I looked up, past my feet, at the knot of electrical wiring visibly framed by the hole in the roof above me. Then, I looked down over my head at the trees below me.
How many times did I reject jobs that I didn't have time to plan, and, yet, here I am doing a free job, unplanned. Do you want an answer to that, Boss? No. Just complaining.
I carefully released one loop of the coiled wire in my left hand and reduced the strength of the grip on the wire with my right hand, which was at full extension, a bit below, or above, my belt buckle, depending on your orientation. I relaxed both legs wrapped around the wire leading up to the big wire knot holding me up, and lowly slid down another few feet of wire.
When the loose coil of wire was gone, I clamped my right hand on the wire again, and tightened my legs to help support my weight. Then I looked over my head, through the trees, at the ground again.
"How long are we going to stay here, sir?" The guard asked his smartphone, nearly twenty feet below me.
There was a response, but I couldn't make out the words. The tone, however barely audible it was, was enough for me to know that the answer had been something like "Until I tell you we're leaving."
The guard shrugged and took another long puff of his cigarette. "Sorry, sir, this post is more than a little boring."
More annoyed-superior noises came from the phone. The guard apologized again, then hung up and sighed. "Fucken boring guard details."
The other guard standing next to him chuckled. "I could have told you how that conversation would end, without you bugging Toby about it and getting on his shit list."
The smoking guard was youngish, with tan skin and dark blonde hair. The second guard was older, a coal-black man with some grey in his hair.
I couldn't see either of their faces. That was a good thing, because if I could have seen their faces, then that would mean they were looking up, which would have been rather troublesome. I didn't want to kill anyone if I didn't have to. Permanent death even from mundane injuries is a severe limitation on me in this world.
Releasing another coil of wire, I slid down the wire some more, bringing myself about five feet closer to the two guards standing below me.
"Hurry up and finish that cancer-stick? If we're late again, it'll mean discipline, and this time, I won't cover for you."
"Just a few more drags, Ken. If you smoke a clove too fast, it burns your lips or even your lungs."
"I used to smoke, kid, for twenty years, then I got smart. I know about cloves, but I'm not going to do shit jobs because you made us late on rounds again."
The young man chuckled. "You think smoking is dangerous, but you took a job working as an armed guard, working for Teacher, knowing how many capes are gunning for him?"
"Money's good. Not many real jobs for a guy that specializes in COBOL programming, after Scion. Besides, Teacher has me on retainer in case he needs another programmer. He says his granted powers work better on people who already have some skill that align with the powers."
The younger man looked sideways at the older man. "You'd do that, knowing-"
The older man cut him off. "Yeah. I got kids your age, and grandkids, and my oldest daughter's got good sense with money. I'll give up a lot to see them well-off, with the possibility of a future. Can't be worse than a deal with the devil."
I released another coil of wire, and slowly slid down its length. My head was now about fifteen feet from the ground.
Two more coils, and I'd be within arm's reach of them, if I swung myself a bit.
But I couldn't do that, because the wire was passing through the canopy of the trees in the atrium. Threading myself through the branches silently had been a serious pain. Swinging back and forth would unavoidably make the wires hit branches, causing rustling noises. There wasn't enough wind to move the branches inside the building that day, so it would have been out of the ordinary, and attract attention.
With my left hand, I slowly, carefully, crimped the coil of wire and then folded it so that it wouldn't unwind as I let it go.
After the wire was hanging, unsupported, in front of me, I waited, watching.
The older man looked at his watch again. "It's time to go. Now."
"Fine." Smoker dropped the cigarette on the ground, and ground it out with a boot.
The two men turned in my direction, but didn't look up. As I'd hoped, their next stop was probably the roof, to check on the sentry there. At the very least, they were going to the right stairwell, walking almost directly under me.
This is almost too easy. Unless one or the other has powers.
I could feel Loiosh agreeing with me, but he said nothing. He and Rozca were at the edge of the hole in the roof, ready to hop over the top and support me at need. Their immobile heads would be practically invisible to anyone looking up from the dark interior of the building against the jagged broken edges of the hole, framed by bright sky.
The men started to pass under me.
I released my grip on the wire with my legs, but kept both hands tight on the wire as my body started to rapidly rotate from upside down to right side up.
When the rotation was about halfway complete, I released the wire with my hands, going into a rotating freefall.
The two men didn't even have a chance to fully recognize what was happening to them before the toes of my boots slammed into their stomachs with all the force of my body's rotation, and my hips, folding both men over my boots while lifting them off their feet, forcing all the air out of their lungs.
My body was still rotating. I grabbed each gasping man by the back of the neck and pulled hard, slowing my rotation, while increasing theirs.
I finished my fall with a backwards roll directly to my feet.
The two guards finished their forward rotation with a face plant on the tile floor. The crunching noises I heard as their heads smacked the ground made me hope, for their sake, that Teacher had a healer for his people. I knew he'd made an area effect healer for Accord, once.
