-Tennessee. Somewhere In The Great Smoky Mountains. Relatively Close to Gaitlinburg-
Technically, Der Stift should not have been allowed. A national park and private property (being on said national park, that is) was rather incongruous. Money, of course, was always the factor. Currently owned by Mannifred Guesclin, who had inherited it from his uncle, one Lincoln Guesclin, who had once been one of the two major drug smugglers in the area. Benedictine had taken care of him, and the other one, and his nephew Mannifred had decided that being a noble was better than trying to be a king. It had been Mannifred who had named the snowy mountain mansion and living quarters around it, likening it to an isolated monastery.
No one had ever bothered to inform him that he’d used German wrong. If the location had been properly called “The Monastery" in German, it would have been “DAS Stift”. Much like how English and other languages had its grammar quirks, calling it DER Stift meant the location’s name was technically “The Crayon”.
Hudson certainly felt like she was working with crayons, if anything.
She understood being a majordomo meant a bunch of varied duties. But assessing things, putting them all together, giving instructions and orders, that she was fine with. That she was good at. But interacting with others, under more vague intentions? She didn’t care for that much. Oh, she knew networking was always important. Who you knew was often just as important as what you knew, if not more so.
And so she was here, for some post New Year’s Eve party, some sort of ‘party coda’ for those who hadn’t deemed Mannifred’s organization important enough to show up at during actual holidays. If Mannifred knew he was considered third rate, if not fourth, he didn’t let it get to him. He’d laid out all the classics: fine dining, live music, fancy dress, waiters in suits with various accouterments on trays. Hudson was torn whether he had managed to capture that certain je ne sais quoi, or if he was trying too hard. Effort was appreciated, but understanding of its limits and where to direct, much moreso. She did appreciate that he’d had his roads and parking lot well plowed and shoveled, though. When a location was out this far and the snowfall was heavy, it was amazing how much work that was.
“All right. I told you once you leave this location, all you’ll have is your safe house. But we haven’t worked out just what can be in the safehouse. Beyond the basics. Funds. False IDs. Sorry, we were not able to get the one that adapts to the vision of the species. Those lot are…closed, even their wandering champion.”
“Can’t have it all.”
“We do have some good stuff though. First, we have the Land Lark.”
To Vesper, it looked like one of the sensory deprivation tanks her cousins swore by, but she’d never felt comfortable to use.
“We got the idea from a cartoon where the villains were always arriving and escaping in these underground drill vehicles. This isn’t quite that. But what it does do, once ‘fired’ into an entry point, is travel through the ground, using ultrasonics to pulverize whatever gets in their way, rock, soil, whatever, to a virtually liquid state. They’ve got an average range of seven miles. Good for certain forms of insertion. However, there’s a downside. The insertion is where the effort goes. Once you emerge, and the machine enters retrieval mode, it has to literally crawl back the way it came on emergency power. Takes hours, and it can’t carry anything back, that’s how low the power is. So it will get you in, but getting out will require other efforts.”
The hole it made also collapsed on itself as the insertion vehicle retreated back the way it came. Not exactly ‘without a trace’, but it was more confusing than an obvious hole that led to a tunnel.
“How are we planning on getting in, Vesper?”
“I’m going to walk right in through the front door.”
“These two items are meant to work with each other, primarily. They can be used separately, of course, but they’re designed to be synchronized.
“The body is called LT. Which stands for, sigh…Log Togs. It’s a one piece body suit based on the unstable molecules framework mother took from that set of universes with all the metahumans. Unstable molecules allows for outfits that stretch with a person if they can stretch, or not catch fire if they can set themselves on fire, or turn invisible with them…in this case, the outfit can flow and alter itself into different outfits. Downside, no armor. Upside: you don’t have to sneak in wearing appropriate clothing under cover garments. It can do dresses, pants and shirts, skirts, various kinds of footwear, even basic jewelry or glasses. With different colors, of course.”
“And the other?”
“Facade. It’s a more overt disguise. Battery power is short though, so be careful how you use it. However, it’s more than just a disguise. It has other potential uses that I’d recommend familiarizing yourself with.”
“Ma’am, can I see your invitation?”
“What?”
“He’s right, madam. No exceptions.” The second security guard said, popping up from behind the door. You’d swear they grew them in tubes. Basic black suits, short ties, sunglasses, short crewcut style haircuts (or very short cuts for female security); if you looked close, you’d likely also spot near identical bulges that indicated where they were keeping their weapons.
“There will be HELL for this, you little…invitation…fuck, come on…” The woman produced a small purse that looked like it could barely hold a phone and ID, let alone an invitation. “...my name is Quina Allory! I’ve been the name on everyone’s mouth the last three months! Even if they insisted on mashing it together to make Quarry!”
“You’re Quarry?” Said the second besuited guard, looking over the top of his shades.
