The root city of Balé sprawled around the base of the mountain like a splatter of dark paint flicked onto the canvas of the plains. From the viewpoint of the plateau, the root looked to have little of the charm of the ancient city. While Balé on the top was home to the University, museums and the glittering mirror-buildings of banks and corporate branches, the root was both less and more modern - the stage of human construction that might as well have been dubbed The Concrete Age. Too practical for fragile shards of glass or unnecessary twists of architecture, the root housed the workers who kept the plateau from descending into tooth and nail savagery, the manufacturing and utilities whose headquarters watched from way above, and the Rest. The uncategorised masses. Not even ten percent of the population of Balé lived on the plateau, but somehow it was all people could think of when asked to represent that city.

Contrary to the beliefs of those who roosted permanently on top of the plateau, the root city was not a never-ending slum. There were pleasant suburban districts, well-managed parks and the mandated Areas of Cultural Significance. The Nommo Motor Company had its headquarters near one of the latter of these, which made it easy for Maki to translocate Kulit and himself there. ‘Easy’ was a somewhat misleading adjective, for it referred only to the scribbled calculations he had made on the floorboard in the Order’s lodge, muttering to himself and squinting at the map of Balé they had provided for him. Not so easy was generating the energy to tear a dimensional door wide and stable enough for two people to pass through, especially when one of those people turned their nose up at his pronunciation of the magic words.

Maki rested his forehead against the warm stone of the Atibalé Monument, sharing an intimate moment with the basalt arse of a Hero of the Worker’s Collective.

It was hard to describe magical exhaustion to someone who didn’t cast. The common perception was that it was akin to physical fatigue but it was not. Maki had once tried to explain it to his marathon-running partner:

“It’s like doing the Balé to Gebrah race and immediately after being asked to solve a math problem. But the opposite. And not in your brain. In your animating spirit. Get it?”

In any case, Maki had done a lot more off the cuff magic than he was used to and was feeling wrung out, a bit insubstantial. The patience Kulit showed for his condition was heart-warming - the bodyguard pursed her lips and strode away from the memorial without sparing him a solitary glance.

Well, he had been the genius who had wanted to join the badass on her revenge fantasy. He groped the collectivist Hero one last time, pushing himself away from the statue and jogged after Kulit.

Tower Nommo overlooked the memorial with a proprietary air. It was the only skyscraper in sight in the darkness of night and that made it imperious, despite being a rather unimpressive building in any other context.

“Hey Kulit,” Maki said, grinning. “Why is a Nommo car better than a ticking time bomb?”

“A light is on.”

“Nope! It’s because a Nommo car doesn’t make that annoying ticking noise!” His bony shoulders bobbed as he chuckled. “Ah, I’ve got so many of those. Do you know why they don’t make a -”

Kulit grabbed him roughly and pointed her arm up at the building. Sighting along her finger Maki could see that three-quarters of the way up, a corner office was illuminated. “Someone is in.”

Apart from the lobby, the office was the only light on in Tower Nommo. Even from the ground, Maki could see its details sharply - a desk, a file cabinet. An erectly phallic cactus shoved into the corner. With the spotlight it all looked curiously staged, the setting for some dramatic reading. Act One, Scene One: the Mystery.

"Who’s working this late? Not Quality Control I can tell you that much." Maki glanced at Kulit slyly but she did not crack so much as a charitable lip curl.

"You see, because Nommo cars are so sh-"

"Can you get us up there?" She interrupted.

His brow furrowed. "Yes," he began slowly. "By using the lifts?" She did have a mobile phone so presumably she knew about modern technology, but you could never be too sure with people who had joined cults.

Kulit's snakeskin gloves whispered as her hands balled into fists. Maki wondered how high she had to count in her head before she was ready to speak again.

"I would rather not have to explain to the security guards what we want at this hour."

"No, I suppose not," Maki conceded gracefully, planting his hands on his hips and squinting up at the office.

If there was one thing he was averse to, and really the list went on and on, then it was appearing into a place with no idea what he might find there. Or who might find him.

So he swung his gaze to the left, tracking along the storey. The dark glass was mostly impenetrable, but one hallway got a little bit more light through it than most and Maki spotted something interesting.

"I have. An idea."

"Excellent," Kulit said, stepping close and gripping his elbow, tucking in close by his side.

