes?"

Atrox: "She contacted a buyer."

Finally! Now that we had a buyer, Atrox could sweep in there, grab her ass, and ship her off to the slave planet! Soon, very soon, I'll be done with her forever!

Adruo: "Who? Where?"

My inbox dinged.

Atrox: "Check email."

I read the name and address. That was just a few blocks away from me.

Aduro: "I'm close to there. How long until you get her?"

Atrox: "My men are on the premises, waiting for her. She is scheduled to be there within the hour."

Aduro: "I'll be there to help apprehend her."

I typed this not even thinking of the consequences. It was only after the words appeared on the screen for Atrox to see that I began to realize what I'd just done. For this entire affair, I'd been trying to avoid any direct, in person contact with the mafia and here I was offering myself up to them in person. What was I doing? Had I lost my mind?

I looked away from my screen, letting my eyes wander to all the bottles of alcohol artfully stacked behind the bar. No, I hadn't lost my mind. I just wanted to make sure nothing went wrong. I'd given Atrox plenty of chances to do this right and he'd blown them all. This had led me to feel like if I wasn't there, in person, to make sure nothing went wrong, this situation would never end. I had to be there, if only for my own peace of mind.

I turned my attention back to my screen.

Atrox: "No. We can take care of this without you."

_He's giving you the perfect out. Are you going to take it?_ the small voice in my mind asked.

No. I wasn't going to take it. I wanted to be there to see Meredith go down.

Aduro: "You couldn't the last time. This time, I'm not leaving anything to chance. Have one of your men meet me..." I brought up a map to see what was around the home. "...at the park. Redbird Park. It's a few blocks southeast of the location. I'll be holding a sunflower. How will I know your man?"

Atrox: "He'll ask for you by name." There was a pause before Atrox went on.

Atrox: "You really don't need to be there."

Aduro: "Yes I do. Have your man meet me."

Atrox: "Alright, but if you do anything to hinder this operation..."

I laughed out loud. At times Atrox could be as funny as Latens.

Aduro: "You're beginning to sound like Latens. Need I remind you that I want her gone more than you do?"

Atrox: "I'll see you when you come with my man."

I downed the rest of my drink, threw some money onto the bar, and walked out, my pace quick and purposeful. I only made one stop, a flower stand where I picked up my sunflower, and I was at the park before I knew it.

Since it was late afternoon, the park was crowded with children of all ages and parents. While the small children played on the swing set with their parents watching indulgently, the older children played on their hoverboards. They were using these narrow boards like skateboards, doing all sorts of tricks and stunts, laughing when they fell off and cheering when they completed some daring feat of nature. Everyone around looked like they were having so much fun.

I wasn't having fun. I was anxious. Extremely anxious. I didn't want her getting away again. I didn't like this uncertainty, this not knowing where she was or what she was doing. It would be better when I knew where she was.

I paced under the archway which marked the entrance to the park, clenching my sunflower for what felt like hours before a man not much taller than myself started walking toward me. The man was broad chested and had muscles which were thicker and more prominent than regular muscle builders. However, with his proud stance and black dress pants and shirt, he didn't give me the feeling that he was a muscle builder. Or that he was one of the regular thugs the mafia employed. If I'd noticed him on the street, I'd have thought he was just a wealthy playboy, though his black boots would have given me pause.

In fact, as I watched him move with complete fluidity and confidence, I began to suspect he was the leader of this operation.

Why was the leader here? I thought Atrox would have one of the lower level people come pick me up, not the leader. Leaders should be leading their men and making the important decisions, not picking up strangers so close to game time.

"Are you Aduro?" the man asked as he stopped right in front of me. His eyes flickered to the sunflower in my hand, then to my plain black t-shirt and jeans before looking me in the eyes.

"Who's asking?" I asked cautiously.

"A friend of Atrox and Latens. If you'll come with me," he said in a smooth voice. He was already taking a few steps in the direction he had come from.

"Of course." We began to walk toward the location where my moment of triumph would final come. Soon, I would know where Meredith would fall and be able to savor the glorious feeling of victory. I would have the satisfaction in knowing she was gone and would never be a blight upon society again.

However, I was getting ahead of the situation. While I was confident in my own abilities to make sure she didn't get away if she was in my presence, I needed this man, and his men, to back me up. I couldn't do it alone. I couldn't cover every entrance and exit alone no matter how much I wanted to be able to. I needed them to be just as wary and watchful as I was or else this would all go to hell.

"Do you know what you're up against?" I asked. They probably had no idea as to how devious the little harpy could be. Nobody really knew except me, not that I was happy about carrying about such information. When she did disappear, I intended to forget everything I knew about her. No reason to keep such garbage in my mind any longer than necessary.

"I have informed my men of the botched attempt to apprehend her two weeks ago, if that is what you're referring to. My men are also well aware of the targets abilities.

"I have every entrance and exit to the grounds and house covered. No window, door, or gate has been overlooked. My men are also patrolling the gardens, so even if she does get out of the house by some miracle, she will be cut off by them. In addition, I have men just walking around the grounds, making sure everyone stays in position and that nothing has been overlooked.

"Every single man on my team, including the people on the buyer's security force, have been told to shoot first, ask questions later when it comes to the target. Every eventuality has been thought of and planned for. We will not let her get away," he said in a very calming and reassuring voice.

"So, you have every single exit possible covered? You haven't assumed that she couldn't get out a crack because it's too small for a person to get through? Your men will be alert at all times and never take what they see as a given? They will question everything? I don't want to give her any opportunity, no matter how small or slim, to get away. I want this done today," I said, trying to stress how important this was to me.

"As I've said, my men are covering every exit and entrance from not only the house but the grounds. I have well trained men patrolling the grounds of the estate. If she is able to escape from the house, she will be caught on the grounds.

"For the duration of this operation, nobody, no matter what they look like or who they say they are, will be allowed on or off the estate once she is inside the net.

"We have thought of everything," he reiterated.

