10

You rise the next morning and pad to your bathroom, still thinking of last night, and eager to wash away any last traces of tiredness.

And then you see it. The little freckle-scab that you'd previously noticed, up on your shoulder. It's there, as before, except that now it's the size of your thumbnail, perfectly circular, and veined with purple, concentric rings.

This strange mark is growing.

Next Chapter

March's staff meeting finds Winston Q, Robert Leach, and yourself seated in the rear compartment of your executive jet, thirty thousand feet above the Gulf of Mexico. MetaHuman routes much of its accounting through a subsidiary based in the Cayman Islands, Tyler Bonnin: all the better to exploit various taxation and commercial loopholes operable in that region. Yet it has lately become apparent that financial irregularities at Tyler Bonnin are hiding the disappearance of significant sums of money. Winston has requested your personal help in investigating the problem.

Not present in the flesh but visible on a wide flat-screen monitor are Electra Jones and Claudette Byron. The two of them are seated in MetaHuman's meeting room. Presumably, they're watching the three of you on a similar screen.