With Recard having effectively cleared out the work cubicles, Ikenna moved swiftly and silently amongst the empty desks, riffling through papers here, picking up personal mementos there, making note of which desks were busy with work and which were empty due to laziness.

He made certain to place every item he touched back in its precise place, in the exact way he had been trained to do many years ago. Take with your eyes, not with your hands, Gevrik liked to say, so he left no sign that he had been snooping on the Transportation Employees and had planted his hand-created eavesdropping devices throughout their shared work space.

The round, beetle-shaped devices were charmed to blend with their surrounding environment seamlessly but would still record certain snippets of conversations and planning without becoming obtrusive or noticeable. Ikenna had left a few of his higher-end devices in Armen's office before the man had even arrived on his own level and they all worked the same way.

It was all for the greater good and security of the Ministry.

Pleased with his work for now, the dark, invisible man swept out of the work area and moved on to the conference centre.