Chapter 217 B4. 14.1 – Solo Infiltration

As soon as we were back in the car and the doors clicked closed, Deen dryly muttered, “It’s still not too late to kill Cecilia. We can dump her somewhere in the desert, and no one will care. We can even offer her to Euphonia.”

“That’ll get Euphonia off our backs,” I said, smiling snidely at Deen, “and get the bounty, too. Can buy a lot of croissants with it.” I was just messing with Cecilia. Deen probably meant everything she said.

“After all we’ve been through, you’re throwing me away?” Cecilia obviously faked the hurt in her voice. She might even be enjoying our banter. “Don’t forget that I’m your best shot at finding the cure… for your Adumbrae friend.” Her pause sounded intentional, or I was reading too much into this.

“An imaginary cure,” Deen said.

“Who else can help you?” Cecilia countered. “Not Red Hood. Not Euphonia. Most definitely not the organization that made your artificial Cores. And I have this hunch you can’t simply approach the police or BID with your problem. I’m your only hope.”

“Way to put yourself on a pedestal,” I said. “Speaking of Red Hood, why don’t we ask her for protection against Euphonia?”

Deen should know I was baiting her, but she still shot me a fiery glare. “Red Hood will be furious we got her entangled in this conflict. She’s probably wondering why Euphonia targeted her.”

“I can try offering my services to—” Cecilia began to say.

“Oh, enough of that,” Deen said, starting the engine. “We’d be lucky if Red Hood—” she glanced at me before reversing the car out of the parking slot “—doesn’t eat us.”

We were silent as Deen drove to the car elevator, our exit out of the Understrip. Cecilia knew better than to draw attention to herself while Deen’s pissed-off meter was maxed. On the other hand, I was organizing my thoughts. Something odd about this development.

“Why didn’t Euphonia put a bounty on us, too?” I pointed at Deen as the car elevator rattled upward. “Like, Cecilia’s new body will be super difficult to find. Euphonia knows about us—find us to find Cecilia.”

“What if she doesn’t know about you, my lovely assistants?” Cecilia piped from the back.

I groaned. “Enough with that—”

Cecilia pressed on with her theory. “Euphonia’s bounty makes sense only if Auron lied to Euphonia. At the least, he didn’t tell the full truth.”

I snapped my fingers. “You’re onto something. Auron must’ve blamed Red Hood for the USB’s loss. To be accurate, your escape from the USB drive. Like, he must’ve said that Red Hood stole it or something, and when he recovered it, all the data was gone. No way he’d admit that he outsourced the job to us and messed up.”

“Why would Auron lie to Euphonia?” Deen wondered. “Euphonia can obtain the information she wanted—that’s the information I got from Marlon.”

“This is an exercise in futility.” Cecilia leaned forward, between the driver’s and passenger’s seat. “We’ll never arrive at the truth by guessing. However, since you’ve started it, I’ll revise my guess—Auron checked the stinky flash drive, realized he’d been had, and went into hiding. Euphonia gleaned this Red Hood connection from the unfortunate PCM members she caught.”

“You’re quick to shed your PCM membership,” I pointed out. “But I think your guess is close. Euphonia wrongly assumed things from incomplete info.”

I pretended to wipe my nose to cover my smile. Hilarious that Euphonia still turned out to be right. I, Red Hood, was in the same car as Cecilia. But Euphonia was also very, very wrong. How would she find an Adumbrae that didn’t exist unless I transformed?

“I don’t understand why Auron would hide.” Deen carefully merged into the ass of a traffic on the Strip. “Tell Euphonia the truth and point at us.”

Cecilia chuckled. “I thought you had grasped Euphonia’s personality? Auron failed her. It doesn’t matter whether he would’ve told the truth or not. Excuses can’t save his life. Let’s cheer on his hiding spot. If Euphonia finds him, then it’ll be worrisome for us. Until then, it’s no concern.”

“We shouldn’t be complacent,” Deen said, her voice tense. “Auron will hold a grudge against Erind and me.”

“True,” said Cecilia. “He might plot his revenge. Or he might not. I don’t engage in flip coin debates.”

“There are PCM members who knew we’ve talked to Auron,” said Deen. “If Euphonia finds them…”

“Are you suggesting we find them first?” Cecilia asked. “Grant them the same fate as the rowdy monkeys who’ve turned into barbecued corpses in the desert?”

“I’m not saying we kill people,” Deen said.

“Why stop with PCM members?” Cecilia patted the headrest of Deen’s seat. “Hunt down Auron! Bring about the end of the PCM yourself. Wipe out all potential witnesses.”

