"66, get your butt over here and help me with this," someone calls out, and Jake stops in his tracks.
At this rate, he's not going to make it back to records before his ten minutes is up, let alone to surveillance first. Maybe he shouldn't try; Susan is capable of getting out on her own, and he….
Trying to find answers on his own is a fool's hope. More than that, it's a dangerous hope, especially with how the situation has changed with the American Dragon and the (albeit temporary) power outage. The outage will have set into motion numerous protocols he can't easily counter, and the answers he wants might not even exist. At least, they might not exist where he can find them, and searching will (inevitably) get him into trouble. It'll get him caught. If Susan waits for him, it'll get her caught, too.
But if she goes, and he's caught, he'll be the distraction she needs to escape. By not being there with her, he'll be able to buy her time. He'll be able to buy them all more time. Rose, too. He'd hoped that he might see her at surveillance, but considering how often he's taking abrupt turns to try to avoid people, she'll be finished before he gets near there.
Jake glances over his shoulder to see 32 carrying one of the pots from the kitchen out in front of her as if it were poison. Ordinarily, it's not something that would require help, except that her right arm is in a sling. Sure, the pot is small enough that she can carry it with her good hand—it's not one of the giant soup pots or an unwieldy mixing bowl or anything like that—but she hadn't been injured when he'd left. She shouldn't be on duty, even if this isn't technically field duty.
How badly must she have messed up to force herself to be useful now?
Jake knows he's likely already blown his cover—66 wouldn't have hesitated to help the moment he heard 32's voice—but he can't understand—
Except he can.
Rose.
She'd hardly been in top fighting shape, but if she'd been fighting for both her and Jonathan….
"Well?" demands 32 as she comes closer. The slightly-steaming contents of the pot look and smell like soup, but she wouldn't be carrying it around like that if it were simply soup. "Just because we got stuck as the third shift doesn't mean you can skive off to do something else instead of readying the second."
So, they'd already been given lots and had their forces divided. During the lockdown, probably, when everyone was sequestered at the muster points—everyone not on patrol or scrambling to fix things or trying to figure out what had happened, anyway. Emergency assignments like this are rare, and he can't recall something on this scale happening before, but they still had drills for it. The first shift would have gone out to hunt already, armed with the minimum of provisions, weapons, and other supplies. They're meant for scouting more so than action, but likely as not, they'll have found and engaged with the guardian's forces; Jake is certain Fu Dog would do everything in his power to protect the American Dragon. The second shift would be sent out rested and fed, their weapons and supplies readied by the fourth shift while the third took kitchen duty—
Except 32, for all that she's carrying soup, isn't near the kitchens or the cafeteria.
She's heading for the classrooms.
"Right," Jake mumbles and ducks his head, as 66 often does around 32, and he hears 32 growl even as he tries to take the pot from her without touching her for whatever time period she might deem to be too long.
He lets her lead, but they've only barely reached the academic wing before she says, "Well? Aren't you going to ask?"
If 32 pays 66 even a sliver of the amount of attention he pays her, she'll know Jake's ruse the moment he opens his mouth for anything more than that mumbled agreement.
But he doesn't know if she does.
If Rose knows, she hasn't told Jake.
Then again, Jake never cared enough to ask.
Still, the fact that 32 hasn't figured it out already means he has a chance. He swallows and tries to put on his best approximation of 66's voice. "Will you—?"
"Not that!" she snaps at him. "I meant— Never mind. Ask the obvious question."
Jake eyes her right arm, which is in a makeshift splint and sling. Emergency assignments or no, 32 should be in medical, especially now that the power's back on. Instead, she's operating with next to no obvious pain and a clear head—unless her head isn't clear at all, which might explain why he's getting away with this.
Still, from what he can see, she must be mixing a dangerous amount of magic and medicine. It's not recommended, not even by the elders; it's too easy to act without pain and cause irreparable damage or to misjudge the balance and dosage of the two when they're working in tandem rather than used alone. That doesn't mean it's not common, though—especially among those who feel the need to get back into the field sooner rather than later. He's always preferred to grit his teeth and bear it rather than take the risk, Rose as well, but until his dragon side had begun to manifest, he'd never been seriously at odds with the elders, either. The antics he and Rose had gotten up to as children hardly counted, since they'd rarely been caught.
32 had endured all the usual disciplinary measures since she'd joined, so she must know she wouldn't merely be facing that.
She'd messed up, and she's risking her recovery to make up for that little—or rather, not-so-little—slip.
Rose had said that 32 had brought in her and Jonathan; she hadn't said how they'd gotten away.
