The Third Elder leaned his largely modified body forward slightly, and a ring of pale blue light sprang from the display on his left wrist.
He extended his index finger and swiped rapidly across it.
Most of what scrolled furiously across the display was administrative information that had piled up over seven days.
He skimmed ten lines at a glance, until an encrypted email caught his eye.
The highest level of encryption.
The Third Elder's pupils abruptly contracted.
He opened the email, and only a few sparse lines appeared on the display.
Every word was like a dull knife sawing back and forth across his nerves.
"The mission succeeded... They weren't expelled. The subsequent plan cannot proceed."
The Third Elder stopped breathing for a moment.
The muscles of his habitually expressionless face twitched uncontrollably a few times, and then his face turned livid.
It had been seamless.
He had spent so long laying out a plan in which every step linked to the next.
Every move had been precisely calculated, and at least three backup options had been prepared for every stage.
He had even activated agents planted in the Inner City years ago, risking the exposure of several covert assets buried deep in the administrative system, all to have that Survival Convoy expelled from Mechanical City.
It should have been foolproof.
He had reviewed it countless times in his head. No matter how he played it out, the Survival Convoy would be expelled from Mechanical City.
As long as they were expelled, the rest of the plan could unfold naturally, one link after another, until he seized that fellow's Sequence.
Yet he had never imagined that the very first step would break down.
The Survival Convoy was still staying in the Outer City, perfectly fine.
The Third Elder slowly