Keen 5.7

“Pretty…”

I glanced over at Labyrinth. Even with her mask on, it was obvious from the tilt of her head she was staring, completely enraptured, at the casino below us. I looked back down, consideringly. Was it pretty? All the areas someone could walk were illuminated with lights bright enough to ensure safety without washing out all the color. Some lawn sculptures—I think that’s what they were called—dotted the edges of the walkways, but the people passing by didn’t seem to be paying them much mind. It was hard to judge from this high up. The flashy sign spelling out ‘Queen’s Gambit’ was by contrast easy to read, even with the colored spotlights passed in front of it.

So—was it pretty? If I tried to bend my thoughts, to view it how she might, I could see the appeal. Personally, I thought it looked like the owner, Alexander Waters, was very busy flexing his ego.

“Ready?” I asked over comms.

“Go when clear,” Faultline confirmed.

I could feel Spitfire squirming in the harness I was holding her aloft in, and I allowed myself an eye roll. It’s not like she could see my face from her position, much less through my goggles. Newbies and their silly worrying about being a thousand feet above ground.

Ignoring her, I focused on the pattern in the movements of the spotlights. Though they weren’t anywhere near powerful enough to reach all the way up to where we were right now, they could easily hit us on the way down. Most people tended to not look up, but Faultline didn’t want us to take that chance.

Now.

My top speed flying forward was actually 50 miles per hour, not the 45 mph I had always suspected. Faultline had insisted on us measuring it once we had an opportunity to breathe after my disastrous first month with the crew. The thing is, I couldn’t push us at max speed to the roof—not from this height. I didn’t understand all the math behind it, but some additional testing had led to Faultline declaring gravity accelerated my power when going down and that we would be traveling at nearly 250 mph as we approached the roof if I tried to go all out.

I liked the Cyclone as much as any Brooklynite, but four times as fast didn’t mean four times as fun.

We were on the roof in roughly half a minute, neatly dodging the beams of light to stick to darkness along the way. Spitfire was grateful to be on the relative terra firma of the roof if her falling to her knees and emptying her dinner all over was any indication. She groaned as she wiped at her mouth, careful to use only her fingers and not her fingerless gloves.

“Starting to rethink that gas mask we ordered, Faultline,” she weakly remarked as she pushed herself back onto her feet and ran her fingers over her tank top to check if she’d hit it.

“A discussion for another time,” Faultline dismissed. “Meteor, we’re in the right spot?”

“Yes.”

“Labyrinth, I need you to make us an entrance when you can, like we discussed.” Labyrinth didn’t nod to show she’d heard, but she was looking down at our feet, and that was good enough. “Meteor, seal the doors on the upper levels. If you can feel anyone, then let them out wherever they’re going, then lock it back up.”

Two people were descending below us down by the bottom, one right after the other. A couple? I suppose if you were staying on the third floor, it didn’t hurt to just take the stairs down to the casino instead of the elevator. They were far enough down they wouldn’t notice us, so I kept my focus on Faultline instead.

The roof began to split apart after maybe another fifteen seconds, revealing the first of a set of stairs beginning to form out of the walls. It wasn’t fully formed yet, but Faultline began to descend anyway, matching her pace to the emerging structure.

“Let’s go.”

I took Labyrinth’s hand then looked to Spitfire and gestured with my head for her to go first. Her shoulders slumped in resignation, but despite descending with an abundance of caution, she trailed after Faultline without complaint. I tossed Gregor a quick little wave then followed after them with Labyrinth in tow. The hole in the roof sealed up behind us once we were clear, and in short order, the four of us were on the stairs with no trace of Labyrinth’s alterations left behind. Faultline, Spitfire, and I all removed our masks, and I quickly turned to help Labyrinth do the same.

Faultline held open her duffel long enough for me to toss our headgear in alongside theirs, then she zipped it up and we all started down to the right floor. The hotel attached to Queen’s Gambit wasn’t extraordinarily tall, but it was certainly long. There were apparently several thousand hotel rooms, but we were only interested in one.

