Arik yawned as he entered Pom's office. He held a cup of coffee in each hand. Pom concentrated on the laptop in front of her, eyebrows furrowed.

"Coffee here is far better than in Ophan. I don't know what it is." He set a cup in front of Pom and sat across from her. He blew on the steaming liquid in his cup, taking a tiny sip, cherishing the nutty flavor sweetened by a generous amount of cream and sugar.

Pom chugged the coffee he gave her. The liquid was scorching hot. Did she have any tastebuds left in her mouth?

"We, citizens of the Free States, grow our beans outside, naturally. Those fruit grown in vertical farming pods lose flavor." Pom continued tapping away on the keyboard.

Arik perked a brow. "Coffee isn't a fruit. Beans are vegetables."

Pom froze and scowled over the top of the laptop screen. "No. Coffee grows on bushes, which produce berries, from which seeds are extracted. Technically, they're not beans."

"The Old Terrans were a strange and confused bunch of people."

Pom narrowed her eyes. "What do you want, Arik?"

Arik's jaw went slack. "Want? Can't I have a cup of coffee with an old friend?"

"I don't know if I've forgiven you yet."

He looked around the screen at her face. "Come on, Pom. I'm here, aren't I? I promise I won't leave again until the Syndicate is destroyed."

"You promised last time too."

"Fair enough. This time I'll pinky swear." Arik proffered an extended pinky finger. Their pinkies interlocked, and she looked around the screen with a scowl.

"You better not break your promise this time. I will kill you."

Arik withdrew his pinky, nervous grin on his face. Sometimes Pom joked around. Other times she didn't. The problem with her was the delivery. She said everything in the same solemn tone. He could never tell. Either way, he couldn't run off and gamble on fights anymore. Not while the Syndicate existed and hunted him. He instead had to hedge his bets on the Faceless and hope they succeeded.

It had been nearly a week since the dockyard raid. Apparently, Fahon eliminated a small army of armed guards all by himself. The hunt was going slower than he anticipated. It gave Kormel a chance to get farther away. By now, he could be hiding underground on the other side of the moon.

Arik put the cup to his lips. "Any progress with the drones?"

"Our cybermind is analyzing the footage we've captured for any patterns. We've narrowed the suppliers down to three or four chemical companies. Many of them send frequent deliveries along the western highway.

"How do we know the Syndicate has one large facility and not many small ones?"

"Razzle production, at any reasonable volume, requires industrial equipment." Pom stretched with a grunt, raising both arms above her head. "Consistent quality is important to their reputation. It requires complex laboratories for testing. I suspect they have at least a dozen chemists working in unison. You can't own the market for a product if you don't produce enough of it. They must have a bigger setup somewhere."

Arik enjoyed another sip and nodded slowly. "I see."

He enjoyed the remainder of his coffee for a few minutes, hesitant to ask his question. Pom had big plans for taking out the production facility. It didn't necessarily get Fahon and Arik toward their goal of finding Kormel. Pom could be helpful, resourceful, and tenacious. Sometimes she could be single-minded. Once she had a target, she shot straight toward it like an arrow.

Pom closed the laptop and considered him for a moment. "Out with it. What do you want, Arik?"

Arik set his cup on the table. "Kormel. Any luck on tracking his location?"

"Nothing," Pom admitted. She bit her lip in frustration. "The Syndicate is hush-hush. Some other group is looking for Kormel, a well-orchestrated team of professionals. They're getting aggressive with the Syndicate. Abducting street bosses and Razzle pushers, interrogating them. It has the Syndicate's lower ranks lying low, riding out the storm. Not that I'm complaining. I haven't been able to get intel on the group at all. They're quiet and stealthy."

Arik didn't like the sound of that. Fahon was probably being hunted down. They had the same idea, go after Kormel to pull out the information. If they got to Kormel first, it would be game over for their plans.

"It could be the Shades, Ophani National Intelligence."

Pom blew away a stray strand of her turquoise hair. "The Shades could be a powerful ally."

"We have no idea if they would be on our side or not."

Pom slung back the rest of her coffee. "The Syndicate are like rats. You can try to trap them, pick them off one by one, but they keep coming back. Sometimes the best way to end the infestation is to torch the whole nest."

"Easier said than done." Arik rubbed his hands on his pants. "By the way, have you seen my cousin?"

"He was in the training hall earlier, sparring. The raid shook him. With all the killing he had to do. All the man does is train, eat, and sleep. Reminds me of how I was for a while after my own dad died."

