It was the fourth jadetech engineer—or jadegeneer as Nadia often called them—that Roth knocked unconscious. This one, like the others, had their clothing stripped off but for their underwear. A pleasure he didn’t get to have when he knocked out a woman. Nadia had been very insistent that he step away and look away as she took the female jadegeneer’s uniform and wore it herself, before slipping the metal breathing masks on.
After rifling through the jadegeneer’s pockets for anything that might be of use, he took the clipboard and gave it to Steele.
“What’s this for?” Steele squinted at the files. “I don’t understand these. Nadia should take it.”
Roth rolled his eyes and sighed. “You can’t lie to save your life. One look at you and people will know something is wrong even if they don’t see your eyes. See how jittery you are right now? That will get worse when we step out in the open to get to the vaults. Do us all a favor and keep your head down, read, nod every so often and just follow our lead.”
‘Ouch. You’re too harsh,’ Jeff-the-goody-two-shoes said. The tone he took seemed as if he was shaking his head at Roth.
‘Oh, shut up.’
Steele grunted but took the clipboard from his hands freeing Roth to put the copper mask and the goggles he took from the jadegeneer on himself. He turned to Nadia looking so unflattering in the shapeless Zobu jadegeneer uniform, taking away her only redeeming factor as an eye-candy. Jadegeneer’s masks were always so ugly. “Lead on.”
Nadia led the way and Roth took a quick glance at Dai. The old man didn’t leave his staff behind. The makeshift cane was actually retractable and fit inside the old man’s lab attire. He took the lead beside Nadia, talking to him about computations, getting right into the person he was portraying.
They walked through a steel arch and the two halves of Roth was finally in agreement. It was impressive. The lab was a circular structure that had a steel walkway spiraling up. Doors were embedded into the walls at spaced intervals and at the center was a large core powered by a large jade jutting out from the ground. There were several guards and jadegeneers walking about, and none took a second glance at them.
Nadia led them up the spiral walkway. Perhaps Nadia had already memorized the blueprints and therefore didn’t need to look at it to know where she was going, but it made Roth antsy. The first thing about thieving and assassination was knowing about the place. Knowing where to get in and out. Knowing about defenses and security protocols. Sure he knew how to get in from the sewage, but he had never been into the lab itself. Blueprints were too difficult to find and scouting out the place meant blending in: which meant increased security with a knocked-out jadegeneer. That these rebels got their hands on the blueprint meant that it was an inside job. He stowed that knowledge away for future reference.
“Here, but it’s locked with a combination.” Nadia said stopping at a door.
“Continue talking about science. I’ll handle this.” Roth stepped toward the door and frowned. Not only was there a combination, there was also a keyhole. Fantastic. It would look really strange if he put his ear to the lock to open it. There would be no alibi good enough for that.
He tried spinning the numbers. Unfortunately, not even his newly discovered acute hearing could help him. He turned to Steele as he leaned sideways to the door, arms on his stomach as if waiting. “Spin the numbers one by one slowly. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
Steele looked at Roth from his clipboard. “I don’t know how to pick locks.”
“Just do what I say.”
Steele shrugged and started doing exactly what Roth told him, stopping and shifting to the next number wheel whenever Roth whispered stop. Thank goodness for his hearing. He normally had to crouch near the lock to hear the distinct clicks, but through the vibrations the clicks made running throughout the steel, he was able to hear it no matter how faint it was. Once or twice, guards walked passed them and Roth didn’t even pause, though he was on full alert. As the last number clicked into place, Roth put his lock pick into the keyhole and it clicked open.
Once they were in, Roth shut the door as the three rebels headed for a jade bracer in one of the glass casings. Nadia put her geared gloves back on and started working on getting the bracer out.
“Would you let me do that?” Roth said wincing as Nadia started work on the secured case.
“Just guard the door,” Steele said.
“Fine. At least tell me all possible exits to this place,” Roth said.
“We just go back through the sewers, right?” Dai said.
“Not a chance. That guard will be missed and soon, they will find out we’re headed here.”
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“How can they know that?” Steele looked at him. “That sewer is a huge maze. It’ll take them too long before they figure things out. Plus, you know of other exits. We could use those.”
“I didn’t kill the guard. He will wake up soon. Our footprints aren’t exactly untrackable in such a filthy place.”
“You didn’t kill him?” Nadia’s voice was surprised though she didn’t even look away from what she was doing.
“Shut up.”
“And here I was about to praise you.” Roth could hear the disappointment in her voice.
‘See? We did good.’
Roth growled internally. ‘You’re still here? You do know that doing good gets people killed. And what do you mean we? This is my body. This is me. Go away.’
‘Just a question,’ Jeff said, ‘Do you remember New York? Mia? Growing up in downtown Manhattan.’
Roth didn’t reply. He knew them. He remembered them. He even felt like he lived them. New York had always been noisy. But that was besides the point. The voice was just driving him even crazier than he already was.
