Darkwitt's operation has been compromised. As his allies suffer the consequences of trusting their Master, Darkwitt must come to terms that he may be stretched far too thin to deal with the adversaries that he now faces.

EXCERPT:
“I understand your concern, Hanover. But I don’t exactly have the luxury of delegating my tasks.” Darkwitt retorted.

“You’re gonna have to run that one by me, pencil pusher, because it sounds like you’re doing everything yourself.”

“I am in control.” The silhouetted canine seethed. The cougar responded with a mirthless chortle.
“Heard that one before. Usually from upstart officers thinking feelings have more efficacy than facts in a warzone. You delude yourself with the illusion of control and you eventually fuck up. Question is, you been doing this for so long, how do you know you haven’t already?” Hanover walked over to a sink and started to wash his hands. Tail flitting in slight annoyance.

“There aren’t many of us that were on board with you being recruited as a facilitator, kid. Qualm likes you, but Causa Grati thinks you’re an opportunist and Mr. Accrue feels you’re an idealist.”

“And what do you think?”

“At best? What we need. At worst? A fucking liability. We don’t need some upstart kid who thinks he has the world figured out just because a few gangsters are scared of him. You work with us; you need to understand that your limitations are YOUR responsibility. Not ours. Jury’s still out on where my opinion of you is gonna end up. So you better start showing me you can give this the attention it deserves.”

The air conditioner in the pristine garage echoed faintly in the silence. Darkwitt actually felt like the grimiest thing in the room after that kind of dress down.

A red light flashed on his wrist. With a ginger tap of his fingers, a small hologram of Code flickered into existence.

“What is it?” He asked, doing his best to maintain his composure.

“Forgive me sir, but it’s an emergency. It’s Cody. He’s missed three check-ins and his tracker was recently disabled. It’s likely he is compromised.” 

Darkwitt’s throat locked up. Compromised could mean a number of things. Cody could have defected. Possibly captured and forced to divulge all sorts of things about what he knew. It was limited, but enough to expose Darkwitt’s existence. It was possible that it could have been enough to extrapolate any number of operations. Darkwitt’s recon work was secure in that few people actively knew what to look for. But if they were aware of what he was up to, a whole number of people could be at risk. Quite a few of these things bounced through Darkwitt’s head, but all he could really focus on was Cody’s well-being. He wasn’t confident Cody would be ready for such a dangerous recon of Raychmin’s operations, but the bunny was enthusiastic and passionate to do right by him and it was hard for him to say no.
All of these musings were interrupted by the sound of an M18 cocked by the Cougar standing in front of him.

“Did I hear that right? Compromised?” Hanover said quietly, as if he was making sure no one but Darkwitt could hear him. The canine held up his hands and took a step back.
“Remain calm, Commander.” Darkwitt spoke with a calm disarming tone, which Hanover matched. Hanover hadn’t raised his arm, it could have been entirely possible that he was trying to make a point, or he could be ready to kill. The Facilitators were still a little hard to get a read from Darkwitt.
“Cool as a cucumber, soldier. But your little Siri program just said something about a defector in your ranks? How much does he know? How much about us does he know?” Darkwitt was pressed up against the tool boxes, he likely could have disarmed the gun before Hanover fired. But he was past his peak about 18 hours ago and could barely stay awake as it was. Hanover kept the gun pointed square at his head. While Darkwitt was surprised, he understood. If Darkwitt’s operation was compromised, it would have been the smart move to kill him and disavow all of Darkwitt’s holdings. Toss him in a ditch and mark it up to some vengeful superhero cleaning up the riff raff before the Facilitators ever got brought to the limelight.

“He’s not a defector.”

“Do you know that?”

“I know him. He won’t.”

“Does he have a kill switch? A cyanide pill?”

“That’s…. That’s not how I work.” Darkwitt grit his teeth.

“Don’t tell me you’re soft. That man is a liability now. And you need to have the stones to handle the big decisions. So. Are. We. Compromised?”

“Get the gun out of my face and let me do my job. Shoot me after if you are so incentivized.”

There was a long pause between the two men. You could have heard a pin drop. Neither blinked or averted their gaze. Hanover reengaged the safety and holstered his sidearm.

“Do your job and I won’t.”

The story of the facilitators continue in this 43 page (!!!) chapter. I have genuinely no idea how I got here, but now I'm committed. I really need to get some of these characters drawn out. But get ready for a lot of Darkwitt losing and some really heavy threat establishment. 

Cover art by Kiaun. 

Featuring: 
RayneAvalon as Cody 
Rodi as Herself
CoreyAlambar as Torque
Diodki666 as Cai
hyuugatakuto (Artemis) As Deeto
TiranMaster as Jadir 
McCrazy as Rehme