She turned toward Will and then wrapped him in a tight hug.
The hallway door opened behind her and Horatio entered the foyer. “They’re calling for you.”
She released Will and glanced at the robot. “Give me your hand.”
Horatio did so.
With her other hand she took Will’s, then turned toward the door. “If I’m going to do this, I can’t do it alone.”
Will squeezed her palm. “We’re here.”
Rhea nodded. “All right.” She gazed at the closed door, and straightened, steeling herself. “Let’s do this.”
Will opened the door.
Hand-in-hand, the trio walked outside.
Epilogue
Veil, Scourge of the North, shut down the streaming video feed and frowned.
“The Dagger is making quite the name for herself,” she commented. “No thanks to you.”
The Scorpion bowed his head in shame. Her assassin had returned in a sorry state. When Veil reviewed his logs, she discovered his main power cell had been perforated—the resultant short had drained most of his backup unit. His mind-machine interface had automatically switched to stasis mode, so that the trickle power from the backup would be enough to keep him alive, flexing his artificial lungs just enough to meet the brain’s reduced oxygen requirements. The backup cell was regenerative, however, and finally repaired itself enough to produce the charge necessary for consciousness.
His anti-salvage measures had also activated while he was under, so that his most essential components switched to a simulated short-out mode, faking damage that would deter casual salvagers. The Dagger would have known about that particular mode, however. That lent credit to the Scorpion’s theory that her mind had been wiped, considering the Dagger and her crew had only taken his arms and legs. Unless she was merely putting on an act for Veil.
In any case, the Scorpion had been forced to use his tail to drag himself through the cave, worming like a caterpillar with no legs, until he reached the entrance and activated his recall beacon. Veil had hired a collection crew to retrieve him and deducted the necessary funds from his bank account as punishment, along with her usual twenty percent failure fee.
“Shall I find another to take this job?’ Veil asked.
The Scorpion glanced up. “No. I can do this. No one gets the better of the Scorpion and lives to tell the tale.”
Veil smiled coldly. “Good. Because Khrusos has quadrupled the price on her head.”
The Scorpion grinned, eyes glinting greedily.
BOOK 2: Rhea, Will and Horatio return to fight another day in Warden 2, available on Amazon at https://readerlinks.com/l/1054280
Or discover how Will and Horatio first met in the prequel novella, Salvage, available for free here: https://bookhip.com/WBMXLC
About the Author
USA Today bestselling author Isaac Hooke holds a degree in engineering physics, though his more unusual inventions remain fictive at this time. He is an avid hiker, cyclist, and photographer who sometimes resides in Edmonton, Alberta.
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Copyright © 2020 by Isaac Hooke
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