Chapter 9: Poison IV

“Jade.”

«G-Good evening, mistress. I wasn’t expecting a call from you at such an hour! How can I be of service? »

“Listen. I have a special assignment for you tonight.”

«…What kind of…? »

“Intel. Outside the city. Central. Fernand. Dakken. Ig-Lek. Trinity. Go through them all, get in contact with the main managing gangs and leaders and ask out some stuff for me. Recent cases regarding intruders in their territory, unexpected malfunctions with haema, any unusual occurrence. Deaths, most important of all. Bargain as much as you need, but don’t let them step on us.”

«… Alright. Though I’d like you to keep in mind, boss, that even the friendliest of these groups will take some time to budge, no matter what we offer them… More than just an hour or two, I’m afraid…»

“Naturally. Take Rick or one of his friends with you, you’ll want someone to streamline all the negotiations while crossing borders. I’d recommend Andre or Walker too, if you feel like you need some extra muscle, but I’ll leave that up to you. All that matters is that you’re all back before dawn with the information I need.”

«U-Understood. »

“Don’t fail me.”

Her subordinate became silent, allowing the pale girl to stop the call.

Truth be told, she didn’t have much faith in this operation. It was too blatant, and if any of the other factions realized they were desperate, they wouldn’t give away anything until they were sure they’d ran them dry. It was just too blatant, after all, and the Phantoms were a small gang, all things considered. Regardless, the White Lady saw herself running out of ideas. There hadn’t been anything in Seagate since that night that could give her the slightest clue about the murderer’s whereabouts or motive.

Asking the board for help was too risky, too. Who knew what they would want in return? They weren’t all too pleasant to talk to to begin with, plus all those stories and rumors she’d heard had motivated her enough to want to steer as clear from them as possible.

Granted, there should certainly be some amount of security footage on the perp lying around somewhere in their banks, around which she could base the investigation and draw some proper conclusions. Unfortunately, the old bastards seemed to revel in watching her and the Phantoms work as blindly as possible. Going to them directly would be a show of weakness beyond any other, and when you gave the board an inch, they always pulled a mile.

They had only given her a limited degree of access to the very lowest levels of the UDS’s memory banks, coupled with the expectation of her checking the thing for surface-level bugs from time to time. There was nothing actually useful there, though, so in the end it was just more thankless work thrown at her, really. Good grief.

Trying to crack the damn thing with just the few codes they had would be far too risky, as well. Even Crackhead Jeanne was afraid of trying, and she was the one who had managed to break through the North District’s largest conglomerate net head on, all just to steal a hidden hard drive full of furry porn.

“So… Dead end, again…” the girl sighed.

From what she did know, the girl could only assume the criminals hadn’t been there for a very long period of time, and if that was the case, they would have undoubtedly left some kind of mark somewhere else, quite possibly in other allied cities to the Phantoms, if they had previously been moving around throughout the District or maybe even the whole nation, even if managing powers didn’t notice it themselves. There was still a fair possibility she could find something through them, and in their current circumstances, Emily Griffith could not take any chances.

That entity, whomever it was, was probably the most dangerous her gang had ever faced. They were naturally used to dealing with large groups, fighting while outnumbered was almost their specialty, in fact. The Phantoms would tear down an opposing force from within, by targeting their figureheads and eliminating them first.

The resulting unorganized mobs would usually wind up self-destructing, as each new head chosen, if at all, was systematically located and taken out before any proper coordination could be achieved. Like so, the rest would all be left entirely absorbed in an aggressive fight for leadership while she and her own forces applied pressure from outside, until inevitably they would break.

This was the White Phantoms’ go-to strategy for battling large crowds. It allowed them to effectively annihilate the most problematic targets of an enemy faction while still making it possible to recruit whatever was left of the opposing forces afterwards, should they consider them useful enough.

It was an efficient method for a small gang like theirs to gradually increase their own numbers and territory without much fuss. It was partly why they’d managed to take over Seagate to begin with, all at the very low cost of some questionable loyalty in the Phantoms’ lower ranks, which she could always dispose of should the need ever arise. That was really the least of her problems, since she knew exactly how to deal with traitors.

However, none of that would work with this ‘mystery killer’. A single opponent should normally be a simple task, but someone they ultimately could not locate nor physically identify was a different story altogether. 

She wondered why somebody capable of killing three boosted criminals would even be trying to hide like that, assuming her suspicions of them being after the Phantoms truly were correct. The only thing she could do was to try and lure out the unknown entity, see if they took the bait, and hope for the best. Until then, they would have to wait.

In the worst case scenario, she was facing someone who could kill the most powerful human being on Earth. An unobtainable weapon of mass murder, allicin. Owned by someone whose identity she couldn’t even guess.

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Could it be a group of assassins sent by leaders from other districts? Big names such as Smokescreen and Sixth Order came to mind, since groups like those would be more liable to get their hands on scarce merchandise. She doubted it, though. Why would those massive powers even bother to attack some tiny gang in a remote corner of the West? The Phantoms were strong, but Sixth and the like were on a whole other level. They would have no problem taking her and her subordinates head on and winning on a whim. The same went for the G-Tanks in the West, although the Phantoms had a fairly friendly business relationship with them.

There were many other mid-class gangs throughout the UDS, but it would be absurd to believe any group below the big ones would be able to get their hands on even one milligram of garlic, let alone a usable amount of it. And low-level clowns like the Airbruisers and the Dragonheads went without saying.

The only other option left was for the killers to be working independently. That didn’t get her anywhere regarding their motives, however.

They had managed to gather enough of that thing to kill not one target, but three simultaneously, all related to the Phantoms. On top of that, they seemed to have used an outrageous amount of it, since even after two hours she had still been able to retrieve sizable remains from their wounds.

Her phone suddenly started to ring. She answered the call.

«Mistress! »

“Aaron.”

«We’ve found three more! Right in the middle of the Suburban Sector! »

The girl sprang off the chair, bringing the device closer to her ear.

“What are you talking about? What’s that even mean!?”

«…D-Dead bodies, boss… We’ve found three of them, on the eastern side of the Suburb. They… they don’t look very good, let’s keep it at that. No breathing, no beating. All cut to shreds, and their wounds aren’t growing back. They’re covered head to toe in that white powder, too. Also-»

“Hold up! I’m going over there right now! Can you identify the bodies for me!?”

«Yes, though I’d bet you can take care of that yourself, mistress… The three of them belong to the Phantoms. »

Her fingers had started trembling again.

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Alright, boss. »

She cut the call, starting away from the old desk and far towards that airless room’s exit.

“Make that six, then…” she muttered.

An entity with the power to harm the invulnerable. To kill the unkillable.

But where could they have obtained so much allicin? How could they have gotten it? She gritted her teeth. Whatever they could be after didn’t really matter that much, did it? Regardless of what happened, she couldn’t let some minor fiend just appear out of nowhere and ruin her plans like that. Not if it truly was her goal to own the UDS within her grasp. For that desire to become a reality, she couldn’t let herself be held back by a faceless obstacle.

At last it dawned on her as she ran through the old building’s corridors. That was a problematic situation. It made her fearful, insecure. Clouded her mind as well. Those bottled feelings infuriated her to an unbearable degree. But in spite of all that, her face would still contort into a nasty grin, long tusks filling the empty space over her lower lips.

It was about time somebody interesting showed up.

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