Published at 12th of August 2022 9:16 pm

Book 2: Chapter 129: Mission Possible

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Dan scrutinized Dunkirk’s email, which outlined the defenses of the building he was meant to breach. He was surprised the fed would leave an evidence trail like this, but the email was a throwaway and he’d probably sent it from a secure device. Dan forwarded it to Cornelius, just in case he could do something useful with it.

The blueprint was incredibly detailed. It had obviously been scanned from a hard copy, and several important details had been scribbled into the margins. Notably, it included the newly added pressure sensor. Dunkirk had helpfully included the weight that Dan would need to match, and several different methods to do so. Dan had chosen to use a block of wood, shaped roughly the same. He’d used his kitchen scale, and sanded the wood down until its weight perfectly matched the pain gun. Dan’s veil could make the switch instantaneously. There shouldn’t be any issues.

Unfortunately, Dan still had questions for Dunkirk. He’d have to interact with the slimy fed until he’d extracted every bit of useful intel that the man could be tricked into providing. Dan pulled up the instant messenger application that accompanied his email.

Daniel Newman: When am I going in?

The message greyed out almost instantly, indicating that it had been read. It still took Dunkirk almost ten minutes to reply.

Throwawayacct12435: When I say so.

Daniel Newman: ETA?

Throwawayacct12435: When I say so.

Daniel Newman: You mean when Galeforce says so?

The message greyed out, and a long period of inactivity followed. Dan hummed in the silence. It seemed Dunkirk was still keeping his cards close to his chest. Time to push.

Daniel Newman: Let me be blunt. I’m positive you’re Galeforce’s source. The timing is too convenient. I want to know when and where he’s hitting.

Throwawayacct12435: I have no idea what you are talking about.

Dan played his favorite card. He called it ‘Summon Bigger Fish’.

Daniel Newman: Abby is out shopping right now. She’s a stubborn lady, and won’t stay home unless I’ve got something solid to warn her about. But if she gets hurt because some idiot vigilante picked a fight nearby, her grandmother will hear about it. She’ll come calling, and I’ll be forced to drop a few names and a few suspicions. Purely in the name of self-preservation. You understand?

A pause.

Throwawayacct12435: Where will she be shopping?

Daniel Newman: You can’t honestly believe I’ll tell you that.

There was another long pause.

Throwawayacct12435: If she’s home by 6 p.m. there should be no issues.

Dan immediately called Cornelius.

“Galeforce isn’t moving until 6,” he said the moment Cornelius picked up.

The older man clicked his tongue. “Any idea where?”

“Somewhere fancy,” Dan concluded. “A shopping center or mall, probably. I told Dunkirk that Abby would be out shopping, and he was worried enough to spill the time. Where would you picture Abby shopping in Austin if the only thing you knew about her was that she’s obscenely rich?”

Cornelius grunted in consideration. “There’s a few places, but that does narrow it down. Good job.”

“Also, he knows about the pressure sensor,” Dan said. “I forwarded you an email. Dunkirk has a blueprint of the entire facility.”

Cornelius swore. “That’s not good. Only a few people can get that kind of information, that quickly, and none of them are easy to bring in without solid evidence.”

“Will these people be alerted once we move on Dunkirk?” Dan asked warily.

Cornelius clicked his tongue again. “Gable has kept this operation close. Really, it all comes down to Galeforce. The original plan was to use what’s left of our SPEAR Teams to make the snatch, but if that vigilante makes a mess, then we might not have that option available. With the SPEAR Teams, we can keep it covert. If we have to get patrol officers involved, things get iffy.”

Dan preferred to plan for the worst. “So he’ll find out we’re onto him pretty quickly. What about the tracker? Who’ll know it’s on him?”

“I’ll be directing whatever team is involved, myself. I won’t mention a tracker, though it’ll be pretty obvious that we have one, once he starts moving. It’ll come down to how well you hide it.”

Great.

Time seemed to both fly by, yet stretch out infinitely, as Dan waited for Dunkirk’s message to arrive. He worked out to burn off his nervous energy, then spent time watching the news. Part of him expected Galeforce to act early, for the plan to get thrown into chaos, for everything to go wrong. Yet time passed, and nothing happened.

Abby came home around five, and she brought a surprise with her.

“Take it,” she ordered, pressing an object into his hands.

Dan looked down, blinking in surprise. “Where did you get this?”

“No questions. It can’t be traced to you or me. Put it in your hammerspace, and only use it in an emergency.”

Dan stared at the Glock 19, a little surprised that the handgun model existed at all. He ejected the magazine, racked the slide, then checked over the weapon. Dan had grown up in Texas; he’d known how to handle a gun for well over a decade. He hadn’t seen much point in buying one, not since he’d figured out how to hurl chunks of steel with his power. There wasn’t much a pistol could do that his powers couldn’t.