Moving quickly, I checked them to be sure they were still alive. I hadn't had many non-lethal options for quietly dealing with a pair of sentries while suspended in the air above their heads, and the attack I'd just used could easily have been deadly.
As far as I could tell, neither unconscious man had spinal damage, internal bleeding, or damaged diaphragms. I tied them up with their belts and their own clothing cut into strips, gagged them, and pulled them into bushes near the center of the atrium, then tied them together, back-to-back, around a substantial bush's trunk.
Gagging them might have been overkill. They had both broken their jaws and lost several teeth, but I couldn't afford to be gentle, slow, or slack.
Loiosh and Rozca fluttered down from the hole in the roof, one landing on each of my shoulders as I silenced all the audio options on both phones. I did not turn off the phones, as they might be running some sort of tracking application like Undersider guards did, in some situations.
You need to work on your backward rolls, Boss, you almost tripped when you came to your feet. No, I didn't.
Loiosh was silent for a moment, then, in my mind's eye, I saw a psionic replay of my roll from his point of view.
Fine. You're right. It's not like I've had enough time to keep up my own practice what with all the teaching of other people. That's another good reason to stop teaching. This isn't the time for that argument again, Loiosh. If someone is tracking those guards by their phones, it won't be long until they get suspicious that the guards aren't moving. Which way to the basement?
Loiosh's right wing pointed to a large open stairwell on the far side of the atrium, then re-folded. That's how we got down, but the stairwell might be faster. Or they might not go all the way down. Or they might be trapped, or monitored. You really have a thing against stairs today. I have a thing against being predictable today. Teacher has precogs, Boss. And we haven't been surrounded yet, so he's clearly not watching us. Probably.
I threw an exasperated thought at him. Agreed. Probably. But 'probably' is the best we've got.
Reaching into a pouch, I pulled out my gold-finding ring and the string tied to it. We were so close to Imp and her ring that I should be able to rapidly get a direction.
I stopped next to the trunk of a tree, and went still, holding the string, suspending the ring. After several seconds of concentration, the ring pulled towards the open stairwell, and seemed to grow heavier.
Looks good.
Carefully, I placed the string and ring back in their pouch and sealed it, while I listened for movement. There was nothing audible to me other than very faint sounds of a TV commercial for some sort of laundry soap.
My back itched, terribly. Having no plan made me feel like everything was going to fall into the crapper at any moment, but there was no way to make that problem go away.
The tripwires I found on the steps were so easy to spot that I spent an extra twenty seconds trying to find the real trap, with no success. Despite the imaginary daggers in my back, I had to keep moving, so I crossed the obvious trap without setting it off. During the crossing, my hand stayed firmly gripped on Lady Teldra's hilt, hoping I'd be able to remove her from her sheathe before I died if there was a secondary trap present.
Surprisingly, there really wasn't a secondary trap. That made sense in hindsight, since sentries would be regularly bypassing it.
At the bottom of the stairs down, there were hallways going both right and left. The left side hallway was clogged with debris. Impassible to me, though Loiosh or Rozca might have found a way through.
The right side hallway was where the TV noises were coming from. Imp's ring had also detected in that direction. I moved slowly, quietly, down that hallway, listening for any movement.
The room with the TV had a half-dozen men and women in it, most of them sleeping in reclining chairs and on couches. One woman was clearly awake, watching a news channel as they discussed a story about a cape battle in New York that had caused a great deal of property damage and no small number of deaths. Based on the mutterings of the crazed cape, another of Scion's out-of-control connections had apparently found a host and driven the poor person mad.
The woman wasn't looking in my direction at all, but it was possible that she might see me reflected in the TV screen as I passed the doorway, so I crossed the opening slowly, to prevent a fast movement from grabbing her attention.
As I continued down the hallway, and reached an intersection, Loiosh suddenly spoke in my mind.
Boss, stop. What? The dust in the air in front of you is wrong. Wrong, how? Some dust is brighter, easier to see than the rest. Bars crossing the hallway at shin, waist, and armpit level.
I squinted, but couldn't see what Loiosh was seeing, and told him so. I can't see anything wrong. It's wrong. You know my vision is better than yours. I can usually at least see what you can see when you point it out to me. Not at night. We see heat. You don't. I bet they are infrared lasers. I thought you said you couldn't see infrared beams when we tried? It's not the beams I'm seeing. It's the dust in the beams. Like you can see dust floating in bright sunlight. You can't see light, unless it reflects off something. Same with us and seeing heat. It's almost like bars of ashes from a fire. Shin, waist, and armpit? I can go between them? Sure. We can guide you.
I looked at the intersection. The tile floor would be so easy to put a trap in, and if there were lasers here, the guards probably didn't go through them. Probably a trap on the other side. Really? I would have never- Shut up Loiosh.
