“Mr. Donner, under education you listed computer science, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering, but no degrees.”

  “That’s correct. I’m largely self taught.”

  “Well… that’s valid in some fields, but…”

  “Not to brag, but… you might have noticed I walked in here.”

  Wally was practically quivering with excitement as Marin slid her keycard through the lock. All the door said was “Authorized Personnel Only,” but it said it in a strangely ominous way, if that makes sense. Marin had mentioned that we’d be seeing labs higher up and workshops down below. This still being the second floor, I figured there would be some rooms with test tubes and burners. I mean, there’d be something weird, I was sure, because there were artifacts and aether in the mix.

  But still, labs. Like a science room in high school, but with fancier equipment.

  I was not prepared for what I saw.

  It was like a cavernous four-level mall inside the building. It was huge. They had basement space, which wasn’t unheard of in the Grand City but wasn’t exactly easy to get. A lot of electrical, sewage, and Shones knew what else had to be redirected just so you could essentially build a chamber into the platform of a superskyscraper cell.

  I’ll admit it, I gawked right along with Wally.

  Four elevated walkways ringed a large shaft in the center of the space, and people in lab coats or work clothes milled about, conferring or working. Many brightly lit alcoves lining the walls. These were the labs, and Wally began to point things out before Marin could.

  “Chemistry. Biochemistry? I don’t know what that is, so maybe alchemy? Look, they all have shutters, hoods, and floor drains in case of accidents. I see a couple of dry rooms too.”

  His excitement picked up a notch as he took inventory of the next level down. “Machine shops, autoclaves. There’s a welding station. Wow, imagine having separate spaces for all this stuff! This is way better than my folding table back at the apartment!”

  That was roughly at the mezzanine level, so the next level down was the true ground floor. Sure enough, there was a row of loading docks on the far wall, and a staging area for G-Tech’s vans and more exotic vehicles. I saw mechsuits of the style Fushigi had used the previous night, along with some other models. I saw racks of weapons and a small door that said “Artifact Storage.”

  The sprawling bottom floor seemed to be a mishmash of whatever needed too much space for any of the upper levels. Both a freight elevator and a crane stood like sentinels ready to move objects up or down. There were half assembled vehicles and a giant white tent in one corner.

  Wally looked like he might have a seizure or soil his robot legs. “Seriously. Seriously! I get to work here?”

  “That’s right,” said Marin. “After orientation and safety training, of course.”

  The older woman seemed gratified at Wally’s smiling face. “What do you plan on working on first?”

  “Well, Jett’s skidstick needs—”

  “The first thing he’s going to do,” I said, “is iterate on his leg cybernetics and build some spare pairs.” I stared pointedly at Wally, who looked like he was about to object. He slowly nodded.

  “Yeah, I guess I’d better.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was that set on improving Bullet Train or if he was disappointed at the prospect of having to repeat work he’d already done. Even when his ability to walk hung in the balance.

  I added, “Put, like, rockets on them or something.” I snapped my fingers. “Put skidshoe repulsors on them.”

  “Yeah.” Wally perked back up. “Yeah. I got some ideas.”

  I rolled my eyes, which caused me to notice something I hadn’t seen before. Hovering near the top of the big chamber, just a few feet below the ceiling, was a large, black, box-shaped… thing about the size of a mobile home. And I do mean hovering. It had no visible support, and it just hung there, in midair, over everything.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing.

  “That’s the Black Box,” Marin said.

  “Yeah, no shit.”

  “Like, on an airplane?” Wally asked.

  “A little bit, yes,” said Marin. “It’s a completely sealed and electronically shielded air-gapped chamber. It can only be accessed by an extendable walkway from the catwalk above our current level. Our greatest and most dangerous secrets are stored up there.”

  “So I take it we’re not touring that,” I said. “On the first day, at least.”

  Marin did not crack a smile. I had a sudden and persistent urge to know exactly what was in the Black Box. She gestured at a container of safety glasses just inside the door. “Put those on. Let’s take a closer look at some of the stations. There are some things I want you both to see.”

  We stood before a pair of glass cases against the wall on the ground floor level, set up almost like a museum exhibit. One was tall, the other squat. The small display held an open briefcase on the pedestal. The briefcase’s interior was velvet lined and molded to fit twelve black discs, each about the size of a person’s palm. The red lights at the center of those discs were dark. Which I took to be a good sign.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The other case had a full suit of “grunt” armor, the fully encompassing suits worn by the soldiers the sorcerers had summoned the previous night using those discs. The armor was splayed open and cross sectioned, revealing lots of tubes, wires, and padding within. It reminded me a little of an EVA suit exhibit at a space museum. This impression was ruined by a cracked portion of the helmet that had been reconstructed and epoxied together. It left no doubt as to how G-Tech had gotten hold of it.

  As if to drive home the point, plaques in front of the cases read “First Capture,” followed by a date just over a year prior. So maybe they were more trophies than exhibits?

  Marin stood next to the two cases, cleared her throat, and addressed Wally and me like she was leaning into her role as tour guide.

  “Officially,” she said, “teleportation technology does not exist. Pure science fiction. Yet Gigopolis, along with many other cities and nations, has enacted laws outlawing the use of any such technology. Just in case, of course.”

  She tapped the first case, pointing to one of the discs nestled within. “These are Personnel Teleport Beacons, or PTBs. Once they are activated, an enemy soldier teleports to that location a few seconds later.”

  “Is there any way to stop them?” I asked. “Before they deploy, I mean?”

