Kana could speak French. James hadn’t known about that before; it hadn’t been relevant. But now it was, because Kana was talking quietly and intensely with Camille, the girl who had expressed a desire to blow up the building they were about to infiltrate. In a language James didn’t understand.

  “I’m sure it will be fine,” Amilie assured him. “Camille is too much of a professional to do anything indiscreet.”

  “Hmm.” Mitsue hummed. “How would she feel about enabling someone else to do something indiscreet?”

  “Well…” Amilie trailed off. “I’m sure it will be fine!”

  James did not feel reassured. He tried to distract himself by looking around what Gérard had called the forward base. James hadn’t known that fancy office buildings had spaces like these. The maintenance area was cramped, dirty and packed with pipes and machinery. It was empty of staff, though, and did have roof access, which were Gérard’s main critera.

  James summoned his equipment at will, so he didn’t have much to do in the way of preparation. While Amilie could summon her spear from… somewhere, she carried gear and wore lightweight tactical armour that worked like regular items. Mitsue was also making preparations, borrowing a few items from the extensive collection that Gérard had stashed up here. James had thought that Mitsue had enough knives, but he had apparently been wrong.

  The only extra bit of equipment that James was taking, he was holding in his hand. The line rider was both heavier and more complicated than he had expected. There was a clip that went over the line, two easy-grip handles, and a brake. James paid extra attention to the brake.

  “Remember to hold up your legs as you get near the building,” Mitsue told him. “Keep your knees bent and absorb the shock of the landing with them. Use the brake to control your speed so that the shock isn’t too much for you.”

  “That leaves me hanging off the side of the building, though,” James said doubtfully. “How do I get up?”

  “We’ll be going first, and you’ll be close enough to the top that we can pull you up.”

  “How are you getting up?” James asked.

  “There’s a trick to it,” Amilie said. “You’ll see how, but it isn’t something you should try on your first run. Ready to go?”

  James nodded, even if he was anything but ready.

  My armour will protect me, he told himself. Or it will turn out to have a flight mode that only activates when I plummet to my death.

  The team climbed up to the roof of the building through the maintenance hatch. Kana and Harue went with them, even if they wouldn’t be immediately following.

  Camille was waiting for them, next to something that James could only think of as an apparatus. At the core of it was something that looked like what he’d been told it was: a grapnel gun. He could see the tube and a drum of what must be tightly coiled wire. There was more to it than that, though. The whole thing was wrapped in a steel frame that was bolted to the rooftop. There was a sniper scope, and motors and wires all connected to the laptop that Camille was poking at.

  “I think we’ve got our firing solution,” Camille announced, adjusting her beret. “Are we ready to go?”

  “Not quite,” Gérard said. “Communications.”

  He pulled out a small box that turned out to contain earpieces when he opened it. Mitsue took one and put it on. So did James.

  “Gah, you’re always trying to manage me!” Amilie protested. Gérard rolled his eyes.

  “Did you forget the first stage of the plan? Where you get us access to the security cameras and we find the objectives? Were you just planning to fight your way down to the eighth floor?”

  “Well…” Amilie mumbled. “I mean…”

  “Take the piece,” Gérard commanded. “You do have the stealth node, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Mom,” Amilie said, but Gerard glared at her until she pulled the small box out of her vest.

  “Fine. Make sure she uses it,” he told Mitsue.

  “Now, are we ready?” Camille asked impatiently. When everybody nodded, she turned back to the apparatus.

  “Do we need a countdown? Non. Everything is perfect.” She pushed a key on her laptop.

  James had expected it to be louder. He had been told it wouldn’t be too loud. There were still people in the building after all, if not anywhere near where they were. Something about Camille had led him to believe that “controlled explosion” and “suppressed reverberations” had just been euphemisms.

  But it was supressed. The harpoon-like grapnel was launched with a muffled crump that belied the speed at which it left the launcher. The line whirred out behind it for a few seconds and then stopped.

