The Gate of Tears, Episode 31

Jack Schulyer ~ 4–23–2029, 9:23 AM MST

Jack Schuyler stands in front of the projected image of a PowerPoint slide, staring at a conference room full of his subordinates. He can’t see any of their faces against the glare of the projector, not that he particularly needs or cares to.

“So, in conclusion, if you want to submit preliminary lab results, we’re going to ask you to start using the ‘Preliminary Findings Template’, which is labeled ‘Findings-P-0.5.1’ on the templates section of the intranet portal. Final reports should still use the ‘Final Findings Template’, which is still at its old location, but you’ll need my signature or Mr. Vemulakonda’s signature prior to submitting that report. If you’re a contractor, though, you should submit your reports through your lab supervisor or Mrs. Nesbit. Questions?”

A hand goes up in the back of the room. Jack squints against the glare. “Yes. Suresh, right?”

“Yes, sir, Dr. Schulyer, could you please go over the policy for requests for deadline extensions on DIVE system tests?” an Indian-accented voice asks.

Jack sighs and closes his eyes. “Yeah. Okay…”

After the meeting wraps up, his secretary, Sally, catches him in the hallway.

“Okay, so that ran a little long, so we’ve got you on a later flight — ” she begins.

“Is there a layover?” he interrupts.

“Yes, three hours, in Oklahoma City.”

“Goddamn it.” Jack exhales. He pulls his flask out of his pocket and unscrews the cap.

“You’ll be meeting with Senators Lowry, Henderson and Price this time — ”

“Just make sure I get name cards loaded onto my Avatar before I leave. Last time I got out there and there was some asshole from the DoD who I’d never met. It was… really awkward.” He takes a swig from the flask.

“Okay.” The fingers of her left hand flicker as she takes a note. “Do you want to go over your talking points before you leave?”

“Naw.” He takes another swig. “Who the hell cares?”

#

Mae-Ying Allen ~ 4–24–2029, 7:11 PM EST

Consultation with Raskoph and Benny leads Mae-Ying to the conclusion that Throwing into Washington again is going to be too risky. A large group traveling through the Wild, with both Ria and Bryana, will attract the notice of spirits, many of which will either report their presence to the Light Keepers, or could be bribed to do so. Mae-Ying finds herself wondering, briefly, what kind of bribe a spirit would even want.

Instead, they take a commercial flight into Dulles, travelling in three groups. Mae-Ying goes with Niva. Mae-Ying Cloaks as an ex-boyfriend of hers: tall, white, scrawny and a little seedy looking, with brown hair and eyes. Niva is Cloaked as a plump and classically British woman, middle-aged, with black hair and pock-marked cheeks.

They coalesce at one of the few safe houses the Knights keep in the United States at this point. The place looks like a model home. It’s just after 10 PM when the final group, comprised of Ria and Bryana, arrives. Benny shows up at the same time, having split off to recover a weapons cache Marshal Reed’s people have left in a storage unit a few miles away. Mae-Ying gets the front door for them. As Bryana walks in, Mae-Ying hears her saying, “ — just, like, if you didn’t look so freaking sketchy all the time, it probably wouldn’t have happened!”

“What wouldn’t have happened?” Mae-Ying asks.

“Ria got in trou — “ Bryana begins.

Ria puts a hand over Bryana’s mouth. “Security got frisky with me at customs.”

“Ah.” Mae-Ying frowns.

“It won’t be a problem,” Ria says.

Mae-Ying cocks an eyebrow. “Are you certain?”

“Are we going to commit any major crimes where my face will be recorded?” Ria asks.

“Well, you know. Kidnapping?” Mae-Ying’s grimace deepens. “Do we need to buy you a ski mask?”

“The plan is most of us won’t be seen for that, right?” Jeb asks.

“If everything goes well,” Mae-Ying says.

“So let’s have it go well,” Ria says.

Bryana, whose face is still being gripped by Ria, is turning a little red.

“I think you might be doing some serious damage?” Mae-Ying wrinkles her nose.

“I can only hope,” Ria says,

“Release her, Lord Ria,” Mae-Ying commands.

Ria lets go of Bryana’s face. Bryana inhales. “Oh my god, freaking gorilla hands!”

“Doesn’t that line mean you’re going to blow up with the Death Star now?” Jeb asks Mae-Ying.

“What is a death star?” Niva asks.

“It’s a space station,” Mae-Ying says, “From a series of movies my dad is obsessed with.”

Ria walks through the room to deposit her luggage in one of the bedrooms.

