–+–
“Don’t let their age fool you. These two are the real deal. Yesterday, in the Hollow, they were the ones guiding the Bangboo from a distance.”
Belle got pushed to the front and looked a bit lost for a moment.
Nicole’s eager stare landed right on her back, sharp enough to make her skin crawl.
“Hello, you two!” Belle raised a hand and gave a small wave.
“We met yesterday.”
Sandrone’s gaze slid past Nicole, who was still trying her best to set the mood, and finally settled on Belle.
She gave a light nod.
“Hello. Let me introduce us again. I’m Sandrone, and this is Columbina. Thank you for guiding us yesterday.”
“No problem, no problem.” Belle waved it off.
“Just call me Belle.”
“Wise.” Wise kept a warm, polite smile and dipped his head.
“Pleasure to meet you.”
Sandrone paused for a brief moment, her eyes fixed on Belle and Wise.
“We’d like to commission the two of you to take us back into yesterday’s Hollow and retrieve a few things.”
Belle lightly slapped away Nicole’s hand, which had been resting on her shoulder the whole time, then pointed toward the inner room.
“This isn’t the best place to talk. Let’s go inside and discuss the details. We can add each other on Knock Knock while we’re at it.”
Everyone moved into the back-room studio.
The door cut off the old, quiet stillness of the video store outside.
Inside, the hum of computer fans filled the room without pause.
Was that… a wall of TVs?
A whole wall of old CRT televisions had been stacked together, their bulky casings pressed close, their screens glowing with a soft light.
It had a strange kind of beauty.
In front of the TV wall sat a modern computer that looked completely out of place beside it.
Its indicator lights blinked in a slow, steady rhythm.
Sandrone put away her phone, folded her arms, and studied the room in silence.
Columbina, however, had no such restraint.
The girl’s attention had been fully caught by the TV wall.
She tilted her head, her pink eyes reflecting the neat rows of screens as if she had found some curious new toy.
She reached out, her long, fine fingers moving toward one of the screens—
Before her fingertip could touch it—
“Don’t touch things.”
Sandrone moved fast and caught that restless hand in her palm with practiced ease.
Then she pulled Columbina back to her side in the same motion.
Columbina lowered her head and looked at the hand holding hers.
She didn’t resist.
Instead, she leaned against Sandrone’s arm and lightly traced a finger across Sandrone’s palm, as if in reply.
Sandrone ignored that small movement in her hand without so much as a change in expression. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
She looked up at the siblings, who had already taken their seats at the control console, and got straight to the point.
“One of my… some important pieces of equipment had a logistics accident in the Hollow yesterday. It was split into five parts and scattered across different areas of the Cretan Hollow.”
She paused, her gaze passing over Belle and Wise.
“And because of a certain ‘encryption method,’ ordinary people can’t recover these components. Only we can.”
Wise frowned a little.
His fingers tapped the table without him noticing.
“Do you have anything more exact? This Hollow isn’t large, but it’s newly formed. The terrain inside is complex, Ether concentration shifts often, and the spatial structure changes in local areas every few hours. Five scattered points, but no exact coordinates…”
He shook his head.
“That’s not retrieval. That’s looking for a needle in the ocean. Tasks like this take a long time. A week at the shortest. At the longest—”
“No.”
Columbina, who had been leaning quietly beside Sandrone, spoke up all of a sudden.
“I can sense their direction.”
Sandrone picked up from there and added at the right time:
“But only the direction. She can’t confirm the exact distance. And with the Hollow’s distorted space, we’ll need to keep testing routes and checking the direction as we go. More importantly, this sense of hers… has a time limit.”
She paused.
“Less than three days. So we need a Proxy with enough skill to use your Hollow data analysis, combine it with her senses, and help us plan the most efficient route.”
Belle propped up her chin and gave a soft hiss through her teeth.
The other conditions weren’t much of a problem.
The issue was that they had less than three days.
Belle didn’t answer right away.
Her gaze moved back and forth between Sandrone and Columbina, then finally landed on their still-joined hands.
“With directional guidance…” she said slowly, “then it’s not a pure needle-in-the-ocean search. Three days is tight, though. How’s your Ether aptitude?”
“Very high. You don’t need to worry about that.” Sandrone nodded.
“Each trip can last through three to four rounds of the recommended safe activity time inside the Hollow.”
Belle’s eyes lit up when she heard that, and she looked at Wise.
“Wise, I think we can take it.”
Wise stayed silent for a few seconds, then nodded in the end.
Sandrone’s calm gaze passed over the brother and sister.
She thought back to the bits and pieces she had browsed on the Inter-Knot last night.
“Phaethon.” A legendary Proxy.
An urban legend on the Inter-Knot.
Since their debut, they had never failed a job.
She had thought that someone standing at the top of a gray-market chain like this would be more… hidden.
There would be code words.
Layers of introductions.
Maybe an exchange of encrypted keys on some plain street corner, followed by a trip to a basement or some place like that.
And the result?
They ran a video store with barely any customers, worked with an agent like Nicole who talked big every other sentence, and their studio wasn’t even fully cleaned up.
Sandrone could see a jacket tossed over the corner of the sofa, still waiting to be folded. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Was this what people meant by hiding in plain sight?
Or was the underground scene in this world more… casual than she had thought?
She pulled her thoughts back.
Since they had agreed to take the job, it was time to discuss the fee.
Sandrone was just about to speak when she caught movement from the corner of her eye.
Nicole was standing behind Wise and Belle, her face full of wild signals.
She kept sending them urgent looks while hiding one hand at her side, rubbing her thumb and index finger together fast.
The gesture was universal, and its meaning couldn’t be clearer.
“Raise the price! Raise the price!” she mouthed without making a sound.
“Quote high!”
Belle caught Nicole’s look from the corner of her eye and saw that she looked ready to name the price herself.
A faint, complicated hesitation crossed Belle’s face.
She opened her mouth, as if weighing how to state the price and what number to give.
Sandrone didn’t want to waste time.
She lightly squeezed Columbina’s fingers.
Columbina understood at once.
With her other hand, she reached into her pocket and took out a gem that gave off a faint silver glow, like moonlight frozen into stone.
Moonfall Silver.
She placed the gem on the table.
It made a tiny, clear clink.
“We don’t have much cash on hand.”
Sandrone’s voice stayed even.
“One piece of Moonfall Silver as the advance payment for this commission. After the job is complete, two more as the final payment.”
She looked over Belle and Wise’s faces.
“How does that sound?”
The air froze.
Wise’s brow gave the smallest twitch.
He and Belle looked at each other.
How much had Nicole sold one for last night again?
Seven hundred fifty thousand Dennies?
Then three would be—
More than two million?
Belle glanced at Nicole and saw the Cunning Hares’ boss, who always had “make money” on the tip of her tongue, clutching her chest as if she were about to stop breathing.
The look on her face was too complex to describe.
It was as if she were being crushed all at once by the envy of “why wasn’t it me,” the shock of “three rocks are worth more than everything I own,” and the deep, stabbing pain of “I only charged them for the ride.”
Belle moved fast.
She grabbed Nicole, who looked seconds away from a heart attack, and pulled her behind her.
At the same time, she clamped a hand over Nicole’s mouth before she could scream.
Then Belle put on a proper, professional smile and nodded to Sandrone.
“Deal.”