“Why?” he asked his girlfriend.

“People aren’t blind, Danny,” Abby said. “If you keep chucking ball bearings at bad guys, eventually they’ll catch on. You want to avoid calling cards. A gun is much more common, and much simpler. Teleport behind the target, stick the barrel into the back of their head, and pull the trigger. If that bastard Dunkirk tries anything funny, I want you to blow his brains out, you understand me? Take no risks here. Promise me.”

Her voice was steady and insistent. Her gaze bore into him with determination, suddenly so much like her grandmother’s. Dan could only nod in assent.

“Promise,” he agreed.

He flicked the pistol into his hammerspace, then kissed Abby on the cheek.

“I gotta go.”

The APD warehouse looked exactly like any other storage facility. It was well maintained, but no police patrolled its boarders, and its cameras were carefully concealed. Dan kept his distance, having perfect knowledge of both camera and motion sensor placement. He was dressed in a dark hoodie, standing in the shadow of a nearby building. His veil crept across the facility, weaving its web and spilling the building’s secrets. It was even easier than he’d expected. Without specialized defenses, his power made a theft like this fairly trivial. The only real issue was time, and he’d arrived half an hour early for precisely that reason.

While his veil searched the building, Dan monitored the news through a wireless earbud. His phone streamed a local channel, and he listened with growing tension as six o’clock came and went. His veil found the pain gun, and he prepared himself to make the switch. His wooden replica sat in t-space, ready to be called.

6:05

6:10

At 6:15, the city exploded into noise. There was a distant thump of air being violently displaced, and the sound of sirens. His earbud surged with activity, as the casters suddenly had something to talk about. Dan tuned it all out. He checked his phone, seeing a notification. It was a text from an unknown number, stating simply: Go.

Dan made the swap. Artificer’s pain gun vanished from its cradle in a secure storage locker, replaced with a similarly shaped block of wood. The Genius-tech appeared in Dan’s hands, and he stared down at the vicious thing. It was uglier than he’d expected, all gnarled metal and rust-red paint. The thing resembled a miniature blunderbuss more than a pistol. Aesthetics obviously hadn’t been a priority.

Dan shrugged it off, and dropped it into his hammerspace. He sent a text to Dunkirk.

18:16 Daniel Newman: Done. Where’s the drop?

There was a brief delay as Dunkirk was frozen in what Dan liked to imagine was shock at his sheer efficiency. Moments later, he was given an address, and a picture of a hotel closet. One of those tiny hotel safes was nestled in the corner, opened wide. Dan recognized the address as the hotel Dunkirk was staying at, though the room number was on an entirely separate floor.

18:17 Unknown Number: Put it in the safe and vacate the premises.

18:17 Daniel Newman: My fee?

Dan’s phone vibrated. His bank informed him of a fresh deposit.

18:18 Unknown Number: The rest upon delivery.

“Huh,” Dan said. It looked like Dunkirk had actually bought his greedy, social-climber act. Probably. Maybe.

There was no way that Dan would be entering that hotel room, though.

He’d been to Dunkirk’s hotel, so he was familiar enough with the building layout. He appeared on its roof and worked his way down from there, checking each floor for cameras and witnesses, before appearing inside. He found himself in the unoccupied room above his target, and sent his veil down the walls to sweep the room. Dan found half a dozen different electronic devices that weren’t in any of the previous rooms. They were either cameras, or electronic shielding. He hesitated to remove them. Would Dunkirk know? Would it spook him?

Better to not take the chance.

Dan was satisfied that the room was, at the very least, unoccupied. He sent his veil into the safe itself, and found the material to be a strange mix of materials that he couldn’t recognize. Shielding, undoubtedly. Otherwise the tracker on the pain gun would instantly give away the game. Oh well.

He tested the air for contaminants and found nothing. Even still, Dan wouldn’t take the chance. His veil pulsed, spitting the pain gun out into the safe. Dunkirk had failed to specify that he needed to close it. If that bit the fed in the ass, so be it. Dan sent out a final text.

18:24 Daniel Newman: Done.

18:25 Unknown Number: The rest of your payment will arrive within the hour.

Once he’d confirmed the delivery himself, translated Dan. That was good. It meant Dunkirk was coming to the hotel. In Dan’s most paranoid nightmare’s, he’d imagined Dunkirk having access to teleportation technology. He imagined watching the safe shimmer and disappear, spirited away to some unknown location, forever lost to them. That wasn’t the case. He allowed himself to relax, and settle in. He tuned back in to the news broadcast, listening keenly as the APD clashed with Galeforce. He itched to join them, to help subdue the idiot making a commotion in his city. But Dan had his own role to play. He had to stay here. He had to be patient.

It would be a long wait.

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