Issue 1 Downtime

"Depends on the materials. Regular concrete walls? At least four or five easily. Floors and supporting walls are a bit sturdier."

"That device I mentioned is currently in a supply room on the first floor, near the freight elevator. Destroying it may buy me time to stop Kumo before she escalates things."

"And I assume you're wondering if I can destroy it. Do you have anything that's a bit more accurate than near the elevator?"

"Would exact spatial coordinates and a holographic trajectory guide help?"

"Coordinates don't help me, but if you can put up a line then, yeah, probably."

"So how close do we need to be?"

"Unless you want to risk doing it from somewhere inside the hotel we can be as far as we want as long as I have a line of sight and you can point the way."

"I'll have to recalculate a little but... yeah that's way better. To the roof then."

Computer whiz? Yes. Physical combat powerhouse? Yes. Master spy? Yeah... no.

They make their way to the roof and Rail takes a moment to find a good spot on the building across the street. "Hope you're not afraid of heights." she says, uncoiling a rope with two bolts at the end. She looks back to the stairwell they came from and with a snap one of the bolts embeds itself in it's wall. Turning back to the building on the other side of the road she takes aim and the other end of the rope goes flying off through a window a couple floors below them before it too hits a wall and gets stuck.

"Wait until I'm across before you go, you look kind of heavy." she says and grabs the rope, swings herself over the edge of the building and ziplines down, disappearing through the shattered window of the other building.

When Rail was clear, he grabbed on and rode the line after her. He closed his eyes for most of it.

He ends up body-checking the wall at the end of the rope, which cracks the already rather stressed structure. Rail has stepped out of the way and is eyeing the hotel, trying to puzzle out the layout.

John lowered his armor and he dusted himself off.

"We need to get lower first. The trajectory will be better," he said as he joined her.

"You're the spotter, lead the way. But we should hurry before someone shows up to investigate what happened to their window."

"Agreed."

He headed for the ground floor. As he lead the way he brought up his belt's holoscreen and loaded up both the hotel blueprints, a still of the storage room, and a three dimensional map of the area. With a few deft gestures he superimposed the data. A progress bar appeared.

Code: Select all

>>Compiling 3D Map

"Impressive. That must have cost a lot of money." she says as they hurry down to the ground floor. Forcing open the door to an empty room is simple enough and soon they are looking through a window at the hotel across the street.

"The parts weren't cheap, no," he answered.

The computer chimed when finished and he brought up the result. He entered a few commands and a red arrow took their place.

"And the best angle is..." he said, walking along the windows until the arrow turned gold and zeroed in like a bloodhound, "...here." He detached the projector and placed it on a desk nearby so he could step out of the way.

"Got it." she says and pulls out a pointed metal rod. It hovers an inch above her outstretched hand and slowly twitches back and forth as she adjusts it to match the hologram. She closes her eyes for a moment to focus, takes a deep breath and opens her eyes again. The bolt snaps away, leaving only a small hole in the window. Across the street the wall is showing a couple of cracks but without knowing what to look for it's barely noticeable. They can hear the faint sound of a small explosion and that's it.

"You better hope whoever was in the way deserved to be."

John felt sick when she said that. In his determination to succeed, he hadn't even considered anyone actually getting hurt.

"I hope nobody was in the way."

"Too late now. We shouldn't stick around to find out either way."

"I could have my jet ready to go by the time we get there."

She looks at John, seeming confused. "I can't leave Madripoor. This is my home. It might be awful but if everyone who is able to abandons it, the city will never change."

"Sorry... I didn't mean to suggest you should abandon it. Just... well we, Xavier University that is, could get her psychic influence out of your head. You'd be free to return at any time."

"I don't think I can afford to turn that down." she says after a moment of contemplating.

"It's the least I can do to repay you for helping me," he answered.

"Let's go then before the hornet's nest we just skewered starts swarming."

He nodded and phoned his pilot and driver as they left the building, the latter for a pickup nearby.

"Rendezvous in ten minutes," he told her.