Maki froze and turned to look at her. To his amazement, the wizard actually went a little red.

"It'll take a minute," he said, carefully prying her fingers from his arm.

He pulled a nubbin of chalk from his pocket and sketched out a rectangle on the tarmac. “Probably the easiest form of translocation is the swap. The world isn’t nearly so upset when it feels things are taking up the right amount of space in the right places.” His tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth, and looking from the rectangle up to the dark window, he hummed and hawed. “Just takes a bit of focus…” He rubbed out a line and extended the rectangle. “...And a little prowess.”

Maki stepped into the rectangle and motioned for Kulit to join him. “You see that filing cabinet backed up against the window there? There’s no way we weigh more than it, concur?”

The wizard frowned, but quickly nodded. “Even empty, that thing will weigh a tonne.” She turned to watch him, felt the gathering of his energies. “Are you sure you are looking at the right floor?”

“Of course I’m looking at the right arsing floor! I’m not a baked idiot.” Maki tossed his head, scoffing as he mentally shifted his focus up a storey to the correct filing cabinet. Hardly his fault that every floor had the same decor. He said the magic words.

There was an inward rush of air, the chalk lifting off the tarmac for a moment before crashing back down, the thump a lot louder with the supporting percussion of a metal file cabinet smashing down onto the parking lot. It wobbled once then settled. A triumphant parakeet squawked as it fluttered down onto it, quickly asserting its squatting rights by shitting into one of the open drawers.

***

The thirteenth floor was dark but Kulit did not cast a magelight. There was enough ambient light drizzling through the innumerable windows for the twosome to see, even if it did leave the world drained of color and fuzzy around the edges. Not that they were missing much. If Maki had to guess, he would have said the interior decorator had an unhealthy obsession with the warmth of bare metal.

He was happy to let Kulit lead the way, he was busy concentrating on maintaining his stability. All the teleporting he had done was making him feel distinctly out of place. And that had a lot more literal meaning for a 'portist.

One of the doors on the corridor was open and leaking light. And voices.

A man. Rasping and deep. The hint of an accent:

"Don't pretend you're surprised by this. I had a look at those notebooks before I handed them over. Took me a while maybe, but I figure you got the better end of the bargain."

A woman. Tremulous, deeply uncomfortable:

"You were paid what was agreed. Our obligations are fulfilled. You really shouldn’t be here."

"And I want to reopen those negotiations. You fucked me. Those notes are worth a fortune. I want more." There was a pause in which Kulit and Maki crept closer to the door.

The man continued, "Or perhaps I should be telling this story to someone more interested?"

"You don't know anything. You'll put yourself in a cell for nothing."

Maki could see it in his head: the assassin, some scarred brute, probably a blond Marchlander, jacked up in black fatigues and combat boots and looming over the woman.

"I knew enough to find you, Opal Le'Thosa. I know that an engine fuelled by crystals would be of great interest to Nommo."

They were just behind the blade of light that crossed the carpet now and Maki leant in towards Kulit's ear.

"So I think we might be in the right place. What's the plan?"

Kulit did not answer. The wizard instead straightened up and without so much as a word to Maki, shoved open the door.

"This is not a plan!" Maki hissed, his stomach clogging up his throat as he scurried to keep up. He tried to adopt some of Kulit's dangerous swagger and followed her into the office.

The denizens had been stunned into silence by their arrival and it painted a very different picture than the one Maki had dreamed up.

Ms. Le'Thosa was very young. He had been expecting some sort of mature functionary - a woman with the steel edges necessary to order the death of another human being. Opal looked like she hadn't even had enough time to frame her diploma, let alone sharpen up her edges.

The assassin was certainly not his Maki-doppelgänger. Dressed in casual shorts and wearing sunglasses and a cap he could have been anyone. Dark skin, five foot something, age twenty-five to forty. Basically, Maki might have described a good portion of the continent's male population, let alone Balé's.

Mr. Indistinguishable.

Opal broke the moment. "You can't be up here. How did you get past security?" As she spoke she fussed with the receiver of her phone, wagging her finger at Maki and Kulit like they were a pair of lost work experience kids.

Kulit took centre stage and Maki got to see her as he had the first time - an ambassador from a more dangerous Age. Potent.

"We know what you did, Opal Le'Thosa." Kulit said, pointing an accusing finger.

