Starshine: Aurora Rising Book One by G. S. Jennsen Page A

train of thought and brought a dark scowl to his face. And then there was that .
    He supplied the decryption code, scanned the message and deleted it almost as soon as it had arrived. It contained suitably cryptic phrasing, but the point came through clear enough.
    Payment had been received. Final preparations were underway. The assignment would be completed at the time and in the manner the other party deemed most efficient. If all went well, Jaron would never know the man (or woman) had ever been at the Summit. That is, except for the irrefutable evidence thereof they would leave in their wake.
    He’d return to Seneca a richer man, though the new funds paled in comparison to the wealth he expected to soon follow. Yessiree…he should be able to set his wife and kids up in one of the swank new townhomes in the Pinciana neighborhood, with enough left over for a private condo retreat for himself downtown. It was a long way from his parents’ tiny apartment tucked behind their ‘herb’ shop shouting distance from the kasō shakai , the underworld slums the rest of Cavare pretended didn’t exist. A long way indeed.
    Of course if all didn’t go well, he’d be facing forty-years-to-life in prison at best, permanent disappearance into the black hole of a covert intelligence detention facility at worst. It wasn’t the first high-stakes risk he had taken in his life…but it certainly carried the greatest consequences, whether win or lose.
    The scowl lingered as he yanked his sunglasses off and looked around for his secretary. She tromped outside the transport cargo hull, arms flailing about to point at crates of equipment while she issued orders to the staff.
    He tossed his jacket into her chest and headed for the lift. “I’ll be in the Prep Room until dinner. Be a dear and bring me a drink, one of those strong tropical concoctions.” He paused mid-step, considered the message again and glanced over his shoulder.
    “On second thought, go ahead and make it a double.”
     

     
    Matei Uttara departed the commercial transport amidst a throng of passengers. It wasn’t difficult to blend in with the diverse array of tourists and businessmen and women. Some were here for networking, some for relaxation, others for assorted pleasures of a daring but not truly dangerous variety. He imagined some were here for all three.
    His attire was nondescript, his hair cut to the chin and dulled to a dirty brown beneath a summer cap common on the resort world. His movements were casual, his bearing relaxed as he let himself be carried along by the crowd of travelers. His pace and gait varied at random intervals such that even the best pattern-recognition ware would be unable to spot anything anomalous.
    He passed among giggling children accompanying their parents to the family resorts and young people already drunk on hormones and synthetic liquor. He surrounded himself with other visitors as he made his way to the levtrams and nonchalantly snuck in the last seat of a full tram headed in the correct direction.
    As he exited the tram an attractive but intoxicated woman bumped into him. She stumbled, grabbed onto his arm and smiled lopsidedly up at him. He returned the smile while he reached underneath her hairline and pinched a nerve behind her ear. As her limbs relaxed he nudged her to send her momentum back toward her companions. He faded away into the crowd as one of them complained he wasn’t going to carry her all the way to the condo.
    The hotel was busy but not so thick with people as the transport station. He chose a family of five and trailed them through the lobby to the front desk, where he checked in under an invented identity using an untraceable credit account.
    His room was a modest affair on a middle level of the hotel adjacent to the conference center hosting the Trade Summit. The conference center had already heightened their security, and the security at the hotel was sure to soon become tighter than pleased him. But by