SALUTEM

LING

Ling was flying.

Well, floating. Using the stone plates in her armor, she was able to levitate herself. Not for long—only five minutes or so. But she was getting better, her reservoir was expanding, and she was finding more and more uses for the armor. Levitation was the coolest, but she could also use it to enhance her strikes and dodge faster.

It was a perfect focus for her power, and she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it before. This kind of thing happened all the time in shows. Now that she had the idea, she could name a half dozen anime or comics where they used similar tricks. So why hadn't she come up with it before?

She was too complacent, that was the problem. Go to school, play soccer, kill screamers, sleep. She wasn't spending enough time actually thinking. Sure, Laura was better at it, but if Ling approached everything from a different angle, she might be able to find something Laura missed.

Ling was on the roof of the dorm at the moment, where no one really hung out. It was the perfect place to practice, but the sun was almost set, and she really didn't want to accidentally float over the edge and find out if she could catch herself from a fall. So she went back down, using the elevator rather than the stairs. Well, she had to use the stairs to get back into the building, but the elevator was fine for the rest. No sane person would try to run down thirty-one floors.

Focus. She needed to think about tactics.

But what was she supposed to do? This was out of her comfort zone. Zombies weren't a common anime topic, for whatever reason.

No, no. She was looking at it wrong. None of her interests would be directly useful, but they didn't need help killing zombies anyway. They needed to find the Composer. Laura wasn't having much luck with that, other than that obvious trap the changelings were looking into.

But what could Ling do to help?

Put herself in the Composer's shoes, that's what. Shouldn't be that hard. Every show had a bad guy. She just had to put together what they knew and figure out which one he was.

Okay, they knew he wasn't as dangerous as he could be. Even though they didn't know everything about the singers, the Composer should be able to just hook one up to some big speakers and infect half the city. Why hadn't he? There were only two possible explanations: Either he was playing a longer game, or he was an idiot.

Ling nearly dismissed the second one out of hand, but it was possible. They didn't know where these powers had come from. Clarke's blood and DNA tests still weren't showing any results, and even brain scans didn't show any abnormalities. They could apparently just do things, with no explanation. If the Composer was in a similar situation, it could be that some idiot had gotten a hold of a weird power, and in testing out its limits, had unintentionally lost important chances.

No... no, that didn't work. Because for all his mistakes, the Composer had managed to stay hidden, had avoided fighting anyone directly. Laura had some theory about it being a disembodied mind, able to manifest in any screamer, but that didn't make sense to Ling. He hadn't paused to gloat even once. And if you were ever going to gloat, it was when you could swap bodies at a whim.

So they had to assume he was smart. Smart enough so that everything was going according to plan. After all, every time a screamer outbreak started, hundreds of people were turned, and he was only getting more efficient. If he was only a little patient, he could turn the whole city. Was that the plan?

Yes. That had to be it. Revealing the singers hadn't been necessary, it was just a little clue to keep them scrambling for information while the status quo remained unchanged, to make them think they were making progress. He didn't need the magic bullet to win the game. If nothing changed, he'd win soon enough.

Which meant they had to raid the lair that the changelings had found, despite how obvious it was. It might be a trap, but it was their only clue.

No...

No, that was just it.

Of course it was a trap. And of course they had to investigate. The Composer knew that. So the trap waiting for them wouldn't be a slap on the wrist. It would mean certain death for whoever went in there.

As the elevator door opened, Ling stepped outside, but didn't go further. The cell reception was a little bit iffy in her room. They had asked Emily to fix their broken relay, but she hadn't done anything about it.

Ling pulled out her phone and called Laura. She was probably either studying downstairs or with Clarke, but either way she'd have enough free time to talk.

On the third ring, she picked up. “Hello?”

“Laura? It's Ling.”

“Yeah, I got that. What's up?”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“We need to bomb the Composer's lair.”

There was a very long pause on the other end of the line. “Why would we do that,” she said flatly.

“Because it's our only clue,” Ling said.

There was another, shorter pause. “Yes, that's generally why you don't incinerate evidence.”

“No, I mean it's our only clue, and the Composer knows that. So the trap waiting for us is probably going to be enough to level a city block.”

“And what, you want to beat him to the punch?”

“Yes, exactly! If we blow it up ourselves, some evidence might survive, and if we're very lucky he'll be inside at the time.”

