Truth Stealers (Thief's Signal: Book 1)

19

"Hejenfrey, report. What is causing the delay?" Drigs voice was ringing through the hover - trike's speakers before the blue hologram was activated in the heads-up-display.

Nimio's whole body stiffened up. He opened his mouth, but the muscles in that had cramped too.

The hologram lit up with the malicious face of Drigs. He looked down at the body of Illgis, splayed across the driver's seat, and with his head left as a mixture of bloody mush. Then he looked at Nimio.

"You did this?" He probed hesitantly. It was the calm before the storm. "You killed Hejenfrey? Why would you do this? You have left the original plan in ruins. You have killed a civilian. You got married. And now you kill my agent. If you do not have a good reason, for this, I promise you now, I will do things worse even than killing you."

Nimio tensed. "Funny how you would make threats now." The words hung heavily in the air, as Drigs waited for what he would say next.

"Isn't blackmailing just the thing you used to rope me into your plans?" Drigs was dead silent, watchful, calculating.

"Oh yeah, I remember," Nimio said. "See, after that little test that they did on me at Meta Mechanics Developmental, they gave me this drug, that brought the neurones in my memory closer together and reactivated dead links. And now I'm a meta type, all other things in my brain are improved as well. You can't lie to me anymore Drigs. I know exactly what happened, and now none of your memory erasers can manipulate me into believing your false truths. So you know what I'm doing now? Rescuing my damned parents from you."

Nimio finished with a note of triumph in his voice. But Drigs just stared back at him through the hologram.

"I'd like to see you try. Let's see who can get to them first," he said, and the final image that Nimio saw was Drigs' evil grin before the projector shut down.

"WARNING! VEHICLE SET TO IMPLODE IN T MINUS 5 SECONDS."

He had set the vehicle to blow up? What kind of madman was he?

Nimio knew that Drigs needed him, needed his body and blueprints, or else all of his resources and effort to obtain them had all been wasted. And yet he was willing to give that all up to win a personal battle.

Nimio rattled the door handle, but it had been locked by the computer.

"T MINUS 3 SECONDS."

Nimio had barely finished the thought about breaking the window, before his arm jerked intuitively to smash it for him. He dove out the hole it made, and leapt away from the trike. A second later, the vehicle collapsed into a raging fire.

Nothing worth staying for here.

Nimio looked at the sky to discern the position of the planet's star. It was just setting, which meant he needed to go right, westwards. He broke into a run. He knew exactly where he was going, but so did Drigs.

******