Lin and Mako pressed into Su Yin's office quickly enough that the guards had not been able to announce them.
"What's the matter Lin?" Her sister asked as she sat forward in her seat.
"Su, you need to heighten security." Lin answered as a command.
"We believe that Baraz was able to get to Zaofu because someone in the city helped him." Mako explained quickly.
Su seemed stunned for a moment, she pushed herself and her chair away from the desk and stood up. By the time she was fully standing she had retained her composure. "And what makes you say that?" She asked almost casually, arms crossed behind her back.
"The contents of his stomach indicate he was in Tu Zin approximately five hours before he died." Lin explained briskly. "The only way to get here that quickly is by airship and the only airships advanced enough to make the trip in time are here, in Zaofu."
Su thought for a moment. "If it's a conspiracy then I can't afford to put this on my guards." She put a heavy hand on Lin's shoulder. "I'm asking you to look into this Lin."
"Absolutely." Lin said, almost warmly.
"You can count on us Ma'am." Mako barked, with a quick salute that touched the rough crumples of his burnt hand to his forehead.
"Do whatever it takes; I want these traitors found, immediately." Su commanded. "Whatever it takes."
Korra rolled thee hatch in the compound's fence out of the way with her metalbending and led Asami through. In the grass around the foundations of the house bare earth had been dug out, ready to be filled with tropical flowers and shrubbery.
"You don't have to be here you know." Asami lied. "I'm sure it'll be pretty boring."
"Where you go I go." Korra answered sweetly as they encroached upon the door. She knocked heavily against the polished metal door.
"It's unlocked." Kuvira yelled through the door.
Korra entered first and Asami followed a small distance afterwards into the living room. Bataar had obviously expected the encounter and filled their dining table with schematics and ledgers full of equations as well as a full design kit laid out proudly.
"I understand you wanted my help Bataar." Asami said rigidly, with a notable absence of emotion.
"Yes." Bataar said keenly. "I was thinking about that EMP attack Varick used and I believe that if we can create a gold backed anechoic dish around an electromagnetic emitter we could create a directed pulse to negate Rhee's mechasuits." He rattled off as he searched through his schematics for the desired paper.
"What sort of range do you estimate?" Asami asked quickly, She was the only one standing rather than sitting and she intended to remain that way.
"It should just be line of sight, provided there are no obstacles in the way." Bataar answered eagerly.
"Anything else." Asami asked neutrally. She was still sat tensely, a good distance from the table and ready to spring up if she needed to.
"Well I have some ideas for mines and I'm working on a longer range version of the plasma cutter on your hummingbird mechs." Bataar said as he shuffled through the papers. "But I'd rather go non-lethal if I can." He said with a warm, almost satisfied smile.
"Never seemed to be a problem before." Asami answered archly.
"Excuse me." Kuvira answered back, almost under her breath.
"Asami just say it." Bataar said wearily as he lowered his head and shrunk in on himself as if he were expecting a killing blow.
"No Bataar you don't have to listen to this." Kuvira said, putting a hand onto his shoulder.
Asami stood up swift enough that she nearly knocked her chair off its legs. "Oh I think he does." She seethed. "Your little martyr act might be annoying but at least you know what you've done. But he just sits there like he's some sort victim. "You think that just because mommy forgives you you're not still a murderer." She leaned across the table to seethe at Bataar.
"Hey, you don't talk to him that way!" Kuvira yelled, almost roared as she stood up out of her chair and put herself between Asami and Bataar.
"I don't have to be here you know." Asami huffed. "I don't know why I came here in the first place." She muttered under her breath and turned to leave.
"No." Korra said as she moved between Asami and the door. When she met eyes with Asami she had a furrowed brow and a pensive pout.
"Korra." Asami gasped, almost hurt.
"Asami, Zaofu's counting on this." Korra said with sad, soft eyes. "Please, can you just try to make this work."
"Asami." Bataar quivered as he stood up out of his chair. "I know what I did. It's the first thing I remember, every morning. He said with a slight quiver in his voice. Bataar extended a nervous hand towards her in friendship. "I won't forget it, but the only right thing I can do is try to help. Please, will you let me."
Asami looked to Korra, who gave her an affirmative nod. Gingerly Asami grapsed Bataar's hand and shook it as if afraid he had a bat-viper up his sleeve.
