“You realize, of course, you’re sanctioning us to commit some pretty serious vandalism, Levine. This is like, criminal levels of bad,” Julia says worriedly next to him. “And we have enough ‘done for the best intentions’ crimes under our belt, that we should probably be in jail by now.”
“Bah. The Talons struck first. And what you’ve done is trivial, compared to some of the property damage that me and Nick caused,” Levine rebuffs while tapping a small console in the parking garage near the center of town. The brick and glass facades of downtown and busy people during lunchtime hour do little to placate the unease Julia has.
“Not filling me with a whole lot of confidence, Levine. But okay, I was destined for greatness or a premature grave,” she grouses. “The hell…I’m still wrapping my head around that. Dad goes and gets killed in a war-torn land half a world away, and my mom is gallivanting across the world, too, as a Valkyrie? She’s so toast when she gets home.” The console lights up blue and a faint glow emanates from Levines’ hand, while Drenar waits next to her. For obvious reasons he hid his dagger into his jacket for the time being and kept looking around like an anxious bird. “And your mom, too. Wonder if this what they did on ‘vacations’ or ‘business travel.’”
“The less I think about that one, Julia, the more focused I am,” he sighs and rubs his wrist gently. He's kept the watch off? It's a small step forward. “Here I am, doing the one thing she probably never wanted for me, putting myself in harms’ way for the sake of others. Which means, I’ve got to make her proud.”
She takes a deep breath, and looks upwards, and tries to will these nagging thoughts away. They have a job to do. Drenar gets her attention with a quizzical look. “You okay?”
“I’ll be better when we’re not courting death with the deck stacked against us,” she quips.
“Spoilers, if we turn this mad-cap adventure into a thing of a recurring basis, the deck is always going to be stacked against us. Or, that’s what every single one of my fantasy novels would say,” he says with a laugh.
There’s a beep and Levine smiles faintly. The lock turns on the rather ordinary-looking maintenance door, and Levine beckons them inside with a turn of the knob and a quick swing outwards.
It looks like a maintenance area that ducks down a short flight of stairs, then opens up to an access hallway, dimly lit with small green and blue lights. They flicker with a life of their own, and Julia realizes they’re not LEDs. They look like tiny flickers of flames, suspended over something like a candle holder mounted to the walls at regular intervals. It’s almost surreal to look at, and when she sticks her hand close to one, she feels a wash of light static. Mana based flame, perhaps?
“Wisp lights. They can be attuned to be brighter, and they last practically forever,” Levine advises before they’re drawn down the hallway, which ends at another security door, and there’s a glow of bright light at the seams. Daylight, perhaps? They’d only been walking for a minute or so. They were somewhere under the plaza where the regular shops were downtown, but…was this place under that? “Now, something to prepare yourself for. You’ll note we’re underground, yes?”
“Guessing we’re not?” Drenar answers back. Levine smiles warmly.
“Welcome to your first foray into a folded space. It occupies the same space as the downtown area, if you were to overlay them on a map, and it’s near-seamless.” He swings the door open to a world that Julia could only have ever dreamed of. “Welcome to Mercadian Promenade.”
Sunlight assaults her eyes, and she winces at the burning brightness. It’s close to noon, and the door opens up from some kind of retaining wall. In front of her is a brick-paved street meant for pedestrians and small utility vehicles, and beyond that is a plaza filled with trees in bright autumn bloom. Shop fronts are lined up along a few streets with various sundries, ranging from the mundane, to strange curiosities she can only guess are arcane in nature. It’s vibrant, bustling, and a stark contrast to the town she calls home. Tapestries flutter and various fliers–some of them animated paper, clutter a small bench and light post next to her.
But the biggest draw are the people around her who barely notice them come out of the maintenance door and treat them as ordinary as the rest of the passers-by. There are humans everywhere, but there are also wolf-like people with fur across their limbs, head and legs walking by in a digitigrade stance–almost bouncing along, even. They’re chatting with each other, a few laughing at some joke between them, and there are also a few people with bird-like wings emerging from their back.
But the presence of the dragons walking the street is something truly mystifying. She sees maridian silvers dressed in what would pass for street clothes conforming around their elongated limbs and wings, chatting idly. Two of them are sitting at a cafe, sipping from a more than oversized coffee cup and talking quietly, leaning in towards each other–a man and woman? She’s still trying to map the analog between male and female dragons a little bit. A Nevarran red and a Hellkite? She’s immediately reminded of Valosterla for a brief lapse of horror, but there’s no malice in her eyes, unlike Val–and they’re blue, talking with the red dragon, one of her claws on top of his in an endearing gesture.