My familiar shut up, but projected smug amusement at me as I considered my options.
The first trap was so pathetic. It was in a traffic area,
Point. We also know Teacher has some very talented people working for him, and with him.
I pulled out my smartphone and verified the audio was still disabled. Then I made sure the camera flash was disabled, and took a picture. I named the photo 'Where's the trap?' and emailed it to Tattletale.
Then, with Loiosh and Rozca guiding me, I stuck my head around the corner on both sides of the hallway. The laser transmitters were on the right, the receivers on the left. The wires went into the ceiling.
There were two claymores set up, one on each side of the hallway. The explosives were pointed at each other, angled a little inward so they would hit someone standing up to a couple feet from the end of the hallway.
That would have been painful.
My phone vibrated, and I looked at it. Incoming email with an image attachment.
The image I sent Tattletale had apparently been printed out, then been marked with red and green ink, scanned, and sent back to me. A note at the bottom said "Red sets off Jumping Jennys. Green is safe. Meeting in ten minutes. Hurry."
There was more green ink than red ink, but not much. There were no red bars across the hallway, so Tattletale's power hadn't picked up on the lasers. That didn't surprise me.
I showed the image to Loiosh and Rozca.
Got it, Boss. Ready to start?
I stretched, and checked all my clothing and equipment for hanging bits, loose threads, or anything that might break the laser beams. I pulled out the dark wax cake and re-waxed my hair before re-securing it with leather thongs so it wouldn't move.
Give me a look, Loiosh, make sure I didn't miss anything.
Loiosh and Rozca hopped silently to the ground, and moved around me. Nothing loose.
The next thirty seconds were slow but not terribly difficult. Loiosh and Rozca easily crossed the tiles, and guided me through the lasers and the tiles. Whoever had designed the trap clearly didn't expect someone to have seen the traps, which made no sense if they were expecting the Undersiders to try a rescue attempt.
Tattletale would have been in front looking for traps. Loiosh commented.
I froze as I realized he was right. It made sense. Tattletale hadn't seen the lasers in the photo, and probably wouldn't have seen them in person. She would have seen the traps in the floor. The claymores were placed to kill her as she approached, to investigate the Jumping Jenny traps she could see. The other traps were real, but only because they had to be, or Tattletale would have been suspicious. If there were more traps, later on, they would be designed to deal with Parian, Foil, and I.
I'm beginning to dislike Teacher more by the minute. For being reasonably smart? Yes. I prefer my enemies to be stupid. Especially when I'm doing something with less planning than I'd like. Unfortunately, I rarely get that luxury. Well, there's organ-guy. Lung isn't stupid, and you know it. He's no Yendi. Neither am I. That's a good thing, I'd probably try to eat you if you were. You're insufferable enough as it is.
Leaning over, I picked up Loiosh and Rozca, so they wouldn't make fluttering noises flying back up to my shoulders. Then I scratched Loiosh's head. Thanks. I needed that.
Loiosh nipped my fingers without breaking the skin. Yes, you did. Bad enough to have no plan and no groundwork, you definitely can't afford to be angry too.
I took another picture of the hallway, named it 'Traps?' and sent it to Tattletale.
Ten seconds later, there was a reply, text only. "No."
Moving to the end of the hall Tattletale had just said was clear, I used my string and ring to locate Imp's ring again. The ring didn't feel any heavier, so she was on my level, the street level, not in a basement. The direction seemed to indicate she was directly behind a door at the end of the hallway to my left.
Again, another picture, and again, a negative answer.
No lasers? None.
Then it struck me. Teacher probably didn't care if Parian and Foil lived. They really weren't a threat to his methods of operation. Tattletale was the one who could instantly detect his agents. Imp was dangerous, but he had proven he could find and capture her by the fact that he had already found and captured her.
I took a picture of the door, and got another negative response. The door wasn't trapped.
That settled it for me. I sent Tattletale a text. "There was a trap you didn't see, but Loiosh did. It was almost certainly positioned to kill you. Teacher appears to be actively seeking your death. Use body double at meeting."
The response came back seconds later. "Can't. Only five minutes to set it up. Free Imp, I skip meeting. Otherwise, thanks for warning."
Idiot. I cursed her in my mind, glad she couldn't see me.
Taking a deep breath, and then releasing it slowly, I calmed myself before examining the door. It didn't even have a lock.
I wonder how much Teacher feels threatened by me? I haven't seen any traps that seemed to be designed with me in mind.
I felt Loiosh do a double take in my mind. Are you serious, Boss, you don't see it?
Slowly opening the door, I responded. No. Enlighten me.
As the door opened, and I saw what was in the room, I realized what Loiosh was about to say.
There was a balding, middle-aged man sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, in front of a large shipping crate. There was a shimmer in the air between us.
Verra's teats.
Teacher was going to try to buy my services, and he had a payment I'd have a hard time refusing.
Imp's life.