Maki drew himself up to his own towering height and put on his best Who-shat-in-my-soup face. But he recognised that his fearsomeness may already have been compromised by the fact that he was still wearing an inside-out band T-shirt and sweatpants. They were the only black clothes he could find when planning his raid of the Professor’s office.

Opal seemed to have noticed the same thing for she slammed her hands onto her hips and raised her chin. "I would like to see your warrant or the legal writ that entitles you to trespass on private property. If not I shall have to insist that you leave immediately."

Kulit’s eyes flashed, quite literally. Some small cantrip coupled with a degree of mental control that few practitioners bothered with.

“We are not the police.”

“Didn’t think so,” the assassin replied, sweeping his arm up from around his back. In his hand was a pistol and by the time Maki had recognised that fact, it was already firing at him. Or near him. He couldn’t really tell because he was cowering as soon as he saw the metal shape, as if squinting could stop bullets.

Two cracks, two world-breaking retorts and, Maki assumed, two cooling bodies. Who knew dying could be so painless? Not even a punch knocking the air out of him. Too painless really. It was a bit of a let-down to discover all those action movies had been lying to him. This death sequence was causing far too much unnecessary consternation to be permitted to continue. Maki opened his eyes and confirmed he was not at all perforated. Not even a flesh wound.

He looked to Kulit for explanation and as he did he saw the tell-tale shimmer in the air - a slick of oil on the clear water of reality - that marked some kind of ward. Very nice of her to include him within its bounds, perhaps he could send her some flowers after this was all over? Though she might have mentioned that before he almost pissed himself. Ruined his credibility as a badass. So a card but no flowers.

Kulit was much more composed, her hands moving in an elaborate dance, her voice strong as she began casting. There was no hesitation, no stumbling over the complex, unnatural syllables. Power gathered to her like a storm trapped in a milk bottle, enormous but compressed and bounded.

Maki spectated, mouth gaping open. He was a fanboy on stage with his idol. The control, the pure talent. It only took her a handful of seconds and then she punched and the spell exploded.

Gogol’s Elephantine Eruption! Everything in front of Kulit was struck by an invisible kinetic force. The charge of an enraged bull elephant. Opal and the assassin were flung backwards against the wall, the desk leapt, the objects on its surface scattered like buckshot. A stapler punched through the window and sailed into the night. The cactus flopped over.

“Pow!” Maki ejaculated, double fist pumping, but Kulit was still casting, not even taking a breath between one spell and the next. A rift opened up between her hands and bioluminescent tentacles uncoiled.

“Tentacles!” Maki yelled.

The conjured limbs whipped out towards the prone figures. Opal was enveloped with a scream which was silenced when one of the thick, rubbery tentacles slapped over her mouth. But the assassin had already pushed himself off the floor, leaping to one side as the tentacles went for him, scrambling on all fours and shoulder barging his way into an adjoining room. The tentacles splattered moistly against the door, but their reach was not infinite and there was no way that anyone wanted whatever creature they were part of to squeeze its way into their dimension.

“He’s getting away!” Maki pointed after the assassin.

His legs took that as a command and accelerated him in the assassin’s wake.

The next room was a long meeting room and by the time Maki clattered into it, the door at the other end was sighing closed. So he pushed harder, tapping the deep well of his physical endurance. Every now and then there was a little discontinuity in his step, a slight jar hither and thither. But Maki had suffered from 'portist's dislocation before and if anything, his spatial awareness was impeccable.

So he careened into the corridor quick enough to see the assassin jetting down the hall. Maki accelerated again, his long legs stretching to chew up the carpet. There was no creator god, but if there had been, they would have placed Maki in the pile of people marked 'real good at running for a long time.'

But his experience was a liability in this case. For Maki had the unusual ability to both think and run at the same time. So as his feet pounded around a corner he was struck by the thought that he had no idea what he would do should he catch the assassin. He didn't even know if the killer was carrying his gun anymore, but he would certainly be better at fighting than Maki, no matter how many marchat movies he had seen.

That the assassin hadn't come to this conclusion yet betrayed an admirable single-mindedness. Or maybe he just thought Maki was as devastating a mage as Kulit?

A series of illuminated orange signs marked the path of his escape plan - an emotionless stick man fleeing hungry flames - and then it was one last stretch to the fire door.

