“Okay, here’s our map of the city,” Kelsey said. She laid a large piece of paper down on the table. Anton, Aris and Zaphar looked down at it. They had left the slaves to rest for the night and had met back up at the inn.

“Where did you get this?” Anton wondered. The map had a curious look to it. Some of the areas were detailed, others were just sketched out. The Administrative Compound was quite detailed and included all the details that Zaphar had given them.

“I’ve had a draftsman skelly sketching according to my instructions since we got here,” Kelsey said.

“Um, excuse me, but what does that mean?” Zaphar asked.

“Draftsman? It’s a fancy word for someone who draws. I don’t know what the word is in Elitran.”

“No, no. I mean, yes, I did not know that word, but the whole statement, it makes no sense.”

“You don’t want to know,” Anton butted in, forstalling Kelsey who was already grinning.

“That’s probably true,” Kelsey agreed. “If you learn too much, we might need you to… commit more fully to our little endeavour.”

Zaphar rolled his eyes. “I’m already… I’ve already committed crimes, you know? I stand to lose my life if we’re caught.”

“Even so…” Kelsey said meaningfully.

Anton cleared his throat. “It’s more to do with how you get five more questions every time Kelsey answers one. Just let it go.”

Kelsey cackled. “It's a fair cop, but society is to blame.”

“If you’re done teasing the new guy, can we get on with… whatever this is?” Aris asked.

“Sure thing!” Kelsey said brightly. She pointed at the map. “Here is where the prisoners are being kept. There are locked doors here, here, and here.”

She pointed to inside the building, the front of the building, and the front of the compound.

“And there are guards. Here—” she pointed at the front of the prison again, “—here—” she swept her finger over the interior of the compound and finally pointed at the front gate. “—and here.”

Anton looked at Zaphar, who nodded in confirmation.

“Now,” Kelsey continued. “The plan Rashaq was trying to sell was that we bribe most of the guards, but take out the ones guarding the actual jail.”

Zaphar nodded again. “That way he gets— gets rid of a few honest guards.”

“Exactly,” Kelsey said. “Then the bribed guards look the other way as we make our way out of the compound with just the three slaves we’re looking for. We head down to the docks and sail away.”

“You think he’s going to tip off the Bey and there will be guards waiting for us at the docks,” Anton said.

“And aren’t we going to take all of the slaves?” Aris asked.

“Yeah, we won’t be following his plan,” Kelsey said. “We’re going to take this route instead.”

She ran her finger from the back of the prison, through the back of the compound and into the city. She stopped right about where their safehouse was.

“There are two high walls blocking that route,” Zaphar objected. “There aren’t any gates to pass through.”

Kelsey grinned. “Where we’re going, we don’t need gates,” she said. “Let me tell you what you’re going to do.”

* * *

“This would be so much easier if we had remote detonators,” Kelsey muttered. “Relying on timers is a little nerve-wracking.”

“These aren’t remote detonators?” Anton asked softly. It wasn’t like they were supposed to detonate up close, Kelsey had been most particular about that.

“These are timed detonators,” Kelsey explained. “A remote detonator, I could just push a button and have it go off when I wanted. I’ve not been developing wireless as fast as I could have, though.”

Anton didn’t respond, focussing on seating the charge firmly into what Kelsey had called the ‘goop’. The sticky, soft substance hardened quickly and left the charge sticking to the wall.

“Up until recently it was so much easier to just run wires to anywhere I might want to send a signal,” Kelsey explained. “I thought that I could wait until I got transistors before really developing that, but they’ve proved… difficult.”

She knows I haven’t the faintest clue of what she’s talking about, right? Anton wondered. He was pretty sure that some of her words weren’t even in a language he was familiar with.

Kelsey handed him another packet of goop. He frowned a question, and she held up a small metal barrel in answer.

“Stick this next to the charge,” she murmured. “It’ll give it an extra boost.”

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Anton shrugged. He wasn’t sure why the charges at this end of the compound, which Kelsey had described as diversionary, would need an extra boost, but it was her plan and they were her devices.

Moving quietly to avoid the patrol, they found another secluded corner to place a second set of explosives, before moving over to the prison.

“Fifteen minutes to go,” Kelsey said. “Nice timing.”

Aris was waiting for them in the hiding place they’d scouted earlier.

“The prisoners are still in the cells we thought they were,” she reported. “So I set the charges where we discussed.”

“Zaphar is in there?” Kelsey asked. Aris nodded.

“Then all we have to do is wait,” Kelsey said. “Ten minutes.”

They waited nervously, the tension not at all lowered by the occasional time report from Kelsey.

“Thirty seconds,” she finally said. “Keep in mind that no mechanical device is perfect, they might be out by a few seconds. Twenty… Fifteen… Ten… Five…

The crump of the first detonation startled the two humans, even though they’d been expecting it. They couldn’t see the results, but the warm glow of firelight spread across the compound.

Two of the four prison guards ran across their field of vision, heading towards the explosion.

“Not ideal,” Kelsey admitted, “But that was why we had the—”

The crump of another diversionary explosion cut her off. Shouts were beginning to sound from the other end of the compound. No further guards ran out though. Kelsey tsked.

“No big deal, I guess. There’s only two left. Now cover your ears and open your mouths.”

