“Uhhh… oh shit, hold on! Do I wear a weird mask and have breathing issues?” Katrine’s face lit up with the realisation, and Addie’s did too.

“Yes!”

“Am I Darth Vader?”

“Fucking finally!” he whooped.

Their game of 20 questions had lasted 31 questions and I was pretty sure that she thought she was Willy Wonka for seven of them. But I couldn’t blame them. It was an hour trip, and Sid had us pulling an all-nighter to get us there from 4 am. Jodie had fallen asleep and slumped on my shoulder, she was snoring and her mouth was open. Sid hadn’t looked away from the road for the entire trip, but then she never did.

“Okay. Chlo, your turn!”

“Hm?” I’d been zoned out on their conversation and didn’t realise that he was talking to me.

“Who are you?” Katrine asked again.

“Uh. Okay. Am I a disney character?”

“Nope.”

“Wait, who is she?” Addie asked.

“You can both work it out”

“Okay, are we from a book, then?” I asked.

“Yes.” Katrine adjusted her vanity mirror till she could see me, and I slumped a little in my seat. Jodie shifted and hitched herself up till her she was drooling on my shoulder, her head nestled in my neck

“Okay, so we’re from a book that Katrine’s read.” I thought aloud.

“Doesn’t narrow it down much, she has a PhD.” Addie mused.

“A book she thinks about, then?”

“Smart, okay, is it a classic then?”

“Define classic.” Katrine was having fun with this.

“Something old and famous.” I was struggling thinking back to my GCSEs.

“It’s relatively old, and it’s very famous too.” What was old and famous. Shakespeare? John Milton? Homer?

“Are we...” I tried to think of something that would narrow it down enough “Some sort of hero?”

“From a certain point of view, yes, yes you are.”

The Subaru rattled over a speedbump and I heard something shake in the boot. The guns. I took a look at Sid, she was listening now.

“Do they have a love interest?” Sid asked.

“Also depends on a certain view”

Jodie shifted again and mumbled something. I didn’t hear her, but I felt her lips move again on my shoulder.

“Okay, time periods. Are we from ancient greece?” Achilles had a love interest, didn’t he? That Helen woman, or Penelope.

“Not in the slightest.” Drat.

Jodie mumbled again and I heard something. It sounded like ‘Goat’ or ‘Quote’. What was she dreaming of?

“Are they from the 1800s, or newer?” Sid still didn’t take her eyes off the road, but she was smiling a bit.

“Still no.”

Jodie mumbled a third time, and tapped my arm

“Don Quixote.” And then a few seconds later, “Saw reading yesterday.” Don Quixote? Who was that? Something from Jane Austen, maybe? Did that count as a classic though?

“Windmills” She mumbled again, into my shoulder. Oh, him. I knew something about windmills guy.

“Are we that guy with the windmills? Don something?” I asked, after clearing my throat.

“Don Quixote, well done Chloe!” Katrine smiled at me through the vanity mirror, “Protagonist of the best selling novel of all time, The Knight Errant himself.” Jodie grunted sleepily.

“Well done, Jodie.” Sid grinned. “We’re near to the safehouse. Everyone remember the plan?” Sid cut the lights and navigated by streetlamp.

“I distract them so that they won’t notice Argus getting right up close and cutting them off from the outside world,” Addie, now Orpheus, slipped into the persona with ease, everyone’s demeanour shifted to match “When it’s out, We go two-by-two through the safehouse, find the book, and make a break for home.”

The plans always seemed so simple, so unproblematic. No complex hacking or time-sensitive gymnastics. Just break in, find what we were looking for, break out. I nudged Jodie awake, after a few groggy seconds she caught up, shook the sleep off her and straightened into Guthrie.

Panzer dropped Orpheus and Argus off behind a bush, barely stopping so they could get out unseen, and then driving away.

“If we act too suspicious, they’ll start looking for us and basically, we’ll be fucked.” Guthrie narrated, “We’ll do a couple more loops to give them time, then we go in.”

The safehouse was big, it almost seemed out of place, but warehouses like it dotted the entire country. Their uniformity made them blend in even when they stood out. There was a two-storey front area for people to eat, sleep, shit, live, but the wall opposite the entrance was shared with a corrugated iron building maybe one and a half times as high, and about the size of a football pitch. Either they were burying the book under literal tons of cover, or this was a legitimate storehouse for a legitimate company somewhere.

“Orpheus is in place, gonna go and have a nice little chat.”

“Copy, Argus is in position.”

Both of their voices lit up in my earpiece as Panzer took a left down a back alley.

I heard a knock on Orpheus’ channel

“Hey, sorry I'm late, I can give you half off your next delivery,” he said in his customary chipper tone.

“We didn’t...” A gruff voice came through. It struck me how stupid most of Orpheus’ covers were. Friendly police officer, wayward delivery boy, both more cliched than most setups for porn. Why did it work? Were people just that oblivious or was there some magical component to it all.

“Kai, did you order a pizza?” And then a moment later, “Yeah no, wrong place.”

“Oh, is this not 23 Northend?” Was that even a real address? “Shit, sorry. It’s this dumb app they make us use for night deliveries, see?”

“Mhm, yeah.” The man sounded impatient

“Like, who orders a pizza at four in the morning? It’s ridiculous. Anyway, sorry for waking you, have a nice one.”

Almost overlapping, Argus came through on comms,

“Okay, I’m in position. Give the word and everything goes dark.”

“Stand by, get somewhere safe,” Sid replied, “Orpheus, regroup and we’ll head in.”

“Copy, I’m on my way”

Orpheus got back to the car and pulled off a Deliveroo hat. “Well done us!” he said down comms, and I heard him twice. “Argus, are you safe?”

“Tiny bit sticky but nobody saw me. Everything’s patched through the internet, if I cut communications they’ll notice basically immediately, so you’ll be on-”

“A time limit.” Guthrie interrupted. “Fucking perfect,” she muttered.

“We go quiet then. Don’t cut it when we go in, but be on a hare trigger to tell Argus to pull the switch if you get spotted.” Panzer said.

“Stray, you and Guthrie take the back entrance, the one furthest from the house. Orpheus, you and I are going through the side. I have a bad feeling that we’re gonna end up in that house.”

The three of them started loading up. Panzer and Guthrie already had their weapons, Panzer was screwing a silencer onto the barrel of hers while Guthrie rooted around the glove compartment for a clip marked with a sharpie drawing of a cat. She found two, and fitted one into a second pistol, which she handed to me.

“Cat sneeze rounds. Fucking expensive, but you can fire them a foot behind someone’s head and they’d barely notice.” I hesitated, then took it. This wasn’t a training run, of course I’d need a gun. My ring was charged, but I didn’t want to rely on it. Orpheus, on the other hand, was adorning every joint with delicate metal. We could all feel the magic flowing around him, and a bead of sweat formed on Guthrie’s forehead.

“Stay behind me, and do as I say.” Guthrie whispered as we made out approach, and I didn’t argue.