Page 4 of Devin (Warriors of Etlon #5)

Val

T here was something sad about the fact that Val's entire life fit into two suitcases.

She had decided to wait until she got to her destination before she pawned her new suitcase.

Honestly, it was bigger and nicer than her old one, and she was feeling rich with the new money that had been deposited into her account, as promised.

That didn't stop her from going to the pawn shop and getting rid of the rest of the stuff that Esmeralda had given her.

It was worth a tidy sum of credits. She bought a bus ticket for St. Louis, and then would decide where to go from there.

St. Louis had been a small enough city to largely escape Suhlik notice during the invasion.

While cities like L.A. and New York had taken serious pummeling, St. Louis had sustained relatively little damage.

As such, it was now a thriving center of transportation and just like a hundred years ago, it was a gateway to the west.

Val didn't want to go so far west that she hit the beach.

She'd had enough of that on the Atlantic.

St. Louis was relatively central and she could regroup there.

Now the only thing left to do was grab her suitcases from her apartment and get going on a great adventure.

She'd survived Esmeralda, and she now felt that she could survive anything.

Even the suspicious looking man in a suit that was leaning against the side of her building, trying very hard not to look suspicious. She'd spotted him a moment too late as his head snapped up and his eyes went directly to her.

"Shit," she muttered.

"Don't run. I'm not wearing heels, but I still haven't properly worn these fuckers in, and I'm just going to be pissed off when I get around to the not-running part of my job," a female voice said from directly behind Val. Mr. Suspicious had a partner. Great.

"Why would I run?" Val asked innocently.

"Smart girl," the woman noted.

Less than twenty minutes later, Val found herself in a room, cuffed to a metal table that she was pretty sure was bolted to the floor. There were cameras blinking at her from the corners of the room.

Mr. Suspicious sat down across from her, glancing down at a tablet that undoubtedly had a detailed report on Val. The female agent stood behind him with her arms crossed over her chest. Good cop, bad cop, it looked like. Apparently, they actually did things like that.

"Going somewhere?" the man asked.

"Yeah. The lease ran out on my apartment.

I'm going to St. Louis." Anyone with access to her bank records would know that, and she wasn't going to be caught up in a lie this early in the game.

He put down the tablet. She could see they'd taken pictures of her two suitcases. He flipped to the next picture. Upside down, she couldn’t quite identify it.

"And this?" He turned the tablet to her side. It was the vial she'd downed right before heading in. It hadn't occurred to her to try and hide it. She'd just tossed it in the trash can in her apartment when she'd emptied the purse before heading to the pawn shop.

"It looks like a bottle of some sort."

"And you know what was in the bottle?"

"Uh, liquid?"

"Nanites," the woman said from behind him. She leaned over the table. "Thousands of tiny, itty bitty nanites. You want to make a statement?"

"What kind of statement?"

"Generally terrorists like to explain and take credit for their actions before sentencing."

"What? I'm not a terrorist. I'm a waitress. I wouldn't know the first thing about being a terrorist." Wait, what the hell did he mean, before sentencing. There had to be a trial. They had to prove her guilty and all that, didn't they?

"Your pulse is racing. And I can see why.

The cameras are a closed system. You thought the nanites would wipe that too.

Clever disguise, but not clever enough, not when facial recognition pinged you in the first twelve pics," the female agent explained before turning to her compadre. "Criminals are so stupid."

Yes. Val was stupid. Feisty and her gang must have used her for a patsy. She'd eagerly taken the credits and somehow delivered her own damn self into the hands of the Feds.

"I honestly have no idea what you are talking about," Val protested.

"Doesn't matter. We got enough evidence to get right to it," Mr. Suspicious said.

He pressed a button and the vid screen that covered the wall opposite the mirror blinked on and a man in a judge's robe appeared. He was looking over a tablet on his side. It took Val a minute to realize that he wasn’t a typical judge.

"Yes, I see. Quite. As the evidence is overwhelming, in accordance with the Terran-Mahdfel Treaty, I hereby sentence you to the Wildflower Detention Facility where you will be held until your fortieth birthday. If you have not been matched by that time, your sentence shall be commuted to life."

"Wait, what happened to ‘Trial by Jury?’" Val asked.

"Not in the case of tampering with the Mahdfel lottery. Any acts of terrorism against the lottery or officials results in the same sentence. You, young lady, unleashed a horde of nanites upon the system and shut down half the eastern seaboard. I think that qualifies."

"I'm... I had no idea what was in the vial." Better to admit to the lesser crime of taking the place of someone than being labeled a terrorist. "They were just using me. I have information about the real people responsible."

"I think you're missing the point here," the judge said. "This conversation is over." The screen blinked off.

Val turned to the woman agent. "No seriously, I can tell you things. I went to this shop and there was this basement."

"Oh, and there were men in bright neon wigs and real pretty lipstick?"

"Exactly!"

The agent leaned in and said very quietly, "We already have them... in the morgue. So unless you want to add more murder charges I'd shut your trap. You don't want to dig yourself in so deep that even the Mahdfel won't take you."