Dan grunted slightly as he cleared the lip of the building. Overhead, clouds obscured the moon and stars. In stark contrast to the dark nights of Miami, brought on by rationed fuel and electricity, San Diego was bright enough to see from orbit. Dan smiled slightly. That wasn’t a euphemism; they could literally see the city.
He didn’t know what sort of generator Drummond had in his compound, but the man clearly wasn’t afraid of running out of resources. Spotlights roamed just outside the oligarch’s compound, illuminating the fifteen-foot-high electric fence. Every twenty yards, a concrete pillar jutted up from the ground, stabilizing the fence and providing a platform for a series of automated turrets.
Chewing on his lip, Dan glanced over the security system. He didn’t know for sure if the turrets used night vision, but given the level of technical expertise displayed by everything else on the compound, he wouldn’t bet on getting that lucky.
Gasping for air, Abe pulled himself up onto the roof of the building next to Dan. He flopped against a nearby steel air conditioning unit and pulled a canteen from his belt before gulping down water. Dan raised an eyebrow at him, barely visible in the reflected light from the various billboards and nearby cars.
“You cheated,” Abe whispered, sucking down a deep gasp of air. “Nobody climbs five stories up the side of a building like a goddamn spidermonkey without breaking a sweat. I don’t know what spell you used, but it was cheating.”
Dan smiled mischievously. “Gravitational Easing makes me a little lighter, but it isn’t anything major. I think you’re just getting out of shape. You’re spending all of your time in your armor letting it do the hard work for you. If I left you alone, you’d probably end up with a beer gut or something.”
“Fuck you, Thrush.” Abe dragged himself to his feet. “I still don’t see why we can’t use the armor for this. If we plan on dragging out anything heavy, I would really prefer a machine to help me carry it. Seriously, if you try to make me carry industrial equipment through a city while we’re under enemy fire, I swear to God I’ll unionize.”
“I’m pretty sure management doesn’t actually get to unionize,” Dan responded offhandedly, pulling a pair of binoculars out of a small pack he carried over his shoulder and inspecting the compound. “Especially considering you’re in charge of human resources, I think you’d actually be the one negotiating with any union on my behalf.”
“Fine,” he groused, ambling over to where Dan scanned the building. “What are we looking at?”
Dan handed the binoculars over to Abe. “As far as I can tell, most of the problem will be getting through the fence and past those turrets. I’m sure there are guards somewhere on hand, but I can’t see any of them. Maybe all of them are responding to the raid Jennifer and William are launching on the outskirts of town, but I really don’t feel like we’re going to get that lucky.”
“Yes and no,” Abe replied, the binoculars still stuck to his face. “I think you might be right that there aren’t any human guards on site. Might be a couple in a barracks or something of that nature, but I don’t see any on patrol or standing watch. That said, he’s got something moving along. They’re about waist-high with four legs, with a metal exterior and protrusion on the top. I’m not sure if it’s a head, a gun, or a camera but–”
He paused, leaning forward and twisting the binoculars into focus. “I think I can make out some sort of gun barrel or weapon system strapped to them. It must be a head. I’m not sure why a robot needs a head, but these things sure got ‘em.”
Dan caught the binoculars as Abe tossed them back. After a couple seconds of scanning, Dan found what he was talking about. A pair of dark grey quadrupeds trotted with jerky movements close to the walls of the compound itself. He panned back, estimating approximately twenty feet of open ground between them and the electric fence and turrets.
“What’s the plan?” Abe interrupted his woolgathering. “Unless you can turn us invisible and let us fly, I don’t think we’re getting in there without getting spotted. There’s just too much open space and too many cameras. Of course, we can just say ‘fuck it’ and go loud. That new spell of yours could probably blow one of those towers apart in a single shot.”
“Well, I can’t turn us invisible,” Dan mused, chewing on his lower lip as he stared down the building.
“So time to wreck shit,” Abe smiled, pulling two pairs of earplugs out of one of his pants pockets. “Remember, even if the nanites can fix a burst eardrum, it hurts like hell. Always wear protection.”
“I can make us fly, though,” Dan turned to Abe, a slight smile on his face. “I’m pretty sure their cameras aren’t looking up, and I’d be flabbergasted if they have radar tuned tightly enough to detect two people hanging in the air.
“Here.” Dan tossed a ski mask to Abe before slipping one over his own face. “We’re probably going to get spotted at some point, and I’d like at least the thinnest veneer of plausible deniability while we get our act together.”
“Wait…” Abe frowned, mask in hand as he squinted at Dan. “You didn’t say anything about learning a new spell that would let you fly.”
“It’s not a new spell,” Dan slapped Abe on the back as he walked to the edge of the building and prepared to jump. “You just jump into space as far as you can, and I catch you with a force bubble. It’s kinda slow and mana-heavy, but I have plenty to spare. We might not get there fast, but we’ll get there.”
