"Ah~ That felt great, Ria. Maybe we should do this sometimes." Zachary said to the only other person on the bed. Ria lay her head on his chest, but despite the intimate act they had just done, there was no pleasantness or joy on her face.
With her face facing down and out of Zachary's line of sight, he naturally couldn't see her impassive expression.
As the mood settled, Zachary slowly drifted into sleep, and Ria maintained her position, closely monitoring his heartbeat.
When his breath rose and fell steadily, and his heartbeats uniformly, only then did Ria stir as she lifted her head from Zachary's warm chest.
She looks at the man before her for a few moments, inspecting if he had already gone to sleep and if the odourless and tasteless sedative inhalational drug had taken effect.
After confirming that Zachary had indeed fallen into a deep sleep, she got off the bed and stood on her feet. The first try failed as she felt her legs give in and her booty fell on the soft bed.
A moan nearly escaped her mouth, but she bit her lips to suppress it and tried again after a few moments when she felt like she could do it.
She managed to stand up, but her steps were unsteady, and she was forced to use the wall as support as she walked to her clothes, rummaging through them.
Ria doesn't care that she's entirely coverless in Zachary's room and takes out a small device from one of her uniform's pockets.
The device is a small burner phone that can only function to make a one-time call before the fuse inside the circuit board overheats and fries itself.
Ria pressed the only button on the device and put it beside her face, on her right ear, as she waited for the line to connect.
A faint click enters Ria's ears, and as if on cue, she starts to talk in a lowered voice without waiting for anyone's reply.
"This is Peony Two. Target: Bohrson's heir, secured and neutralised. Ready for transit. Requesting immediate 'cargo,'"
The line was silent for a few moments before a man's voice replied.
" 'Cargo' will arrive at ETA in a quarter of an hour. Hold position. Do we need Dopper?"
"…. Yes," Ria answered after a moment of mulling over her situation.
After the call ended, Ria wrapped the burner phone with the maid uniform after taking out another small device that looked like a capsule from another pocket. The capsule was small, barely the size of two fingers put together.
Ria pushed both sides of the capsule horizontally inward and twisted as the capsule broke off and expanded without causing a loud noise. In just a few seconds, a bodysuit appeared in her hands.
Ria swiftly changed into the all-black form-fitting bodysuit complete with a mask. After she's done changing, she goes back to the bed and rolls Zachary off of it to the floor.
She wrapped him in a thin blanket, covering every inch of his body tightly except his head, and his mouth was taped shut. She leaned Zachary's back against the side of the bed, and as she wrapped him up, squatting before him, her gaze fell on his face.
Her right hand moves up to Zachary's face, caressing it briefly and then,
Pah! Pah!
She slapped and backhanded him in quick succession.
Ria stood up and went to the window, unlocked it and swung it open as the night's cold air rushed into the room. Ria took a deep breath of fresh air and then exhaled.
Now, she only needs to do one thing, and that is to wait.
A little over a quarter an hour later, two individuals silently appeared in Zachary's room. Two foreign men standing around a head taller than Ria entered through the widely open window.
Ria and the two men communicate through gestures. Sign language, and not verbally, to maintain the silence.
One of the men lifted Zachary and slung him over his shoulder like he was carrying a sack of potatoes. With this halfway done mission, Ria no longer had any reason to continue being a sleeper agent in the Bohrsons' mansion.
Out of the two men, only one would leave immediately, as the other one would stay behind. Ria would be following the guy carrying Zachary, but before they leave, the second guy grabbed Zachary's face for a few moments.
The moment he let go, he nodded toward Ria and the other guy, indicating that he had done what was needed. The latter two didn't waste anymore time as they immediately exited the room through the window and were gone with the wind.
The guy staying behind opened Zachary's wardrobe, took a set of clothing and changed into it before he lay down on the bed, disregarding the funny smell of the bedsheets.
Many of the ports on the El Malais peninsula strait had closed down due to the ongoing war, and these abandoned places had become infested with shady people using them as their base or turf.
Cadia also used one of the ports as a hiding location and rendezvous point for the secret personnel. Ria and the transporter Davai fled from the capital state of El Malais to the Kalam Port located nearly 60 kilometres away in under an hour.
It is now close to midnight, and while the civilians are rare, the patrols were many, which means they couldn't travel through the main road and had to use forest trails.
The ports, while abandoned, had the perimeters guarded by rotating guards around the clock.
Ria and Davai easily slipped through using the least guarded path connected to the forest, separated by a tall wire fence.
They beeline straight to one of the buildings close to the water by snaking through the darkness of the night. Unnoticed as they move.
Inside, a few more individuals were already waiting, clearly Ria and Davai's accomplices. They had a conversation with each other, also using sign language to minimise noise.
Their conduct was professional, and no one jokes around, even if there are no threats or chances of being discovered.
A handful of people entered a secret pathway located in the building, on the basement floor. After some twists and turns, they arrive in a chamber lined with a few pods, and each pod could comfortably fit three to four people.