Julia has to force herself to blink to take in the scene. “Are you serious? Our town is a huge hub for magical Kin and magic? Man, my mom held out on me! Only in my dreams could I see Wargen and dragons walking around in public. And…is that a sign for dragons to…mind their tail?” She points out a warning sign by an automated door to a small market just ahead.
“Nick has told me that closing a door on your tail is quite painful, and a hazard most people wouldn't think about,” Levine chuckles.
“Julia, if you asked me a couple of weeks ago, could you have imagined this, seeing this for the first time together?” She glances at Drenar, looking temporarily immune to the funk he's been in since last night. It's a face of pure excitement, like a little kid who got their birthday wish. She swishes her head playfully, her ponytail bobbing behind her.
“Nope. Never. Well, c’mon guys, let's stick to objectives.” They head to a small cafe where a few people are grabbing coffee, and Levine picks up an order for the three of them. Even with the amused expression he wears, she knows this is all business this time. They need to get rid of whatever tail King has assigned to them, and Levine is gazing about slowly. Scanning the crowd. She’s doing the same, looking for people who shift their gaze when she peers out. Amateur spies would likely do that–maybe not professionals.
She doesn’t expect it to be that easy. Not against King.
“Remember. Sudden movements get tails twitchy. We don't want them thinking we're aware of them,” Levine says in a low voice. He's deliberately trying to keep his voice masked in the small crowd, and she and Drenar's lip-reading skills are useful here. She never thought communicating with her deaf gram would be useful in this way. “Today we're finding candidates. Tomorrow, we will flush them out. Now, don't talk, just listen.”
Levine keeps going even while sipping his coffee and casually glancing around. “The teleportal hub is the prime ingress point of entry for Asqualia, yes? But only certain gates lead there. They’re preprogrammed hubs. Making more hubs takes time and expenses, plus materials. This being the closest official gate, it's coded into Asqualia. It makes it the prime path in and out. Disrupting it would likely trigger fail-safes for such a facility. You can see it over my left shoulder.”
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Julia peers over his shoulder and sees what appears to be a glass and aluminum sliding doorway and a security checkpoint down the row to a large building, two stories tall. Blue light flashes on a platform of crystal, steel, and winking lights, and people pop into existence from a small sphere of somewhere else. Safety barriers disengage, and people slowly shuffle off the platform from the incoming portal. It almost makes her head hurt staring at the lensing effect of the portal. A similar building is on the far end, with people coming through, until a few lights wink yellow and a faint synthetic voice speaks out.
“All travelers, please disembark and gather all luggage. Safety barriers are now disabled, please use the rails and enjoy your stay at the promenade.” Some people look dressed in business clothes, even a hinterland green wearing a three-piece suit that molded around the wings. He takes care to give space to the smaller individuals around him and controls his gait while heading down the row to a multiple-story office building. Others are dressed casually, and there are murmurs of excitement.
“Platforms run just like a subway or an airport,” Julia murmurs. Levine dips his head in affirmation.
“Yep. It's down to an art these days. It's reliable and safe. Tons of safety built in.”
“Hang on. If they only route certain teleportals to other locations, wouldn’t that mean that Crosomer and company would need to access one of those sites, and mass men? That seems…like it would be exceedingly difficult to do, if they’re all under Conclave control.” Drenar raises a good point, she realizes.
“There’s some tricks you can pull where you can relay a teleportal through another, without going to the midpoint. But it’s risky if the calculations and the leylines aren’t well established. Leylines are essentially just veins of mana in the earth, either natural growth, or engineered to grow in certain directions,” Levine explains. “You just need a big enough teleportal, enough power, and a daring tech who knows his stuff. The biometric ID’s however, present a unique challenge for them.”
“You really think they can spoof a teleportal to bring in dozens of hostile men?” Julia says in a low tone. Levine barely dips his chin in response.
“There’s a few magitech engineers who could pull it off. Lavernius is indeed one of them, much to my concern about Kelly's father. His record is spotless aside from a scrape with the law as a teen. I think King had a hand in keeping his records clean.”
“That tracks,” Drenar mutters. He looks just a little wary, which Julia finds telling when his rubs at his sleeve uneasily. “Disabling this platform is super risky, Levine. There's eyes everywhere, a lot of people. We don't want people to get hurt by accident if we do this.”
Julia also nods to a squat building that has men in uniform outside–blue and black fatigues, bolt pistols slung to their hips. “The garrison is right there. Levine, this could be borderline treasonous doing this that close to the po-po station. Are you willing to take that risk?”
