The Mech Touch novel Chapter 603

Ves woke up all of a sudden. He’d never been a heavy sleeper after he returned from Groening IV. His physical body’s need for sleep seemingly lessened, but to sleep was to be human, so Ves still adhered to a strictly human biorhythm.

"Why did I wake up?" He scratched his dark hair while garbed in pajamas.

An unsettling sensation came over him. Ves shrugged out of bed and wiped his hand towards the window, causing it to turn from solid black to fully transparent.

He blinked at the night scape and checked the time. At three o’clock local time, the city was doused in the depths of sleep. Only the most hardcore partiers and revelers still roamed the streets. Drunken tourists crawled from bar to bar while the nightclubs lit up their surroundings with light and noise.

Beyond the stretch of beaches, half-a-dozen yachts had congregated and formed a makeshift floating club where over a hundred privileged young men and women pretended to be nocturnal party beasts.

To all intents and purposes, the city appeared to be completely normal. Yet Ves couldn’t dismiss the nagging feeling of something wrong.

His instincts might not be as good as an oracle, but Ves had learned to trust his gut feeling. Right now, Ves felt as apprehensive as standing in close proximity to a mech battle.

"There can’t be any danger here, right?"

He currently resided on Harkensen I, the tourist paradise of the Reinald Republic. The Planetary Guard and the Honored Ones that kept the peace on this planet enjoyed a very good reputation here. They foiled thousands of plots every year and never failed to squash instances of violence before they spilled over to innocent bystanders.

After several minutes of staring out of the window, Ves decided it was best to be safe than sorry. He raised his comm which had never left his wrist and opened a channel to security.

His comm projected the bust of a bored-looking Vandal security officer. "Mr. Larkinson, what can I do for you?"

Ves couldn’t straight up tell the security officer that his gut warned him of an approaching threat. Still, he could couch his words in a way that may bring the Vandals to a heightened level of alert. "I have reason to believe that there may be security threats on the horizon. Can you please scan my hotel room and double-check the perimeter and such?"

The security officer narrowed his eyes. "Mr. Larkinson, what evidence can you provide to support your statement?"

"I’m sorry, officer, but I can’t tell you that right now. Just trust me. If I’m wrong, then no harm is done."

This argument appeared to be persuasive enough to buy over the security officer. "Very well head designer. We shall run a full check. Please stay in your room and don’t make any suspicious movements."

The channel closed, leaving Ves alone in his quiet room. He decided he might as well skip the rest of his sleep. He turned on the lights and walked over to the closet which held a number of outfits.

Ves touched a chute-like tube, causing it to beep before attracting his pajamas from his body. The chute sucked the clothes through the tube that subsequently led to some laundry area.

He then touched a clothing rack which held a generic warm-weather outfit, causing the clothes to fly from the rack and surround his body, adjusting the fit for a few seconds.

He then rummaged through the closet but failed to find anything protective. "What kind of stupid hotel is this? There’s over a dozen racks of smart clothes but not a single emergency suit!"

Emergency suits basically consisted of stripped-down hazard suits. Cheaper and less bulkier than the latter, emergency suits nonetheless provided limited amount of protection against heat, explosions and toxins in the air.

"Why is my gut urging me to get in an airtight suit?"

He sniffed the air, but didn’t smell anything weird. Nonetheless, his heart beat a little faster, as if he was nervous something was seriously wrong.

The front door to his hotel room beeped and slid open. A pair of Vandal security officers outfitted with serious-looking combat armor stepped inside. The sergeant at the lead gripped a handheld scanner.

"Mr. Larkinson, we’ve received your notification. Please let us inspect your room."

"Go ahead, gentlemen."

The sergeant first scanned over his body with the scanner. The machine threw out a bunch of warning noises, causing the sergeant to slam his palm at the device. "Not again! Get to work, you buggy machine!"

"Has the device been loaded with my unique physique? I’m different than a baseline human. Doctor Cuscar should have loaded my parameters to the database." Ves frowned.

"Oh. Let me adjust the scanner then."

Ves worked with scanners himself, so he easily guessed why the sergeant’s scanner tripped up. He really missed the Vulcaneye he bought from the System. With a scanner worth 100,000 DP, he would have already been able to detect any anomalies himself.

While the sergeant loaded in the right settings, the other security officer made a cursory inspection of the hotel suite. He wasn’t very diligent about it. Ves figured the other guy thought they were wasting their time.

"Alright, the scanner is loaded with the right settings. Let’s see what’s happening here."

The sergeant pointed the scanner at Ves. This time, the device only released a single warning noise.

"What’s wrong?"

"That’s strange. According to the scanner, your body is doused with sedatives."