An auction in Space Colony Exposure was the last place I would expect Lucius to attend to. He was always too careful about the location of all his important transactions and a primitive solar system like that of Sol seemed completely above suspicion. Still, in a twisted, unworldly way, Exposure was at the same time the worst and the best place for him to conduct one of his most lucrative operations yet.

Lucius the Second, usually going by as Lucius II, was the head of a notorious weapon smuggling organization called Echo Brigade. I had been undercover for six months now and had managed to infiltrate their ranks. Luckily, they didn’t have the slightest idea that a First Kind was walking among them. The truth was I was not just any First Kind, but rather one of the best in her field, espionage.

Taking down Echo Brigade became a first priority mission a year ago when they were accounted for selling a manuscript for a dangerous weapon to an enemy of the Esuh Empire. That resulted in two of our dreadnoughts going down in an unexpected assault, losing over 2.000 men in the process, considered a rather small loss in terms of firepower, but still, one of the biggest falls the Empire had endured since it primed two hundred years ago.

The enemies of the Empire had to be punished, and the Esuh never made a promise they couldn’t keep. So, they chose me to undertake this operation and bring the Brigade down quietly, with limited resources. Well, buying a new dress for attending the auction of the century (as the officers of the Brigade advertised this particular event) was included in that “limited budget”.

I walked into the conference room of the Hotel Mirage located in Sector 22 of the Space Colony Exposure. It was a flashy, luxurious room, furnished with top of the line chandeliers, and lavish armchairs extending in long lines from one side of the room to the other. An outstanding buffet was set up next to the entrance to entertain the prolific auctioneers while waiting for the auction to start; bodyguards were manning every inch of the room; special systems had been installed to make sure the auction would proceed smoothly under any circumstances.

That was to say, I wouldn’t be able to capture Lucius during the time the auction was being held. However, it was indeed a place where I could imagine the boss make an appearance. Still, I wouldn’t have moved this far in this line of work if I wasn’t prepared for every possible outcome and not carefully informed about his movements.

Lucius was already in this hotel, and I was ready to get him.

“Ms. Hawk. What a pleasure meeting you here. It seems you decided to attend this humble auction.”

I turned and saw another Esuh, his big, violet eyes staring at me. It was time to put on my faucet of mock interest and greet the muscled man.

“Well, you know me. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I missed the biggest auction of this century. How are you, Mr. Trut?” I cast a wide grin at him like I was in any way delighted I had met him here. Of course, chit chat issues were almost done immediately. “I hope everything is okay in your section. How’s your wife and kids?”

I used my most friendly and indifferent voice possible. I didn’t want to flirt with him, not because he was a disgusting, overly physical man that didn’t know when to stop harassing women, but because he was just plainly, hideous.

He laughed at my silly joke and continued with his nonsensical batter. “They’re fine, thank you for asking. You’re absolutely right. How could you have missed this great opportunity? I don’t know if you have checked their catalog, but I have my eyes on a small interceptor from the Theanus system. It’s the last piece in my collection of weapons of the east regime. However, rumors say that these interceptors are bioengineered to only fit the hands of the first man that wears them. For it to be still functioning, it either means they’ve captured the man alive and dragged him over here, or they’ve relieved him of the arm altogether.”

He giggled in a slimy, horrendous way that made me want to punch him in the face. I was sure that a twisted blend of both cases would have fitted him better, some disturbing image with him standing in front of the thugs that captured the poor man and cutting off his hand to offer it to him.

Honestly, I couldn’t feel more relieved that I would leave all this dirt behind me after today’s plan came to an end. I couldn’t wait to return to my husband and his embracing hug. Oh, how I missed his bulging arms and that tight face with his mirthless smile. It had been six months since we last talked to each other in fear of our signal getting intercepted and giving away my position inside the Brigade’s ranks.

That would change tonight, though.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please take up your seats. Our auction will start in five minutes,” a woman’s voice informed us through the speakers, scattered around the room.

“It was nice seeing you, Electra. Let’s meet again and have a nice drink. My treat, of course,” he said and left my side with a glance full of meaning.

I felt blessed I didn’t have time for lunch today, or else I would have thrown up on his face.

A whole minute passed until most of the guests had sat down on their seats before I headed straight towards the buffet. I acted like I was picking up an appetizer to get me through the first, boring minutes of the auction, but this was just a play. My portable computer, stranded on my wrist in the form of an expensive piece of jewelry, was beeping. The network connecting everything mechanical in this room had to be running right around this place. If I was lucky, I would have access to it soon and would trigger the fire alarm.

It sounded too simple of a ploy to trick an interplanetary smuggling organization, but tricking them wasn’t the case. Being an undercover agent had its share of rules. One of them was for me to be able to cover my tracks at all times, especially after a mission was over. No matter how easy it sounded to create a fake persona and make it come to life in a realistic way, it was what made this job difficult. Thus, I had to find a way to get everyone out of the building - everyone not deserving my attention that was – in order for me have a chance at capturing Lucius without anyone knowing that it was me that did it.

