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Mission No. 45

Corneria
CDF Headquarters

"Cold Reading"

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Pepper sat in the top floor of the Spire—the nickname for the Cornerian Defense Force HQ. The shining building towered above a sprawling complex of spacecraft hangars, training grounds, and munitions depots, all nestled between verdant mountain ranges that dominated the island. The curved glass window behind his desk looked out over the harbor, where an array of watercraft and space cruisers docked. Not so long ago, columns of black smoke and fallen buildings marred the city's skyline, but the reconstruction effort was quickly returning Corneria to the pristine jewel she was before the invasion.

Pepper decorated his personal office in memorabilia from his time spent in service. Photographs lined the walls, summarizing his military career: his graduating class from the Academy, his completion of officers school, the first battlecruiser under his command, a candid shot of the hound stepping down the gangplank to Fortunan soil… The pictures went on, documenting his swift rise through the ranks till he found himself today, at age fifty, Chief of Staff of the Cornerian Defense Force.

He sat with steepled fingers at his polished wood desk, looking out over the bare floor in the middle of the office. Leather-backed chairs formed an arc in front of him, with his desk positioned at the focus. Upon them sat five familiar figures: some in the flesh, others merely phantasmal holograms. Yaru de Pon and Edelyn Phoenix, joint CEOs of General Dynamics, were present in person, while Beltino Toad and another official (whose presence Pepper only barely tolerated) joined remotely.

A notification chimed, and the last hologram filled one of the empty seats. The pinpoints of light arranged themselves into the image of Dr. Marjorie Makepeace, transmitting all the way from Cerinia ten lightyears away—though her signal took a shortcut through a thin slit in spacetime thanks to Beltino's Gate. Stuck pixels hovered stubbornly in place, and large portions of her sparkling effigy lagged behind the rest whenever she moved, which proved most unsettling. Sometimes she froze in place while a message read, "Visual Signal Lost."

Pepper cleared his throat, summoning their eyes and ears. "Now that we are all present, today's council for Project Guiding Light is now in session."

De Pon, the brown-furred tanuki, huffed. "But we are not all present. On behalf of Mr. Fredersen, I protest. Guiding Light was his vision. Why disinvite him?"

"I must also object to Fredersen's exclusion," Makepeace echoed, her audio distorted and crackly.

Pepper glanced at Edelyn and Beltino as well, but neither cared nor dared to voice their opinion at the moment. It was hard to tell in the light of his office, but the fennec almost looked pleased.

"The project may have been his idea, but as chairman of the council, the final decision is mine." The hound shifted uncomfortably, recalling his last run-in with the banker. "Fredersen has… forgotten that fact, to put it simply. He's letting his ambition run away with him."

"But Fredersen is the Project's financier!" de Pon continued. "And we are the chief architects! Guiding Light won't proceed without either of us if you continue to treat the members of the council this way."

"Fredersen's money comes from the people and corporations of Corneria; he is beholden to the public just as we in the military are to the people's representative government. May I remind you that you are the salesmen here, and your task is to convince the government this project is a worthwhile venture? It can't proceed without the current administration's approval."

De Pon crossed his arms. "Very well, but let the records show my objection."

"This is a secret meeting," Edelyn Phoenix chastised him, grinning. "No minutes are kept and all traces are wiped from the system."

Pepper grew impatient. "Let's get down to the order of the day. According to our esteemed Dr. Makepeace, the search for the research subject is going poorly. In light of these circumstances, I wanted to confirm that the project can move forward with or without it."

Edelyn's ears perked. "I was under the impression we wouldn't be using a living subject—that's the only reason I agreed to continue diverting company resources to the project."

"To answer the general's question: no, it is not necessary."

All heads turned. The haggard voice belonged to a lanky, long-faced baboon with a stooped back. "It would be much safer to use a natural power source," he said.

"Implying the Cerinians aren't 'natural'?" Makepeace prodded.

The baboon ignored her, pretending she wasn't even in the room—which wasn't very hard given neither of them really were. "Cerinians were only ever experimental in nature: a mere rung on the ladder of a much larger program. Nothing else was simply available at the time, but now that Lylat is yours, they are superfluous, and more importantly, dangerous."

Edelyn spoke next, warily. "I'm loath to agree with someone like Dr. Liebgute, but I've always objected to using Cerinians. I think we should dispense with the project, rehabilitate the subjects, and focus all our efforts on the new energy source."

