Chapter 123: Chapter 87: Bone Shards
John, after listening to the description, suddenly furrowed his brows as he recalled something, then said uncertainly.
"I might know where that package is."
"You’re joking with me, right?"
Jilead instinctively laughed out loud, but he noticed John was very serious.
"No."
John gestured around. "When I escaped the Internet Surveillance pursuit, I hid in an elevator, remember you texted me then?"
"Of course."
"There’s a package on top of the elevator, very new, and it’s raw material for making hypersensitive nerve drugs."
"Damn, that’s the stuff!"
Jilead got excited on the spot.
Outside the window, the sun had begun to rise, sunlight piercing the gray haze, illuminating the two standing in the living room, shivering in the cold breeze.
Jilead tried contacting some gang brothers willing to take the fall, but all the calls went to voicemail, instantly realizing those guys might have already set out.
No contact allowed during a job.
That’s the rule within the Black Gold Gang.
They decided to split up.
John went to retrieve the package dropped in the elevator shaft.
Jilead was responsible for negotiating with Bone Shards, to save his good brother from a death mission.
[Mission Objective Updated]
[Search for raw materials. (Not Achieved)]
John walked through the air corridor, reaching the adjacent building, accessing elevator control with the Atlanta Virtual Network.
He had used Black Light to hack into the elevator system here before, roasting the brains of two Internet Surveillance agents in the process.
Not surprisingly.
The Black Light here had also been thoroughly cleaned out.
John stepped into the elevator car, seeing the pried-open ceiling restored to its original state felt a bad omen, sure enough...
The raw materials had vanished.
John relayed the news to Jilead, also communicating with the control room, and searched the elevator shaft bottom without any results.
Jilead was very disappointed upon hearing.
John could tell things weren’t going smoothly, so he also headed to the Dan Street Apartment boundary.
[Dan Street - Car Casino]
He spiraled up along the passage, driving into the dimly lit parking lot to see a group of heavily armed Black men.
There were greeters and a red carpet in front of the casino doors.
It was decorated like a vault entrance, with a waiter in a suit dedicated to greeting guests.
Screech—
John drifted the car into place, shutting the car door with a flick of his hand amid the bass-like roar.
His face was sullen, wearing a leather jacket, and the revolver glinting at his waist and the rifle slung over his back exuded displeasure.
The suited waiter raised his eyebrows, a smile breaking on his face lined with silver inlays.
"Wow, he’s... um, that John, right?"
Spotting the talk-of-the-town, feeling somewhat elated, he pointed out John to the security guards from afar.
"F*ck, I’m not blind, you get aside."
But the fully armed Black security guard looked very serious.
These two burly men mixed with Bone Shards, even if they didn’t know why John came here, they could guess he wasn’t in a good mood, especially since Bone Shards’ goons had ransacked his apartment before.
The security guard immediately stepped forward to intercept.
"Don’t be so quick to fire up, there are rules here, the clients inside are very important to the Black Gold Gang, you have to consider Vito, right?"
He immediately tried to stabilize John’s emotions with words.
The other hulking man stood ready as well, his goggles flashing, clutched the weapon tight with two mechanical arms, and reported in a low voice on the phone.
"John, he’s here... yeah, how the hell should I know where the Internet Surveillance is, anyway he’s alive and kicking, came armed too."
[Scan detected, no hacking signs]
John stood in front of the door.
A shimmer crossed his iris surface.
The camera zoomed in on him, a segment of red data stream connecting him and the device was visible, a progress bar below zooming up, displaying a security check tagline.
This setup was a bit like a corporate tower.
"I’m here for Bone Shards."
"Think you can just call for a girl at the club here? Vito may be chummy with you, but it doesn’t mean every Black Gold Gang boss likes you..."
The security guard frowned tightly, speaking somewhat rudely but with an underlying dread in his words, his voice not as loud as usual.
He awkwardly shifted topics, trying to stall John, praying for backup to arrive promptly.
"Wasn’t it said that Internet Surveillance took you away?"
"Yes."
John answered calmly, his eyes serene, yet pulling his hand from his coat to hang beside the gun.
"Want to know how I survived?"
"Shit..."
The metal sliding doors at the casino entrance suddenly opened.
Jilead came out with a frown, bringing John inside before a gunfight ensued.
Passing through corridors and stairs made of metal grids, they arrived at the industrial-styled casino hall.
It had extensive gold decorations.
Lights shone from above, decadent music filled the dance floor, and each electronic dealer had a group of gamblers excited in front of them.
John followed Jilead around the stairs.
They went through the ordinary cheap sections, leaving the hall, directly to the most luxurious VIP area on the second floor.
The floor became a thick carpet.
Naked girls carried drinks, wandering all over, their metallic lines and luminescent tattoos catching guests’ eyes.
The gamblers here were wealthy and influential, each wearing a mask on their face.
Jilead wasn’t in the mood to enjoy it though.
He and John walked to the innermost observation deck, an absolute core area—overlooking the entire casino through one-way glass, with an elevator that went straight to the basement and led to some secret trading venues.
A red sofa surrounded a massive glass table.