Interesting Times - Chapter 54

November 8th, 2173

13:05

Illium, Tesale-System

Nos Astra

Ad Astra HQ

My eyes didn't waver from the Cerberus agent's back as he slowly left my office. It wasn't caution that led to me doing this. At least, not caution of this man. The agent wasn't dangerous by himself, and even should he make any hostile moves, the soldiers around him would put a stop to it before I could sneeze.

No, it was caution toward the organization he represented.

One should never look away from anything Cerberus-related if one doesn't want to experience an unfortunate surprise later.

"Do you think he said the truth?" asked Commander Abebe, a frown on her face.

"About the impending assassination attempt? He did. Cicerio, or rather the Arbiter, knows that no matter what, Eclipse will be unable to do more than be a thorn in our side. They will take matters into their own hands. After all, they want an end to this pointless conflict, same as us. The only difference between us is who we want to see standing after the dust settles," I answered.

The Cerberus agent had mentioned that their organization and others had been approached by Cicerio's people to prepare for the fallout of my hypothetical death.

A plan to split my business empire.

If enough people knew about it beforehand, it would keep one person from consolidating too much into one hand. Dividing the power it would afford and thus keeping them from becoming as powerful and influential as I was now.

The king dies and his lands are being fought over by ambitious lords.

Perhaps not the best analogy, but one I found fitting.

Their quarrel would certainly invite outsiders to try and take advantage of the situation to elevate themselves above their previous station and influence the ongoing events more to their liking.

It certainly sounded like something an Asari would plan to play the reasonable and calming mediator when things get hot.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a price for the one who manages to break the cohesiveness of the Alliance to allow for more Asari influence in our way of life.

And I could say without any arrogance that my death would give such an opening to exploit.

A thought appeared at the back of my mind. A solution that would prevent the collapse of my business empire if I ever died by something else than old age.

An heir.

It didn't have to be a child of mine. For that, I would have to find a wife to have children with, and to make sure they grew up into responsible and capable adults.

And while today's society doesn't care one bit about one's sexual orientation or what relationship they had with each other, the picture of a man married to a woman, and having children together was still romanticized.

It was the way with the least obstacles and controversies that could lead to scandals I didn't need.

And personally, of all the available options, this one appealed the second most to me.

The most appealing would be to simply adopt a child with less fortunate circumstances and the right potential.

This way, I shave off years before my heir would be ready to join my side and help me... to rule the galaxy.

My lips twitched upwards in amusement as I added the last bit.

PR could twist a nice story out of that. Coupled with a few donations to a hundred or so orphanages, I would appear like I found my fatherly side.

After all, I was already at the age where most had a child that went to high school.

My thoughts were interrupted when Commander Abebe shook her head and said: "That isn't what I meant. It's that Cerberus is on our side."

"Oh, that," I replied and rolled my shoulders when I noticed how stiff they were. "The Cerberus agent didn't lie about that, but he also didn't say the whole truth."

"In what manner?"

"As long as we work for the betterment of humanity, Cerberus will consider us their allies. You may have noticed that the agent tried to avoid using the Alliance's name as a synonym. They don't care about governments but our species. As long as our goals align with theirs for the good of humanity, they will support us from the shadows. The only question that remains is, what we consider good for humanity. Right now, they might be similar enough, but what about the future? What if their goals change? Will we still be "allies?" I don't think so."

"Do you think that will happen in the near future? Should I get the word out to the other commanders to get ready?" asked Abebe, worry written on her face.

I could understand her concerns. Cerberus wasn't an enemy one could take lightly. They worked and fought in the shadows, and while my company could crush them, it wouldn't be without high losses on our side. Furthermore, it would take a long time until every piece of the organization was destroyed. And that would be what would have to happen. Else, they would return like the heads of a hydra.

A simple wave of my hand dispelled her concerns.

"No, that won't be necessary. Simply keeping an eye on their moves will be enough. From what I know, something monumental will have to happen for such a shift in priorities. Yet, that can change as fast as I could change the direction of our company. The Illusive Man and I are in similar positions and can make decisions at the drop of a hat. The only difference between us is that some people in the Alliance government would have some things to say if I suddenly decided to stop producing starships in favor of creating toys."

I added the last part to lighten the mood, and from Abebe's raised eyebrow at my comment, it worked. When I saw her rolling her eyes at my grin, I knew that there would be no more doom and gloom atmosphere inside my office.

At least until the next crisis wandered over my desk.

"Nonetheless," I continued as if nothing happened, "we will have to act in the near future. If Cicerio is planning another assassination attempt together with the Arbiter, we should accelerate our plans and give them an opportunity to act."

