Chapter 326 Specific.

Chapter 326: 326 Specific.

I took the elevator down into the chalet’s sub-basement.

Tomorrow morning, we were making our break into Jester’s flying funhouse, and I was going to be relying heavily on my lead engineer to make sure it actually ran smoothly.

The capsule-like doors hissed open, admitting me into Rhea’s dedicated R&D lab.

Walking into the basement was always a jarring sensory shift. The entire floor resembled the set of a high-budget tech commercial where everything was bathed in neon and looked aggressively sci-fi.

"Rhea?" I called out, my voice echoing weirdly against the concrete and glass.

"Over here, Miles!"

I followed her voice deeper into the sprawling maze of mechanical wizardry, finally reaching her primary workstation.

Dozens of high-resolution monitors hung off a custom metal rig, surrounding her desk like a giant, glowing hand ready to grab her.

Rhea herself was hunched intensely over a mechanical keyboard. Her desk was an absolute disaster zone, loaded with empty cans of energy drinks, tangled spools of copper wire, and a small mountain of stacked takeout containers.

She looked exhausted. Her fuzzy dog-ears were pinned back, and her eyes were heavily squinted against the harsh glare of the monitors.

Over in the corner of the lab, one of the chrome Rhe-Search androids was completely deactivated.

It hung suspended in the air, heavy data cables threading directly from its exposed spine up into the ceiling grid, looking exactly like a mechanical puppet waiting for the next act.

Sitting on a small, illuminated scanning podium nearby was the glowing green crystal Bradburn had given me at the gala.

I didn’t have much realistic hope of actually replicating a primordial space rock on such short notice, but I figured Rhea could run some diagnostics on it anyway. Just in case.

"How’s the prep going?" I asked, moving in beside her chair and peering at the cascading screens.

Rhea frowned, her fingers flying across the illuminated keys in a furious blur.

"Mmm. That rock isn’t exactly giving me much to work with," she said, nodding toward the podium. "It’s actively emitting some kind of continuous radiation. It’s not inherently harmful to biological tissue, but it’s operating on a wavelength spectrum our sensors physically can’t read. That’s about the absolute most I can get out of it without putting it in a particle accelerator."

"It was worth a shot," I said. "And what about the rest of the layout?"

She scoffed, leaning back in her chair. "Honestly? About as good as it’s going to get without a direct hardline connection.

"I’ve been trying to dig up anything I can about the internal architecture of Jester’s castle, but it’s not exactly like he’s ever hosted an episode of Check My Crib on the Villain’s Network.

"I’ve been heavily compiling all the hand-drawn blueprints and security intel Vanessa sent us, but even that is only doing so much good. A lot of her data is years out of date."

She cracked her knuckles, the sharp popping sound echoing in the lab.

"Still," she continued, "I think between her old floor plans and the thermal data I managed to quietly scan when his castle parked itself in the sky over our chalet last week, I might actually have something we can use."

"You do?" I asked, genuinely impressed.

She nodded. With a few rapid clicks of her mouse, several of the center screens lit up with photos taken of Jester’s floating funhouse.

"Yeah. I’m pretty sure I’ve successfully mapped out exactly where his main power generator is, as well as his central shield control room.

"That kind of heavy industrial equipment wouldn’t be easy to randomly move around the fortress, and the massive thermal heat sinks give the location away completely. I’ll be able to get a much better read on it when we’re actually standing in front of it, but getting inside his digital firewall is going to be the real problem."

"Wireless communication is going to be a nightmare through his magical wards, so I’m currently augmenting a Rhe-Search unit’s stealth capabilities and relay software.

"I’ll theoretically be able to connect with it remotely through almost any severe weather interference, assuming it successfully physically hijacks Jester’s network. And once I’m tapped into his mainframe, I can do some real, permanent damage to his security grid.

"I’ve also been plugging the android’s chassis with more stealth-based tech to hide it from his sensors. Of course," she added with a deep, frustrated scowl, "if I’d had more than a few days of prep time, I could have done more."

"It is a real shame Jester didn’t take our corporate R&D needs into consideration when he handed us this deadline," I told her dryly.