“That’s what they call me, my NAME is MISS ALLORY to YOU LOT!”
“We still need an invitation.”
“Get me to a phone right now and I will show you a PROPER INVITATION-!”
“Sir, we’ve got someone making a fuss at the front.” A third man said, having shown up as well, even as a few more besuited guards, male and female, popped out of seemingly nowhere, drawn by the noise. The third man had been speaking into his wrist, via some kind of cuff link style communicator, before he pressed a hand to his ear. “...Miss Allory? If you’ll come in with us…”
“JUST LET ME IN! A phone call is all that will be needed-!” Quina Allory snarled as the guards, unmoved, closed ranks around her and began escorting her into the house and down a side hallway, the woman complaining all the way.
It was a great distraction that kept any of the guards from noticing one of their peers breaking off into a side room, closing the door behind her.
A minute later, Winnow opened the door, the simple black suit and shades she’d had the LT mimic to pretend to be one of the guards having changed to be the garb of someone invited to this party. She had a feeling that all her luck had been used up; Miss ‘Quarry’, because she was who she said she was, had provided a near perfect distraction. One of the greatest tricks to getting into places was simply acting like you belonged there. With a gathering like this, there were guards all over the place, and it was likely that at least SOME of them weren’t from ‘in house’. All she had to do was pick her spot and make sure no one looked too close before she switched appearances.
The same applied here. Look good, but not SO good that she drew extra attention. It also meant that communication between her and her ‘watcher’ was now completely cut off. She had to get the rest of the way in, and then out, on her own.
“All right. Possible useful gimmicks. These little ‘pills’? Contain a hyper-concentrated and very potent adhesive. Don’t squeeze them, they might pop and then you’re going to have that glue all over you. Which won’t be helpful, unless you feel like serving as a makeshift piece of flypaper.”
Winnow took one of the glasses on the tray being carried around by the waitress, sipping at it before wrinkling her nose.
“Ma’am? I think this might be off.” Winnow said, after she caught up to the carrying waitress, before she put the glass back. “Might want to open another bottle. No no, it’s okay.” Winnow waved off the waitress’ apologies, before slipping around her, her hand brushing against the waitress’ back. “Sorry, I see someone I know over there.”
“A pen. Works as a pen. This is also a class four grenade. Three clicks of the end, arms the six second fuse, three clicks, disarms it. You need to do the three clicks all together. If you click twice, pause, even for a second, and then click again, it won’t work. And there’s no indication that it’s armed, so you’d best pay close attention.”
Winnow was watching the string quintet play when she felt the hand on a part of her that she didn’t want a hand on, nor had she invited such a motion. She turned around to the man who had done it, smelling of alcohol, as he tried to chat her up, Winnow having to resist belting the man the whole time as she sought an escape. She spied someone walking towards them, heading somewhere unrelated to the two’s ‘conversation’, and she moved so the man walked between them, and once contact was broken, Winnow swiftly retreated, hiding behind a group of people and getting out of the drunk pervert’s line of vision. She shuddered inwardly. These were the parts of the mission that you didn’t like considering and couldn’t prepare for.
“These ‘gems’ will fit in a ring, which at the same time pierces them. When the gems are set, that is. As long as the gem stays in the ring, you’re fine. Remove it, and you’ll get a near instant eruption. Different colors of the false gems mean different gasses. Red is corrosive. Green is blinding and choking. Blue is just basic smokescreen. Yellow is a vomit-inducing agent, make sure you’re holding your breath if you use that. Lastly, purple is a nerve agent, you’ll need to inject yourself beforehand with a counter-agent or else it will take you down as quickly as anyone else around you. And it will still affect you, somewhat. You’ll need to use your Stream hardening to deal with that.”
Winnow noted the woman talking with the three men and other woman; she could tell from her body language she also wished she could be elsewhere. Winnow could also tell no one would dare to intrude on HER personal space, even if a gun had been held to their head. Picking up a small, self-serve plate of meatballs, Winnow used the ‘toothpick’ provided to eat them (good stuff), before she mimed looking around for a place to put the empty, sauce-covered plate, and then had a man rapidly heading somewhere ‘bump into her’; he moved on without noticing her, and she got what she wanted: the plate being knocked up and the sauce smeared on her dress’ shoulder. Okay…now just a LITTLE negative reaction, don’t draw too much attention…
“Hey, you…ugghhh!” Winnow walked to the nearest waiter. “Hey, sir, where’s the nearest washroom?”
Hudson, as she was the one who Winnow had saw, didn’t notice any of this. She was trying to get Mannifred alone to get her prime business done; he was one of the potential buyers of of 3T and she wanted the offers all lined up as swiftly as possible so she could pick one out, especially since there were mystery hands in play based on what had happened to Creed…
“This cloth, I wouldn’t use this unless a certain very nasty need comes along, but if you slap it onto someone’s face, the material will immediately adhere to the skin. Cutting off the mouth and nose completely. It resists tearing, but it can be pierced. The adhering process only lasts a few minutes, it’s based on sweat absorption, but it really can’t be removed otherwise without removing the person’s face with it.”
