Pauli nodded. "I'm surprised that most of the heroes survived his suicide attack. Many of them should have died if they had besieged him. Maybe they planned well for him."
Mel chuckled and said, "They didn't survive because of some plan. They survived because they didn't besiege him."
Pauli asked in confusion, "What do you mean?"
"I mean that they didn't fight him. Word on the street is that the Justice League didn't kill him. I know he committed suicide, but they weren't the ones to force him to commit the suicide. Apparently, they found his burned corpse. Someone else had killed him."
She changed her last statement, "I mean someone else had forced him to kill himself."
Pauli asked, "Who?"
Mel replied, "Probably the same person that killed the Mentor. He was tracking that person, and he found another one of their hideouts. He asked me to help him unlock the door just before he died. He died a few seconds after."
"Damn. That's serious. They must be very powerful if all it took was a few seconds to kill him."
She nodded in agreement. "They must be."
Pauli asked, "Should we recruit them and make them our new third? We need an ace for our upcoming expedition."
She paused and then said, "I've given it some thought and have come to the conclusion that it is too dangerous. Thorin wasn't looking for them for a fight, but he died. If we go looking for them, they might think that we are out for revenge."
Pauli exclaimed, "Double damn."
He sighed and said, "Where are we going to find an Omega to bolster our power?"
"Our options are to either work together with other cabals going to the foreign battlefield or recruit as many supers as possible without spending time to test them. None of them is optimal."
He shook his head. "It is a pity that the Earth Escape guy is still too weak, or he would be of great assistance to us on the battlefield."
Mel nodded. "At least we have an omega as one of our new recruits. It is the last good thing Thorin did for us. Now we are on our own."
Pauli took another drag before speaking. He said, "I'm going to miss him."
She paused her work, looked into the distance, and said, "Me too."
They will truly miss Thorin, but they are not going to look for his killer for revenge. Their cabal doesn't do revenge. They didn't do it for Zain, and they won't do it for Thorin.
If anything, they wanted to recruit the murderer of their comrade in both cases. It is not that they didn't care about their comrades. It is because they have seen the insignificance of everybody in the face of death.
They have seen even demigods killed on the foreign battlefield. So what does the death of a cocky omega count for?
To Pauli, Thorin was a brother in arms and a business partner. He is the one that cares the most for Thorin, but he is not going to court death by going after the guy that killed Thorin. Not when people are currently searching for him to behead him.
As for Mel, she doesn't have much feeling for Thorin. She doesn't even care much about anything because of all the augments she has equipped.
Half of her body is made of metal. She is a true cyborg. Only her critical systems, like her brain and part of her circulation system, are still human. The rest, like her heart and lungs, are machines.
Normally, no one would be able to tell. She looks like an ordinary secretary with her glasses and clipboard. Maybe someone will notice that her gait is different or her skin is too smooth, but apart from that, she looks just like an ordinary human.
It is only in moments like this, when she is alone, that she can unwind. Her skin switches off its artificial pigmentation to save energy. This reveals the black glittering material that makes up her skin.
The data port at the base of her head opens up and is used to connect to her computers. Her back peels apart so that her four metallic tentacle arms can come out and work for her.
As data from the computer flows to her mind, her eyes begin to flash with code. The power cord that she inserts into the outlet to charge her batteries puts the finishing touches on the image of a robot pretending to be human.
Not many people can be like this. A lot of people want to, and it is possible for most of the organs in the human body to be replaced, but the rejection symptoms will make life a living hell.
One would need to take a large assortment of drugs to keep from going insane, psychotic, and suicidal. But those same drugs will make the person unfeeling and uncaring. They will be practically dead emotionally. At that point, it isn't worth it to have bio augments.
Only a few people like Mel, who are weapon supers and can bind their existence to machines, can bear to do something like that.
Even though she doesn't need drugs, the machines are still affecting her. They are slowly and surely eroding her emotions.
Maybe she cared about this when it first started, but she doesn't care anymore now. She likes hearing the voices of the machines that make up her bodies and can't bear to part with them.
At this point, she will care more about the death of her lung than that of Thorin. Since her lung is still fine, she would rather busy herself with dealing with the aftermath of Thorin's death than considering revenge.
As she was working, she received a message from one of their contacts. So she asked Pauli, "It is Riptide. He wants to know of the availability of the access points to the black market. Should I tell him or blow him off?"