The team gathered in the large suite on the twelfth floor of the Plaza hotel. It was reasonably well appointed, and had matrix access – though it wasn't particularly high speed – but the beds were comfy, the carpets clean, and there was no sign of bedbugs, cockroaches or other infestations. There was also a decent-sized carpark in the basement, where the truck and trailer were currently securely located, behind a sturdy roller shutter and covered with security cameras.
The hotel was pretty empty, and they'd managed to get a deal on the suite. It appeared to be designed for visiting corporate delegations, and consisted of a number of ensuite rooms that all opened into a common lounge area, with some basic catering facilities – it was possible, just, to entertain guests there, but made for a convenient base for a week – giving them room to do things together, and a bit of privacy to spend some time alone if needed.
It took half a dozen trips for them to offload all of their personal gear from the truck, bringing it up in several large laundry baskets borrowed from the service staff, all of whom were keen to help after a generous tip from Kai in cash. With the truck emptied of their gear – and all the illegal guns, demo, magical components and incriminating evidence, it was ready to drop off at the repair yard first thing in the morning. The suite was covered in boxes, bags and under each of the beds in the rooms was a veritable arsenal of stolen AKs, pistols, shotguns and boxes of ammo.
"Gotta remember to tip the cleaning staff to take care round these and not ask questions. Otherwise this could get embarrassing!" muttered Kai, as they got the last of the stuff packed away. Everything was covered or boxed – and should at least allow the staff to change the towels and make the beds, provided they didn't move anything else.
Finally, they were done – and settled down in the soft, comfortable chairs, put their feet up on the stools and sipped at a selection of cold beers and soft drinks with sounds of appreciation. For a few minutes, the room was quiet – each lost in their own thoughts, just relaxing and taking in the feelings of comfort and safety. Crammed together in the truck, constantly on the move, heading from one trouble spot to the next – it was amazing how used you could get to stressful situations, and not realise how stressful it was until you stopped.
They sat and reflected upon the events of the past few weeks – the frantic action of combat, the fear of the unknown, cobbling together cocktails of drugs to counteract critter venom, magical threats from the stygian abyss, brazen break-ins to corporate buildings to steal artwork, dealing with local crime elements that felt that burning people alive set an example… it was a rough world. Rough – but they were alive. They had worked together, as a team, and triumphed over the obstacles that life had thrown at them. By the skin of their teeth in places, and with plenty of rough edges, but as six people – seven now if you counted Nadia – that had never met before eight weeks ago, they'd accomplished a lot.
Eventually, Kai broke the silence.
"Ok, let's sort out what we're going to be doing for the next week – at least get a rough plan together. Let's go round the table…" he turned and pointed at Aswon with the neck of his beer bottle.
"Well, I want to get out morning and night, and do some runs. Nothing too long – perhaps ten or fifteen kilometres perhaps. Work on my fitness and my breathing – I think I'll get a better control on my respiration system them, which should help with the longer shots. Other than that, I want to do some browsing on the matrix, assuming that we can get a secure link – and read up on some demolition techniques and get some better information on shaped charges and detonation circuits. Some of those charges we planted were…. Well, they were a little too fragile for my tastes. I also want to have a read up on those scorpions and goats, the tiger that we saw, those wolves… stuff like that."
Kai shuddered at the mention of running thirty kilometres in a day, but otherwise nodded as Aswon went through his list. He turned to Hunter and asked him if he thought he could get a secure connection tunnelled through the hotel firewall, saw the nod and smiled, then turned towards Tadibya.
"Well, I'm going to work on the trailer. Making a lodge. I've got all the supplies, and it's just a matter of time now. Normally I think it would take about ten days or so, to scribe in all the decorations and properly sanctify the space… but I think if I do dawn to dusk, I might just about get it done before we need to set off again. There's a couple of bits I might need help with – the tall bits. But the rest I'll have to do alone. Once it's done though, it'll make a solid astral box around the trailer that will be pretty tough to crack, so it'll be great for hiding things in. Oh, and I can design spells then, using it as a workshop."
Looking around, there were various blank looks on the faces of the others, or perhaps a mild look of distaste on the face of Marius, who it seemed didn't care for mysticism that much. But nobody objected or had any issues. Just as he was about to move on, Marius stirred and cleared his throat.