His words were steady, but his movements were less fluid than they'd once been. He was mad at me, I realized. He didn't like me questioning him. Well, too bad. I had questions and I needed to know there would be no mistakes. Mistakes are what had gotten us into this position and I wanted this finished.

"What about secret passageways or tunnels?" I asked, ignoring the glare he shot at me. "She's been able to elude my detection before by taking underground tunnels which weren't on any maps or city planning documents or any other records. I don't want that to happen this time."

The man frowned. The anger he'd shown just seconds ago gone. "The buyer is very powerful. I had not planned on asking her such a sensitive question, but if you insist on covering even the most unlikely of bases, I will ask her."

"I do insist upon it. We would be grossly negligent if we didn't even inquire." I paused for a second. "Her? The buyer is a woman?" I asked surprised.

The man at my side laughed. "Did you assume the buyer was a man? Women can be filthy rich and buy...previously owned items just as well as any man. If not more so from my experience. While I've seen egotistical men buy the most expensive items, thinking their purchases would impress the ladies, the level headed women I've met aren't swayed by the size of their acquisitions. They know bigger isn't necessarily better and that expensive doesn't equate to quality. These fine women are more interested in the item's potential value, how much it'll cost to acquire said item, and how sound of a buy it really is. More than a few of these women are only willing to deal with goods which weigh less than a pound and are no larger than a man's palm. Women are the shrewder of the sexes by far, thus leading them to traffic in more previously owned goods than men."

"Of course," I said sharply. Why had I even brought this up? I was straying from the matter at hand. "I have known plenty of women who out buy their male counterparts by a factor of fifty, but commerce is not our goal here. Our goal is to capture Meredith. She is a wily target and we'd do well to keep her as our central focus."

"Meredith?" The man looked at me inquiringly.

"Perhaps you know her as Fumantes?" I asked. He nodded. "What you've told me makes me reasonably certain we shall get her. What I can't stress enough is that she isn't to be underestimated. I've made that mistake once and I refuse to be lulled into a false sense of security just because it looks like she's cornered. The bitch always has a way out, even if you and I don't see it.

"Seriously, you've got to believe me. Everyone has underestimated her, even Atrox and Latens. That's why we're even in this predicament in the first place. We're not standing outside this mansion because it's a nice day and we're being invited to tea. We're here to catch Fumantes and send her to that hellhole. You and your men must not repeat our mistakes because you were too arrogant to listen to the voice of reason."

"We won't. This isn't our first rodeo. We are professionals," he assured me.

"Are you the person Atrox contacted about this job in the beginning?" If he was, it would go a long way to alleviating any fears I had. Though he had been the one to lose her in the first place...but I'm sure that was just a fluke. Even professionals can have off days.

"Yes." His tone was hard. Obviously the topic was off limits. I could respect that. I didn't want him asking about how I knew Atrox and Latens. It wasn't any of his business.

We turned a corner and all I saw was a tall wrought iron fence and even taller hedges. "Let me guess, she lives inside of this," I said wryly.

"Of course." The man stopped in front of the fence and waited. I looked around, trying to figure out why he'd stopped in this particular spot. There was nothing special about. It just seemed to be part of the never-ending fence which surrounded this estate.

Oh, how wrong I was, especially when the fence slid to the side like a pocket door, revealing a man dressed in the height of security fashion. With his sunglasses, black on black attire, and aura of both "You'll never be anything but a piece of trash compared to me" and "I'll kill you for just looking at me the wrong way," I could tell he was either part of the buyer's security force or one of my escort's men.

"Is this her, sir?" the new man asked in a respectful tone. His eyes, however, swept over me in disdain. I could tell I wasn't what he expected, but then, I hadn't expected such a pompous ass to be guarding the front gate, so we'd both been in for surprises.

"No. This is Atrox's friend. She will be..." The man who had escorted me to the estate looked at me. His eyes questioned my very presence.

For the first time, I realized Atrox hadn't told his man why I was coming in on this operation. You'd have thought Atrox would have filled in his man, but evidently I was greatly overestimating Atrox's ability to think and plan ahead.

"I'm here to help as necessary," I said. I wanted no confusion as to what my purpose here was. I wasn't going to just sit on the sidelines and hope the big, strong men would do their job. I wanted to be in on the action, if there was any action to be had. I wanted to know they were doing everything and anything needed to get the job done. If I hadn't, I could have stayed at the bar.

"Ms. Aduro has expressed some concern that we might be underestimating Fumantes. Pass on this information to the men. Remind them to not be complacent. If they see anyone who they do not recognize as being one of our own, they should question their presence. Do not let anyone on or off the grounds for any reason. If they see or hear anything questionable, anything at all, they are to report it to me immediately. Nobody is to assume anything. Once the target is in the net, we are on Code Black," he said, sounding very much like the leader I thought he was. I could just imagine him being very inspirational to his men when he wanted to be. Perhaps he'd been in the army at one time.

"Yes, sir," his man answered. His tone indicated he didn't believe they had missed anything, but he would do whatever his leader told him to do, just like a good soldier should. I really hoped that they hadn't missed anything or else we'd all be in a world of hurt.

"If you'll come with me, we have a few minutes before the target is scheduled to arrive to ask Ms. Blanc a few questions," my escort from the park said. "Unless you have something else planned..."

"No. I would be honored to come with you." And I was, for I'd thought he'd try to pawn me off on some underling like his man at the gate. I thought he would see me as nothing but an interloper. I was glad he saw me as an asset instead of a hindrance.

As we made our way to the front of the home, I saw a few of my escort's men. They stood in the hedge's shadows, their backs to the outside world. Their faces were blank, which might have made an onlooker believe they weren't paying attention to their surroundings, but their eyes were constantly on the move. Watching for what didn't belong.

Their hands rested on the butts of their weapons, ready to use them at a moment's notice.

Their clothing was black on black, which looked hot even on this cool afternoon, but I couldn't detect even a hint of discomfort in their body language. They didn't shift or wipe away sweat from their faces. They just stood there like silent statues waiting for the moment they would come to life. These were true professionals. They'd seen battle before and knew how to do their job.

