Chapter 29
I went to class the next morning in mini-me mode, slipping past all the reporters and paparazzi who paid no attention to the middle school kid walking across the college campus.
Inside the econ building, I got a few looks from students, but most were either preoccupied with their own lives or busy watching everyone who entered the building.
It would be weird for me to march into the classroom so I headed toward the professors’ offices.
Since I was early, I found Professor Chase in her office.
“Hi, Professor,” I said in my fake voice. She looked up at me, instantly bewildered. “How would you like to have an honorary nephew?” She blinked and I went on, but this time in my normal voice. “A nephew from another planet.”
Her eyes got wide until the look of realization hit. “Craig?”
“We’re working on some disguises, but they take some effort and things got hectic. So far, I just have middle school me.”
“That’s… uncanny,” she said.
“It’s fairy glamour is what it is. We—and by we, I mean Vesta—needed some instruction from an expert, but now she can whip them up.”
“Is this how you looked in middle school?”
“Yeah, I’m like twelve or thirteen here. She based it off a photograph. It’s a work in progress.”
“Well, it’s a good idea for today, but people aren’t stupid. They’ll figure it out if my nephew shows up every day.”
“Yeah. Vee’s gonna make me some others and I can switch in and out of them. We had some drama at the school but it’s behind us now.”
“I heard about a little kid beating up a frat,” she said, watching me warily.
“Beat themselves up. I just dodged around.”
“Why?”
“Why was I there? Because my mom went here and apparently got rophied at a frat party. I kinda just found myself staring at the house. They decided that I was there to steal beer kegs. Little me… by myself.”
She stared at me for a moment. “I’ve heard stories, and there have been allegations over the years.”
“Well, this is a story too. No proof. I just needed to see it. I never knew about it, and it turns out it impacted my mom’s life and mine greatly.”
“And they attacked you?”
“They attacked middle school me,” I said, waving a hand up and down. “Oh look. Class is in like a minute.”
She paused and looked at me, then sighed. “Alright. Let’s go, little nephew.”
“Thanks.”
“You are a lot of trouble, Mr. Blackmore,” she said.
“My magic teachers say the same thing, but what they really mean is that life wouldn’t be the same without me.”
I got a snort in response.
Class was fine and mini-me snuck past the cameras and drones to make it back to Arcane without incident, but my plans for homework ended as soon as I entered the school.
“There you are,” Agent Mahar said, arms crossed and brows lowered. Her intent read relief mixed with an incredible amount of anxiety.
“What’s happened?”
“She got caught. We need to pull her out,” Mahar said, grabbing my arm and pulling me to one of the ground floor meeting rooms. Halfway down the hall, she realized what she was doing and whipped around to look at her own hand where it held my forearm.
Then she lifted her eyes to me, a new kind of worry flooding her intent.
“We’ll get her out,” I said with a shrug and a smile as she let me go.
Then we were at the door and I slipped past her to find Vesta, her parents, the entire STRT team, both Velazquez women, and Jenks already inside.
Jenks had my gun gear on the conference table and I started gearing up immediately.
Omega’s avatar appeared and started the briefing without hesitation.
“Agent Jensen’s entangled comm unit pinged three times exactly seventy-two minutes ago.
Each of the three pings contained prerecorded information from Agent Jensen regarding the state of her investigation.
The third and final ping contained a message indicating she was likely caught and who was likely responsible.
In response, I queried a set of passive assets I had established in Center Portal.
They in turn triangulated Agent Jensen’s nano beacon signal.
So, I can confirm where she is, that she is still alive, and that her last message indicated she was in trouble. ”
“Can you show me?” I asked.
He did, bringing up a 3D hologram of the little city that was focused on the warehouse district.
I studied the slowly turning image for a second until I recognized a few of the buildings. “I know where that is,” I said as a blue dot representing Caeco lit up in the basement level of one of the biggest buildings. “Shenn owns most of that.”
“Which is consistent with her findings. I have determined that there are between seven and thirteen people inside that building.”
“Can you put me on the roof?” I asked Vesta’s dad.
“Sure,” he said with a nod.
“There are two access points on the roof,” Omega said.
“Three,” I corrected. “There’s a big hatch with a crane for loading and unloading skimmers. One of the doors would be best, but I can work with the hatch if necessary.”
“What’s our plan?” Agent Allen asked.
“Our plan is that Mr. O’Carroll drops me on the roof, I enter the facility, remove any hostiles, and release Agent Jensen, at which point Mr. O’Carroll pulls us back here across unimaginable distances.”
“Actually, we just fold the space so that the distance is mere feet,” Declan said.
“Sure,” I said, buckling on my gun belt and then my cross-chest holster.
My Glock clone was stoked with fifteen rounds in the mag and one in the chamber, and my dad’s Nighthawk had a ten-round mag and one in the pipe.
Extra mags for both were on my belt with a couple in my pockets.
Last, I loaded the dump pouch on the rear of my belt with hook and eye shotgun cards that each held seven rounds of twelve-gauge ammo.
My little shorty shotgun had the hook to the card’s eye on the left side of the receiver for a shot card and there was a full one in place and six rounds in the gun.
“Okay, I’m ready,” I said, feeling the fugue state start to come over me.
Vesta slipped up in front of me and pulled her necklace off, putting it over my head. “A little extra juice and so Dad can keep an eye on you.”
“As will I,” Omega said as a pair of baseball-sized drones landed on my shoulders.
“Okay. It’s taken longer to get ready than the rescue will take,” I said.
The Steward of Earth put his right index finger in the air and pulled it down toward the floor, unzipping reality. The slash in space-time split apart and I simply stepped through, my right foot getting yanked to the heavy roof by the familiar gravity of Greenacres.