"I don't know what you need to do in there, I'm not sure I want to. But I can help put a bed in there maybe, for when you are working late?"
Tadibya smiled and thanked him, and Marius made a note on his pad. Kai paused a moment, then continued around the room, looking over to Hunter next.
"Well, I'll get the computers set up tonight, and get some basic tunnels set up to give us some basic search portals that will bypass the country's filtering. They won't stand up to a serious trace through – I'm no decker remember - but it should be better than anything most of the people here can muster. Once that's done, everyone else should be able to get the information they need from the matrix. Don't poke any corper systems though… this is a homebrew lashup, and there's no filtering or defences on these computers." He looked around, and waited for nods of acknowledgement from the others, then continued.
"After that, I've got my course on Georgian to do in the mornings, and I'm looking at the Turkish in the afternoon. I need to have a wander down to the hospital to see if I can get another month's supply of Rivaroxaban. Oh, and I'm going to look at some route planning software, and see if I can get something better downloaded than the free app we've been using. Hopefully with more up to date routes and one that doesn't crash as much if you give it a complex route."
"If the hospital pharmacist speaks English and you need a hand, let me know. Otherwise that sounds good, Hunter." Kai nodded, and looked across the room to Shimazu sitting on a dining room chair in an upright position, rather than slumped in a comfy chair like everyone else. Just as he was about to speak, a low buzz sounded, and he quickly pulled his phone out of his pocket and spent a moment reading the screen. The others saw him relax slightly, and a subtle smile spread across his lips.
"Saito. Very brief message – he says 'I'm fine, still relocating, call tomorrow'. I guess he's trying to stay off the grid as much as he can." He let out a deep breath, then took a swig of his orange juice, the tip of his nose crinkling a little as the sharp taste hit his tongue.
"I'm going to do some more practice with my sword, same as usual. Getting through that course on psychology ok, starting to make a bit of sense now. I'm also going to spend a bit of time looking into those creatures we bumped into, and other stuff – it seems to me that if we can find magical things to give to Tads, that she can use to help us all, we should do that."
"That's good, Shimazu – but making things takes a long time. We got all that stuff from Aslick, but I've not had chance to unpack it yet, or do any practice. I don't think I can make something soon…" Tadibya said apologetically.
"But if we get you the things, then you can practice. If you don't have the things, you can't. So we should keep an eye out for the things, and give you the opportunity. And if it's easy to get you the things you need if we do a clean kill without guns, then that needs to be myself and Aswon that get those for you. So we should do that." It was hard to argue with the chain of logic, but Tadibya looked like she was about to do that when Kai cut her off.
"Ok, great stuff. Do what you can, work with Tads and she'll tell you if that's what she needs. But no pressure – whatever you get, even if it goes off or can't get used in time, it's all good practice, right. Right? Ok. So let's do that." Kai headed off the debate neatly, and moved on to Marius.
"I will go parts shopping. We need a communications processor, bidirectional transfer cable, relay booster, surge protector…" he continued to reel of a list of parts, breaking down the job of getting a speaker and a microphone through into the trailer in meticulous detail, along with some other tasks he wanted to complete.
"A 16mm grommet? Don't you need an 18mm to account for the splunge factor?"
Marius looked down in confusion at his list, checking his numbers for a moment, then heard the barely suppressed snigger from Hunter, and looked up at the barrage of grins from the rest of the team. He muttered something guttural in German, and a touch of colour lit up his cheeks.
"It sounds like you have that all planned out, Marius – I'm sure we can leave that with you. Good work." Kai spoke without any condescension in his voice, taking the sting out of the grin on his face.
Kai flicked his gaze over to Nadia and considered for a moment, then spoke.
"Right. I've got myself a primer on Russian, because that's clearly been an issue – so I'm going to fix that. And it's pretty obvious that sooner or later we're going to get someone shot up pretty badly, or something like that. So I'm going to work on some trauma techniques I've heard about, on an online simulator. It strikes me if we're going to masquerade as doctors, it helps if we have the skills. So that should keep me busy for the next few weeks, let alone the next few days. But I also have something I want to pitch to you three…" he pointed at Tadibya, Shimazu and Aswon.
