Chapter 15 – the fate of the tracKer

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Author's Notes

Here's the first in the pre-emptive updates. Remember, if you read all these chapters the day they're posted, you'll be left to ponder the melancholy nature of a post-less existence for two weeks. Up to you, but you might enjoy the benefit of having time to digest this podcast if you stick to only reading chapters on Mondays and Fridays. But hey, how you budget is your business.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!

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"What? When?"

"I don't know! The last time I checked it was when we passed the robbed Dust shop!" Ilia cringed. "That means that it could have been Weiss or Pyrrha or any of them. We missed the trap, and they left."

Adam covered his face with a palm. "Do you at least remember where the signal was coming from? Maybe it's Goodwitch and she's still there. Or they might have doubled back around to pick the tracker up…"

Ilia knew he was just stretching it to prevent her from feeling any guilt over losing the signal. It hadn't been her fault that they missed their window, but she could have been more frequent in her checks. They might have been able to at least cross off Weiss' name if the tracker had still been on when they saw her.

Still, there was no point moping about it now.

"Yeah. I used the distance and bearing from the tracking program when we were on the bullhead to pinpoint the coordinates. I remember where it is."

"Lead the way. And, Ilia, don't feel–"

"Drop it. Let's just go."

The two of them walked in silence some distance. The signal had come online in the early afternoon, but between the bullhead flight from Beacon to Vale, the bussing to within range, and the whole slew of distractions that had held them back, it was now getting closer to nighttime. The sun was visible over the horizon, but Ilia knew they would be walking back in the dark.

Or fighting. It's all well and good to wallow in self-pity, but I should be just as prepared for the trap to still be there. Either way, this isn't going to be a pleasant night.

They were still close to the docks, but the residential houses and fancy businesses had long since faded away. Out here, the only things were warehouses, dingy strip malls, and eateries that looked like the only survived by being so far away from the center of town that the health inspectors couldn't be bothered to drive out all that way.

"We're here," Ilia announced unceremoniously. The place in question was an electronics repair and parts shop named Barney's Ficksits. It was smack dab in between a run-down hair salon and some weird shop or something – the title was written in a Vacuoan script with characters that Ilia didn't recognize.

Adam's face turned green, and Ilia wondered if he was the chameleon. "You're sure it's this place?"

"You were expecting the trap to be in a ritzy, 5-star hotel?"

"I was rather hoping it might be in a more hygienic location."

"If all goes well, disease will be the last thing we need to worry about."

How strange was that – Ilia was actually desperately hoping that a murderer was waiting inside this repair shop, brandishing a rapier or a shortsword or a riding crop (or perhaps twin daggers) menacingly.

"Well, we're not going to find out anything standing around out here," she said.

Adam hesitated. "Perhaps you need a lookout."

"C'mon, big guy. You'll be fine."

"I could be the getaway driver. Or the hacker. Or the air supportttttttttt!" Adam squealed like a baby as Ilia dragged him through the double doors.

"Welcome to Ba – oh. Don't forget to shut the door."

The man who leisurely greeted them from behind the desk was a balding, middle aged human – presumably Barney – who was currently reading a sports magazine. He seemed to be the only person other than them in the store, but Ilia still surrounded her entire body with aura. Lightning Lash was fully primed and at the ready with a fresh payload of Dust in the first three sections of the cartridge, fourth and fifth chambers packed with Ilia's special surprise as well just in case things got really dicey. There was no telling who might be waiting in the back room or watching them through the scope of a sniper or hiding in plain sight with an invisibility semblance. It never hurt to be safe.

"We–"

"You buying?" The human spoke right over Adam. "Or needin' something fixed?"

"No, but–"

"Then I'm not interested in ya loiterin' about. Buy somethin' or leave. Got no use for yer kind."

"I'm a human," chimed in Ilia.

"A Faunus lover. I don't got the time to handle loiterers. As the two of youse can clearly see, mah business is boomin'." He gestured to the empty store and resumed his magazine. "Busy little bee, I am…"

"Very well," said Adam, approaching Barney and reaching for his waist.

Ilia froze. He's not going to–

"We would like to buy something." Lien chips scattered onto the counter separating the two. "Information."

"I'm an electrician, not a–"

A second helping of lien landed in front of him.