We exited on the right floor more than halfway down the stairwell, and Faultline and Spitfire faked casual chatter for anyone who might be listening, the former far more easily than the latter. Spitfire’s costume consisted of a pocketed vest and cargo pants, both made of kevlar, with combat boots. It might raise eyebrows for being weather inappropriate and an odd style, but it wouldn’t scream parahuman. The rest of us were decked in casual attire for the moment.

Nothing to see here. Just a small family on their way to their room.

The room wasn’t far away, hence our choice in stairwell, but most importantly, it was on the side closest to the casino itself. Labyrinth wasn’t having a bad day per se—her comment up in the air meant she was still somewhat with us—but she was definitely not having a good one. The closer we were to the casino, the less time we would need to wait later.

“Here we are, girls,” Faultline announced with faux cheer when we reached the right door. She pulled out a key card, inserted it, and withdrew it. We hadn’t checked in and didn’t have a real key card from the hotel, so the light on the handle blinked red, but with some very careful manipulation on my part, Faultline pulled it open without a hitch. I had come a long way from ruining Palanquin’s bay door!

We stepped inside, and I tensed when I saw the housekeeper cart. That wasn’t good.

“Hello? Sorry, did we come in too early?” Faultline called out, flashing hand signals behind her back with one hand. I quickly shut the door, and she tossed the duffel she’d been holding in her free hand back towards us.

“Oh!” I didn’t bother to look up at the voice as I hastily knelt down to open the duffel and retrieve my scarf. “My apologies, ma’am. I was just—”

Faultline signaled with her left hand before immediately chopping at the lady’s neck. The scarf was already whipping out of my hands. It smoothly curved around Faultline’s head and smashed the lady’s head into the wall while simultaneously covering her eyes. Faultline’s strike left our unexpected obstacle gasping for breath, which kept her from crying out to alert anyone as the two of us surged forward. The shower curtain collapsed as the rod holding it up melted, flying over at my direction to bind the lady’s wrists behind her back and down to similar manacles clapped around her ankles.

“Listen very carefully,” Faultline quietly intoned, her hand tightly pressed over the woman’s mouth. “You will not be harmed any further and are not in danger. We are only binding you for our safety and security. If you comply, I will tuck $400 into your bra to compensate you for our abruptness. When you are found later and questioned, you will say we got you from behind. You didn’t see anyone.

“If this is agreeable, then nod your head.” The woman frantically nodded. It’s not like she had much choice—it was obvious we were going to do what we were going to do. Giving her money, though, that would hopefully ease any hard feelings and inclinations to try and describe whatever short glimpse she got of Faultline’s face. “Excellent. Spitfire, mask up and grab a washcloth to gag her. Meteor, mask up.”

I looked up to toss Spitfire her domino mask and couldn’t help but roll my eyes when I saw the vaguely disturbed expression on her face. Newbies.

I turned my full attention to Labyrinth as I helped her fasten her mask’s metal harness onto her head, set her full-face mask into place, and latched them together before pulling on my goggles. I then retrieved her robe and took her hand, leading her deeper into the room and passing Faultline her welder’s mask along the way. When we reached the far bed I carefully tugged her robe on and over her clothes, the relatively simple costume serving its purpose well.

“Sit,” I gently told her, and she complied without hesitation.

“Meteor, please move our friend to the other bed,” Faultline said, drawing my attention back to her. I still had some excess material from the shower rod, but I pulled apart a lamp as well to make the move more comfortable as I lifted her up from the ground and plopped her down sideways on the bed. “The eyes now.”

I pulled my mask off of her and over to me, wrapping it around my neck. The woman blinked a bit at the sudden return of light, and Faultline leaned forward with some bills in hand. She flashed them, showing four $100s, then reached in to tuck the money away as promised. “Thank you for your cooperation. I’m going to cover your eyes now.”

Soon enough we had the housekeeper fully secured, and with her eyes properly covered by something other than my mask, the three of us tucked away our costume pieces again. The clock was ticking on the job, but since Labyrinth’s power needed time to saturate the area, we didn’t rush. I took a seat next to her, slipping my hand into hers.

