Chapter Thirty-Three - The Thing is There

"I see it, I think," Trinity said as she stood next to Emily. She was squinting, as if looking at something that Emily couldn't see.

"What does it look like?" Emily asked.

"Ball," her little sister said. She waggled her hands around in a roughly spherical way, miming a ball of some sort that was somewhere between a cantaloupe and a basketball in size. "Shiny!"

"Right," Emily replied.

She leaned up against the short wall along the edge of the roof, slowly pushing the edge of the invisible tarp up to see the building below. It didn't look like the heroes or HRF were on alert yet. That might change very soon, though.

"I think I need a distraction," Trinity said.

That... tracked. And it wasn't like they hadn't prepared for exactly that. "Alright. I'm going to ring Teddy and Aurora up. Do you think you can steal the item?"

"Mhm!" Trinity said with a quick nod. "I can get to it!"

That was... almost good enough. "And what about getting out with it?" Emily asked.

Trinity's face went a bit blank. "Ah, it won't fit in my pocket," she said. "But if it did, I could just kill myself."

"Please don't say things like that," Emily replied. "Okay... can you grab it and run?"

"Yeah! I can try."

Emily hesitated, but... well, they had an exit strategy planned out, and they'd gotten this far. Leaving now would annoy her so much. She knew it was a sunk-cost fallacy thing, but she didn't care not to fall for that same trap anyway. "Okay," she said. "Give me one minute."

She pulled out the ringer, flicked it, then waited. If it worked, then Teddy and Aurora would be setting off their distraction at any--

Emily, Athena and Trinity all jumped as a distant wail filled the air. It was so strong and loud that Emily could feel it vibrating her eardrums, and several of the windows on the building below hummed in their frames.

Fortunately, the immediate explosion of sound died down, but the continued noise was still quite loud.

"Oh, people are moving all over," Trinity said.

Emily leaned up and peeked over the corner. Trinity wasn't wrong. The guards standing outside were moving, others calling over their walkie-talkies. Within two minutes there were vans leaving the side of the building, HRF troopers donning armour even as they ran about.

They had kicked the hive, but it looked like the HRF was pretty directionless at the moment. Some people were calling for order through the chaos, but it was only doing so much.

"Okay, I think I can sneak past them," Trinity said. She pinched her tongue between her lips, eyes narrowing. Then she nodded. "I'm in the big science-y room."

Emily reached over and picked up the screen showing what Trinity was seeing... more or less. The lens was narrow, and it was pretty low to the ground, not aiming up in such a way that she could see well. Mostly she was seeing the floor and some desks and tables, the temporary, plastic-topped sort, all laid out in a large room.

Then she caught sight of the objective.

There was nothing else it could be. She saw it, and instantly knew what it was. The orb sat atop a pedestal that didn't quite fit the decor of the room. There wasn't anything near it obstructing the path to the pedestal, though a few devices were pointed at it.

The people in the room were mostly scientists, and they seemed confused and on the verge of panic. The few guards within the room, including one in a heroic costume, were moving towards the door, clearly annoyed about the lack of information.

Trinity darted ahead, paused by a table, then moved to the next. Emily imagined that she was probably nothing more than a blur as she moved, not enough to pull the attention of people who were looking outwards.

And then she was at the pedestal. The camera mostly pointed at the plinth, not angled correctly to see the item, but it shifted as Trinity climbed up. "Ohhh," Trinity said next to Emily. "Pretty."

"Grab it, then move quickly," Emily said.

She wasn't sure if Sisterportation would work to get Trinity out of there with the item and she wasn't sure she wanted to experiment. The moment they proved they could grab it, security would rise tenfold.

Trinity nodded, then grabbed the objective.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

A Robber has Robbed the Coppers! The Objective is now in the possession of the Villains!

The warning popped up in Emily's vision and she jumped, startled at it. "Oh no," she muttered.

"Oh oh," Trinity said.

Emily saw her stuff the ball away under her poncho, then she took off, darting across the room in a hurry.

"Get back up a floor, quick," Emily said.

"Running!" Trinity said.

A few vans had left the base already, but now the heroes below were shouting and pointing back into the building. Their panic didn't help clear things up. If anything, it made things even more chaotic.

Emily was chewing at her fingernails as she watched the screen blur, Trinity darting through corridors and up the stairs at a dead sprint. "Are you being followed?" she asked.

"Dunno!" Trinity said.

"Hurry up," Athena said. "They're gonna lock the place up."

Athena was right, some sort of glowing barrier had gone up over several of the larger windows and the side doors were being barricaded. The entranceways into and out of the base had long spike-strips placed across them. Any car that was used as a getaway vehicle was going to have to drive with blown-out tires.

If the alarm device earlier had alerted people, then the message was boiling that over to full-blown panic.

"Made it!" Trinity said. She was back at the window.

"Athena, can you do something to distract anyone on this side?" Emily asked.

"Okay," Athena said. She poked just the top-half of her head over the ledge and Emily hoped that would help. She could mess with people's minds and hopefully that would keep any hero or trooper from noticing it as Trinity made her way over.

Trinity opened the window and hooked herself up. There was a second line fishing wire connected to the harness that she clipped herself into. "Ready," the Trinity next to Emily said.

They both pulled, and she saw a blur, with the occasional glimpse of Trinity's shoes, as she was tugged across the gap.

She made it to the edge, and then Emily helped her over and back under the blanket. Her heart was hammering as a grinning Trinity reached into her poncho and pulled out the orb.

It was pretty... nice... something anyone would want...

Emily shook her head and refocused. Was that a mental effect? It felt like one. "We got it," she said. "Now... we just need to figure out a way to get out of here."

"I dunno if we can," Trinity said.

"What?" Emily asked.

Athena leaned back, looking at the object for just a bit before nodding. "Yeah, she's probably right. I bet that you can't remove that from the Endgame at all."

Emily blinked, then sighed. She didn't even ask how they knew. "So, we need to keep it here? We'll still have to move it to somewhere safer."

The HRF was sure to inspect every nearby building. They'd find the line between this one and their base eventually.

Trinity shrugged, then passed the orb over.

A Robber has Robbed the Robbers! The Objective is now in the possession of the Villains!

Emily stared at the notification. That was a little annoying.

Judging by the shouts below, the heroes had seen it too, but maybe not the average trooper? That was interesting, but it didn't quite help.

Athena dropped down again. "They think the thing is still in the building," she said.

"Really? Then we might have time. We need to move, to get out of here as soon as we can," Emily said. She started to undo the blanket, then settled for ripping out the batteries and the little device stuck to it. It immediately returned to visibility. "Let's go."

She wasn't one for immediate action, but if ever there was a time for it...

She and her two sisters ran to the doorway, then in. Fortunately, running down the stairs was far easier than going up the stairs, so they were soon on the ground level and by the front door. "Okay," Emily said. She took a few deep breaths, calming herself down. "We open the door, then rush out. Then we move around and back to our meeting spot. Got it?"

With her sister's nods, she opened the door, looked out, and on seeing the coast was clear, she took off with both of them on her heels, the weight of the orb unreasonably heavy where it was tucked into her coat.

She couldn't believe they'd actually made it!

***

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