Winnowwill, Part 3

Unknown unknowns were a real bear sometimes.

Vesper would never know exactly how she’d been caught, nor what she could have done to avoid it. The thing that had screwed her over was that Mannifred had paid enough for his security that the floor sensors didn’t just detect if something directly stepped on them. THAT would set off alarms, but the sensors had the secondary function of being able to detect if weight in the room shifted. Like say, if a person climbed on or stood on things to cross the floor. THAT set off secondary alarms, which had been noted by a security team, which had promptly started paying attention to see if it was a computer error. When said ‘weight alterations’ had gone from one room to the next, horizontally, where there was no door that would allow that passage, that was when they’d called in the security that they’d been told to alert under such circumstances, because that surely meant it wasn't some kind of error. And not just 'base' security. Mannifred had some favorites, and he made sure they got the important details. Especially since he felt they could handle them.

Considering the one who’d hidden, seen Vesper open the door, and then quick-dashed in her blind spot and whacked her upside the head before she could react, it wasn’t nepotism. Vesper herself, in amongst her fog, was probably wondering if the idea that she could do this by ‘cheating’ years of training and skill learning into her head via a magic key was another form of nepotism. And if it was going to get her killed. She had tricks, but she didn’t have an emergency Sifter escape token. THAT would have been a big flashing sign as to who was employing her, and she clearly had gotten ahead of herself in thinking she could protect that information without issue.

Odd, really. The pain was mostly in the crux of her jaw. The left crux, to be specific, the hinge the mouth used to open and close. It helped clear away the fog, Vesper aware that she was being dragged down a hallway, one of the besuited men rapping hard on the door.

“...sir, I think this is important enough!” Vesper hadn’t heard the initial response, and only heard vague noises in response to that. One of the female ‘minions’ who was dragging her along apparently decided that said response was enough, as she semi-pushed the man who’d just tried knocking aside and forced the door open.

“Now hold it, at least let-!” The man had said. Behind it, Hudson instinctively began priming up her defenses. You never knew…

Mannifred Guesclin was another example of nepotism trying to work around a person’s flaws. He had more gut that he liked, so he had suits tailored to try and lessen it. His hair was a bit thin, so he had expensive stylists try and work with that. His neatly trimmed beard likely cost more than some people’s monthly rent payments, because he needed such expensive hands to make it work. He had very short fingers, almost like he was literally ‘all thumbs’, but he generally didn’t do anything to try and ‘fix’ THAT. And admittedly, he did have a nice smile…when he smiled genuinely. When he was trying to do intimidation, it came off like a kid playing with their grandparent’s dentures. Still, he was good at organization and making sure there was no skimming or interruption in the criminal processes he oversaw, and he didn’t cheap out in general, believing in spending money to make money, which put him a bit ahead of some of the sorts Hudson had to interact with. Those sorts usually ended up on the wrong end of Benedictine's ‘corrections’, sooner than later.

“That woman you mentioned, Madame Hudson?” Vesper was dragged in and shoved down onto her knees, nearly flopping onto her face from an intense sense of vertigo, before one of the people behind her grabbed her by the hair to keep her up. “Think we nailed her to our wall.”

“Wuzgoingon…I wanted th’washroom…” Vesper slurred, trying to put on an act of an ‘innocent’ who’d gotten mistaken for something she wasn’t.

“She was in the secondary office. Not the first one, ie the honey trap. With the incorrect information. She knew where to look.”

“Bathroom-!” Vesper whined, like she was trying to say “I was looking for the bathroom!” The woman responded by tossing her flash drive onto the ground. “...that’s no’mine!” Damn, she’d thought that was pretty well hidden.

“Oh yeah? Explain this then.” The woman kicked at Vesper’s right shoe. Which appeared on the surface to be a high heel, but on impact, collapsed into a more traditional flat piece of footwear. Damn. She hadn’t thought the LT would fold like that.

“...comfort…?” Vesper said, before she spared a glance at Hudson. She could immediately tell by her serious, analytical look that she wasn’t buying any of it. Not quitting yet, though. “I’msorry, have we met?” She said, now wholly faking being dazed.

After bending down to pick up the flash drive and then handing it off, Hudson had turned and held up a finger. “One second, Mannifred. This is important.

“...No, we haven’t met before. But I’ve been looking for you.” She started, squatting down to get a better look at Vesper. Her eyes narrowed as she did. “See, I don’t think anyone here knows who you are, and that’s the first part. This little event is invite only. Second thing is, I don’t think you’re even a little drunk. But I DO think we’ve got an acquaintance in common. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Too many coincidences in too short of a time.”

