[‘The Day The Leader Died: The Inside Story Of His Final Hours.’

  ‘As the meticulously laid procedures kicked in, others were taken by surprise. We recalled the historic hours following the untimely death of the New Empire’s Leader, Marc Lukai Kemo. Click here.’]

  ...

  What news.

  Avery had been informed. Si had told him. The meeting was time-critical and very short. Shadows Lord certainly had a lot to do.

  The situation, politically, was very complicated.

  But. What interesting times ahead.

  The boss was silent. Or he was engaged in the whole situation, which Avery could easily imagine. Or… no clue what else could happen. The boss was energy; he didn’t sleep; he lived in Gates.

  Why didn’t he communicate? He had to have his reasons.

  Avery shrugged.

  They had worked together for a few weeks. Their cooperation was calm. They rarely met; Avery saw his projection a total of five times. It was not disturbing—not at all.

  Their messages were brief but full of information. There were no unnecessary words; despite what Si previously said, the boss was not talkative.

  Avery was provided the opportunity to review old court cases related to harassment, abusive behaviors, and crimes connected to sexuality.

  He took on the task with pleasure. He wanted to bring justice and poured his heart into the investigations.

  It also made it clear to him that the boss had to be very well aware of Avery’s case. It was easy to find, as the data dashboard created for the former Leader required only a few clicks for Avery to find his own files.

  The boss knew. Intriguing, he never commented on it.

  Was that why he gave him this task? No clue. It wasn’t relevant—the reasons behind it. It was the sort of task Avery worked hard to do at his best.

  Now.

  Avery had been ordered to search the rubble. More specifically, a fairly dilapidated building, a residential house on the outskirts of the lake. From what Avery had managed to figure out, this was the home of the former leader of the OFF. A few years ago, this organization had been here but had long since disbanded. Nothing was left.

  The house was in ruins.

  It looked as if someone had deliberately taken it apart, as if someone was looking for something. Just like Avery was now. Except, he wasn’t looking inside, in these ruins, but rather outside the house, in the backyard.

  It was Si who sent a message this time. He said he was not aware of what it could be or in what form. He was looking for the papers, which must have been old, in either the Sect’s language, with a sample attached, or in a translated version. The dates on these documents should be from before 90 ACD. It might be in a case, or it could be loose.

  Si didn’t know. He kindly asked Avery to start looking for it and mentioned that Taj—the boss—would try to join.

  He added that the boss was tired. That was all.

  The yard was cluttered. If someone really wanted to hide some papers here, and it didn’t sound like there were supposed to be many boxes, then indeed… Avery looked around.

  He closed his eyes and listened. Was there anything unusual here?

  No. Everything was normal—no energy buzzing, no barriers. Detectors were in the area anyway; he had checked earlier. Clean.

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  Avery also took a look to see if anyone had been to this place or had searched before. He was meticulous; he had checked the recordings for the last six months first and then looked back through the years to when someone had still lived here.

  One thing was interesting. Avery confirmed the dates. On one day, at a specific time, three years ago, the recordings were erased. The Gate records were restricted to view as well. Something had happened here. Then it was announced that the former leader of the OFF had died in combat. And then Lukai took over.

  This was not a normal yard, and Avery wasn’t looking for normal papers.

  … Nothing was normal when working for Si. And the boss—certainly.

  Could it be that the boss was indeed tired, so Avery could work again with Si? Interesting.

  Who would become the new Leader? Si?

  Avery waited patiently for the next news.

  Calmly, methodically, he began to comb the yard from left to right, moving in a circle. It was a funny place—someone had marked the steps rigidly, as if counting them in thousands.

  Irrelevant.

  He was halfway through, three hours later, when he noticed something in one corner—dried weeds, an anomaly spotted nowhere before. Avery dug there more thoroughly… it was so simple. He found the package. Completely devoid of energy. A rare and interesting protection these days.

  Avery stopped and thought about it. Should he open it to check if it matched what Si had sent? What if it broke or fell apart?

