The Thirty-Fourth Day of Dark: 11:00 AM: LOG 0032

By now, you're fairly certain you've been kicked from the job. After all, your face is on wanted posters all over town. Not that's you're exactly torn up about being disqualified from the biggest payday of your life. Well, no. You are. But you're not as emotionally fucked as you thought you'd be. Sure, you're pissed that you've lost the biggest payday of your entire goddamned career, but you no longer have to contest with those odd feelings of guilt.

Still, you have to act as if you're taking the job seriously. Until you can get back to Dave's place and get your hands on your computer, you can't confirm anything indefinitely. And, until you know your shot at a massive haul is gone forever, you're going to hold onto a glimmer of hope that the chance is still there. At the very least, if you're still on the job, slacking off isn't going to go over well if the king, in all his jackass power, has some surveillance trained on your ass.

Anywho, that's not really the point.

The point is that Dave has somehow gotten it into his head that a balls-to-the-wall, guns-blazing raid is the safest way to get John out of prison. Now, you've never been much of a tactician, but even a strategic blunderer such as yourself can figure out that this idea is akin to slathering a Human in the hottest hot sauce you can imagine. Hell, this idea might just be bad enough for you to elevate that hot sauce to straight up hypothetical lava.

Not that Dave is even listening. "It's a great idea," he insists, repeating something he's been saying for the past however-many hours.

"They will execute everyone the minute they get so much as a fucking whiff of the tiniest goddamned fart of suspicious activity, you twit." You reiterate your own point.

Dave scoffs. "Stealth is so last millennia." He toys with his laser pistol. "Go big or go home."

"Whatever." He seems intelligent enough to realize how absolutely batshit his plan is, so you're baffled as hell as to why he's still insisting on it. Still, you decide to present your plan. "My idea was to take a uniform, sneak in, grab John, sneak out. Easy, quick, and painless."

To your amazement, Dave seems to consider the idea. He chews on his lip for a few moments and taps his fingers against the armrest of his chair. Then, after a few minutes, he nods. "Sounds reasonable. I'll let you do it, but you're not getting paid if you end up dead."

You pause.

You're not sure if he's telling a joke or informing you of some sudden change in your royally obtained contract as a bodyguard. Nonetheless, you feel obligated to inform him of his massive oversight. "I don't need to be paid if I'm FUCKING DEAD."

The Thirty-Fourth Day of Dark: 1:00 PM: LOG 0033

Now this is more along the lines of what you've trained for. Knocking out a guard, stripping him down to his underwear, and donning his outfit. Sure, a close look will quickly reveal to the world that you're not supposed to be here, but the fact that you easily lured the now-unconscious guard with little more than a promise of free cigarettes tells you that there won't be much attentive scrutiny of your person.

Head down. Shoulders relaxed. Casual.

That's how you get through jobs like this. Never raise an objection to anything. If someone tells you to massage their disgusting Human feet, you fucking do it.

"Hey, bud," a voice beckons you. Turning reveals the source to be a large Argonian—a sort of odd reptilian race—glaring at you. In hindsight, the slight gurgling behind the voice should have tipped you off. "You got any gum?"

You shake your head. "Sorry. You know where I can find someone around here who knows where the fuck the prisoners are?" You eye the grimy map behind the lizard-person. "I need to speak to a bastard named John Egbert."

"I'm the goddamned warden, you fucking twit." The lizard spits up a slimy wad of something, and you're ready to knock her out if she asks you to so much as take a step in the general direction of the unidentified pile of shit. Fortunately for you (and for her) she doesn't. "He's upstairs. Second floor. Cell B6. Last one up there."

"Thanks," you nod and flee. The longer you stick around, the more likely it is that you'll have to clean up lizard phlegm.

Of course, you have to create an alibi. You drop by the cafeteria, taking advantage of the multiple posted reminders to feed prisoners lunch no later than 2:00 every day.

You're given a metal tray of some sort of strange slop. From what you can tell, it's mashed potatoes and puréed string beans.

With your alibi in hand, you proceed without incident up the stairs and down the short hall to cell B6.

There, you're greeted by what you can only call the most Egbert-esque greeting possible. Now, by that, you mean that it's tactless, loud, and jarring. "Karkat!"

"DAMMIT!" You set aside the tray, grab a slice of bread (the only edible solid you were given) and shove it into John's still-open mouth. "Are you trying to get us both killed?"

He snickers, chews the unceremoniously presented bread, and shrugs. After a few moments, he offers a simple answer, "I was excited to see you, dude. So, what? You're here to break me out?"

"Yeah, sure," you respond with a dramatic roll of your eyes. "Why don't we say it louder and let everyone know?" You kneel down, fish a lockpicking set from your pocket, and make short work of the admittedly cheap lock. You're genuinely amazed that they'd use a lock as shitty as the one you just broke. At the very least, you thought it'd be more than two minutes before you got in. Nonetheless, you're not here to nitpick security choices. You're here to get this clueless, raven-haired dork out of prison.

"That was fast." John seems to admire your handiwork.

You, having trained specifically to pick locks of almost every type, shrug off his compliment. "Put this in," you command, tossing him the uniform you looted from an unlocked supply room. "We're getting the fuck out of here."

"Amazing. You're my hero, Karkat Vantas," John hums, pulling on the plain grey jacket. (Unlike some other planets, Skaia doesn't go for gaudy when it comes to military uniforms. Some of the others use stupidly bright colors, like red and bright blue; the effect is almost comical, making officials look like some sort of strange, exotic featherbeast.) "Sorry for the whole 'getting arrested' deal, by the way. I've probably taken five years off Dave's life with stress."

And what about the years you've taken off my life? Resisting the urge to slam your face repeatedly into the concrete wall next to you, all you can settle for is a deep, hearty sigh. You force yourself to smile and, once John is dressed, hightail it the fuck out of the prison.

To your amazement, the whole thing goes over without a hitch. It's suspiciously easy, but, then again, the whole place was filled with underpaid and overworked prison guards who really just seemed interested in bumming cigarettes off one another. Considering how many times you were asked for one, you'd be amazed if a single guard even owned a pack of cigarettes at any given point in time. Maybe they just had a cycle of asking someone for a cigarette and being denied. Whatever the case was or is, it's one shoddy security system, and you've got a hunch that the place you smuggled yourself into wasn't anywhere near the highest security place.