IAC

“Here it is,” Perses said, carefully placing a gray piece of metal so small it was barely visible to the naked eye on a napkin so Asteria could see it. They were standing in the newly constructed operating room, or as Hines liked to refer to it, the toy room. The tweezers he had been using to hold it were bloodied but not nearly as much so as the scalpel lying on the table next to it. Hines had been disappointed Larkin hadn’t been awake for his first experiment.

“That’s it?” Asteria asked, holding her red locks back with one hand as she peered down at the device. “It looks so inconsequential. How can they do so much with such a tiny speck?”

“I don’t know, but that’s it. The fabled Intelligence Assistance Communicator. Without it, they’ll never be able to track him, and he won’t be able to tell them what’s become of him either.”

Asteria stood, her arms folded for a moment be