I felt the weight on my shoulders lift a little as we left them. They wouldn't let me down, I just knew it.

The front of the home was tall and grandiose, reminding me of the front of an Ancient temple. Carved marble pillars held up the huge entablature, which contained in its pediment a carving of what appeared to be farmers sewing their seeds. Through the ten foot high wood doors, which felt as if they opened by themselves, revealed a long hallway situated between two sweeping staircases which went to the second floor.

The staircases were curved in a "c" shape, with railings which could have been spun out of the finest of gold. My escort walked down the hallway between the staircases very quickly, but I saw enough to know that no expense had been spared to make the entryway as extravagant and breathtaking as possible.

The hallway we went down had twenty foot high ceilings, which were all designed in light blue swirls which not only perpetuated the idea of motion, but also had points where one could feel the tension which had been built was being released. How this was accomplished, I have no idea, but I felt the tension build and release multiple times as we progressed.

Along the light blue walls, there was valuable artwork and statues everywhere. There were Lucio and Favero landscape paintings next to Isabelle and Svanhilda nudes. Jerrie vases next to Lurdes bronze figures. No period of time appeared to have been overlooked or forgotten about, not even the very short, very unknown Munkavil period.

All these works of art stood in such a complete silence you could hear a pin drop. If I hadn't known someone lived here, I would have thought this was a private and extremely exclusive museum.

Don't get me wrong, I loved expensive and beautiful things as much as the next girl, but the over abundance would wear on me after awhile. Where did this woman, this Ms. Blanc, go to relax? Was there an inch of this place which didn't scream "WEALTH" and "OPULENCE"?

And how did she stop people from stealing all this stuff? So far, her lack of security surprised me. However, I'm not sure what I expected. A full pat down? Maybe not that extreme, but at least a metal detector or an artifact wand. Perhaps someone watching my every step, waiting to tell me not to touch the artifacts.

But so far, other than the men I assumed were...who was this man I was following? What was his name?

"Sir, I don't think I got your name," I said in my most innocent and confused voice.

"You may call me Tego," he answered.

So, I saw a lot of Tego's men, but I'd yet to even see a butler, let alone the people who should have kept guard over these very old and valuable treasures.

Something was off about this house. I could feel it, but what exactly was making the back of my neck itch...I couldn't put my figure on.

All thoughts flew out of my head, however, when we entered what had to be Ms. Blanc's office and I saw Ms. Blanc.

And her very surprising surroundings.

Ms. Blanc wore a light blue dress while sitting on a light blue couch, in a room that was painted a light blue color with light blue accents everywhere. Every place my eye touched, I saw light blue. Even her desk was light blue.

To anyone not seeing this, you'd think it would be too much, like a horrible explosion of light blue. Or perhaps what you'd think of if some crazed maniac had snuck into a room and made everything light blue after a night of drinking and drugs. But it was neither of these things. It was tastefully done in a way I wouldn't have thought possible.

But the excessive blues were not what surprised me the most. It was the woman. For someone named Ms. Blanc (or effectively Ms. White), I expected something about her to live up to her name. Her hair, her taste in color, her clothes, her complexion, something.

Instead, she was a beautiful woman with smooth, chocolate brown skin, sleek and flowing golden hair, and a very apparent love for light blue. Who'd have thought I'd be having so much trouble finding any white in the office of Ms. Blanc?

"Ma'am, Fumantes will be here in a few minutes, but I did have a question or two more for you," Tego said.

"Of course. Ask me anything you want, but first, who is this lovely lady at your side?" Ms. Blanc asked, her tone warm and very friendly.

"This is Ms. Aduro. She is here to help detain Fumantes. What we'd like to know is if there are any secret passage ways or entrances and exits onto this property which might be used in an escape," Tego asked lightly, as if the answer didn't really matter, but he was asking because of my concerns.

Ms. Blanc gave us a highly amused look before gracefully getting to her feet. "My good man, and darling woman, even if I had such lovely things, do you think I'd tell you?"

"Of course you don't want to tell us," I said, my voice as calm and unassuming as possible even as I watched Ms. Blanc float around the room. "But it is extremely important if we are to be successful. You see, Fumantes cannot be trusted, especially if she feels trapped. I know she will have researched any and every possible escape route from this dwelling, including the secret ones. We just want to secure them so she is unable to utilize them."

Ms. Blanc walked behind us, and I suddenly felt her finger running up and down my arm, raising goose bumps. "Angel," she cooed, "don't worry your pretty little head. I have everything under control. She won't get away...unless I allow her too."

"Please don't," I said, trying not to move away from her caressing hands. "I would be very grateful if you didn't."

"How grateful?" Ms. Blanc whispered into my ear.

I swallowed. I was getting some heavy messages from this woman, messages I didn't want to receive. And I didn't know what to do. Or how to respond.

"We would be very grateful, ma'am," Tego said, his voice suggesting everything I wasn't willing to.

Ms. Blanc pouted for a few seconds, but something about my stance and expression must have told her it would do no good.

"Humph. I guess I'll have to settle for your gratitude. Angel, you will be at my side when I meet this Fumantes and see for yourself I'm not helping her."

I swallowed. Something about this woman was deeply intimidating, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. She hadn't threatened me, made me feel unreasonably uncomfortable, or talked down to me. So why did I not want to make her mad or contradict her?

"As much as I'd enjoy that, ma'am, Fumantes would recognize me in a second. I should be out of sight when she is here," I said, trying to keep my tone even.

"Nonsense. I have the perfect disguise for you. Your own mother wouldn't recognize you. Now, Tego, why don't you go and leave us alone? She should be here any minute," Ms. Blanc said with only the briefest glance at the clock.

"Yes ma'am." Tego left the office, never even looking at me to see if I agreed with this new plan, which I didn't.

"I really don't think –" I stumbled over my words, unsure of how I could express my concerns without angering Ms. Blanc.

"Good, Angel. Don't think. I have everything in here. It will be perfect for you," Ms. Blanc said, giving me an indulgent look before going out a door I hadn't noticed before. She was back within a few seconds, carrying what looked to be a light blue dress.