The fire door was the only destination on this corridor and the immediacy of it forced itself onto Maki's consciousness. He did not have the magical arsenal that was available to Kulit - though he was very much interested in whichever secretive mountain monastery she had obviously been trained in - so he would have to get creative with his magic, something that every good tutor would warn against. Especially while running.

He threw out his arm, teeth clenched together and breath hissing through them. The assassin opened the gap, sprinting towards the door.

That's right, you bastard, hit that door as hard as you can!

But maybe not too hard. The calculations Maki had been doing were truly on the fly and he didn't want the assassin to merely stumble over a speed bump. He wanted him to ram into a roadblock.

The assassin lowered his shoulder and hit the door. But instead of bouncing open like any good emergency exit would, the door barely shifted an inch. It was an unexpected resistance and it was not gentle, the assassin's surprised expression being briefly converted into two dimensions by the unyielding plane. He fell back and Maki stormed up behind him. Like all desperate and untrained fighters, he went for the most vicious attack he could think of, aiming a kick at the assassin's head.

But instead of a meaty impact of a foot getting acquainted to a cheek, Maki was jolted a step to the left by an abrupt dislocation, his swinging leg throwing him off balance, sending him tumbling onto the prone assassin.

He shrieked and flailed, like he had just noticed a spider in his bath, fighting a titanic battle against an inch long enemy.

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

Much like his battles with submarine arachnids, it soon became apparent that Maki was the only one taking part. The assassin was a limp tangle of limbs around him and upon a cautious examination, Maki spotted a reddening mark on his forehead. Somewhere in his spasming, he had clearly connected an elbow to the man's face.

He patted the assassin's thigh with a trembling, adrenaline and fear jumped hand.

"It was a pull door, mate."

But it didn't quite work. Maki tried again, licking his dry lips:

"Try k-knocking with your hand next time.” He paused, then experimented out loud: “Bub."

Neither sounded right. Quipping was a lot harder than it was made to look by the professionals. Maki sighed and pulled himself free of the assassin. The man was a distinctly average looking person, which in itself chilled the warmth of victory that Maki was feeling. There was perhaps no special story which allowed a person to become a killer. This wasn’t a zealot or violent madman, just a person with a price - where humans were a resource, a death just became another commodity.

Maki reached over the slumped body and pulled the fire door properly closed again, giving it a firm tug to make sure the latch clicked. In his desperation he had reached for the furthest doorway he was familiar with, knowing that the greater distance between the two portals would directly increase the difficulty of opening the door - like trying to shove open a door that was a mile thick. The only place that had come into his mind was the door to his parents’ bedroom in Sombilad, half a continent away, so no wonder the assassin had bounced off it.

But the last thing Maki wanted now was his mum going to the bathroom and ending up wandering the halls of Tower Nommo naked. Somehow she would find a way to make it about Maki’s lack of procreation, never mind that he was stopping a dangerous criminal.

He found himself in a bit of a dilemma. He didn’t really want to stick around with the assassin - real life was not as convenient as video games, where a head injury guaranteed the mook was unconscious until the hero moved on to the next zone. But neither did he want to leave the villain alone, free and able to continue his escape once he came round.

In the end he recognised his lack of expertise and scuttled back to Kulit. If there was anyone who knew what to do with a stunned killer, it was her.

As he neared the door to the office, he slowed, a smirk hooking at the corner of his lips and drawing them up. He started to swagger and prepared his opening line. Guess who had just stopped a highly trained assassin?

“Oh remember that bad guy-”

But his victory parade was cut short. Kulit was crouched over Opal, the Nommo lady’s eyes rolled back in her head. The wizard’s fingers were curled into claws, wisps of abcoloured smoke burning off them. So far so magical - could barely cast a cantrip without something glowing in odd dimensions. But Maki recoiled when he noticed that the tips of Kulit’s gloved fingers were not pressed against Opal’s forehead and temple - they were dipping into her skull. She looked up when Maki bumbled into the room but there weren’t any pupils in her eyes. A void regarded Maki and he did not enjoy a single moment of it.

Then Kulit broke off the spell, Opal’s head thumping to the floor. The wizard blinked rapidly and there was a stutter of different eyes before they returned to her usual brown. Maki was glad that he hadn’t eaten for a while, for seeing Kulit’s eyes replaced by sets of uneven teeth was not something that would have survived a full stomach.