"I'm proud of you." Korra whispered into her lover's ear.
Bolin's dojo had been built on the outskirts of Zaofu, high up in the mountains on a grassless plateau. It was a simple construct by Zaofu's standards. A large courtyard surrounded by a quadrangle of low metal buildings. Mako took a certain pride to see 'The Zaofu Institute of Lavabending' emblazoned above a gold embellishment of a fire-ferret atop the octagonal archway into the compound.
"Mako!" Bolin yelled as he ran out of the compound to meet his brother. Pabu perked up as well and bounced off the earthbender's shoulders and scurried up the path to Mako as he parked the jeep Su had lent him.
"Bro." He called back warmly. With a surprising cheer he knelt down into the dusty path and accepted Pabu into his arms. The fire ferret clambered across the yoke off his back, flicking a tufted tail in his face. "I missed you too Pabu." He muttered.
Bolin walked them into the courtyard proper. Fifteen cadets were assembled, all of them in the sleek green under-robes of a Zaofu guard. Some were fresh faced cadets straight out of the academy, others were civilian volunteers who displayed a particular talent for Lavabending. Almost all of them were at least a year older than Bolin, yet they each watched him with a great deal of respect. A large, circular depression in the ground flanked with platinum was presently occupied by a young girl attempting to liquidate a single brick into lava. It bubbled and lava seeped out of the crags in its surface but bending it into a malleable liquid still eluded her.
"Good Form Qua-Mei, you'll nail it in no time." Bolin yelled into the sparring pit. "Remember, you don't need to melt the whole thing, you just need to melt some of it and let the heat do the rest." He explained. Qua-Mei saluted him and attempted a different stance.
"Yo, Bolin, this your brother?" A gruff looking man, of at least thirty asked from the front of a four person group of people practicing their stances. His robes were half unfastened and the sleeves were rolled up. "Way you described him I would have thought he was eight foot tall and farted lightning bolts." He said with a grin along his stubbled jaw.
"It is, Toma, remember to keep you ankles locked." Bolin answered.
"Is there somewhere I can talk to you in private?" Mako leaned in close and whispered conspiratorially. At that moment Pabu elected to cross brothers, hopping from Mako's shoulders to his familiar perch on Bolin's back, flicking Mako on the nose on his way.
"Sure, we can talk in my office." He said jovially. "By the way I have an office now." The slightly giddy young man added as he lead his older brother into a surprisingly well appointed office.
The walls were taken up with pictures of Team Avatar, his grandmother and her side of the family, as well as his entire class packed into a few benches as if they were a preschool group. Bolin noticed that there were a mere two photographs sitting in little frames on his desk. Mako sat down on a long low couch In front of Bolin's desk.
"Did I tell you I'm doing a new radio drama soon, it's called Ting Ting and the Cabinet of Doctor Razor!" Bolin squealed in excitement as he presented a glossy publicity poster fresh from ZKO Radio. "I play a super-secret agent for the Fire Nation bought out of retirement to hunt down one of their deadliest criminals."
"Great, Bolin." Mako said a tad impatiently. "The Chief and I need your help."
"What's the matter, Mako?" Bolin asked as he leaned forward across the desk .
"We think Baraz might have gotten here as a result of a conspiracy inside the city." Mako explained. "Su thinks the Security Force might be involved so she asked me and Lin to look into it."
"What can I do to help?" Bolin asked frightfully. Reflexively he petted Pabu to calm himself.
"Zaofu's a big city, just the two of us won't be able to search it on our own." He explained. "Your lavabenders aren't official Guards yet, so they couldn't have been involved, but they do have all of their training. Exactly the force we'll need to root out whosever responsible for this." Mako explained.
"The fantastic bending brothers are back in action!" Bolin said as he leaned across the desk. Swiftly Bolin marched out into the courtyard. "Cadets! Form up!" Bolin yelled without an ounce of anger, yet all the same his students stopped what they were doing and assembled in front of him.
"What's going on Sifu Bolin?" Qua-Mei asked urgently. She was a year older than Bolin, tall and slightly stooped with a traditional headpiece fixed into her bun.
"E-Excuse me Sifu Bolin?" A portly student with a prim accent and a tidy set of robes stammered. "Please tell me we don't have to do a demonstration."