"You and yer kind might think you can just–"

Even more money fell from Adam's hand and joined the heaping pile.

"…fine. Whaddaya wanna know?"

"You repair electronics. Repair anything good today?"

"Nothin' much."

"I thought business was boomin'," said Adam. He reached for the lien he'd put on the counter. "Of course, we could always go elsewh–"

"N-No! Ok, ok, fine. You sure know how to play, kid. I had three jobs today. A stereo with the right speaker busted, a scroll with a chipped screen, and the one you're interested in."

"The tracker."

"Aye. Not many people come to me with Atlesian tech that fancy. It's the only piece I saw today that was more than just a household fix."

"They wanted you to repair it?"

"Nah. They wanted me to take it apart and find out what made it tick. I accidentally crossed the wrong wire – well, I guess it musta been the right wire, cuz the thing started chirpin' again all of a sudden."

"How did they react when you fixed it?"

"Never told 'em. The battery on that thing was all but shot – tends to happen when you improperly deactivate electronics. Current leeches power, wastes it as heat without the doohickey even workin' properly. It had about an hour and a half left of juice, then it stopped working."

"So what did you give your client?"

"Same thing as you: information. What the thing was, how it worked, what frequency it sent out on–"

"Frequency?" asked Ilia.

"Yeah," said Barney. "That's how it works. It sends out radio waves at a fixed frequency, and some device out there has been tuned to pick up that frequency, usually a scroll or sometimes a computer. This bad boy runs at 1676.03 megahertz. Well, ran at."

"The frequency…if you knew it, would you be able to use the tracker find the tuned device? Find the scroll?"

"Ain't how it works. The scroll, or whatever is used to receive the signal, sends a ping to the tracker asking it for its location via a secure CCT connection. The tracker then determines its own location via satellite trilateration and sends that data back to the scroll on the same CCT line. The tracker's nothing more than a collection of wires and circuits to accept the ping, talk to the satellite, and send an answer back. You can find the tracker, but never the scroll."

Ilia wiped some of the sweat off of her brow and breathed out a sigh of relief.

"…unless you were to construct an entirely new setup that reads the pings at that frequency and precisely times the interval between them. If you got it down to the nanosecond, no, the picosecond, you could use it to determine the velocity of the scroll relative to the CCT with the Doppler Effect. You couldn't geolocate the scroll, but you could tell if they were moving, and how fast. Distance from the tower, too, though you'd need some expensive tech for that."

"Did you tell them that?"

Barney shrugged. "Don't remember."

"Well, do you remember what they look like?"

"Can't rightly say that I do. And don't bother with that," he said as Adam reached for more lien. "I do got some standards. Ain't gonna go blabbing their personal details and have you lot mugging them on my conscience. If that'll be all, then?"

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"Fuck! It was all a fucking waste!" cursed Adam outside the store. "They were here! They were here, and they didn't know we were tracking them, and we missed them because of fucking Schnee and that piece of shit monkey!" He slashed Wilt at empty air as he fumed out loud into the windless night.

Ilia was probably thinking something sassy about how they never would have made it regardless of those distractions, but she held her tongue out of either fear of Adam or some misplaced sense of guilt. It didn't matter to Adam – he wasn't mad at her or himself, but at the universe in general.

"GRAAAAH! Waste of fucking time!"

"It wasn't a trap," Ilia said, when Adam got his temper under control. "If it was Schnee or Nikos, they were relaxed because they didn't expect us to be there. Just a visit to Vale for shopping and looking at the ships and visiting the repair shop to get the tracker looked at – no combat expected, whatsoever."

"Hmmmmrrr," rumbled Adam.

I guess we cleared Ruby, so it's…argh, it doesn't matter. Truth be told, Adam was beginning to have second thoughts as to whether anyone could truly be 'cleared.' What if I stop watching her (or Arc) and miss something obvious? What if…no. No, I need to focus. If the evidence isn't pointing to them, then I should devote my energy to watching those at whom it is pointing.

The Valean belltower rang out. Adam waited until it had chimed all nine times before speaking.

"We need to ditch the scroll."

Ilia pulled it out of her pocket. "He said it can't–"

"It doesn't matter. It's too much of a risk. We'll buy Blake a new one."

"We could just turn off the tracking program. Based on what he said, the only time it would endanger us is when it's pinging."

