EMP click puck. Limited range. One-time use.
Tension cable. Ultra-thin. 150 lb. capacity.
Liquid glass cutter.
I clip the case to my belt, heart pounding like a drumbeat inside my ribs.
Time to move.
There’s a weak spot in the fencing on the southeast corner. Not a flaw — a flaw meant error. This was intentional, a discreet utility access buried beneath a false patch of soil. Tex clocked it during recon.
I dig my gloved fingers beneath the mossy layer and find the edge of the steel grate. It groans faintly as I lift it — then swing it up on silent hinges.
Beneath, a service tunnel the size of a crawlspace. Barely lit. Air damp and sour.
I slide inside, feet first.
The tunnel is narrow enough that my shoulders scrape the walls. Somewhere above, I can hear the faint whir of a security drone moving across the courtyard. I keep low, counting the paces in my head.
Fifty-six… fifty-seven… there.
A small hatch door with a biometric panel.
I pull the fingerprint foil from my pouch — a print lifted earlier from a borrowed coffee cup in the Sablehall delivery truck. Another one of Tex’s little gifts.
The light blinks green. The hatch hisses open.
Behind it — a narrow stone stairwell, ascending into darkness.
The old stone stairwell narrows the higher it goes. I brush my gloved hand along the wall for balance. No creaks, no buzz of electricity. Just air and pressure and darkness.
When I reach the top, I crouch low and peek around the bend.
A hallway stretches ahead, gleaming with polished black tile. Thin, silvery lines crossing like a web.
Laser tripwires.
I inhale through my nose.
Okay. We trained for this.
I pull the guild tablet from my pack and activate the overlay. The interface flickers, casting faint light across the hallway. With a flick of my finger, I load the infrared grid map.
The tablet lights up — every laser thread glowing bright orange on screen.
They aren’t static. Theymove. Rotating in slow, hypnotic patterns.
Of course they do.
I strap the tablet to my forearm, sync my motion sensors, and wait for the Guild’s program to find the rhythm. There. A ten-second window. I droplow and twist through the first set, breathing slowly as I pass inches from a beam that could set off a silent alarm and call down guards like hellhounds.
Twist. Roll. Slide. Hold breath. Keep moving. Breathe.
The hallway seems to stretch, each section harder than the last. At one point, I have to flip fully horizontal to slip beneath a pair of crisscrossing beams while hovering inches above a pressure-triggered tile.
My shoulder grazes a hair too close — and the light on my tablet flashes red.
I freeze. The sensors pause.
