Ultima Ratio

Chapter 55: Heist Time

As the emcee kicked off the dancing, Akira and Danya slipped out one of the artistic archways without looking back. When they passed other partygoers, Danya linked her arm with Akira's and let out a high-pitched giggle over a non-existent joke, and no one around them batted an eye.

Eventually, they found an empty hallway and squeezed into a niche in the wall, activating their sensor interference and camouflage immediately after. Akira's dress transformed before her eyes, the maroon fabric blending in with the cream walls. Thankfully, she had an easy time deploying her helmet over her slim mask, and she watched Danya frustratedly rip the feathers off hers before following suit. Once they were settled, Danya was only visible to Akira by the faint neon green outline around her silhouette provided by Akira's earpiece.

About half a minute later, Elodie and Navin passed them and did the same on the opposite side of the hall, Navin's green outline hunching his back at the low clearance and Elodie's figure gracefully folding her mask's feathers against her head and letting her helmet deploy over it. Another minute later, Jivan and Quyen walked by, and Jivan joined Akira and Danya while Quyen went ahead, smoothly camouflaging herself in the process.

Three minutes later, they heard two clicks echoing in the empty hallway, and they quickly emerged from their spots to follow the noise. Quyen's green-outlined figure was waiting outside a nondescript entrance a minute's hustle away, and she ushered them through it before closing the door behind her. The musty closet was a tight squeeze and contained an overpowering smell of chemicals, but it was better than nothing as a pair of footsteps ominously echoed right outside thirty seconds later.

Once they were sure the danger had passed, Quyen went ahead again, but when they heard the clicking that signaled her readiness, a set of footsteps rushed by just before they opened the door. Even after they verified the unexpected passerby was out of range, they still waited a few more seconds before making a run for it. Thankfully, they rendezvoused with Quyen again without incident, and they hurried through a pair of intricately carved wooden doors she left propped open.

As old-fashioned as the entrance looked, the room it led to was anything but. It was a spacious underground aircraft hangar with dozens of planes lined up across the shining concrete floor, all surrounded by the room's gleaming white walls. For the most part, the ceiling was illuminated by bright lights hanging from a network of silver beams; the exception was a circular space in the middle of the room about twenty meters in diameter. If their intel was correct, this was the Capitol Building's inverted rotunda, which also served as the chute for the hangar's launching pad.

As Quyen began commandeering an aircraft, only pausing to forcefully open the door ("Who still puts locks on planes?"), the others stood by outside.

"It's about bloody time we got out of that mess," Jivan grumbled, their accent reverting to their default British. "Can you believe that rubbish they're going on about? They expect us to pity those bastards?"

"Well, I don't think that video was meant for us, per se," Elodie said.

"You don't believe it?" Danya asked, slightly surprised.

"And you do?" Jivan sighed. "Look Danny, I know you're from Concordia and all that, but even you have to admit they were laying it on a bit thick back there."

"Were they? What, you think those people wanted to move to Concordia? To be evicted from their homes, their countries, just for some mistakes they've made?"

"Mistakes?" Jivan scoffed over Elodie's weak attempts at interjecting. "Those people they showed were the minority. I don't know if things were different in your timeline, but here, some Concordians are murderers, you know."