"Fahon likes to push himself, especially when he thinks he's failed. As a kid, it meant throwing himself into his studies day and night. Now apparently, he likes to beat people up. We learn to handle stress differently."

"Go check on him."

Arik left Pom's office. The cook was preparing breakfast, making it morning. Being underground for days had thrown off his primarily nocturnal sleep schedule. Usually, he was in bed at this time of day.

The smoky scent of bacon filled his nostrils with its delicious allure. Doubtful it was real bacon. Delectable pig meat was expensive and hard to find in Zele. Even plant-based bacon substitutes smelled good. It brought him back to his childhood, to Rest Day breakfasts with his parents.

He worked through the maze of tunnels in the Faceless, hidden base. This was the third base Arik had been to since befriending Pom all those years ago. They moved around often, especially when the location of a base became compromised. Of all the sites the Faceless occupied, this was the nicest. They had been operating out of it for at least a year and a half.

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The Faceless once had nearly a thousand members. The constant war against the Syndicate had taken its toll. The fact they hadn't relocated in a while meant the Syndicate didn't take them as a real threat anymore.

It would take years of consistent recruitment to get their numbers back. Arik quit smuggling people out of Zele and worked as a recruiter for the Faceless. He brought in many a hopeful in those days. Only to learn about them getting killed in one raid or another. The attrition of war wore on him and led him to eventually depart.

Hope was a precious commodity in Zele.

Arik found Fahon training, cheering, and roars of encouragement echoed through the tunnels. They were in a large room, half storage boxes and half gymnasium. With grins on their faces, men and women stood along the walls and sat among the boxes, watching a spar unfold.

"Let's try it again," Fahon said.

Four Faceless combatants surrounded him, circling him in predatory stances. They were breathing heavily and sweaty from the effort. Fahon stood loosely with his arms at his side. He wasn't looking at any of them. His gray eyes seemed absent, and his cobalt-shelled Caster spiraled around him like a planet in orbit.

"Remember, we Bonded have increased reflexes," Fahon explained, "if you attack one on one, you'll lose every time. I don't care how proficient a fighter you are, don't try it. Instead, team up. We're human and can only deal with one attack at a time. If you can coordinate your strikes, time them together perfectly, you can take us."

The spectators cheered. Two combatants lunged at Fahon at once.

He dipped around the one in front. With a dancer-like move, he pivoted on one foot and slipped around the man's body. Grin on his face, Fahon shoved the off-balance man into the other one approaching from behind. As they collided, the two left in their stances went for combined strikes, a kick towards the face and a knee to the back. Fahon shoved the kick away and sidestepped the knee.

Did he take ballet lessons? Arik stifled a chuckle at the mental image.

With all his opponents off-balance and confounded, Fahon went on the offense. Twin shimmering blue batons popped into existence in his hands.

How fast can Casters make those objects? It's like—blam light—and it's there.

As the combatants recovered, he lightly tapped each with the batons quickly. "Now you're dead," Fahon said, backing off. His Caster zig-zagged around the combatants like it was examining them.

Arik clapped. The cheers stopped, and everyone looked at him. He shrugged.

"These dastardly vigilantes stand no chance against the valiant Knight!"

Fahon snorted. "I'm merely preparing them for facing Bonded. If we run into Kormel at any point, they should have experience facing such a foe. It might save their lives."

Arik gave him a confused look. "You're teaching people how to defeat your kind?"

"Only you would think of it like that, Arik." He turned to his sparring partners. "We can continue this later, everyone. Maybe next time, we'll get a few new volunteers."

A handful of Faceless thanked Fahon. Others clapped him on the shoulder. They filed out.

Arik broke the silence. "Hear you been keeping busy."

Fahon studied his hands. "I can't sit around waiting. It's driving me insane. If I could locate Kormel myself, I would do it. But I don't know where I can help. Here I am, making the best of it."

"I wish I could say things will get easier," Arik admitted. "But I don't know if they will. I do know I have faith in Pom. She'll come through and help us find him."

Fahon clenched his fists and lowered them to his sides. He stared at the sparring mats for a long moment. "Found out last night that I missed my father's funeral."

Arik swallowed hard. It never occurred to him that the funeral would be over by now. It was a national event in Ophan. Tens of thousands of citizens would visit the mausoleum and listen to the speeches. He could find vids of it on the Repository later, but those would hardly be any consolation to Fahon.

