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Then he disappeared into thin air, only to reappear in the bunker, right next to his Chief of Science. He didn't even wait for Lozaro to turn around, instead just wrapping his arm around the man's neck, then blinking away again, back out onto the testing ground. There was no need for the others in the bunker to hear this conversation. The point of humiliating Lozaro was personal amusement, not the destruction of his reputation among everyone else.

And for that reason, he also didn't take them immediately back to where he'd just been standing. Shielding from psychic observation was easy enough, so long as he knew it was necessary, but if the Yigorosks had ears, too, then he wanted to remain out of earshot for a little bit.

Lozaro tried to wriggle out of his grasp, probably out of pure instinct rather than any hope of actually getting away from him. Jercash held onto him for a few moments longer before letting him go, just to ensure the man knew that Jercash had done so on purpose.

"Seems you forgot to mention a few things about the Yigorosks," said Jercash quite calmly, already fully aware that Lozaro hadn't known about them before. "You wouldn't be trying to hide anything from me, now would you?"

Lozaro's normally expressionless face had begun to crack, which delighted Jercash to no end. "O-of course not, sir. I have n-never encountered this particular strain before, lest I would have most certainly mentioned them."

Strain, was it? Did he consider them a virus?

Probably. Eh, didn't matter.

Jercash poked him in the forehead, making him wince. "You sure about that? You know this whole protection gig doesn't work if you lie to me, right?"

"Y-yes, sir. I understand, sir."

He weighed the fellow's expression carefully. As much as he was just doing this to fuck with the guy, there was also an underlying opportunity at play here.

When it came to men like Lozaro--sick and twisted men who were not to be trusted--there was always a possibility that they were planning on betraying him.

Or that they were even in the middle of doing so, right now, without Jercash realizing.

So it was good to run little tests like this, every now and again. Test the waters. See if anything unexpected might be lurking in there. Lozaro was a tricky one, after all. He'd managed to not only piss off Morgunov and live, but also keep living, despite the Mad Demon's occasional attempts to hunt him down.