She handed it to me, saying, "I think this will look perfect on you. Now, hurry up and change."

I took the clothing and made to go out of the room, there had to be a bathroom somewhere I could change in. Ms. Blanc dashed these hopes, however, putting a hand on my arm. Gently restraining me, she said, "No, Angel. Change here."

I began to protest, but she cut off my words. "It's not like you don't have anything I haven't seen before, Angel."

That was true, but I still didn't feel comfortable changing in front of her. I had to suck it up, though, because time was quickly ticking away. I turned my back to her and started to strip. I felt Ms. Blanc's eyes on every inch of skin I revealed, caressing me as I felt sure she wished her hands were.

With suddenly trembling hands, I grabbed the dress she'd given me, trying to figure out which way it went. This wasn't as easy as one would expect because one of the sides, the back I was guessing, had a very deep v shaped cut which would go to just about the top of my butt. Thank the Ancients the front only had a modest cut.

I was lifting the dress over my head when I heard Ms. Blanc say, "The deep slit goes in front."

I turned my head to look at her, not believing what she'd said, but the wicked twinkling in her eyes told me I hadn't misheard anything. I gave a thought to objecting, but something within me said it would do no good.

Feeling defeated, I turned the dress around to its "proper" way and put it on. The front slit went all the way to my navel, baring more of me than it covered. Even my breasts were barely covered, making me so self-conscious that I kept tugging on the tissue thin fabric.

"Now stop that," Ms. Blanc scolded, "and let me have a look at you." She grasped my shoulders and turned me around. Her eyes took in every bare inch, making me feel extremely uncomfortable.

"Very nice," she breathed, her eyes dilating a little. "Now spin for me." She twirled her finger in a tiny circle when I didn't move fast enough. I gritted my teeth and turned around slowly, hearing her hum in contentment.

I was halfway around when she stopped me. "Dear me, this is not how it should be." I felt her hand on my back and felt the dress tug a little. I heard zipper teeth come together and breathed out a sigh of relief. She must think the dress was too revealing in the back.

But my relief was short lived when I felt the back of the dress become a little looser and a little airier. "That's so much better. Way too much skin was being covered up."

"Don't you think this dress is a little too revealing?" I asked turning around. "I'll attract a lot of attention."

"Yes you will," she said in a satisfied voice. "Especially when you put on the shoes I've got for you." She nodded to a pair of light blue high heels I hadn't noticed before. "Go put them on while I get the last piece of your outfit."

"But I'm trying to blend in. Go unnoticed. One look to me and Fumantes will know something's up," I protested even as I pulled on the shoes. For as high as they were, I'd have expected them to be excruciatingly painful, but they were really very comfortable. In fact, it felt as if I were wearing flats instead of heels.

I glanced at the brand name. Fendior. Of course they were so comfortable. They cost a small fortune and the people who bought them demanded absolute comfort. I wondered if I could convince Ms. Blanc to give me the shoes when all was said and done.

"Here, this will complete your ensemble perfectly," Ms. Blanc said, presenting what looked to be a very dramatic, very heavily veiled light blue hat.

The hat itself was a small cocktail hat, very pretty with dark blue embroidery. What made it dramatic, however, were the peacock feathers which rose from the back of the hat. They only went up about six inches, but for me, it was six inches too much.

And the veil! The veil was so heavy, I didn't know how I was going to be able to see, which was good in a way, because that meant Meredith wouldn't be able to see me, but still!

"Put it on, put it on!" Ms. Blanc urged when I hesitated.

"Isn't the veil going to make it difficult for me to see?" I asked.

"Of course not, you silly goose. Didn't I tell you I'd thought of everything? Now put it on! Every second you dawdle is another second she has to wait," she said.

"You mean she's here?" I asked, feeling the blood leave my face. I hadn't heard a doorbell or a knock of any kind indicating she'd arrived. She must mean something else.

"Of course she's here," Ms. Blanc said, looking a little disappointed at my lack of smarts. "She's been here for about five minutes. Don't look so panicked, Angel. I always make my guests wait at least five minutes. It lets them know who is really in charge of these meetings. Now, put on your hat like a good girl."

I did as she bid, finding that my fears of being unable to see were unfounded. In fact, it was as if I hadn't put on a veil because I could see very clearly the world around me. "There are tiny cameras embedded within the veil which allow the wearer to see unhindered. Now, while I talk with this woman, you are to stand at my side and do whatever I bid. Do not speak or hesitate in any order I give. Remember, she will believe you are my companion and ignore you...unless you do something to draw attention to yourself. Understand?" she asked.

"Yes ma'am," I replied, not really having any options at this point.

"Good." Ms. Blanc sat at her desk and pressed a button. "Come stand right behind me."

I did as she bade me, noting that the dress, which I'd thought couldn't get any more revealing, did in fact have hip high side slits on both sides. The only saving grace was that one of the slits ended a couple inches lower than the other, which prevented a breeze from flipping up the skirt and revealing everything to the Ancients. As it was, I'd still have to be careful or else I'd be flashing people with every step I took.

Great, just what I needed, another hole revealing even more skin. Didn't this woman worry I might get cold with everything exposed?

_Oh, she has no worries. In fact, she probably hopes you get cold. The body does have some interesting reactions when it gets cold,_ the little voice in my head said, but I pushed its observations out of my mind.

I had other things I had to worry about such as what would Meredith or Tego think of me upon setting eyes on this getup? Even as I asked myself the question, I knew what Meredith would think. She'd believe I was Ms. Blanc's girlfriend/mistress/companion. A kept woman. I could just imagine the smirk she'd give me.

As for Tego...did I really care about what he thought about me? His job, like mine, was to catch Meredith. I was letting these clothes and Ms. Blanc distract me.

I threw my shoulders back and looked directly at the door, waiting for it to open. "I do love a woman who is proud to display her assets," Ms. Blanc murmured just loud enough for me to hear before the door swung open, revealing another scantily clad woman, sans hat and veil, leading a very covered up, in comparison, Meredith.

