The next morning, Ronin awoke to an emergency alert sent to all the Directors calling for another meeting.
Shaking the sleep away, he gently turned and nudged Silas saying, "Get dressed, something's going on."
Silas rolled away from him and wrapped Liliana in her arms and mumbled gibberish in her sleep and Ronin smiled gently and decided to let her sleep more.
Getting up, he quietly moved to his closet and pulled out some clothes, all black as usual, and quickly got dressed. Walking to the door, he pulled his lab coat on and headed to the nearest elevator, closing the door as quietly as he could.
It was still early, early enough that the lighting in the hallway was still dim and nobody seemed to be up.
Checking his V.U.I., he saw that it was almost 6AM, much earlier than he usually woke up, but he guessed it worked out for the best.
The alert had been sent only twenty minutes before he'd awoken, so he figured he hadn't missed anything important enough to warrant them sending him a second one.
As he waited for the elevator to come, he yawned and heard what sounded like a skittering sound from down the hall. He looked toward its location and saw nothing, rubbing his eyes again to try and clear them a little more.
As the elevator came, he heard the sound again and made a mental note to investigate later.
The ride down was uneventful at best, tedious at worst, and he found himself wondering about the speed of the Bureau's elevator system. It made sense for the elevators that the school used to move slowly, but emergency alerts should make the elevator down to the Bureau move much faster. Anything could be going on, it only made sense, he figured.
The doors opened slowly upon reaching his floor, seemingly slower than usual, and he pushed past them before they finished. Running to his doorway into the conference room they used for Director meetings, he was surprised to find that none of his fellow Directors had their assistants with them.
"I'm glad to see that Silas isn't with you, Ronin. We were unable to send you the message not to bring her, so it's just as well," Vren said quietly.
The lights, dim enough to be comfortable, brightened and Ronin saw that Vren was bleeding heavily from his chest.
"What's going on?" Ronin asked, worried.
"It seems our little kidnapping problem is more serious than we initially thought," Jerald said, his voice wavering.
Looking around the table, Ronin saw that two of the ten Directors weren't present and he asked, "Did this just happen?"
Vren nodded and put his hand on his chest as he said, gasping for air as he spoke, "Directors Quark and Newton were both out on, what were supposed to be simple, missions. Their teams were to recover some cloaking technology from an abandoned rebel compound, and they were ambushed. We think somebody knew they were coming and waited for them."
As more blood fell from his chest, Vren smiled and tapped a machine that was sitting on the desk, hidden behind some stacks of paperwork, Ronin hadn't noticed it yet.
The machine sucked up his blood and turned it into something that looked like water, pouring into a glass that was situated beside it. He took the glass of water and poured it onto his chest, and the wound closed perfectly, barely leaving a mark to show that he'd been wounded.
Ronin shook his head and asked, "Do we have any idea who's behind this?"
Jerald spoke and the rest of the Directors sank back into their chairs, "They were able to send us a single message together. 'They've killed our teams...the creator is coming.'"
Sitting down, Ronin asked, "So we've lost at least eight of our researchers...and two of our Directors."
Vren nodded and said, "It would seem that way...whoever this 'creator' is...he's bad news. I'm thinking he may be the man, or woman, who's leading up these alchemist kidnapping sprees."
Jerald stood and said, "There is another problem as well. We've been unable to send any messages among the Bureau. We checked the messaging system among the students and its working fine. Whoever IS behind this knows about us and is actively trying to stop us from finding them."
Ronin frowned and said, "I received the emergency alert though."
Another Director whose name Ronin couldn't remember spoke up and said, "I designed the emergency alert to go through a completely different set of systems. It triggers a schoolwide alert and then, before the school alarms are set off, redirects it to the appropriate recipient.
Ronin thought for a moment and asked, "Can we use a similar concept to send messages?"
Vren shook his head and said, "The school alert system is...limited...you can change the message sent as a whole, but it can't be personalized or truly edited. We built it as a last ditch effort."
Nodding in understanding, Ronin asked, "What's our course of action here, then?"
Looking at the table, Jerald said, "I think we need to consider moving our base of operations and cutting off ties with the government. We're hoping it's this alchemist who's responsible, but ultimately we have no real idea as to who's behind the disappearances. We have to consider anyone outside the Bureau as a potential threat, just to be safe."
Vren stood and said, "If we're truly considering cutting off ties with the government, you know we only have one real option."
Jerald rubbed his hands together, moving one of the other, slowly, as he thought and finally said, "We'll need to move into the nest of vipers itself."
Ronin sighed and said, "Neyk."
Jerald touched a datapad in front of him and pulled up a hologram of the city, massive long since having swelled past its original size, easily three times bigger now than it had ever been when it had been known as New York City.
Growing upward, as well as outward, the city now known as Neyk was well known for both its wonder and its lawless nature. Order was maintained by hundreds of guilds, but calling the madness that was everyday life in Neyk order was, at best, generous.
Scientific advancement was rampant in Neyk, with every field from biology to architecture benefitting both from unscrupulous scientific research and the madness that was alchemy.
Ronin watched the hologram spin and said, "If we're wrong about this...we'll be throwing ourselves directly into the arms of any alchemist who's involved with this...without even the illusion of government resources. The government may be filled with slobbering hounds, but their military are trained guard dogs, and they've never failed us."
Jerald laughed mirthlessly and said, "Silas is rubbing off on you more and more everyday, Ronin."
Ignoring him, Ronin said, "I hate to admit it...but it is looking like this may be our only option for now. I'd recommend everyone get their teams to be ready to go at a moment's notice. It's only a matter of time before this problem is knocking on our front door."
Tapping his datapad in agreement, Jerald pulled open a map of the surrounding area, casting it on the far wall, going out as far as three hundred miles, and said, "I noticed something disturbing as well."
Red marks began to appear on the map, indicating kidnappings, and Ronin put his head in his hands.
The markings, disparate at first, began to be connected by a black line that Jerald was drawing, to show a spiral with the school in the center.
"Whoever we're dealing with...they're screwing with us, and we're behind. We've been so focused on our work that we've failed to notice something so obvious," Jerald said, his voice neutral.
Vren looked at the wall, his expression downcast and took a drink from his glass, making Ronin cringe slightly.
"Well, pride cometh before a fall. We know what to expect now, the only question is when will we expect it," Vren said, clearing his throat from his drink.
Ronin leaned back into his chair and said, "I think our first priority has to be enabling our messages again."
The Director from before said, "My team is already working on a new messaging path with better defenses, hopefully it'll be done soon."
Ronin heard the skittering sound from before and looked around as he said, "Let's get that up soon then, and make sure our teams are all ready to go. I'll have Sellius start scouting locations we can take up in Neyk."
Jerald frowned and said, "Neyk...make sure he can find several locations. I don't want us to be centralized anywhere. We'll all work remotely and keep our office locations secret. Let's minimize the possibility of exposure as much as possible."
The Directors all agreed, murmuring their assent and the meeting drew to a close, with Ronin quietly turning and leaving the room.