Jake can guess.
He tries to fix a concerned expression on his face instead, as his mask reveals enough for 32 to be able to read it if she tries. "What happened to your—?"
"Or that!" She looks furious enough to throw the soup in his face, but she takes a breath before continuing in a calmer voice, "I'm assuming, since you're obviously not serving the second shift like you're supposed to be, that you didn't see any of it?"
Jake gives what he hopes 32 interprets as an ashamed shrug—though he'd settle for a confused shrug—and shakes his head. At least he knows to avoid the cafeteria. Not that he'd planned on going anywhere near there anyway, but still; if 32 can't tell the difference after seeing him up close, then maybe he might get away with this as long as he's not seen with 66.
She rolls her eyes and nods towards a classroom door, which he obligingly opens. "Yeah, I didn't think so. But that's why we need to test this."
"Huh?" He thinks he's safe enough with that one. 66 would be just as baffled.
"The first pots they dolled out," 32 says, her voice dropping to a whisper as he puts the pot onto the first table that serves as a workbench when classes are in session, "must've been contaminated with something. When one of the elders came to inform 72 he was to head the contingent looking for the American Dragon, to make sure this wasn't her interference…." She pauses, and Jake knows she'll make him wait. She loves dramatics.
"What?" he finally breathes, and she smiles.
"72 couldn't remember anything specific about her at all. So everything that happened? With the cyberattack that issued the shutdown order to our systems, reconfigured the backups, and messed everything up to the point that 42's team couldn't fix it without him? Even more likely it was her and her ilk. They're trying to hit hard and fast to cripple us and catch us unawares. So I'm—we're—to test this to figure out exactly what they've done so we can reverse it."
Right.
32 always was good at chemistry, magical or otherwise.
This pot is full, but its contents must have come from one of the bigger soup pots. "Is this one contaminated?" The answer is almost certainly yes, since he can't see her carrying a control that they know is safe, but that doesn't mean someone else isn't supposed to be coming to join her.
32's grin is positively wicked as she pulls a spoon from her pocket. "Why don't you find out for me?"
66 would. He would in a heartbeat, even knowing it might affect his memory. Even knowing that it likely would, considering 32 was given this sample to analyze. Even if 32 hadn't been injured, even if her mixing a memory potion on top of whatever cocktail she's already taken for her pain would be a terrible idea in anyone's book, 66 would do it simply because it was 32 doing the asking.
Jake is not 66, and he's already got the threat of one memory potion being held over his head. He doesn't need…whatever this is. A targeted memory potion, maybe. A defense of the American Dragon's in case things had gone poorly, though he can't imagine how she'd have hoped to reach the kitchens if things had gone poorly.
32 dips the spoon into the pot and holds it out to him expectantly, no doubt relieved she doesn't have to be the guinea pig.
Jake takes it but doesn't move it closer to him, letting it drip over the pot.
"What, scared of a little—?"
He doesn't let her finish.
32 might have been prepared for 66—unlikely, considering she knows how he feels about her and therefore shouldn't have reason to expect an attack, but she still might have been prepared for whatever 66 might have done.
She is not prepared for Jake.
Her mouth is still open in a taunt when he shoves that spoon into her mouth and tips what remains of its contents down her throat.
She chokes and sputters, fighting him at first, but then her movements slow, and her eyes get that glazed look in them that those affected by memory potions have when confronted with some aspect of something that had been taken away. She frowns. "Wait, who are you?"
A lifetime of practice is the only reason Jake is able to keep the surprise from his face. He'd never expected that she might not know him. He shifts before she has a chance to read the number patch on his arm and says, "Visiting from the Newmark branch, remember?" That's the one he knows best outside of their own; if he's caught in this lie, it's the only one that might buy him a bit more time. Visiting isn't terribly common—it's not as common as exchanges or transfers—but it still happens.
He's sure she only nods because the power of suggestion is strong within the first few minutes of ingesting a memory potion. How long that period lasts depends on the potion, but he'll take whatever advantage he can get. The story will fall apart later—the story will fall apart all too quickly—but hopefully, he'll be gone by the time that happens. He presses on, telling her the message he needs her to pass on. "We found a counter for that potion. If they mix a bit of this into every pot, the contamination will be neutralized."
The frown threatens to come back—she knows that's not standard procedure, that there should be further testing, that any counter would be doled out from the original brew so that the necessary amount could be calculated in each case—but he gives her a smile, and she mirrors it, however shakily. If he's lucky, whoever's in charge of the kitchens won't argue with her and will assume the lapse in protocol is due to the urgency of the situation.