The others looked curious for a moment, then shrugged, and headed through to the kitchen area to get themselves some more drinks and started to raid the fridge for nibbles. Back in the lounge, Kai ran through his idea – they were working together pretty well, and nobody had any immediate plans to leave, so it seemed. Why not take the next step – work out what they wanted magically, and see if they could form a group to support themselves and each other.
The other three considered the idea and discussed how it would work. After perhaps ten to fifteen minutes of discussion they had agreed that they should form a lodge, a secret society of sorts, bound together with magical oaths. They discussed who would lead it, and came up with a democratic system – they would go with a motion unless there was more than one dissenting vote. All of them saw the value in working together – it would allow them to improve their magical skills much more easily, and learn new techniques. A month ago it would have been asking a lot – but they'd been through a lot, and they knew each other much better now. They agreed to grab a cab and go out to the edge of the wilderness, as a nod to Tadibya's shamanistic nature in a few days, to see if they could actually make this work.
With that out of the way, they settled down and put the trid on, ordered room service, and relaxed in the comfort of their penthouse suite, and for a few hours tried not to think about much at all.
They set out the next day about their various tasks with a will – after leaving a suitable tip for the cleaning staff and some very detailed instructions on touching and moving things. For most of them the day went exactly as planned – but not, alas for Marius. He toured the town looking for the parts that he needed, and found himself frustrated. Some of the shopkeepers spoke English – but it was very limited indeed, and he had real issues getting over the idea of what parts he wanted. He tried again in Russian, and found the same lack of success.
By the end of the second day, he was way behind schedule and extremely frustrated. He'd found a tool chest, some tools and other small items – but none of the technical gear he wanted. He went back to the hotel and grabbed Hunter.
"I have need of you – and your skill with languages. These locals are impossible to deal with. I have all these parts to find, and dealing with them is…. Ach!" Hunter agreed to help him, and the next morning, they left early and went out looking. It didn't take long to figure out there was a problem. Hunter had been studying hard for two days and he had picked up Georgian as fast as any of the other languages he studied – the highly concentrated vat-grown cells implanted into his medial temporal lobe saw to that. The trouble was – they weren't speaking Georgian. Or at least not the same Georgian as he was learning.
It took the best part of half an hour, talking with an old man who apparently had nothing better to do that morning than talk to foreigners to discover that the locals spoke a particular dialect, with many strange loan words, and a strong accent to contend with as well. Their accent, some regional hangover, was a source of pride for the area, and it also polluted their understanding of foreign tongues. Now that he understood the key, and the linguistic nuances, he rapidly picked up the pronunciation differences and things made a lot more sense. He was quickly directed down to the shipyards, and told to seek out the old man's nephew, Yosh.
Somewhat encouraged, they set off, and soon found themselves wandering the edge of the dockyard. It was a chaotic place, with equipment scattered everywhere and no apparent order. Making enquiries, a burly man dressed in stained red overalls was soon directed down to them, and introduced as Yosh. Hunter handled the introductions, and mentioned that they were after some equipment, and would be happy to pay cash if someone could help them out.
Hunter and Marius were soon fitted with safety helmets, and followed Yosh into the labyrinth shipyard, making their way through to a dry dock near the water's edge. Here a large freighter was in the process of being stripped down – welding crews were crawling all over the hulk, and a steady stream of equipment was being lifted off by crane or trolleyed down the gangway. Once onboard, Yosh moved through the maze of walkways and rooms and led them to an engine room, and started to assemble components that had been dismantled and were apparently due for removal. Not all of them were exactly as they wanted – but they were close, and with the other parts in the system making a good fit, would actually do the job quite nicely.
Marius asked about a fold down bed, and was rewarded with a quick tour of the berths – there was a choice between the former Captain's bed, a watch officers, and a regular crewmembers. The Captain's bed was a huge affair, and would take up far too much space in the trailer, and he decided to go with the watch officer's – it seemed large enough to be really comfy for one, and a possible for two if they were "close", whilst the crewmember's was definitely on the Spartan side. Yosh pulled out a socket set, and soon had the fittings removed from the wall, and moved the frame through the walkways and up onto the deck with Marius holding the other end, and Hunter bringing the mattress.
Emboldened by their success, Hunter made subtle enquiries, wondering if perhaps Yosh knew anywhere they might find some mounting brackets for guns. He watched carefully, trying to pick up on his body language, and hoping he wasn't crossing a line here. Yosh considered them for a moment, then shrugged, and walked over to the other side of the ship, furthest away from the town. The ship was less dismantled this side, and he pointed at a couple of mountings welded to the freeboard, confirming that was what they wanted.