There was a ping. A constant rhythmic ping as Nadia opened the case.
“Fantastic,” Roth grumbled shrugging out of his overalls. “You should have just let me take that!”
“I disabled the alarms!” Nadia quickly snatched the bracer.
“Apparently you missed one,” Roth growled. The small contraption at the back of his left hand opened into a hand bow and out of the knuckles of his right, three long claws jutted out.
Dai pulled out his staff and extended it while Steele pulled his sword out from his back.
Steele moved forward. “Let’s get out of here.”
Roth rolled his eyes as the mad reached for the door handle. “Get out of here blind. Perfect! You don’t trust me to know this place and you don’t trust me to do what I do best. Steal. If I get killed here, I will hunt down your ghosts and make you suffer a thousand times. I can’t die like this. I’ve worked too hard!”
“Then we don’t die,” Dai came in behind Nadia to the door.
“I’m with a bunch of lunatics!” Roth shook his head.
‘But you can help them, right?’
‘You again?’ Roth thought. ‘You know what? This was probably a set up for me to die first. Blame it on the thief! Sacrifice him for the cause of the rebels. And if I die, you die too. Have you ever thought of that?’
‘They don’t seem like bad people.’
Roth growled, bursting through the doors. “Curse you to nine hells, Jeff!” he shouted and let loose a volley of darts from his hand crossbow on the soldiers coming up the walkway. They were prepared and raised their shields to block the shots, but what they didn’t expect was him diving on the ground swiping his long claws against their legs making them buckle and scream in pain.
He rolled and twisted, just in time to see Steele charge through them. His size and weight knocking them down easily unable to support themselves on injured legs. Behind him Nadia and Dai followed, the old man using his staff to knock out those Steele missed. Behind them, other guards were running down the ramp toward them.
More guards came pouring in. Worse, they had fire lances. If Roth didn’t do anything, they would be caught and die. “Follow me.” He attached his special hook on the rail and slid down.
As soon as he was on the ground, the guards turned to him and he drew out his daggers. The guards flared the fire on the tips of their lances closing in on him as Dai began climbing down, followed by Nadia.
Roth threw one of the daggers. It went through the fire and one of the fire lances dropped revealing one of the men punctured through the throat as he dropped to the floor. Flame gone, he threw another dagger as they sought to close the gap, hitting one of the tanks on the soldier’s back and causing it to catch on fire. The man screamed and jostled around, disturbing their ranks as he tried to get it off. Two openings. Roth dove through it, ignoring the flames that he quickly passed through. The soldiers, desperate to catch him, turned toward each other and unwittingly started torching themselves.
“Here! Quickly!” Roth couldn’t believe he said those words as he rushed through one of the open arches. No, wait, that was probably Jeff calling out to them.
The rest followed him and then he heard a click. He stopped grabbed a wrist to his left and pulled down just as an arrow whizzed past where Dai’s head had been. Another moment later, they were running again.
That great hearing was coming in handy.
‘Sound source localization,’ Jeff corrected.
“I know what it’s called!”
“Who are you talking to?” Nadia called after him.
“Shut up.” They were reaching the end of the hallway with doors shut at either side. “Now would be a good time to tell me where to go.”
Nadia tried to open the left door, but it was shut. Steele took the door and tried himself, but it didn’t even shift.
“We are going to die and you still don’t tell me anything.”
“This door is a stairwell to the ground levels,” Nadia said.
“And this wall?”
“It’s supposed to face out of the cliff and into the ocean.”
“This would have been easier if you told me something.” Roth took out a small disc—a cracker—and attached it to the wall. The wall vibrated, cracked and seemed like it was waving like paper before breaking into pieces. He caught his cracker and looked below. There were rocks there, but if they jumped far enough, they would be able to avoid it.
“Are you crazy?” Nadia glared at him.
“I have a voice in my head, so I think I am.” Roth took a running start and jumped falling seven storeys before breaking into the water. He sank and then his feet felt like it touched something. Rocks. He pushed up and away breaking the surface. He looked back as saw that he had a good clearing from the rocky outcrops.
A scream. Then a splash. Someone actually had the guts to follow him. Another scream, this time distinctively womanly followed just as Dai broke the surface. Steele followed a moment later, without any sound but the splash he made in the water.
Roth looked up and aimed his hand crossbow where they had been. He changed the dart into a cartridge that was a little bulkier and shot it through the hole. A couple of the guards looked out from the hole in the wall and Roth found himself screaming a warning. “Watch out! It’s going to—”
The charge exploded. The boom resounded everywhere. Next to him, a severed arm splashed into the water. He looked at it, but something inside of him squirmed at the sight of a bloody body part.
“This way,” Roth motioned to them as smoke and clouds of dust filled the hole they jumped from. From here, he knew of an underwater tunnel where they could make an escape.