Giovanna clapped her hands together. “Good. We’re all in agreement. Cora, sleep.”
Cora held up her hands in surrender and let go of Johnny. “I’m going, I’m going.”
She walked down the hall as hushed conversation continued in the kitchen. She didn’t want to hear it. Poor Cora, she’s pushing herself so hard. She blames herself for not being there to save Richard. She’s in over her head. She was never trained for this. It was all true, but that was beside the point. She had a duty to avenge Richard. She pledged service to her country, and Lucius might threaten that. He was already the most powerful being in the world. If he wanted something more, some ancient power, there had to be a reason.
The words ‘arms race’ kept running through her mind as her head hit the pillow. The world was largely at peace. She couldn’t imagine why Lucius would want to change that. He had all the money and power anyone could want. Trying to understand his role in what was happening gnawed at her. She tossed and turned in the bed until she gave into the exhaustion.
A Shot in the Dark
The sunset ride to the embassies was a long, quiet one. Johnny got his game face on at the back of Gideon’s white van, checking the individual parts of his rifle he kept in a suitcase on his lap. The whole rear of the van had been outfitted with a rig interface and a suspension chair for Gideon to rest in. All the harnesses hanging from the ceiling looked like something out of a low-budget bondage holovid.
Gideon drove while Cora and Giovanna sat in the row behind him. Cora’s rest had finally put the headaches away, allowing her to realize what a horrible idea this plan was before committing to it. A quick shower before they left loosened her stiff shoulder and invigorated her. Magic coursed through her again, and she could feel the tingle of energy surging through her blood.
She found one of Richard’s brown leather bomber jackets in the bedroom closet. It was beaten up and old, which only made it more stylish. It still smelled like him. She propped one foot on the seat and cleaned her stolen Predator. Her black jeans and tee shirt felt dirty. The color likely hid a good amount of other people’s blood. She would have loved to change her clothes, but the only thing that could have fit her was needed to replace Giovanna’s Vulkan bodysuit. She sat beside Cora in the most American clothes she found - blue jeans and a cleavage-revealing top. Cora waited for the other shoe to drop, when Giovanna would shapeshift to her cartoonish stereotype of a UNS blonde bombshell.
The lights and holograms of downtown Berlin filled the windows. They were almost there. Johnny bent down and moved to the back of Cora’s seat. He looked out the windshield, checking his surroundings, then switched to watching Cora work on her pistol.
“Why did you go with a Predator?” he asked.
Cora shrugged. “Good grip, minimal recoil. The magnetic propulsion puts down anything I point it at.”
Johnny shook his head. “You don’t even need to be a good shot with the damn thing. It puts giant holes in everything. I would have figured you for the short-barrel nine with a silencer.”
Cora shook her head. “No stopping power. You run into one of those Vulkan guys with the armor over Norex, you’re emptying the whole clip before they take a knee.”
“If you’re buying a stock model, yeah,” Johnny said. He got passionate talking about guns. “Before we leave this dragon’s den, I gotta take you to see my buddy Derk over in Kreuzberg. He got me this custom nine a few months back. Smart-Vent barrel, ballistic compensator, the works. With the silencer on, you barely hear a peep. Goes right through Norex within fifteen feet.”
Giovanna cleared her throat. Johnny and Cora turned, but she kept her eyes ahead. Johnny’s lips curled into an evil smile.
“You going soft, Gia? Not too late to back out,” he said.
Giovanna rolled her eyes. “No, you’re just talking shop in my ear and I’m trying to concentrate to shift.”
“Ooh,” Johnny sucked air between his teeth. “My mistake. I’ll go back and shut up.”
Cora tried to keep her eyes ahead, but curiosity compelled her to watch the transformation from the corner of her eye. Every time Giovanna shifted, she winced and seethed. This time, it seemed especially taxing. As her brown eyes changed to blue, a tear formed in the corner of her eye. For a split second, a break in the shift appeared on her forearm. Her skin moved like a wave through the change, but a gap appeared near her wrist. Cora caught a glimpse of scarred, leathery skin beneath the surface layer. Giovanna moved quick to cover it, stifling a moan as she did.