If he's really lucky, 66 will have turned up and taken over—he wouldn't question 32 on anything—but Jake doubts he'd ever be that fortunate. Getting out of this situation is already using up any remaining good luck he has.
"Get back to the kitchens," he adds, not bothering to offer an excuse as to why he isn't joining her.
"What about—?"
Blaring alarms cut them off. The fire alarm, maybe? It's not close, and it might not be a mere false alarm even if the American Dragon is no longer in the building to set things on fire on a whim, but—
"Go to the kitchens," he repeats so the suggestion sinks in, overriding instinct and common sense. "Divvy it up. When the elders ask, tell them you countered the problem."
You, not we.
She won't question that now.
She might question it when she thinks back on this later, when she tries to remember what happened and if she—they—ever concocted a counter to this memory potion, but Jake's willing to take that risk.
It's hardly the most he's risked.
And he doesn't particularly care if 32 gets into trouble for being so sloppy.
She goes, her grip on the pot firm despite the fogginess in her mind, and Jake runs for records. Even if he's wrong about what the alarms mean, everyone will be on higher alert than before, and Susan—
The route to records is blocked off.
He tries another way, but that corridor is cordoned off as well.
Jake curses and sprints for surveillance, even though he's not sure it'll do him much good.
The alarms cut off before he gets there, mostly because he has to hide or backtrack more often than he'd like.
Through the window in the door, Jake can see 42 sitting at a table. Clearly, the punch hadn't been enough to keep him on bed rest, and the humiliation of being caught in his own trap is no doubt pushing him to be useful now. He's bruised but coherent enough to instruct others on what to do, even if the expression on his face tells Jake he's screwing his eyes shut against the lights and flicker of screens despite the (presumably prescription) shades he's wearing.
Of course, judging by the look on his face, that alarm hadn't been shut off soon enough.
Jake can't open the door to get into the room without being noticed, and 32 might not be the only one who knows 66 was assigned kitchen duty.
42's memory might not be as good as it usually is right now, but he's friends with 66. Jake's ruse won't last two seconds with him. Well, maybe a bit longer, since he's not at his best, but even if Jake is generous and thinks he might be able to count his time in minutes, a handful of minutes won't be enough.
He's stuck out here.
He might as well wait for Rose in the maintenance room. Susan, hopefully, will already be there, and if they have to leave without Rose—
He doesn't want to leave without Rose.
But he can remind Susan of the way out and what she stands to lose if she doesn't take it.
He wouldn't put it past her to be too stubborn to leave if he doesn't.
Jake has every argument prepared, the best on the tip of his tongue, but the maintenance room is empty.
Susan's not here.
If she got caught down in records—
The door bangs open, and his heart is in his throat when he turns, hoping it's Susan.
It's Rose.
He'd be more relieved if she didn't look so panicked. "The Huntsmaster took Susan," she gasps, holding something out to him with her right hand and waving at him to take it. It's only once he does so that he realizes it's a video tape. A mark on the front indicates that its contents have been captured in crystal, too, preserved so the information can be transferred between Huntstaves and related holographically, but Rose would know that. If she'd been looking for this specifically, she'd have found everything or she'd be going back out there.
The Huntstaff in her other hand suddenly looks a lot more like an item of necessity than a weapon of convenience. It's not her usual one, which makes him think she took it off whichever fool crossing her path decided to try fighting her instead of fleeing. She might have gotten it from the armory, true, but it's not a trek she could easily make in her guise as a new initiate.
Instead of explaining further, she drops the Huntstaff and starts barricading the door with spells.
Even though she was Huntsgirl, she's always been better at undoing spells than casting them. Casting them has been about the only thing he's ever been better at than her. There are few within the Huntsclan who wield magic so directly, or at least few who do so often and well, so it's never been seen as a particular failing on her part, but he can't remember her ever being called upon to lay or strengthen the wards that protect them—protect the Huntsclan, rather—despite her position.
This spell involves sketched glyphs, so he tucks the tape under one arm and taps her shoulder to take over. She hands him the stub of chalk she'd fished from her pocket without protest. "They'll notice, you know," he says as the silence begins to stretch.
"I don't care. It'll slow them down." She's sitting against the wall, still catching her breath, but looks up at him. "I don't know how much of this is going to work."
She doesn't just mean the barricading spell.
"Haley and Jonathan left," Jake says, and it's a miracle he doesn't stumble over their names. "They're going to the Pantheon. We can tell the guardian about Susan and catch up to them."
"The guardian is here?"
"He was. Even if he's gone with them, he'll have left someone watching this exit. They can pass the message on for us."
