"...Remember, keep moving. Preferably stay inside the structures," Sol said, his voice dropped to a conspiratorial hush. He leaned over the rusted public table in the small park where they had grounded the CampShip.

  Morning had broken over Leilani. The sun beat down, casting harsh, bright light across the grass—a beautiful day, completely ruined by the skin-prickling sensation of being watched.

  "If they have snipers, we can't block a shot we don't see coming." Sol shifted his blue eyes to Angelo. "We need that surveillance network active today. That includes vantage points up on the mountain. Anywhere a shooter could roost."

  Angelo exhaled a long, ragged breath, the bruises on his face pulling tight. "The mountain too? That’s a lot to cover, Sol. I can't promise no blind spots."

  "Just do your best," Neiva chimed in, offering a strained, encouraging smile.

  "Next item," Sol continued, tapping the metal table. "The motel room with the bloody carpet. Do we have a name on the booking?"

  Crimson smoke bled from Angelo's shoulder, instantly condensing into Red's jagged form. "It'll take a minute. I just got the password. You meat sacks should be grateful I even got us the password at all, because someone here refused to write it down when I was literally watching the receptionist type it."

  "I do not recall agreeing to cooperate in your blatant breach of cybersecurity," Blue’s aristocratic voice echoed from within Angelo’s mind. "Your failure to memorize a simple alphanumeric sequence is entirely your own."

  "Ah, zip it, Blueberry," Red said, waving a dismissive hand at the empty air. By now, Sol and Neiva were entirely accustomed to witnessing only half of their internal civil wars.

  "So, you're getting the info today?" Neiva asked.

  "If the lobby is empty, sure. If not, I’ll skim the files when the graveyard shift clocks out." Red shrugged.

  "Alright. Are we ready to roll? Anything else we need to cover?" Sol asked, planting his hands on his knees to stand.

  A heavy pause settled over the table.

  "What about rabbit boy?" Red asked, his chaotic grin flattening into something serious.

  "Rabbit?" Neiva blinked.

  "The creepy bellboy. Looks like a rabbit. Acts like a ghost," Red clarified, his eyes narrowing. "He’s setting off alarms in my head. The way he just snatched my surveillance marble out of the air? That ain't normal human reflexes."

  Neiva gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "Wait... what if he's with GHOST?"

  "A bellboy? Really?" Angelo deadpanned, his tone drier than a desert.

  Sol rubbed his chin, the gears visibly turning behind his silver eyes. "The possibility exists. In this line of work, coincidences usually carry a body count." He pointed a finger at Red. "Keep a close eye on him. But do not engage. Assume he can spot you before you spot him."

  "Loud and clear," Red grunted, for once offering no snarky retort.

  A heavy silence threatened to settle over the table, the paranoia of the morning dampening their spirits. Neiva looked between them, refusing to let the stagnation take hold. She pushed herself up abruptly, slapping the rusted metal surface with stinging finality.

  "Let's move out!" Neiva declared, forcing a spark of momentum into her voice. "Daylight's burning!"

  Sol cracked a tired smile, the spell of unease breaking. "She's right. Standing around won't solve anything."

  Minutes later, the CampShip lifted off with a low-frequency hum, blasting into the sky toward the ruins of SolThanor.

  Down in the manicured park, the air rippled. A figure stepped out from the shadow of a decorative palm tree, his head tilted skyward. The bellboy stood perfectly still, his eyes closed, tracking the ship's trajectory.

  "That contraption..." the bellboy whispered to the empty park. "The material seems to match the crimson substance from yesterday... but the exterior radiates silver." He turned on his heel, his posture unnaturally rigid, perfectly aligned with the ship's flight path. "And the direction they are heading..."

  His eyes cracked open, revealing a startling, absolute emptiness. "SolThanor. I will need to make... preparations."

  Hours bled away. The trio systematically combed the skeletal remains of SolThanor, leaving a trail of permanent forged-energy marbles in their wake. Blue had split off, flying high into the mountain winds to seed the cliff faces with surveillance points. Down in the ruins, Sol and Neiva cleared the rotting interiors of the abandoned houses, their Trinergy accessories humming quietly against their skin.

  While Red physically drifted alongside the group in the ruins, helping seed SolThanor with surveillance marbles, his mind was partially elsewhere. He split his focus, projecting a fragment of his consciousness back to Leilani, anchored to the crimson energy he had hidden in the motel vents, waiting for the receptionist to abandon her post.

  Suddenly, a familiar figure drifted into his field of vision.

