177 Twin Hackers

"Aymeric-Cassel, Aurore-Cassel. Those two sure have plenty of leisure time, still hanging around the roulette table at a time like this."

V's pupils narrowed slightly. Ever since he had locked onto the hacker siblings, they had remained glued to the roulette table for nearly half an hour.

"You've observed them long enough, V. Do you remember what I just said?" Reid's voice came from beside him just as V noticed Aurore suddenly turn to scan the crowd. "Your gaze has lingered beyond the safe threshold. Hackers at their level are as sensitive to bioelectric signals as spiders are to vibrations."

V casually turned his face away, but felt Reid slip something cold into his palm.

They were two matte miniature discs, each less than a third the thickness of a fingernail.

At the same time, a deposit notification popped up in V's personal account and flashed in the corner of his vision—100,000 eurodollars. The number made his eyes light up.

"You can't get Neural Matrix access codes just by hacking in." Reid lowered his voice. "The ICE defense around the Aymeric siblings has at least three layers of anti-tracking protocols embedded in it. A conventional scan would get its feelers chopped off the instant it touched the surface. Even Kiroshi Optics would be no exception."

He carefully pointed at the discs in V's hand. "These two trackers are the product of the Intelligence Bureau reverse-engineering Kang Tao's defense systems. Even a hacker's tracking scans would have a hard time detecting them."

V took the two miniature trackers and lightly weighed them in his palm. The discs were as tiny as dust particles, completely weightless to the touch.

Figures. Only agents could always come up with such strange little gadgets.

"Kang Tao knockoffs?" V pinched one between his fingertips and brought