Twenty minutes later, Dr. Ash opened her door to find Nozomi. She was wearing her usual white leather outfit.

“What couldn’t wait?” Nozomi said.

“There has been a recent development. Meeka has been spotted.”

“Where?” Nozomi demanded.

That bitch is like a cat with nine lives. I’ll put her down for good this time, Nozomi thought.

“In New York City, Chinatown.”

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“How did you find her?”

“I’m locked out of Leviathan, but I still have access to my mainframe in London. I received an alert about a mass killing in Chinatown. I wouldn’t have cared, but the news article described the assailant as an Asian woman in her early twenties wielding a samurai sword,” Dr. Ash explained.

“Who was her target?”

“Members of the Gratzano and Chen crime families.”

“Any idea why they were meeting?”

“Not yet, but I suspect our host is not telling us everything. Keep an eye out as the conference resumes.”

“I will, Mother. I always have your back.”

“There’s one other development. Without direct access to my lab, there is little I can do to reverse engineer the data cores. Give this to the doctor you met. I don’t trust him, but if he can get us closer to our goal, an information trade might prove useful,” Dr. Ash said as she gave Nozomi a tiny flash drive.

“I’ll set up the exchange.”