157 THE ARREST…NO FAKE WARRANT
Damen woke up to the alarms and hurried to the lobby.
The place was in a chaos. Liorea wasn't there to handle the emergency.
"Liorea …. why did I hire you? where the hell are you?" he muttered.
"I heard you," Liorea replied over his comms.
"Big Brother, stall them in the lobby," Kail said. "We need time."
"What the hell did you two do?" Damen asked into the air.
"It's for the company," Liorea answered.
Damen sank onto a sofa as Director Ambrone stormed in, with his warrant in hand.
Beside him stood a burly soldier in professional armor—with uniform and equipment that Damen recognized. This wasn't a routine inspection. This was military.
They had come ready for war.
Ambrone's voice cut through the lobby. "Where are Zairgid Aukouma and Damen Dark? I have a search warrant. You are suspected of—"
Damen didn't flinch. "Again? Last time you came here you planted bugs in my office. How dare you come here again without…"
He rose furiously and added, "You installed surveillance in my place. I have not come to you about it yet. How dare you come here again."
Ambrone blinked. This wasn't the nervy intern he once knew. This man now owned a conglomerate. That meant power. But this time he had the backing of the city behind him. This was not the place for the boy to be arrogant.
"I have a search warrant," Ambrone repeated.
The armored guard raised his weapon.
"Don't try to fool me with a fake warrant. I know Melrose law—no one, not even the general of the city guard, may use force on private property of a registered corporation." Damen's voice was steady.
A registered corporation in Melrose city was a rubber stamp for power. Even the government wouldn't thread on the liberty of the corporates and industrialists in the city.
"The warrant is genuine," Ambrone repeated with his face hardening.
Damen snatched the paper and, without a second glance, burned it with a flick of his palm.
"How dare you destroy a search warrant…that's illegal!" Ambrone shouted.
"Now you don't have one. Leave." Damen sat back down.
"Are you insane? This is treason!" Ambrone fumed.
"Coming onto my property without a proper warrant…that's treason," Damen shot back.
Ambrone faltered for words. An assistant stepped forward. "Don't worry sir, we can pull the arrest warrant from the court database. He can't deny it."
Ambrone moved to the assistant's datapad.
The assistant's eyes widened. "It's not in the court database. There must be a clerical error," he cried.
"What?" Ambrone snarled.
"Damn, I was right…You came with a fake warrant," Damen smirked.
"You hacked the court server?" Ambrone accused him, stunned by the clerical mistake.
"No warrant. Get lost." Damen's tone was final.
The guards exchanged uneasy looks. They'd never executed a warrant so dubious before. They were considering abandoning the search.
"Director, without a valid warrant we can't enforce this," Captain Zor, the armored soldier beside Ambrone, said.
"He burned it right in front of us," Ambrone protested.
"Then produce a copy now," Damen said.
"I don't care. Bring him in. Arrest him now," Ambrone barked. "I'll see him jailed myself."
Captain Zor hesitated.
Ambrone was the SIA director and brother to the governor. He was the embodiment of power in the city. Defying him was unwise…
… but it was against the rules. He could be held accountable if he made a mistake.
"There's no warrant present, Director Ambrone… I can't execute a warrant without one," Zor objected.
"There's a duplicate at the court. We'll fetch it now. Meanwhile execute the arrest immediately, I'll bear all responsibility," Ambrone ordered.
Zor weighed his options and complied.
He stepped toward Damen. "Come with me."
"Are you really going to use force on me in my property without a lawful warrant? I could kill you and face no consequences—Melrose law protects private property more than the rights of a soldier," Damen warned, loud enough for the lobby cameras to capture it.
Zor's fist moved.
Damen turned to the cameras. "This is recorded. This is an illegal use of force on private property without authority. I will use lawful defense, including lethal force if necessary."
Damen glanced at the overlay on his Vision Connect and read the captain's stats.
Name: Captain Zor
Strength Rank: B Meta Rank: C
Strength: 759 Charm: 12 Meta: 241 Command: 242
Zor was a textbook Strength meta with impressive raw power but low meta sophistication. His pure strength skills may hit hard but they lacked nuance.
This was typical of soldier's training - rigid and outdated.
Damen knew exactly what that meant: Captain Zor was predictable.
Zor lunged. Damen slipped the punch and let Zor's momentum carry him forward, falling empty-handed.
"You're quick at dodging, I'll give you that," Zor grunted.
Soldiers opened fire.
Bullets slapped against Damen and skittered away like they hit rubber.
"How did he block bullets?" Ambrone spluttered.
Ambrone was shocked that someone he thought was a nobody became so tyrannical. Even an army of soldiers couldn't touch him.
"No wonder he's so arrogant", he thought.
"Your bullets can't breach my force field. I paid a fortune for it," Damen said coldly.
The truth was, Damen doesn't need force fields to block the bullets. His skin was tough enough to deflect them.
He made up the reason of using force field only because he doesn't want to reveal all his cards.
The soldiers turned to Captain Zor. "Sir, we can't touch him with his force field. It's on you," one of them said, their hopes pinned on the captain.
Zor attacked again, each strike met by Damen's effortless parry. With Damen's autonomous combat engaged, Zor couldn't land a solid blow.
After a few more failed attempts, Damen's patience thinned.
"Last chance, Zor boy. Stand down now, or I will use lethal force," Damen warned.
"Do you think a boy like you scares me?" Zor shouted back.
"Then let the real fight begin."
----
[While Damen was dealing with Director Ambrone at the lobby]
"What do we do now?" Kail asked Liorea.
"Stow the shipment first," she said.
"There's nowhere to hide that many parts." Kail sank to the floor.
"Don't worry. I'll handle it … but it'll take a little time." Liorea closed her eyes and focused. In a blink, one of the shipping containers vanished.
"Where did it go?" Kail scrambled to his feet.
"I hid them. Forget me. Deal with the lobby—boss might need your help. He might not be able to handle it alone," Liorea's voice sharpened.
"Right." Kail powered up the holoscreens in the lobby.
A whisper came through Damen's comms. "What do we do about the warrant?"
Kail stared at the holo, his mind racing for options.
Liorea's impatience cut in suddenly, "Ask him to burn the damn warrant."
Kail froze. "What? Are you sure?"
"We don't have time. Stall them until I get everything into my space." Her tone left no choice.
Kail told the comm. "Burn the warrant. I'll delete the copy in the court server."
He hacked the court's database immediately and quickly wiped the warrant's record. For a moment he collapsed to the floor in relief.
Then horror tightened his chest. "There's a duplicate copy in the court. Even if I deleted the soft file, a hard copy is probably already on its way here."
"Then we'll burn the duplicate," Liorea said flatly.
"Are you serious?" Kail asked.
She cracked a grin. "Kidding. Mostly."
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