After a quick check, Marius and Hunter nodded – they were the kits required to mount various weapons to a fixed pintle mount, and had the required systems to feed through an electrical firing command instead of a manual trigger. It appears that the ship had been used in waters away from shore defences, and had mounted several assault rifles for self-defence. Yosh left the mount where it was, though, and led them aft, waving for them to follow. As they rounded the rear of the accommodation block they saw a pile of removed conversion kits – perhaps a dozen in total. Included in the pile were two much larger modules – clearly designed for something the size of a crew-served weapon, perhaps a heavy machine gun.
A few minutes later, the two large mounts and two of the best condition smaller mounts were added to the pile of goodies, along with a large ammo bin and some sheet metal suitable for converting it down to smaller ammo. Yosh looked at them now, with his head cocked to one side.
"You're heading out of town soon, yes? In the next few days. Once you have fitted these things to your vehicle?" Marius and Hunter nodded. "Hmm. Are you interested in a deal? I have an issue. A local matter – and I need some help. If you're interested?"
Marius and Hunter exchanged a look. Both of them shrugged and then turned to Yosh, and gestured for him to explain.
"My brother, Teren. He. Well. He has made a mistake. Gambled much. Owes someone much money. A very bad man. Now Varn wants his money, but Teren doesn't have even a fraction of it. So I need to get Teren out of town, before Varn finds him, and sells his body for parts. If you can help me with this, I can find you something special."
"Where does he need to go? And how far is that?" Hunter managed to beat Marius to the question.
"Most important is away. Away from here. I will give him money for a new life – but he has to be out of the TCL. Which way are you going – north to Russia? West to Turkey? Ahh, ok. Across the border then, into Turkey. Or Kurdis. Whatever. Just away from here before he gets found."
"We can do that, no problem. We'll get him safely over the border to a new home."
Handshakes were exchanged, and then Yosh led them back into the ship, right down into the bowels of the engine room, where he pointed to a couple of huge spring sets, mounted under a generator.
"Dampers! Really good for cutting down sound and vibration. But also, Yosh learnt a trick in the army. Watch."
He pulled out two of the clusters of springs, and then fired up a cutting torch. With a delicate touch he trimmed down the sets until there were two densely packed intertwined sets of coils, the ends glowing cherry red. It took him nearly an hour to do both – but the time flew by. Both Marius and Hunter watched somewhat entranced as he moved the plasma torch like a virtuoso. He grabbed at them with a set of thick leather gauntlets, and led them back onto the deck, where he picked up one of the smaller conversion kits. With a bit of hammering and prying, he managed to fit the spring set into the recoil chamber, and had Hunter and Marius hold onto the mount as firmly as they could. He grabbed the barrel and pushed it hard, demonstrating the increase in stability and recoil absorption possible.
Marius grinned widely – these would make a considerable difference on the aerial drones he was planning on fitting them to. With the extra dampening, he wouldn't be limited to short three round bursts – he'd be able to fire concentrated streams of fire with perhaps half a dozen rounds, without ripping the gun off the mount or sending the drone spinning out of control. It was a neat trick, a bit of a hack really – but with care it might be one he could reproduce – though he could imagine it would take him most of a day to fabricate the spring set.
Yosh looked at the pile of stuff, then pulled up Teren's and his own numbers and synced them across to Marius' and Hunter's phones.
"One thousand, and you take my brother to safety."
"Done." This time it was Marius that pipped Hunter to the line. They wrapped up their gear in some old sheeting, and then used the bed frame as a stretcher, carrying their load down the wobbly gangway and heading out of the shipyard. They thought about trying to call a cab – but there was no way to fit in the bed frame to anything smaller than a panel van, based on the length – so instead they carried it back to the hotel between them, ignoring the strange looks from passers-by. It took them until after dusk to make the walk back, and they were tired and weary, with aching hands and arms from gripping the frame.
Arriving back at the hotel, they went down to the basement, looking to show Tadibya the bed and comms gear they had gathered for her – but the trailer was closed and locked up. Using his key to open the back, Marius could smell chalk residue still settling and the tang of fresh paint – they'd not missed her by long it seemed. They put the bed frame and gear to the right of the truck, taking care not to disturb the paintwork done already, then headed up to their suite. There they found Nadia, sitting along on the settee, watching the trid.