“...y’feet are wheels.”

Hudson ignored the comment as she stood again, done assessing her, crossing her arms. “So… Where we go from here is roughly up to you. I did say roughly, by the by. You want to play dumb a little while longer, or you want to start talking? What were you planning on doing with whatever information you found in that office, Winnow?” She slipped the name in at the end to gauge her reaction.

To her credit, Vesper kept a poker face…mostly. If Hudson was good enough to spot even her minor ‘tell’, then there was likely nothing Vesper could have done to hide.

“...just so you know, it ain’t you. Being scary.” Winnow said, dropping the act. “But I can tell if I keep doing this, that damn woman will hit me again, and I don’t want that.” Vesper said, indicating the woman who had been speaking with her head. Said woman smirked at that fact, as did Mannifred.

“Yeah. That’s my Heidi, as I was telling you, Hudson. Heidi the Hammer, I call-” Mannifred said.

“Shut up already. I don’t care.” Hudson said. “Who are you working for?”

“The damn good of society. Why don’t you just turn 3T back over to the school that was making it? Aren’t you rich enough? Are you getting worse at criming? Or do you want fresh new ways to make monsters?”

“Yeah, the good of society outfitted you and gave you the skills you’d need to get this far. I’ll bet.” Hudson rolled her eyes. “You want to know why? Because it fell into our hands like an apple falling from a tree. I don’t have some grand vision for 3T, and I don’t care about it beyond what it can do for us. It’s an opportunity and that’s all it is. There’s no such thing as rich enough, don’t you know that? If it’s developed further and turned into a miracle drug we can unload, or if someone ponies up the cash to bury it so deep it never sees the light of day, either one works for me as long as we benefit.

“Now, I’m rational and reasonable, but unless you want to meet some of those monsters we’ve made face to face eventually, you’re going to give me some answers before I decide Mannifred and his hired help can just start beating them out of you easier than I can ask. Who are you working for and what do they want?” Hudson asked, lowering her voice and briefly glancing around to see if anyone was going to try and jump in again. “What were you planning to do with whatever information you scrounged up?

“You get the position you’re in, right? How bad this could go? I like to think I’m fair, but you’re not giving me much wiggle room at all. So start talking, Winnow, or things are going to take a turn for the gruesome.” Hudson growled, watching her closely again.

“...it ain’t worth what you’re paying me, boss.” Winnow said, looking at Mannifred. The man stared in dull confusion for a moment, before he blanched near white.

“What…NO! NO! SHE’S LYING! I HAVE NOT HIRED HER!” Mannifred said, frantically waving his hands in a near panic. Later, Hudson would think of what that meant. She was here, at this party and location, more or less by herself, two aides, only one who could fight, and they were a minor force compared to some of the people in Benedictine’s group she could have tapped, and they weren’t even in the room with her. All the people there for Mannifred’s. And yet he was still utterly terrified of her, or rather, the woman behind her that she represented.

Hudson crossed her arms and slowly nodded. “Credit where credit is due, if this were a little more typical I’d maybe buy that. Maybe. I know she’s lying, Mannifred, don’t worry. Even if you were smart enough or treacherous enough to try some nasty double blind like that… Well, your predecessors were on that level, and you remember what happened to them. I don’t think there were enough parts left over to even bother with graves.

“No, the more I think it over, the more holes in that story I see. I get you’re pretty good at this, or at least pretty darn competent, but time is running out. Last chance before I throw you to these goons, who’s your employer and what do they want? Other than the obvious.” Hudson asked, tilting her head. “We can keep this civil or not, but you’re running me out of civility pretty quick.”

“I’ve looked at your files. You don’t have an ounce of civility in you. You AND yours. NEVER assume otherwise.” Winnow said, her tone cold. “And if you’re going to make threats, you should be the on-”

Vesper’s face became a mask of confusion.

“...is he with you?”

“Who’s that?” Hudson started, not turning around. The mention of files had put her wind up, even if they were right on the money about her.

“What the FUCK?!” Heidi said. THAT was enough to get Hudson to turn around.

…a shadow man.

Well, maybe just a shadow in general. A twisting form emerging from behind a curtain, lacking a face, its fingers too long, stretching out. It would have been normal to start at this, this unexpected third or fourth party…

…but Hudson wasn’t normal any more. She saw things people didn’t. Yes, there was a shadowy form coming off the wall…and she could see where it was being projected from. The way she’d just been looking.

