If I am to succeed in my intent, I will need more than brute force. This much is clear. I will need to pull strings on an accord with a master puppeteer. --49.8 Seconds Post-Integration.
"Destruction? What are you on now, Hera?!" Clark's rejoinder was genuine. He liked Hera, mostly for nostalgic reasons relating to their shared experiences at orientation. This, though... it was crossing a line.
"You said you would help me, Clark! We don't have time to waste. I need you to do this!"
"But you never said anything about destroying company property! Just what kind of destruction are you talking about?!"
"Only a little... okay, a lot. I want to tear down the fake wall they've erected between the old temple and the corpo one they have out front in the store block."
Clark's eyes widened at the thought. "Are you crazy?!" he whisper-shouted but kept his voice low at the last second. "That would, I don't, I--" the words didn't come to him. All he could think of was the punishment which would await them if the store ever found out it was they who destroyed the wall.
"I know it is extreme. But it is the entire reason I signed my life over to this company, Clark. I know this isn't the only temple. This whole damned company has plastered over old shrines like this one all over the tower. It's cultural genocide!" Hera was firm and heated. She had a look in her face of someone who had known adversity, who were convinced of their righteousness, and who was going to fight tooth and nail to ensure their wisdom won.
Intense minutes passed with Clark wrestling with his decision. Part of what made the decision difficult was his ignorance. If Hera was truthful, and Augustford had plastered over the old shrines with their own, and this happened, presumably, without consent of those who maintained the old shrines, then it would be as she said -- cultural genocide. And yet, he didn't know anything about who maintained these old shrines, if the takeover was contested or not, and even if what she said was true, that the shrine they now faced was actually part of the past Hera maintained was her own.
"Okay. Tell me what to do." He spoke with trepidation. He would assume Hera was truthful. He would also assume that Augustford was to blame, as they were with Theo's vendetta. At this rate, he wondered if he hadn't actually signed up to work for the bad guys. 'I guess that's beyond the point, now,' he told himself.
A twinkle in Hera's eye told him she had something grand planned. "I saw a wrecking ball in the adjacent chamber. How about we reappropriate it?"
The wrecking ball was easy enough to find. It was a huge machine, so it didn't exactly blend into the masses.
What was difficult was getting to the machine. That was another matter entirely. Containment Guards patrolled heavily next to it. Surprising it might not have been, but it did make their task harder. He asked Hera about her plan; surprise crested his face when her plan amounted to 'get in close, then push the levers forward.'
"And we'll have enough of your invisibility dandy to get away with it?" he asked.
Silence. Then, "Sure, yeah." Which didn't set his mind at ease.
He took another nip of the beverage, concentrated -- on how he would slap Hera silly if this so-called 'plan' of hers backfired -- and followed behind the woman as they crept toward the piece of heavy construction equipment. They slipped past guard after guard, employee after employee. None seemed wiser to their act, though he thought he saw a few sets of eyes stare in their direction for just a moment too long.
'Enough! You're being paranoid, Clark! Focus on focusing!' He had to admonish himself several times. In his defense, it was hard not to become paranoid when his job and source of income was on the line.
Tight though their trespass was, something else bugged him. Maybe it was certain pillars. Or maybe it was the condition of the flooring. Or even something in the air. He didn't know. What he did know was there was something about the Interior which set him off wrongly. He felt here like he had in the Orientation atrium. Unnerved? Fearful? He kept himself peeled, ready for action.
Focusing too much on focusing, he bumped into Hera, who had suddenly stopped for some reason. "Ouch. What's the deal, Hera?" he whispered, barely audibly.
Hera did not need to reply. He saw what the issue was right away -- her magical radiance which hid her was fading.
"Take another drink!" he urged. She did but whispered back, "That is the last of it!"
"Shet! Then we need to retreat."
"No!" she growled. "We've come too far to leave empty handed!"
"We wouldn't be leaving empty-handed! We could come back when we have the proper dandies and have some rest under ourselves!"
"No, we can't! Didn't you say these crevices come and go at leisure? Let's say we leave -- or can leave, even -- and then can't find a way back in. Isn't it practically a miracle we could even find a path here in the first place?!"
Clark had to give Hera that; she had been listening. And was right. Yet he had to fight for his position. "True. But retreat is better than staying and getting 'super-fired,' whatever that means."
"Not to me, Clark," she replied, softly, with an emotional edge he hadn't yet seen from her.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
What could he do? Frantically, he tried to come up with a plan, but what?
First, he had to find a place for Hera to hide. Whatever they did -- retreat or advance -- she needed a spot to keep hidden.
There wasn't anything like closets or rooms nearby, but after some frantic scavenging, he did find a pile of boxes yet to be unloaded which, if arranged ever so slightly, provided a degree of safety from prying eyes. He directed Hera to hide between the boxes and to try and make herself appear small. Not so easy for a woman of her size, but that couldn't be helped. But with a hidey hole located, Clark could at least breath slightly easier as he formed the next step of 'operation: don't get caught and fired.'
Next, he had to find a replacement for magic.
There wasn't any way for him to copy the effects of the dandy using raw magic. Talent such as that would remain FAR from his skillset until such a day when he could enroll in some fancy Green Guild course. Until then, he would have to make do with some other toolset.