  “Perfect, always,” Camile declared. Amilie gave her a suspicious look but hooked the line with the end of a long metal pole. Bracing it against the roof, she held up the line as it tightened, wound by the apparatus under Camille’s control.

  Camille didn’t stop until the line was tight, stretching from the top of the pole to the target building. Amilie gave it a final tug and nodded, satisfied.

  “Let’s go,” she said without ceremony. Causing her spear to appear, she laid it across the wire, held it with both hands, and jumped, letting the spear take her weight as she slid down the wire.

  “Nice form,” Mitsue commented as he helped James attach his line rider. “Remember the brake, lift your legs. Try not to scream. Wait until I’m out of sight.”

  James swallowed and nodded. Amilie was already out of sight.

  “We’re rooting for you!” Harue put in.

  “Yeah, right. Which of you bet on me falling?”

  “Kana isn’t ready for betting yet,” Harue told him. “Anything that requires her to pay out money takes a lot of explanation.”

  “And?”

  “And Gérard wouldn’t take my money!” Harue exclaimed. “He said it was bad luck!”

  Gérard grunted. Mitsue clapped James on the back.

  “See you soon,” he said and jumped off. He used one of his daggers to hold the wire—one of the weirdly blunt ones.

  Then it was James’s turn. He clutched the handles of the rider.

  Remember the brake, he told himself. Then he jumped.

  The armour appeared about halfway through. He hadn’t meant to trigger it; he thought that it might make it harder to operate the brake. The fear and adrenaline pumping through his system must have convinced it he was in mortal danger… he couldn’t say it was wrong.

  The ride was over quickly, though. James had barely had a chance to clear his eyes from the green flash before the building was right in front of him, approaching rapidly. He pulled his legs up and pulled on the brake. Which bent under his grip.

  James’s eyes widened, but that was all he had time for before the building was right in front of him. He winced and clutched at the line rider, hoping it wouldn’t break.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  He felt the impact of the wall, but the strength of his armour-clad legs held up. He actually bounced a little. Then Mitsue and Amilie were leaning down, hauling him up by his arms.

  “Not bad, for your first time,” Mitsue said. Amilie didn’t say anything, but looked curiously at his green armour.

  It took James a moment to convince himself that he was on solid ground—well, a solid rooftop—again. Then he followed the other two towards the giant… golden… door.

  “Is that normal?” he whispered. His earpiece must have picked it up, because Amilie answered in an equally quiet voice.

  “This roof isn’t for helicopters to land on,” she said. “When the top executives come to visit… they are dragons after all.”

  “They can take human form, can’t they?” James asked, looking at the golden—golden paint, surely—double doors in front of him. They were twelve feet high, covered by a double-height extension to the building that took up about a quarter of the roof.

  “They do not wish to lower themselves,” Mitsue said thoughtfully. “They come to this building as rulers, in their true form, so that their minions can tremble in fear and awe.”

  “That sounds about right,” Amilie agreed. “Arrogant to a fault.”

  “Arrogance leads to failure,” Mitsue said, examining the door mechanism. “I suppose that, when they arrive through this door, they do not wish to be bothered with trivialities like keys. This can barely be called secure.”

  He thrust a thin dagger into the door frame and released a hidden panel. A few twisted wires later, and the door slid open silently.

  “Are there at least hidden cameras?” he complained. “I don’t see any.”

  “They don’t want the peons looking at them,” Amilie guessed. “And if any of the footage of them leaked, it would be one more thing to cover up.”

  “I suppose,” Mitsue allowed. He led them slowly down the giant twisting staircase, casting glances in every direction. No sounds came from below, but there was a dim, red light.

  When they got to the next floor, it was even more ostentatiously gaudy. It looked like they’d opened up the entire floor—which was twice the normal height—into one large open area. The floor was shiny white marble. Two rows of columns, decorated in gold, red marble and glittering gems, ran down the sides of the room. The light came from the eyes of the ornamental dragon heads, four to each column, that looked down disdainfully from about six feet above their heads.

