"Joey, quick, wake up, we're late for work! We were supposed to be in the lab five minutes ago!" Kyle's shaking her shoulder and he looks a bit messy after the intense night of the events at the school–it feels like she only just fell asleep. “Also I'm gonna break rules today and seriously break stuff.”
"Whoa, Kyle, slow down. This Kitsune requires coffee and a moment to get dressed," she groans and puts an errant book on the side table. Kyle hands her a cup of coffee in her favorite mug, and he's already gotten his lab coat and ID on. She takes a sip while trying to push her wavy hair out of her face. "Did you…sleep?"
"Not really. Judging by your face, you didn't get much either." He looks anxious. "I mean, how can we? Mercs who kill people for fun are looming at our doorstep, and a spy is working here! It's terrifying! Oh, and we're re-writing arcanist biology like all the textbooks and experts have been laughably wrong. And those kids are totally out of their depth, minus Nick. And maybe that kid with the funky name, like his parents drew fantasy names out of a hat–"
"Drenar," she says forcefully. He looks at her, taken aback.
"Seriously, you're fixated on him. You never fixate on anyone."
"Hey, he's interesting. From an academic standpoint. Also, he clearly can handle himself, which I find mighty impressive, considering he's only seventeen." Kyle sighs and is stroking his short goatee. He is super annoyed when he gets to that point of visible stimming.
"Joey, you know how I told you last night to go meet people outside our work circle, and your two or three friends in town? I didn't mean the first person you saw outside of work! He's like, younger than you by four years!"
"First off, age is merely a number, and second, I have no idea what you're talking about." She's giving him a death glare and he's not even withering under it like he usually would by now. "Look, all I care about right now is making sure those four don't do anything crazy, and that a whole bunch of bloodthirsty killers don't barnstorm our home. Simple enough?"
"When have you ever done something simple? Name one time," he counters forcefully. "Now, I'm not as much of a hardcore academic as you, but it sounded like some nerd humor came out between you two. That has never happened!"
"Humor helps relieve tension in serious situations," she counters. Kyle doesn't let it go.
"Look, as alluring as it might be for the green-eyed teen with a weird history to be a potential romantic interest, keep looking. Because it sounds like he's got a baggage list a mile long, and he's crazier than Nick. You don't do crazy.”
"Maybe I do, Kyle. Maybe, I secretly like crazy," she dares to say while leaning in. He stares at her, utterly aghast. "Would it not be the craziest thing I've ever done?"
"If you threatened to poison me, and then dissolved my body in magical acid, so that no one would ever know what happened to me? That would still be less terrifying than what you just said," he utters. "Look, don't get hung up on this–"
"Totally not hung up on this, Kyle. Now, can we focus on not being any later for work than we already are? We need to keep the guise of normal, as best we can. Well, at least until I figure out whose lungs I'm going to implode for selling us out."
She cuts off the discussion before he can continue, and she feels immensely irritated. Sure, Drenar is interesting. And he has the body of a dream, is a really unique specimen as a Maridian and Azure mixed dragon, and acts a lot older than his physical age. And Julia is an organic electrode! She couldn't believe how fast she'd figured out her draconic abilities at such a young age! Joey smoothes her hair after getting dressed quickly in the small bedroom, then directs Kyle out the door before locking up.
There is no time for stewing on mysterious teens today. Or any day, if she has any say in the matter.
He's not my type. Totally. I'll take Kyle up on that offer for the roaming club, maybe I do need a fox in my life, she thinks with an internal sigh. Oh my Fates, I hate this hyper-focus ability I have, why can’t I focus on anything else? Like figuring out Radovir’s last mystery of the arcane? Or why Kyle is content to chill in Aqualia and build golems and never go on a date ever, or how Claire manages to get anything done when she gets three hours of sleep a night?
She lets out a frustrated growl that Kyle pays no mind to, and assumes it’s got something to do with her notes. Okay, seriously brain, what’s wrong with you today? Of all the really dire stuff on my plate, why am I focusing on Drenar? I barely know the guy!
The self-reflection thing is not working at all. She is still drawing a blank. Alright, the novelty’s going to wear off in a couple of days, and then, I’ll be able to focus on the things that matter. Like the giant pending mini-apocalypse of that strange machine they ran into that could zap millions of dragons back into existence and terraform the world. That seems to be something way more important to focus on!
The day passes far slower than she can stand, and every second she’s not working in the lab, trying to focus on not disrupting the daily routine, the more she circles to the previous night and goes over every detail. Kyle is also trying his best to not break routine, especially with the parade of people that came and went, and the staff meeting around lunchtime to go over Halloween party planning. The drop tile ceiling and glass windows that can glimpse the lake out above them stand in contrast to the brick and stone exterior of this facility, not to mention the verdant growth on the outside perimeter and various sample gardens.
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This just feels like an unbearably vanilla office you can find anywhere in the world. Not to mention, these festivities now seem utterly mundane and unimportant. Her impatience goes unnoticed, because she’s been trying to figure out the weak link. Who would dare try to expose Asqualia to the whims of a known insurrectionist group? She's still got her shortlist on her laptop, figuring out probability and motive.