“We’re in the wrong place,” she said, her tone as light as if Opal had just pointed out their hilarious error in map-reading, rather than having her mind invaded and her knowledge tugged out thread by thread. “The notes aren’t here.”

Maki grimaced. “But the,” he said and pointed over his shoulder, eloquently expressing the notion that they had chased down the assassin and his employer, that it stood to reason that Chioté’s notes were somewhere here.

“We were all wrong. Nommo is just another link in this chain. We have to get back topside.”

Maki clutched both hands into his hair and tugged. “But it makes sense. Nommo make cars, cars have motors, ergo therefore and consequently… a new kind of motor would actually make them innovative for once.”

Even he could hear the shrill edge of an impending collapse in his voice. But he wanted it to be over! Find the killer, solve the case. Neat and simple and storybook. He didn’t want it to go deeper, be any more convoluted. He wanted to get about a week’s worth of sleep.

“It’s not a motor, it’s a generator. And now we need to get out of here before we miss it.” She was so damn collected - a perfectly clear digital signal in an analogue world. A knife in a drawer full of spoons. Purpose was a bullseye and she was streaking towards it. Confronted with her, Maki felt like a tangle of a person, Makis wandering here and there, pulled towards different ends. Never could he be as singular as she was. It was exhausting to even consider the self-discipline.

“We can’t just leave them like this,” he said.

“Why not?” Kulit said, flicking her wrist with dismissive panache. “They’re just the… moving parts of a bigger machine.”

“Because that man out there shot my friend in the chest,” he snapped. “I don’t care that it wasn’t his idea or that she was just following orders. They could have said no and they didn’t. That’s why.”

It was a flare of emotion that was hard to maintain in the face of Kulit’s glacial charms. He was fairly sure that there was a set of finely-tuned mental scales inside her head, one side weighed down by Maki’s usefulness, the other, the amount he annoyed her. As soon as it tipped the other way, she would have no compunction in leaving him behind.

“Fine.”

Maki’s face exploded into a grin. He should have gone into Charms he was so damn irresistible.

***

It didn’t take long for Kulit to take care of the two conspirators - conjuring ropes out of thin air and then enchanting them both with a sleeping spell. If everything went to plan, the first thing they would see when waking up would be the photogenic faces of Balé’s finest.

As Maki prepared the ritual that would either return them to the plateau or leave him a soul-drained dislocated husk, Kulit explained what she had extracted from Opal’s mind. Maki only interrupted once, right at the beginning, before Kulit piled on enough truth to silence him.

“Isn’t mind cracking against the Ou Jura Conventions?” he asked lightly, not even looking up from his markings.

“I do not recall my Order being signatories of those agreements.”

“Oh.”

It’s always wise to get a good kick in the sensibles every so often. Person gets bitten by lion, stops thinking of them as a furry cartoon animal. Does not get eaten by lion down the road. Maki gets reminded that Kulit is not just a woman tragically born without a sense of humour, but the ice-hearted agent of an ancient Order who also happens to be the most capable practitioner he has ever met.

“Still pretty fucking evil,” he added, but quietly, because bravery is a volume knob that Maki set firmly to three. Kulit didn’t even take her eyes off the preparations.

“Evil is being content with the knowledge that a woman, a genius like none other, was shot for the sake of your promotion.”

Fair point.

***

It’s not a motor, it’s a generator.

Maki had been right the first time, Nommo was not the kind of corporation that could organise a fart after a full meal, let alone a conspiracy to kill someone. But they were a conveniently local partner for something greater.

Maki was under no illusions - Chioté’s insight had the power to change the world, and people would be frightened of that. There were companies that had built themselves and their fortunes upon the foundation of the status quo. Balé had grown bigger in the Silicon Revolution - puffed up electronic titans with binary money to spend - but out there in the world were the monsters of the industrial revolution, behemoths bloated on oil, flatulent with natural gas and bullishly territorial. Evil in the way of something that had long since overgrown its human hosts.

Carnavar.

