4:00 a.m., Geneva.
The four moved like a shadows across Geneva, slipping between streetlights and buildings. For Syraleh, Naelle, Iserra and Rielinne, it felt less like a city and more like a map pinned to a corpse.
They stopped in a dark alley a few blocks from the Fast Travel Building itself. Their breaths came shallow and fast. They ran thirty kilometers on foot and spent hours exploring the entire building and mapping it either their sensors. Their black suits were damp with melted snow and their gloves left fingerprints on the fabric of the alley.
"Next time Master offers 'vacation,' I'm putting in a formal complaint."
Syraleh peeled off her goggles and wiped the condensation away, looking angrier than her age would suggest. Naelle down on a overturned crate and kicked her boots off with theatrical annoyance. "
"Stop being dramatic. We get to sleep in a chalet later and maybe eat something. Four more hours, ladies. Four more hours and we're on cocoa and hot baths."
Iserra rubbed the bridge of her nose and huffed. She tilted a small wrist-scanner, its screen ghosting tiny pinpricks of heat and Flux signatures.
"Your optimism would be adorable if it didn't require actual believing. We still haven't figured how many of them are inside. From here, I see a hundred plus. They didn't skim the budget on security. Where are these reinforcements coming from? We killed more than three quarters."
Rielinne listened to the others with a quiet half-smile.
"We're not here to play 'hero'. We're here to be effective. If Master wanted fireworks, he would have sent a legion. He didn't. He sent us because he needs something quiet and precise. That's the difference."
Naelle lifted an eyebrow. "You mean he likes us quiet and precise because he's sadistic?"
Syraleh barked a short, humorless laugh. "He likes us quiet and precise because he knows we'll get the job done and still have time for the chalet. Maybe he is sadistic. He must have anticipated this."
Iserra clicked her tongue and focused.
"The Fast Travel Building is the city's only one. Everything funnels in and out there. If they can teleport reinforcements into Geneva, they can either shut the building to our faces or close it and slow everything down, perhaps even alert the government. We don't want the latter until the other teams have space to move. But the one thing Geneva will not tolerate is a bloodbath in the building. It will trigger a lockdown that closes all Fast Travel privileges until the government sorts who's to blame."
Naelle, lying back on the crate with her hood down half over one eye, clicked her tongue.
"And we're going to give them that bloodbath to help those three to escape with the Fragment."
Rielinne crouched and summoned a hologram on her sensor. The map of the entire building they had scouted for hours glowed faintly in the alley.
"We don't want to do this loud, or we don't want it to look like an Argemenes job. We make it look like a contracted strike with collateral that forces the Fast Travel node to shut. Swiss procedure will evacuate and then lock the building down. If the building's locked, Hinesia and the others can bypass the government's line and slip to the building outside the city undetected. I know they can do that much."
Syraleh whistled softly. "You've been doing your homework. Cute."
Rielinne's expression didn't change. She pinched her gloves at the seam and then looked up.
"We're not assassins for sport. We pick weak mercenaries but we will not assassinate civilians. Keep the kills professional. Target the mercs."
----
The Fast Travel Building of Geneva was a talk skyscraper with sterile lights gleaming across floors, pillars humming faintly and holographic timetables flickering with destinations from across the world. Even at 4:17 a.m., the place was alive.
Tourists, diplomats, and commoners flooded in and out. Some were lugging suitcases and others were being checked out by the staff. Security drones hovered lazily above the crowd, scanning IDs and facial data, while guards stood at fixed stations, all wearing armor and scanning the space for any hint of energy interference.
In that chaos, two ghosts slipped through unnoticed.
The Occultare technique cloaked their bodies from both sight and Flux detection, but they had to move fast because even with that, the building's Flux sensors could still pick up spikes of energy if they lingered too long.
"Stay low," Rielinne whispered. "These sensors are extremely sensitive. If they get a full reading, we're screwed."
Naelle smirked under her mask. "Relax, boss-lady. I'm small, silent, and I don't leave footprints. You're the one who needs to be careful."
"I can hear you, Naelle."