  He took pictures and decided to make sure—he sent a message.

  To destroy old documents by not being careful enough? Too stupid.

  It took a moment, and Avery waited.

  There was no reply, but the boss suddenly materialized near him.

  He indeed looked tired.

  How was this possible? Avery already knew how his projections worked. It was not that his face looked tired—he emanated tiredness. As if his energy had a problem.

  Dangerous?

  Avery didn’t ask. He patiently waited to be informed. It always worked best with people like Si. Or the boss.

  “Thank you, Avery; let me see…” he said. He took the package and surrounded it with some energy layers.

  Interesting.

  The boss opened the package. Everything inside looked fine. There were three notebooks. Simple ones, black covers, quite thin. He looked both a little surprised and not surprised at all. As if he expected something similar but clearly didn’t know it was this little.

  He opened the first one from the top and flipped through it.

  Avery noticed they were handwritten notes; the language looked like patterns or small stamps. Not exactly matching the sample, but it was handwriting. Usually, it looked different. It could be that—what else could it be?

  … That was it; the boss started reading.

  Avery noticed. The boss sometimes spoke to himself in the second language. They had seen each other a total of five times, and it happened that he spoke to himself. Strange.

  Luna confirmed when Avery asked.

  It was the Sect’s language.

  Well. Never mind? He wasn’t planning on eavesdropping on what the boss was saying to himself. The boss’s private matters were not Avery’s business.

  “I would like to sit here somewhere for a moment and read it. I will at the same time store it to be certain it was not lost. After I finish, I will ask you to take it to Si directly; be cautious about it. We were looking for it for some time.”

  The boss slowly spoke, both as if he had it difficult to speak, but also because he was already reading these notes.

  “Roger,” Avery answered.

  There was nothing more to add.

  The boss sat on the ground, and Avery followed him.

  The silence was calm; only the rustle of pages could be heard.

  Avery closed his eyes. The sound of the lake. He had read about this lake; he had even planned to see it. Such a curiosity.

  The rustle of pages was regular; from the sounds, Avery sensed there was nothing scary in these documents.

  The boss sighed a few times, then he hissed. Over time, this sound became more frequent, then it calmed again. Twice, he shouted something that sounded like ‘zhendema.’

  … Avery noted to himself to check the language and learn simple phrases. Then he would at least know if it was good or bad.

  Then the boss hissed again and changed his position. Avery opened his eyes.

  The third notebook, the thickest. The boss read quickly in this language. He looked sad; he supported his head with his hand. As if what he was reading had tired him even more than he already was.

  Suddenly, he seemed to choke, blushing as he drew in a breath.

  Something moved him, but as if someone were throwing insults at him rather than that he had discovered some conspiracy. The boss nodded, his eyes opening wider, his mouth too. He must have read something that surprised him.

  Then the boss calmed down, as if he had given up.

  But he read. He said aloud a word that Avery knew. The surname, Riggs.

  Avery wondered—how these papers, which he understood as notebooks from the Sect—involved the spaceships’ inventor?

  Interesting.

  And then, suddenly, the boss—his hands—started shaking.

  The last pages of that third notebook, the boss read them and started shaking.

  Then, the boss took a piece of paper that looked like a short note.

  The boss read it once, a second time, and a third time, and his hands were shaking more, his eyes were open, and he looked as if he didn’t know what to do. He noticed that his hands were shaking; he started laughing. The boss laughed like he was crazy.

  Then he stopped laughing.

  Avery watched silently.

  As if the boss recalled he was not alone in this place, he looked at Avery. Then he folded the notebooks and put the note inside. He handed it all to Avery without a word.

  Then the boss disappeared.

  Avery nodded to himself.

  It would be good if Si needed his help. The boss was certainly an interesting opportunity, but he was also quite uncommunicative. Avery wasn’t good at relations himself, but this one here… even worse.

  He went back to the Gate and, meanwhile, summarized what had happened with a few brief words and sent it to both the boss and Si.

  Instantly, he was instructed where to meet with Si. Avery headed there directly.