Bai Zhu slowly leaned against the wall, only one thought in his head.
Was there still time to buy a ticket to some distant continent?
He had originally thought he had merely stumbled into a sordid mess involving an unscrupulous corporation, a cult, and the Kakin Royal Family.
Only now did he realize that what he had uncovered might be a corner of the very pinnacle of the world's power pyramid.
V5.
That designation for the highest authority in the human world gave Bai Zhu a splitting headache.
Once an organization like that had its eye on you, strength alone couldn't solve the problem. It was like being swarmed by flies that couldn't be killed, impossible to shake off.
Early morning, before the sky had fully brightened.
The docks of the Basha Islands resembled a giant beast just waking up, the salty tang of seawater mingling with the rusty smell of engine oil in the air.
Bai Zhu and Milluki stood behind an abandoned shipping container, their agreed-upon final handoff point.
Milluki looked as though he hadn't slept all night, with dark circles under his eyes, but his usual tech-geek flightiness and panic had vanished completely. He handed over a specially made metal cooling case and an utterly unremarkable-looking data core.
"The Pope's head is inside. Alive, in cryogenic hibernation. This is the data core from Anvil's Main Box. I've cleared out all the self-destruct programs and backdoors."
His tone was as flat as if he were handing over an ordinary business shipment.
Bai Zhu took the items and hefted them.
"My brother," Milluki suddenly said, looking out at the gray sea in the distance, "never makes a losing deal. He sold the Hive technology to Anvil and deliberately left a backdoor, but not for fun, or to scheme