This was the same Meredith from the club, not from school. Confidence radiated off her as if she'd always had it. She strode past the maid to the desk and held out her hand. "Ms. Blanc it is a pleasure to finally meet you in person."

Ms. Blanc got to her feet and took Meredith's hand. Instead of shaking it though, she brought it to her lips, kissing her hand in a move reminiscent of gentleman greeting a lady, or a servant showing their respect to their master.

I didn't think Ms. Blanc was doing it out of respect. I think she was doing it to disturb Meredith, to knock her off balance.

Meredith drew her hand back quickly, her face tense. As Ms. Blanc started speaking, I even thought I saw her shiver and wipe the back of her hand on her side, as if trying to get rid of the feel of another woman's lips on her body. I smiled in glee, secure in the knowledge that she couldn't see my happiness.

Seemingly oblivious to the discomfort she'd dealt Meredith, Ms. Blanc said, "A great pleasure for me as well, Ms. Fumantes. Please take a seat." She waved her hand in the direction of a plush chair before her desk. "But I must first inquire about the item in question." Ms. Blanc took her own seat and leaned back. "Surely you don't expect me to buy it sight unseen."

Meredith didn't reply. Instead she stared at me, taking in my ridiculous outfit. "I like to do business in private," Meredith said after turning her attention back to Ms. Blanc.

"Don't worry about Angel. Discretion is her middle name," Ms. Blanc said, waving off Meredith's concern.

But she wasn't to be placated. "Be that as it may be, I really must insist that we are alone. I've learned that the fewer people trusted, the better for all."

The congenial look on Ms. Blanc's face disappeared. "Angel stays." The 'or no deal' was heavily implied, and by the look on Meredith's face, she realized it, too.

I saw Meredith swallow any more protests before pasting on a very fake smile. "Of course, no offence meant."

Ms. Blanc smiled like a contented cat. "No offense taken. Now, where is the object in question? I don't intend to buy it without examining it fully."

"I have it right in the hall with one of my men. I wanted us to talk about the price, however, before you actually saw the item," Meredith said.

"Why? What have you done to the statue?" I felt the temperature of the room dipping as Ms. Blanc's displeasure grew.

"Nothing," Meredith assured Ms. Blanc. "It is in perfect condition, just as it was when I got it, but due to other...circumstances, I must insist that the price go up."

"What do you want for it now?" Ms. Blanc asked.

With a straight face, Meredith said, "Thirty five million."

I wanted to gasp at the outrageousness of her request. At the most, the statue was worth thirty million and since it was stolen, if she'd been thinking sanely, she'd have asked for twenty or twenty-five million. Even I, with all my gumption, would never have offered such a ridiculous amount.

I wanted to tell Ms. Blanc it was an outrageous sum of money for the statue, but I held my tongue. She didn't need my help. You didn't become a trillionaire by being stupid.

"Thirty five million is an awful lot for something worth only twenty-five," Ms. Blanc said.

"It is a lot of money, but the statue's worth it." Meredith paused for a few seconds before saying, "If you aren't willing to pay my asking price, I know of other people who will be very willing to."

Ms. Blanc laughed. "Nobody is going to pay if I tell them not to." Meredith had a very surprised look on her face. "Oh, I understand now. You didn't realize who you were dealing with. You thought I had some man controlling the empire and I was just some brainless figurehead, didn't you?

"If you were really foolhardy enough to believe these outmoded ideas, you are going to be very disappointed. I have all the power and connections you wish you had. When I tell people to not buy, they don't buy. If I say, 'Stay away from Ms. Fumantes,' they'll stay away from you as if you had the plague."

Meredith tried to interrupt Ms. Blanc, but she steamrolled over her as she had me. "If you had come in here and been willing to ask for a reasonable price, I would have been willing to pay a small mark up, but you didn't. Instead, you asked for an outrageous sum for a beautiful, but not entirely unique statue. Because of this, I will give you fifteen million dollars, if it is undamaged as it should be. If it is so much as chipped, you will get nothing."

"That's not fair," Meredith cried, jumping to her feet.

"Life isn't fair. If it were, you wouldn't have tried to rip me off," Ms. Blanc said regally getting to her own feet.

"You can't do that. If you won't pay, I'll take my statue and leave," Meredith threatened.

"You wouldn't get a step out of this house before being stopped," Ms. Blanc said rounding her desk. "Now, let us look at my statue."

With Ms. Blanc leading the way, Meredith and I followed her down the hall and into what looked to be a parlor. A tallish man turned around when we entered, but my attention was on the statue, which was hovering in the middle of the room on a hoverboard.

_So that's how she got it in and out of the vault,_ I thought at seeing the hoverboard. Hoverboards were incredibly strong and had the ability to hover anywhere from a few inches above the ground to a few feet, depending on what type of hoverboard you had. They could be used in any walk of life for any reason with the main uses being entertainment for the young and furniture moving companies. No more broken backs, no more strained muscles. Just put it under the furniture and you were good to go.

This must have been one of the more expensive versions because it held the six foot tall statue about a foot or so above the floor.

And what at statue it was. The too brief glance I'd given it on my first arrival to the vault and the pictures I'd studied hadn't done it justice at all.

Three gold and silver jewel encrusted sand cats sat perched at the feet of a sitting regal man and woman stood before me.

Just as I'd thought. That witch had stolen my Zilpha and Silas statue. So like her to be so greedy with such an excellent example of workmanship and dedication.

Zilpha and Silas were so lifelike and so beautiful with their rose gold skin, silver clothes, and bejeweled faces. Just being in their presence made me understand why the Anarchist's regarded them so highly.

I could also appreciate why the Ancients would have wanted all such statues destroyed.

Why hadn't I taken the time and energy this beautiful statue deserved when I'd first entered the vault? I shouldn't have just glanced at it and moved onto the other pretties in the room. I should have been drawn to it and examined it in depth, drinking in its every detail when I was able to do so at my leisure.

It should have been the first item I removed from vault, instead of just pushing it aside for the lighter and easier moved treasures.