“Oh.” Niva contemplates for a moment. “I should like to go to space some time.”

“I always thought I might like it, but then I found out that you basically have to pee into this vacuum tube thing…” Mae-Ying shakes her head.

“Ew, gross!” Bryana says.

Mae-Ying’s Avatar registers a text from one of their burner phones: here. Mae-Ying opens the door again, allowing Benny and a very large duffel bag into the house.

“Everything go okay on your end?” Mae-Ying asks.

“So far, so good.” Benny deposits the big bag of guns on the kitchen table next to a stack of pizzas.

“Anyone need anything before we get the show on the road tomorrow?” Mae-Ying asks.

“I was thinking about that whole ski mask thing?” Bryana says.

“Yea, because nothing says ‘low profile’ like a ski mask,” Jeb says.

“So, like, you guys want me to just shut down every security camera in five blocks, right?” Bryana asks.

“Yes!” Mae-Ying says.

Bryana nods and sits down. She gets a glazed over look in her eyes and her aura flashes, wisps of it flowing across her body and into her chest, where her Avatar is implanted.

“Not yet!” Benny snaps.

“Noooooo, really?” Bryana mimes a dopey voice, then snaps back, ”I have to hijack them ahead of time!”

Mae-Ying sighs. “Oh. Good. Okay.”

“Jeez…not an idiot…” Bryana rolls her eyes.

“Does it ever concern you that so many people mistake you for one?” Ria asks as she returns to the room.

“It used to, but then I remembered I can just call up my bank account balance and feel better.” Bryana smiles at Ria.

Niva flips through channels on the TV, refusing to settle on anything. Benny sits down at the table and starts filling magazines — at least, Mae-Ying thinks that’s the term for the slidey parts of guns that hold the bullets. Mae-Ying drinks water and pretends to be calm. She can’t help but feel anxious over the fact that Raskoph is back in Manchester. Niva glances over at her; her expression is hopeful, but uncertain. Mae-Ying tries to smile at her, knowing Niva can feel her anxiety, and knowing there’s nothing she can do about that.

#

The next day, Mae-Ying and Niva watch through binoculars as Benny rams his car into the back of the cab Dr. Jack Schulyer is taking on his way back to his hotel from Capitol Hill. As Schulyer emerges from the cab, Mae-Ying notes a clear, sky blue aura around him. He has greying blond hair and blue-grey eyes. He’s tall, thin, and absurdly good looking for someone she expected to be a nerd, the kind of guy who looks better with a few wrinkles on his face.

Niva clears her throat. “Well. Now we know he is an Initiate.”

“This was a great plan!” Mae-Ying chirps.

Schulyer seems to take the collision in stride. He walks up onto the curb; through her binoculars, Mae-Ying can see him twitching his fingers, using an Avatar to call for another cab. Mae-Ying idly wonders what kind of Initiate he is. If Niva wasn’t here, she’d take the opportunity to check out his ass from a distance.

As soon as she thinks about it, she hears Niva sigh theatrically. Mae-Ying keeps the binoculars up to hide her reddening face.

#

Two hours later, they regroup at a restaurant a couple of blocks from Schulyer’s hotel. Mae-Ying, Niva, Jeb, Melina and Bryana sit in a booth. Ria and Benny are in a car parked on the curb, keeping watch.

Mae-Ying opens the discussion. “So he’s an Initiate for sure.”

“It makes no difference, as long as he likes women,” Melina says.

Niva frowns at her. “It will make a difference if he’s a Judge. Do not answer any questions directly — “

Melina glares back at Niva. “Yes, thank you, I’ve done this before.”

“Even if he’s a Judge, he can’t have been one that long, given his birthdate and, uh, appearance,” Jeb says. “Hopefully things will work out…”

“They will work out fine,” Melina says, “We will get him into the van and you all will do your things and I will have a cigarette.”

Something about Melina’s casual, cocksure attitude bothers Mae-Ying. She looks around the table, trying to get a sense of how the others feel. Only Niva looks truly nervous; well, the plan was her idea, so that makes sense.

“Does anyone else have any concerns?” Mae-Ying asks.

Bryana, who is slightly distracted, shakes her head. “I don’t… think so? The local security stuff isn’t a problem…”

“What about things he has on his person?” Niva asks.

“I don’t know yet,” Bryana says.

Niva nods. She breathes in and out and then takes a sip of coke. Niva’s sugary drink consumption has spiked markedly since Japan.

“I assume there’s no way to know until we’re in it,” Mae-Ying says.