Hearing Kulit say the name chilled Maki more than had she invoked some demonic princeling. Aborash the Vile Father of a Thousand Murders had nothing on Carnavar. Four years ago a pipe carrying their oil had burst in Yowry Bay off the coast of Orhoi. It had been an ecological disaster for the littoral country but somehow at the end of the negotiations their government was paying the majority of the clean-up costs and Carnavar was writing up record profits due to the higher price of the scarce oil. They always won. Even when they should be losing they won.

Why would they allow magic to be pushed past the limits of the human body, allow power to be generated from something so abundant as crystals? They would kill it or control it.

They did not have an office in Balé but the delegates who had been attending the recent trade show were leaving by helicopter today. Or maybe it was tomorrow? It was proving very difficult for Maki to work out which day it actually was. He normally slept in between them.

Whatever the case, if he and Kulit did not prevent the delegates from leaving Balé, it was unlikely they would ever track down the Professor’s notes.

Maki stood back and examined the chalk marks he had made on the carpet. The mystical symbols he had drawn were just blurs in his vision now, some magical aphasia caused by his soul-deep exhaustion wiping away his comprehension. Kulit assured him they looked accurate. He would have to trust her, because there was no way he could hope to perform the spell again.

Maki took a deep breath, standing in his appointed place. The spell bubbled up from his gut, fizzing up his throat and then released into the air.

They rippled, they melted. They moved.

***

"I'm alive!"

Maki threw his hands up into the air and promptly dislocated five paces to the right. He came together with his hands on his knees, curious that his body had moved and apparently left his stomach waiting in some churning bile dimension. It was just too bad he could not throw up ethereal discombobulation, because he was sure that would have made him feel much better.

"I'm alive?"

"You're alive," confirmed Kulit, levering him upright and patting him on the back. "Good work."

Maki beamed, or at least his lips wriggled in a manner that could denote pleasure in the right lighting. High praise indeed!

He had 'ported them into the plaza beside the G'temé Building, which was the architectural equivalent of a platypus - somehow it all came together. The plaza was only a stone's throw from Maki's office and had a designated translocating area with fixed anchor glyphs, possibly the only reason Maki's spell had not sent the two of them on an impromptu vacation to the Outer Realms.

For once Kulit did not dash off, merely striding towards the Old Republic colonnade that marked one of the many chimerical features of the G'temé. To one side, the sun peeked a shoulder over the horizon, dyeing the sky with a promise of another scorching day.

Maki took a moment. There were meditative techniques, alchemical drugs, even siphoning spells that could help to restore or temporarily bolster a person’s magickal energies but mostly what was needed was time. There was a theory going round in evolutionary circles that this was why humans required so much sleep, the shutdown of the body and unconscious access to spiritual realms acted as a balm and restorative on a strained soul. Whether or not that was true, Maki did not know, only that he had not slept properly since seeing the Professor. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It would end soon. Either way, it would have to end soon.

He jog-stepped to catch up to Kulit, who was snarling into her phone.

“No. No. You can’t tell me we - No, don’t send a disc. I’m at the G’temé now. Yes already!” She rolled her eyes at Maki who nodded in blind sympathy.

“Stop talking. That isn’t stopping. Stop. I just need to know when and from which pad the Carnavar delegation are booked to leave from. I don’t care who it will piss off. Especially him, fuck him.”

Maki giggled and pushed ahead to open the glass door that led in the belly of the G’temé. The lobby was a colossal amphitheater-like space, tear-drop shaped emptiness, an allusion to the peace tents of the nomads of Horesh’s past. So early in the morning it was empty but for a lone security guard who gave Maki a friendly wave. Sometimes it was nice to be reminded the rest of the world existed.

While she continued to berate whichever minion was unfortunate enough to take her call, Kulit walked over to examine the helpful map of the building. Maki peered over her shoulder. The floorplan was confusing, there occasionally appeared to be more corners than the usual 360º would allow, so the standard view from above was augmented by separate diagrams exploding outwards floor by floor. Eventually he found the two arm-like protrusions of the helipads. One was on the ninth floor and the other was, extraordinarily, on one of the basement floors.

“Hack it. Don’t tell me computers don’t work like that, that’s the only reason you were accepted into the Order in the first place. No, I don't know what an ‘isolated server’ is!”

Maki winced and took a step away from Kulit. The guard caught his eye and Maki smiled, wandering towards him.

“Morning,” he said, leaning his forearms on the guard’s counter. “Or does this still count as the night before?”