“Give us a sign when you can reach Gregor,” Faultline reminded Labyrinth after a few minutes had ticked by. There was no worry in her voice, no panic. Just a calm reminder that Labyrinth very well might need on such a bad day. It was another couple minutes before the carpeted floor began to bulge, twisting up into a facsimile of our teammate.

I squeezed her hand and whispered, “Stuh-ay say-fuh,” as I rose.

She squeezed her hand in reply, and I let go.

We quickly left the room after putting the ‘do not disturb’ sign into place and made our way over to the elevator. Faultline pulled out her phone as we waited for it to arrive, and when it finally dinged and the doors opened to reveal there was another family inside she beckoned us in.

“Sixteen please,” she told the man standing closest to the buttons before beginning to talk into her phone. “We’re getting onto an elevator, so I might lose you. What was that you were saying Johnson told the VP?”

She continued to chat with no one, pausing where expected and remaining aloof enough the other people in the elevator didn’t bother to interact with us. It was sometimes a little bit scary how easily she could pull off things like this. A mask that wasn’t physical, a wall between her and others that didn’t really exist. But then, there was a reason she was the boss.

The other family got off on floor seven, and Faultline continued her act until the doors had shut. The elevator didn’t stop again until we had reached sixteen, and we smoothly slipped out and made our way to the stairwell, which was much closer to the elevator than the room had been.

“Clear?” Faultline softly asked as we stepped in.

“Yes.” I had already sealed all the other doors on the upper levels.

Above us the ceiling opened up like a whale coming down to swallow us, and we carefully climbed the stairs leading us up into its waiting embrace.

“All went well?” Gregor asked as he stepped out of the shadows he had been hiding in.

“Minor nuisance. Housekeeper in the room. May have caught a glimpse of my face,” Faultline told him as I wrapped us all up in the metal I had used to bring us to the roof in the first place. “She’s secure for now, and Labyrinth is in place.”

“Understood. Unfortunate we did not have Newter.”

Our orange teammate wouldn’t really have helped the situation, since he would have been waiting up here with Gregor, but I didn’t bother saying as much. What mattered was we had handled the situation without a serious issue arising, and Newter was busy working on locating the Blinds in the sewers.

She looked to me. “When you’re ready, Meteor.”

Everyone was secure, so I wasted no time moving us over to the edge. After a brief pause to verify the pattern of lights again, I tipped us over the lip. Spitfire’s hands clamped over her mouth, but I paid her no mind as I brought us in for a safe but fast landing on the much lower roof of the casino.

Faultline was moving practically the moment her feet were on the ground. “This way,” she ordered, and the three of us moved to follow. Even Spitfire, who though she looked green, did not barf this time.

Despite some not inconsiderable effort, Faultline’s contacts had not been able to secure a blueprint to the facility within our compressed time frame for acting. Needless to say, that was not great. Fortunately, they hadn’t come up entirely empty handed. We knew the security room was apparently roughly on the east side of the facility, and we knew it was a large room with televisions almost every inch of one of the walls.

One quick trip to a TV store earlier to give Labyrinth and me a feel for it…

“Tha-ink got it,” I announced, lifting up into the air to move quicker than I could walk but staying low to the roof. I flitted to the location over what I suspected was the room and hovered there. “Up-per luh-ev-uhl.”

“Labyrinth,” Faultline said into the comms as she, Gregor, and Spitfire walked over to join me, “give us a sign when you can feel Meteor and the security room. Remember, it will be similar to the store I took you both to visit earlier.”

“Vuh-ahl-tuh.” I pointed down and to the side. “Buh-ace-ment. Deep.”

“Excellent. You all know what to do. Let’s get this done and get out.”

We all stood—well, I hovered—together while we waited for Labyrinth’s power to reach us. We could have gone in loud, and we eventually would be, but the longer we could delay the Protectorate’s arrival, the less chance there was we would actually need to fight them. Casinos, even those outside of Vegas, always had Thinkers in their employ as well, otherwise they would be out of business in no time. Normally that would have been a concern as well…

But we were professionals.

The roof nearby smoothed out, the surface shifting into smooth stone, and we all prepared ourselves.

“Labyrinth, standby. Be ready to open the roof. Meteor, when you’re ready.”

