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[24 Days remain until the Earth portal lock ends.]
Jace willed the System screen to turn off as he looked out over the landscape and down on the enormous city of Rio de Janeiro from atop the tower. He breathed in the somewhat clean air and spied the enormous jetties extending into the ocean, the wind farms spinning slowly in the distance. Beyond, he knew, in the ocean, were the tidal generators.
The sun had begun to rise on the horizon, and they were almost done with clearing out the solar panel farms. Every single one of the structures had been fried by the EMP. Jace was atop the last collector tower as he spied another helicopter not too far away that began to emergency-land as golden, crackling static arced over it.
A few scattered security forces tried to confront them – but Priam used his Priest’s Smite and channeled electricity to short out their vehicles before they got close. As far as Jace could tell, there were few if any casualties as these helicopters had some type of safety feature to enable controlled landings if power was cut – some type of glide mechanism.
But stealth was no longer an option. Pheracorp was probably tracking them via a dedicated satellite.
He leaped from the tower, used the grapnel arm to descend, and re-boarded the APC before dropping his Cloak. “Right, all done. What next?”
Greg looked down from his spot in the opening on the roof of the vehicle, “The wind turbines are the only thing we can reach in the APC.”
Priam raised his hand, “They know we’re destroying their power network. We’re going to experience more fighting, aren’t we?”
“Probably,” Greg said as he pulled the latch shut and began to field-strip his rifle to inspect the internal components. “We’re overt now. No more stealth mission.” He pointed at Jace with the charging bolt, “Except this one. Might be worth sending him off to steal a boat and destroy the tidal generators.”
Jace frowned, “I’ve never driven a boat before. Hell, I’ve never driven before – except that hypercycle I got from Velenar Prime.”
Quinn cleared her throat a bit to get their attention, “We cut off their largest source of power, but they do have power storage in the city below as well. We should focus on cutting off the storage. Then, once we knock that out, they’ll have to rely on what’s coming in. Those batteries will take months to fully replace.”
Greg nodded, “I wish we had some high explosives to just take down the whole place.”
Jace smiled, “I’ve got enough space in here I think to set up my tent.”
“Why would you do that?” Greg asked.
“Because I can sleep for an hour and get a full eight,” Jace replied. “I can refresh my Archmage spell-based Skills. Two of them, worded correctly? I can wipe out the whole power grid in the city.”
“Shit, man. Do that!” Greg moved himself up to the front seat along with his gear to give Jace more room to set up.
Priam scooted back on the seat across from Jace, “Mind if I squeeze in there with you? I’m getting tired.”
Jace shook his head, “I don’t mind. How’s everyone else doing?”
“Good,” Quinn replied. “The implants are regulating my needs.”
Her voice had a slight tremble to it, but Jace didn’t give it much thought as he finished setting up the tent and laid down. Priam squeezed in next to him, and the two slept back-to-back as they nodded off for the short, two-hour drive to the city proper.
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Greg glanced back at the tent in the main compartment, and then back to Quinn. “You sure you’re good?”
She shook her head, “Fuck no,” she whispered. “I almost died. My head was almost taken off. I’m not cut out for this.” She glanced sideways at him, and he could see the sheer fear in her. “I just want to go home. Back to Khrox. And just run the shop.” She looked back to the front.
Greg frowned and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. He could hear the thrum of a helicopter trailing them and sighed. “One minute.” He leaned his head out of the passenger window, aimed his fist up at them, and invoked a Skill. “Rock Blast (Rank 15).” An enormous sphere of granite manifested from the tips of his knuckles – five feet across – and launched at breakneck speed up to the helicopter. The projectile smashed into the body, denting it, and then ricocheting up into the propeller and destroying the blades.
He pulled his head inside as the vehicle deployed its emergency glide wings and looked back at Quinn. “I get it. It’s dangerous out here. Can you still do your job supporting us from in Khrox?”
She nodded, but her voice filled with fear. “I failed my faction leader. I’m going to be punished.”
“We haven’t even finished the job. How’d you fail?”
“I…I was supposed to seduce Jace. Get him so into me that I could manipulate him to work for the Star Council.” She frowned, “But that shark bitch got her claws into him. I’ve got no shot at manipulating him now.”
Greg frowned as well, “That’s fucked up.”
“No shit. I don’t even like the guy. I tolerate him, at most.”
“Well…you’re associated with him. So, his enemies are yours, now. Like it or not, you’re stuck with us.”
Quinn sighed and nodded, “I know. And my faction leader doesn’t know that I can’t succeed in the task he’s set out. But if he finds out? I’m fucked.”
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“What would he do?”
“That’s what scares me…I did some research. He’s firm and fair – but this is such a big deal. Jace is such a big deal with his Dark Matter power.” She looked at Greg, “This X – Sera – she prevented every other faction from sending him easy Quests when he was in a tight place and needing help. All because she wanted him to herself. As her Signer. Every faction wanted him.” She looked back to the front, and bitterness took over her voice, “All because he got unlucky with where he got to have his Trial, and he happened to survive.”
“You are jealous, aren’t you?”
“Why shouldn’t I be! I’ve fought so hard for everything in my life-”
“Damn, girl! Just relax.” He willed his helmet to recede and ran his fingers through his hair. “I get it. Really, I do. But we’ve all fought to survive.”
Quinn just frowned and pressed her foot to the accelerator, “You don’t get it.”
No shit, Greg thought. I’ll never understand people like you. You’re jealous of the pain he went through. The man is over half not-him! I wouldn’t trade my arms and legs for some unique power. No sir. The reason I chose Protector was because I don’t like being hurt.
