technomancer. You tell me. I recovered it near the corpse of one of my Elite.”
David frowned and examined the tiny device in his hand. It was some kind of wireless communication device, obviously, but he’d never seen one quite like it. It was made of silver metal, the same size and shape as an in-ear hearing aid, and completely seamless except for the hole that sound came through. The metal was the same color and sheen as the coms his Elite wore, but it was much harder and there were absolutely no markings on it.
“You checked this for fingerprints?” David asked.
“Of course,” Hart snapped. “You’re not the only Prime with resources.”
David smiled. “Oh? Then you had this sent to a lab and analyzed?”
“Why? Obviously it’s one of your little inventions.”
David was itching to crack the thing open, but he feigned indifference as much as he could. “Given that I have my own intelligence network and my own Elite, why would I need an organization like the Shadow at my beck and call? As I understand it, they hire out to humans as assassins and spies, to go where human spies can’t go. That’s why the Council has never bothered tracking them down—they’re no threat to us.” He turned the device over in his palm again, considering it, and said, “Besides, they predate me by at least a century. Prime Deven heard about them as early as 1500. He’d heard that the Alpha was an Italian connected with the Medici family.”
“Surely the organization has changed hands by now.”
“Not necessarily. It’s difficult to maintain that kind of secrecy if you have to hand over control to someone else. From what little I know about them, they sound like the kind of network that was created by one person who trained each agent individually.”
Hart let out a slow breath and downed his whiskey in one long swallow. “Then you give me your word that you are not involved in this.”
David stared at him for a moment, then down at the device, then back up. “I will do you one better, Lord Prime. Leave this thing with me. If you give me a chance to tear it apart and analyze it, see what makes it tick, I can learn more about its manufacture and send you all my findings. Knowing how it’s made and where it came from might help you track down your killers.”
For a moment Hart looked dubious, but finally he agreed with a nod. “Done.”
Then Hart set his glass down and stood. “If you don’t mind, then, Lord Prime, I shall retire for the morning. We can meet again after sunset to discuss anything else—there are a few finer points I’d like to go over with you about the upcoming Council, but I think that’s best saved for later.”
David stood as well and bowed. “I bid you good morning, then, and good rest.”
Hart nodded, still curtly, but with a slightly less dismissive edge than before; David could hardly believe it, but it almost seemed like he’d won some grudging respect from the Prime in the last hour.
Hart was escorted back to his suite by one of the door guards, and David sat back down in his chair still holding the earpiece. He was madly curious about it. Was it really Red Shadow technology? Or something else? Whatever it was, it wasn’t his.
David had considered using earpieces for the coms, but in the end he’d gone with the wristbands because they were harder to lose in battle unless the wearer’s hand was severed. He’d never been entirely happy with any of the in-ear models he’d tried, and their reception of outgoing speech was iffy. Plus, he’d created the coms with the DNA sampling system, and that would have been much harder on a piece a tenth the size. For his purposes wrist coms worked just fine.
Depending on what he found when he got the earpiece open, however, there might be some new tech inside that he’d want. He didn’t much care about Hart’s problems, but there were plenty of reasons to want the earpiece in his possession.
He hadn’t lied to Hart—he knew
David frowned and examined the tiny device in his hand. It was some kind of wireless communication device, obviously, but he’d never seen one quite like it. It was made of silver metal, the same size and shape as an in-ear hearing aid, and completely seamless except for the hole that sound came through. The metal was the same color and sheen as the coms his Elite wore, but it was much harder and there were absolutely no markings on it.
“You checked this for fingerprints?” David asked.
“Of course,” Hart snapped. “You’re not the only Prime with resources.”
David smiled. “Oh? Then you had this sent to a lab and analyzed?”
“Why? Obviously it’s one of your little inventions.”
David was itching to crack the thing open, but he feigned indifference as much as he could. “Given that I have my own intelligence network and my own Elite, why would I need an organization like the Shadow at my beck and call? As I understand it, they hire out to humans as assassins and spies, to go where human spies can’t go. That’s why the Council has never bothered tracking them down—they’re no threat to us.” He turned the device over in his palm again, considering it, and said, “Besides, they predate me by at least a century. Prime Deven heard about them as early as 1500. He’d heard that the Alpha was an Italian connected with the Medici family.”
“Surely the organization has changed hands by now.”
“Not necessarily. It’s difficult to maintain that kind of secrecy if you have to hand over control to someone else. From what little I know about them, they sound like the kind of network that was created by one person who trained each agent individually.”
Hart let out a slow breath and downed his whiskey in one long swallow. “Then you give me your word that you are not involved in this.”
David stared at him for a moment, then down at the device, then back up. “I will do you one better, Lord Prime. Leave this thing with me. If you give me a chance to tear it apart and analyze it, see what makes it tick, I can learn more about its manufacture and send you all my findings. Knowing how it’s made and where it came from might help you track down your killers.”
For a moment Hart looked dubious, but finally he agreed with a nod. “Done.”
Then Hart set his glass down and stood. “If you don’t mind, then, Lord Prime, I shall retire for the morning. We can meet again after sunset to discuss anything else—there are a few finer points I’d like to go over with you about the upcoming Council, but I think that’s best saved for later.”
David stood as well and bowed. “I bid you good morning, then, and good rest.”
Hart nodded, still curtly, but with a slightly less dismissive edge than before; David could hardly believe it, but it almost seemed like he’d won some grudging respect from the Prime in the last hour.
Hart was escorted back to his suite by one of the door guards, and David sat back down in his chair still holding the earpiece. He was madly curious about it. Was it really Red Shadow technology? Or something else? Whatever it was, it wasn’t his.
David had considered using earpieces for the coms, but in the end he’d gone with the wristbands because they were harder to lose in battle unless the wearer’s hand was severed. He’d never been entirely happy with any of the in-ear models he’d tried, and their reception of outgoing speech was iffy. Plus, he’d created the coms with the DNA sampling system, and that would have been much harder on a piece a tenth the size. For his purposes wrist coms worked just fine.
Depending on what he found when he got the earpiece open, however, there might be some new tech inside that he’d want. He didn’t much care about Hart’s problems, but there were plenty of reasons to want the earpiece in his possession.
He hadn’t lied to Hart—he knew
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