[Dedicated to ]

IV

The Network:

“Nothing is hidden that will not be known, nothing is secret that will not come to light.”

- Dan Brown

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          The lights flickered, causing strange images to crawl against the walls as Quinn walked through the narrow passageway. The more he walked the more the passage widened, and after about five minutes his feet came off the last step and onto flat dusty earth. The path now branched off to the left and to the right, with sure steps he turned right. There were no torches here so he had to follow the faint glow that was up ahead.

          As he got closer to the light source his ears picked up on the sound of faint chattering. He quickened his pace. Due to his encounter with Rosa he had been delayed and he was a bit late, so when he stepped into the meeting room all talking ceased and a dozen pairs of eyes turned to look at him.

          “You’re late.” Said one woman standing in the center of the room, her voice accusing.

          “You’ll have to forgive me, you see I was otherwise caught up.”

          “Yeah, caught up in Rosa’s bed. You got a little something right here Quinn.” The youth who sat perched on some crates at the back of the room gave Quinn a knowing grin as he pointed to his lips.

          Quinn raised his hand to his mouth and sure enough, Rosa’s pink lipstick came away with his fingers. If he had been someone else he would have surely blushed crimson, but he wasn’t. He was Quincy Everdan and a situation such as this only caused his eyes to flash a devious glint as he returned the boy’s grin.

          However, not everyone was happy about this new development. The woman who had first spoken snapped her gaze to the boy and gave him a furious glare. The boy’s grin widened at this and a chuckle escaped his chest. “Oh my, is the little kitten getting jealous?”

          “Shut your mouth you lying little rat!” the woman’s face was the embodiment of fury.

          Hearing these words the boy held his chest, where his heart was, a pained expression on his face. “Darling you wound me,” the hurt façade quickly dissipated though and a mischievous glint passed through his eyes as his lips formed a wicked grin. “But seeing as how you were calling me something totally different last night, you’re forgiven.” The boy sent a wink her way.

          But just as his eye blinked, a dagger came flying right past his cheek. The woman’s chest heaved up and down and the arm that threw the dagger still remained hanging in the air. Her eyes which were opened wide held both anger and shock.

          Few wisps of his hair fluttered before his face but the boy only burst out laughing. The others in the room, who were used to seeing them act this way only rolled their eyes, with faint hints of smiles pulling at the corner of their lips.

          Quinn chuckled at their banter but then he quickly dropped the smile and got serious. “Okay, that’s enough, we have business to get down to.”

          As stated before Quinn was a businessman, but first and foremost he was a prince. And the one thing a prince needed more than anything was a way for him to obtain information.

          Being away from his kingdom has been a small crutch in his side. Every royal heir needs to know the ins and outs of his own kingdom, and with his absence Quinn has been on the unfortunate side of unawareness. Things that he should know on a daily basis are far out of his grasp so he has to fall back on a different method to get what he wants.

          An undercover, state of the art consolidation known as the Network.

          Quinn needed a sure and definite way of procuring information relating to not just his kingdom but to all the domains in Paralon. He was ambitious, and to settle for just encroaching on his own country would have left the itch, that was his inquisitiveness, unscratched.

          “Seeing as how I’ve kept you all waiting let’s get down to business.” Quinn pulled the book from under his arm and flipped to a blank page. One by one, each member came forward and placed their hand on the opened book and imbued it with their magic. This kind of ability was called transfer magic.

          By fusing their magic with the pages all the information they needed to relay to Quinn would be recorded by the book. Later on, when the meeting was over, Quinn would go over the data and then secretly dispatch messages to each of them on what they were supposed to do next. Quinn came up with this idea after their first meeting place was infiltrated and their conversations had been leaked. Not wanting to make that same mistake again he cut out talking about important stuff at the meetings completely, so even if their conversations were overheard the other party would receive no benefits.

          It was about an hour later when Quinn finally snapped the book shut. With all the data having been collected there was no more reason to stay and so he tucked the book back under his arm and turned to leave.

          The others had started chatting again, creating a bit of a ruckus. It wasn’t often that they all came together like this so they were going to stay and chat awhile. However, with all this newly acquired information Quinn had a ton of work to do and had no intention of staying.

          His foot was barely out the door when he heard his name being called. He turned around at the sound of the voice. The entire room went silent as they all realized who it was that had spoken.

          Somewhere in the back of the room, almost hidden by the shadows of the flickering candle lights, stood a lone figure draped in black from head to toe. The person, a man, wore a long trench coat with a wide hood that covered the entirety of his face. Smoke billowed around the opening of the hood and every now and then the man would lift a cigar to his face, adding to the clouds of smoke.

          After a few more puffs only the stub remained and the man flicked the butt to the ground, his foot crushing it soundlessly. The man raised his head and for a brief moment the light swept across a handsome face that revealed imposingly dark eyes.

          Quinn pursed his lips, waiting for the man to speak. This tall, dark, brooding man was the first person Quinn had engaged to help work for him. He was an extremely capable man in whatever he did, whether it be in the area of intelligence or the act of assassination.

          He was the only man Quinn had a hard time reading, and to this day he still didn’t know much about him. But there was one thing he did know that everyone else in the room did and that was the man had a perverse attitude to remain silent. He was a man of extremely few words, most of the time you would actually think he was dumb. This was why everyone had gone silent when they heard him speak.

          Quinn, for one, knew that whatever the man was about to say was very important. But the fact that he preferred to speak rather than putting it in the book had black lines appearing on Quinn’s forehead.

          “Two days from now you will be receiving a visitor.” The man’s voice was deep and husky. His tone was a little bit clipped but Quinn paid no mind to it, the man’s words were a more pressing matter in his mind.

          “Do I know this person? Have we met before?” inquired Quinn, the man now having his undivided attention. However, that man didn’t answer his questions and for a while he just stood there, silent.

          Then suddenly the man stepped forward, his body angling towards the door, his intention to leave being stated very clear. Quinn made no move to stop him as he came closer. Just as the man’s shoulders brushed Quinn’s he whispered a few words loud enough for only both of them to hear.

          “Say hello to daddy dearest for me when he arrives.” And just like that the man vanished.

          However, Quinn didn’t miss the smirk on the black-clothed man’s ordinarily stoic face and his eyes widened. Slowly, dread filled his heart. His beautiful face turned a deathly pale but before those standing in the room could ask what was wrong he turned around and left.

          Quinn almost ran back up the way he came. His thoughts were in turmoil due to this newly acquired information. He loved the thrill of knowing things about people that they didn’t want others to know, but when the tables turned it was a whole other story. This was a complete and utter disaster.

          By the time Quinn reached the top of the stairs he was breathing hard and it was not because he had been jumping up the steps almost two at a time. He was fretting, and very close to hyperventilating.

          All of this was because his father was coming to Satome.

          All of a sudden his earlier panic turned into unfathomable rage. Anger boiled in him causing his violet eyes to have an iridescent glow. Then with daunting strength he kicked the tap door leading to Rosa’s office open, almost knocking it off its hinges. His mind was going wild.

          How dare that man step foot into his territory. That darn deceitful bastard had no right thought Quinn as his lips contorted into a snarl. If he came here with the intention of being welcomed with open arms then he had really and truly made a wretched mistake.

 
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