A Familiar Figure
|
You pick another floor at random. Again you're dumped off in what looks like part of the building office space, but this time when you pop your head out into the hall you can detect a faint hint of light coming from one of the rooms at the end of the hall. Someone might have just left a light on, but there's also a chance that someone's working down there.
You creep slowly down the hall, trying to be as silent as possible. As you approach you realize you can hear muffled voices. Something is definitely going on. Drawing close to the door, you realize that the light is coming from a conference room. There are several other empty ones lining the hallway. This is the only one that appears to be occupied, and the door is closed and the blinds drawn. A little light is seeping around the edges.
Barely allowing yourself to breathe, you put your ear against the door, but the soundproofing is too good. You can hear people talking, but it's too muffled to pick out anything substantial. Next you press your eye up to a crack between the blinds and the window sill. Your range of sight is limited, but you can see a couple of men and women in Zion's Tears robes, and a couple of the humanoid creatures, whatever they are. If you had to wager a guess, you'd say this looks like some kind of board meeting.
You're just about to turn away, but freeze when a familiar man walks along the far side of the table. He's only in sight for a second, but you've seen his face enough times to instantly notice the resemblance. That was either trillionaire Michael Ace, or it was someone who looked shockingly like him.
As the richest individual in the city and owner of more than a dozen of the local casinos, it would be hard to avoid seeing Ace's image now and then. He was regularly featured in the media, and all of his casinos included either a statue or a portrait or some semblance of him in the main lobby. But what would Ace be doing here? Was he a member of the cult? Or just doing business with them?
You don't have time to ponder, though, because the people inside the conference room all start standing up and moving around. You quickly slink down the hall and hide in one of the other conference rooms as the meeting or whatever it was comes to an end. You wait for several uneasy moments as the members file out, now chatting about frustratingly inconsequential topics. Eventually someone turns off the light, and you wait a bit longer for everyone to take the elevator before coming out of hiding and continuing your investigation.