"But they can't be rehabilitated," de Pon countered. "They were bred for one purpose only. It's in their DNA!"

Pepper noticed Makepeace glaring at the Venomian scientist, who in turn averted his gaze from her. "Thoughts, Doctor?" the hound asked.

The vixen looked his way. "The new source is even more experimental than the Cerinians, who were proven to function safely in Andross's latest iteration. Moreover, the power contained within them is several orders greater than the source you are considering settling for."

Edelyn's brows raised. "More powerful than Lylat itself?!"

"Potentially limitless."

A silence fell over the council. Limitless, Pepper thought in awe. Looking around the room, Edelyn showed a good deal of concern while Liebgute practically squirmed in his seat. Beltino's typical curiosity had peaked, while Makepeace and de Pon's faces looked smug in the revelation. Fredersen's likely would, too, if he were there.

"Well Doctor, is there another Cerinian besides our escapee with this power?"

She shook her head. "No one has come as far as Subject 28 has. We'd have to choose another Cerinian from our dwindling pool and intensify their treatment. The process would take years. The original methods Andross used were cruel, but they achieved results. We'd never repeat those procedures, but finding alternatives is costly and time-consuming. It would be best for us to find 28 and capitalize off what Andross had started. After all, she's come this far, and we can't change what happened to her. I say we turn it around for something good."

"Be honest with me, Makepeace. Do you think it's reasonable to assume you'll even find the subject at this point?"

She bowed her head, still smiling. "I assure you, General, I am confident we will locate and recapture her."

"How can you be sure the Cerinian is still alive?"

"We have every reason to believe she is. Subject 19 has heard whispers, no matter how faint. 28 is the most powerful of the Cerinians and can easily protect herself. What's more, she has Lylat's greatest hero guiding her."

Pepper cracked his knuckles, glaring at a now empty space between the other photos on his cabinet. "Former hero. If you had properly treated him after Venom fell, we wouldn't be in this predicament."

"As his therapist and physician, I could only hear his woes and prescribe him treatments. I can't force him to swallow, nor to listen. No one could have predicted he'd fly to Venom and kidnap our most valuable research subject."

Beltino wrung his hands nervously. No one had directly stated it, but he was responsible for the warm welcome Fox received in Venom's labs—a hospitality which he abused. Even de Pon seemed to fume a bit, likewise having let Fox slip through his fingers.

Deciding not to pursue the subject further, the hound pivoted. "What measures has Captain Grey taken since I last checked in?"

At this, Makepeace's nose twitched. "He's… taken the Justice down to cruising altitude."

Pepper whistled. "Daring, I'll give the boy that. Just what Fox would have done if their positions were reversed—but equally as dangerous. I assume it increases the likelihood of finding 28?"

She tilted her head side-to-side. "While 19 will have an easier time sensing her, and the ship's instruments have a better chance of picking up Fox's arwing, it runs the risk of another Cerinian spotting us and attacking."

The hound shrugged. "A risk, to be sure, but a calculated one."

"Pepper, if Bill doesn't return, I won't either, and the project will be set back even further. The entire ship is threatened. I'd like to minimize the time we spend close to the surface like this."

Pepper frowned. "Well, what can the CDF do for you? Besides endangering more troops on this gamble of yours."

"Have you located Andross's shuttle yet?"

Pepper looked at de Pon, who answered. "We think we've found a lead, but there seems to be a mix-up in the system. These serial numbers are from over a decade ago. However, I am confident we'll have the information for you within a week."

Edelyn's green eyes narrowed. "If you do find this girl and end up using her, I won't stand for it. I'll resign from my position on the council and cut off support for Guiding Light. These poor girls need to be released and rehabilitated."

De Pon grit his teeth, looking like he wanted to hiss at the fennec. "You can't back out now, Edelyn; both of us sunk too many resources into this. And I hope that word about supposed 'ethical ramifications' of the project doesn't mysteriously leak out, or someone will face a very unpleasant criminal court."

"The mere fact you're worried about going public with the project's details should trouble you. Imagine if the details did leak out. Imagine if we came right out and told Lylat what we were attempting to do. Even if it was for their ultimate benefit, just pull aside any random citizen on the street and ask them, would they want their problems fixed if it meant an innocent girl had to suffer for it? I guarantee you, none of them would!"

"None of them alone would, I concede. But together, for the benefit of all, it is worth it!" De Pon was about to argue the matter further, but he glanced back at the general and realized the theatrical scene he was making. On a dime he pivoted and changed tone. "But we can discuss this further in private again, if you wish."