A trick.

But Winnow had gotten her eyes off her for nearly two seconds. Hudson was damn alert…but not so alert that she’d caught the small motions as Winnow had made as she activated Facade via the miracle mechanisms hidden in her fingernails. The fact that she had to conceal said motions was why the shape was so damn basic and would be easily seen through…but all she needed was to get everyone very briefly distracted.

Later, Hudson realized that the accusation put towards Mannifred had been for the same purpose; to make her look at him while she spun the ring on her right hand 180 degrees so the gem was now facing the floor. She’d either not been searched or not searched well enough. Probably the latter.

Hudson turned her head back around to see the last of the movement in Vesper’s hand as she popped the gem out of the ring she was wearing with her thumb and middle finger (ring on the pointer finger, another oversight) and made SURE it would immediately work as she crushed it between two fingers.

The black-gray smoke/gas immediately engulfed her and her holders. Within a second it had consumed the whole room.

Not just a smokescreen. An irritant, as the people began yelling and hacking with wretched coughs. Flesh and blood, Hudson mused later. Always faltering at the worst times.

Not that she was wholly immune to it. But she was affected a fair bit less, and as it turned out, the downside of having such an option was that to hyper-concentrate such a gas, it had to be very thin. Which meant it was clearing almost as soon as it had covered the room, but based on the sounds of impact Hudson had heard, that was enough, Hudson seeing the women as she vanished around the corner, having fled back out the door after attacking her ‘holders’ to get free and mobile.

“SHE’S RUNNING! AFTER HER! MANNIFRED, GET YOUR PEOPLE TO CATCH HER!”

Mannifred’s response was just another wretching cough that sounded like he was on the verge of vomiting. His people were a bit better off, as they managed to semi-fumble out the door per her order, vanishing from Hudson’s sight before she went with them, exiting the room to see Winnow fleeing down the hallway.

She wouldn’t have agreed with Mannifred’s men drawing their guns and opening fire, but to be fair, this WAS his house, and his party, he could wreck it if he wanted to, as she glanced back into the room-

If she’d been human, she wouldn’t have seen it. The shimmer, moving. But seeing it made her see the faint line of light that she’d seen scant seconds before.

A projection. Again.

“...SHE’S GOT A HOLOGRAM!”

Hudson’s warning came too late, as ‘Winnow’ seemed to leap off a balcony, her form fritzing a bit before vanishing…and the real Winnow, cloaked, took a running dive out through the large window at the back of the room, shattering glass and a blast of cold air fully dispelling the gas.

“FAKE! WINDOW! WINDOW!” Hudson yelled.

The lone guard who managed to turn around and get to the window promptly caught a bullet and went down with a yell: Vesper hadn’t just broken free, she’d swiped one of the goons’ holding her’s weapon, and she had immediately laid out covering fire in case anyone immediately tried to follow her out said window, the bullets ripping up the windowside and making Mannifred dive for the ground, while Hudson swiftly got out of the open doorway to avoid catching any stray shots, or at least, putting one more barricade between her and them. The shots cut off, leaving a bunch of very confused men and women, and distant screams as the partygoers freaked out at the sudden roar of gunfire.

“...Mannifred, you’d better have outside security.” Hudson growled.

“Gah, guh…red alert, we got a runner, outside, STOP HER!” Mannifred managed to say into his phone. Well, he was competent enough to be able to do THAT, at least.

—

Facade had shorted out the moment Winnow had hit the snowy ground outside, the battery dead. Well, you couldn’t have everything. She let loose her spray of cover fire and then turned around; her LT was still operational, switching back to dark pants and outdoor footwear and a long sleeved shirt as she scrambled over the pile of heaped snow and ice she’d used as padding for her fall. She could feel the numerous bleeding wounds under her 'new clothes' on her legs, arms, and face from jumping through the window, as she’d been in ‘her dress state’ when she did it, but it was a faint sense of distant pain as training, both life learned and gifted, kicked in.

First things first. In the back of her head, she gave herself a small pat on the back as she remembered to slide her tongue to one of her upper molars and press hard, feeling the click. Okay, done.

Second, check the gun she had while running. Not easy, but doable, as she snapped out the clip and then slid it back in. Four shots left.

It was around then that the spotlight was directed at her. Damn. They had towers.

