"You want to play the hero game, to right the wrongs in the world?"
That was what Estrella asked Lucas when she entered the living room and saw him going through the information Jack Schneider had owed him.
They were actually in Los Angeles, as they had decided before, in one of those luxurious hotels there in a penthouse with a view on the ocean and, if you had Lucas' visual acuity, on bikini-clad members of the opposite sex. And with the harsh sun of end July in those times of weird climates, there was quite a number of them.
Estrella was in a simple off shoulder blouse with jeans pants below and the lack of shoes on her feet had helped her in soundlessly getting behind her companion. Almost soundlessly, since Lucas had been looking at her from the corner of his eyes even before she talked.
He turned to her with a scowl to give her an answer, and why not tease her, when he froze.
"Did you forget your bra?"
Estrella lowered her gaze then rolled her eyes:
"No. Why? Do you mind?"
*Cough* "I know it's not my business, why would I mind?"
He made to turn to the screen of the laptop he had been using for work but failed to stop himself from taking a second glance at the protruding points beneath the blouse. Clearing his throat to suppress the rising excitement, he focused on another subject:
*Cough* "Anyway, to answer your question, I don't have the hero or savior complex. It's not bad to help people but I don't have the pathological need to be nosy."
His disdain was apparent, as he was wearing just a t-shirt and pants and had the laptop placed on a pillow he had on his lap. Sitting on the couch that wanted to swallow him, he could only accept that the one who had said that money couldn't buy happiness had been too poor.
"Then what is the plan? What did you want that information for?"
Estrella's voice brought him out of his enjoyment.
He looked at what was being displayed on the screen: information of the cadres of a certain criminal organization. It was active in east Asia mainly with contact in other markets.
And that was not the only information he had because the information packet he had wanted to buy from Jack Schneider included most of those big criminal organizations around the world: cartels, mafia of different origins, families, yakuza… It was about them, their people, their trade route, safehouses among others. There were also their sectors of activity that had been emphasized, a mix of drugs trafficking, arms trafficking, humans trafficking, organs trafficking and anything that could make money.
And if you added the information in the files on the contacts of the money launderers and officials connected to those organizations, Estrella's question would make sense. After all, it was enough to set back those dark pieces of the world, or for some, basically tear them down.
"Remember I told you I wanted to prepare for the future?"
Estrella, with a glass of milk and a plate of fruits sat not far from him.
"Hmm."
Lucas eyed her breakfast for a moment before looking at her:
"Who has the most money, apart from those who print them?"
"Banks?"
Knowing that she had already understood what he had been pointing at but just wanted to get a rise out of him, he gave a sarcastic laugh before explaining.
"Haha. They have cash but it circulates fast, faster than the one gotten by those illegal businesses. And they are tied to troublesome interests, unlike with criminal organizations where guns can be used to resolve everything."
He took her glass to moisten his throat with its content while looking at her lips, specifically turning it to use the same place she had drank from, then continued:
"We will be trotting the globe once again next."
Estrella presented a calm front as she looked at his antics, not letting any evidence of the small heat she was feeling show. She focused on the fruits she had cut into pieces and questioned with a raised eyebrow:
"Will we take a stealthy approach or go for a brutal assault?"
"That will depend. We will plan and try to maximize the haul for each of our strikes."
Lucas stood up with a wide smile.
"Let's not hurry and put the planning aside. You said some time ago that you would keep my attention on you here in Los Angeles, away from other girls. Shouldn't you get to that? We will be here for some time, you know?"
Estrella put one arm across her chest, beneath her breasts, as she slowly brought a piece of what was on her plate to her mouth. She then smiled beautifully, gently tucked her hair behind her ear and calmly stood up with an elegant feline grace under the entranced stare of Lucas that was jumping between her chest and her lips before trying to get the whole picture.
Seeing him gulp his saliva, she turned her back to him and left with an emphasized movement of her hips.
"I think I'm not doing too bad, won't you say so?"
********
While the two idle "evolved" humans were enjoying the little seduction game they were playing, in another location, a city in the same country, in one of the office buildings that could be seen all around in the center of this urbanized agglomeration.
On one of the floors, work desks could be seen in the main room with a tromb of people, males and females, wasting their eyes away on computer screens sifting through data of different kinds.
Suddenly, one of them heard the sound of an alert pinging on his work tool. He took a few seconds to get to a certain point in what he was doing where it would be more convenient to resume later and reduced the window.
He input some orders into the command tab and was soon brought to the programs that had been running in the background looking for possibly relevant clues on unfinished tasks or long-term ones.
Going to the notification in question, he came face-to-face with two images. On the left was the photo of a woman that was on white ground like snow with unfocused eyes. She was Asian with beautiful features and dark hair and wore white combat uniform.
On the right was another photo that seemed to be from a random camera in a city. It was of a woman, Asian too, but whose dark hair was longer than the one on the first photo, going past the chin level to end beneath her shoulders. She had a calm expression with eyes that seemed ready to sharpen at a moment's notice and was clothed simply but fashionably.
If not for the numbness brought by life and his job, the operator would have been excited by the images of beauties.
Looking closer, the woman of the second photo had beside her a man whose face could not be seen with only his brown skin and white hair to identify him.
After taking a few seconds to examine what the spy program had found, he looked below to see the conclusion that caused the call for attention and that made his heart skip a bit as his eyes widened.
Jumping from his seat, he attracted his colleagues' attention, distracting them from their work as he ran to his supervisor office.
With the whole room beset with curiosity about the new big news, the only person able to satiate said curiosity personally, a woman with her work desk just beside the numb fellow, threw a glance at the screen of the computer on the just vacated desk and read what caused the panic beneath the photos:
"Specter. Match: 92.1%"
********
AN: I've messed up the release schedule due to excitement but it will be the normal schedule for the next update. With the promised bonus chapters.
Keep the support coming.
Peace.
& no knife.