"And by doing that, we will control the when and where," finished Commander Abebe. "It won't be easy to create an opening that doesn't seem like a trap to them. Otherwise, they won't take it, and we will squander our advantage. If they realize this, we will not be able to control the next attempt."

"Correct," I nodded. "Right now, we have a rough timeframe. The people they contacted in the Alliance and elsewhere will not wait forever, and if it takes too long, they won't believe it will happen at all. My guess is that they will be ready to act upon their plans in three months at the latest."

"This means for us that we should target the end of the year for our counter, right?"

"It would be for the best," I agreed and closed my eyes to concentrate on the different things that had to be done beforehand.

"We should take care of the Eclipse situation before we spring our trap, too. Otherwise, they could throw a wrench in our plans. And I would like the situation to be done with. Every day we continue this fight, more of our people land in the infirmary, and I'm sick of writing condolence letters to the families of those whose lives end before they even get there."

When I opened my eyes and looked at Abebe, I could see how done she was with the situation. There was anger and exhaustion equally in every new wrinkle she got since the fighting began.

"The situation will be resolved very soon," I assured her. "Furthermore, when the pain in the neck we have to deal with here on Illium is gone, I expect that Jona Sederis herself will want to speak with me."

"Why would that psycho want to speak with you?" asked Abebe, puzzled. "The only thing I expect from her would be cries of vengeance for going against her."

"Oh, that she will do, too," I answered lightly. "But I don't think that she will be able to act upon any threats against me in the near future. From the latest reports, it seems like Eclipse's presence within the Alliance territory is nonexistent, and even in the closest territories, it is dwindling by the day. She will have enough trouble consolidating her remaining assets and be very cautious about provoking another retaliation from Ad Astra. Sederis will not be able to do anything but try to make peace if she wants to keep control over Eclipse. They may fear her, but with what we're doing, it won't take long before her men fear us more. And that is something she knows."

"Does she?" questioned Abebe, and I could understand her hesitation.

Jona Dederis was not, by any application of the word, a stable person. It was the reason why she got her power and how she held it for so long.

"I count on it," I answered, sounding more confident in my answer than I truly was.

There was a smidgen of doubt in my mind that events would play out as I envisioned them, but I had to project a picture of confidence nonetheless. Anything else would just get everybody worried about the future.

"And if she doesn't," I continued, "it will only mean that more of Eclipse will be brought down. While we won't be able to completely eradicate them, we can make it nearly impossible to run missions outside Asari-controlled space. It wouldn't take long after that until a new leader will be more than willing to negotiate peace with us."

"If you're sure about that, I will trust your judgment," said Commander Abebe with a tilt of her head toward me. Even if her words said otherwise, I could still see some scepsis in her face.

It was minute, but I had enough experience to know where to look for it.

I didn't take offense at it. Perhaps it was optimistic of me, but sometimes one had to be.

"I'll send out some notices, that our deadline is the end of the year. It should be enough time to get everything done."

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November 8th, 2173

19:39

Illium, Tesale-System

Nos Astra

Laurence threw his jacket on the bed and let out a long sigh.

It had taken far longer than he thought to get a meeting with the art dealer, and the meeting itself had been exhausting.

Five hours of his time wasted, in his opinion, and he would never get them back.

Dozens upon dozens of artworks from artists he never heard about but the dealer talked about them like Laurence should know them and be in awe of their reputations. At least if he considered the prices the dealer wanted for their works.

And like every good agent who wanted to keep his cover, he said the right words at the right moment and feigned respect the whole time.

Tara would have been proud if she had seen him.

Keeping his cover might be important, and it had been successful, but it was still exhausting.

Thankfully, checking on the transport container had been much faster and much more rewarding. His eyes wandered over to the black bag he left at the door.

When he arrived at the container and opened it, this bag had been the only item inside of it.

The courier division of the AIS had placed it there.

It was one of the divisions Laurence had the most respect for. They managed to get every kind of item through any security. Be it customs or the private security of any company. Even the security of the Citadel and their vaunted C-Sec were nothing to them.

Rumors had it that the only company secure enough to detect them bringing items in was Ad Astra. And that was only because the AIS used the HQ on Terra Nova for training.

He didn't know how much truth was behind the rumors but considering that most of the equipment for Project Artemis came out of Ad Astra's labs, he would guess they were true.

Furthermore, the friendship between Oscar Denebren and his boss, Andrew Clarke, was no secret.