"I know! Some people have absolutely no appreciation for true genius," she sniffed, her tail giving a small, indignant thump against the back of her chair.

"Glad some of us do," I told her warmly. I reached out and gently mussed her hair right between her ears, exactly the way I knew she loved.

Rhea shivered, a soft, involuntary moan escaping her throat, but she quickly bit it back. She pulled away slightly and glanced up at me.

Her expression was distinctly uneasy. It was an odd look. I didn’t think I had seen her look quite that genuinely rattled since the day we barely survived taking down Delirium.

"But... Miles?"

"Yeah?" I said, dropping my hand.

"You’re going to be okay, right?" she asked quietly.

Well, that was a bit of a surprise. "What exactly brought this on?"

Rhea nibbled nervously on her lower lip, shifting her weight in the ergonomic chair. "It’s just that... I mean, this entire contract is fundamentally different from the others, isn’t it? This isn’t just another turf war. It’s not like Delirium. Or Legion. Or even that asshole Michael. This is... this is pretty heavy, huh?"

"Is everyone upstairs feeling like this?" I asked.

Rhea wriggled in her chair, her ears dropping flat against her head as she looked up at me with wide, nervous eyes. "Well... yeah. I mean, everyone in the league knows you’re kind of... super dedicating yourself to fixing this frame-job.

"And we’re all completely behind you, a hundred percent. But, yeah. We’re all really nervous for you. You’re... you’re actually going to be okay. Right?"

Wow.

I was actually deeply touched.

I mean, yes, I knew the girls cared about me, and I cared about all of them right back, but I guess I hadn’t really stopped to consider that they’d be genuinely terrified for my life.

But Rhea was entirely right. This was fundamentally different. Unbelievably so.

This was Jester.

The oldest seated member of the Council of Nine.

The undisputed master of The New Order.

A man who was literally wearing a dormant, reality-warping alien god like a cheap winter coat for untold centuries.

And I was going to try and murder him with a small team of women, some magnetism, and a glowing chunk of green space rock.

Looking down into Rhea’s worried eyes, I knew another courageous, PR-approved platitude wasn’t going to cut it. I wasn’t some flawless, sponsored hero who always projected the absolute certainty that justice would prevail.

I wasn’t going to lead from the front and inspire a generation of sidekicks.

I wasn’t Captain Spysmasher taking on the Yamamoto Mecha to save the Pacific fleet.

"It’s different," I admitted, my voice dropping as I gently stroked her hair again. "It’s very different. It’s going to be an incredibly tough job this time, Rhea. I’m not going to lie to you. But we can win.

"And I’m explicitly betting the entire league on it. Because I have to. Not just to clear Glacia’s name, but for all of you. I need you all to know that I absolutely will not let anyone try and hurt this league like this."

"We do know that, Miles," Rhea said earnestly, spinning her chair fully around to look up at me.

"But I need to actually prove it," I told her. "Reassuring words are wonderful, but if I don’t put actual, physical action behind them, they mean absolutely nothing. It’s super convenient to be a leader when the margins are easy or the outcome is certain, but sometimes it’s not.

"Sometimes the board is rigged. But we have to play the game anyway. And I’m going to. Yeah," I admitted, offering a tired half-smile. "The odds aren’t exactly great. But they rarely ever are in this business. We just have to play the specific cards we’re dealt as best we can."

I squeezed her shoulder, looking firmly into her eyes.

"But I promise you, Rhea. I’m going to do absolutely everything in my power to come back from this. Whatever it takes, whatever the cost, I’m going to bring everyone back safely and make sure Jester never bothers our business again.

"I told him that to his face when he came here with his ultimatum, and I’m going to follow through. I promise."

Rhea sniffed loudly, hastily wiping her eyes on the oversized sleeve of her lab coat. "I know," she said, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "I believe you."

I smiled down at her, scratching her gently behind the ears. "And with that in mind, do you need anything else to make this happen? Any hardware, any server space, anything you need to make this job work, I’ll do my absolute best to authorize it."

Rhea nibbled on her lower lip again, her tail giving a slow, hesitant wag. "Well. There is... one specific thing, Miles."

"Yeah?"