“Can’t something be done for how much that hurts you?” Cora asked, turning her head.
Giovanna was no longer there. An American girl with long, curly blonde tresses and blue eyes stared back at her. Her lips had the sheen of light pink gloss over them. She sighed.
“This was the best Doctor Ludovich could do before he had to retire,” she replied. As predicted, she talked in a California accent, as though every sentence was a question. “The nanites are constantly producing a steady stream of Prodicaine into my system. Anymore and I’d be too numb to work.”
Prodicaine was no joke. Cora remembered an injection of that for a wisdom tooth surgery in her teens. She couldn’t feel her face for most of the day. Cora couldn’t fathom how Giovanna could function at all with that in her system regularly, or how much pain shifting really caused her.
“Your doctor decided to retire and just left you like that?” Cora asked.
Giovanna raised a blonde brow. “Retired. As in fell from a window. By accident.”
“Oh,” Cora replied. Yet another story she’d have to make her tell someday.
Gideon reached back to Cora blindly, a pair of sunglasses in his hand. “Take these with you. I’ll cue you when you need them.”
Cora grabbed the glasses and put them in her jacket. “Any other tricks you’re planning on that I need some last-minute warning for?”
“No. Well, sort of. We’re approaching dropoff one, Cora,” Gideon replied. “British Embassy.”
Cora tapped her earpiece. “Test.”
“Confirmed,” Gideon replied.
She got up from her seat and went for the handle beside Giovanna. “Good. Make sure that’s the last time you call me by name.”
Gideon shook his head, disgusted. “Right, sorry. I mean, affirmative.”
The van came to a stop and Cora exited, closing the door behind her in a single motion. Gideon left, but she didn’t look back.
The holographic maps he went over didn’t do the real world justice. The street of Wilhelmstraße brimmed with activity, even with many of the embassies closed to tourists for the weekend. The buildings themselves were banal concrete with few windows. Down the street, the yellow brick of the British Embassy was juxtaposed by a gaudy blue triangle poking out from it. Tall enough for a person to stand in and lined with windows, it was joined by a purple cylinder beside it. Perhaps it evoked some long-forgotten art movement from the time of its construction, or maybe it was the Brits being oddballs. Either way, the blue wedge peeked from the smooth brick around it, all the makings of a wonderful stepping point to reach the roof.
Cora took in her surroundings. Cars passed by her. Dozens of people came and went. She tapped her ear.
“This is much more busy than you made it sound, Control,” Cora said, keeping her voice to herself. Eyes and ears of the Polizei were everywhere, and her exotic looks made her hard to miss.
“Relax for a few moments,” Gideon replied. “I’ve dropped off the Fox, last stop to put Echo-2 in play and the magic starts.”
Cora rubbed her shoulders. It was chilly tonight, but she wanted to feel the jacket against her skin. The long arms of Richard’s jacket were pulled up and bunched around her elbow. She breathed in through her nose, the scent of his cologne made her close her eyes. In the darkness, she could almost feel him. Her brow furrowed. She was getting distracted. Grief came later.
Minutes passed before she heard Gideon’s voice again. “Alrighty, this is your Ca
ptain speaking. We’re all at our start position, so it’s time. All of you, look above your heads.”
Cora turned her eyes to the sky around her. Streetlights bounced off the reflective surface of a drone plane hovering twenty feet above her.
“I have eyes on all of you,” Gideon continued. “More importantly, these little guys are about to do some very embarrassing advertising for the local hacktivist group in town. You’ll know the signal when you see it. In the meantime, I’m going to play with the traffic a little bit. Move when you see your openings.”
Cora waited, then waited some more. Whatever Gideon was up to, he took his time doing it. The street got quiet. Cars had stopped passing by.
“Echo-1, prepare the jump,” Gideon said. “And put on your glasses.”