The guard chuckled, eyes crinkling up. “Ah, it’s been a long night, true enough.” He looked around Maki. “Your friend all right? Looks like she could have done with a couple more hours in bed.”

Make waved a hand and tried to position himself to block the view. There was something about people raging into mobiles that tended to quickly lose them sympathy. Probably they looked like a tin-pot dictator chewing out a cringing subordinate for not properly crushing the rebellion. “Might be you could help with that.”

“Yes? Let’s hear it then.” It wasn’t quite free of suspicion, but at least he was nice about it.

“You know there was a big trade show in town last week? Well, the big wigs from Carnavar were down but would you know they were booked solid in meetings, we didn’t get our chance. Now I hear they are leaving today back to their headquarters.” Maki sighed and shook his head, a man just missed his big break. “Could you tell us which pad they’re leaving from? We just need a moment of their time.”

The guard gave another of his gleaming smiles. Here was a man who brushed his teeth after every meal. “Would you believe you just missed them? Came through only a minute before you did.” Maki’s heart shrivelled in his chest, but he fought to hold his composure.

“Right. Than-”

“Matter of fact, that’s probably the sound of their helicopter now.” The guard glanced at his computer screen. “Coming into the pad on B2.”

He could hear it! The chopped up air thumping down. Maki skipped from foot to foot. “Thank you! You’ve changed the world!”

The guard scoffed and waved him away and Maki dashed over to Kulit, who was giving a detailed explanation of the exact transfiguration she would cast over the next person who dared to explain the reasons she would not get what she wanted. He caught her by her elbow and dragged her towards the elevator bank.

“Bee two,” he said, more grins than a barrel full of monkeys.

She stared at him, shot a glance back at the guard who mouthed a cheery “Good luck!”

She hung up her phone.

***

The Carnavar delegation was watching their helicopter descend to the pad when Kulit and Maki made it out. There were five of them. Two in suits and the rest with the bulky competence of security. One of them probably wasn’t human, given the sheet-like jara that was draped over its head.

The sound of the helicopter disguised their approach, so they got up pretty close before one of the bodyguards noticed them and tapped the male suit on the shoulder. The group turned and Maki swallowed down his fear.

There was no point saying anything, not with the chopper’s rotors tearing up the air, so the two groups just stared at each other. The two suits were old school company soldiers, their faces marked with identical Carnavar tattoos. That was a tradition that had gone out of fashion a decade ago - people changed jobs too quickly these days for that kind of loyalty and the new dot.hos didn’t demand it anyway. Their knee length jackets were an expensive cut and matching and might as well have been a uniform - despite being a man and a woman, Maki felt that they were interchangeable. They probably had names, but they weren’t important. In this at least, they were fleshy avatars of Carnavar.

Strangely, in the hammering of the helicopter, wind slapping against his face, Maki felt peaceful. He had committed himself fully to this purpose, thrown everything he had at it. And what was worst of all, it was nothing at all to do with him. It was for the Professor, top to bottom. He smirked across at the probably-not-human bodyguard like it was in on the joke. Win or lose right here and it wouldn't change anything. Maki had Done Good.

Also, maybe, because in the coming confrontation he would be about as useful as a rubber spoon in a gunfight. Took a lot of the pressure off, being useless. And seeing as he was just about holding himself together, that was probably for the best.

The blades whined down to a stop and the helicopter door was dragged open from the inside. SuitOne blinked, an android without its emotion chip turned on. “Yes?” she asked.

Kulit boiled forward, finger pointing like a wand. “Return Professor Hounsol’s notebook to me at once.”

The two suits exchanged a look. The man turned back and shook his head. “No.”

Kulit lifted her chin. “So be it.”

She muttered, words sparking in the air. Maki would have expected the bodyguards to rush her, to interrupt her casting like any sensible magekiller, but the three just bunched together. He himself took a step back. He had decided Kulit was like a claymore explosive - it was best to be just behind her.

The spell erupted, a jet of grey-green gas spraying towards the Carnavari, but instead of engulfing them in a soporific mist, the spray was wafted away as though by a gigantic invisible hand. Indeed, if Maki squinted at the strands of thick mist, they outlined cyclopean finger shapes.