Pepper raised his eyebrows at the two, but decided to dismiss the exchange. "Is there anything else I should be aware of?" When no one spoke, he concluded, "In that case, meeting adjourned."

One by one, the council members nodded in respect and left, exiting through his office door or letting their holograms wink out—but de Pon remained behind, standing.

"Well, things got a little… heated there. I'm sorry for arguing with you, Pepper. It's nothing personal, and I have no hard feelings towards you. Perhaps we could patch things up at my house party tonight? I trust you can still make it?" he asked. "Once again, it's no particular occasion, just a chance to distract ourselves from the woes of the world, if for but a night."

Pepper mulled over the invitation he'd received earlier. "I'm… considering it. Will Fredersen be there?"

The tanuki couldn't help but grin knowingly. "No, he won't be attending. I did invite him, but he said he had some 'urgent business' to see to. Said he needed to collect on an old debt."

The hound scratched his chin for a few seconds, tempted by the thought of socializing with friends and dining on exotic food. "Alright Yaru, I need to get out of the office anyway. I'll see you there."

That evening Pepper had his chauffeur drive him out to de Pon's estate. The traffic through Corneria City was heavy in recent times. Through the brightly lit skyscrapers he caught glimpses of large crowds continuing to flood the streets, demanding the payout of their war bonuses. Even after a month, the demonstrations showed no sign of ending, with President Finley's policies doing little in the short term to soothe their indignation. Some of the protesters brandished signs with his own portrait emblazoned on the front: gold-furred and red-suited. Pepper had always championed their cause, during the war and after. He felt guilty retreating to a party, but even he deserved a reprieve after a month of constant work.

Once they escaped the city, traffic lessened. The chauffeur drove along a small road through the picturesque countryside surrounding the planet's capital: miles of green fields, placid lakes, and dense forests untouched by urban development, except for the odd estate of a wealthy businessman or politician. Barring a few freak accidents, the countryside had escaped the brunt of Venom's wrath.

A few minutes later they pulled into a private driveway that led up a hill to de Pon's mansion. The architecture borrowed from the classical revival era; marble columns with spiraling volutes held up a large triangular pediment on the front of the house, with a rigidly symmetrical façade. One would have a hard time reconciling the house with the tanuki's primary line of work: weapons development.

A butler welcomed Pepper at the door, taking his hat and coat and ushering him inside. They passed through an extravagant foyer with twin curved staircases to the ballroom where most of the guests gathered. His footsteps echoed over the polished floor, in which reflected the lights from sparkling chandeliers and candelabras. Tall windows that stretched to the distant ceiling lined the back wall, opening out onto acres of unspoiled countryside, now darkened by nighttime shadows. De Pon's mansion seemed excessive to Pepper, and he felt quite comfortable in his comparatively meager residence in the heart of Corneria's national mall.

When he arrived, the party was already well underway. Corneria's affluent mingled around the ballroom, dressed in sharp suits or fashionable gowns. The general never found his choice of apparel too difficult; he wore his crimson dress uniform which always commanded the power to turn eyes.

He noticed several other high-ranking officers scattered about the room, and recognized a few of the planet's elite families: the CEO of a manufacturer for hoverpads, a representative of the system's largest steel manufacturer, and the vice president of a mining operation in Meteo, to name a few. They stood around conversing over more pleasant matters than business and the state of Lylat, sipping drinks, sampling hors d'oeuvres, or slowly dancing to the classical music performed by a live band.

"Ah, General!"

Pepper turned to see de Pon's smiling face approaching him. The brown-furred tanuki was dressed in a gray pinstripe suit.

"I'm delighted you could come!" He glanced around Pepper before adding, "I take it the wife couldn't make it?"

The canid sighed. "No, Celia's still on the western coast campaigning for the military widows pension."

"Oh? Well, what a shame she couldn't make it. Please give her my regards when you see her next." He placed a hand on Pepper's shoulder and gestured towards the crowd. "Won't you come this way? I have some new friends I'd like you to meet. They're quite the interesting couple!"

The hound obliged, following Yaru to a refreshment table. He introduced him to a pair of otters who jointly founded a social media company in Tetracon Vale, which Pepper found difficult to care about. Still, while the tanuki and social media moguls continued to share their experiences, the general amused himself with the whimsical snacks and bustling atmosphere of the party.

