Seven Days Later. July 31st, 2267. 07:45 Upstairs Living Room

Elias was sitting on the couch and glancing at the data slate. Despite reams of data to suggest otherwise, he had a gut feeling within him regarding Steven. He was the lone dissenter amongst those who met him. Everyone pointed out the utter lack of evidence suggesting anything else. Even Constantine had said he didn’t believe this individual was an agent working against them, and he was a resident expert on such things.

He knew something was going on, there had to be a counter-espionage operation working against his team. It was happening, within his mind, but if there was then his opponent was an amazing operator. Neither Elias nor his team had uncovered any communications or information to prove that something was happening. His viewpoint on the matter began driving wedges between him and the rest of the Xenuian staff onsite.

And now they were crossing over into a position within their operation where they could no longer cease operations and hide if there actually was an operation working against them. With their industrial work beginning once again they couldn’t afford any more slowdowns. Going into hiding would set them back not days, but months.

Elias then looked up and saw Alberic trudge up to the second-floor landing, “Dare I ask?”

Alberic shook his head as he stood there, “Those other buildings are disgusting. Sensors have been successfully deployed. Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to take a shower and get into a change of clean clothes.”

“Don’t let me hold you up.”

Mirabella and Draco followed behind him. They were also in similar states of grime. Unlike Alberic, they made straight for the dorms. Kaius then casually strolled in behind him. Unlike the previous three, he was largely clean except for some random dust on his pants.

“Being a manager sometimes is nice,” Kaius grinned.

Elias smirked, “Are you sure you couldn’t have helped?”

“And get dirty? No,” Kaius sauntered over to a chair and sat down, “No, I have no regrets doing what I did. Still looking at that asshole? I’d give it a rest.”

“I can’t shake this gut feeling. Something feels off about.”

“That’s because something is off about him. That gun freak of an asshole is a stressed-out convict on the run. He has good reason to behave the way he does.”

“You are probably right,” Elias took a deep breath, “How’s the next debate preparation going?”

“They settled on a date. Unless I’m mistaken, it’ll be the penultimate debate. Unfortunately, we’re not going to be in control of the whole debate,” Kaius shrugged.

“Explain.”

“William wanted random citizens to be able to ask questions of the candidates directly. More specifically he wanted people selected at random by an independent third party from the general admission audience.”

“We should…”

“No, no, we aren’t going to be able to manipulate this. We cannot control the general admission to this debate. Not if we don’t want to make it look incredibly suspicious.”

“I’m sure we could get one or two of our people into that.”

Kaius nodded, “We’ve got a list of friendly individuals with specific questions. But we aren’t going to be able to control all of the questions asked in that section. We are trying to limit their interaction to four or six individuals. Would lessen the negative impact if there were any.”

“That cuts both ways,” Elias said, “By the way, what have you heard regarding the polling issues?”

The look on Kaius’ face appeared like he, and everyone in the building, had dodged a bullet. A big smile formed on his face before he slapped his knees and leaned forward in his chair. He was positively jubilant.

“Holy shit, we got lucky. They oversampled in the beginning but then oversampled against Dale in the end. So, the pole numbers were a bit underreported for us. That ends with us now having an eight-point lead with a four-to-five-point margin for error.”

“Nelson Analytics suggests it’s a coin flip,” Elias said handing Kaius a data slate, “Three percent margin on that poll. There are four others, from lesser polling houses, that suggest our lead is within the margin for error.”

“How could they be so bloody off?”

Elias said, “Our working theory is that their sampling methodology is flawed. The numbers are accurate based on what they had, but it’s a flawed poll.”

“I’ll chat with Dale later today and share this information. Looks like we’re going to be racing to the finish line. How are we going to fight dirty, should it come to that?”

“With what? What about hacking their voting machines?”

“That is a hard negative,” Kaius said, “It’s fairly impressive how locked down their system is. And holy lord, anyone that tries to game the system gets struck with the hand of God from their judicial system.”

“So, our efforts have to be focused and centralized on changing people’s minds.”

Kaius added, “And we aren’t going to be able to buy votes. Ask the wrong person and that will get out to the media. That’ll end up poorly for Dale, hell, it might even cause the idiots in the media to dig deeper on him.”

