CHAPTER 11: THE MEETING

  [MISSION: DIPLOMATIC ACQUISITION]

  [LOCATION: THE IRON LION’S CAMP]

  [ACTIVE AGENT: LILO]

  The Iron Lion’s camp was a mess of inefficient fires and poorly maintained tents. From my office, I watched through the long-range crystal as Lilo walked toward the perimeter. He wasn't hiding. He wasn't using the shadows. He walked straight down the center of the road, wearing his black-and-gray Oasis uniform, holding a single rolled parchment.

  He looked small against the backdrop of four hundred armed men. But he didn't stop.

  "I'm at the perimeter," Lilo's voice came through the comms. "They’ve seen me. Six guards are moving to intercept. Gray, they’re drawing bows."

  "I didn't send you to be a target, Lilo. Stand your ground. Show them the sigil."

  I watched as Lilo raised the parchment. The violet seal of the Oasis glowed with a faint, pulsing light. The guards hesitated. They knew that glow. It was the same light that had been appearing in the merchants' stories—the light of the man who owned the water.

  "Let him through!" a voice roared from the center of the camp.

  The guards parted. Lilo walked into the heart of the encampment. Lito, the Iron Lion, stood in front of a massive tent. He was a giant of a man, his greataxe sparking with lightning mana even in the stillness. He looked like a hero from an older, more violent age.

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  "Lilo of the Sun-Walkers," Lito boomed. "I heard you’d become a lapdog for a clerk. Did you come here to beg for a truce? Or did your master finally realize he can't own the desert?"

  "I don't want a truce, Lito," Lilo said. His voice was flat with exhaustion. I had coached him on the lines, but the weariness was all his own. "I came here to give you this. It’s a notice of acquisition."

  Lito laughed. It was a loud, booming sound that shook the nearby tents. He grabbed the parchment and tore it open.

  "My employer has purchased the outstanding debts of your primary suppliers," Lilo continued, his voice steady despite the four hundred men closing in around him. "He now owns the rights to your grain, your steel, and the very ground this camp is sitting on. You're trespassing on Oasis property."

  Lito stopped laughing. He looked at the parchment, then at Lilo. "I'll take his head for a footstool! Who does he think he is? I have four hundred blades! He has a ruin and a ledger!"

  "I'm the man who just cut off your water," I said. My voice projected through a speaker-stone Lilo had dropped at the Warlord's feet.

  The silence that followed was absolute. Lito looked at the stone, his eyes narrowing.

  "I didn't come here to kill your men, Lito," I said, my voice calm, projecting a confidence I had calculated to the milligram. "I came to offer you a job. Your 'Protection Fee' model is outdated. You're barely making a three-percent margin. If you join the Oasis, I’ll give you a five-percent commission on all trade passing through the Junction, and I’ll handle the logistics. You get richer, and your men stop dying of thirst."

  "And if I refuse?" Lito hissed. He raised his axe, the lightning mana crackling fiercely. "I'll ride to your Oasis and take the water by force!"

  "I didn't plan for a refusal," I said. "I planned for a liquidation. Mito and his men have already spiked your remaining wells with a slow-acting mana-blocker. If you don't sign the merger within ten minutes, your 'Iron Lion' status will be downgraded to 'Dead Weight.' Your lightning axe won't even produce a spark. Try to channel, Lito. See what happens."

  The Warlord roared and tried to swing his axe. The lightning flickered once, then died. The weapon felt like ordinary iron in his hands. He gasped, his face going pale. Around him, his men began to stumble, the mana-blocker hitting their systems, making their armor feel ten times heavier.

  I watched through the crystal. I didn't feel the thrill of the victory. I felt the cold, hard logic of a successful buyout.

  "Sign the parchment, Lito," I said. "Or become a line item in the 'Loss' column. You have nine minutes left."

  Lito looked at Lilo, then at his powerless axe. His pride was fighting his survival instinct. And in the desert, survival has a much higher value.