I'd been complacent, confident I would have more than enough time to appreciate all the work, effort, sweat, and tears needed to create such a massive masterpiece.

I hadn't been able to see past the beauties, which were so shiny and drawing to the eye, to see the real exquisiteness, the real artistry behind this work of art.

Now, I had to be content to gaze upon it like a visitor to a museum, seeing what I could while knowing that at any second I'd be asked to move so others could see.

What a enormous opportunity I'd lost.

"Very nice," Ms. Blanc said, moving into my line of vision, reminding me I wasn't alone and I had a job to do.

"Of course. Didn't I tell you it was in pristine condition?" Meredith said.

"That is yet to be seen," Ms. Blanc said with an indifference which was enough to be incredibly insulting. In fact, I was surprised Meredith didn't call her on it, but she must have really wanted this sale to go through because she bit her tongue.

Ms. Blanc walked over to the wall behind her desk and pulled on a bell pull I hadn't noticed before. After a minute passed, the woman who'd showed Meredith into Ms. Blanc's office walked in carrying what looked like a scanner. It was larger, however, than any I'd seen before.

"What is that?" Meredith asked as Ms. Blanc accepted the object.

"This is a museum grade authenticator. It will scan the sculpture and make sure it is indeed genuine," Ms. Blanc said.

"How does it know if the object is genuine?" Meredith asked, looking curious as she gazed upon the object in Ms. Blanc's hand.

Ms. Blanc began to scan the statue, starting at the top and going down to the marble base. "I have the specifications of what it should be from the museum it was taken from. This authenticator scans to the core of the statue and will tell me if every detail matches those specifications. It will also tell me if anything has been changed, damaged, or repaired. Don't worry, this should only take a few minutes."

"But what if it shows that a repair has been made? I didn't make any repairs, so that would have been done by the museum," Meredith said.

Ms. Blanc glanced at Meredith for the briefest of seconds before continuing her scans. "Have no fears. I have the very latest scans the museum created. Any repairs would have been noted."

Meredith looked like she wanted to protest, but she didn't. She must have realized by now Ms. Blanc was going to do what she wanted and nobody was going to stop her.

As Ms. Blanc slowly circled the statue, Meredith stepped to my side. "How long have you known Ms. Blanc?" she asked me in a low voice.

"Long enough," I said in a very soft voice, so unlike my normal speaking.

Then I realized my mistake. Ms. Blanc had told me not to speak. I'd not only gone against a direct order she'd given me, I was opening up an opportunity for Meredith to figure out who I was.

"Is she normally this particular?" Meredith asked, oblivious to my internal struggle.

Did I answer her or keep my mouth shut and say nothing else? As much as I'd have loved to turn into a mime, I couldn't. By speaking, I'd opened the floodgates and I had no option but to reply. Why hadn't I just kept quiet?

I nodded my head. "Of course. People always try to take advantage of the unwise. Ms. Blanc, unlike most of her counterparts, is very wise." This I knew for certain. I had never met a person who was as smart or as extremely confident as she was and I doubted I ever would. In a world full of crippling self-doubt, self-mutilation in the name of beauty, and self-hate, she was a ray of sunshine. Perhaps this was one for the reasons she put me in such a revealing dress. To show me I had nothing to be ashamed of. That I should be proud of everything I'd been blessed with instead of covering it up under unflattering clothing.

I snorted to myself. That and to ogle my body. She most assuredly loved seeing the female body in all its glory.

Meredith looked surprised. "Do people actually try to get something over on her?"

"There have been a few, but they all learned quickly it was not smart." I didn't know if any of what I was saying was true, but I had to say something. In for a penny, in for a pound I always liked to think.

However, our idle chitchat brought up another set of questions. Why was I having to stand here talking to Meredith at all? Shouldn't she already be in custody? Where was Tego and his men?

At that moment, Ms. Blanc turned around to face us and said, "Everything seems to be in order."

"I told you it would be," Meredith crowed.

"But one must not trust what someone else says when you have the ability to verify it yourself." Ms. Blanc said this in such a voice that it felt as if she were talking down to anyone who just took someone's word. "Now, I assume you want to be paid."

"Of course. Seventeen million," Meredith said, her face turning greedy.

"I don't think so," Ms. Blanc said, leading us into a connecting room I hadn't noticed before. This room had the same Ancient inspired architecture as the rest of the house, but it felt more modern. What exactly made me feel that way, I couldn't have told you, but there was just something about the way the room was put together, where each element was placed, which felt more modern than the entryway and the room we'd just been in. "I said fifteen and if you persist to change the price, I shall give you only ten."

"Fine," Meredith bit out. "Fifteen million. But I expect it all deposited into my account."

"But of course. What need do I have to cheat you?" Ms. Blanc picked up a tablet from a table and tapped it for a few seconds before facing us. "If you'll just place your signature and thumbprint on this contract, I'll be happy to put the money into your account."

"Contract? There was no talk of any contract or me putting my signature on anything," Meredith countered, taking a step back.

"I have to have a contract or else you won't get your money. Only a fool gives someone fifteen million dollars without something in writing," Ms. Blanc said evenly.

I'd never thought about it that way before, but she was right. Even though this was an illegal transaction, fifteen million was still a lot of money. Why hadn't I ever thought about getting things in writing when money changed hands?

Probably because I didn't like leaving a paper trail. Meredith must have been thinking along the same lines. "What guarantee do I have you won't turn this over to the police."

"My dear child," Ms. Blanc said in an amused voice. "Why would I logically do that? I will soon be in possession of a stolen piece of artwork. If the police ever find out, they'll try to not only take it from me, but attempt to arrest me as well.

"Try being the operative word because even the police would hesitate to touch me. I am very generous with my time and money, especially to the causes closest to them. Without me, their widows and orphans would be without money and support, which would force them out onto the street. The Police Rehabilitation Hospital would also go under, since I'm well past the ten years of support I promised. In fact, now that I really think about it, more than a dozen police oriented foundations would cease to exist if anything were to happen to me. So, I don't believe they'd be unintelligent enough to bite the hand which feeds them so generously.