“Focus on the unlikely voters, that’s a not insignificant number of voters, no?”

“We have enough money to have a third party engage with unlikely voters. They will be handling that and should be starting soon,” Kaius paused for a moment, “It’s all on the up and up. We can’t risk anything at this point.”

“Understood, work on some ideas and let me know. So, what else do you have planned for the day?” Elias asked as he stood up from the couch.

“Got a few reports. Heading out to meet the aforementioned third-party company this afternoon. What else?” Kaius said as he looked up at the wall blankly, “I’ve got a couple of other stops to make and probably won’t be back till pretty late.”

“Doing anything you shouldn’t be doing?” Elias lifted an eyebrow.

“Heaven’s no. My wife would kill me if I tried anything here. Besides I’ve got no desire to be with anyone but her. Two meetings with polling companies and a possible confidential source that could be hugely beneficial.”

“I presumed as much, but we need to be more transparent with our directs about what we are doing outside of this building,” Elias sighed loudly, “Else we allow the presumption of ‘rules for thee, not for me.’”

“Ahhh, I hadn’t actually considered that. Thank you,” Kaius smirked, “Though I’m sure you were keenly aware of the unlikely possibility that I had been doing anything inappropriate.”

“I didn’t think you were doing anything so foolish, but then again, I thought the same of this team overall.”

Kaius laughed as he stood up from the chair, “Isn’t that the truth.”

22:54 People’s Park, New Arlington Drive

The basketball court was dimly lit. Bugs buzzed around one of the lights that shone its mediocre amount of light onto the court. On a bench next to the court waited for a single foreign soul, waiting impatiently for something. Then from out of the darkness another soul joined the playing field.

“I was thinking you weren’t going to show,” Kaius said in a friendly tone despite gripping a pistol in his jacket tightly.

“Family duties, sorry for being late,” the individual said as they sat down at the end of the bench, “As I messaged you earlier, I don’t have a name, face, or anything besides the information William has shared with his internal election team. I got this information secondhand.”

“How do you know it’s a third party that met him?”

“William isn’t military. He doesn’t speak like we did, nor does he write like them. The data we got was written by an officer, likely in logistics or possibly in our intelligence bureau. I’ve seen far too many reports come across my desk during my time with them before I got pushed out because of bureaucratic bullshit.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“What kind of abilities would you suggest this person has?”

“Good with Excel and pen?” the turncoat said sarcastically, “This report has the hallmark of a desk jockey. The report is so thorough that there’s no way this person has any experience in the field. Aside from knowing how to keep themselves hidden, that is.”

“Would a logistician officer be able to do this kind of work?”

“Write a report? Sure,” the man laughed, “I could write a report like this, but not that detailed. This guy was either really good at that kind of deal, but it smells like an intelligence agent. Plus, I think the latter because of potential information that would only be found in an intelligence mainframe that Naval Intelligence is responsible for.”

“Have you seen this man?” Kaius asked as he shared an image of Steven.

The turncoat shook his head, “I’ve never seen him. One of William’s secretaries saw the man and said he looked military. But none gave a clear description of who met with him. But I tend to believe all these rumors because of an inconvenient truth I discovered yesterday.”

Kaius smirked, “Dare I ask what that is?”

“The security footage disappeared. Now why would that happen? What would they have to hide?”

“The face of this mystery man.”

“And the meeting was conveniently held before any other witnesses were present, or so the story goes. Aside from William’s secretary. And no, don’t try to get anything from her, she is famously tight-lipped about everything.”

This was confirmation that an agent was on this planet thought Kaius. Confirmation of Elias’ gut feeling. But he cursed the inability to track down this person, that was troublesome. They needed them gone to make their plans easier to achieve.

“So, what do you have for me?”

“It’s a grainy video, a backup of a backup of a backup, which has this mystery man. Your agent. I don’t have the skills or capability to enhance that video. Perhaps you could do what we couldn’t.”

“I’ll take that, we should be able to make do with that,” Kaius took the data slate and slid it into a pocket inside his coat, “I never asked this, but why are you doing this?”