Bryana shrugs. “Well, if I feel like he’s carrying a bomb I’ll try and scream or something.”

Mae-Ying nods. “Okay.”

#

Jack Schuyler ~ 4–24–2029, 5:41 PM EST

Jack finally makes it back to his hotel, tired and aching for a drink. As he makes his way towards the elevator, something collides with his arm, nearly sending him sprawling.

“Oh my god!” a feminine voice says. “Oh my god, I am so sorry!”

Jack looks over. A woman is standing next to him, hand against her chest. She laughs and shakes her head. Instinctively, Jack reaches towards her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine! I was just paying attention to my glasses and I didn’t even see you!” She laughs again.

She has a lovely laugh. She’s lovely in general, Jack notices: long, glossy black hair and a peach complexion, large, dark eyes…

“It’s fine,” Jack says, grinning. “I do it all the time.”

She makes eye contact. Her gaze is slightly hesitant, but she asks anyway, “Can I buy you a drink?”

Jack manages a nonchalant shrug. “Sure.”

She smirks at him and lifts her eyebrows, then turns towards the bar.

#

Mae-Ying Allen ~ 4–24–2029, 8:57 PM EST

Mae-Ying sits in the back of the van, staring at a partially unconscious and entirely incoherent Jack Schulyer. He’s been like this for a few hours. She glances at her watch, sighs, and looks at Jeb.

“I don’t, uh. I don’t have any new information for you,” Jeb says.

“We don’t have an anti-roofie drug or something?” Mae-Ying’s voice rumbles unfamiliarly in her ear. She’s Cloaked as a TA whose class she hated in undergrad. The years haven’t been kind to the man. He looks like a walrus now.

“We do. I have given it to him. We are waiting for it to take effect.” Jeb stops as their prisoner groans and tries to lift his head. “Oh! Good sign.”

Niva and Benny, sitting with her, look up expectantly as Schulyer raises his head and blinks at them.

“Wha… where….” He swallows, perhaps realizing he’s in the back of a van with four strangers.

“Dr. Schulyer, we’d like to ask you some questions,” Mae-Ying rumbles. “If you remain calm and cooperate everything will be fine.”

“Who are you?” Schulyer asks.

“We’re a concerned group of citizens,” she replies. “Concerned about Synesis.”

Schulyer’s expression goes cold. “I see,” he says, somehow managing not to slur his words. “You can tell your boss that I already said I have no interest in helping him. He can’t intimidate me.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.” Mae-Ying pretends to glance at her glasses, then asks. “What is Project Orpheus?”

Schulyer stares at her.

“What about Project Ophelia?” she asks. “You know what that is?”

Schulyer is silent, but he blinks slowly, and his expression twitches a little. Niva, standing behind him, shakes her head. He doesn’t know.

“You don’t.” Mae-Ying leans back, folds her arms over her broad, flat chest, and stares at him for a moment. “Dr. Schulyer, I’m an optimist, and I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt before I start threatening you. How would you feel if I told you the people you work for used a civilian population as a test population for a bioweapon?”

Schulyer looks uncertain. He finally speaks, “I’d tell you to prove it.”

Mae-Ying looks at Niva, who sidles up to the seat Schulyer’s strapped into and holds up a datapad for him, showing him the picture of the SAS subject in Africa.

“This is Cote d’Ivoire,” Mae-Ying says, “It was reported as an ebola outbreak.”

Schulyer stares. His eyes widen and his mouth tightens.

“Fifteen hundred people died — that’s over eighty percent of the infected,” Mae-Ying says, “The rest turned into these.”

Schulyer finally manages to formulate a response. “This is awful, but what does it have to do with Synesis?”

“This is one of their flagship programs they’ve been selling on Capitol Hill.” Mae-Ying arches an eyebrow. “What do they have you out here selling?”

He looks uncertain, but he shakes his head. “You could have manufactured this.”

“What do you think?” she asks.

Schulyer stares at the back of the van. His gaze loses focus and he swallows heavily. “Oh my god…”

Schulyer turns his head and Jeb, in some sudden burst of medical intuition, shoves an empty bag under his mouth. Mae-Ying nods approvingly.

When Schulyer stops puking he stares at the floor for a long moment. “How long has this been going on?”

“I can’t say,” she says. “At least four years.”

His jaw tightens and he looks at her. “Can I get my hands free?”

“Why?” she asks.

“They’re getting a little numb, and I’d like to wipe my mouth,” Schulyer says. “I’m not going to run. I’m not good enough at Throwing to try.”

