Clepsydra [ON HOLD]

Chapter 6: The Viper

The list doesn't do much for me. Sure, I can turn this over to those who are higher up, but what would that do for me? Put me out of business? I can't have that. Besides, I can manipulate this if I need to. These files on me, they mean nothing. The very personal stuff is something you can get from watching my Rooms or looking at the bodies, if any are ever recovered. They hold very little important information about me, very little information at all.

I shake my head, looking through the rest of the files, trying to see if there's anything important in them, like why he wants me. All I see are statistics, everywhere. How many I killed, tortured, stalked, threatened. How many Rooms I've had, and how many people were there to watch. I go to the last page, hoping it would hold any real information.

It does. It must. It's all encrypted, farther than it should be. No matter, I will have it decrypted in no time.

I set about to decrypt it, my fingers flying all over the keyboard as my eyes go back and forth, reading what little shows.

Wanted: Alive

Where: Bring to America

How: Any means necessary

When: ASAP.

So, at least I'm not wanted dead? I chuckle as I stop and look at the information. Nothing else pops up, no why, no specific location. Nothing. Stultus, I shake my head as I think of him, a joke. What does he plan to do, take my coin or something? As if.

I click out of it, going into the files he has on Orien. This should be interesting. Instead of going through the files, I go to the most encrypted one and decrypt it.

Wanted: Dead

Where: Bring proof to New York

When: ASAP

How: Any and all means necessary

Why: Threatens Trade

How exciting! But, how does one man, who has no business with the Web, threaten the existence of their Trade? That's what's getting me: why is he even involved when he has no part of it? It's not making sense. None at all. Maybe I do have to look through the rest of the files they have. Maybe that will help.

Holy hell. He has statistics, and I mean, statistics. He has numbers of freed people, number of Sparrows killed, number of houses found, and even more of payrolled people. He has different mercenaries, and dealers and informants. He has a whole operation, and I didn't even know. It never crossed my mind. How did I not know? Is he that good at hiding? Or, am I just that bad at keeping up with him?

Orien isn't the head, at least there's that. He's not the one calling all the shots, not the one going to all these places and doing it all. No, he's the one who collects information and sends it to someone else. But, he still is pretty up there. How did he get to climb this high without me knowing? Maybe I'm getting rusty.

I shake my head. I cannot be thinking like that, I'm good at my... job and nobody has ever hacked me. I just need to go do something to get my mind off of this new information. I need to do something to erase everything. I need to do something to provoke him.

I need to kill Echthroi.

⏳

I leave the man hanging from the second story next to my signature, blood spilling onto the empty street below. I take a photo of him, making sure to get his stomach in frame. I didn't have fun with this one. I didn't torture him, didn't pull information from him. I didn't need to. He was just a 'wrong place, wrong time' kill. Nothing more to it.