"However, let us assume they are. Why would I turn over a document guaranteed to send me to jail? More importantly, why would I do something which would take my statue out of my possession?"

"Then why do we need to sign anything? As you said, this is an illegal transaction. Can't we keep all paperwork out of this?" Meredith suggested.

"No." Ms. Blanc was very firm. "No paperwork, no money. But I do keep the statue."

"Fine." Meredith yanked the tablet from Ms. Blanc's hands, scribbled her name on the bottom line and gave up her thumbprint. All without reading even a sentence of the contract.

Once done, she shoved it back at Ms. Blanc, who glanced at it before handing it to me. Ms. Blanc looked very pleased with herself.

"Perfect." Ms. Blanc said. "Now, I would love to pay you for the statue, but as you are my slave, I don't have to."

"Your slave! I'm nobody's slave!" Meredith cried, looking as if she'd been punched.

"But of course you are. You are mine. You just signed yourself to me, vowing that you'd not only read the contract, but that you understood that by becoming my slave, you were giving up any and all money and property. So, if I were to pay for the statue, I'd be paying myself," Ms. Blanc said with a laugh.

"Let me see that!" Meredith ordered, lunging for me, but a man stepped out from behind a beautifully ornate Oustlandia changing screen and grabbed her arms, yanking her away from me.

I stepped back until I was next to Ms. Blanc. I felt safe with her at my side. Nothing could harm me as long as she was there.

Meredith thrashed around in the man's arms, trying to free herself. "Let me go, you bastard! Let me go!"

"Fighting will do no good, slave. You are mine now," Ms. Blanc said.

"You lie!" Meredith cried, her face going pale.

"I never lie. Angel, please read the contract this stupid, naïve woman signed," Ms. Blanc directed.

I cleared my throat before I started to read the very short contract:

" _I, Meredith Oblinger, going by Ms. Fumantes, the signer of this document, do sign away and pledge my body and soul to Ms. L. Blanc in order to become her slave, her property, and her Suum for the rest of my life._

" _From this day forth, by signing this contract, I voluntarily agree to give up all rights to my own person in every manner, thus allowing Ms. Blanc to own me as property and such, consenting to her claim over my life, my body, and my future. (This claim may include giving me to someone else and/or selling me. If I am sold, I shall be the slave of my new master/mistress.)_

" _In becoming her property, through no coercion or influence from any outside force, entity, person, or god, I hereby relinquish every possession I own to my new mistress, Ms. Blanc, including, but not limited to, money, bank accounts, vaults, and possessions including artwork, statues, homes, and jewelry._

" _In signing, I swear that I have read this agreement thoroughly, know that I will only be free again if my current master/mistress grants me manumission, and am in full agreement with this arrangement._

" _I, the signatory, am of sound mind and body and understand that once I have signed, I cannot change my mind. Becoming Ms. Blanc's slave is what I want to do and that is the only reason I have signed below."_

Underneath was Meredith's signature and thumbprint, as bold as could be.

"That's not legally binding here! Slavery and slave contracts have been illegal for hundreds of years!" Meredith said after a stunned silence.

"You are completely correct," Ms. Blanc said. Meredith relaxed a little within the man's arms, until she heard the rest of Ms. Blanc's words. "That's why this contract wasn't signed here. It was signed on Quid Durus. And since it was signed on Quid Durus, this planet will have to accept the contract."

"It wasn't signed there! It was signed here! In this very room!" Meredith screeched. She began straining against the man, trying her hardest to attack Ms. Blanc.

"Prove it. Angel, please read the print underneath her signature." Ms. Blanc was having a lot of fun with this, I could tell.

I swallowed before reading it. " _Signed on the planet of Quid Durus, in the city of Priam. All laws of this planet are invoked in this contract and valid on all other known planets as of this date in accordance with the Danville-Pirate Reciprocity Agreement."_

"So, as you see, this contract is very valid. And as such, I'm giving you to Angel. I have no need for a slave, but she does. Angel, what would you have done with your new slave?" she asked me.

This startled me. She was giving Meredith to me? I didn't know what to say. I hadn't expected this.

When I didn't answer her, Ms. Blanc said, "You do want her, don't you?"

"Yes, of course. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you very much," I said, coming out of my stupor.

"So what do you want done with her?" Ms. Blanc asked curiously.

I swallowed. Now was my chance to get Meredith out of my hair once and for all. "I have some men waiting to take her away. They'll know what to do with her," I responded, trying to sound as sure of myself as Ms. Blanc.

"Fine. Call in these men. I have other things to do today," she said dismissively.

I yanked on the bell pull to summon the maid, pulling perhaps harder than I should have because I heard the rope creak a little due to the stress I put it through. My excitement and nerves, however, were threatening to spill out of me.

The woman we'd all been waiting for arrived in what felt like record time. "Please let Tego know I have the package for him," I told the woman.

"Yes ma'am," the woman replied before leaving the room.

"What are you doing with me? You can't do this!" Meredith said, still trying to get away from the man who held her.

"I have no idea where you're going," Ms. Blanc responded, leaning elegantly against the arm of a couch. "And I can do anything I want. Haven't you learned yet that the truly powerful can do whatever they desire?"

Tego entered the room followed by two of his men. Their entrance alarmed Meredith for she started fighting tooth and nail. "Hell no! You're not giving me to him! I'll die before I'll let you!"

"Oh, do stop being so melodramatic, child," Ms. Blanc said dryly. "It's so unbecoming."

"I'll show you unbecoming, you backstabbing bitch!" Something flew from Meredith's hand, landing on the carpet between Ms. Blanc, me, and her.

The second it hit the ground, it began to smoke. The noxious fumes filled the room quicker than I could blink. The smoke was thick and black, making it impossible for me to see anything.

I started coughing horribly, my lungs filling with the insidious gas which filled the air. Hands grabbed my arms, pulling me back and down to the floor. I didn't resist, couldn't have even if I'd wanted to, I was too preoccupied with trying to breathe.