Kulit frowned and dismissed the spell, switching to drawing glowing glyphs that hovered and twisted in the air. They were not translocation glyphs, of a different genus entirely, and Maki could not begin to guess at their effects. Unfortunately for his curious mind, when Kulit launched the shapes at the bodyguards, they slapped into a resistance and guttered out.

You had to admire her determination, for despite the fury at her own impotence, she moved quickly to another spell, this time not speaking but dancing through the motions. A cold wind blew up around Maki’s feet and idly he tried to calculate how many schools she had mastered.

“Stop!”

The wind died down.

It was SuitTwo. “You are wasting our time.” He reached into his jacket and pulled a necklace up, some jangling, clattering thing awash with puissance. They had charmed up some mercenary godling, or worshipped one into place, a company deity to go with the company car. Divine intervention on demand - the kind of magic that required corporate resourcing.

“You are very impressive, but I’m afraid we really must be going now.” He turned to his counterpart, who lifted a briefcase into her hands and popped it open.

“We do find the societies you have in Balé to be very quaint, but somewhat outdated,” he continued, reaching into the briefcase and pulling out Chioté’s notebook. Maki recognised it immediately. The Professor had always used the same brand with this awful cartoon tiger holding an enormous pen printed on the cover.

“You cling to the delusions of your pre-eminence, as though talent with magic means anything in today’s world.”

The taunts combined with the sight of the prize was a red rag to Kulit’s bull and she surged towards SuitTwo. She didn’t get far. To their credit, the bodyguards that moved to intercept her did not take any special pleasure in the punch that dropped her to her knees, nor do anything but the necessary to dissuade her from that course of action. Maki wondered if he should have joined her in that futile charge, but not with any accusation in his mind. He could see they were utterly outmatched.

“It doesn’t,” SuitTwo continued. “No one cares about you or your utopian delusions. Without a single spell I could get any of a million people to do what I wanted for just the money in my wallet.” He turned towards the helicopter. In the body of the chopper, beside the seats, there was a kind of lockbox fitted onto the floor. From a pocket appeared a key.

Maki frowned. Frowned gullies into his features. Frowned so hard he began to sweat. Once the notebook went into that box, it would disappear without a trace, he was sure of it. It was all he could think about. The weight of that understanding had him slowly drop down to the floor.

“Are you alright? You’re sweating bullets.” It was SuitOne standing over him, but he didn’t spare her a glance, just watched as SuitTwo first tugged, then yanked the lockbox open. The notebook slid into the darkness and the door was slapped closed, audibly locking. Gone.

Maki collapsed, a defeated enemy kowtowing towards his conquerors.

“It has been amusing, but we really must get this back to headquarters, see if this Professor of yours lives up to her reputation.” The executives gave perfunctory bows and clambered into the helicopter. The bodyguards waited until they were comfortable, keeping a close eye on Kulit, before they hopped in as well.

It seemed to take no time at all for the helicopter to power up to speed, blasting dust against the two kneeling figures. Like a toy lifted by an unsteady hand, the chopper wobbled into the air, slowly rotating as it ascended, heading towards the golden bowl that marked the sky above.

Maki moved like a man recovering from a surgery, with tedious care, like he might tear himself open with any sudden moves. He palmed the floor, stroked it, before flopping down and rolling onto his back. He watched the helicopter rising, escaping. He heard, then felt Kulit casting another spell. This one was potent, the kind of spell that pressed hard against the boundaries between worlds. The harmonies of her chanting were taken up by reedy, inhuman throats.

“Don’t bother,” Maki said from the floor. The chanting faltered but did not stop.

“If you bring down the chopper, what are the chances we’ll be able to recover the notebook? Where I come from, explosion always beats paper.”

Kulit continued for a few more verses of the cant, but Maki was sure that the spell didn’t then continue into all the expletives she ended up muttering.

“They’ll put it in vault,” she said quietly. “Bury it for decades. Then when fossil fuels lose their sheen, or some other genius looks like they’ll figure it out, it will appear again - but this time they’ll lock so many patents and laws around it… turn it into a product line.”

She spat those last words as viciously as any of the Thousand Curses. High above them, the Carnavar helicopter had cleared the vertical tunnel and it faded from sight and sound. In the silence, her disappointment was audible. Maki didn’t have to look at her to know that she was awash in it. She would be knee deep in it already and the tide would only be rising until it choked her.

It was going to be a sunny day.