  At the far end of the building squatted the largest desk that James had ever seen, in fiction or real life. From this distance, and in the dim light, James couldn’t make out what it was made of, but it was dark and elaborately carved.

  “That’s where the network connection will be,” Amilie said. “It’s always under the desk.”

  She strode forward, leaving James and Mitsue to follow after at a slower pace, taking in the sights. By the time they got to the desk, Amilie had disappeared under it.

  “Found it!” she announced. “You should be good to go, Luc.”

  “Acknowledged.” The voice came over their earpieces. Luc hadn’t spoken much since their introduction, but the harsh drawl in his ears could only come from the chain-smoking hacker.

  “I see it,” Luc continued. “Accessing network… give me a moment.”

  “Should we go through the desk drawers?” Amilie asked.

  “Stick to the mission, brat,” Gérard answered.

  “There might be keys or something,” Amilie tried. Ignoring Gérard, she started quietly opening drawers anyway.

  “I don’t think they spend much time here,” Mitsue speculated, looking over her shoulder. Most of the drawers were indeed empty. There was a folder of documents—in Chinese. Some suspicious-looking bones…

  Amilie stopped when she got to the drawer that held a withered hand.

  “I think that’s enough,” she said, looking down at it. She shut the drawer without another word.

  “Okay, I’ve got the video feeds,” Luc drawled. “No cameras on the top floor, for some reason.”

  “Too bad, you’re missing out,” Amilie said absently. “What do you think—” she pointed at the offending drawer— “that was for?”

  “A ritual?” Mitsue suggested. “A snack?”

  Amilie shuddered.

  “So what are we looking for?” Luc continued, oblivious.

  “Some kind of big, glowing circle,” Harue said. “I mean, it might not be glowing, but the amount of power they’re running through it, it oughta be.”

  “Sure, sure,” Luc muttered. “Why not? Ah, is this it?”

  “I don’t think so…” Harue murmured. “It’s not glowing, and those don’t look like protection sigils…”

  “You don’t think? I thought you were supposed to be the expert!”

  “Human magic isn’t really my thing,” Harue confessed. “But that doesn’t look active. Keep looking.”

  “Fine… how about this? Kinda crazy that they’re wasting two rooms on giant circles.”

  “That looks more like it… and it’s glowing, see?”

  “Barely. Okay, chickadees, looks like your target is on level seven.”

  “That’s… awkward,” Amilie said. “It would be easier to just go straight to level eight.”

  “Cause you can find the safe without me, and you can crack the safe without me,” Harue said.

  “She was just gonna smash everything until she found it,” Luc said. “And then smash the safe until it lets her in.”

  “I wasn’t… necessarily planning on that!” Amilie protested.

  “For what it’s worth, I can’t easily make out where they’ve put it,” Luc said. “That floor is a maze of cubicles and load-bearing walls. And I’m not seeing a vault on the security system.”

  “There… should at least be a status monitor, or an internal camera,” Mitsue suggested.

  “There should,” Luc agreed. “So I’m thinking that there is, but it’s on a separate network. Didn’t see a second connection under the desk, did you?”

  “No,” Amilie said sullenly. “I guess we can sneak past floor eight to get to seven. Can we use the elevator?”

  “I can spoof the camera feeds in there, no problem. What does your training say about that, though?”

  Amilie sighed. “Don’t.”

  “Exactly. Take the stairs, I’ve already looped the cameras.”

  “Fine.”

  “Where are the stairs?” James asked. The big staircase hadn’t gone down further than this.

  “They’re behind the big stairs,” Mitsue said. “At least, that’s where they should be.”

  This proved to be correct. There was room, behind and under the big staircase, for an elevator, a normal, human stairwell, and some storage space with cabinets and a fridge. Amilie did not check the fridge. She looked at the elevator and sighed. Then she opened the stairwell door.