Abe shook his head as he stepped away from the end of the building. “No. Jennifer told me about this bullshit in Brazil. She might be some sort of gymnast, but I’m not going to leap into the void without even knowing if you’ll be able to grab me in time. The best-case scenario is that I end up bruised and sore. The worst case is me turning into strawberry jam on the pavement below.”
“Just think of it as a really high-stakes trust fall.” Dan shot him a grin before activating Gravitational Easing and leaping almost fifteen feet toward the compound. Just as he began to descend, a force bubble formed beneath him. “Come on Abe, don’t you trust me?”
With a torrent of quiet swearing, Abe jumped off of the roof behind him, barely clearing half of Dan’s distance. He’d never really noticed, but at some point, Dan had completely physically eclipsed Abe. He could run faster and for longer, jump higher, and hit harder. He’d never registered it, because Abe was taller than him and well-toned from fairly constant exercise, but it was just one more sign that he was leaving the world of common sense behind.
Dan held the bubble until Abe jumped again, quickly dissolving the old one behind him and catching him on a new one. Abe slammed into it, knocking the wind out of himself as he scrambled to pull himself up. Abe shot him another dirty glare that Dan only answered with a grin before jumping to another invisible stepping stone of his own.
The rest of the journey to the compound went fairly smoothly. From overhead, they were able to determine that the quadrupeds were actually robots of some sort with rifles built into them. An intriguing concept that Dan wanted to explore, but not anything that would challenge a properly equipped force. Of course, if someone only had access to pistols and rifles, there was no telling how many bullets would be turned aside by the robots’ sleek metal casing.
Landing on the roof, Dan quickly drew his sword and began cutting through the ceiling tiles. Before long, he and Abe were in a crawlspace of some sort. Dan sliced through one more layer, and they landed in a dark room. A second later, motion sensors activated, and the lights clicked on, revealing a handful of desks in a windowless room. One exit was unlabeled while the other was a heavy steel door with a keycard scanner marked only “Server Room.”
He glanced around. The room wasn’t anything special, just ordinary workstations with some personal effects. Dan rifled through some paperwork on one of the desks, vaguely looking for someone foolish enough to write down a passcode. As far as he could tell, the papers were just a series of notes and work orders associated with network security for the compound.
“I don’t think we’re going to find anything useful here.” Dan shrugged at Abe from the workstation he was sifting through. “Unfortunately, the top floor wasn’t a penthouse suite or anything fun like that. Just looks like we dropped in on their IT team.”
“Why don’t we check out the server room?” Abe asked, setting a Rubik’s cube he’d been fiddling with back on the desk where he’d found it. “That place looks pretty secure, and if they’re spending that much effort keeping us out, I’d rather like to sneak in.”
Dan shrugged and stepped up to the door. He glanced blankly at the keypad before shoving his sword into it. He jerked the sword upward and frowned as it didn’t move. A second later, the blade glowed purple with magic as he began slicing easily through whatever high-tech alloy protected the door frame.
With a click, jets of fire rushed out from the walls on either side of him, engulfing Dan in flames. Almost immediately, his thermal resistance rune kicked in, robbing the inferno of its heat. His sword flicked out twice, disabling the nozzles of the flamethrowers that jutted out from hidden compartments. Dan resumed cutting, ignoring the guttering flames tickling his body as charred bits of clothing fell from him.
“That was one hell of a trap,” Abe stated sagely, glancing at Dan’s mostly-naked form as Dan grunted and kicked down the door. “I’ve gotta say, I’m glad you were the one handling that. You’re a lot sturdier than you look. Those crunches are definitely paying off.”
Dan rolled his eyes at Abe before walking into the room. He exhaled, squinting at his suddenly visible breath. The room went straight past air conditioning to downright cold.
The walls of the room were lined with racks of top-of-the-line servers, probably ten in all. Dan paced further into the room and frowned. Other than a TV screen with a webcam attached to it adorning the far wall, there really wasn’t anything but a handful of servers and an undecorated and empty room.
“So.” Dan spoke, his voice deadpan as he surveyed the mostly empty room. “This seems to be a bust. I have no idea why they decided to burn off my clothes protecting nothing. What do we do now?”
“There’s got to be something valuable around here,” Abe glanced dubiously at the various server racks. “Maybe they have the plans for the nanites up here. It might not be as good as grabbing a full set of industrial equipment, but I think our chances of evacuating ten servers through a hole in the roof are a lot better than us trying to extract heavy equipment.”
“Do I just start cutting the servers from the wall?” Dan asked. “I’m sure it isn’t good for us to remove them without powering them down properly, but I have no idea how to log in and initiate a shutdown.”
Before Abe could respond, the TV turned on, displaying a stylized yellow frowning face. “I would be very grateful if you didn’t do that.” A feminine voice echoed through the room from hidden speakers. “Mr. Thrush, if we could just talk for a moment, I’m sure we could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“Yeah.” Dan nodded to Abe. “It knows my name, despite the masks. I think it’s time to start tearing this place apart. Just to be sure.”
The frowning face on the tv monitor transformed into another stylized yellow face, this one with its mouth agape in surprise.