By the time he tuned back into their conversation, Yaru was gushing to the otters about a trip he took during the past month: "For my birthday, I made a pilgrimage to Fortuna, and I am very pleased with my experience! It's such a wild, untamed planet, and the beautiful gardens and ancient shrines are sights to behold. I tried bekhabar meditation for a week, completely cutting myself off from the world-web, but still keeping my smart watch and pace tracker to log my heart rate each night. For several days I kept completely silent, meditating on the floors of caves, depriving myself of reading and writing, music, and synthmeat. I didn't even make eye-contact with the monks! It helped me understand myself, hacking into the deepest layer of my mind and reprogramming it to a point where I didn't seek pleasure or care to avoid pain. Then we handed out shoes to the devotees of the monasteries. You should never lose the experience of giving back to people on a personal level! It's always something people like us lose sight of."

While the couple wholeheartedly agreed, Pepper inwardly rolled his eyes. It was hard to believe that earlier de Pon had argued with a Cornerian general, threatened a powerful CEO, discussed sacrificing a mere child as an experimental energy source, and helped plan the foundation of the entire system's future. Nor was the fact lost on him that Fortuna was waging a war that bordered on genocide against certain subgroups of the planet, all while under Cornerian occupation. But then again, he was just as complicit. At least he didn't lecture others about finding inner peace or whatever bullshit he was raving about…

A Doberman butler arrived, presenting de Pon with a corked, green glass bottle. The tanuki accepted it and offered it to Pepper. "You seem rather distracted, General. Why not treat yourself? It's a good year from my own personal cellar. You're not on duty, are you?"

Pepper eyed the bottle and the dark sloshing liquid within. His mouth suddenly felt dry with thirst. He smirked. "De Pon, the General of the Defense Force is always on duty, and always in need of a glass of wine!"

The tanuki grinned and uncorked the bottle with some difficulty. He took a glass from the table behind him and tipped the neck into it with a ring-clad finger. The canid accepted the glass, sloshing the wine around to admire its thick texture and blood-red hue: so dark it seemed like liquid midnight. De Pon poured more glasses for himself and the otters, and together they toasted.

Pepper tilted the liquid down his throat, drinking deeply. He thought the taste quite admirable: full-bodied and sweet at first, but with a lingering briny aftertaste. He smacked his jowls, getting a feel for the disappearing flavor before chasing it down with the rest of the glass. Quite delicious, but at the same time… odd. There was a taste he couldn't identify.

For a surprising second, it felt like a trapdoor opened in his gut, and his stomach plunged down into nothingness. He began to feel lightheaded and quickly set his glass on the table.

"Anything wrong, General?"

Yaru's voice sounded distant and muffled. Pepper looked back up, but saw doubles of each figure standing next to him. The tanuki's deep black eyes and mask-like facial fur unsettled him.

"Yes, I-I'm fine," he assured them. "Just felt a little lightheaded for a second. It's been a long and grueling day at HQ."

"Maybe you should have eaten more," the wife suggested.

"A good idea in hindsight!" he nervously laughed.

Then the cacophony of voices and orchestral music began to blur together, fading into the background. Above all the noise he heard a passage of youthful laughter, so stark and clear he could make out each note. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. He turned left and right, peering between the bodies in the crowd. They seemed to accelerate, whizzing by in front of him, the glints in the women's gold jewelry and gem-studded gowns leaving afterimage trails of light. Soon they became little more than faceless vestiges of dark shadows and bright beacons dancing around him.

The giggling laughter sounded again, and Pepper's eyes alighted on the one figure who seemed to exist on the same plane of limbo as he: a young vixen in a purple-colored gown. Most striking about her, however, was her deep blue fur. While the guests blurred together and spun faster than the eye could follow, she stayed constant and still, the only one with actual definition to her features. Her mouth remained closed and her lips didn't move as she smiled mischievously at him, yet he could still hear the echo of her laughter somehow.

With a swish of her blue tail and violet gown, she turned and disappeared into the crowd.

"Excuse me for a moment," Pepper said aloud, but he could barely hear the sound of his own voice, and he wasn't sure the tendrils of sound that came in response were Yaru and the others bidding him goodbye. He left the table, forging ahead into the crowd that seemed to part for him like the sea itself. Every few seconds a gap between the dancers would open, and he'd see the smaller vixen grinning back at him. It was always just for a moment, as the bodies wove back together to hide her, and when he arrived at her last location she had vanished… only to reappear a few yards further away.