  "Hey, check it out," Red broadcasted to his other selves. "Rabbit boy just crawled out of his hole looking for some carrots."

  "The rabbit jokes expired yesterday, Red," Angelo shot back through the link.

  "I just started using them today, stupid," Red countered.

  "Exactly."

  Red tuned out Angelo’s exasperation, focusing his crimson senses on the lobby below. The bellboy approached the reception desk, his movements eerily silent, gliding across the carpet like a skater on ice.

  "Excuse me," the bellboy said, his voice a polite, breathy whisper. "Could you inform Ms. Victoria that I require tomorrow off? A private family matter has arisen."

  "I'll have to check with her," the receptionist replied, snapping her gum. "Shouldn't be a problem, but do wait for her to confirm, okay?"

  "Of course. Thank you very much." The bellboy offered a shallow nod. He then turned and glided toward the hallway.

  Up in the ductwork, Red pulled his crimson presence back into the deepest shadows of the vent, making sure not to let a single wisp of smoke catch the light. He watched the bellboy’s retreating form through the slats, staying perfectly still until the boy had rounded the corner and vanished from the lobby's line of sight.

  "What are you doing?!" Angelo hissed in his mind. "Go after him!"

  "Fuck, right!" Red funneled the crimson cloud out of a ceiling grate, silently dropping into the hallway behind his target. He kept a wide berth, letting the smoke drift against the floral wallpaper, invisible to anything but the most specialized senses.

  Up ahead, the bellboy pulled a phone from his pocket. It slipped from his fingers, clattering onto the carpet.

  "Oops," the bellboy murmured, crouching to retrieve it.

  Red panicked. The crimson smoke instantly darted behind a gaudy landscape painting mounted on the wall. From his hiding spot, Red watched closely. For a fraction of a second, the bellboy's head tilted. A minute twitch of the neck. Then, he scooped up the phone and resumed his pacing, completely unfazed.

  Finally, the bellboy pushed open the door to a staff restroom and stepped inside.

  "What are you stopping for now?" Angelo demanded as Red's smoke hovered outside the door.

  "I don't want to watch the freak take a leak," Red admitted, genuine disgust coloring his thoughts.

  "For fuck's sake," Angelo groaned, dragging a hand down his bruised face miles away. "Since when do you care about privacy—"

  A sudden pressure rattled the restroom door, shaking the wood for a split second as if a heavy wind had blown from inside.

  "GET IN THERE! NOW!" Angelo roared.

  Red didn't hesitate. He squeezed the crimson smoke through the cracks in the doorframe, flooding the tiled room. The smoke rapidly coalesced into a miniature crimson puppet, its hollow eyes darting frantically.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Angelo’s breath hitched. In the mountain skies, Blue nearly dropped a surveillance marble.

  The restroom was entirely empty.

  "Where the fuck did he go?!" Red shouted, the crimson puppet ripping open bathroom stalls and tearing at the ceiling tiles. "He couldn't have just—"

  "It's as if..." Angelo began, a cold dread pooling in his stomach. "As if he turned into smoke. Just like you two."

  A profound, terrified silence fell over their shared mental link.

  "To hypothesize such a phenomenon..." Blue started, his usually flawless composure violently shaken. "Our condition was supposed to be a unique anomaly. One of a kind. Statistically, another entity possessing this trait is—"

  "Then how do you explain this, genius?" Red snapped, his puppet gesturing wildly at the empty linoleum. His voice carried zero humor.

  "It doesn't matter," Angelo said. His posture straightened, the pain in his ribs forgotten beneath a surge of cold, lethal focus. "His threat level just spiked. Red, pull the name from the bloody room, then we press the bellboy. Do not let him out of your sight the next time he surfaces."

  The rest of the daylight hours passed without further incident. The surveillance net was cast, but Red’s stakeout yielded no further sightings of the unnatural bellboy. Eventually, the motel receptionist stepped out for a smoke break. Red struck, slipping into the computer and pulling the file.

  Back at the CampShip, as the sun began to set, the gang sat around the central table tearing into chalky protein bars.

  "Diana Smith!" Red suddenly shouted, jumping from his spot and throwing his arms in the air.

  Sol and Neiva froze, chewing slowly as they stared at him.

  "What?" Sol finally asked.

  "The smoking chick! The one who booked the bloody room!" Red practically vibrated. "Her name is Diana Smith!"

  Neiva waved a dismissive hand, swallowing her bite. "That is the fakest name in the history of fake names. I would know, I used it myself, remember?"

  Sol sighed, dropping his protein bar wrapper onto the table in annoyance. "Of course she used a fake name. It's a sketchy motel; they don't exactly run background checks. Another dead end."