"Yes, but why hold onto it? We didn't even know that it could give out our distance from the CCT until just now. How long until we learn that they've found a way to trace us when it's off? Or find out our exact location?"

"We'd lose the tracker, permanently."

"At this point, I'd rather lose it than give the killer any information about where we are. Remember, we only want to find them so that they don't interfere with our primary objective, the aura transfer device. If we can avoid them for the rest of our time at Beacon, that would be acceptable."

"I wasn't expecting that attitude from you." Ilia looked at Adam funny. "We came here thinking that this was them throwing down the gauntlet. What changed?"

"Ruby. It wasn't her; the tracker turned on at 4pm, and we were all with her."

"What's so important about Rubes that our priorities have shifted off of Mission B entirely?"

"It's likely that Ozpin has the aura device, or at least is aware of who does. Almost the same month that it was stolen, Ruby Rose was personally invited by the headmaster to come to Beacon."

"You think she's involved?"

"Maybe. She's compliant, gullible, and indebted to Ozpin. I think…she might be his first guinea pig for the machine."

Ilia's eyes widened.

Adam had given this some thought. The aura transfer device could in theory be used to add multiple semblances to a single person or supercharge them with aura. If Ozpin wanted to make a superhuntress, the perfect place to start was a child prodigy.

"I'm not sure; it's just guesswork at this point. I just wanted to make sure she wasn't involved in Mission B, as you called it. That would complicate things. Now that she's not a suspect in Marrow's death, we can focus entirely on utilizing her connect to Ozpin, whatever that may be."

"I guess…"

"You don't think so?"

"No," said Ilia. "I just don't like how much we're getting tangled up in this one human's business. She's not a bad person – she actually defended the Faunus to me because of how much time I've been spending with Schnee and Team Sword."

"If she is to be the headmaster's test subject, we may be saving her from being experimented upon. We're probably doing her a favor."

Ilia muttered something that was most likely mutinous under her breath, but Adam let it go. Her devotion to K had originated in using it as an instrument of revenge against her enemies, but she was his sister now. She wasn't going to betray them over sentiment for a human she'd known for less than a month. This he knew.

"Let's just go home," said Ilia.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" asked Adam.

Ilia checked Lightning Lash, her wallet, and her pants zipper. "Uh…nope?"

"The scroll?"

"Oh, right. Let's just ditch it on the street corner here."

Adam wasn't sure that was the best option. "I say we put it on a boat leaving the kingdom. That way, if our killer does track it down, they get sent on a wild goose Faunus chase to Vacuo and out of our hair."

"But it's so laaaaaaaate…and I'm tired!"

"Here, give it to me. You go back to Beacon. I'll dispose of it." If Ilia wasn't willing to invest the extra effort of walking over to the pier, Adam gladly would.

"Nah, I won't ditch you. Ilia ain't no ditch-bitch. Let's just go."

The docks were dangerous at this time of night, but as long as they avoided the flickering streetlights, Ilia and Adam's dark clothing helped them blend into the night.

The closest boat to their current location was a Dust freighter of Atlesian design, probably ex-SDC. It was moored next to a large warehouse that had five built-in crane fixtures for unloading the massive shipping containers onto shore. The two of them had to climb over a fence to get to it, but there didn't seem to be any other boats nearby, and Ilia had said she wanted to get home soon.

It was strange; the shipping containers they were walking around were strewn about haphazardly, and one of the crane's hadn't even been fully reeled in. Adam guessed that the ship had been in the middle of being unloaded when one of the cranes got jammed. The crew must've been unable to fix it before nightfall and decided to pick up where they left off tomorrow. The SDC tended to be sloppy like that.

…but James owns the SDC, and he's never been one for letting those under his command half-ass things.

"Eyes sharp, Amitola." Adam kept his voice low. "Something's–"

Ilia kicked Adam's feet out from under him and leapt on top of him.

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Blake: 522301

The message sent from Blake's own scroll to Ilia's had been a series of six numbers, but the cat Faunus deciphered it as truly being three separate 2-digit codes that K used to communicate high volumes of information quickly.

Code 52 meant Bring Weapons.

Code 23 meant Do Not Respond/Radio Silence.

Code 01 meant Dire Threat to Agent's Life.