"The others – they went to do magical things in the woods. They said not to wait up for them."
Nadia came towards Marius for a hug, but shied away at the last moment.
"Ugh, You smell like a trucker."
Hunter lightly punched Marius on the shoulder and commented as he headed for his room and a shower.
"See, the nagging has started already, you'll be letting her choose your clothes soon!"
The rude comments from both Marius and Nadia were wasted on the closing door as Hunter ducked through quickly – obviously expecting more than hurled insults. But a shower seemed like a good idea, so Marius headed for his room, asking Nadia to order some food up, if she didn't mind.
Nadia found herself in the lounge, on her own. Again. She frowned for a moment, then shrugged, grabbed the room service menu, and flicked through the electronic pages to the speciality dishes. Ahh, there… she ordered three of the most expensive meals there, a couple of nice bottles of wine, and pushed the button to add a 20% gratuity, all added onto the room charge, then settled back down on the plush sofa with the trid, watching as Karl the Kombat Mage managed to save the day once more.
Meanwhile, about fifteen kilometres out of town to the north, Kai, Tadibya, Shimazu and Aswon were climbing out of a taxi and walked towards a derelict guest house on the eastern side of the road. A three storey building, it was sturdy and would have been impressive looking in service, but now just looked forlorn and sad. They walked around the back, and found the rear door swinging gently in the night breeze, and let themselves in, smelling the musty air and faint decay of something organic.
"I heard one of the cleaning staff talking about this place – it seemed a nice quiet place, out of the way," said Kai, as he flicked on a small torch, leading them up from the ground floor. The staircase must once have been a feature, nearly two metres wide and with hand carved wooden bannisters, but now the carpet was threadbare and mouldy, and water pooled on several of the steps. They climbed, then climbed again, finding the top floor to be relatively dry and much less smelly than the middle floor. Emerging from the rear of the property through wide glass sliding doors, they found a veranda or terrace, with ivy growing up the walls and out to the sides, forming a natural windbreak. To the east they could see miles and miles of wilderness, as the land gently sloped up from the coastal plain, with only a few specks of light here and there.
Tadibya nodded in approval, then shuffled to the side as Aswon and Shimazu started to drag furniture out from the room, bringing enough seating for all of them to be comfortable. They sat in the dusk, staring out into the wilderness, letting the night air wash over them. There was the occasional noise as a truck or car drove past the front of the building, but otherwise it was a natural quiet – not silence, but only the noise of birds, bats, small mammals – all going about their business. Then there was a pop, as Kai pulled off the seal from a bottle of cheap spirits, followed by a gasp as he took a swig. He passed the bottle on to Shimazu, who went to pass it on to Aswon.
"No, no, no. Nobody sober tonight. Nobody not taking part. Either we do this thing, or we don't, and if we do it, we do it all together. And we do it honestly, not holding anything back. And that probably means getting a little tipsy and showing people our inner horse."
The others stared at him.
"Um. Tribal thing. I'm from Mongolia right, born on the steppes and all that. Loads of horses still, riding horses, draft horses. If the winters are really bad, curried horses. But horses – everywhere. Not quite a totem, but definitely part of our society. So the saying goes that everyone has a little bit of horse spirit in them. Some quiet, some tame, some feisty, some bloody-minded and just waiting to kick you in the plums. But mostly you keep that bit wrapped up and hidden. Except a couple of nights a year, special festivals – where you let your horse out." Tadibya sniggered. She couldn't help it. Maybe it was the first mouthful of fire water that she'd swallowed whilst Kai was speaking, going straight to her head.
"What, I only said you let your horse out?" said Kai, innocently enough. Tadibya sniggered again, then half a mouthful of vodka exploded out of her cheeks in a fine mist as the belly laugh erupted. "Mind in the gutter, I tell you, and this is what we have to work with. Fine. Well, I'll let my horse out, you can frolick with your moose."
"ELK!"
"Elk, shmelk. Looks like a moose, smells like a moose, acts like a OOOW!"
"Elk."
"Fine, elk. Whatever."
Aswon took a deep swig, swilling the mixture round in his mouth and then swallowing.