  "Don't cry about it, pretty detective," Red said, entirely unfazed by the disappointment. "At least we're making headway with rabbit boy."

  "Yeah?" Sol asked, leaning back with mild disinterest. "How so?"

  "So, I tailed him to this staff restroom," Red began, leaning over the table.

  Sol and Neiva instantly recoiled, their faces contorting with disgust.

  "Dude," Sol groaned.

  "Gross, Red," Neiva added, wrinkling her nose.

  "No, no, shut up, listen! He wasn't there!" Red aggressively waved away their disgust. "Even I have limits. He walked into an enclosed room, a shockwave hit the door, and when I went inside... poof. Gone."

  Angelo's eyes locked onto Sol's. "The bellboy vanished from a sealed room. With zero logical explanation."

  Sol’s casual demeanor evaporated. He sat up straight, his silver eyes flashing. "What? Why the hell am I just hearing about this now?!"

  Angelo and Red exchanged a sideways glance.

  "Guess we kinda forgot about it," Red shrugged unapologetically.

  Sol stared at them in utter disbelief, rubbing his temples.

  Neiva wrapped her arms around herself, shivering despite the residual heat of the day. "This place keeps getting creepier. First ghosts, now teleporting rabbit men. I kind of want to go home."

  "I don't blame you," Sol muttered, his gaze drifting toward the shadowed ruins. "I'm getting massive red flags from that bellboy. And whoever this 'Diana Smith' is..."

  - Location Unknown -

  "This way."

  The heavily armed escort led Milo, Ivan, and the two battered biodroids—Clay 2.0 and Ritto—through a subterranean concrete maze. The air tasted of stale ozone and machine grease. Ivan practically vibrated with anxiety, his eyes darting wildly at every reinforced door and shadow they passed.

  The escort stopped abruptly before a set of heavy blast doors. "He's in there." The guard stepped aside, making it abundantly clear he had no intention of crossing the threshold.

  "Gee, thanks for the hospitality," Milo deadpanned. She pushed the double doors open, her expression flat and unimpressed. Ivan cowered closely behind her shoulder, terrified of what lay beyond.

  The laboratory was a chaotic catastrophe of tangled wires, sparking motherboards, and bubbling vats. At the center of the room hovered a massive, high-definition hologram of a man with long, wild ginger hair and piercing blue eyes. His arms ended in heavy metallic claws, but his face was a flawless, identical match to Clay 2.0.

  Hunched over a cluttered workbench stood a slender man in a white lab coat. His ginger hair hung to his neck, but the crown of his head was shaved bald to make room for a bizarre metallic headpiece. A silver articulated arm extended from the device, suspending a spherical pendulum that swayed rhythmically in front of his forehead.

  He was aggressively examining a microchip, pausing only to snap a yellowish-tan latex glove onto his hand.

  "Hey, Clay," Milo whispered, squinting through the harsh, fluorescent lights. "Is that..."

  The slender man whipped around at the sound of her voice. "Who's there?!" His head tilted, locking onto the towering figures of the biodroids. "Ah! My beautiful creations! You've returned!"

  The metallic pendulum in front of his forehead swung wildly as his face broke into a confident, slightly mischievous wide grin that revealed a row of perfectly neat teeth. "Hold on..."

  He sprinted toward them, his shoes slipping on the tile as he tripped over a discarded exhaust manifold and violently stumbled before catching himself. Milo and Ivan exchanged a look of profound concern as the doctor finally reached them.

  "Point Zero! Ritto! My children!" Dr. T squealed, grabbing Ritto's massive metal arm. "Who did this to you?!"

  "Our deepest apologies, Doctor," Clay said, his voice quiet and coated in melancholic shame. "The target’s output exceeded initial projections…"

  "Mm," Ritto grunted, his solitary human eye staring at the floor.

  Dr. T inspected Ritto's joint, his wide grin twitching. "Rats! Sand?! Do you have any earthly idea what a nightmare it is to clean fused silica out of microscopic servos?"

  "Can't you just, I don't know, swap the arms out?" Milo asked, blowing out a long, exasperated breath.

  Dr. T dropped Ritto's arm. He spun on his heel, marching straight into Milo's personal space. Ivan squeaked and hid entirely behind the investigator's leather jacket.

  "And who might you be?" Dr. T asked, staring through thick, circular green-tinted goggles. The black spiral patterns painted on the lenses seemed to twist and spin, giving him a deeply hypnotic, manic appearance.

