They entered the venue through their newly assumed identities. The security was quite lax, they clearly didn't expect to get infiltrated. Possibly they didn't care either, the attendant that took them in only asked for their names, barely lifting his face from the screen.
The event was held in an old Opera building, it had at some point been a beautiful hall at floor 300, but had been moved to 309 as it grew old. The top two floors didn't fit on 309 so they were missing completely. Whatever the plans had been for when it moved here hadn't worked out, it had been standing empty except for small events here and there.
The above was the official tale, it seemed it was quite in use. Every nook was cleaned to perfection and the flow of workers was more akin to a smoothed out operation than a hastily thrown together convention. There were about a thousand guests in attendance, Nelly recognized a few and sent their names to the Sharps as targets of interest.
Her phone dinged with a message from Lina. She had sent a short video of her and Cathrin at an office, there were tens of people wildly running around in the background. She captioned the snit with 'Powerful women making a mess'.
"Pontus," Nelly said, and Kabek turned to face her, only to be blinded by a camera flash. Nelly sent the ensuing picture back, with 'bad doggo on walk' tagged to it and enjoyed immensely the last bits of any dignity fade away from Kabek. She walked past him and whispered in his ear. "If you are a good doggy, these won't end on your squads socials"
She didn't have to stop to yank the leash, Kabek had found some determination, now he seemed more like a trained dog. Walking just the right distance away from master's legs.
They entered the hall with some of the sales goods on show. There were about fifty glass boxes with people in them and a few empty ones. Nelly traipsed close by to inspect what sort of condition they were kept in. The first ones had at the minimum healed, or hadn't been treated poorly, but the more she saw the angrier she became. Several of them wore scars from whips, other were hiding bruises and worse.
It was painful to see, when a man grabbed the microphone to the box beside her, telling the woman with implanted animal ears to dance. She could barely move, all her breaths were short and ragged, the animal ear implants not even healed fully. Her left arm couldn't rise above halfway, and ten seconds in she coughed up blood.
"Did I tell you to stop woman?" the man said in to the microphone, and laughed as the woman started dancing again, coughing up more blood at every step. He told loudly to his partner what he would do to the caged woman after buying her, and they weren't words that should come out of anyones mouth. Nelly hadn't had many hesitations about what she was going to do today, but now it had become evident there had been no such qualms required in the first place.
Kabek seemed equally horrified by the experience the woman was going through. He stood there—staring at the man—and through their connection Nelly could feel the white hot rage boiling inside of him.
"Pontus stop tugging at the leash, mommy can't hold you if you yank like that." Nelly said out loud. Kabek either couldn't hear through his rage or didn't understand. "You are a feral dangerous dog I can't handle too well, okay?" With the extra words, spoken in a lower voice, and it finally dawned on Kabek what he should do.
He gathered some spit, let some drool run out of his mouth and donned a crazied face. With a few leaps, several people were pushed aside. The man who had requested the dance found himself on the ground, straddled by a half naked man in with any sane person would call a fetish getup. The fallen man's partner screamed like a siren, not the beautiful sea creature but the annoying kind kids used to be obnoxious.
Nelly had pretended to fall over, when Kabek yanked his leash and got away. Some people close by came to her aid quick, getting her up on her feet again.
"Pontus, Pontus, somebody stop Pontus!" Nelly said and approached the situation slowly. She almost broke character when she saw the proud expression on Kabek's face as he had the mans arm in his mouth, and knee resting squarely on the man's jewels. "I am so sorry mister, Pontus is such a kind dog to everyone, I don't know whats gotten in to him."
"Get your filthy boy toy off me." The man said, pain, fear and disgust in his face.
"Oh Pontus doesn't like crude men, stop being mean and he will let go." Nelly said and fished out a dog cookie from her pocket. "Look Pontus, here is your favorite snack. Let go of that silly man I am sure he didn't mean to say such bad words about you." Nelly said and thought she would witness another face dropping moment, but none came.
Instead he sniffed loudly, sat on his knees and opened his mouth expectantly, he made sure to give another accidental kick in to the mans privates. Nelly didn't know if this was better or worse than she had imagined, but played along and threw him the cookie.
"You will hear about me and my lawyers!" the man said hastily retreating from the situation. Quite the silly thing to say in this situation, and nothing punctuated his words so poorly as his limping walk and his hands on his crushed crotch.
Nelly gave Kabek some scritches at the back of his hair. He leaned in a bit too much, maybe this had awakened something in him. Nelly didn't know if she hated this or not. She pondered to herself why are all the men in her life so weird. One betrays her in a four year plan, one was supposed to guard her, but hasn't actually been by her side now that she needed him. The third one was a mean mouthed, mean spirited and now wanted to be treated like a dog.
If only she had feelings for Red, this would have been so much easier.
Nonetheless, romantic success or not, it was time to get rid of the garbage that held this place together. She was going to move the plan up, as soon as the auction started she would be bursting in to the room with its potential leader and hit him right where it hurt the most.