Imakarum sighed as he left the interrogation suite, feeling like banging his head against the wall. Three days of interrogations, and they were nowhere, absolutely nowhere. He looked up at the sound of footsteps and saw de Galenos coming to a halt a few feet away from him.

“Anything?” he asked flatly.

“No more than we had when we started this morning,” the older Zoalord rumbled softly, shaking his head.

“This is ridiculous, we’ve interrogated all of them now, and we have six traitors, but not one of them knew the identity of any of the others, and none of them had contact outside of the office. There has to be someone we’ve missed, at least one person that we didn’t bring out with the rest who picked up the information our six little traitors dropped, and passed it on to Makishima.”

“All un-optimized personnel were evacuated as ordered, I checked with Lord Balkus first thing this morning,” de Galenos told him quietly.

Imakarum eyed the stone-like Zoalord for a moment, contemplating.

“All un-optimized personnel, or all un-optimized personnel who were present in the building?” he asked.

“What?”

“Did we only take the people who were inside the building at the time?”

“I don’t know, but the office was running at high alert, it should have been fully staffed,” de Galenos pointed out.

“Doesn’t mean that it was though, does it? Whoever was running that little spy cell was in contact with Makishima, maybe he got enough warning of what was coming to make sure he was elsewhere that day. I want the full staff Rota de Galenos, once you have it, compare it with the list of those we brought with us, then we’ll know who we’re looking for.”

“Understood. How sure of the security of this office can we be?” de Galenos asked.

“Yentsui only permitted a handful of un-optimized staff here, he didn’t trust them. Those who are here, I interrogated myself, the first night we were here,” Imakarum told him distantly, walking away.

de Galenos headed in the opposite direction, going to the communications room to get the files Imakarum wanted sent over.

/x/

Shin looked up curiously as the door to the control deck opened, he had thought he was alone here since Archanfel had sent de Galenos to China; he didn’t count the Zoanoid crew, as they had no access to this deck. Seeing the Supreme Zoalord himself step into the chamber, he dropped down on one knee automatically.

“Anything stirring Shin?” Archanfel asked, waving the other man to rise.

“No, my Lord,” Shin answered.

“Hmm, I would say then, that Makishima has truly gone to ground. The automatic defenses should have enough power now for me to activate them, so you can go and join Masaki and de Galenos in China. Let them know that Hamilcar and I should be arriving by the end of the week, would you,” Archanfel told him, floating up to take his seat in the control column.

“Yes, my Lord,” Shin bowed, before leaving the control deck.

Archanfel settled back his seat, closing his eyes and concentrating, linking his mind with the Ark. He waited until he sensed Shin leaving, and brought the defenses online, sealing the Ark against anyone other than himself or Masaki approaching from the outside, or teleporting in. A harsh measure perhaps, but necessary, he decided. Apollyon had already breached the Ark once, attacking Carleon, and he had no wish to leave the great ship vulnerable to another incursion from either him, or the traitors, never mind Guyver 3. Breaking contact with the Ark, Archanfel sent a message to all terminals to tell the crew to remain inside the Ark at all costs, before teleporting away to return to Japan.

He raised an eyebrow when he arrived to find Balkus preparing four squads of Zoanoid troops.

“What’s going on?” he asked mildly.

“Hunting parties, Imakarum and de Galenos have discovered that half a dozen staff were not in the building during the evacuation. Two have the excuse that they were on honeymoon, and had been for three weeks, but the other four had all conveniently called in sick that day, and have not reported in since. It could be nothing, but there is at least one spy missing, and Imakarum wants them brought in,” Balkus reported.

“Very well, keep me informed,” Archanfel ordered.

“Of course,” Balkus nodded, sending the squads on their way.

“Did they make any further report?” Archanfel asked once they were alone again.

“de Galenos reported that they had found six low level spies. We had quite a busy little spy cell in our midst,” Balkus sighed.

“Well, we were going to need to start processing more of our people sooner rather than later anyway, weren’t we? Plans can be put in place when we are all together again at the end of the week. Any trace of Guyver 3?”

“None.”

“Hmm, we need to be on alert for him, Hamilcar, a cornered animal is often the most dangerous, and given that he can have very little of his support structure left now, he is definitely well on his way to being cornered.”