  “They can be destroyed or interrupted, but not easily in the brief span of seconds between activation and teleportation. Their only real weakness is that they’re incredibly unsubtle. They’re loud, as you probably noticed, and they ionize the area, which many people can feel as a skin prickle or hairs standing on end. More than that, they give off an energy signature that is easy to detect for more than a mile around. Both our G-Tech teams and GPD Elite patrol vehicles have receivers tuned to that signature, so if one is used inside the ziggurat we usually know within seconds. You can’t summon grunts and then embark on a stealth mission; you need to infiltrate first.”

  “Can you reverse engineer them?” asked Wally. “Find a weakness, or build your own?”

  “We have, quite frustratingly, never captured a live device. They always deactivate and fry their own internals when they fall into our hands. We have also struggled to find the suppliers that provide these devices to bidders in the underworld, let alone work our way up their supply chain.

  “We do know they are usually distributed like this. The PTB case, containing a dozen of the beacons. Also called crewcases or simply briefcases.” She curled her lip in distaste. “Or clowncars, if you prefer.”

  “So, what about the giant beacon that brought in the cat?” I asked.

  “That, Mr. Fulgen, is brand new, at least to us. It will probably need its own name. What it brought in was hardly personnel.”

  “Can I name it? I kind of discovered it, right?”

  She pursed her lips. “We may take your suggestions into consideration. Now, as I was—... Uh, yes, Mr. Donner?”

  Wally had his hand raised like he was in a classroom. “Cat’s Cradle,” he offered.

  “That’s… we don’t know that they will all summon the same type of creature.”

  “The Center Ring?” I chimed in. “To go with the clowncars? Or maybe just ‘The Pantshitter.’ That’s about what it did to me.”

  “May I continue?”

  I grinned, but I shut up.

  “These devices are used by criminal sorcerers throughout the world. We know they cost more than a few minari, and supplies are limited regardless. We are not sure what even qualifies one to purchase a case, let alone multiple. But these are the types of enemies we’re working with. Sorcerers, far more skilled and far more prone to violence than yourself, Mr. Fulgen. Backed by these.”

  She gestured at the half dissected suit of armor. “They call the soldiers ‘grunts,’ so that’s what we’ve come to call them. We certainly haven’t heard many other noises from these shock troops. As you saw, they come in hot, with assault rifles or even heavier ordinance, and they create a screen so the sorcerers can work their arts. The armor also has a curious weakness. Do either of you notice anything about the interior design of this suit?”

  It was… wirey? I could almost feel the heat radiating off Wally’s head as his big mind went to work, so I didn’t bother trying to catch up. Sure enough, he came up with it after several seconds.

  “The injectors.”

  “Very good, Mr. Donner. I was hoping you’d pick it out. You’ll need an eye like that for the work we do down here.” Marin pointed. “Neck. Waist. Both upper arms. Both thighs. Some of the team members call these things ‘suicide suits.’”

  Wally had turned a little pale. “A few of the soldiers, last night. I was surprised at how easy they went down. One good hit.”

  I thought of the first one I’d taken down. How quickly he’d gone still after a few good hits. About something Jessie had said. And as I thought, none of the injured brought out of the precinct on stretchers had been grunts, had they? Dead, every last one of them.

  “So let me get this straight,” I said. “These bastards. They get, what, incapacitated and they just… die?”

  Marin nodded. “We have never captured one alive. Not for lack of trying.” She produced a different looking remote from the one she’d used upstairs in the practice rooms. She pressed a button, and the suit clicked.

  I still hadn’t quite picked out what Wally and Marin had been talking about, but I saw them now. They almost blended in with the other electronics, but when she hit that button I could see them move. Little metal cylinders with needles that pierced the suit’s inner fabric lining. Striking like little snakes. Marin released the button, and the needles retracted.

  I gave an involuntary shudder. Habby appeared, looking just as stunned and alarmed as I was. As much as his beady cartoon eyes could convey, anyway.

  [That is diabolical.]

  Marin poised her thumb over the button, her face grim. “Lots of health monitoring in these suits. The grunts go unconscious?” Click. “They sustain a sufficient impact?” Click. “Significant blood loss?” Click. “Significant bone breakage?” Click.

  Wally winced each time the needles lunged.

  “And it gets worse,” Marin continued. She held up her remote. “Someone offsite monitors these people, and they can manually trigger the injection if they see the need. Occasionally one of the grunts tries to reach out to us, trying to help or warn us.” Click. “And there’s a fail-deadly built into the suit itself. We can’t just disable the mechanism. They’re spring-loaded. The suit loses power?” Click.

  She let that hang for a moment. I thought Wally might be sick. Instead he swallowed, spent a moment in thought, and frowned.

  “What are they protecting?” he asked. “The sorcerers didn’t have anything like that. Surely they’re higher ranked than these grunts. Wouldn’t they have more secrets to protect?”

  Marin nodded, impressed. “That’s exactly the question. We can’t say with 100% certainty, but we believe they’re protecting their teleport tech, as well as where these grunts come from. Funny thing about this non-existent technology. The energy required to teleport increases exponentially with distance. Which is to say that if they end up in Gigopolis, odds are that’s also where they started.”

  I hunted for a quip to lighten the mood, but I was struggling with this one. This went a little beyond assassins and brutal efficiency. This was some psychotic death cult shit.

  “Yo! Fireman! Sabaton!”

  Marin breathed out through her nose, clearly pissed that the dark mood had been shattered.

  We turned at the familiar, perky voice. I looked over the railing, and there was Fushigi Tetsumi. She was standing on the shoulders of her own mechsuit waving at us, her purple hair dancing frantically.

  “You dudes getting the tour? Hey, Porter! Send ‘em down here!”

  “Porter?” I asked.

  Marin sighed. “Fu comes up with nicknames for all she considers ‘friends.’ If that’s what she’s officially decided to call you then congratulations. She’s claimed you.”