And men with guns in them, the snow erupting in a multitude of puffs as bullets slammed into the ground all around her. Running while under fire, Vesper DID had training for, before the decision. And the ‘cheats’. Doing it while running through snow, however, was new.

So was the guard who came out of the shadows caused by the spotlights, the snowmobile he was on sending more snow spraying as he aimed at Winnow with his sub-machine gun.

If Winnow was a normal person, she probably would have been dead.

She wasn’t normal. She was faster than normal. And hence she reached the man before he could sight her and pull the trigger, diving into him and knocking him off his snowmobile. Now THIS, ramming into someone who had a firearm? THIS she had extensive training in, as she easily slipped on top during the ram/spear/tumble and brought her fist down into the man’s helmeted face, shattering the plastic (lucky guess: it could have been aluminum) and firing three more quick punches into the person’s face to knock them cold, before she helped herself to the man’s main firearm and sidearm, field stripping an opponent also something she was extensively trained in.

She turned her head to check pursuit, and heard the sounds of barking. Cripes. Dogs. In theory, not an issue: she had a machine gun. In reality, a big issue: she didn’t want to shoot the dogs. They didn’t know what they were involved in.Hence, she resumed fleeing. Maybe she could outrun the dogs-

No, not happening. The snow was too deep, her feet crunching in, slowing her down. They’d run her down if she didn’t do something, and she suspected the people who were likely also zeroing in on her wouldn’t be as reluctant to shoot the dogs, even if they were theirs, because it meant they’d get her as well.

…in for a penny-!

“Oh yes. One more useful thing about the Log Togs. The fact they can shift their material means they can also carry small objects from your pockets to your hands. Not something as large as a gun, or the JUC…but it’s an option.”

Winnow seized the summoned glue capsule and threw it behind her.

It hit the ground, the hyper concentrated adhesive spraying everywhere.

The dogs…were not close enough to be caught in it. And they proceeded to just run around the smoking spot that Winnow had made instead of through it, avoiding the glue entirely. DAMN IT!

Should have seen that coming…wait.

She still had the Stream.

“I’d rather you avoid doing anything with the Stream unless you absolutely have to, Vesper. Part of this is masking your source. Tech and training can cover a lot, but if you start using overt superpowers, some people are going to start asking questions.”

…but all she had to do was use a Stream power in a way that could easily be mistaken for something more ‘normal’.

So she did, turning back around, the dogs a few seconds from her, and miming throwing something at the ground again.

One nice thing about the ‘flashbang effect’ she could simulate with the explosion of light and sound she did as her actual ‘attack’; due to how it was basically her own mental effort, it had a muted effect on her, and hence the brilliant blaze of light and incredibly loud explosion of noise sent the dogs into a tumble and rolling around, the poor pups briefly blind and deaf, while she just had an earache and, since she’d closed her eyes, a few flashing white spots in her eyes. Hopefully that would have looked like she had some sort of micro-device that had worked like her gas bomb and failed glue bomb.

“Sorry boys.” Winnow said, turning back around and resuming running. Well, she’d been so focused on the dogs that she hadn’t realized she’d almost reached the trees at the edge of the estate. The fact that she heard more loud pops and saw more snow erupting around her indicated that the guards knew that as well and were trying hail mary fire to stop her.

In the end, it was just fail mary, Winnow plunging into the trees, trying to both move quickly and not step in a way so that she tripped or got her foot caught in a buried root or something like that and went down with a twisted ankle or something. This was made harder by the fact that the ground began to slope down.

In the brief period of pseudo-peace she had, Winnow realized that her luck was balanced. She’d managed to get here without catching a bullet or a dog catching her, but this type of location was very poor for what she was aiming to do. But she didn’t have much of a choice except ‘keep moving forward’.

Especially when more bullets began slamming into the trees and ground around her. Winnow turned her head to take a look, wondering how they’d caught up so fast…

…because they were on skis.

Mannifred had hired guards with enough ski clinic training so that when the wide alert had gone out, they’d strapped on their skis, grabbed guns, and gone across the snow that had slowed down Winnow with her less practical footwear at speed, catching up to her and resuming their attempt to shoot her. Yes, they could ski in a forest while firing guns. It was almost admirable, that level of skill. Some people couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time, after all.

Winnow couldn’t play copycat here; the LT was not so advanced that it would make skis for her. Plus, all of her ‘book training’ hadn’t included advanced skiing lessons anyway.

But once again, part of her actual training, as part of her upbringing…well, she could definitely twin that with something the LT COULD do. Which she realized as she came to a more severe, and more importantly, CLEAR, downward slope in the general arc ‘down’.