“Then he will likely turn his fullest attentions onto Imakarum and Fukamachi,” Balkus warned.

“I know, Masaki will be wary,” Archanfel nodded.

Balkus raised one eyebrow slightly, but kept his opinion on that to himself.

“I am going to the lab, the first series of tests on the Liberatus should be in.”

“Ah, good, inform me as soon as you know if you can recreate the design, and re-engineer those two. Have you decided what you’re going to do with Heckaring yet?”

“Not yet, I think I will let him sweat until we go to China,” Balkus mused.

“Good, good, just make sure there are no tracking devices on or in him before you move him,” Archanfel told him, leaving with an off handed wave.

“Oh, I intend to give him a thorough going over,” Balkus said coldly to the empty room. By the time he was done with him, Balkus intended that the treacherous scientist would wish he had done the honorable thing when he had the chance.

/x/

Imakarum swore softly under his breath at the sound of the door signal indicating that there was someone outside the office. He had immersed himself with backtracking their six spies, trying to figure out where exactly the security checks had slipped up, and he wasn’t in the mood to be disturbed.

“What?” he snapped as soon as the door had opened enough for the person to step inside.

“Forgive the interruption, my Lord, but Lord Aminculus’s transport will be arriving in 10 minutes,” a nameless soldier told him.

“Have de Galenos meet him at the pad,” he said sharply, waving the man away.

“Yes, my Lord,” the soldier said, bowing smartly, and getting out fast, unwilling to risk further irritating the Zoalord.

It took Imakarum a moment to notice that the door hadn’t closed with the man’s departure, and that someone was still hovering in the doorway. Looking up sharply, he bit back what he had been about to say.

“This is not a good time Sho,” he said instead, moderating his tone as much as he could, although Sho still picked up on the irritation.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you, I was just wondering if anything was happening, we haven’t seen you since we got here,” he said.

“Not much, that I know of, although we may have more news when Shin arrives shortly,” Imakarum told him.

Sho was about to leave the Zoalord to it when he caught sight of the pictures on the desk, the faces of the people that were currently being hunted in Japan.

“Isn’t he dead?” he asked in surprise, moving closer to the desk and pushing one picture slightly away from the others.

“Why would you think he was dead?” Imakarum asked.

“You would have to check with Tetsuro to be sure, but I’m fairly certain this guy was at Mt. Minakami, and if not him, he must have had a twin. You probably wouldn’t have noticed him, given that you were either unconscious or in battle most of the time we were there, but this guy was one of the janitorial staff around the labs, I’m almost certain of that. I thought I saw him down there right before Makishima and I went into the Ark.”

Imakarum turned to his keyboard and printed out another copy of the picture Sho had picked out, handing it to the youth.

“Would you check with Tetsuro, and Mizuki too, confirm your suspicion, and if they agree with you I’ll go from there.”

“Sure,” Sho bobbed his head in a quick nod and headed off to find his friends.

Imakarum picked up his copy of the picture, looking at it thoughtfully, none of the staff at any of the Japan offices had officially come from the former Mt. Minakami base, which meant either it wasn’t the same man, or he had lied about his identity when applying for his position, which was suspicious enough before you added in the fact that he had apparently gone into hiding. Minimizing the searches he had already been running on the six spies they had in custody, he started up a new search to pick this man’s life apart. If this was the same man, then Mt. Minakami was probably the original point of contact between him and Makishima, which did offer the possibility that the hunt would come up empty handed, if he had already fled to his master.

/x/

Shin smiled to see his friend waiting for him at the landing pad.

“All is well on the Ark?” de Galenos asked after greeting the other man.

“Yes, Archanfel was there when I left, he intended to secure it against intrusion. He told me to inform you and Imakarum that they should be here at the end of the week. How have things been here?”

“Quiet, the spy issue has been somewhat problematic, but I think we are on the home strait with that now,” de Galenos sighed.

“I hope so, we have enough problems without even more people betraying us from the inside,” Shin agreed.

They were traversing one of the corridors in the residential section when a worried looking Sho came across them.

“Is something wrong?” de Galenos asked.

“I’m not sure, Lord Imakarum told me to double check something I told him, and I can’t find him to tell him what I found out,” Sho told him, eyeing Shin warily, not sure what he should say in front of him.