Pepper felt himself inextricably drawn to the young woman, as if she were the only one in the ballroom who was real. She was youthful and beautiful, yet mysterious and taunting. He had to know who she was and where she came from: her name, her family, her home, and especially when he could see her again.

She led him on like this for some time, with Pepper losing sight of the vixen only to catch another glimpse of her playful smile, leading him on when the crowd parted again. It frustrated him like trying to reach someone or someplace in a dream, but the destination was always just out of reach, the goalposts imperceptibly shifting further away.

Eventually he reached the end of the ballroom, where a hallway led to a twisting flight of stairs. He walked to the foot of the staircase, looking up to see the vixen just as she reached the top step. She turned back to look at him, her glowing sapphire eyes piercing through the shadows. Then she turned and disappeared once more.

Breathing heavily, Pepper climbed the staircase and glanced around the hall of de Pon's upstairs quarters. The golden light from the ballroom below completely faded before the top step, and only dim candelabras illuminated the hall—but he was just in time to spot the girl's azure tail flicking into a side door.

His feet led him across the carpeted floor and into the guest room. Inside the linen curtains were already drawn. A mahogany wood dresser sat against the wall, and a bed with a red velvet quilt lay beside it. Now there was nowhere to run—nowhere to vanish off to; he'd caught up to her!

The mysterious blue-furred vixen turned, looking up at him with a hunger burning in her icy, yet fiery eyes. Whispers of her voice echoed in his mind even without her speaking. Somehow he could feel the desire she had for him, a sensation that whipped his own blood into a frenzy.

At this point he was only conscious of a few things: that he was tired, weary, and frustrated, and that she was young, full of the energy he lacked, and very beautiful.

And that the two of them were alone.

Pepper was so captivated by the vixen letting her gown fall to the floor that he didn't notice the door click shut behind him.

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Slippy hopped back and forth between a dozen windows on his monitor, simultaneously keeping track of each one: a trouble-shooting article, several video tutorials, a command line window, multiple files of code, and a compiler—in addition to his social media pages and a playlist of his favorite video game tunes.

At the moment he was flipping back and forth between the tutorials and a particularly troublesome page of code that refused to compile, all while nodding his head in time with the music. The crowded desktop was his own chapel of stained-glass windows; the video game soundtrack, ancient hymns hearkening to his childhood; a mug of cold coffee, his holy sacrament of communion.

Finally it occurred to Slippy that his desperate attempt to make his work seem any more interesting was failing. So much for soaring over waves of information databases like a spacefighter…

While the frog had worked for Dawson McLean for three weeks, he'd only recently been assigned to their Cornerian Security Agency division a few days ago. Yet in that short time, he'd made much progress detecting security vulnerabilities and had grown accustomed to the company's work atmosphere. Like many groups based out of the sun-soaked Cornerian west coast, Dawson McLean had an easy-going feel about the place; odd considering the gravity of their work. While Slippy mostly kept to himself—his main quirk being he was more skilled with machines and software than people—his co-workers in the department were friendly enough. But already he missed the close camaraderie he had with Fox, Peppy, and Falco.

He glanced at the clock in the corner of the screen. 11:48. This was the time his supervisor tended to check in on his progress. He looked around at his fellows' workstations, but oddly found them all empty, their swivel chairs still spinning from when they'd left in a hurry.

Confused, Slippy popped out his earbuds to hear the sound of laughter and gasps of disbelief. He turned and found his coworkers gathered around a single desk, staring at the monitor. Curious, he got up and waddled over. He stood on tip-toes and craned side-to-side to get a better look over the shoulders of the small crowd.

The desk belonged to their raccoon surveillance specialist—Melvin, he believed his name was. He sat with his paws over his face, peering between his digits at the screen. "Oh no…" he groaned.

The monitor displayed a fuzzy, warped camera of someone's bedroom. Slippy narrowed his eyes at the screen to make out what was going on, horrified when he realized a couple were going at it on the bed.

"Come on Melvin," one of his coworkers teased, "you know better than to use office computers for porn!"

"How are you getting this?" a woman asked, morbidly curious.

The raccoon waved his mouse around the program. "It's the camera on the holovision. As far as they know, the HV's off."

She stood back and crossed her arms. "Well remind me to put sticky notes over all my devices. You creep!"

"She's right Melvin. If a husband wants to plow his wife in the privacy of their own bedroom, that's none of our concern."

