78 - Tactic

"I guess there's only you and me now, Bruno Cadwick."

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"Yes," Miriam gnawed on her already-tortured lip, a familiar, desperate tic. The flesh, perpetually raw from countless anxious bites, threatened to split open with the slightest pressure. "Yes, I have heard the news."

Martha sucked a deep breath at the other end of the line.

"Well? What is your next plan? Wasn't that your third sample of LK-92?"

"TEC-001," Miriam hastily corrected her benefactor. "Yes, that was my last. I don't have other option but to use Bruno Cadwick to synthesize the next batch."

"Be quick, the Consortium members are slowly getting restless. Hong Xizhen's health has rapidly deteriorated. His doctors think that he is not going to last any longer than two months."

"I am doing my best," Miriam clenched her jaw in tension. "You know that."