She stood up and grabbed Gambol Shroud, rushing out the door without offering an explanation to Ruby. Blake bounded out the doors to their dorm building, knocking over Jaune Arc as she ran. The blond cried out and shouted something to her, but she couldn't even hear him.

No no no no no…

It had seemed so smart at the time, dividing their forces so Blake could keep an eye on Ruby while the others traced down the tracker, but now it didn't make sense at all. K had sprung whatever trap awaited them at two thirds of their full strength, and now they were going to pay the price for their arrogance.

Why in the Brother's name did I stay behind to do stupid math tutoring? I should have gone with them! Dammit!

Please, please, please! Please let them be okay!

Professor Goodwitch was stepping off a transport bullhead that had just landed on the Beacon runway. When she saw Blake zooming towards her, she stepped out of the way with a confused look on her face.

"I'm sorry, Miss Belladonna, but there will be no more outgoing flights until tomorrow morning."

Blake flew past her and leapt onto the airship, ignoring the fact that the loading ramp was being retracted. The pilot turned around and tapped on the glass window separating the passenger space from the cockpit.

"Sorry, kid, but we're–"

Blake drew Gambol Shroud and slashed the lock clean off.

"What the–"

He stopped speaking when Blake socked him in the face and threw him out of the chair and out the back of the ship. Strapping herself in, she initiated the takeoff sequence and lifted off the ground. Fortunately for her (and for Adam and Ilia), the airship's engines were still hot.

Blake pressed forward on the throttle, and the airship began to move forward. Suddenly, she was jolted in her seat as the entire shuttle froze entirely, midair.

Why isn't – Goodwitch! Blake looked over her shoulder and saw the professor, her riding crop raised, through the still open loading port into the back of the airship.

Code 01 was only to be used in the highest of risk scenarios – it was akin to a mission override. They had never needed to use it before in the White Fang. In sending it, Adam or Ilia communicated that they were so concerned for their lives it would be better for Blake to blow her cover if needed if it would help her get there quicker.

Thus, Blake leaned back in her seat, switched Gambol Shroud from cleaver to semi-automatic pistol, and opened fire at Professor Goodwitch.

None of the bullets hit her, as was expected, but the older woman was forced to deflect them with the use of her telekinetic semblance. Her grip on the bullhead was broken, and Blake flew away freely without anything holding her back.

Setting a course for Vale, Blake pulled out Ilia's scroll and activated the FindMyScroll app. Apparently, the others were located in downtown Vale, fairly close to the docks. Blake vaguely remembered the tracker sending its signal from around the same location.

"Blaaaaaaaaaake!"

Blake's head snapped around.

Ruby was dangling from her scythe, the tip of which had been embedded into the partially retracted loading ramp at the rear of the vessel. She hung precariously over the city, holding on for dear life as her hood flapped about wildly in the breeze.

"I'm gonna diiiiiiieeeeeee!"

Blake didn't slow down or stop – she couldn't afford to – but she did quickly nosedive downwards. Ruby was pulled by gravity into the open back of the airship, and Blake pressed the button on the control panel to retract the ramp and close the cargo doors.

"Oh Dust, that was crazy. My entire life flashed before my eyes just now. Fuck, it's been so awesome." Ruby folded up her oversized scythe and clambered into the cockpit. "Blake, what is going on?"

"You shouldn't have followed me."

"Why did you steal a plane and shoot Miss Goodwitch? I mean, I totally get why someone would do those things, but why now?"

Blake didn't have time to drop Ruby off somewhere, and she couldn't afford to chance Ruby trying to force her to turn around. I guess I'm bringing a plus one to the party. Guess the backup will be useful…

"Adam and Ilia are in trouble."

"Oh."

"I'm going to rescue them."

"I see. Can this thing go any faster?"

"No. This is the top speed."

"Top spe– where are Adam and Ilia?"

"Docks."

"No, I mean, where are they? Can you point out their exact location?"

"I don't have…look, they're somewhere over there, by that gray warehouse." Blake signaled as best she could, keeping her other hand on the controls.

"The one with three extra long jetties sticking out into the water?"

"Yes. We'll be there in a few–"

Ruby placed a hand on Blake's shoulder, and the entire world exploded into rose petals. Blake, fully enveloped in Ruby's semblance, smashed into the windshield of the ship, tore through it, and flew into the night sky.