There isn’t anyone in this room involved in such a dastardly deed. Every staff member is well compensated, and even ignoring that, they’ve dedicated their lives to research and development in the passion of improving all lives of the mage world. Using her thought reading at scale could be risky--she'd gotten a nosebleed before if she'd used it for too long, and she suspects that a few people might have even been aware of her presence. Mind reading everyone's surface thoughts is out of the question, because she doesn't dare try to use it that much, for that long. Documentation is rare, and she only has a few cautionary tales that pushing abilities like that, just like any magical ability, can be dangerous, or even lethal.
And she's no help to anyone if she gets a brain bleed.
Reeves is going on about inventory for some of the labs, and she makes a passing attempt to encourage them to switch to a Kanban card system for proper restock timing. This bought her about five minutes of poring over details.
There’s a hundred and change staff at Asqualia, plus roaming researchers. Everyone has a biometrically encoded ID to get in and out of the main teleportal. Those ID matches are impossible to fake–even if I gave mine to Drenar and company, the teleportal would shut down before they hit the threshold. Or worse, they’d be disintegrated. Every warning under the sun was posted on those transport pads, and accidents are statistically non-existent. But deliberate stupidity can still be lethal.
Think, Joey. Could they hack a biometric ID, or encode new ones? Who has access to that tech? They’re provided by SAF, and the Valkyries also have override access, from what Curtis was telling me at our safety stand-down a few months ago. The Valkyries are a big deal and fight for the good of mage-kind, even if they have limited political power with the Conclave, so them betraying us I pin at zero. Crosomer’s men may have people inside SAF, but that would immediately expose those agents once word got out. No, they’d want something more subtle. A means of ingress that wouldn’t be easily traced.
She realizes there is another way to attack the teleportal that Kyle had mentioned. A dangerous method, for sure, but they could hack the teleportal itself, and force it open. But messing with the system always left traces if they tried to rewrite the arcane circuits. Right now they needed to narrow down the field. What is the easiest ingress, with the least amount of attention drawn to it? Or was there another way in?
“Joey, your input?” Reeves asks, and she realizes she completely tuned out the question.
“Reeves, can you repeat that?” she offers politely.
“I was asking about the missing inventory of mana primer gel. We had about six cases of it go missing this week, did you happen to take it to your lab?”
“Six cases? How the hell do six cases go missing?” She’s instantly at attention. “I logged all the use in my lab for the potions on demand, it’s definitely not on my end.”
“Yeah, I can confirm, definitely not our lab. I did record the amount of mana primer to get my furnace tuned up, but it wasn’t that much. It was like a third of a case, tops,” Kyle input quickly.
"Why did you need a third of a case?" Reeves asks cautiously.
"Back off man, I'm an Arcanist," Kyle quips firmly. Joey tries not to laugh. "I needed the higher temps on my furnace and a longer tempering time, and it's eating power like crazy to get a new alloy made."
"What material?"
"It doesn't have a name yet, but it includes adamantine, aluminum, and mage steel. With mana-infused chrome for corrosion resistance."
"That slag pile is such a waste," Saul grumbles next to Reeves.
"It's a waste until it isn't. If my math is right–and it usually is–I can forge a material almost on par with Valkyrian steel, without needing a furnace the temperature of a star," Kyle shot back. Meanwhile, Joey’s quickly going through her notes. Six cases of mana primer is enough for a couple of months of supply for a research facility of this size. If converted to fire element energy, it’s enough mana to build an incendiary component hot enough to cut through even the toughest mage steel, or build a bomb big enough to level a chunk of the facility.
She knows exactly what it would take, which is worrisome. That much mana overload could be used to cause a serious discharge of the mana reactor in the utility area, rendering it inoperable. There could be several uses for that kind of thing. All of them are bad.
“Reeves, is anything else missing?” she asks.
“Yeah, I’m missing about two spools of arcanist wire. I’m sure the techs who are doing maintenance and rewiring of the east lab renovations just forgot to log it. Mission creep of putting in more power requirements,” he sighs. “And a few fuse cores.”
She looks at Kyle, and he’s raising an eyebrow. And tilting his head at her once Reeves is wrapping up the meeting. She gets frustrated and turns on her psionics before nodding at him.
Joey, someone’s going to sabotage the facility. That's all precursors to doing some serious demolition work. We need to work faster. Any roaming techs or maintenance crew who knows where to hide explosives or get access to arcane consoles. Hell, there are also the secondary access points too!
"Remind me again, where are the fuse cores used?" she asks. Reeves shrugs his shoulders.
"Usually just for arcane circuitry junctions. It's just annoying because they aren't cheap, and you can use them to program simple routines for arcane equipment."
"Nothing comes in and out of this facility other than the teleport platform, how does all that go missing?" He shrugs softly. Again. He could be so lackadaisical!
"Dunno. It was logged on arrival. The records don't show anyone logging into storage afterward. Well, either way, if any of you guys find it, let me know?"
This day refuses to be dull at all. “Got it, Reeves. Not like I’m not going to be searching high and low for fifty thousand euros of missing inventory, which should have had better access controls,” she states with unrestrained contempt. Reeves goes instantly silent, and there’s an awkward cough in the room.
That might have been a little harsh, in hindsight.
More harsh would be being invaded by a bloodthirsty mercenary army.