“What was it about?”

“One of the men in the pictures on his desk. I thought I recognized him from when we were hiding at the Mt. Minakami base, and he told me to go double check with the others. Tetsuro recognized him too, but now I don’t know where Lord Imakarum is,” Sho sighed.

Shin closed his eyes, concentrating on searching out the feeling of the other Zoalord within the base.

“He isn’t here,” he finally said a moment later, his eyebrow raising in surprise.

“Well, he can take care of himself, I’m sure he won’t have gone all that far anyway,” de Galenos said with a slight shrug.

Sho wasn’t so sure, with Makishima, and this Apollyon character loose somewhere, it wasn’t exactly reassuring that Imakarum had gone off somewhere alone, he had a tendency to come off worst going against Makishima, although Guyver 3 no longer having access to the Gigantic should even the odds a little.

“If you’re sure,” he finally said.

Excusing himself, Sho headed back to the room he shared with Tetsuro, folding the picture in half and shoving it in his pocket. If Imakarum hadn’t come back after dinner time, then he would worry.

/x/

Archanfel turned as the door to his quarters slid open, sensing the arrival of his son, and the swelling, burning rage that flowed around him.

“Masaki?” he queried, wondering what he was doing back here, and what had driven him to such anger.

Taking a deep breath, trying to push the anger down, Imakarum ran a hand through his hair.

“I know how they made the Zoacrystal that they gave to Guyot,” he said flatly.

“How?”

“Hamilcar’s security has been compromised.”

“Explain,” Archanfel demanded, his eyes narrowing.

“This man, one of the number the teams are hunting for here, Sho told me he thought the man had been at the Minakami base. No-one from the Minakami base was officially transferred to any other base, so I checked into him. Guyot personally hired him for Mt. Minakami, which is suspicious enough, as far as I know, the Zoalords don’t personally hire the janitors. After Minakami fell, I thought I lost track of him for a while, but when I ran his picture through the central system, I got a hit on nearly half the bases in Japan, all under different names. I think he’s set up cells in every base he’s been in, the bastard is still working for Guyot, and as far as I can tell, making a little extra money on the side selling information to Makishima, who he would have met while at the mountain. We’re either going to need to go through every one of these bases one by one looking for the spies, or abandon half of the Japan section, if we can’t get hold of this joker.”

“And Hamilcar’s security?”

“Our friendly neighborhood spy was sleeping with the senior lab assistant at Mt. Minakami, I would bet good money that the information was taken back then, Guyot would have wanted it before he started his betrayal, to make sure he could make replacement crystals if he needed to,” Imakarum said, his anger finally starting to cool.

“Well, if that’s the case, Guyot could be in for a nasty surprise. The full Zoacrystals aren’t like the proto-crystals, and making one based just on the information in Hamilcar’s files will result in a flawed crystal.”

“What will happen?” Imakarum asked, curious.

“Too long in battle form, and the imperfect crystal will fail. Not just crack or break, but without the stabilization in creation, it will degrade to dust, just like that,” Archanfel told him with a snap of his fingers.

“And how long would we need to keep him in battle form for that to happen?” Imakarum asked, a cold, calculating smile lighting his face.

“I don’t know, Hamilcar will have to calculate it, and it will also depend on how much energy he expends. Using the Remover of course expends a massive amount of energy, but letting him use that on anyone would be a huge risk,” Archanfel warned.

Imakarum’s smile turned even more feral, and he absently rubbed his arm, the same one Guyot had torn off, twice.

“Oh, I think with proper planning, he can be disarmed before he becomes too much of a nuisance with that thing,” he said darkly.

“Good,” Archanfel smiled, sensing that Imakarum’s anger was now controlled enough that he wouldn’t explode at the slightest provocation.

“I will get Hamilcar on those calculations later, and if we manage to catch this master spy, or otherwise confirm that the information is what they used, we’ll plan accordingly. Come and have lunch with me now, and then when Hamilcar and I arrive at the end of the week, we can all get involved in a proper planning meeting,” Archanfel told him.

Imakarum nodded, accepting the invitation, and followed Archanfel from the room, trying to steer his thoughts away from dealing with Guyot, for the moment.

tbc