"Sifu?" Mako muttered under his breath.
"No, Kimwei, but I do have big news." Bolin said, ramping his voice up to a more powerful timbre. "Some of you have no doubt heard about the assassination attempt on Kuvira."
"What, are finishing the job?" Toma heckled bitterly.
"No. We're going to find out who's responsible and bring them to justice." Bolin answered. Almost immediately his group broke out into argument.
"Enough!" Mako yelled, breathing a waft of fire up into the steel eaves above him. "There is a terrorist organisation at work in this city, one able to get into the Estate of Suyin Beifong herself. Now I don't know about you but I wouldn't let some criminals get away with that in my city." He yelled , leaning over the railings to below closer to his audience.
"Wh-Why are we doing this though?" Kimwei squealed nervously. "Why can't we just have the real guards look into it?"
"Because the security force might be a part of it." Bolin began. "I know not all of you expected to do field work. I know not all of you want to help Kuvira and I know that you still need training. But these people, could be a threat to the Beifongs and every last person in Zaofu, so we're going to do whatever we can to end this threat." He said commandingly. Qua-Mei and Kimwei were both quelled into obedience and even Toma acquiesced with a small grunt. The rest fell in line surely enough. Bolin gave them a salute and they returned it.
"Wow Bo, that was really impressive." Mako said warmly. "Guess I've got to stop think of you as my goofy kid brother."
"I hope not!" Bolin said with a little chuckle.
"What should we do?" One of the cadets asked.
"We're going to the aerodrome right now to talk to the dockmaster. You guys canvas the area, request paper work, ask questions, follow leads, do what you have to do." Bolin commanded. "I believe in you." He said more tenderly.
The aerodrome of Zaofu was packed now. Airships came and went almost constantly, filling the area with the throttled thrum of airship engines and the heavy smell of kerosene fuel and the spices of distant lands. A dinky little earth kingdom balloon sat between a United Republic sky freighter and a Zaofu patrol ship. Sat in the shadow of gas envelopes both bold and battered stevedores in bright green uniforms busily managed the cargo and the people the airships offloaded. Piling out of airships by the dozens came the poor, the starving and the needy. Herded like cattle through procession of brightly coloured barriers they cast a weary mood over the otherwise bright and beautiful docks. In the centre was a panopticon tower that watched the whole thing.
Chief Beifong crossed the aerodrome in a perfectly straight line, her very posture demanded that the whole crowd of people move around her as she passed. No sooner had they stepped out of their tram then Bolin and his cadets snapped to attention the moment they caught sight of the legendary chief. Even Toma looked slightly afraid at the front of the crowd. "This all you could get?" She grunted gruffly.
"They're the only ones we can trust." Mako answered.
"I swear chief, they might be a bit rough around the edges but they'll get the job done." Bolin said confidently.
"We'll see." She answered slowly. "Mako, we're going to question the dockmaster, Bolin organise your people into teams and search the area."
Bolin nodded and turned about to face his squad. "Everyone into groups of five. Qua-Mei make a team and canvas the docks, Toma, I want you to lean on the airship crews and find out what they know, Kimwei, go into the tower basement and check their flight records. Any of you get a lead radio in and chase it down." He rattled off commandingly.
"Yes, Sir!" His cadets replied in a round of half remembered salutes. The group erupted into conversation as Qua-Mei and Toma argued over who they wanted and Kimwei quietly asked anyone else to come with him. Soon enough they split into three and dispersed to search their assigned targets.
Chief Beifong and the bending brothers quickly approached the elevator up to the panopticon. With a quick application of metalbending Lin lifted the metal alcove carrying them up the side of the tower until they were so far off the ground that they could see the curvature of the earth. Behind them the golden sands of the Si Wong desert loomed quietly and in front of them the scrubland of the southern Earth Continent stretched out for miles.
"This is a restricted area." Foreman Yuma seethed. He was dressed in the same green clerk's robes as the rest of his people though he wore a bright yellow sash across his waist apparently a badge of office. He was incredibly tall and rather broad with stoop in his step and a tense look all over his body as if someone had tried to force eight feet of bureaucrat into a six foot frame. "I don't care who you are get out of here right now!" He bellowed.