“No! We’re not doing that.”

“I’m also not in favor of killing,” I chimed in. Hypocritical coming from me, I know. “But I think, and I’m just throwing this out there, we should look for that PCM cop. He’s seen you, Cecilia. He doesn’t know that was you, but—”

“But Euphonia will, if she finds him,” Cecilia finished. “Which will put both of you in danger as well. Euphonia might even find my Barstow lab.”

“Fine,” Deen said, as if she was peer pressured to attend a party. How easy it was to sign the death warrant of a guy. “Only this man. No more. How do we find him? Comb through the registry of the California Highway Patrol?”

“Requires some hacking,” I said, excited for a hacking montage. I was supposed to be the hacker girl of the 4Bs. Cecilia’s going to do all the techie stuff.

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Cecilia said. “I remember the plate number of his patrol car, and I can start from there. But I do need a suitable computer. I know the store where to buy one. With your money, of course.”

“Can you also check the bounties Euphonia posted?” I asked.

A couple of hours later, we were back at my condo. The television played in the living room—still nothing notable on the news. The three of us huddled by the kitchen counter.

Cecilia was typing away at a laptop connected to another boxy device. Deen and I were behind her, observing her dive into the deep web, and deeper, to the criminal nooks of the internet. It turned out that there was a site for bounties.

“Here it is,” Cecilia said, pointing at a line on the screen. “A hundred thousand dollars to kill me. Ten thousand for info.”

I squinted my eyes at the numbers. “Doesn’t that seem low?”

“It is. Euphonia doesn’t necessarily believe someone can complete this bounty. This is a warning to anyone who’d try to help me. And, perhaps, someone will betray me.”

“What about Red Hood?” I didn’t sound too eager to ask, did I? My heart pounded in anticipation. I couldn’t recall feeling this way before.

“Let’s see… Four million dollars to kill Red Hood.”

My shoulders slumped a bit. That amount couldn’t even buy a decent-sized mansion in Beverly Hills. The reward for taking out the final boss should be enough to buy an island to retire on.  

“Four million dollars,” I repeated, keeping the disappointment out of my voice. “Also, too low for the difficulty of the task. Like, Red turned into a giant werewolf and wrecked Big Marcy’s base. A ComExo is worth way more than four million dollars, and I saw in a video that it was completely useless against her.”

“You misunderstand, dear,” said Cecilia. “Euphonia doesn’t expect people to fight Red Hood themselves. If that were so, the handful who can complete the bounty, Corebrings and other Adumbrae, mostly won’t care about the money, no matter how large the amount. The way to go about this is to find information on Red Hood’s whereabouts and give it to the Corebrings or BID for them to kill her. You’ll then have to prove that the kill was because of your information, and you can claim the bounty.”

“Clever,” Deen said. “Even a normal human can participate. Dozens of people will investigate Red Hood.” Another look from Deen. Thank goodness that Cecilia was here or I’d have to suffer Deen’s lecture.  

“Will also incentivize some betrayal among Red Hood’s subordinates,” I muttered, reminding myself that I did have minions. Did the gangsters have any meaningful info about me? Were they pissed that I hadn’t rescued them from jail?

“We can take a page out of Euphonia’s book,” Deen said. “Find her and point the BID and Corebrings her way.”

“Impossible,” said Cecilia. “She uses body doubles and—”

“Body triples and quadruples,” I interjected. “Quintuples and so on. Because, like, a third body double isn’t a double anymore. You know what I mean.” I sheepishly grinned, proud of my joke.

I thought Deen would snap at me, but she actually giggled. “Be serious here, Erind,” she said with a smile. “Anyway, point taken; we won’t look for Euphonia. But we’ll have to, in the future. She’ll eventually learn that we have you, Cecilia.”

“What if you made us stronger, Cecilia?” I asked, leaning left in case Deen exploded. “Euphonia’s not our only problem. The people who made our artificial Cores will come knocking very soon. I mean, we can’t help Kelsey and other seeded people if we’re dead.”

“My pleasure,” Cecilia said, looking over her shoulder at us. Her deranged smile stretched as far as a mouth possibly could. “I used to work on human bodies, making them superhuman. It was my specialization before the PCM tapped me. Imagine the possibilities, starting on a superior canvas.”

“I won’t allow that!” Deen stood her full height, glowering at Cecilia and me.

“Just a suggestion,” I said. “Anyway, Cecilia, search for the bar that Marlon told us about. We’ll plan how to get an Adumbrae.”

“You’ve mentioned this Kelsey—she’s the Adumbrae sister of Myra Fletcher, isn’t she?” Cecilia asked. “Previously a test subject of mine?”

