7-20 YC 114 0200
Ryven's eyes had adjusted to the darkness of his quarters at Cerra Manor. The air was thick with the smoke from a half dozen cigarettes he had smoked in succession. His eyes had not wavered from the imagined spot on the wall his gaze stared straight through and beyond into a darker world where his plans unfolded and unraveled and played out to their ends. His mind, the enhanced mind of a capsuleer, could process tactics and such at an accelerated rate, but even so, he had been sitting with his back against the wall for nearly three hours without moving. It had taken him these three hours to come to a decision, formulate a plan, and calmly accept the possible ramifications.
Four hours earlier:
Ryven's neocom buzzed to alert him to an incoming call. "Speak." He answered, gruffly.
The voice on the other end was immediately familiar, belonging to a man Ryven had only made use of twice in the past. Once was when he was trying to free Leela from her father. The second time was when he was planning to murder Leela's father. The man was his informant where matters of Leela's former occupation were concerned. He traveled the same circles, knew the same people, and was, incidentally, hired by those people to track down and deliver similar information on Leela, which was the reason he was making this call.
"They're coming after her, Mr. K." He spoke, emotionless. "Is this information of interest to you? Or should I perhaps keep it to myself?" The bastard never gave you anything for free.
"You already know the answer to that." Ryven was impatient and had no time for the usual games. "The standard rate?"
"Ha!" The man laughed without any trace of mirth. "I have you by the balls, Mr. K. I know she is quite special to you." The line was quiet, and Ryven could almost see the man on the other end of the line: tall, dark skinned, gold teeth, his lips sneering as he imagined Ryven squirming at the other end. This made Ryven smile. Imagine, Ryven squirming. He'd have laughed if the man hadn't finally spoken. "Triple."
Ryven thought for a moment before finally replying. "I'll pay you four times your usual rate."
The man seemed startled by this. "And why am I shown such generosity?"
"Because you're going to give me all the information you have. All of it." Ryven spoke, his voice like ice.
The man on the other end of the line considered the terms for a full twenty seconds before finally agreeing. The information was transmitted to Ryven's neocom almost twenty minutes after the call ended.
4 Hours Later:
Ryven had read over all the information. Leela's previous occupation, acquiring and selling information on some of the cluster's most interesting and dangerously wealthy individuals to other interesting and dangerously wealthy individuals had made her the unfortunate owner of a wealth of knowledge on all sorts of criminal activities. Ryven's informant's information showed Leela was currently the target of three different organizations, one of which wanted her dead. Two wanted her captured. Ryven realized the futility of either of those actions. Leela was a capsuleer, and capsuleers were just about unkillable and damn hard to capture. However, if her clone were to be sabotaged or her ressurection routines rerouted.... well, Ryven couldn't risk that.
He tapped a few buttons on his neocom and the image of a middle-aged Gallentean man hovered over the small table in his sparsely decorated quarters. The man had close ties with the Serpentis, not that that mattered much to Ryven. This operation was going down whether it was legal or not. Leela may be his ex-wife, but he still cared for her. She needed his help, even though she would never ask for it. Ryven pulled a pistol from a nearby drawer and lined the sights up with the floating ethereal head of his first target.
"See you soon."
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