Mae-Ying frowns. She considers the matter for a moment. If he does try to Throw, she’s fairly sure she can follow him. “All right. First tell me what Orpheus is.”.

“It’s a variety of sub-projects with the general mission of interacting with the spirits of the dead.” Schulyer inhales. “I don’t have full knowledge of every detail, but…”

She nods at Benny, who gives her a look. Still, he cuts the zip ties binding Schulyer’s hands behind him.

“Thanks,” Schulyer says.

“What’s under your purview in Orpheus?” Mae-Ying asks.

Schulyer wipes his mouth, then rubs his wrists. “I’m the lead engineer on the DIVE system — it stands for Directed Incorporeal Vector Engine. We’re trying to send people — living people — into the… I guess you could say the dimension where dead people go.”

“Why?” Mae-Ying asks. “To what end?”

Schulyer laughs. “Do you know how many parents forget to tell their kids the code to a safe, or where their safe deposit box was? The potential for the interrogation of the recently deceased is huge.”

“Have any success so far?” Mae-Ying asks.

Schulyer pauses. “Some mixed success. It turns out most people… change, I guess. Or maybe only a part of them goes to the plane we’ve been able to access. The initial monetization stream the suits came up with was post-life reunions, selling kids seance time. There’s a reason that shit never worked before we came along, though. Our first customers haven’t been incredibly happy with the product.”

“Describe the change,” Mae-Ying says.

“So, for starters, the vast majority of them aren’t even coherent. You get fragments of words, maybe repeated phrases. For the ones that are, uh, more there, they’re — bad.” Schulyer pauses, considering, then says, “It’s like they lose some essential part of themselves and what’s left over is just… emotion. Usually negative emotion, for the ones that are easiest to contact.”

“Has your contact with the dead been limited to this other plane?” Mae-Ying asks.

“No,” Schulyer says. “In the last six months, a few other teams have been formed to deal with spectral manifestation in the corporeal world. We have systems that can be used to, uh… persuade these spirits. Once we knew they weren’t fully human, the ethics board cleared that.” He pauses, then snorts. “Although I guess I should be surprised they resisted until that point…”

“Persuade spirits how?” Mae-Ying asks.

“They apparently suffer high levels of agitation when exposed to concentrated antiproton beams, or manifestations of specifically-attuned orderly Logos gists,” Schulyer says. “Things similar to banishing, but without a Judge’s intervention.”

Mae-Ying doesn’t know what a ‘gist’ is, but, given context, she feels like she gets the gist. “What are you trying to get them to do?”

“This isn’t my team,” Schulyer stresses. “I only work with DIVE. I’m not comfortable with experimenting on these entities.”

“No, you just develop the hardware that lets other people do it.” Jeb’s tone is cold, almost scathing, and Mae-Ying forces herself not to glance at him.

Schulyer grimaces. “I didn’t know — I didn’t know about the Ebola thing. I don’t know anything about the other R&D projects. Even within Orpheus, we’re not encouraged to ask questions about what the other systems do or what they’re working on.”

Mae-Ying clears her throat. “Let’s return to how the company is going to try to use these technologies?”

“Look… okay, you have to understand, there’s several stages to this,” Schulyer says, “You don’t get to the applied, productized engineering team until after something’s been proven to be workable. DIVE only just reached that phase. With the high-energy team, I don’t know if they’ve decided on why they’d want to do this to these entities. They’re just seeing what they can do.”

Jeb laughs. “Awesome. Science to see if you can. That always goes well.”

“Do you have access to the files of other teams?” Benny asks. “Their records?”

Schulyer thinks for a moment. “Yes. But I’m not prepared to do that, not until I know who you are and what you’re trying to do.”

Benny glances at Mae-Ying, then tells Schulyer, “I didn’t ask if you’d be willing to do it. I want to know what you have access to. In detail.”

Schulyer inhales. “With… without any special requisitioning, I could get vision into most of the systems being developed under Orpheus. For those systems that cross departmental lines, I’d have to request special access. And I’d have to have a reason.”

“Can you get into the Synesis system remotely?” Benny asks.

Schulyer nods. “Via VPN. Why?”

Benny looks at Mae-Ying again. “No reason.”

“Dr. Schulyer, I can’t tell you who we are. You work for Synesis and you have a shitty poker face,” Mae-Ying folds her arms. “I think what we want to do is pretty clear.”

Schulyer swallows. “So what happens next?”