Rose is back on her feet by the time he lays a hand on the door and murmurs the activation which makes the glyphs glow before they disappear.
It's the first time that he can feel the spell take something from him, the energy that must be sacrificed to power the spell, and he realizes his own magic must have fuelled every one he's cast before.
He'd been using his magic before he'd known it was there.
He'd never wanted to specialize in magic use, knowing that path would take him farther from Rose, but if he had—
If he had, the Huntsclan might have suspected what he is—what he'd been—before he'd realized it himself.
Now, if the Huntsclan falls to dragon fire, it will not be his.
Jake follows Rose into the hidden passage and wonders if he should have activated the base's self-destruct, now that he knows no one he truly cares about would be left behind. It wouldn't be dragon fire, and the investigation would bring the other branches down on his head if he somehow survived, but—
But part of him wishes it were gone.
The guardian himself watches the entrance, which might be the only reason Jake and Rose aren't attacked the moment they squeeze past the dumpster—especially when Rose is the one leading with the Huntstaff. Perhaps Jake should be thankful for the guardian's vigilance, for the command he has over his allies—because Jake doubts the dog is the only one with eyes on the entrance—but he's too on edge to appreciate the situation. It doesn't matter that it turns out the American Dragon insisted the guardian himself see them all safely depart, not when they aren't all here to depart.
Susan's missing.
She's been taken by the Huntsmaster.
He'd have never taken her if he didn't know her value.
When Rose explains the situation, the guardian mutters a curse Jake is certain the dog is never meant to repeat in the American Dragon's hearing. "I'll put the word out. We'll find her." Jake opens his mouth, and the guardian adds, "Quickly."
"We know where your charge is headed," Rose says carefully. "We'll catch up. You can let us know where to find Susan through them."
Jake isn't particularly put off by the flat look the guardian gives them, and he knows Rose won't be, either. "You two should just run and not look back."
Rose answers before Jake can think of the right words to say. "Running now, when everyone is on high alert, will only see us caught. Besides," she adds with a sidelong glance at Jake, "running would mean leaving too much of ourselves behind."
The dog cocks his head at them, but neither of them flinches under his searching gaze. "Or maybe there's no need to run if you already feel free?"
Jake wants to ask, wants to know how the guardian can tell so much about them from a mere look. If there is some tell which indicates their severed ties, something that could be used against them by anyone who knows how to look—
"Something like that," Rose says. It's not agreement so much as it is a closure of the subject.
Jake should leave it at that, but instead he says, "Not being bound to the Huntsclan is not the same as being free, let alone being free of them."
The guardian huffs out a nonsensical word in what Jake can tell from the tone is amusement. "No, it's not. But I like you kids, so I'll see what I can do about making those things one and the same."
Jake looks at Rose and sees her slight nod. They've already risked so much; trusting the guardian is a safe gamble in comparison.
Jake sheds his uniform when Rose does, transferring anything potentially useful back to the pockets of his nondescript civilian clothes beneath. She keeps the Huntstaff, conspicuous though it is, but after a quick aside, they decide it's best to leave the tape behind rather than potentially take it into battle.
Still, handing it over and watching it disappear into the guardian's folds of fur (for safekeeping, supposedly) is harder than it should be.
Just because Jake doesn't know what's on that tape doesn't mean he doesn't know how valuable the information it holds must be.
However incriminating its contents might seem to the Huntsclan, it's hardly likely to endear him to the magical world.
Rose might not fare any better, depending on what's on it; losing the status of Huntsgirl doesn't mean everything she's done in the position will be forgotten or forgiven.
"We'll be okay," Rose whispers to him once they're on their way, darting through the streets in pursuit of Susan's husband and daughter. "We'll do what we can to make sure we all get through this."
He wants to believe her.
It's Rose.
She's almost always right.
Almost.
But it's hard to bet on the promise of a bright, hopeful future when every step forward, every step meant to bring him farther away from all of this and closer to freedom instead seems to bring him closer to the heart of a trap he never saw closing around him—around them—until now, when he can't imagine any other way to go.
Rose might have another trick up her sleeve, or Susan, or maybe even the American Dragon herself, but against the Huntsmaster….
This Huntsmaster has been the most revered of the Huntsclan's branches on this side of the country for as long as Jake can remember; the other Huntsmen and Huntswomen respect him regardless of where they're stationed. He'd won their respect with his title long before Jake was born, and he won't lose it easily. If he has Susan and knows her worth, if he's playing a game with them just to see what they'll do or how long it'll take them to catch up…. They might have already lost.