“Level Ten demon!” one of the technician’s yelled.
“I will pay TOP MUNITS for that signature fabricator,” Loudon said, with a bit of demand as the room responded to Axer’s fabricated magic signature as if he was truly a demon from hell.
“Not sure you can pull off the panache,” Patrick said to Loudon, mental voices as ragged as if they were audibly out of breath. “Exit C back in business. Working on Exit D. Real life Freespar. Look at him kick the shivit out of them.”
“Secure the Origin Mage,” Godfrey yelled out harshly, now tucked underneath the console we’d abandoned. “Blast open the feral girl’s cell. Kill Dare and all the Second Layer scum in this compound! But Leandred’s mine!”
“Someone has a crush!” Patrick crowed—mania in his voice.
“Seriously, now is the time to shut the chatter!” Mike yelled.
Multiple voices were freaking out and combining in my head—pointing at all the different aspects of horror that were happening.
I narrowed in on Olivia's voice and Neph’s forced calmness and pushed all the others to the rear of my mind. Axer stalked toward the console, simultaneously blasting magic around the corners of the room.
“Three seconds, 01,” Olivia said grimly to me, changing to codenames. “Two. One.”
A grinding noise tore through the air. My head jerked toward the cell. Rosaria was staring straight at me—eyes ablaze with white—her hands on the glass, reaching toward me. The locks popped one after another, then the cell dropped through the floor.
“The feral’s cell has been dropped to the transportation level of the sanitarium,” Olivia said. “Spell still in place. Locking mechanisms secured. 3, 2, 1. She’s gone. Comms?”
A tense moment passed, then Dagfinn said, “Arrival at Keating Glen. Transfer to Level 1. Transfer to Level 2. Transfer to Level 3—Darpin Sloughs. Conspiracists guessed that one years ago. Transfer to Level 4—I knew it, Level 4 is in Fels Hollow. Level 5. Dear Magic, are we going to get—no.” He swore, but it was without heat, voice giddy that we’d traced even that far using conventional means. “All outside spells erased. R—I mean, 01?”
It was the moment of truth, and the feed went silent with it.
I closed my eyes, feeling the magic and connecting to the kernel I had so carefully placed. “Got her,” I whispered.
Two other life forms snapped together. “Got three.” I sagged. “I’ve got three. Same location. Found them.” Maybe all of them.
I almost couldn’t process the idea—something that I’d been working on for weeks that was now within my grasp.
“Transmitting details.” I sent the amorphous block of mental data through the link we had established to decode travel parameters for Awakenings.
Dagfinn crowed. “Verrange. A sea town—it isn’t even listed in the conspiracy threads. Starting the parameter match now to identify the exact site, but we got them. Verrange. The Level 5 labs. Hell yes.”
“Now, get out,” Olivia said tensely.
Patrick swore. “Exits C, D, M, and T are gone, and one of the terrorists is activating a Level 8 ward killer and bomb on the transportation level.”
Swearing echoed across the comms.
“The transportation level holds all the stored Awakening magic. Vats of it,” Saf said, too calmly. “Held together by layer wards. Igniting them will kill everyone in that facility and take down the security of the Second Layer in one stroke.”
“We have to stop them.” I was already moving. Constantine made a sound that was somewhere between a growl and a sigh as he dove after me.
Axer simply wiped his hand in an arc, clearing our way at the expense of two spells striking his back. He was already peeling them out of his cloak and throwing them back as we skidded around the corner and out of sight.
“Ren,” Olivia said.
“Queenie, she’s right,” Patrick said, voice oddly tense. “She has to.”
I lunged for the other corridor and shot off two spells—just enough to give cover as Constantine followed. I narrowly avoided a direct blast and twisted into another corridor. The walls to our right crumbled under another blast.
The Bandits had given up all attempts at being quiet, but instead of the loud commentary, they had become eerily focused.
“Stealth mode was fully disengaged,” Dagfinn said with dead calm. “Now it’s my turn. Go left, 01 and 02. I have you covered.”
We veered left. Bolts of magic shot from the surveillance spells running along the ceiling, taking out the mages behind us. Dagfinn, freed of concealment restrictions, began activating one system after another.
“03, rendezvous at point five-one-one, repeat, five-one-one,” he said to Axer. “I can route System 2 to cover you.”
“Comms, switch views and jog incoming streams.” Asafa's voice was calm as he gave orders—the master coordinator of their gaming group. “Leader, find the terrorist's point of entry. Troublemaker, jolt ward eight-two-five. Courser, keep the magic flowing.”
“I've got visual contact, Balance,” Kita said—codenames fully in use now that we ran the risk of being compromised from the outside.
“Troublemaker, rally that hall, then take out the next two, and the one behind. Comms, leave a trail.”
I skidded around the corner as magic flew from the spells lining the hall, targeting everyone but us.
“They are closing in on our burrowing points,” Patrick said grimly. “You have less than three minutes before they seal us out.”
“03 is kicking the utter crap out of Godfrey Jr. on his way to the rendezvous point. But Godfrey just yelled, 'Destroy the painting.' What painting?”
My breath caught and the only thing that kept me from returning was Constantine's fingers gripping my collar and tugging me back into motion.
“The Kinsky.”
“There's a Kinsky painting?” someone asked, confused. “I never saw one.”
“It's in the secure ward,” Loudon confirmed. “They hung it after his death. His last vetted piece. Big kerfuffle over it back in the day. Thought it might be unstable.”
“Chatter,” Constantine hissed.
The feed went silent for a second. Constantine wasn't usually the one that chastised anyone for talking.
“If they are targeting it purposely… Maybe one of you should prevent that. Get to it first? See why—”
“On it.” Axer sounded out of breath.
We were almost there.
“03 heading back to the main room, and it’s refilling with hostiles. We can take out half, but we need another exit for him,” Asafa said grimly. “01, we took out all the terrorists in the loading dock, but I can’t do anything about the box. Turn left, Re—01. On your right.”
We burst through the loading dock door. The mountain vista spread out like an inverted Excelsine, taunting me. Loading transports lined the bays. A hundred vats of shimmering magic were encased in reinforced wards. Bodies littered the floor.
A spellbox bright with white light—a moment from bursting—vibrated beneath a ward box containing the connections to dozens of similar boxes. The shimmering vats blinked atop them.