Inner Ring, Maitama District, Drifting Springs Hotel...

Within the inner ring of Neo Solace, the hotel room where Tyla who was now Madam Ophelia stayed was grand and luxurious.

Built with walls of smart glass stretching from floor to ceiling, revealing a skyline of hovering traffic and neon-lit towers, it reflected everything grand about Neo Solace’s inner ring that Tyla had always heard about.

The bed of the hotel room itself was smart with the capability to float slightly above ground, its surface smooth and adaptable to adjust to each user’s size.

It doubled as a massage bed.

A soft ambient glow pulsed through the room with an A.I system in place actively responding to your mood, while an A.I concierge hummed quietly in the background, ready to fulfill any request before you even speak it.

This is the luxury of Neo Solace’s inner ring.

The air itself carried a faint, tailored scent of something calm and expensive.

It wasn’t wrong. Afterall, a single night in this hotel cost a whopping 15,000 Neo Credits.

Every surface of the room is seamless, every function invisible as if the room itself is alive, quietly bending reality to ensure absolute comfort.

Tyla stood by the window, facing the city outside while placing her smartphone close to her ear after dialing the number that Talia sent to her.

Ring... Ring...

The call rang for a few seconds and then it was answered.

Click!

"Hello?"

"Good evening, this is Madam Ophelia".

"Oh, Madam, nice to meet you ma’am. Do you have any need that we can help you with?"

"Of course, that’s why I called," she responded in a condescending manner, then she went straight to the point. "I need a slave".

"Oh..."

She continued. "I need one fresh from the oven, untainted by Neo Solace’s atmosphere. One still naïve and can attend to my needs perfectly".

"Oh..."

The person on the other end didn’t sound surprised, it was clear that he was used to dealing with eccentric demands like this.

"Unfortunately, ma’am most of our fresh products are yet to be transported to the inner ring. We’re still processing them in the outer ring and..."

"Its fine," she interrupted him calmly. "Send me the location and I’ll come".

The male voice on the other end hesitated slightly. "Are you sure you...?"

"I said send me the address!" She snapped. "Don’t waste my time".

"I’m sorry ma, let me first discuss with my superior..."

"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!" She finally raised her voice. "Are you looking down on me? Do you know who you’re speaking to? Do you know who I AM???!" Her voice rose up a crescendo.

Bzzzt!

There was a brief sound of static, and then the call became clear again. Tyla realized immediately that she was now talking to another person but she acted like she didn’t know.

"Sorry for the inconvenience and disrespect ma’am, it won’t repeat itself," he said in a deeply apologetic voice. "I’ll send the address immediately, we’ll be expecting you tomorrow".

"Good". Tyla snorted and finally ended the call.

Shortly after she did, her smartphone beeped with a notification.

BEEP!

{ADDRESS=}

She looked at the address and her eyes gleamed, it was the same construction company that was just beside a certain café.

Just like expected, her eccentric demands resulted in them sending her to that specific slave trafficking base.

She yawned, then she started walking towards her bathroom.

In the tiny corner separating the room from the corridor leading to the bathroom was a blind spot from the Omnicore Eye. Immediately she got there, Tyla quickly typed a message on her smartphone and sent it out.

She didn’t just send it out, to protect it, her ADE flared.

Ghost Line!

She encrypted the message with her ADE and hid the network node.

{Message sent!}

{Content: Operation "Chain-Link" is a go. Tomorrow, 8:00am, make an excuse and create time for it.}

{Receiver: Talia.}

...

The next day...

24th September, Year 714 A.G.

Early in the morning, Madam Ophelia left her luxurious hotel room in the inner ring with a convoy of luxurious flying cars as they left to the outer ring.

They arrived within 10 minutes.

Just before arriving at the supposed construction company, the convoy passed a modest-looking café.

Just as they passed, it happened.

Neural Projection!

Mirror Mask!

It was subtle and no one noticed, only Madam Ophelia herself noticed as her smartphone beeped twice.

Talia just hopped inside the smartphone, turning herself into a new application within the phone with Neural Projection.

And with Mirror Mask, she hid her identity signature completely.

Madam Ophelia’s lips curled up slightly.

Sometime later, finally, she was led inside the construction company after a rigorous security search that involved her smartphone despite her many protests.

In the end, they found nothing and she was allowed inside.

In tacit agreement with the city authorities due to the influence of their secret boss, the Omnicore Eye was not watching inside the construction company due to the manner of activities going on inside.

And this gave Talia room to operate freely for the first time in a while.

Overclock Mind!

Ghost Line!

Ping Scan!

Firewall Bypass!

Bzzz!

While Madam Ophelia- Tyla was escorted around the slave trafficking base, hidden like a bug, Talia began hacking into the not-so sophisticated systems of the trafficking base.

As an E Rank NetRunner, she was able to do this easily in little time, gaining access inside their database as she began surfing through their data.

Operation "Chain-Link" involved digging deep into Joe’s trafficking business network to find out every single trafficking base and network chain that he had all over the world.

This way, if for some reason they failed to assassinate Joe, they would at least be able to stop his activities and the activities of every other person involved in the same illegal business that he did that was connected to him.

And even if they succeeded in killing him, they still needed this knowledge to be able to cripple and end his business completely.

While Tyla was being showed around the large trafficking base where she saw different types of slaves on sample being prepared for sale, Talia hacked and infiltrated and within a few minutes, she surfed through the entire database.

And well, she was disappointed but at the same time she expected it.

This base was not the central base of Joe’s operation, the central base of his trafficking operations was actually located within the inner ring.

To get access to all the other bases around the world and know them, she’ll have to access that central base and hack its database.

But her efforts were not wasted because finally, she knew where Joe’s central trafficking base of operation was.

And once Talia gave her the signal plus the result of her hacking, Tyla improvised perfectly as she flared up.

"WHAT KIND OF BUMS ARE THESE?!!"

"THESE GIRLS ARE SHAPELESS!"

"What can they even do?"

"WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY TAKE ME FOR???"

"These girls are too dirty for me! Do you actually expect such dirty slaves to satisfy me?"

The manager didn’t flare up due to her unreasonable demands. He was calm and diplomatic enough as he intervened, he was experienced with dealing with nobles like her.

He smiled. "Madam, this is not our only stock. If you want higher quality stock, we can take you to our main base in the inner ring".

"That’s what our dealer was trying to tell you yesterday through the phone".

’Bingo’. Tyla thought.

On the surface though, she continued raging for another minute before she reluctantly agreed to be led to the main trafficking base of Joe’s trafficking empire that was hidden within the inner ring of Neo Solace.

A few minutes later, they left with her convoy.

...

[Special Appreciation to Yametekudastop, Meow-Buf, and thatotherguy008 for the Golden Tickets! Thanks for the support.]