“I like William, he’s a good man and an amazing CEO. But he is not a politician. This position will utterly destroy him and worse, remove his focus where it needs to be, on his companies,” the man sighed, “Without him at the helm, the board is going to fuck with the prices we charge everywhere. None besides him are committed to his vision.”

“I’ll be in touch after the next debate. You know how to reach me in the event something comes up,” Kaius said as he stood up.

“Understood,” the turncoat said, “I hope this works for you, I fear for my future.”

“We’ll give it the old college try,” Kaius smiled before he disappeared into the dark.

He headed towards his car. With this, they could properly put in place a counter-espionage operation against the enemy agent. Better yet, they could straight-up eliminate them. He had to get back to base to discover what was on the data slate. But, in his narrow-minded focus, Kaius failed to notice a motorcyclist who was following his car from a distance.

Traffic was unusually heavy going through the city’s Main Street. That annoyed Kaius because he wanted to be home now. He searched for what was going on and it was a street fair. His mind then drifted away from work to what was going on at the fair. Kaius was not only a disciplined man but a very capable one too. But he also suffered from having a sweet tooth, and the offerings here were too much for him to pass up.

What could go wrong? Yes, mission protocols demanded that he return home immediately with the captured intelligence data. But the smells here. And all of the street foods. It was intoxicating to Kaius. Everything looked and smelled delicious, and he had to sample some of the local cuisine.

Two and a half hours and over two hundred credits were spent on various sugary snacks. His favorite was the thing pasty covered in cinnamon and sugar that was bigger than his head. The swamp snacks were particularly interesting, even if some of the things deep-fried were not to his liking.

He was surprised at how much time he had wasted at this fair. He began the trek back to his vehicle. One made much more difficult with a stomach full of pastries, sugar, sweet sauces and so much more. Kaius had to rest for a moment to allow his bloated stomach to settle a bit.

The cool air was slowly pressing against his face, he couldn’t help but smile. But then a thought ran through his mind, would this still happen in a year’s time when their army begins conquering Confederate worlds? The devotion to his work and mission remained, but this was the first time he openly questioned whether or not the mission made any sense.

He sighed as he looked up at one of the shining moons in the night sky. Those were questions outside his paygrade, nevertheless, he became worried for the first time. Starting the war would be easy, as would holding this system. But the Confederacy was huge, far larger than them.

“I wonder…” Kaius said to himself before standing up and stretching.

A rather fat man walked over and sat down on the other side of the bench, “Ate too much?”

“I may have…”

“Yeah, that’ll happen here,” the man began devouring an elephant’s ear pasty.

Kaius smiled as he began walking. Perhaps when they are in charge they won’t allow people to look like that, or allow themselves to get that large. Whether he had misgivings about this mission didn’t matter, he would do his duty.

Kaius spent another thirty minutes walking through the crowded streets to get back to his parked car. When he got to it, he hopped into the driver’s seat without checking his surroundings. The same motorcycle was waiting for him from just down the street. Its occupant was leaning forward on the handlebars looking forward. Almost like they were looking out for something.

Meanwhile, in the car, Kaius was keying in the destination to the auto-drive system. Between being distracted by that and his bloated and very uncomfortable gut, his ability to maintain situational awareness was effectively gone. His desire to get home was overriding his sense.

It took nearly forty-five minutes more to drive through the city center. It wasn’t until he reached the blighted district did it thinned out and allowed for a much more expedient drive. The motorcycle, which Kaius still hadn’t detected, was paralleling Kaius’ route.

Kaius had no idea that a deadly agent was trailing him. That agent was causing his leader to lose sleep at night. The very same agent that had spilled Xenuian blood already. Nor did he have any clue what this enemy of theirs was willing to do to him that evening.

He continued on with his drive home. Fifteen minutes later, and several red lights that were ignored, Kaius finally had their home base in sight. He tapped a button on the console to open their building’s garage door. The car pulled forward into their diminutive driveway and waited for the door to fully open before pulling into its designated parking slot.

Kaius stepped out of the car and slapped his gut once more before turning around to close the car’s door. He smiled as he thought ‘mission accomplished.’ He acquired critical intelligence from a turncoat within William’s organization and filled his stomach with so many different pastries. Life was good, well aside from having to live in this shithole.