And the fire alarm was the perfect solution for that. The ones attending this auction were greedy criminals that only cared about their lives and well-being. That meant that a fire alarm was a perfect excuse for all of them to get out of the hotel and provide me with a free pass to the upper floors where Lucius resided.

The operators had now lowered the lights, meaning that I was running out of time before the auction started. Fortunately, my portable computer was finally able to hack into the system and give me full control of it. It only took two seconds for the holographic display to appear and allow me to start the fire alarm.

As expected, almost immediately red emergency signs started flashing around every corner of the room and the lights turned back on, more intense than before.

All the guests looked at each other worriedly, not knowing what to do. Their bodyguards checked their earplugs for more info regarding the situation, but it only took until the first one rose up to leave the room for all of them to do the same thing.

A seriously upset announcer turned up on the stage to inform the room about the incident. “Um...due to the arising situation of the fire alarm going off, you’re strongly advised to evacuate the premises of the building until further investigation has ensued. Thank you,” she said and clumsily turned off the microphone.

Okay, that was my cue. I blended into the crowd and let myself get drawn out of the conference room. When outside and nearing the staircase leading to the upper floors, I squeezed myself out of the tight crowd and headed towards the bodyguard guarding the staircase, stopping everyone from heading upstairs.

The moment I got close to him, he raised his hand in front of my chest and stopped me. “You can’t head upstairs right now. I would strongly advise you to keep moving down to that direction,” he stopped and showed me the exit, “and we’ll make sure to inform you when the auction is back on track,” he said in a heavy, southern accent. People growing up on the south rims of the galaxy made a strong, almost sibilant sound when talking. Although many had tried to shed it off, no one was really successful, even after years of abandoning their home planets.

Still, it was time to play the lady-in-distress card. It always worked with men like him. “I...excuse me, sir, but...but my poor baby, Akky, is upstairs in the room all alone. I...oh my god, I’m so sorry...I can’t leave him up there all alone. He’ll be scared and...and...,” and I burst into a sobering frenzy.

He was now trying to calm me down, but after he asked for my room key, and making sure it was two floors below Lucius’ floor, he let me go with a five-minute warning. Five minutes was plenty of time to get to that fat bastard and capture him.

I continued sobering like an old lady watching her favorite soap opera throughout my way to the elevator. Closed-circuit cameras were monitoring the hallway, which meant I had to be careful I didn’t stop acting my role until I was in a safe area. It had to seem like I was heading straight to my room.

When the elevator’s automatic doors closed behind me, I quickly called one of my companions. My companion was a security guard that started working in this hotel two months ago; the same day I got the invitation to this auction and cross-referenced the rumors saying that Lucius would be there, I got one of my fellow spies to get a job in the security division of this hotel.

As soon as he saw my call, he input a fake feed into the camera system that showed me crying in the elevator until I arrived at my room. When I got a callback, an indication that everything was going according to my plan, I started undressing. As soon as the elevator stopped on my floor, I pushed the button to the floor Lucius had reserved just for himself; my associate hacked into the hotel’s system and made sure he deleted the recorded incident, making it seem like I got off on the right floor.

He was always going to extreme measures for his safety. Who wouldn’t after all, if he was leading the Echo Brigade?

Now, I had changed to a more casual, less revealing dress. It helped to have a change of clothes and a wig for every time I wanted to disappear, fast.

The alarm had been going on for two minutes now when the elevator finally reached Lucius’ floor. Two guards were waiting just outside the elevator’s exit with their guns raised. They figured that something was wrong.

“Who are you? What are you doing up here? This is a private floor, lady. Back off,” the first one bellowed.

“I’m sorry. I just...I was heading to my floor, but I pushed the wrong button. I’m really...,” but before I had completed my sentence, they both collapsed on the floor.

I hid the sedative I used back in my pocket and got off the elevator. Most First Kind spies had small gadgets and trinkets to help them do their job easily. I never went anywhere without a bottle of my trusty fragrance-sized sedative and my memory-wipe pin.

It would be really convenient if I could use the pin everywhere, but this thing, it was a bit misleading in its naming. It was not a memory-wipe pin per se, but rather a pin with a substance that made the last two hours of a person’s life seem hazy. So, for example, if I had attacked them and taken them out by force, the pin wouldn’t be able to make them forget the incident. Anger, stress, and pain made for strong memory synapses after all. However, a frail, slightly stupid lady, accidentally finding herself on the floor...well, it was easy to miss.

Nevertheless, I was running out of time. I couldn’t keep stalling. I had less than two minutes to get there. My new outfit was conveniently torn in the sides to allow for a wider range of movements. Running never looked so classy.

He was staying in a room on the other side of the floor; that was what last night’s scan showed. I hoped they didn’t move him to a new room already, or else I wouldn’t have enough time to track him down without compromising my identity.

A pair of grunts standing out of the designated room confirmed this as the right location. Luckily, they hadn’t seen me yet. Using sleeping darts to take them out was the best course of action. For all the years of constant evolution of the Esuh technology, darts were the only thing we still kept using in the espionage department. They were effective and difficult to counter, so there was no reason to improve them.

So, when both of the targets were off, it was finally the time for me to move.