Kelsey had mentioned this before, and she was following her own instructions, so Anton and Aris went along with it, still not entirely sure if she was joking or not. The thunderous noise and crashing shockwave that hit them as the charge placed on the wall went off disabused them of the notion.

“Another one?” The guard came around the corner and stared at the hole in the compound wall. Anton would have rated the wall to stand up to at least a few blows from a siege weapon, but a single explosion had punched a hole so big, that three people could walk through it.

The guard stared at the hole, ignoring the trio. To be fair, Anton and Aris were staring at the hole as well. Kelsey had to give Aris a little shake to snap her out of it.

“Aris? Shoot the guard would you? I think we can stop worrying about making noise.”

Aris blinked and then remembered that they were on a schedule. She looked over at the guard and drew her pistol.

“Sure shot,” she whispered as the gun fired. The guard gave a short, guttural scream, and fell to the ground.

Knowing there was another one, Aris lifted her sights slightly. Sure enough, the final guard came around the corner, attracted by the sound of his partner dying.

“Sure shot,” Aris said again, and another guard fell. Anton was right, she thought, about it being different when they’re right in front of you. Everything had been feeling like a dream, but the two deaths she’d just caused were waking her up.

Anton had been broken out of his trance by her first shot. Now he stepped close and embraced her.

“Very touching,” Kelsey said, “But we’ve got one minute more before the final charges go off and the shockwaves were a little more powerful than I thought they’d be. We should move off a little.”

She chivvied them around the corner, out in the open if anyone had been watching. From here they had a good view of the fires that had been started.

“A diversion?” Anton exclaimed. “Kelsey, you’re going to burn the city down!”

“That would be a good diversion… but I don’t think it will come to that,” Kelsey said.

Aris put her guns away and returned Anton’s embrace. They both watched the chaos unfolding for another moment.

“Okay, hands on ears again,” Kelsey said. This time the shockwave was much reduced.

When they went back around the corner, they found the damage to the walls was just as extensive. The cells containing prisoners had been opened to the air. It took a little while for the captives to stumble out, Zaphar dropped off the roof before they managed to collect themselves.

“They can… they can just walk out?” he said, stunned at what had happened.

“Elira!” Aris called out to the first person to poke their head out of the prison. She was stepping gracefully over the rubble when she heard Aris’s call and twisted her head to see Aris running toward her.

“Aris?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you, silly,” Aris said, catching the girl in an embrace.

“Aris? Anton?” Another voice called out as Galen stumbled out of the hole. The burly blacksmith’s apprentice looked shocked, probably as much from their presence as their sudden release.

More reserved than Aris, but still glad to see his childhood friend, Anton stepped forward. “Galen,” he said, emotion choking him.

“What? How?” Galen said as he stepped out. “What’s going on?”

“We came to rescue you. All of you,” Anton said. Galen’s face fell.

“A lot of us got taken away,” he said. He looked guiltily over at Aris. “Chiea…”

“We know,” Anton assured him. “We’ve got leads on where they went and we’ll be chasing after them.”

“Assuming we get out of here, that is,” Kelsey put in. She clapped her hands loudly. “Okay, anybody who wants to go back to Zamarra, let's get moving! That distraction won’t last forever!”

“Who is she?” Galen asked. Anton sighed.

“It’s a long story,” he said.

With a bit of shouting and shoving, Kelsey got them all moving. Both the captives from Kirido and the other recently taken slaves. Most of them were from nearby countries like the Ett Confederacy and were quickly promised that they could either live free in Kirido or find their way back home from there.

All of the captives had simple metal collars to show their status. Kelsey quickly took care of this before they left, grasping each one and making it disappear. If her pale skin and strange manner weren’t already making people ask questions, that would have.

“Not the time!” was her answer to most queries. “We can explain things once you’re all safe.”

Too slowly for Anton’s liking, but reasonably quickly, the group got organised and started heading out, led by Aris. Kelsey hung back at the rear, and Anton was forced to join her. She called Zaphar over.

“Well kid, I guess this is where we part ways.” She dumped a small stack of gold coins into his hand. He goggled at it.

“This, this is more than we agreed.”

“I know,” Kelsey said. “I want you to think about how lucky your big score was, and not anything like following us to find out where our safehouse is.”

“Oh. Then this, this is goodbye?” The thief sounded disappointed.

“Fraid so,” Kelsey said. “Unless… you were interested in making more of a commitment?”

“What do you mean?” Zaphar asked cautiously.

“We’ve got other places to go after this, more slaves to free. We could use a good cat burglar. If you come with us, you’ll get more money, more chances to feel good about yourself. And you’ll get some answers to all those questions you’ve been holding back.”

“I— I—,” Zaphar stammered. He looked at Anton’s confused face. “This is… one of those situations where I have to decide right away?”

“Yep. You walk away, and if we see you again… did you see what Aris did to those guards?”

Reminded, Anton glanced back and saw that Kelsey, at some point, had disappeared the bodies. Another mystery for the authorities to solve, he supposed.

“I did,” Zaphar said slowly. “Answers, you say?”

“Like Anton said, I can’t promise you’ll like them,” Kelsey answered, grinning.

“I think… I think I need to know them, regardless,” Zaphar said. “I’ll come with you, if you’ll have me.”