Greg had felt pain before in his life. Hundreds of times. All different types. And those experiences had inured him to the trauma from such events…but he did not wish to live through any of Jace’s experiences for a chance at the power he now possessed. And he could not fathom what was going through Quinn’s mind.
“Is it…because you want to be part of his faction?”
Quinn’s mouth straightened into a grimace, “Is it that obvious?”
“Just making a reasonable guess,” Greg replied as he set to reloading magazines from his limited ammunition supply. “You’ve got some dislike of the Star Council…what did they do?”
“Nothing,” Quinn whispered. “Which is why it doesn’t make sense that I feel how I do. I’m valuable to the Star Council. Hell, even if I was part of the Dark Between Stars, I could never advertise that fact for business.” She shook her head. “I don’t know, okay?”
Greg just nodded, not truly understanding but realizing that even Quinn did not fully understand. Instead of contemplating the woman further, he began looking through his sliverscreen at the data she had been able to pull regarding the Pheracorp headquarters.
The main facility was a series of three towers; all with separate bases that then joined in a type of pyramid structure about fifty stories off the ground, before going up another fifty. The server room’s location was hidden; she needed direct access to the building’s interface to find that information.
Based on their Rio response, they’re probably pulling everything back to the headquarters. That makes the most tactical sense. We can’t just rely on Jace’s stealth – last time we talked about it, he said about thirty minutes of Rank 3. And from those past logs Ollie shared, some methods of detection exist.
The most reasonable in Greg’s mind would be a type of fog. Something that was easy to generate and would show movement through the cloud. Invisibility, untracability, and undetectability could all be defeated through some type of similar smokescreen, since it only made the person and what they carried or used have those qualities. Someone could see the void within a non-vision-impairing fog shoot at the area of displaced substance.
I’d guess smokescreens and troops equipped with infrared…which won’t help with the Cloak. Once they try that and see it doesn’t work, they’ll switch to a less-intense visual impairment and use mundane sights. Either way – we should save stealth options for the escape.
The goal wasn’t to topple the whole building. They just had to get those data-sticks in Jace’s pocket to the central servers, plug one in, and then run like hell. It made the most sense to Greg’s military-tactics mind that they go with shock-and-awe to start things off and save the stealth for escaping or if things got hairy.
In either case, they needed a place for Quinn to hole up. She was not a fighter – and Greg saw more and more after their short conversation that she was a liability in the field. They needed a place to stash the APC – which, in São Paulo would be impossible to find.
The best bet would be having her get through the portal to The Cosmic Corridor. She can just interface via The Cosmic System and our Wayfinders. Let her be a Webwalker from a distance. She’s just a liability at this point.
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Jace woke up and yawned before crawling out of the tent. Priam roused shortly after, and the two packed away the tent into Jace’s bag before peering out of the front windows. The APC was flying down the road, buildings ascending into the sky on either side, and he could hear…no noises from outside. “What’s going on out there?”
Quinn shook her head, “Pheracorp has evacuated the area. They know what happened in Campinas and got everyone out.”
“My theory is correct,” Greg picked up. “Pheracorp has pulled everything back to their headquarters, assuming that’s where we will be going next. No choppers since you both got some shuteye.”
“That’s good,” Priam said as he scratched his floppy ears and stifled another yawn. “Time to do your spells!”
Jace nodded, “How big across is the city?”
“The important stuff got relocated to the center ten-square miles. Beyond that is residential.” Quinn’s voice was sure, leaving no room for doubt.
“Right. Then get us as close to the center as possible,” Jace said. Ollie appeared with a pop and Jace immediately gave him some head scratches before the slim, furred Wayfinder curled up in his usual spot and poked his head out of the top of Jace’s hood.
“I have some news,” Ollie said. “We got some intel from X on-”
“Just call her Sera – we all know it’s her,” Quinn interrupted.
“-No. X, as she prefers to be called, and so I will call her before I was rudely interrupted, has learned that there are 6 more Ascendants and 22 Aspirants for the Nebula Alliance here on Earth. None are on their way to Pheracorp – Deckard Stonewall, that faction’s leader, has effectively abandoned them as a lost cause and those forces are going to each of the different megacorps. We can expect more resistance.”
“It won’t matter if I get that Godheart,” Priam said confidently. “I can put the dead god to rest, and get a powerful spell-based Skill.”
“Well, that is good to know,” Ollie said as he tapped the side of his cute, little head. “Anyways – Pheracorp is going to be the easiest of the five.”
“Thanks, Ollie,” Jace replied. “Good job.”
“We’re here,” Quinn stated bluntly and with much irritation in her tone.
“Right. Popping the roof.” Jace opened the top of the APC and saw the all-too-familiar sight of megacorp skyscrapers and the vaulted buildings of the city. “You’re positive there are no Civilians?”
“Yes,” Quinn replied.
Ollie whispered in Jace’s ear, “I also confirmed that information. Pheracorp made a big public announcement on the Webnet and local servers.”
“Just to be safe.” Jace cleared his throat, and focused on his words, “I want every piece of Pheracorp infrastructure to suffer irreparable damage within the range of the Skill, and not injure any living individual in the process or aftermath. Hydromancy – activate.”
A bead of water appeared in front of Jace before it expanded and grew. It continued to grow larger and larger, until the sphere of water consumed everything within the full 25-mile radius. Jace could see the crackling of electricity within the enormous orb of water. Quinn’s voice came from inside the APC and below him. “I’m tracking the energy grid via satellite – looks like you’ve knocked out everything in the city. All the power reserves are gone.”
“Head to the jetties,” Jace said as he pulled his head inside.
“Why?”
Jace grinned, “We need to make a statement.”