She pulled the shades from her pocket and put them on. They cast everything in green tint, lighting up the night. Cora closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. She visualized a snake in the grass, preparing to strike as it coiled near prey. The magic came alive in her like a rush, pumping through her bloodstream in hot bursts. It took less effort this time. She barely had to picture anything at all, and the magic came to her. Her legs felt like springs, coiled and ready to pounce.
Streetlights down Wilhelmstraße blinked out, one by one. Bystanders on the sidewalk gasped, their heads flitting all around. Light projected down from the drone, cutting through the darkness. A man appeared in a black cloak within the holographic projection. His face shrouded in mystery, he posed with his arms out.
“Do not attempt to adjust your vision,” a digitized voice spoke in German. The audio was terrible coming from the tinny loudspeaker onboard the drone. “We are the Truth Seekers. Tonight, we will tell you what GNN and other media won’t.”
The darkness enveloped Cora. Only the halo of light above the city remained, a haze from the holograms of downtown that keep the sky orange and blue. With a final glance for anyone nearby, she found all eyes looking up to the drone and the visage on the street below.
Cora swung her arms back and forth, bending at the knees and back. Once, then twice. On the third pump she pushed off the ground and took to the sky. She soared at an arc through the air, higher than she had ever jumped with the spell in the past. As she landed on the blue triangle sticking from the building, her right foot couldn’t get the same footing as her left. The tip of the triangle hit the arch of her boot and slid off.
This was not going to happen. A failure or setback so quickly would end everything right here. The sudden downward force on her left leg wanted to quit, but she tightened her thigh and absorbed the shock. Her entire body weight rested on a single foot. She made small, minute corrections to maintain balance until she recovered her right foot. She straightened it out to the side, resisting the urge to topple over.
Swing the leg in. Find footing with the tip of your toes.
Richard was talking to her again. Maybe the grief was making her insane. She did as the voice in her head told her.
“Let us talk about the lies of our fine Chancellor,” the cryptic voice of the hologram echoed through the streets.
Cora got both feet onto the blue structure, pivoted, and pressed her back to the wall. She glanced down. People muttered and stared at the man made of light. Polizei radios crackled on the shoulders of cops that appeared from nowhere. No eyes were on her.
Again, she thought about that damned huntsman spider. The magic surged free again, lighting her fingertips like tiny bulbs. The spell came so fast it caught her off guard, and Cora moved fast to pass the energy from her fingertips to her boots. She spun in place, facing the wall. With a test placement of her hands, she clung to the wall. She reached up with her other hand and gained purchase, pulling herself up the wall as though she were climbing a ladder. She scurried up, turning sideways at the top of the roof and rolling over the edge. She came to rest on her back atop the yellow stone, free from view.
Cora caught her breath and got to her knees. The sprint was next. She tapped her ear.
“Echo-1 topside. Ready to race.”
“From my mark,” Gideon replied. “Confirm positions.”
“Fox is in the nest,” Johnny said. His voice was cold enough to freeze. “Eyes on target.”
“Echo-2, on your mark...and stuff,” Giovanna replied in character.
Cora rolled her eyes and chuckled to herself. Her earpiece connected to her wrist computer, but she set a second channel to her portable music player. She didn’t need to look at the buttons to navigate the menus and turn on her Stealth Mix. By the time Gideon gave the word, Tom Petty was telling her she didn’t have to live like a refugee. She raced with everything she had, pumping her legs across the long stretch to the first transition. Her steps fell silent as she charged the path for the edge. She turned a corner to her left. The green, slanted edge of the roof was in view. As it met with the adjoining building, Cora rode the roof down like a slide and hit the ground running. The lights were out on Pariser Platz, too.
The projected man carried on everywhere that the drones delivered him. “How much longer will you be puppets of the state?”
“Three hundred feet to go,” Gideon said.
Cora hopped over one small intrusion after another blocking her path. First a vent shaft, then a massive pipe with a cap on it. As she transitioned to the third building, the Academy of Arts, her foot caught in the gap between the two buildings. Cora slammed to the ground with teeth-rattling force. Her night-vision glasses tossed from her head. All of the air in her lungs forced out through her mouth. She tried to get back to her feet, but lacked the breath to do it. She struggled and rolled, trying to pull in air. The world spun about her.