"Exactly."
They passed through a group of civilians heading into a departure room. To anyone watching the cameras, the footage would flicker like static shadows crossing the lens. Fluxers nearby had no clue what was happening. That was the beauty of Occultare. It made the user mundane in essence. Fluxers couldn't sense humans, by the way, no matter how strong they were. The only things that could give them away were the building's sensors, but those took about eight seconds to analyze anomalies.
Eight seconds was all the Handmaidens needed to escape from one place to another. Rielinne took a hallway, heading for the security room. Naelle veered toward an elevator block where she had overheard mercenaries talking through the walls.
"Outer_7 says to hold position until extraction. No mistakes should be made."
"What about the fragment?"
"Doesn't matter. We intercept anyone entering the upper floor. They have to last through here. We kill, no questions."
Naelle crouched near the corner. She could feel her pulse thrumming with excitement.
"Fifteen of them. One elevator. Fifteen targets. Perfect."
She slipped inside just before the elevator doors closed. None of the mercenaries noticed her, at least not until the elevator began to move upward.
Naelle's fingers flexed. Her nails elongated with a wet, organic sound, turning into long, curved talons. They were her biological weapons. They were sharp enough to literally cut steel. By the time one mercenary turned his head, she was already moving.
The elevator lights flickered once.
Naelle swung her arms in a wide X-shape. The talons carved through armor, muscle and bone. The fifteen men never had a chance to scream. The sound of gurgling blood filled the elevator before silence filled the place.
Naelle stood in the middle of the carnage, panting lightly, her breath fogging against the metallic walls. Her suit was splattered crimson. She tilted her head, studying her reflection in the elevator and sighed.
"Ugh, I just wore this suit. You guys owe me laundry money. Oh. They're dead, huh..."
The elevator dinged. The doors slid open.
A crowd of civilians waiting outside gasped in horror as a torrent of blood spilled out. The corpses inside slumped like marionettes with their strings cut, their eyes wide open and cut in pieces.
Naelle was already gone.
The moment before the doors opened, she reactivated Occultare, slipping out through the side and vanishing into the chaos. The screams behind her erupted a moment later, followed by blaring alarms and the thunder of boots as security teams flooded in.
"Fifteen down," Naelle said casually through her comms, her voice having a sing-song tone. "Elevator sushi. How's that for breakfast?"
There was static, then Rielinne's calm voice came through.
"You're covered in blood again, aren't you?"
"Pfft. Maybe. Depends on your definition of covered."
Iserra's voice came next from the comms link. "Naelle, please tell me you didn't make a scene."
"Define scene."
"Fifteen mercs dead in an elevator that's now on every holo-screen in the building," Rielinne said flatly.
"Then yes. Scene made. You're welcome. I suggest you go to the footage room and take control. You can do that, right?"
The building was officially in chaos now.
Alarms blared across the Fast Travel terminal as security teams mobilized. Civilians screamed and scattered in confusion. Automated drones zipped through the air, trying to trace Flux signatures, but the Handmaidens were invisible to them.
"Good," Rielinne said calmly. "Phase One is complete. They'll lock down the building in three minutes. We move in two."
Naelle was already sprinting down a corridor. She could see guards rushing below. They were shouting in Swiss-accented English.
"Lock down the rooms! No one leaves!"
"There's bodies on Elevator Six! Find the intruders!"
Naelle crouched down as the guards passed, her talons retracting with a soft click.
"Ohhh, they sound mad."
"You're supposed to avoid getting them mad," Rielinne said.
"I'm the youngest, remember? My job is to make everyone else's day harder."
Rielinne sighed in the comms. "You're lucky you're Master's favorite. I already made into the security footages. I'll cover you. Two mercs disguised as guards coming your way."
"Thanks. And correction, everyone likes me. I'm adorable."
The young assassin leaped from the beam. She landed behind the two mercenaries trying to secure an exit corridor. They didn't even get to turn. One quick swipe and their heads fell down. Naelle wiped her blade-like nails on one of their sleeves, then re-engaged Occultare.
Everything was falling into place.