Shaking his head to clear his head, Laurence went over to the small cabinet of drinks his hotel room had and poured himself a glass of Asari spirit that looked a bit like the Scottish whiskey he liked.

After taking a small sip of it, he walked over to the window to look over the cityscape.

Switching the glass to his left hand, he used his right to fire up his Omni-tool, and within a few seconds, Laurence called Tara through a secure line.

It took a few minutes until the call was rerouted over a dozen servers so that it wouldn't be traced back to him, and when he was finally connected to Tara, a small smile appeared on his face.

"Don't worry, the line is secure and there's nothing pressing," Laurence began in place of a greeting. He knew that she wanted to know these things first, so why wait for her to ask for it?

"Alright," she answered, "did everything go well today? You had the meeting with that art dealer, right?"

"It went well," replied Laurence. "It just took a lot longer than I expected. I paid for the art piece we chose for the cover story, but the dealer was insistent on showing me a hundred more pieces. At least, it felt like a hundred. And they were all much more expensive, too!"

"You shouldn't sound so surprised. The dealer thinks you're working for an art aficionado with more money than he knows what to do with. So it's only reasonable that he wants to showcase some of his more expensive pieces in the hope that you will take a liking to one of them and convince your client to buy one of them."

"Yeah, I know. It's just that it is exhausting," whined Laurence and took another sip of his spirit.

"Stop whining. It's just a bit of small talk. If I know you, and I do, you didn't listen to his sale pitch at all and thought the whole time about how you could either kill the dealer and make it look like an accident, or use one of the artworks to do it."

"Hey, I did not!" protested Laurence. "I stopped thinking about it after the 52nd idea when I started to repeat myself. I just shut out everything and nodded in intervals to make it look like I was still listening. He seemed pretty happy at the end even if I didn't commit to anything. I just said that I would mention it to my client."

"That's the best you could do. And everything else?"

"Went to the container and everything I'm going to need was there. Talked to the workers there and was informed that I store our client's art piece there. They assured me that it would be even insured if anything happened. You only need to arrange the delay from your end."

"Yeah about that," started Tara, and Laurence got the feeling that something had changed with their mission. "We got a deadline."

"A deadline?" he repeated. "When?"

"End of the year, it would be preferable to do it quicker. But that could also change into a date."

"Fuck," he cursed. A date was the codeword for taking out a target at a specific time. Most of the time this condition was used to maximize the advantage of any follow-up objectives.

For example, taking out a target before an important meeting so that the other participants didn't know about it or couldn't react fast and effectively to the changed circumstances.

Yet, while this could result in positive gains, it was difficult to pull off, and Laurence disliked it immensely.

A deadline was difficult enough as one had to plan for any eventualities within a timeframe and had to adapt to changes and outside influences almost immediately. Furthermore, the better secured a target was, the longer the surveillance would take to find a moment to strike.

A date ramped up the difficulty. Not only did one have to do the same things as for a deadline, but plan everything to conclude on a specific day at a specific time at a specific place. A lot of "specific" that could be derailed by the slightest changes one had no control over, especially outside influences that one didn't know about in the first place. And then one wouldn't even be able to delay as everyone else planned for it to happen.

"It seems like our client did make new plans that have to be taken into account. But it also looks like it will stay a deadline. Perhaps it will just be a preference to be a date, but if it isn't possible, it isn't possible. They just want the target out of the way," assuaged Tara with a calm voice.

"I haven't even started the surveillance of the target. Didn't even start to look for her. So, I can't say anything about what is possible and what is not. Yet, I think a deadline will definitely be possible. From what I know about our target, she will not be very inclined to keep herself hidden in a secure environment for too long. She doesn't know I'm hunting her and she will not know until she's dead."

"Good to hear that you didn't lose your optimism."

"Yeah, yeah," replied Laurence, and lifted the glass to his mouth, only to notice that it was already empty. Frowning, he went over the bottle to fill the glass to fill it again but stopped at the half mark as he didn't want to drink too much since he had to do some scouting tomorrow and didn't want to do it with his head hurting from too much alcohol.

He didn't know how hard this Asari spirit would affect him if he drank more than two glasses.

"I'll send you a notice if there are new developments," said Tara.

"I'll do the same with my status reports."

"Alright, I want them every three days at the latest."

"Every three days?"

"The mission has eyes on it from high up. I don't want to be unable to answer any questions if I'm asked."

"You think they're gonna ask that often?"

"I don't know, but I don't want to be caught with my pants down or with information that's older than 70 hours."

"Understandable," grunted Laurence and sat down on the bed, finishing his glass and putting it on the night table closest to him.