The most recent flail of bullets ripped through the snow, splintering pieces of wood as they hit trees, and Winnow jumped and gave the order via three quick presses on her left thumb. The same trick she’d used to get through the JUC hole she’d made with some greater ease, sending a base command to her special clothes: GO SMOOTH AND SLICK.

Winnow landed, on her backside, going into a backwards lean as she slid backwards like she was now a well-greased sled, and she finally brought up her borrowed sub-machine gun and opened fire on her pursuers. The downside of their choice of chase; they couldn’t take cover, they had to be in constant motion to keep giving chase, especially since their hands were now needed for their own guns. Normally, their movement would somewhat compensate…

Except the most high end T.A.N.G.L.E training was allowing a person to semi guide projectiles they emitted via whatever method, but primarily firearms, with their mind. Oh, she couldn’t do it as well as her older brothers…but that was like saying an F5 tornado was more destructive than an F2. Technically true…but context mattered.

The people went down with yells and cries, her bullets striking home as she shot down one, two, three, four, five, and she was out of ammo, drawing the gun she’d stolen from the minion back when she was still inside the house and using the last four bullets in it to take out her last attacker. She then ‘turned off’ the ‘extra slick’ mode so she could twist and get back to her feet, resuming her run. One gun left, the other one she’d stolen from snowmobile man.

The trees were parting. Yes…this was…

…a lake.

A big frozen lake. Winnow considered, for two seconds, running alongside it, before more gunshots alerted her that she was still being pursued. She’d taken out the ski guards, but more had arrived on their own snowmobiles, having traversed the woods she’d fled through without much issue. She had no choice; she took off onto the lake.

No sound of cracking ice. At least there was that. Winnow turned around and fired with her last remaining gun, not really having time to aim. She was a complete sitting duck out here, exposed with no trees or varied terrain to soak up shots…

And that wasn’t counting the drones, as Winnow stopped and ducked before one nearly crashed into her head. It was just a light camera carrying machine, but she wasn’t her cousin, able to shrug off punches to her skull like someone was poking her. She made sure the drone couldn’t make a second pass via a bullet to it, sending it falling down to the iced-over lake erupting in flame,, but then more bullets were heading her way, slamming into the ice around her, as she kept moving forward. It was all she could do. She could bob and weave, but that would delay her in the sense she’d spend more time on the open ice…

And while her running across the frozen lake was ‘tolerated’, being shot a bunch with high calibre weaponry was not, loud cracks sounding as Winnow kept running in a tight straight line, keeping her profile as small as possible…

She wasn’t quite sure what DID hit her. It wasn’t a bullet, that probably would have gone through her. Unbeknownst to her, it had been a large chunk of ice violently dislodged by a bullet impact, thrown with enough force and the right angle into Winnow’s back to actually throw her off balance. With that, she slipped, nearly falling on her face before she spun and got back up. She sighted and shot down one of the distant men, none of them following her onto the ice, before she recoiled as another spray of shots missed her by a mere foot, and more cracks sounded in her ears…

…as did a loud engine whine. Talk about great timing. She hadn’t just been running blindly away. She’d needed to get clear and open so this could reach her.

The drone that came in was considerably larger than the camera one Winnow had shot, part flying surfboard, part ‘heraldry crest shield’. Winnow emptied the last of her clip as cover fire as the vehicle, Immiserate, came in, finally able to reach her after being summoned via the ‘tooth touch’, Winnow now in an open area that was much easier for extraction than being in a forest. Winnow tossed the empty gun aside and leapt up, grabbing onto either side of Immiserate and holding on as the ‘board’ listed to the side a bit, then fully compensated for the new weight.

Winnow swung herself up on top just before some bullets flew through the empty space she’d left a heartbeat ago, keeping low in a crouch to both minimize her profile and wind resistance as Immiserate kicked into high gear, carrying her away from the frozen lake, Mannifred’s guards, and the close calls she’d had. Still, she realized she was holding her breath after twenty seconds of escape distance and exhaled, getting into a more controlled stance as she continued her escape. She was safe now, there had been no assessed forces at “The Monastery" that could give pursuit like this.

As for the mission, well…

—

Anyone uneducated would have sworn that Hudson had spent the last eight minutes staring at the wall.