Something alarming happened the moment after he began smiling. He felt a prick in his back, like a needle, and then he felt a terrible tightness and pressure in his chest. Kaius fell to his knees in pain, a pain that spread to his shoulders, arms, back, and neck.

His stomach felt on fire, and he began wanting to vomit, though he desperately wanted to avoid that. No matter how much he felt his stomach wretch there was nothing coming up. Then his veins felt like acid was flowing within them. What in the hell was going on with him? His breath shortened greatly as he felt a cold sweat on his forehead. He felt like he was drowning.

His rapidly increased breath causes immeasurable pain. His whole chest cavity was on fire. He clutched his chest as he fell down on the floor. As he did so he rolled over and looked up. His eyes bulged but he was helpless to do anything as an ominous individual loomed over him.

That was the moment that realization had struck Kaius, he was careless and allowed himself to be followed. It finally hit him, Elias was right about everything, and this was the man who killed Paulus. But why wasn’t he dead? The brutality of this man killing Paulus in cold blood replayed in his mind, but he was having trouble focusing.

“Oh no…” Kaius said quietly as he felt his body shutting down.

This man didn’t want to make this look like a murder. Kaius’ eyes briefly widened; his murder was made to appear like it was natural causes. His peers would be none the wiser.

John bent down and searched in Kaius’ coat. The resistance given was minor but easily overcome. The data slate that he was given was taken and, in its place, a new one was slid in. Then the man slapped Kaius’ shoulder.

“I’ll be taking that. You’ll be dead long before you’re able to do anything about it,” the voice inside the helmet said.

Kaius’ eyes began to close. He was losing consciousness and could no longer keep them open. Kaius’ life flashed before his eyes before he drifted off for the last time into unconsciousness. He tried to fight against what was happening to him, but it was all for naught. His body finally went limp, his breathing had stopped. Death would take him in moments.

His life would end on a dirty garage floor. It would end without him knowing whether or not the mission was a success or not. Or without him knowing if his life, or death, meant anything. Kaius’ soul finally left his body clouded in uncertainty.

07:00 Xenuvian Headquarters -- Garage

Ellie was kneeling over the cooling body of their compatriot. Elias and Constantine stood looking down upon their fallen colleague, and friend. Elias could feel tears fall down his cheeks.

“He’s been dead for five to six hours,” Ellie was getting choked up, “I’ll need to do a proper scan of him, but it looks like his heart gave out. This scanning device is known to be wrong though.”

Constantine gestured back towards the door. Linus and Quintinus then walked in with a stretcher. They set it down next to Kaius and carefully moved him onto it. They draped a spare bed sheet over him.

“Take the back route into Ellie’s medical room, do not speculate on anything nor spread any unfounded rumors. You are to guard that door,” Constantine said, “No one but Ellie, Elias, and myself are to enter that room until further notice.”

“Yes sir,” both men said in unison.

The two men slowly picked up the stretcher and began to walk slowly and respectfully to Ellie’s office in their building. Ellie followed behind, leaving the two most senior officers in the garage. Even Constantine was struggling with maintaining his composure.

After a long and very uncomfortable silence, Elias spoke, “We were attacked at our home. Don’t tell me this was from natural causes. I know what a heart attack is and the last time one of our people actually passed away from one.”

“And our health monitor was not alerted to his trauma, much less death,” Constantine said, “We have a serious problem.”

“How is the beta site? Is it ready for us?”

“Whether it is or not we need to move, and move now,” Constantine said, “The problem is whether or not they have eyes on us. We could be moving from one location to another only for them to follow us.”

Elias curled his fist together and hit the side of the white truck, “We can’t go back into hiding. Our mission will…”

“Can we achieve this mission without Kaius’ leadership?”

“Yes, yes we can.”

“Then we press on,” Constantine said confidently, “Less we dishonor those that we have lost.”

“Begin loading the trucks. I’m going to send a team ahead to the new base to get it set up for us,” Elias said, “And to investigate this, I just hope whatever Kaius received last night was worth his death.”

Constantine nodded and walked into their headquarters, leaving Elias alone in silence in the garage. His closest friend was murdered, in their temporary home. How could this have happened? And who in the hell was targeting them?