“How does this sound: we take you to a secure location where a technician can get us access to these files,” Mae-Ying says, “After that, we’ll discuss your options.”

Schulyer goes pale, but he nods. “I guess I don’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter…”

“You’re about to have a whole lot of choices, don’t worry,” Mae-Ying says. This last bit seems less consoling to him than she intended, based on his expression.

#

They return to the safe house with a blindfolded Jack Schulyer. Mae-Ying sits with him in the basement as Melina retrieves his laptop.

“I knew things were off at Synesis,” Schulyer says. You try to ignore the signs, but…”

“I get it. I have no room to judge you for that.”

He looks down. He’s sweating. “Sometimes people would leave the company very suddenly. Their stuff would just be gone one morning. One time isn’t that weird, but when it happens six, seven times, you start to wonder…”

Mae-Ying removes Schulyer’s blindfold. “They’ve had a lot of people disappeared.”

“There was this, uh, intern. Her name was Ellie. She’s the one when I started to wonder.”

“Why’s that?”

“She had a dog. A mutt, a collie mix. His name’s Max. We got to know each other, and she’d ask me to dog-sit every time she was going out of town. One day she just didn’t show up to work. Three days later, I got a call from my cleaning lady. She said this dog had showed up at the door to my house and wouldn’t leave.” Schulyer pauses. “It was Max. I tried to write it off as… I dunno, people do weird things sometimes, have lives you don’t know about. Maybe she was into drugs or something… But she always told me when she’d be out of town. She loved that damn dog so much…”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Schulyer,” Mae-Ying says.

Schulyer looks up at the ceiling. “God, I’ve been such an idiot. God damn it.”

“Your cooperation is going to go a long way.”

Melina comes sauntering in. Schulyer looks over at her. He grimaces. “Oh. Hello.”

Melina smiles. “Hello. I have your computer.” She places the laptop bag in his lap.

“Thank you,” Mae-Ying says.

“You need anything else?” Melina asks.

“Not right now,” Mae-Ying says. Melina nods and saunters back upstairs. Schulyer stares at her hips and ass as she leaves.

Schulyer finally unzips the laptop bag. “She’s, uh, she’s very talented. I’m, uh, assuming she’s a she? Under the Cloak, I mean.”

Mae-Ying’s smirks. “She knows her way around.”

Schulyer pops open the laptop and logs in. Mae-Ying takes the computer from him for a moment and connects to Bryana’s wireless router. She hands it back as Bryana takes control of the machine.

Schulyer pauses. “Uh… I think someone just hijacked the computer?”

“That’s our technician.”

“O-oh.”

“Well, they’re still using ARM hardware, so this shouldn’t be too tough…” Bryana speaks to Mae-Ying over the tiny bluetooth speaker in her glasses. “Let’s play.”

Schulyer’s computer starts to make that ‘taking flight’ fan noise that laptops do when someone puts them to serious work. Schulyer stares at the screen, dumbfounded.

“She also knows her way around,” Mae-Ying says.

Jack looks up at Mae-Ying, squinting. “Are you a member of one of the Argonaut splinter functions?”

Mae-Ying smiles at him. “You’re a decent guy. I don’t want you to get screwed over. You ever think about switching teams?”

Schulyer stares at the screen. “You are, aren’t you? She’s trying every exploit that got patched last year…”

“I can’t say.” Mae-Ying maintains a carefully neutral expression.

Schulyer blinks. “And one I didn’t know about…”

“God, they’re such nerds…” Bryana snorts. “I swear to god, you tell them like nine times ‘do not leave backdoors in production code’ and then some asshole has to leave his hilarious transport-layer exploit in. Why even have access control tokens…”

Schulyer stares at the screen. “Jesus Christ…”

Mae-Ying glances back at the screen. Bryana has some kind of file system explorer that Mae-Ying doesn’t recognize open. There are a lot of cryptic directories, but she’s drilled down to ‘TEAM_STORAGE’. Underneath are five subdirectories: TCE, PRD, ERD, PLED, and COI. Bryana moves the mouse cursor and clicks on TCE and a bunch of files and other subdirectories show up. Mae-Ying silently vows not to make fun of Bryana ever again.

As Mae-Ying watches, Bryana copies dozens and dozens of folders. One of them is labeled ‘ ‘Maelstrom Timelines and Milestones.’ She moves onto PRD. Mae-Ying spies a file named ‘Pathogen Research Division — Q2FY29 Update’. She fights not to drool on herself.

