Chapter 3

A ubiquitous holoscreen played silently near Persephone as she tidied her apartments after her post-run shower. It was easy to ignore with neither contacts in, nor glasses on. Deliberately ignoring the screen as well as the conspicuous bag on her table’s top, she purposefully moved piles of her belonging from one area to another while telling herself she was tidying.

For weeks she had ignored the televised rise in tension between the world’s three largest and most powerful nations. She and IBCC resided in none of them and she knew enough history to know that if the big three erupted into open warfare, they would likely come through her tiny nation first.

A muffled boom broke her from the furious cleaning spree as she looked out her window. The blurred and dimming light of a nearby blast was fading from the window. Persephone jerked upright and her eyes darted to the bag on her table. Before she could stop herself, she sat down at her console, slamming an external drive into place, and executed a command. The computer immediately started copying everything from her desktop and the IBCC server onto the drive until it was full.

Persephone sighed and rose as the computer started the long process of moving data. Her eyes fell on three stalks of wheat, plucked during her run, and now laying on her countertop. She didn’t know why she’d snagged those cultivars, of all her current experiments, as she ran. Somehow, they seemed vitally important now.

Another muffled boom was followed by a pounding at her door. Persephone’s eyes darted to her well-worn t-shirt, faded tight joggers, and bare feet before coming back to the blurry door.

She hesitated. Somewhere in the back of her head, her mother’s advice to “never let them see you sweat or in sweats” thundered through her consciousness.

The pounding on her door sounded again. Disregarding her mother’s careful advice on personal appearance management, she opened the door. Black-clad security men flooded through her door. They flanked the walls of her entryway and hall, each rifle held down, but each trigger-finger only a fraction of an inch away from a trigger. She was almost surprised to see there was not even a hint of feral lethality in their actions.

Every thought, every move, carried purposeful intent.

“What¬–” she started.

“Dr. Persephone Kore, grab your bag and follow me,” a voice called out.

She reacted instinctively, only realizing it was Hermes’ voice ordering her around as her hand snatched the drive from her computer. She tucked the small drive into her bag as she followed him swiftly out, not realizing she’d left both her contacts and glasses in the apartment as she followed him down her hallway. Nine years of memory drove her feet swiftly down two flights of stairs to a small concrete pad where a vehicle waited. Hands took her bag and lifted her into the vehicle. She settled, giving over to a false sense of calm that flooded her mind.

“Charon 03, Hermes Actual, the package is en route. Prep to launch and inform Styx 02 we’ll be ready in the hour,” Hermes’ voice called into a radio at his shoulder.

“Copy, Hermes,” a voice crackled over the radio.

It was then that Persephone realized that she had snagged not only her hard drive and bag, but the newest of her wheat cultivars were clutched in her hand.

Far beyond their vehicle, another boom echoed across IBCC’s valley.

“Get down,” Tony said calmly but threw himself across her.

Persephone batted at Tony’s muscular bulk ineffectually. “Get off, Tony!” she yelled, but he remained where he was, sprawled across her in the vehicle.