  “Stairs aren’t at all exciting,” she complained.

  James had wondered if they’d know how far to go down, but the floors were clearly labelled with kanji. Well, the floor they were on was labelled as “heaven”, but the rest of them just had numbers.

  Mitsue did something to disable the lock, in case they had to come back this way. Then he tapped Amilie on the shoulder to get her attention and put his finger over his mouth. She grimaced and nodded.

  The three of them made their way carefully down the stairwell. Mitsue was silent, Amilie and James managed to achieve quiet.

  They went down three floors without incident. When they got to the eighth floor, Amilie cast a longing glance at the door, but crept past to join Mitsue. They all went down one more floor.

  “I can’t see anyone working on that level,” Luc’s voice crackled in James’s ear, causing him to jump in surprise. “It doesn’t look like an office floor, it’s all… meeting rooms? And creepy ritual sacrifice rooms.”

  Mitsue didn’t say anything—and made the shushing gesture at James and Amilie again—but he gave a thumbs up to the nearby camera to let Luc know he’d been heard. Then he carefully opened the door.

  James hadn’t thought that a heavy fire escape door could be opened quietly, but Mitsue managed it. He eased it open, giving them a look at what was beyond.

  It was… dim. Not dark, the emergency lighting—every fifth fluorescent fixture— was on, but it was dark enough that light spilled in from the stairwell, making it obvious that the door had been opened.

  Nothing moved. Ahead of them stretched a long, wide passageway, carpeted and trimmed with corporate-looking embellishments. Doors, too widely spaced to belong to offices, were spaced evenly along each side.

  “You want the fourth door on the right,” Luc said in James’s ear. Mitsue nodded and led them forward.

  James never heard the sound that caused Mitsue to drop to the floor, twisting as he fell to face James. Amilie was a fraction of a second slower, whirling around and cursing as a dart hissed past her neck, leaving a trail of blood.

  James was still standing there stupidly when two darts hit him in the neck. His attackers had aimed for the joints, but his armour was not defeated so easily.

  His armour looked like it had joints, but they were filled with an invisible… force… thing, that was every bit as effective at blocking damage as the visible plates. The darts thudded into that energy and then fell to the floor. Last to the party, James turned around.

  Shadows rushed towards him. Four figures, clad in the same black—don’t call them pyjamas— that Mitsue favoured. Hooded masks covered half their faces, and they carried short, straight swords.

  That was all James had time for before they were on him. He hadn’t summoned his sword, and consciously refrained from doing so now. The corridor was wide enough for three people to walk side-by-side, but it wasn’t big enough for them to fight side-by-side. Especially when one of the people was Amilie, fighting with a spear that took up all of the room.

  Amilie wasn’t letting that stop her, slashing and thrusting with wild abandon. It was only the fact that James hadn’t been hit, yet, that made him think she knew what she was doing. Swinging his own weapon around seemed like it would get him into trouble. Plus, he’d lost track of which of the black shadows jumping around was Mitsue.

  Instead, he swung his fist at the ninja who was thrusting a sword at him. The armour made him stronger and faster, so it should work…

  The armour didn’t make him more skilled, though. The ninja twisted away from the blow. His mouth was visible underneath the mask, so James could see that the man was sneering. The sword, which James had been moving away from, suddenly reoriented and slashed at his neck. James didn’t have time to move; the blade—stopped.

  James felt the weight of the blow, but his armour stopped the sword dead. The ninja froze in surprise, which gave James the chance to grab his arm.

  Now his speed and strength did come into play. He pulled at the arm, stepping back to let the ninja topple. The man twisted desperately, but James still had a hold of him. It was very, very easy to bring his foot up in a kick, just like he’d learned on the sports field.

  James wasn’t aiming for the groin, but it didn’t matter much. His foot landed in the man’s stomach, and he folded up and flew across the corridor. He didn’t get up when he landed.

  James looked around, but the fight was already over.