Cora slowed her body’s panic reaction.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.
She got to her knees, short, shallow breaths.
“One hundred feet,” Gideon said. “Echo-1, you have to catch up.”
They were past the point of no return. She stole one long, solid breath and took off. The gallery roof was the last leg. Without the glasses, she’d have to make it blind. Her legs felt like jelly, but only one jump remained.
“Please, help me!” Giovanna’s bubbly voice came in through the comm. Her acting was superb as ever. “I’m a UNS citizen! A man is after me!”
Cora ran for the next building in darkness. She wasn’t going to see the edge until it was on top of her. Her head pointed down, at the limits of what she could see in front of her. When the academy roof ended, it came as a surprise. Cora kicked off the edge of the roof and jumped with everything she had. She landed on her shoulder and rolled through.
A shot rang out.
“Echo-2 is down,” Johnny said.
From the Ashes
“Get that door open,” Gideon said. “But hold your position.”
Cora got to her feet. Her bruised shoulder screamed with a deep ache from absorbing the brunt of her weight in the jump. Every second was precious. She stayed low and dashed for the roof access door. She had moved through four buildings across a city block in a single minute. The Heartbreakers hadn’t even hit the third solo yet. Cora had to move to the far side of the building, overlooking the street of Ebertstraße, then south along it to the door.
Gideon hadn’t killed the street lamps on Ebertstraße, which gave her enough light to examine the lock. A Hyperion Biometric lock. The damned things required an eight-digit code and a thumbprint to unlock. She turned off the music and tapped the button her earpiece, then fished a black glove from her pocket.
“Control, I have a biometric lock on this door,” she said, sliding the glove on. “I’m going to need an emergency rescue code and a scan to my glove.”
“Press your thumb to the pad, I’m on it,” Gideon replied.
The tip of her thumb dimly lit up as she pressed it to the scanner. In the unheard-of case that the embassy in Berlin became compromised, the UNS Army had emergency codes to get helicopter evacuation teams into the building for rescue. It was t
ime to see if Gideon was as fast as he said he was. Brute force or magic on the door would trip the alarm, and any other plan Cora could concoct would take too much time. Two red lights on the pad blinked, and one turned green.
“Alright, Captain McLellan, code is 74809463,” Gideon said, unable to hide the smug satisfaction in his voice. “We have six men outside attending to Echo-2. You are go.”
Cora punched in the code, and both lights turned green. She turned the handle and raced down the flight of stairs without a sound. The top-floor office of Director Rick Thompson would be on the west side of the building, nearest to her. She could only hope for minimal guards on the floor, as wishing for none didn’t follow her pattern of luck.
She stopped at the stairwell exit door and pressed her back to the wall beside it. She cupped one hand in front of her. Fables and tales of a benevolent being bringing sweet dreams to children swirled in her thoughts. She pictured him as a slight man with pale skin, silent in his approach to a child in bed, offering his gift. She balled her hand into a fist, the magical energy coalescing into her palm. Orange light poured from the cracks between her fingers. Once the magical surge burst into her palm, she opened her hand. A small pile of glowing orange dust rested in the middle of her open hand, still shining with faint, incandescent light.
With a click, the door opened a crack. Cora peeked through the slit down a corridor lit with intensely white LED bulbs. No one stood in that direction. She opened the door slow, weaving around to grab a look at her blind side before crossing the threshold. Again, there was no one. She broke left, walking past conference rooms and offices. American names were etched into placards beside each door, a who’s who of water cooler bureaucrats.
As she approached a corner, she pressed to the wall and slid along. The first thing that grabbed her eye was the placard beside the first door around the corner - Rick Thompson. She found her man. The second thing to grab her attention was the camouflaged gentleman across from the door with the Apex M22 long-bore rifle pointed at the ground. No one else was in hall beyond, just this young man. She didn’t have time for such distractions.
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