Chapter 105: Cloak of Invisibility
"I should be able to do it. For the most part, turning invisible would require bending the light around an object so it couldn’t reach the eyes or the sensors of the ship. We would need four lenses, two to shift the light in one direction and two more to prevent the background image from being distorted. Or, I could try reverse engineering the camouflage system within your uniform and try to duplicate that on a larger scale. Let me look into it," smiled Jun Li before he stood up and walked out of the room.
"If you are reverse engineering my armor, make sure to consult with Sha Shou. She will know best!" I shouted after him. He didn’t bother to turn around, just raised his arm into the air and gave me a wave of dismissal. I guess I should be fortunate that he didn’t wave his finger at me instead.
I simply shook my head and left him to work. One thing I found was that if the AI were constantly busy trying to figure something out, they left me alone. And as a very proud member of team introvert, that was what I wanted more than my next breath of air sometimes.
I turned my attention back to the screen and saw that Midnight and Tyris seemed to have come to an agreement of some kind.
"Jun Li?" I called out, looking up at the camera. "Can you unmute me, please," I chuckled. I guess there was a fine line between wanting some time to myself and being completely forgotten. Oh well.
"You there, Merciless?" asked Midnight.
"Yup," I replied with a nod of my head. "What’s up?"
Midnight looked at me, confused for a minute, before looking up. "Nothing. Our gravitational system is working well. Why do you ask?"
"Sorry, it is an expression asking if there was something that you wanted or needed. Not necessarily implying that something was up," I explained with a sigh. I guess it was not enough to simply learn a new language, but I had to almost completely relearn how to speak my own.
"Ah, I understand," said Midnight with a nod of his head. "Tyris has requested that I ask you to show up three hours from now," he continued with a smile.
I raised an eyebrow, completely forgetting that he couldn’t see my face. There was nothing that I wanted more than to throw off this helmet so that he could see my facial expressions. 55% of human communication was done through non-verbal communication, while another 38% depended on your tone and voice. Only 7% of a conversation depended on the actual words used.
But I wanted to remain anonymous for a reason.
"No," I answered with a shrug of my shoulders. "That is more than enough time for him to set up another ambush. The first could be written off as a coincidence, but not a second time. And right now, I don’t trust the Elf farther than I could throw him."
Midnight looked me up and down. "I don’t understand. Based on your stature, I don’t think that you could throw him very far."
"Exactly," I deadpanned. "I don’t trust him. But I do want his money." I paused as I thought of a way that could be beneficial to me. "Tell him that if he wants to push back the time to our originally agreed upon handoff, it will cost him double," I said with a shrug of my shoulders.
"I don’t like that plan," cut in Jun Li, and I saw midnight startle.
"That’s nice," I replied. "But we will need more money for what we want to do."
"I suppose," conceded Jun Li, and I could see Midnight leaning forward, trying to listen in on our conversation. "It would cost a lot of money to bribe people to keep their mouths shut."
"My poor, poor, Jun Li. It will cost nothing to ensure that their mouths remain shut. After all, dead men tell no tales. I am talking about the actual cost of the materials."
I saw Midnight look at me with an approving smile on his face. "Dead men tell no tales?" he repeated; the smile on his face grew until it transformed into a maniacal grin. "I like that expression," he said. "Your species seem to be a violent one. Curiosity killed the cat; dead men tell no tales... you need to tell me more."
"Be careful, Sweetheart," I purred, getting off of my chair. "Or you will be a dead man walking."
"Oh, I really think I am falling in love," chuckled the wolfman. "But that one I understood. I will go back and bring him to heel. Can’t have a Dryadalis thinking that they run things." There was a twisted sneer on Midnight’s face before he cut off the comms.
It made me realize that as much as I always see him joking around, he was someone on the wrong side of the law. He would have his own rough edges too.
I would have to watch my step.
I went back to the captain’s chair and pulled out my cell phone. Curling up and putting the white fur on top of me, I opened my reading app and ignored everything. Nothing could happen until Midnight got back to me, so why not take advantage of the peace and quiet?
----
Au’dtair stood in the corner of the command bridge, thinking about what he had just heard. If other species knew that the Saalistaja technology could be stolen so easily, they might try their luck. Willing to take the risk to give the others a heads up, he quickly sent off a message before deleting any sign of it.
He hoped that the AI would be too busy trying to become invisible to notice a single short message being sent off.
But the more information he got, the more he realized that he didn’t understand anything. If it was the Sisalik that had stolen the technology using this ship, why were there no Sisalik here? They should not have been too willing to give up such a gift as this ship to a mere human.