The air nearest to the floor was cleaner, purer, and I sucked it in like a drowning woman finding herself suddenly on shore. I heard coughing so hard and loud I thought someone was hacking up a lung. The smoke grew thicker and thicker with the layer of clear air growing ever thinner. Soon, the smoke would overcome us all, leaving us with nothing clean to breathe.

I suddenly remembered the patio doors. If I could just get them open, the smoke would surely disperse fast enough for us all to survive.

If I didn't at least try, we were all doomed to suffocate in the ever thickening cloud of blackness.

I painfully crawled to where I thought the doors were, using the little light I could see shining through them along the ground as a guide.

I felt as if I were crawling against a wicked current intent on keeping me in the darkness. For every few inches I crawled, I wheezed. The toxic air felt heavier with every second that passed.

I made it, however, to the doors, running into them without realizing they were even in front of me. That's how black the air had become by the time I reached them.

The sounds behind me were growing fewer and fewer, and panic swept through me. I didn't want to die from whatever gas Meredith had released in her crazy attempt to escape. I had too much living to do to die this way.

I groped my way up the door, fumbling for the handle. Where was it? It had to be there somewhere...didn't it?

Of course there was a handle and I found it and pulled it down, trying to shove the door open out onto the patio.

It wouldn't move. Fear rushed over my mind, clearing it for a second to enable a fresh thought to arise to the surface. Most French doors opened inwards. I needed to pull, not push, to get to safety.

My hand still depressing the handle, I pulled toward me with all the strength I had left inside me. This time the door opened.

I collapsed over the threshold, gasping in the beautiful clean air that rushed over me. I felt weak. The struggle through the gas to the patio door had left me so drained that it was as if I'd been through a horrendously physical battle and not only came out on the losing side, but had been beaten for my troubles.

My lungs hurt even as they worked triple time trying to keep me alive. I never wanted to leave my sprawled out position on the refreshingly cool smooth stones of the patio. If I could have stayed there forever, I'd have died a very happy person.

As my breathing became less raspy, I became aware of someone trying to make their way over me.

My gritty eyes saw a pant leg. A woman's pant leg. And a dainty foot in a sensible, but stylish shoe.

This wasn't Ms. Blanc, or her maid. Who was this?

My mind locked onto the answer as she stepped over me.

Meredith!

I grabbed her foot, trying to hold onto her, trying to stop her. She kicked my hand off her ankle. I grabbed for her foot again, but she was out of arms reach.

I pushed my protesting body up and hurried after her coughing, but running form. I too was struggling, trying to run, but it was hard. My chest hurt from continuously coughing to clear the black smoke from my lungs. My legs felt as if they were made of jelly. My entire body wanted nothing more than to collapse on the ground and rest.

I couldn't, however, because of Meredith. I had to catch her, even if it meant pushing my poor body farther than it thought it was capable of going.

When I was close enough, though how I was able to get as close as I did will forever be a mystery, I grabbed for her hair. My hand closed around air, only succeeding in lightly brushing the least tendrils of hair. The brush was enough for her to know I was there.

She glanced over her shoulder, saw me, and struggled to increase her pace even more. This forced me to attempt to increase my own speed to match hers, a feat only possible with splitting sides and burning lungs.

(As if my lungs hadn't already been burning because of all the coughing I'd been doing, now they hurt even more because of Meredith's refusal to surrender. She was just so selfish.)

"Stop!" I wheezed, hoping she'd follow my order and not think about what would happen if she did.

She kept going.

I closed in on her by the grace of the Ancients long enough to fall onto her back, imagining I must have looked like an action hero intent on stopping the bad guy after a long foot chase. We fell to the grass, her body cushioning mine.

Meredith tried to fight me, twisting and turning, undulating her body like a panicked horse attempting to throw her rider off her back.

I held on as best as I could, but in the end she succeeded in throwing me off. Once free from me, she clamored to her feet, her chest heaving.

I fell after her again, falling onto my hands and knees. I crawled as fast as I could to get within arm's reach of her.

I grabbed for her legs. She would not be able to go anywhere if I had her legs.

She tried to kick to get free, but my grip was too tight.

Now I had her. I wasn't going to let her go. Come hell or high water, she was bound for Barathrum. Her future was to be on that hellish planet, a slave for eternity, and out of my hair once and for all.

Unfortunately she had other ideas.

Once she realized she couldn't kick me off her legs, she twisted in my grip so I now faced her knee caps. She started hitting my head.

My veil, which somehow miraculously concealed my face cushioned her blows. I can't deny, however, that they still hurt and inflicted enough damage for me to feel the effects days later.

Still holding onto her legs with one arm, I tried to shield my head. That, however, gave her the opening she'd been looking for.

With a sharp kick to my chest and a solid fist to the unprotected side of my head she was free.

I was struggling to my feet in a futile attempt to follow her when I noticed a small ball rolling toward me. It looked eerily familiar, as if I'd seen something like it before.

I realized why it looked familiar and started to turn away, but it was too late.

A horribly loud bang, a flash of heat, and surprisingly hard grass were the last things I remember before disappearing into the land of the darkness.

##  About The Author

Trisha M. Wilson lives in Wisconsin. With a degree in History and minors in Math and Business Administration, Ms. Wilson still has no idea what she wants to do with her life.

When not regularly contributing on her websites, she leads the life of a happy hermit with her three cats and family.

For More Stories

Visit Me At

TrishaMWilson.Colbyjack.net

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##  Works from Colbyjack.net

Betrayal of the Flames

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The Metatron Chronicles

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Amanda's Love

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A Shoe's Tale

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Unexpected

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Internet Hell

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Safe Island

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Fleeing Eden

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The First 18 Days

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Planet Secrets

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Planet Mafia

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Planet of Riches

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Planet of Riches Trilogy: Including Planet Secrets, Planet Mafia, and Planet of Riches

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From the Flames

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Firmware: 02 Proxy

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Firmware: 01 Hijacked

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Fowl Play

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Nightmare

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The Nut Heist

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The Mouse Queen

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