"That was delicious, sweetheart," Mag said to his wife. She still held onto the tray of with a long grin on her face.
"I used the whole wheat this time."
"Let's keep making sandwiches with that from now on."
"Noted." Evelyn stood on her toes and gave Mag a peck on the cheek. Itzel clenched her fists as her eyes rolled to the back of her head.
"Where were we?" Mag asked Evelyn.
"I believe you were going to give them the shortened version of what we had planned."
"Oh, right." Mag adjusted the bow on the collar of his shirt. "Are you two interested in hearing what we had in store?"
Janus and Itzel stared at the man with silent contempt.
"Don't tell them too much, dear," Evelyn whispered to her husband. "Some of the information is classified. For Grani ears only."
"I know, I know." Mag pulled up his own chair from the side of room and rested on the cushion. He pulled out his pistol and waved it in the air haphazardly while he rested one leg over his knee. "Oh, and can one of you BRUTEs bring me my usual drink?" One of the robots gave a salute and holstered its gun on its back and left the room. Mag then turned back to the two captives.
"After all that happened earlier today," Itzel said as she cut her eyes at Mag. "The Transporter. The Sand Carver. Your daughter. You're just going to kill us?"
Mag pointed his weapon at Itzel. "Not so fast now. I'm the one in charge of this conversation. Understand?" He remained calm, maintaining the same tone and demeanor that he had always shown. Neither Janus nor Itzel responded to his question.
"I'll take that silence as a yes." The BRUTE robot returned with a wine glass containing a red drink. Mag grabbed the glass by the stem and took a small sip. "Refreshing," he said in a calm voice before giving the beverage back to the robot. "Now, back to the topic at hand. If you recall, my daughter's birthday was earlier this week."
"Yeah, we remember," Itzel blurted out.
"How courteous of you,” Mag sneered. “As I was going to say, this is all part of her birthday celebration."
"Where's Gurk?" Itzel exclaimed. She shot up from her seat, but her restraints kept her bound to the confines of the chair.
Mag placed the palm of his hand on his forehead and shook it from side to side. "You don't listen, do you? If I wanted to, I could, as you say, leave you to be Sand Carver chow. But as you mentioned before, I am very appreciative of what you and your friends did back at the Transporter. That's why we won't get rid of you two just yet."
The man took another sip of his wine then grabbed another piece of sandwich off the tray that Evelyn was holding. "Do you think our guests would like something to eat?" she asked.
"How rude of me," Mag said before looking to his BRUTE robots. "One of you. Why don't you bring that tray over to our visitors?" In silence, the robot obeyed the command. It took hold of the platter of snacks from Evelyn and brought stood between Janus and Itzel. "If you want something, just ask. Our automated servant would be more than willing to assist you."
"We're not hungry," Itzel said with fake grin.
"Suit yourselves. The offer's still on the table."
"Are you going to get back to your explanation or not?"
"Right, right." Mag patted himself on the forehead with the palm of his hand. "We love our daughter. We'll give her anything that her little heart desires. That's why when she saw your Neo-Sapia friend on Siergi's Broadcast, I knew I just had to get him for her."
"Gurk isn't a pet!" Itzel shouted back.
"No, no. You've got it all wrong. We don't want him as a pet. We've got plenty of animals in our Eco-Dome to take care of. She wants to... keep him in a different way."
"W-what do you mean?" Janus asked.
"You see, that part about me being an investor? That's partially true. While I do that as my day job, I make a good portion of my profits offering one of the most exclusive recreational activities in all of Tersaia." Mag pressed a few keys on the side of his chair. He then twirled his fingers and the BRUTE robots turned Janus and Itzel around in their chairs to face the large projector.
The science program changed to a depiction of a long wall with an assortment of animal heads and bones displayed on walls and inside glass cases. Each example was accompanied with its own personal light. "What you're looking at is the security feed to our trophy room." Mag got up from his seat and stood in between Janus and Itzel. He stashed one of his hands into the pockets of his jacket, smiling as the view of the room slowly panned from one side to the other, giving full scope of the collection. "I've gathered these over the course of years. Decades."
"You monster!" Itzel lunged in Mag's direction, making the chair shake only a smidge.
"Calm down. You're only going to hurt yourself if you keep doing that."
"Why... why would you do something like this?" Janus asked, holding back tears.
"Why? Because this will be Sheila's first Hunt! She's finally old enough to join her old man in one of Tersaia's favorite… underground pastimes. She wanted to catch a rare Neo-Sapia and now she's going to get one."
"If I could just get out of here..." Itzel kept her head low and her hands wadded into a tight fist.
"You won't. That's what the restraints are for. But what you can do is watch." Mag reached down to the side of Janus' chair and tapped a few buttons. The feed on the projector switched from the trophy room to a view of a lush jungle landscape. Long and curved green leaves obscured some of the view of the camera, but not enough to block out the small body of water in the middle of the dense vegetation.
"This is where the game will take place. We've invited some of the best hunters, Exterminators and fighters to participate. The event starts tomorrow. We'll see who is brave enough to actually show up." Mag walked forward and stood in front of the screen, smiling wide as he took another sip of his glass. "And you two will have front row seats! Complimentary of us!"