“It wouldn't be the first time I broke the rules to do the right thing.” He leans back slowly, a faraway gaze fixed on the station, and he taps his coffee cup in a rhythmic beat. “Plus, if SAF is compromised, I won’t leave a stone unturned to find who the traitors are,” he adds with a roll of his accent, eyes narrowed.
“Nick vouches for you. That's good enough for me,” Drenar states calmly while taking a sip as well. “If the tails fail, what happens next? King seems to think we have a role to play. I think they split the factions of the Talons by a report structure. King’s men follow his instructions to a fault. His men do not report to Val, and I think that goes both ways. So if they go silent, what then?”
“They ring the panic bell. I don't have a fix on why you're needed yet. Apart from misguided decisions on Crosomer's part to keep you alive,” Levine muses for a second. He is gazing at the crowd, a slow sweep of his eyes, and examining the shops and the second tier of the promenade. There’s a bustle of activity above and below. Julia has never seen this many people in her town, or for that matter, this many Kin in one place. All she’s seen so far are dragons, which would be impressive enough.
“So we need to move fast once we get rid of the tails,” Drenar affirms. “Makes sense. The million-dollar question is, will Val recognize us?”
“Possible. But, without context, and the dossiers now in our possession, she is unlikely to make an immediate guess on who we are just yet. If King were to divulge who we are, we’d be dead, plain and simple. For now, their contested control of the factions of the Talons works in our favor.”
“So you know they’re broken into factions already?” Drenar picks up in an instant. Levine nods.
“Decentralized structure. After Crosomer was captured and almost every one of the Black Legionnaires was killed, they imploded. King, and now Valosterla, have created a decentralized power structure to keep things in control. You would think they would focus power behind one of them, but by keeping them on separate command structures, and an overall military cohesion, it makes it more resilient against decapitation attacks on leaders.”
“Bet anything Val was one of the Legionnaires,” Drenar muttered. “Amaranths’ book suggests she’s old. Old enough to have been before the war, based on size and her powers.”
“Nick had that one bulls-eyed. She’s ancient. Empress class dragon, at the peak of her powers for a dragon,” Levine says quietly. “But not omniscient. I’ve got two individuals who might be keeping an eye on us, they came in after we walked through the side door, probably lost sight of us and didn’t want to raise suspicion. They’ve been talking regularly, and looking at us, staying in the same position.”
Julia tenses lightly. “Describe them.”
“One girl, wisp of a figure, red hair–”
“Jackie,” she hisses. “I owe that little vixen a beat-down after what she did to Evan.” Drenar casually sweeps his gaze, and after a few seconds, gives a silent nod. “Who’s the second?”
“Young gentleman. Blond, late teens, early twenties. Jeans and a black jacket, dark glasses, short cropped military hairstyle. They keep looking our way now and then.”
“She knows Jonaleth is in jail by now,” Drenar says calmly and looks forward at Levine. “I can sort of tune out the sound around me…she’s freaking out. Saying that we must have something to do with Jonaleth dropping off the radar. Blondie is fleecing her for information. She’s telling them that Evan Awakened, but…she doesn’t know much else.”
Julia follows his lead, and tries to tune out the sound around her. She hasn’t been using her enhanced abilities that he’d told her about, same as Angela. It just requires a little focus, and–it’s like she plugs in a directional microphone to her head.
“The hell you mean these brats are behind Jonaleth getting carted off to jail, Jackie?! Our ass is good as dead if we don’t find out who’s been screwing with our operations! We got other pieces in play, and one domino out of position ruins everything. You find out what they know, and if they know anything, you call me. Or she will come after you next.”
“Hey, I didn’t sign up for this! Jonaleth screwing up isn’t on me!”
“Yeah it is. I’m making it your problem. The bitch up top is half tempted to melt this town off the face of the earth, and our guy is the only one keeping her from doing that. Find out.”
Julia sees the blonde walk off, and Jackie is in the corner of her eye, leaning on the railing and distraught. You stupid fools. You really thought it’d be cool to be part of a gang, and never thought beyond what happens past the dotted line.
When she unfocuses and lets the rest of the sound back in the world, it leaves her head spinning a little, and she clenches and unclenches her hands. “So, she’s on overwatch. Well, that makes this easier.”
“Jackie is a fool. She’s not trained in spycraft. They’re setting her up to be killed,” Drenar says in a low tone. “Ideas?”
“For now, assume she’s not the only one watching us,” Levine states calmly. “Let’s take a stroll. We’ve got more work to do.”