Sticking to deep shadows and slinking through back alley ways, Ravage led the squad of numbered Automata and the shop bots through the upper residential area that housed the Knight Watch barracks and to the south. Once they reached the wall, they followed its edge until they reached the manufacturing district. Several times, Ravage would stop and appear to sniff the air or listen for something that none of the others could hear before abruptly changing directions.

Somehow the group always managed to stay away from any Watch patrols or avoid any sort of contact at all. When they reached the carriage maker building adjacent to the Haz Brothers’ shop, Ravage had them stop and wait.

From around the corner, they could see a light getting closer and a rhythmic tapping sound. The numbers began to get antsy and put hands to swords, but Ravage transformed into her maid mode and waited patiently. From around the corner, came Jada, tottering on her cane. She looked over the Numbers and then poked Alfred in the chest with her cane as if to knock. He removed his helmet, as did Ram and Rom, so that Jada could see them.

“I see you picked up some more strays, eh?” Jada said with a doubtful look at the squad.

“Allow me to introduce Miss Jada. Proprietor of the magic tool shop, Jada’s Junk,” Alfred said with a flourish. “Will we be enlisting the aid of the Haz Brothers?”

“Those old coots have their heads so far up their—”

“Ah yes, I see. Though I’m not surprised,” Alfred cut her off.

She gave him a half-lidded look over her glasses. “All those gnomes care about is their profits. They’ve threatened to take over the production and sales of the Battle Beast discs for themselves if we aren’t able to keep up with demand. Since they have our samples, they should be able to reverse engineer the magiCode that Prime wrote up for the new discs.” Jada seethed for a while before announcing “Screw ‘em! They wouldn’t know the right thing to do if it bit them on the ear!”

“What should we do now, Miss Jada?” Number 17 asked.

Jada shook the dissatisfaction with the Haz Brothers off and jabbed her cane at the lock on the factory door. “Ravage, if you’d be so kind.”

Ravage gave a little curtsy and jumped up to grab the padlock. With her free hand, she shoved it into the keyhole and ripped out the internal mechanism, allowing the lock to pop open. She dropped back to the ground and made a show of dusting her hands off before giving another little curtsy and bow.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Jada pulled the lock off of the door and swung it open. Inside were several coaches and carriages in various stages of assembly. Jada walked in without a look back and headed for the rear of the factory.

“Um... Miss Jada... This is breaking and entering,” Number 16 voiced.

Jada paused just long enough to turn around and glare back at them. “Yeah?” She then continued searching for something.

Alfred stepped into the factory and looked around. Most of the coaches were of the type that you would expect to see. They were wooden with spring steel cross braces to help absorb shock and bumps. Most of them looked expensive and were upholstered in soft fabrics and cushy pillows that would dampen the sounds of travel for the occupants.

Some of the coaches contained ports for mana crystals. Presumably these might offer protective or offensive spells for the riders, or maybe they did simple things like heat the cabin on cold days.

“Ah here we go! A horseless carriage. Get over here Alfred!” Jada yelled from somewhere in the darkened building.

Alfred made his way over to Jada and saw what looked like a flattened coach that was lower to the ground than others, and had what was clearly a tent on top of it.

“It has a tent on top,” Alfred said dumbfounded.

“It’s a sail!” Jada corrected. “I knew these guys were working on something like this. I figure it should get us to that town of yours a lot faster than by horses. Plus, I’m no good with horses.”

“Ah. Rather than stealing their horseless prototype, maybe we can get by with a simple cart? We Automata can take turns pulling it without getting too tired.”

“Alright, smart guy. How are you going to get through the city gates?”

Alfred folded his arms and rubbed the edges of his moustache but didn’t have an answer right away.

Number 19 stepped forward, tapping on the side of their head. “Instead of the East Gate, we could go out through the South Gate. There’s the masons’ camp just outside the gate so once through, we could lift a cart from there... But I dunno how we could get past the guards there.”

“What about that rock smasher auto? The one the masons use to break up large boulders?” offered Number 20.

“What about it?” asked 19.

“Well, we could say we got a report that it went defective and given its size, the Captain said a whole squad might be needed to bring it down.”

“Isn’t it bolted down to the ground? How could it possibly be a threat, even if it were defective?” Jada asked in an accusatory tone.

“Honestly, our Captain wouldn’t care,” 17 said reluctantly, “The orders from his Lordship were pretty clear. If an auto is suspected of being defective, then we’re to destroy them. The owners can file a claim for loss of property with the ministry of revenue, but they think that it’s the same thing as having to replace a broken Frost Box.”

“Bolted down?” Ram asked, “I wonder if that’s the same bot that Shiro said that he passed the Freedom.exe program to. And if so... how the heck did he get out there to do it??”

“So, basically, breaking and entering in this coach factory was a total waste of time,” 19 said to no one in particular.

“Alright, alright,” Jada grumbled, “that is a really nice coach though...”

“We don’t need to steal it,” Alfred said, coaxing Jada and gently guiding her back out of the factory. “Maybe we can get Master Prime to build you a lovely new coach.”

“Well, okay. But I expect it to be posh.”

“Yes.”

“But not too expensive.”

“Of course not.”

“With certain comforts that a woman of my standing requires.”

“Naturally.”

I highly suspect that a large part of Jada’s big escape plan for the team, was simply focused on her getting a fancy new ride.