Laura sighed deeply. “Ling, there are a number of problems with that plan. But I'm going to start with this one: We're not going in. We're just watching the place, to see who does go in.”

Ling's brain screeched to a halt. “That's, uh...”

“A better plan?”

“Well, it doesn't involve enough explosions...”

“Funny. Look, just leave the planning to me, okay? And Derek. We have everything under control.” She hung up.

Ling stared at the phone for a minute. “Leave the planning to me and Derek.” Those two had too many people looking to them for answers. Just because they were right most of the time didn't mean they should get swelled heads.

Really, she knew she was just annoyed because Laura shot down her argument so easily. Ling was used to it, but usually she had at least something to contribute.

That friend of theirs... what was her name? Laura's roommate? That's right, Lizzy. She didn't have this problem. Both times Ling had seen her, she just smiled and let Laura do her thinking for her. Ling was in a worse spot—smart enough to come up with plans, and dumb enough to think they could actually work.

Ling shook her head and started towards her room. She needed a break.

As she turned the corner, she saw a little girl, maybe ten years old, sitting in front of her door. She jumped up when she saw Ling, then said something in Chinese.

“I don't speak Chinese,” Ling said. She was surprised the girl did, since she was white.

“Are you Ling?” the girl said, without missing a beat. When Ling nodded, she pulled a folded-up piece of paper out of her shirt. “Your friend Turgay, the ursa anthro, told me to give this to you.”

Ling reached out to take it, but stopped, frowning. “I don't know an ursa named Turgay. I know an ave...”

The girl nodded and handed her the paper, then turned around and headed for the stairs without saying a word.

Still frowning, Ling opened up the paper slowly. The message was brief: An intersection, and asking her to meet him there as soon as possible. Ling sighed and headed for the elevators again. Why was he going through all this trouble? Couldn't he just call her like a normal person? At least it was nearby.

It took her about fifteen minutes to get to the intersection, but she didn't see him anywhere. Just late-night students and vampires, shopping around. There was a toy store nearby, as well as a few book shops and linens stores, all things that a college student would need. The 'scrapers edging the square were a bit smaller than normal, maybe ten or fifteen stories. It created an interesting valley effect that you didn't often see in Domina.

But she had seen it all before. Although the lights from the buildings made them stand out beautifully in the night, that wasn't what she was here for, and the fact that she couldn't find what she was looking for was starting to annoy her. He was one of, like, a hundred ave anthros in the city. How could it be this hard to spot him?

Ling wandered around for a few minutes, at a loss as to what to do, when she passed one of the alleys between buildings and heard birdsong. Aves usually had their vocal cords enhanced to let them produce sounds like that easily, so she took it as a signal and ducked into the deeper darkness.

As expected, there was Turgay, blinking at her with his wide eyes. He had what looked like a dirty blanket wrapped around his body, probably due to the cold. Behind him was an open crate with another ave anthro, sitting on something and clutching his side. The second ave looked like a crow or a raven, but it was hard to tell in the poor light.

“Ling,” Turgay whispered breathlessly. “I wasn't sure you would come.”

She glared at him. “You could have just called. That's what we have phones for, you know.”

He shook his head. “No, I threw our phones away. MC was monitoring them.”

She was what? Ling sighed. “What did you get into this time?”

“It would be easier if I just showed you,” he said carefully. He stepped aside so that she could get to the object he was protecting.

Ling stepped up to the crate, and the black-feathered ave scooted to the side so she could see what he was sitting on. It was smeared with blood, but it was impossible to mistake that mirrored coffin for anything but what it was. Clarke had spammed all of the Paladins with pictures of it the second it had gone missing.

Ling cursed. “Velvet Hells! Turgay, why do you have the toy box?”

He sighed in relief. “Good, I wasn't sure you'd recognize it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “That work you did for Soaring Eagle... you stole the toy box?”

“Yes,” he said, meeting her gaze levelly. “And now I need your help to get it to her. Before the 'sarians kill me.”

Ling sighed deeply, placing her forehead against the cool metal of the most important device in the city.

Lizzy didn't have to deal with this. No one ever asked her for help. Hell, her friends refused to even find out what her power was, they were so worried about her safety.

Must be nice.

Here Ling was, smart enough to come up with plans and dumb enough to think they were good, cornered and pressed for help. Couldn't go to Laura, or Derek, or anyone else smarter than her. Couldn't even call MC.

Must be nice, being Elizabeth Greene.