Chief Beifong scowled and crossed the room quickly. "We're investigating an attack on the Beifong estate, now you can either get out of our way or we can start making your job really hard."
The Foreman gnashed his teeth and grunted heavily before he finally obliged her. "What do you need?"
"Were you in charge here a few days ago?" Mako asked.
"Yeah, I've been working this job for the last twelve years." He answered before his faint grey eyes narrowed into a sharp squint. "Loyally."
"Be that as it may we're taking you to the station to answer a few questions." Lin said commandingly. She stood there calmly with her arms crossed but Yuma noticed Mako flexing and unflexing his burnt arm as if preparing it for a bout of firebending.
"Am I under arrest?" Yuma asked dryly.
"No." Lin answered cautiously.
"Even if I don't want to go?"
"No." she replied again sharply. Yuma took a long sigh and approached them with his hands passively at his sides.
After Bolin had radioed in to his teams they departed for the guard's compound. Specifically, the interrogation chambers. Yuma sat heavily on the too short chair. One of its legs had been made just a centimetre too short so he could never sit quite comfortably. It didn't seem to bother him.
"Sooo….How long am I going to sit here, not being arrested?" He said casually, reclinging back in the chair until the weight of it was on the two, even legs. "Because the Zaofu Charter of Fair Conduct says I can't be kept for more than twenty four hours without charge."
"Look buddy, we just have a few questions." Bolin said with a kindly air as he sat down. He pushed a cup of tea across the table and took a sip of his own.
"Ask them." Yuma groaned.
Mako didn't take up the chair next to his brother "We've got men looking into your air-traffic records." He said leaning across the table. "But why don't you save us the time and tell us if there are any…..irregularities."
"Of course there are irregularities." Yuma snapped, lurching forwards in his chair until he was a hair's breadth away from Mako's face. To his credit the officer didn't flinch or even break his glare. "Since the Earth Kingdom went belly up our traffic average has been up two hundred percent."
"Well I'm sorry to hear that." Mako said with a sarcastic little half a smirk. "But unless you happen to recall a really important irregularity you are going to be under arrest and you are going to see cramped little rooms like this for a long while."
Yuma huffed and looked around, as if expecting to find some sort of answer laying around in the sparse, entirely metal room. "Fine, I took a bribe." He said slowly. "The day Kuvira showed up some rich guy shows up demanding to skip the flight plan and take his sky-yacht out of the city. I figured he had some kind of problem with her being here and he was trying to get away, for ten thousand yuans I figured it couldn't be much harm."
"Thank you sir, that was a big help." Bolin said reassuringly. "Can you describe him for us."
"He was in a hooded cloak, all I really saw was this long catfish mustache, he seemed pretty short, that's about all I know."
"Really, that's all?" Mako asked.
"Yes." Yuma almost spat back at him.
"Short, moustached, well I think you can sit here until we find him, then." Mako said as he made for the door. "Come on Bolin we're leaving." Bolin followed him to the door and as soon as Mako knocked against the door Lin retracted it into the walls.
"Rode him pretty hard in there." Lin commented. "Think there's any more we can sweat out of him?"
"He has to know what the yacht looked like at least, where it's berthed." Mako replied confidently.
"Whilst you were in there some of Bolin's guys found a lead, we're checking it out now."Lin stated bluntly.
It wasn't a long journey out to the lead. High up in the windy night there was a penthouse jutting out of downtown Zaofu. All the way at its base Kimwei's group contending with a rather surly doorman stood underneath a lamp pole.
"What's going on here!?" Lin demanded the moment she appeared.
Kimwei approached her nervously at first, as though he expected the formidable chief to snap at him. "We found a log for a private airship, registered to this location."
"And as I have been trying to tell these cadets they aren't allowed into Timur Towers without a resident's invitation." The doorman protested. When Lin shot him a withering look, the sort that normally put Triads in a talking mood he stood his ground.
"We don't have time for this." She declared and promptly wrapped him to a lamppost with a length of cabling.
"Was that legal?" Kimwei whispered to Bolin.
"Maybe. Either way I'm not going to ask." He whispered back.
The building's foyer was mostly deserted aside from a teenage couple sat on the arm of a sofa. Both boys hopped off the minute green guard's uniforms presented themselves.