"But he's not her husband," Melvin groaned.

"What?!"

The raccoon covered his eyes back up. "She's my neighbor. Her actual husband is away on a business trip. I have no idea who the other dog is."

Melvin's revelation was followed by a bout of raucous laughter from the gathered audience.

"Wait! They're changing positions. See if you can tap that laptop over there!"

Looking uncomfortable, Melvin navigated through the woman's home network and found the laptop. Entering a few commands, the monitor switched to a feed much closer to the couple. A few of the onlookers cheered and clapped Melvin's back.

"I wonder if I can find out what my neighbors are up to…"

Grimacing at the obscene display, Slippy slunk back to his desk and resumed his work, trying to ignore them.

"Alright, what's going on here?!" Their supervisor, Slint Owens, had finally arrived on the scene. "Melvin, if you're showing another fail compilation during work hours—"

"N-No sir! Nothing like that. In my routine system check, I just happened to come across some, er… abnormal activity."

The stoat supervisor put on his glasses and glared at the screen. Finally, Slippy thought, this idiocy would stop—

"HA! Does it have sound?"

Melvin looked surprised, but scrambled to remotely activate the laptop microphone anyway. Slippy blushed when he heard the canids' primal grunts and yips and quickly reached for his earbuds.

Slint stood back and scratched his chin at the scene. Summarizing from the photographs on the dresser that the male was not in fact the husband, he asked, "Well, are either of them noteworthy individuals?"

"No sir, just a neighbor of mine."

"Then we have no business peering into their… personal affairs." He clapped his hands. "Alright, back to work everyone!"

While the IT specialists retreated to their stations, Slint stepped over to Slippy's desk—as if none of the past five minutes had actually happened.

"So, how is our new information security analyst doing on his third day on the job?"

Slippy tabbed away from his current project to a report he'd begun filling out in the background. "Well sir, I think I found a security exploit. It's not even limited to our systems, either—it seems to affect the majority of modern processors."

Slint's eyes widened and he leaned over Slippy's desk to take a look. "Ooooh! How's it work?"

Slippy scrolled through his documentation. "It's a bug—or series of bugs—resulting from a race condition when access to an administrator's file is requested. The queried byte is loaded into the CPU's cache during out-of-order execution, before permission is even granted, during which time the byte's size can be read and the content extrapolated. Essentially any bit of data behind an access wall can be remotely read."

Captivated, the stoat poured over his report. When he was finished giving it a cursory scan, he glanced up at the document title. "ColdRead, eh?"

Slippy shrugged. "I think it's important enough to give it a name. It'll help with spreading awareness and disseminating fixes."

Slint cringed. "Ooh, uh, actually Slippy, there's a process we need to follow before we release these kinds of exploits to the public sector."

He blinked. "But this could potentially be catastrophic! Think about how much data could leak out from our systems—in fact anyone around Lylat could be affected!"

"I know, I know, but we still have regulations. If it affects processors that utilize out-of-order execution, the flaw has existed for almost a decade now and hasn't yet been found by bad actors. We have to determine whether to disclose this to the public or save it for a potential cyberweapon. This could be a valuable asset to the CSA."

"You mean there's a chance we wouldn't disclose it? We'd try to capitalize off it instead?"

"Well, the choice isn't really our responsibility," Slint explained. "We have to report it to the Equities Review Board for further deliberation. They'll ultimately make the decision to release or stash it. They're much better equipped for the job than we are; the board is made up of representatives from Cornerian Intelligence, the Treasury, the State Department, Homeplanet Security, and even the CDF. They'll weigh the possible economic and military benefits versus the risks of keeping the exploit secret."

"The Equities… Review… Board?" Slippy flatly asked, heart sinking.

"Yes. But don't worry about it; a CSA representative is chairman of the council!"

"Ah. Then I assume we have several of these exploits already?"

"Oh, yes! We call it the Vault. We've already successfully employed one such exploit against Venom's systems during the war. It's a neat little box of monsters and demons just waiting to be cracked open. Of course, if they ever got out, they could just as easily be turned on us and used to infiltrate our secret files, but they're kept under tight lock and key."

The stoat straightened up and slapped him on the back. "Well, nice catch there, Slippy! Finish that report and send it my way, and I'll make sure it comes to the attention of the ERB."

"Yes sir," but Slippy could only manage a half-hearted salute. Brow furrowing, he resumed editing his report.

A vault of monsters and demons, huh…?