I had never understood gambling, or at least not the kind being played in the casino below us. Forking up hundreds of dollars in the hopes you might walk away with thousands while praying you didn’t go home penniless. No, the only kind of gamble I understood was the one we were making here tonight—the risk of a job. In our line of work, you needed to be skilled, talented, or both to come out ahead, and you could always stack the odds as much in your favor as you could. If you tried that at the blackjack table, you’d at best be tossed out for gaming the system. It was supposed to be luck, not skill, that won you the day, and that was fucking stupid and no game I would participate in.

Or maybe I just still had a bad taste in my mouth from the time I ate nothing but food I scavenged out of people’s trash for a month because Mom kept blowing all her money on instant lottery tickets. Equally plausible, really.

Well tonight I was going to play the system… but I was going to fuck it up with my skill.

The handles and buttons on all the coin slots went down, and all of them began spitting out coins.

“Done.”

“Labyrinth, time for silent entry.”

The smooth stone pulled apart, the edges rolling and twisting away, and we all jumped in the moment it was wide enough. Between people never looking up and the added distraction of every single coin machine paying out simultaneously on the game floor, nobody in the security room was aware we were there until Faultline, Gregor, and Spitfire had safely landed on the floor courtesy of my power.

“Everyone put your hands in the air and move against that wall!” Faultline demanded while gesturing towards the side of the room, her voice taking on an ominous quality as it passed through and around her mask.

I remained overhead, where I could see everyone and everything. The phones, walkie talkies, and weapons on everyone in the room simultaneously rose up into the air. Most of the people immediately began to comply, but not everyone. The two people who tried to make a rush for the door quickly found that the handle would not turn, and a few people tried to hurriedly type something on their keyboards only to crash together with their computers to the ground as the metal making up their desks melted. I bound the wrists of those people and the two at the door and pulled their arms up into the air just enough so just the balls of their feet touched the ground.

Gregor laid a hand on a person’s shoulder, and while I couldn’t hear what he was saying in all this tumult, I knew he was demanding—as much as a gentle giant like him could—that the man bring up a layout of the building on a nearby computer. Spitfire looked far less composed than the rest of us, but to her credit, she still reached out to grab the wrist of someone I had missed when they tried to do something with a phone in their pocket.

In the span of a couple minutes, everyone in the room except for the man Gregor had pulled aside had been corralled to one side of the room, where I built a prison around them out of what had once been their desk chairs. It seemed vaguely poetic that their work chairs had been made into a prison, but I had more important trains of thought to follow. Instead, I lowered myself to the ground to look at the computer screen the free employee was gesturing at.

“This is the G-GUI we use to activate security s-shutters,” the man stuttered out as he trembled, obviously terrified. “You can see e-everything from here.”

Gregor and Faultline leaned in together to examine the map, and rather than trying to squeeze in to look at it personally, I contented myself with keeping my attention on the quivering free employee to make sure he didn’t try to pull a fast one. As long as Faultline knew where we were going, that was all that mattered.

“So there is an elevator exclusively for vault access,” Gregor noted, rubbing idly at the shell-like growths on his chin. “This is not far away. I will take Spitfire and go now.”

“Agreed. Meteor and I will clean up here and move on. Advise when you’re at the lower level, and Meteor can disable the weapons.”

The two oldest members of our team having set our course, I unlocked the door to let Gregor and Spitfire make their way out and turned to Faultline as she snatched up some sort of walkie talkie device with an earpiece connected by a wire with a button built into it.

“Is this how you communicate with the staff on the floor?” she questioned the employee who had pulled up the map.

“Y-Yes!” he wailed, abruptly losing all composure. “Please don’t hurt me!”

She pulled the connected piece over her ear and clipped the main device onto her belt, completely ignoring the now sobbing man. “Bind him and destroy all the equipment in the room,” she ordered, laying her hand on the computer screen and cracking it in half with a flare of her power. “We don’t need anything being used against us later.”