  Milo crossed her arms, entirely unimpressed. "What am I supposed to say here? My stupid AES codename? Owl."

  Dr. T's grin remained frozen. He offered absolutely zero reaction.

  Milo sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Milo. Milo Marinez. Private investigator."

  "Never heard of you," he chirped happily.

  "Don't they brief you on anything around here?" Milo asked, her exasperation peaking.

  Dr. T cackled, a sharp, grating sound. "I never ask! And when they do tell me, I barely listen!"

  "One-track mind. Got it," Milo deadpanned.

  "E-excuse me," Ivan stammered, raising a trembling finger from behind Milo's shoulder.

  Dr. T leaned so far to the side his spine formed a C-shape to look at Ivan. "Oh? What's this? A stowaway! And you are?"

  "I-Ivan Krokovitch, sir!" Ivan blurted out, sweat beading on his forehead. "We were brought here to make a request!"

  "Well, out with it!" Dr. T waved his latex-gloved hands frantically. "Speak quickly! My attention span is practically microscopic."

  "Allow me to clarify the situation, Doctor," Clay intervened smoothly. "Lady Vienna assigned us to escort Miss Marinez in her mission to observe and analyze the target known as Angelo Ashworth."

  "Oh, right, right," Dr. T said, scratching his thin, neatly groomed goatee. "How is the little Angelo project going?"

  "He's the one who ripped your precious robots apart," Milo stated, shifting her weight tiredly.

  "It is true," Clay admitted, his mismatched eyes burning with quiet resolve. "We… I underestimated what they were truly capable of."

  "Two..." Ritto murmured protectively.

  "That is exactly why we need you!" Ivan stepped out from behind Milo, his scientific desperation overriding his cowardice. "Ritto recorded the entire skirmish! We could extract monumental data from the combat footage if you assist us in retrieving it!"

  Dr. T stood perfectly still. For a moment, it felt as though he had stopped breathing. His spiraling green goggles completely obscured his eyes. Slowly, he raised a hand and curled his fingers, beckoning the massive brute forward. "Come here, Ritto."

  Ritto didn't hesitate. He stepped forward and lowered his head.

  Dr. T reached up and dug his fingers into Ritto’s mechanical eye socket.

  Click.

  With a sickening, metallic pop, Dr. T yanked the mechanical eyeball completely out of the socket. He held the optical unit up to the light, sighing dramatically. "Why did I even bother installing a standard USB port if nobody uses it?"

  Milo's eye twitched violently. "A USB port?" Her voice dropped to a murderous register. "You're telling me we could have just plugged his eyeball into a fucking laptop?"

  Dr. T ignored her completely, tapping the side of his workbench. "That's what I call peak efficiency. Heh, ha!"

  Ivan practically lunged forward, snatching the eyeball from Dr. T’s hand. "Thank you! This is invaluable!"

  "Yeah, yeah, go watch your little home movie while I fix the catastrophic mess you allowed my children to walk into," Dr. T muttered, already turning his back to examine the cracked Void Metal on Clay's forearms.

  Ivan stared at the doctor's back, deeply offended. "Are you not interested in the combat findings?!"

  "Look, kid—"

  "I am thirty-seven years old," Ivan interjected.

  "And I am over sixty, which makes you a toddler in my laboratory!" Dr. T snapped back, his voice pitching higher. "Why should I care about some random street-level Auron when my perfect creation is still wandering around out there in the cold, cruel world!" His voice shook with a bizarre, mocking sorrow.

  Clay, Ritto, and Ivan exchanged uncertain glances. Milo simply dropped into a nearby rolling chair, crossing her legs and waiting for the insanity to end.

  "Excuse me, Doctor," Clay said softly. "Has Lady Vienna truly not briefed you on the specific details regarding the Ashworth anomaly?"

  Dr. T glanced over his shoulder. "Anomaly? She told me she needed extra muscle for an information-gathering run."

  "You have to be joking!" Ivan yelled, his scientific outrage finally boiling over. "You have no idea what you are ignoring!"

  Dr. T turned fully, a look of mild, patronizing amusement on his face. "Alright, toddler. I'll humor you. What, exactly, am I missing out on?"

  Ivan squared his shoulders. He found his spine, his lips curling into a triumphant, slightly manic smile. "It starts and ends with Albert Goldstein. Specifically, his theory regarding the Components of Pure Energy."

  The laboratory went dead silent.

  Dr. T’s permanent, grinning smile shattered. The muscles in his face pulled downward, twisting into an expression of absolute, venomous disgust.

  "Goldstein..." Dr. T spat the name, the word sounding like poison on his tongue.