This time, only one of the pods will be used. Ria and Davai, who are carrying Zachary, entered a pod. Their teammates handed them a package, some food supplies for the underwater tunnel journey and more sedatives to be administered to Zachary alongside the prescription so that he wouldn't suddenly wake up.
The hatch of the pod closed when all three were inside, as the pod dropped down into the undersea tunnel at blinding speed. They will not appear anywhere near, thus the food supplies, as the travel would take around a day.
Zachary was conscious throughout all that happened around him, but he let himself be handled by these people. He's also felt the slaps that Ria dished out, and that hurts him emotionally rather than physically.
Currently, Ria is also having mixed feelings as she looks at the 'unconscious' Zachary. Somehow, she felt like she shouldn't have gone through with the mission. An unfamiliar tingling gnawed at her heart as a sense of suffocation and sadness soured her mood.
'He's your mission objective. Nothing more, nothing less. Or is he?' The same questions kept repeating in her mind as she was caught in a debate against herself.
Ria even had thoughts of betraying the Cadia to bring Zachary to safety again, and that messed her mood even more. Before, such thoughts wouldn't even cross her mind.
'What's wrong with me?!' She screamed internally, trying to make sense of the inner turmoil. She knew for a fact that it could not be love. Her line of work makes indulgence a poison in the long term, as it could very well be used against her.
No matter how good Zachary was in bed, as she had just experienced hours ago, it couldn't be love. So Ria chalked it up to lust. It was more believable, and it's also a reason she could accept.
As she was wrestling with her own sudden emotional turmoil, the thought of Zachary would still be alive at the end of the day, soothing her nerves a little.
The organisation she serves plans to use Zachary, the heir of the Bohrson lineage of the Royal Clan, as bait to fish out more hidden cards that they had yet to know about.
Knowing the enemies better is the key to winning any battle, and their leader, Malrick, was sure that there was still a lot to uncover regarding the Royal Clan.
With Zachary in their hands, they would also gain a live specimen of the royal blood genetics, as the Cadia had never managed to research any members of the El Malais Royal Clan before.
Malrick is certain that there must be something different about the Royal Clan, and he has many theories about why the four lineages could last for as long as they have.
Davai, on the other hand, saw the scowl on Ria's face. He didn't know what she was thinking about, and he doubted it was anything pleasant. He originally wanted to ask what was bothering her, but the silence in the pod is precious, so he chose to rest instead.
Nearly twenty-three hours later, the pod finally stopped moving as it arrived on the other end of the undersea tunnel, arriving in the Nappar region, in a sea cave.
The sea cave was used as a secret bay, and there are personnel working on the machines. As the pod made its appearance, a few people were already waiting for it, and they opened the hatch from the outside, revealing the three people inside.
Zachary was given more drugs during the transit on schedule with proper dosage to keep him in a deep sleep state.
He was then brought out of the pod, through a specific elevator that brought him straight to the heart of the Botchwick Secret Headquarters, located in the depths of Botchwick Mountain.
There is a prison cell already prepared for him, and the four walls were made from reinforced high-impact resistance glass, capable of withstanding barrages from hot weapons of high calibre.
Zachary was put in a set of white outerwear and went through several scans and diagnostics, and then his blood samples were taken before he was placed in the cell.
Despite his physical inactivity, Zachary had been conscious all along. The drugs that Ria administered were entirely ineffective to him as they were broken down the moment they entered his system.
As he possesses perfected control over his body down to the cellular level, he has no problem analysing the drug's properties and what effects it should have. The perfected cellular control also allows Zachary to enter a false unconsciousness state, where he appears to be in deep sleep without worrying about being found out.
His mind's eye was active throughout the time, and Zachary could see his surroundings using it. The prison cell he is currently in wasn't the only one, as there are more to his sides and across.
Inside these prison cells were humans of varying ages and states. Some were barely even human anymore. Clearly, many of them are test subjects.
Across the entire construct located underneath the Botchwick mountain, sprawling for hundreds of miles, Zachary could see many more places housing similarly designed cells.
He noticed some were reinforced way more than the rest. This isn't the first time Zachary has come to this place, though the situation had been quite different back then.
He only came last time for a brief sightseeing. To look around without caring for the things they're doing. Not like he cares a lot now, but he could feel the disgust rising from his stomach.
When Zachary felt like the time for the drug's effect would run out according to his mental clock, he 'groggily' woke up from his sleep, faking confusion and panic.
The first thing he saw when he woke up was the clinical lighting above, the white ceiling, and the glass walls.
"What the fuck?!" He shouted as he swiftly sat up on the bed.
He looks down on himself. Seeing the sterile white clothes on him, Zachary's eyes widened as he stood on his feet.
He scanned his surroundings and went to the closest glass wall, banging on it.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Hey! Where the fuck is this?! Let me out! Is this a prank?! Dad?! Hello- Hey, you! Let me out!" Zachary shouted at the top of his lungs, calling to the white-coated person walking down the hallway.
That person, Zachary, was calling out to, ignored him entirely and continued walking further away, occasionally stopping in front of other cells as he fiddled with the device in his hands.