“You didn’t need to say that last sentence,” I said. “But, yeah. Don’t think of getting Kelsey’s body parts.”

“I’m merely considering more convenient options,” said Cecilia. “I suppose that your friend wouldn’t appreciate working with me again. We’ll capture a different Adumbrae. Preferably, someone with an unsavory character like those monkeys who’ve ruined our peaceful road trip across the desert. Isn’t it amusing that your moral judgment shifts depending on—”

“We don’t need to capture an Adumbrae,” Deen said. “This isn’t about morality. We don’t want you obtaining everything you need.”

“I’ll have to continually rely on you?” Cecilia shrugged. “I have no objections. It’ll be more work on your part finding another Adumbrae the next time I’ll need it. If we have a captured Adumbrae, we can continually harvest—”

“It’s decided,” Deen barked.

“Like, we’ll just get an Adumbrae arm or something?” I asked. “Here’s the plan: I’ll infiltrate the bar with my Core ability.”

“What ability?” Deen frowned, ready to object to my plan. Obviously, I couldn’t swagger into the bar as Blanchette. Pino also didn’t seem a likely candidate for a stealth mission. Not that the end of the mission would remain stealthy, especially with the mutilation stuff.

“I haven’t told you about this, Deen, but my ability has continued to strengthen. I think… I can fool bio-scanners now.” I’d let Cecilia think that stealth was my power; that was far from being Red Hood. I’d also prepare myself for Deen’s lecture later. Or she might pull the guilt card, that I didn’t trust her enough. “I’ll explain when we have some… uh, privacy.”

“A very useful ability,” said Cecilia, scratching her chin.

“Wait, why didn’t you—?” Deen shook her head, realizing she shouldn’t reveal more. “No, I’m not letting you enter the bar on your own.”  

“Who’s going to babysit Cecilia?” I placed my hands on my hips. “We can’t bring her along because she’ll find out about my powers.”

“Leave me food and water,” Cecilia said in a deadpan voice. “I’ll survive on my own.”

“Oh, shut it,” Deen snapped.

Time to pull out my big gun. “Deen, don’t you trust me?”

Deen jolted. “Of course, I do.” What else was she going to say?

“You should,” I shortly replied. “Cecilia, find everything you can about this bar called ‘LATCH’ and its customers. The more expensive the bar, the weirder the name. After that, you can research the PCM cop or something. I’ll be back with an arm before you know it.”

“Erind, I…”

I puffed myself up, the strategy of many animals to intimidate others with size. Not that I grew any bigger. But Deen didn’t continue her sentence. She looked at the TV. I read the caption, “Another Adumbrae attack at La Esperanza?”

Deen reached for the remote and turned the volume up.

“… has been eliminated by the BID,” said the reporter outside of a burning building. “However, twelve casualties…”

“How many Adumbrae did the PCM capture?” I asked Cecilia. “Why are the Adumbrae attacks continuing? The BID and Corebrings should’ve wiped out all the Adumbrae in the tunnels by now.”

“They should,” Cecilia said, slowly nodding.

I couldn’t read anything from her blank expression. “Can this be Big Marcy again? We know he was responsible for the Adumbrae attacks at the train station.”

“Big Marcy wouldn’t give the authorities more evidence leading to him,” said Deen. “If he wants to test making Adumbrae, he’d do it in other places.” She knew what I was getting at; we’ve talked about this.

“Cecilia, do you have anything to do with this?” I asked.

Cecilia raised a brow. “Are you suggesting that I can create Adumbrae in La Esperanza while I’m here in Las Vegas?”

“Maybe? I’ll get to my point,” I said. “Those colorful pills the PCM distributes—can they turn people into Adumbrae? I say this because the PCM distributed those pills in places where there have been recent Adumbrae attacks.”

“The organization that made artificial Cores also kept tabs on PCM activity,” Deen added to make my story whole. The truth was that I knew of the turf war between the drug-dealing gangsters and the PCM members spreading their weird pills.

“Unlikely,” Cecilia said, looking at the TV with unblinking eyes.

“Or can withdrawal symptoms from the pills cause seeding?” I asked. “The people who took your pills no longer have any supplies.”

“Unlikely,” Cecilia repeated. “But not impossible. For the record, I’m not saying that I intentionally made pills that worked the complete opposite of what they were supposed to do. We’ll have to test—”

“No human experiments,” said Deen. “Focus on researching about the LATCH bar. We’ll give Erind every help we can.”

“What’s this I hear?” I grinned at Deen. “Support from my best friend?”

Deen nodded. “Good luck with your mission later.”