"Okay, guys start talking to tenants I want to know if anyone suspicious has been in or out here recently." Bolin commanded. "Kimwei, you made the lead, you should see it through." He said at the periphery of the elevator doors as they dinged open. "You can ride with us."
It was tight, and uncomfortable squeeze into the otherwise luxurious elevator. Except for Lin, the spiked elbows of her armour managed to afford her a certain amount of space in the slightly jostling box all the way up to the twentieth floor.
With a bit of cajoling from Lin's metalbending the ornately decorated doors to the penthouse swung open. The interior was abandoned, and it looked to be for some time. Furniture was covered over in tarps and dust had settled on top of that and small motes of dust caught the midday sun through the back windows. Dust and dirt and mildew had gathered on both sides of the windows and the fridge hung open, empty and inactive.
"Someone must have one big budget if they can afford to not live in a penthouse." Bolin commented as he surveyed the unused rooms. In the centre of the penthouse was a helical staircase up onto the roof.
"Unless this place is even swankier than it looks I'm guessing the airship is gonna be on the roof." Kimwei said as he made for the stairs. At the top of it he pushed a hatch up and open and climbed up onto the roof.
The rest soon followed onto the roof, a flat black expanse of tarmac that presented almost the entire city of Zaofu beneath them. And sitting on a landing pad, lashed to the ground by a series of metal cables was a Zaofu Inhouse Custom performance air-yacht. She had a rich emrald envelope and a sleek, streamlined cockpit made of lightweight aluminium and a pair of large boxy engines on either side of the gondola jutting from either side of it.
"Whew." Kimwei said as he approached it. "This baby could definitely get you to Tu Zin in a hurry." He walked over the airship's hatch and tried to open it. In the near total silence of the landing pad they could hear a heavy detonator pin slid out of place and rattle against the floor of the airship interior. A heartbeat later the airship exploded. Flaming shrapnel flew towards them. At the last moment Bolin was able to throw up a barrier of earth to deflect the blast.
"Kimewei!" He yelled and hopped over the barrier. A blackened skeleton was scorched into the ground. He staggered backwards in shock until he collided with Mako.
"Bolin I'm sorry." The elder brother said as he tried to hold onto him.
"He was going to be an instructor." Bolin sobbed between ragged breaths. "He wouldn't even have been up here if I hadn't taken him."
"You're never the same after you've lost your first officer." Lin said as she put a hand on his shoulder. "But this is when you know whether you want to be a leader or not." She said almost softly. "So how are you going to handle this, Bolin."
"We're going to find whoever did this." Bolin quaked as his hands balled up into white knuckled fists. "Whatever it takes."
Bolin was angrier than Mako had ever seen him on the elevator down.
"I'm sorry sir, we couldn't find anything." A cadet said from the middle of the three cadets still with them. "Where's Kimwei?" She asked.
"Kimwei's…." His anger crashed back in on itself until all he could display was naked sorrow. "Kimwei's dead." He stood there dumbly as the loss went across their face and then spoke again. "But we're going to find whoever's behind this I swear."
"What's our next step?" The cadet asked.
"Su said we should do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of this. Well we're going to do whatever it takes to get a name out of Yuma." He answered coldly.
There hadn't been much to get in the way of Bolin as he made his way into the bowels of the station like a human rockslide. "Bolin, wait up!" Mako called as he tried to keep up. "Just because Su said we could do anything doesn't mean we should."
"If Yuma knew about that bomb he's a murderer." Bolin spat at the periphery of the door to the interrogation cell. "He's got to pay for what he's done."
"I'm not opening that door until you promise me you won't lay a finger on him." Lin said gruffly, with her arms crossed. She didn't back down no matter how hard Bolin snarled.
Bolin punched the wall in a huff and then took a low, deep breath. "Fine. Fine. I…shouldn't have let it take me that far anyway." He said, ashamed.
"It'll be alright, Bo, we'll be right next to you." Mako said gently. He nodded to Lin who finally agreed to open the hatch.
"Spirits." Lin breathed as the door retracted into the walls. Yuma was sat there, slumped forwards on his uneven seat. His eyes hung open. They were glassy and empty and filled red with burst blood vessels. There wasn't a scratch on him but all the same Yuma was dead.