Eli accompanied Flavia to her spacecraft in silence.
Like all commercial operation towers in Irvanian metro cities, Emerald Crust's base was required to have a SVoyLPad. The pad was mostly empty except for a few auxiliary company crafts lined up on one side. On the other side, in a corner was Flavia's white vessel.
Eli immediately recognized the voyager shaped like a rhombic dodecahedron with curved edges to be one of the high-end expensive ones, though the craft didn't sport any branding or insignia. Only a small logo of Ortimus - a stylized O with a small dot in the center could be seen in front. Other than the golden logo, the outer surface of the vessel was almost entirely white.
As Flavia approached, the craft identified its owner, and one of its gleaming reflective sides detached and swiveled upwards revealing a door.
Following behind Flavia, Eli was lost in thoughts attempting to recall the specifications of this vessel from a catalog they had seen a few months ago, and almost bumped into the mountain of a man who was standing silently in the darkness inside.
"Oh sorry, didn't see you." Eli stammered, as their eyes swept through the chiseled features of the muscular dark-skinned man. The man just continued to stare them down, unmoving, unblinking.
Suddenly with a motion that Eli didn't even see coming, they were pulled inside. Immediately, the door behind them closed shut.
"What the hell?" Eli asked as pitch black darkness engulfed them. "Do you want to switch on the lights?"
"Start talking." Flavia said. Her voice had changed. It appeared closer, menacing, amplified. But even within the close quarters of the spacecraft they couldn't quite tell for sure where she stood.
"Do we really have to do it this way?" Eli was beginning to realize that following Flavia into her own vessel may not have been that great an idea. They tried to flip open their tablet, but to their surprise they could not move their hands at all. The moment they tried to raise their arm, they could feel silent elastic threads slither around their skin and clothes, tightening themselves in place in a matter of seconds. In the absolute darkness, it was beyond eerie. Eli couldn't see at all but from the way they slid around them, it didn't feel like there was someone tightening the threads. It was as if the threads were alive.
"What is Helicon’s interest in Emerald Crust?" her voice echoed around him. A thin swirl of mist wafted around Eli, accompanied by a strange odor.
At this point, there was no doubt left in Eli’s mind that a single wrong answer could result in them not seeing the light of the day again. They chose to answer honestly. "They were contracted by us to manufacture AX-149 for us. They have failed to deliver."
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"So now, you want to retaliate?"
Eli gulped, the voice sending a shiver down his spine. "If an alternative were to be available to us, we may be able to divulge information that may help you take them down."
"And, why would we want to take them down?" Flavia's voice had been cold and neutral so far, but now a hint of surprise was evident.
"I am not sure if you have realized it yet, but they will never be able to fulfill your contract. They are on the brink of bankruptcy." Eli had prepared this pitch well in advance. However they had imagined the circumstances of the meeting to be vastly different.
"Bankruptcy? Why?"
"Uh… may I show you something?"
Eli waited for a response, but none came. There was no motion, no command or communication at all, but suddenly Eli realized the tightness around their hands was no longer present. They tried to rotate their wrist and found that they were now able to.
Eli unrolled his tablet and activated its projector. As the dim light from the projector illuminated the interior, Flavia was revealed to be standing right in front of them. Her golden eyes gleamed in the dim light. There was something fundamentally unnatural about them. Eli could not help but think of a creature of the wild.
Turning as little as possible, through the corner of their eyes they eyed the bodyguard. The man had shifted towards the edge, but his posture hadn't changed. At all. He blinked once. A trickle of sweat threaded its way down Eli's spine. Pushing down their anxiety, Eli pulled up the latest financial records, the relevant entries already highlighted and cross-correlated in preparation.
"They have hidden it well." Flavia muttered, scanning through the records.
After a couple of minutes, she was convinced that what Eli was presenting before her was authentic. "So, what kind of solution did you have in mind for us to recoup our losses?"
Eli took a deep, steadying breath. Eyes on the prize. "Before that, I’d appreciate it if you could take a look at the schematics we want to have fabricated. A conglomerate as powerful as yours must surely be able to manufacture them at scale. Covertly."
Flavia was of course intimately familiar with the designs Eli pulled up next. "Are you familiar with the creator of this design?"
It looked like Norman Ferus's shadow would continue to follow her wherever she went.
Eli had hoped to outright deny knowing anything about Nazaar. But now somehow they felt that Flavia would just know if they attempted to lie. They could feel anxiety clawing at their insides, threatening to overtake them. "We are in touch. But he is merely a student. To equip our armada we would need a partner who can manufacture the schematics at scale. Cost-effectively, of course."
"Armada…" Flavia scoffed, "Calling Helicon's forces even a fleet is a stretch"
Tilting her head sideways, she continued, "Why am I getting the feeling that in this partnership, Ortimus has too much at stake and too little to lose?"
With a determined nod, Eli pressed down on the anxiety, forcing it back into the recesses of their mind. "What if I told you that my proposal to recoup your losses would be particularly effective if Ortimus had a partner in crime who wasn’t afraid to get their hands dirty."
"I am listening."