What could he say to Fahon anyway? He was never good at things like this. Dealing with the human condition, with suffering, wasn't his forte. All he did was run away from his problems.

"Is there a time limit until they appoint a new Sovereign?" Arik pondered.

"I have no idea, honestly. There are rules in the Articles of Sovereignty, but I don't have them memorized."

Pom popped her head into the room. She looked excited. "Just got some big intel. You're going to want to hear this. Meet in my office in five."

---

Pom displayed three images on her laptop. Arik sifted through them, one by one. Three stuffy old guys in suits were getting into fancy limousines, surrounded by armed guards. Arik scratched the stubble on his face.

"Who am I looking at here?" Arik asked.

"Those are the Big Three, the leaders of the Syndicate." Pom had her hands on her hips. The fires of vengeance blazed in her eyes. "They're arriving later this morning in Zele."

Fahon took the laptop, studying the images himself. "These men are Kormel's bosses?"

Pom nodded. "An inside guy told me they're meeting at the Golden Palms hotel in Uptown."

Arik put both his hands on the table and leaned forward. "Golden Ponds? Sounds like a nursing home."

"I know," Pom said, "gatherings of the Big Three rarely happen. Typically, only when there's some major disagreement between them or big issues to handle. They discuss things in private and work things out. For all the Syndicate's faults, they're dedicated to avoiding internal strife. They haven't fractured into smaller factions due to in-fighting, like what happens to smaller criminal organizations."

The whole Kormel situation would be a pressing issue and might form a rift between the Syndicate leaders. Maybe some of them were considering how to best dispose of Kormel. Who knows. It was easy to track the Syndicate's movements, but their decisions and plans were tight-lipped. To Arik, this smelled worse than Lowtown on a sweltering day.

"If there's a chance, we could capture one. Kormel might have told them who sent him to kill my father and me. This may be too good of an opportunity to pass up."

Arik hated to be the voice of reason, as always. "This stinks like a trap. The last time we struck Uptown, things didn't go well. Do we want to be stupid enough to try again?"

Fahon nodded, following his logic. "We would attack in broad daylight. Puts attention on us."

"Uptown is buzzing with police," Arik added, "they will respond fast."

Pom nibbled on her nails, staring silently at the photos. "I have agents in position inside and around the hotel. They'll be able to tell us exactly where the meeting is happening. We should decide fast if we will pull the trigger on this. We don't want to miss our window."

Fahon fixed his gray eyes on her. "In the end, it's your decision, Pom. You're the leader of Faceless."

"I hate this. The bait looks too damn juicy." Pom pulled a knife from who knows where spinning it adroitly on her fingers. "The last few gatherings of the Big Three, we weren't prepared for or didn't have the numbers or the firepower. We have Fahon this time. If this goes our way and we capture them, it's cutting the head off the snake and maybe squeezing out Kormel."

"Gross," Arik commented, "the whole cutting off the head and squeezing thing. Put some vivid imagery in my head."

The look on Fahon's face said it all, the scrunched eyebrows, clenched jaw, and burning look of determination in his eyes. He wanted to try this. Arik put up a hand in caution. "We should be patient and keep searching for leads on Kormel. Trust me, I gamble often, and this feels like we're going all in with a mediocre hand, hoping our opponent doesn't call our bluff."

Fahon ran a hand through his hair. "You're right. It could be a trap. We won't know until we go there. I'll go in alone, like last time. I won't put Pom's soldiers in danger, not while I can handle things myself."

"Look, you're powerful with that Caster," Pom said. She pointed the knife at Fahon. "Don't get me wrong. But don't go thinking you're invincible. We need to hit them from all angles so they can't escape. It's not a one-man operation. It's a popular hotel, and there will also be many bystanders to deal with. How will you get the Big Three out by yourself?"

Arik put his finger on the flat of the knife. "Pom, it's not nice to point sharp objects at people. Especially when you're telling them not to get themselves killed."

She lowered the knife, spun it around, and sheathed it in a belt holster behind her back. How subtle of her. She had drawn it from all the way back there.

Fahon nodded in agreement. "We do it as a team, then. What's your plan?"

No, no! I lost him. Pom surely can get people fired up to commit suicide.

"No time to get fancy. We hit the hotel, grab the targets, and scatter to the winds." Pom moved towards the door. "I'll gather a couple squads and meet you topside."

Arik waved with a deep frown on his face. "Good luck, you two. I'll stay here, where it's safe."