Destruction was a very easy goal for me, especially in a room with all this technology. Computers were absolutely riddled with metals, and it was child’s play to rip all of it free and turn it into a storm of chaos that began pulverizing all the non-metal parts. Forcibly removing all the metal components probably was enough, but I let the storm rage on while I shackled the man’s wrists and ankles together like I had done to the housekeeper. I had obliterated everything in less than half a minute, leaving the ground covered in components that I swept aside to clear a path to the door for us.

“You’re never going to get away with this!” someone in the mass of people crammed into my hastily constructed prison yelled at us as we started towards the door.

Faultline pressed the button on the wire running to her ear. “Repeat that floor team? You said what’s going on down there? Our systems are going haywire up here. Only hearing some of what you’re saying.”

She didn’t deign to respond to the person who yelled at us, instead beckoning for me to follow as she moved to the exit. We slipped out the doors, and she started jogging down the hallway, her agility belying the heaviness of her gear. I took to the air and flew after her, quickly catching up and comfortably keeping pace as I used my power to check around each corner we approached for any moving metal that might indicate a person.

I had been doing my best to keep half my attention on Gregor and Spitfire, and by the time I felt the elevator they were on begin to approach the level of the vault, we had knocked out, bound, and brought hovering alongside us three people. I could feel one person in the hallway up ahead, so I quickly used some of my excess metal to spell out the message [1 ahead—handling vault]. Knowing Faultline could handle the situation, I fully turned my attention to the vault.

Only two guards? I thought as I quickly ruined the mechanisms on their pistols for turning the safety on and off, leaving them permanently on. Another minor bit of manipulation left the circuitry in their radios damaged. I expected—

Faultline surged forward into motion beside me, yanking me out of my musings. The man on the left was already crumbling to the ground, her taser’s probes crackling where they sat in his chest. A walkie talkie was clipped to his belt, and the woman next to him, who against all odds had no metal on her whatsoever, dove for it. She was already too late. Faultline’s sprint ended with her sliding in between them, her foot reaching back to touch the radio and send a flare of her power bursting through it while she grabbed the woman and flung her to the ground in a decisive grapple. The air whooshed out of the unexpected person on impact with the floor, and in one smooth movement, Faultline was on her knees next to her, twisting her up and into a sleeper hold.

“Sorry. No metal,” I quietly explained as I set about binding the first of the two while Faultline finished with the other. We then traded, so she could safely remove the taser prongs while I bound the other.

“This is why we practice more than our powers.” She brought her finger to her ear as we resumed our progress along with our floating captives. “Vault secure, Gregor?”

“Guards are incapacitated,” he replied as Faultline and I rounded the next corner, bringing our destination into view. “All clear from the door.”

“Labyrinth, make the door something easy to burn then standby to go loud.”

So far everything had been relatively quiet. The plan was for it to relatively stay that way until we were ready to bail, but this next step required us to kick it up a notch. Faultline set her hand on the sleek office door of Alexander Waters, and gave me a countdown with the other.

3… 2… 1…

She brought the hand that had been counting down to the door, and it shattered, falling inwards as the orbs I had released from my backpack swarmed into the room.

“We have your money hostage,” Faultline bellowed as we entered over the splintered remnants of the door. “If the heroes, PRT, or police arrive, we will torch everything in your vault!”

Alexander Walters slowly raised his empty hands into the air and pushed himself and his chair away from his desk using his feet. “Let’s not do anything rash.”

My eyes squinted a bit in suspicion as I take him in. I was vaguely aware of his existence when I lived here, but I hadn’t actually known what he looked like until Faultline showed us photos on the drive down. Even in candid shots, his tailored suit and well coiffed hair were impeccable, but the man in front of us was far less put together. His jacket laid on the floor nearby, his baby blue dress shirt was visibly marked with sweat spots, and his hair was rumpled, like he had been pulling at it. Couple that with his relatively calm reaction to us breaking down his door…

“You act like you expected us,” Faultline said, her thoughts and mine clearly on the same track. “You should know I don’t make threats I won’t follow through on. If you’ve called for help…”

“No authorities, no guards,” he quickly replied.

Faultline paused. “You called a Thinker. Do you know why we’re here?”

His eyes shifted to me. “A visit home, right, Jay?”