In Which Justina Gets Patience In and Patience Gets Herself Thrown Out
Justina swung by the town hall. She looked around and saw a recycling bin in the lobby. She approached it as unobtrusively as she could and quickly fished out an empty folder and a handful of mostly uncrumpled pages. She got a few odd looks, but she was already leaving.
She began flipping through it as she walked around the edge of the market and strode up to the front door of the building that housed the offices and storage rooms that kept the market functional. A business card started to slide out of the stack and Justina caught it, glanced at it, and then tucked it into her pocket.
Patience stayed close at her heel trying to look attentive and unimportant at the same time. They passed a few other people, but unlike when she had tried to go this way by herself no one commented on Patience's presence or tried to help her get back where she belonged. She was with an adult and therefore somebody else's problem. Justina didn't even pause as she walked through a swinging door labeled "Employees Only" still frowning thoughtfully at a wad of papers. Patience glanced over Justina's shoulder and was amused to notice most of the papers were upside down. They passed a couple guards and Justina waved vaguely at them without looking up. They nodded back and ignored Patience.
They paused once when Justina noticed a fire map by the stairs. It had a lot of labels for emergency exits and fire extinguishers and not much else, but there was a greyed out section labeled "High Security Storage." It had one marked door in a short section of hallway. Justina changed direction and headed for it.
When they were approaching the hallway Patience pulled on Justina's arm to stop her and whispered. "There will be a guard. If you can't get us in, could you distract him? Just get him to move a little away from the door without looking at it? I can sneak in with skills I learned from Elizabeth."
Justina nodded, and continued walking. When they reached the corner Patience caught a glimpse of the guard and instantly pulled back out of sight. Justina didn't pause or question it. The man was shuffling a deck of cards, and hadn't seen them yet. He was dressed in red and brown. Red cargo pants tucked into short brown boots, brown leather jacket over a red sleeveless shirt and a pair of what appeared to be red spandex gloves tucked into his brown leather belt. When she saw the gloves Justina realized he might be a super with a costume rather than a regular guard with very questionable fashion sense. His hair, carefully gelled into a windswept mess, told her he was trying a little too hard. As she drew closer his head snapped up and the cards disappeared into his pocket. He watched her as she passed, still pretending to read the folder. She passed entirely by him and then paused and turned back.
"Excuse me, I was supposed to authenticate a piece of art somewhere in this building hours ago. Can you tell me where I am?"
He had relaxed when she had passed but he straightened up again when she addressed him, looking surprised.
"Ah…" He said, "Can I see some ID?"
She let herself look annoyed and held out the business card from her pocket. She didn't move any closer, so in order to take it he had to step away from the door. She carefully didn't watch Patience use Xanaria's skills to slip down the hall. The guard looked up at her.
"James McElroy?" He asked doubtfully, as his keys were lifted from his belt.
"It's short for Jameson-Irish. My mother was not sober when she was filling out my birth certificate." She maintained eye contact as in her peripheral vision Patience silently got the door open.
"I see why you would shorten it." He still sounded a little doubtful, as his keys were returned to his belt.
"Mmmhmmm." She ignored the door closing silently behind him.
"It says you specialize in paintings?"
"Yes, that's right." She hadn't noticed that
"There are no paintings in there right now." He gestured behind him.
She looked at him like he was an idiot. "I have no idea where I am. I no longer have any idea where I am supposed to be. If you can tell me were the painting I'm supposed to look at is I'll go there, but if you can point me toward an exit I would be even happier to leave."
"Ah." Relieved he gave her directions to the front door.
She left. She didn't like it, but she had to trust that Patience and Xanaria knew what they were doing.
What do we do now? I never really expected to get this far.
~Well, I guess we look for statue sized crates? That's got to be bigger than most of these.~
She swung the penlight across a room full of crates. Everything was carefully packed up waiting for tomorrow. They each had white labels on them, but the text was small enough Patience had to lean down to read it. The one they were next to apparently contained "Pre-Dome Life Knifes: Full set: Anonymous: Sentinel City: Item # 17" They walked between crates looking for something big enough to hold a human sized statue.
Suddenly the door opened and a flashlight beam swept around the room catching her full in the face. She had been quiet, she was sure of it, she hadn't even touched anything yet. Caught completely off guard she froze.
"Patience?" Came a puzzled voice. "What are you doing here?"
An overhead light came on and Patience relaxed to see the guard in red and brown she had avoided earlier. He had been her mother's side kick when she was a toddler and had babysat her many times. "Hey, Max. I just need to see my mother."
"Opal isn't here." He told her confused, "You shouldn't be here either, this is a high security area."
"She is here." Patience insisted. "She's in the statue and I need to talk her out of it. No one will let me see it. I don't even need to touch it, just let me talk to her."
"That doesn't make any sense. Come on. Lets get you out of here and you can come back to see it after the auction. I'm sure they'll leave it on display for a while, rich people like to show off what they've bought. But you can't be here right now."
Patience stared up at him, her jaw set, feet planted. He ran a red spandex covered hand through his hair and sighed.
"Go home, Patience. You could get in a lot of trouble breaking in here. I understand that you miss your mom but this is part of the hero's path. She'll be back when she is done with whatever Quest has beckoned, but you aren't going to help her by getting yourself thrown in juvie."
Through gritted teeth Patience repeated. "My mother is in that statue. I need to get her out."
"Patience…" He sighed again, then shook his head. "I don't have time for this. Tomorrow you can ask the new owners to let you see it, but right now this area is off-limits."
He put a hand on her shoulder, trying to turn her toward the exit, but she didn't budge. Exasperated he raised his eyebrows at her. "Don't make me carry you, young lady."
"Max!" Patience stomped her foot and instantly wished she hadn't. Feeling childish, she dug in her heels and stood firm.
He shook his head and then, feet still planted, she rose off the ground and started floating backwards.
Patience struggled, but her strength could do nothing against the air. "Damn it, Max, let me go!"
He shook his head and kept moving, "Patience I like you, you'll be a great hero someday. I'm not going to arrest you, even though you broke in here. But I'm at work. There are people who would pay a lot of money to steal anything in this place, and I don't have time for this."
"My mother is in here!"
"Your mother creates opaline, she doesn't become it. You of all people should know that."
"It grew up over her, it does that when she's tired and not careful!"
"Patience…"
"Listen to me, Max!"
"Look, how about I get you lunch after the auction? We can play a couple rounds of Uno, and we can talk then, how does that sound?"
"That will be too late!"
"I know what it's like, feeling lonely. But I'm sure Opal will be back as soon as she can. Go home, your babysitter must be frantic."
Patience grabbed for the door frame as she floated through it and missed, "I don't need a sitter! I'm 13!"
He set her down gently "Ah. Yes. You're a teenager now, practically a grown up. Then you're old enough to know that this place is off limits."
Patience scowled at him and started stomping toward the door again, but she felt herself lift up an inch and slide backwards. She flailed uselessly at the air, "Max!"
"That's enough, Patience. Go. Home." And he closed the door firmly.
"You're not a hero! You're a security guard in a stupid costume!" She yelled at the closed door. There was no answer. Fuming she glared at it.
Justina had ducked behind the corner of a brightly colored cloth booth when she had heard the door open. She waited until Patience stopped yelling before looking out. She saw Patience glaring at the closed door, fists clenched at her sides.
Justina approached cautiously, "I take it things didn't go according to plan?"
"No."
"They'll be expecting us now. Let's find somewhere warm and regroup. Figure out what to do next."
Patience didn't respond, but she let herself get pulled away.