Bryana’s rampage proceeds thus through each of the major folders. She’s downloading a huge amount of data; even Mae-Ying’s rudimentary knowledge of how the internet works tells her the download speeds Bryana’s achieving should not be possible.

Bryana’s reached her ninth gigabyte of data when a small instant message window pops up. Bryana dismisses it before Mae-Ying can read it. Another one pops up. This one is labeled ‘Vemulakonda, Shrinivas’ and reads What are you doing?

Dismissing the message again, Bryana opens a command line terminal and starts rapid firing commands faster than any human could actually type. These in turn spawn other windows which appear to be doing many things.

The Vemulakonda message window pops up again, reading Who is this? Where did you get this computer?

“Ugh! Creeper! Go away!” Bryana snaps. She minimizes it again. “Okay, wow, they’re starting to fight back kind of hardcore…”

The terminal windows start reading some variant of ‘process terminated’ or ‘insufficient privileges’.

“Be careful,” Mae-Ying says.

“Is… everything all right?” Schulyer asks.

“No,” Mae-Ying says. “We might be about done.”

“Fuck! Me!” Bryana shouts, audible through both Mae-Ying’s glasses and the ceiling. “They’ve shut me out of some processes. They might have a location on the laptop’s GPS. Should I break off?”

“Yes,” Mae-Ying says. “Break off.”

Bryana’s cursor tries to close the VPN. It reads: “disconnecting…” for a moment. Then it reads: “Disconnection Refused. Please Report to System Administrator.” Mae-Ying picks up the computer.

“What — “ Schulyer begins, but Mae-Ying ignores him.

“We need to blow up this laptop,” she says to Bryana.

Ria appears at the top of the stairs, just out of Schulyer’s line of sight. “Give it.”

Mae-Ying tosses the computer and Ria catches it. There’s a flash of light, a snapping crackle and the smell of burning plastic and other, less savory odors.

Mae-Ying coughs. “All right, that’s foul.”

Ria hucks the charred laptop husk away. Her hands are blistered.

“You okay?” Mae-Ying asks.

“Fucking… shit. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted that asshole surgeon.” Ria glares at her hands, then turns around and storms down the hall. “Medic! That dipshit put skin on my palms!”

Schulyer stares, craning his head to try and get a look. Mae-Ying blocks his line of sight until Ria’s moved well away.

“You’ve got a great resume, Dr. Schulyer.” Mae-Ying smiles at him. “I’m sure another firm would be interested in your expertise. Somewhere not in Montana.”

Niva hurries downstairs behind her, looking like a pretty young Indian woman. “We need to go. Now.”

“Wait — go where?” Schulyer asks. Mae-Ying thrusts a fat wad of hundred dollar bills into his hand. Schulyer stares at them, dumbfounded.

“Utah,” Mae-Ying says. Niva nods. She puts a hand on Jack’s arm. Mae-Ying nods at her, then says, “Good luck, Dr. Schulyer.”

“I don’t understan — “ Schulyer starts, but Logos spins from Niva and they both vanish.

Interesting trick. Mae-Ying wonders if she, too, could abduct someone into the Wild. Questions for later.

“Alright, time to go.” Mae-Ying says into her glasses, now broadcasting to the entire team.

Benny almost bumps into her at the top of the stairs. “Already going.”

Mae-Ying grabs her things and Niva’s from the room they shared the previous night. She’s fighting down anxiety, not helped by the fact that everyone up here is in controlled panic mode. Well, everyone except Bryana, who’s sitting at the table rubbing her temples.

“Why can’t we Throw?” Melina asks. “It would be easier.”

“Wild lookouts, we went over this in briefing,“ Benny snaps, tossing Melina a shotgun. Melina catches the gun and checks the weapon with a casual air.

Mae-Ying heads out to the van and tosses her things into the back. Benny comes into the garage after her. He tosses his bag in as well, then goes out the side door and brings a hose into the garage. He douses the van with buckets of soapy water, then hits it with a stream from the hose. White paint sluffs off like dead skin, revealing a black undercoating. As he’s finishing, Ria comes out, followed by Jeb, who’s helping Bryana. Melina emerges last, followed by a powerful smell of kerosene. She tosses an apparently empty can of the stuff towards one side of the garage.

“Ugh. It’s so hard to breathe after you do that,” Melina says.

Bryana wrinkles her nose. “You smell like a gas station.”

“Timer?” Benny asks.

Melina looks at her watch. “342 seconds.”

“Okay, let’s get the hell out of here,” Mae-Ying says.

Benny nods. They pull out of the garage.

Continue in Episode 32!