"I believe the common phrase is 'letting your hair down' – but if you want to handle your horse, that's fine with me. And this is quite possibly the most disgusting alcohol I've ever tasted. Did you get it FROM a horse?"
The banter flowed, the contents of the bottle shrank, and the volume rose. Insults were traded. Stories told of childhoods. Descriptions given of how they discovered magic, and what it meant to them. But over the course of the next few hours, they bonded, slowly getting to know each other on a more personal basis, deliberately sharing details previously kept private.
"Hey, did shou shee shat?" Tadibya waved into the sky.
"I can see you handth, if you stop thinging, waving them."
"I need a wee."
"No shurrup. Look! Up there."
"There's just those stars. Um, there was some stars. Oh, I'm too drunk to see the sky, they've gone."
"No they haven't, they're just there. Or they were. Where they go?"
The language changed as they saw, and then couldn't see the patch of stars. When they looked up – there they were, a cluster of stars making a complex pattern, twinkling in the night sky. But after a few seconds, they just sort of faded, disappearing into the night. Look away, at something else, anything for a long enough and then turn back, and there they were again – then gone.
They could all see them though, and they all became aware that they weren't quite as drunk as they had been a few minutes ago. There was….something. Something else here. Another presence. Something they caught out of the corner of their eye, but then was gone. Something seen – yet at the same time, unseen.
Yet none of them felt fear. There was no malice, no ill intent. It was a presence that felt vaguely familiar. They kept trying to spot the thing, whatever it was, but mostly kept seeing each other, as they tried to look past people in the way.
Aswon poked Shimazu, and made an exaggerated pulling movement in front of his face, and then threw his hands over his head.
"Stole your nose."
"Don't be silly. This is my nose. Here!" Shimazu touched his finger to his nose on only the second attempt.
"Well I stole something. What did I steal?"
Tadibya stared at him, then did a double take.
"I think you stole his masking. I can see him, but not you. I mean, I can SEE you, but you don't look magical."
"Don't be silly, I can't mask. I wish I could."
"I think you need to concentrate on how you're feeling and reconsider that statement."
"Hey, look at that! I can mask!"
"Stole your masking!" Kai leaned over and grabbed at Aswon.
"Ow you daft bugger, that's my hair!" Kai giggled and let go of the dreadlocks, then sat back in the chair.
"Still got your masking. Look, I'm wearing it like a little hat."
Tadibya stared at him, and told him he was right, which distracted him from the physical assault that Aswon then launched at him, fingers rapidly jabbing him in the ribs.
"I am not having my masking stolen. I'm going to get something back!" Shimazu made a grab for both of them, over-reached and landed on the deck, sprawling at Tadibya's feet. As he pulled himself back upright, using Tadibya as a climbing pole, he felt something weird, like a static shock. He wasn't sure if it was his imagination or not, until he locked eyes with Tadibya, who had obviously felt it, too.
"What did you just do?" Tadibya demanded.
"I don't know… but I've got the urge to draw for some reason."
They sat back in their chairs, the moment of silliness past them, and slowly contemplated what had just happened. The empty vodka bottle rocked back and forth in the wind, and the chill air suddenly gusted, making each of them shiver. They felt slightly flat, deflated. As if they'd expended a great deal of energy. Suddenly they were tired, and ready to sleep – and it struck them that they were three to four hours walk from their beds, and the chance of getting a taxi out here was zero. A look at Kai and his expression revealed that he hadn't made arrangements to get them back to town.
"Oops. Guess we start walking then."
They descended the stairs and started the long walk back, talking quietly amongst themselves as they did so. Occasionally one of them would look up at the sky, to the north-west, and catch a glimpse of a group of faint stars, visible for a moment, then fading into the night sky.
Yep. Something had happened. Something they had all been a part of. There was a connection now between them, something linking them all together. And a strange bunch of stars, hidden and elusive.
It was six am when they made it back to the hotel and the walk had sobered them up enough that they managed to creep into the suite quietly. They turned and looked at each other, just before they headed to their rooms.
"Pinky swear. What happened tonight, was between us."
Despite it being a strangely childish turn of phrase, they felt something more, and each in turn repeated it back. With a nod, they each turned and went to their rooms, gratefully collapsing into their beds for a few hours rest.
