Emilia had agreed to meet Leo in Room 106.
In reality, once she arrived at the motel, she booked two rooms. The one she truly occupied was Room 204 on the second floor. She believed she still had a chance to escape.
She put on a hannya mask she had picked up in Kabuki, opened the door, and hurried into the corridor. The hallway was narrow and dimly lit. Ahead of her walked a man and a woman, both wearing temporary uniforms from a medical center. Emilia gave them a quick glance and then looked away to avoid rousing suspicion. Pretending she was just passing by, she tried to slip around them.
However, the moment she moved between the two, she felt a sudden jab at the back of her neck. Instinct told her they had done something to her. Before she could react, a sharp pain flared across her neck. Then her strength drained away like a receding tide, and she collapsed to the floor like a limp rag.
Leo reacted swiftly, catching Emilia before she struck the ground and made a noise that might attract attention. He gently set her down and took out a body bag. He slipped her inside and zipped it shut. Next, he pulled out a collapsible stretcher, set it up, and placed the body bag on top.
Kiwi stood nearby, stunned by Leo's practiced movements. She wondered how he could be so adept at this and how many times he had done it before.
"Don't just stand there—help me," Leo said.
"Oh…sorry."
Snapping out of her daze, Kiwi rushed over to grab the other side of the stretcher. She had been a netrunner for a long time, but this was the first time she had seen anyone transport a person like cargo.
They carried the stretcher down from the second floor, through the first-floor lobby, and then outside. Although there were people in the lobby, nobody paid them any real attention because they both wore medical center uniforms. In fact, several bystanders deliberately looked away when they noticed the black body bag, wanting no part in whatever was happening.
Before long, they reached the street, opened the back doors of a van, and slid the stretcher inside. Leo and Kiwi climbed in next and shut the door. While Leo told Rebecca and Pilar in the front to start driving, he also contacted the two guarding the rear exit. "Maine, Dorio, no need to watch anymore. The target is secured."
"Copy that. We're out too."
…
By the time the van reached a bustling part of Little China, the medical center logo on its exterior had somehow been replaced with the emblem of a logistics company. The rear doors opened, and now dressed as logistics employees, Leo and Kiwi hoisted a large suitcase out of the van. They ducked into a nearby alley, winding through the labyrinth of side streets until they reached a Chinese restaurant at the far end.
"Want to order something?" the waiter asked when they arrived.
"I am Leo," he said. "I already spoke to Rogue."
The waiter paused for a moment then nodded. "Come with me."
He led them through the busy kitchen into the basement. The space was small, but instead of polished chrome or corpo-clean surfaces, it looked like a classic Chinese street kitchen—grimy tiles worn smooth by decades of use, wok burners flaring under seasoned steel, walls yellowed with heat and time. The air was thick with garlic, sizzling oil, and the unmistakable tang of soy sauce. A chef barked in Cantonese while flipping noodles with one hand and swatting a fly with the other.
But then came the basement.
The room was cramped, windowless, and humming with power—but this time, the scent was ionized metal and warm circuitry. Instead of rice cookers and prep counters, the walls were lined with fiber-optic cabling, black ICE dampeners, and a glowing netrunner hub that looked like it belonged in a Militech blacksite. Server stacks blinked with status LEDs, and a medical-grade cryo-rig sat humming softly in the corner, surrounded by an array of chrome-drenched tools—Quantum decryption hubs, ICE-breaker shard arrays, blackwall-tuned signal splitters, and an old-but-upgraded Netwatch trace diverter wired straight into a reinforced data spine.
The waiter bowed slightly, said, "Enjoy," and closed the door behind them.
"Life-support system, low-temperature regulator, blood-cooling system…"
Kiwi's eyes lit up at the sight of all the cutting-edge hardware. It was like a gamer stumbling on a roomful of 4090 TIs. She had never dreamed she would get to use such high-end equipment. Normally, she just stripped down and lay in a bathtub full of ice.
Leo opened the suitcase and pulled out Emilia, who was curled up inside. After injecting her with a sedative and waiting for her to drift further into unconsciousness, he removed the jammer inserted in her neck. He had used this small gadget once before, when he avenged a TV station pastor. In most cases, unless someone had excellent netrunning skills and top-tier netrunner implants, getting stuck with this device left them paralyzed—like someone who had overdosed on sleeping pills.
Still, to be safe, Leo tied Emilia's hands and feet. He had already confirmed she had no combat implants, so she wouldn't be able to break free.
"All yours," he told Kiwi.
From where she lay on the netrunning chair, Kiwi gave him a thumbs-up. "Leave it to me."
An hour later, Kiwi unplugged the cable from the back of her head and rubbed her temples, looking tired. Leo handed her a carton of chocolate milk.
"Thanks," she said. After a brief rest, Leo asked, "Well?"
"I got everything you needed."
Kiwi knew Leo was eager for those files, so she transferred them immediately without wasting words. He scanned them to confirm everything was correct, nodded, then walked over to the still-unconscious Emilia and snapped her neck with a crisp crack.
He had always said he would never let Emilia go. Leo considered himself a man of his word.
Once done, Leo used Emilia's phone to dial JoAnne. The call connected almost immediately.
"I told you it wasn't time yet. I still need—"
Leo cut her off. "Emilia Mordon is dead."
"I don't know what you— I'm hanging up."
Leo didn't respond. Instead, he snapped a photo of Emilia's lifeless body in the dimly lit room and sent it to JoAnne as proof. On the other end, JoAnne went quiet. She hadn't expected the woman who had just threatened her to wind up a corpse so quickly.
She felt a mixture of relief and anxiety.
Relief, because the person who had been planning to blackmail her was gone. One less headache.
Anxiety, because she had no idea whether the killer knew about her ties to Emilia. Or to put it another way, if he knew Emilia Mordon by name and had used her phone to call, then…