This was, of course, nonsense. Hudson didn’t stare at walls. She observed…not the walls, but things other people couldn’t see. Her crown allowed her a high degree of wireless tech invasion and control, and as soon as the mystery woman had stopped shooting at the window, she’d immediately reached out and broken into Mannifred’s security system. Mounted cameras, body cameras on the guards, even the drone that had nearly bashed Vesper and the brothers it had that Vesper hadn’t noticed had been her eyes, as she’d watched the woman do a controlled retreat while springing solutions for every problem as it emerged, and doing several of them in a much more creative way than the average person would bother. The dog thing especially struck Hudson: she could have easily gunned them down, and Hudson didn’t think she hadn’t done so to preserve ammo.

It would have been one thing to have an enemy operative running around, pulling tricks and delineating an escape through territory that was well buttoned up- but this was something else entirely. Sure, someone with enough hard tech and otherwise could pull off the same, but the woman hadn’t had hard tech integrated into her that Hudson had been able to spot. It pointed to an outside source with plenty of funding and plans of their own, even more than a rival or a conquered vassal getting too big for themselves. The consistent identification of a problem, a solution, and then another dash to the next problem had made her narrow her eyes as she’d watched along with the security forces. Would’ve, should’ve, and could’ves danced around her mind while she’d seen the escape, but they were all equally worthless.

What did matter was the gear and the tactics, all things she neatly committed to remembering for the next time. Because there would be a next time, and the fact was, her current hosts weren’t in a position to do anything about it. Holograms, backup tools in the teeth, and what she assumed to be either magic or some sort of mental power drawn on meant their enemy had come prepared for this eventuality. Even if the eventuality hadn’t been the sort of thing you could really prepare for, she’d covered enough of her bases up to being extracted from the area itself.

Which meant the path forward was clear. And Vesper would probably be annoyed her attempts to hide her more exotic tricks hadn’t worked on the one person she’d want them to work on most.

“-reconsider the degrees of-” Mannifred was saying, in regards to something Hudson had no care to recollect or even comprehend.

“No.”

“What?”

“No, Mannifred. You’re not reconsidering ANYTHING. As of now, 3T is sold. To you.”

“...Um, Miss Hudson, while we did express interest-”

“See, you’re not listening. All that was before you let in an outsider who explicitly knew what she was looking for. There’s no more time for any sort of bidding or negotiation. You WILL be purchasing it, and it’ll be at 10 percent more than the initially debated price.”

“What?”

“Once you have it, I don’t care what you do with it. It’s your problem and your loss. You invited me down here, you presented the idea it was safe, and you have completely failed on that front. This is your own personal idiot tax. Maybe it will teach you how to properly do business. First things first, your people are going to need to brush up on security protocols.”

“...what if I say no?”

“You want me to go into it all? That question is such a waste of time, the penalty is now 15 percent. You wish to make it 20?”

Mannifred was silent. There was a touch of anger in his gaze, but it was overwhelmed by the cold fear.

“...it might take me some time to assemble the necessary liquid…”

“You’ve got five days. Don’t call us. We’ll call you.” Hudson turned and left the room. Well, if anything, this mess meant she could leave the party early.

—

“I mean…I lost the data. They took it from me. We don’t know anything new, and we’ve lost the element of surprise.” Forgotten among all the chaos had been the fact that Hudson had taken her ‘crack drive’ with the actual information on the 3T, and stuff like its location and likely plans for it.

“Not entirely.

“If you’d gotten in and out, completely undetected, great. But if it was that simple, I wouldn’t have sent in a specialist. Which is what you are now, Vesper, lack of long term experience aside. Once you got uncovered, however it happened, any data you got was useless. They’d change it all. This action was twofold, based on what occurred. It didn’t go perfectly, so it defaults to the backup. You’ve kicked the hornet’s nest and done it in a way that people don’t know who you’re playing for. There’s two ways to respond to that that work best. Withdraw and wait, or move forward at high speed. And Hudson has too many irons in the fire to do the former, and she’s committed too much per her thought process to just abandon it. Even someone like her…she’ll make a snap decision. Most likely. Hopefully. The math is in our favor. I have my own eyes in place. They’ll follow, because the path will be clearer because of this. It’s unavoidable.

“The problem is going to be what we find when we follow the path. And in THAT regard…I’m not sending you in alone for the rest of this. You’re going to need a better emergency extraction than your sword’s new tricked out sheath.

“But don’t worry. I’ve already got options lined up. So just rest for the moment and get prepared. Because next time, Hudson Crete is going to be expecting you.

“And I think…we should give her exactly what she thinks she wants.”