"Sounds like you want the conversation to end," said Tara, and he heard a bit of a teasing note in her voice.

"You know I can talk with you forever. I can't get enough of your lovely voice," Laurence replied, trying to tease back while trying to hold back the yawn threatening to escape.

"Sure," she said and stretched the word. "Luckily for you, I can get enough of your voice, and my limit is already reached for today, so I'm gonna let you sleep. Don't forget to send the reports."

And without waiting for his reply, Tara closed the connection.

Laurence could only shake his head and quietly whisper: "That woman," to himself.

He let himself fall backward onto the bed. His body relaxed almost involuntarily when he felt the softness of the mattress.

"Tomorrow's gonna be a busy day, too," he said to himself quietly, before closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep.

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Three days later, Laurence was slowly getting frustrated.

He had scouted four different Eclipse bases and not seen even a hint of his target. Despite their file on her saying otherwise, it seemed like Ayori was more cautious than expected and knew how to keep herself hidden.

It could also be that Laurence had been just unlucky and had scouted the wrong bases.

In the end, the reasons didn't matter, only that he still had no idea where she was.

How could he learn about her habits and routines to find the perfect moment to strike if he was unable to even locate her?

He took a deep breath and told himself to calm down.

Impatience and frustration wouldn't help him in the slightest. Only persistence and attention would be able to, and those would suffer if he let his negative feelings cloud his judgment.

For now, he would continue to stick to the shadows and observe the different hideouts from afar and infiltrate them if he saw an opportunity.

Yet, if he didn't find any lead in the next four days, he would proceed to the next phase of information gathering and grab one of the more important-looking Eclipse members for a "nice" chat.

That approach would be more hands-on than he liked at the current progress of his mission, as the chances of them realizing that there was a new player would rise significantly, making no progress at all was even more undesirable.

He placed the last camera for this base in front of him. Should his target approach the base from any direction, the cameras he placed would send a notification to his Omni-tool that their facial recognition software found a match.

Until now, none of the cameras placed at one of the other three bases had sent him any notification.

Perhaps he should start to trail different Eclipse members in the hope that they would lead him to bases Ad Astra didn't know about.

Shaking his head, Laurence discarded the idea. At least for now.

He only had two more bases to visit and put up surveillance before he had to start looking for more.

Finding one's target was methodical work and not something where one just hoped to get lucky by going off the script.

Of course, he had found his targets by pure happenstance once or twice, but more often than not, he found them by working slowly and covering all possibilities.

And this time would be no different.

This mission was too important to simply leave it to luck.

Besides, he didn't want to face Tara's anger when he made his next report.

Checking his Omni-tool if the datalink was established and went through the right proxies took only a minute, and after he finished up, Laurence started to move out of the area, careful to not be seen by anyone or anything.

While Laurence could do so with his eyes closed, at least in his own humble opinion, he did not take any chances. He never let his guard down or allowed himself a single second of inattention.

Only when he decided that he was far enough from the Eclipse base did he let his guard down and take on the posture of a tourist looking around the city of Nos Astra for the first time.

And while it was his first time visiting the city, and the planet in general, he didn't think much about it. To Laurence, it was just like any other city above a certain population figure.

The same noises, the same kind of people, the same atmosphere.

If he visited one of the bigger cities back on Earth, he would get the same experience. The only difference would be the paint job.

As he walked through the crowds, his Omni-tool suddenly started to notify him of a message. Pulling the message up, he saw that it came from one of the cameras he placed yesterday, and excitement started to swell up in his chest.

Maybe he would get lucky after all and Ayori showed up at one of the bases.

His hopes were quickly dashed as his eyes scanned over the message and he saw that it wasn't a match for her. Yet, it wasn't without any success as her face wasn't the only one the cameras searched for.

Instead of his target, one of her lieutenants, whom the AIS had previously identified, showed up. If he got there quickly enough, maybe he could follow the lieutenant back to another, more important base.

Throwing his previous idea to stick to the plan away without a second of hesitation, he started to move more quickly toward the taxi stand.

It would take him around seven minutes to arrive in the vicinity and another five to arrive at the base if he moved quickly.

Thankfully, Laurence had his camouflage equipment on his person, or else he wouldn't be able to move just as quickly and stay inconspicuous. 

And even if this proved to be a wild goose chase or the lieutenant was gone before Laurence arrived there, taking this chance was better than not.

If it led to nothing, he still could return to his original plan.

Yet, he didn't know if it was just a passing feeling, but he believed that would be the breakthrough he needed to get on with his mission.