Her dress shifted to pants, the colors darker, Winnow slipped out of the washroom and into the adjacent office across from it, making sure no one was in the hallway to see her.
“Finally, this. We call it the JUC. Jumped Up Corkscrew. Corkscrews remove…well, corks. There are small mechanisms that can cut through and remove glass for entrance…this goes a step further. It will make a small passageway through a wall. Two, at most. Then the battery will burn out and ruin the mechanism…while also making it unable to be traced. The downside of having to micro-size such a machine. So make sure you look at the blueprints and pick your spot well.”
It was amazing the tricks you could pull with visual space. Many a magician worked their magic by making it appear that whatever they were interacting with was far smaller than it actually was. So was the same process used to hide the small ‘fanny pack’ that she’d used to carry in the JUC: the rest of her gear could be hidden on her person in small, concealed pockets. Rather than a corkscrew, the JUC looked more like an enlarged taser, the energies springing off the progs and quickly sweeping in a circle, cutting a hole through the wall and then extracting the material outward.
“These aren’t just normal shades. They’re also X-Ray glasses, and a few other tricks. Short range, but it will tell you if anyone is in a room next to you if you use the x-ray function.”
Which was why Winnow had immediately cut her hole, squeezing through, the LT smoothing itself to allow quicker passage. The adjacent office had nothing or no one in it that she needed; where she actually wanted to be was the office next to IT.
But this office was still locked and alarmed, unlike the one she’d broken into. Which meant Winnow had to play ‘the floor was lava’: the ground had weight sensors that would be set off if she touched it. Thankfully, there was enough furniture for her to hop across to the adjacent wall. All right. Just one more cut, and then she’d have access…
“And of course…Immiserate. And the new setup you have for it. But honestly. If that’s being activated…then things have gone wrong and you’re probably scrapping the mission. But we’ll still keep it in range and with the necessary backup trigger hidden in your jaw.”
The second cut wall piece took longer to discard, as Winnow had to place it on a nearby chair, and do it before her JUC fully broke down. She cut it close, the device in her hand becoming painfully hot as she squeezed through the second passageway into Mannifred Gueslin’s office. She left it on the edge of the hole.
As said, her sunglasses had other vision modes. Which she used to be able to see the trigger lasers that criss-crossed the third room. You would think such a setup would not be designed to allow people potential passage through available gaps, but the problem with floor sensors like the ones in the floor here was that if you had too many lasers too concentrated in certain spots, there could be a gradual gathering of heat that would set the floor sensors off. Unfortunate, though the lasers also came with the benefit that any sort of alteration of their passage would set them off, so no re-directing them with mirrors. Winnow would have to again play ‘the floor is lava’ while avoiding the beams, reach Mannifred’s desk, put the cracking device into his computer, and then get back out the same way.
…it was easier than she expected. Oh, she’d had to make one tight small jump, but the other three had been simple enough that she probably could have made them before she’d gotten all her extra information crammed into her head to help speed-run her to this new way of doing things. No need to try and guess any passwords: Winnow removed the ‘drive’ from where it was hidden in her right earring and, kneeling on the desk, carefully making sure she didn’t knock anything off, inserted the small machine into one of the available slots on the horizontal computer case the monitor rested on, watching the end of it flash colors and keeping her eye on the window behind her for movement.
It was a very tense ninety seconds, but no one came along, outside the door or outside the Monastery/Crayon window the office looked out of. Winnow watched the end of the drive turn white to indicate it was done, and then removed it, slipping the small machine back into the earring holder.
Going back the way she came was admittedly harder. But she made it. Squirming through her second makeshift door, having to again take the now-fried JUC with her, she carefully moved out onto the chair beyond it, slowly adjusting her weight so she didn’t make the chair fall over as she slid into it, or that she knocked the piece of wall she’d removed out of it. Back across the first room, easier due to no lasers, and back through her first door. She settled down on the floor, placing the destroyed JUC in the nearest garbage can, before she adjusted herself, the LT on her form returning to her party dress. All right then.
One quick check outside via her glasses to make sure there was no one immediately outside, and then she opened the door, putting on a confused face as she exited. No one there. She turned to close the door.
She was vaguely aware of the light footsteps. Vesper had half a moment to recognize them as someone moving rapidly yet quietly, and turned her head right into the swinging fist.
She’d expected some sort of verbal cue. A ‘hey what are you doing’, some sort of surprise. Not someone running up and punching her lights out without saying anything.
Everyone had a plan until they got punched in the mouth.
No comments:
Post a Comment