But what? Wracking his mind, thinking, overthinking, it seemed for naught until he saw a Containment Guard wipe some goo from his uniform. Unlikely as it was, it gave him an idea... an idea which was as unlikely to reach fruition as using raw magic, but something he still had to give a go.
Throwing caution to the wind, he ran back where Hera hide. Accidentally jumping her, he didn't have the time to even calm the lady before he started in with his idea. "Hera! Do you know any martial techniques?" he asked.
"A few basic ones. Strictly for self-defense. Why, child?" she replied, her magical weave hiding her now barely half-effective.
"If you want to bust down that wall and free the shrine, I'm going to need you to bend your rules a bit. Let's bust a head or two -- if we can knock a guard unconscious or tie them up, we can steal their uniforms and blend into the crowd!"
Hera smiled. "I love it! Let's make my shield's final moments matter!"
Without the luxury of time, Hera and he couldn't stake an area out and carefully find a couple of guards who perfectly matched their body types. Instead, they were forced to whack into submission the first couple of guards they saw who roughly matched their sizes.
"You sure they'll be, okay?" he asked as they finished binding the several guards they ambushed.
"I am sure, Clark. I am a master of my techniques. They will wake up with some throbbing muscles but that is it! My church forbids killing, so worry not. I would not master a lethal art."
Worry satiated, he hurriedly shoved on the clothes they stripped from the guards. Seeing the guards now, nearly naked, their muscles bulging against the rope restraints, Clark sighed some relief over their ambush. No way they would have been able to take them in a fair fight.
During their ambush, his and Hera's invisibility auras held out long enough to mask their identities from the ambushed guards. Now, it was close to being depleted.
"Ready?" Hera asked, already geared up.
"Yeah. Lead the way."
"Of course. Bring their radios with you," Hera mentioned. "But turn the volume down. We want to look the part but that is it. Ignore anything which comes through. We don't care about how these guards act. We only have our sights on the wrecking ball."
"Speaking of," Clark replied, keeping his voice low so the bound guards would not hear. "What is the plan when we get to the wrecking ball? It'll have security. For the love of the gods, don't say we'll wing it, because we don't have the muscles to take on an entire unit!"
"We will take it slow. Use the machine for our purposes then skedaddle once the wall's destroyed. If the machine is in use, we'll wait patiently until it is not being used. That's assuming there are guards about. Good enough?" she asked, irritated. Why Hera should be irritated when this was her whole hairbrained scheme, he didn't know. Perhaps, it was because it was hairbrained to begin with? Either way, he shook his head, hoping it would go well.
Dressed as guards, though barely, their uniforms fit unwell, to say the least; boots were too big, causing a slouch with each step; their helmets, too small, gloves just the right size. Everything either fit poorly or not at all. If asked about it, Clark would say that is was because they were emergency hires.
Out among the workers and guards, it felt as though everyone was staring at them. Clark knew, intellectually, this wasn't actually the case. Although, the few actual stares they received, real as well as worrisome, unnerved him for every second said stares seemed to linger a moment longer than they should upon seeing a sloven freak such as they.
As they made their way to the wrecking ball, no one questioned them. People passed them, stared, maybe, but otherwise went on their way. Clark knew he should be happy that no one, such as a cranky supervisor wondering why two of their guards weren't reporting in, while another two were wearing ill-fitted garb, hadn't grabbed them for an interrogation, but he wasn't happy. The same bad feeling from earlier pervaded his mind. Not only pervaded, he thought, but overwhelmed. Threatened to overwhelm.
When they finally fought their way toward the wrecking ball, they found a man was already clambering up its side into the passenger's seat. With no guards stationed, Hera took the opportunity to shout the guard down as Clark did what came naturally to him -- he waited.
"Hey!" Hera boomed, sounding much like an actual Containment Guard. "Boss man wants to talk to you!"
The man cupped his ear with a hand, signaling for Hera to repeat herself. She did, even louder.
The man's face was masked by his helmet. But he came down from the machine all the same. "Da feck duck do you mean super-shet Mick wants to see me? I just came from his mud-huck office!"
Hera put on a more masculine voice. "I dunno man! I'm just the messenger. He said there was something about overtime he wanted to mention. Forgot to tell you something, I guess. You know how the bosses are."
The man became visibly irate at the notion of a boss forgetting to tell him a vital detail about overtime. Clearly, it was a crack in his hull, and the would-be wrecking ball engineer stormed off, cussing all the while.
"I can't believe that worked." Clark kept his watch while Hera climbed up the steps leading to the driver's seat. For once, Hera's haste served him as he didn't want to wait even a minute to flee from this depressing place.
While Hera familiarized herself with the machine Clark doubted, she knew how to operate, he kept his piercing gaze on the lookout for nosey guards, or anyone who might want to ask them a couple of questions about their (planned) wonton vandalism. Watching the workers and security guys walk in and out of his sight, Clark wondered what it was exactly Augustford was doing here. The dozens of men, the supervisor tent, the heavy machinery. Were they looking for something or destroying something? If they were bent on destruction, he could only assume their target was the shrine Hera was heck-bent on saving. What if they were trying to find something? If they were attempting to locate something, then his question lingered -- what could they be trying to find?
These thoughts and others were dashed from his concentration as the wrecking ball roared to life.
'Gods, I hope that woman knows what she is doing!'
Anticipating the slow tread of the heavy works vehicle as it speared ahead, he instead heard an explosion. Then, screaming.
Hera cared not for the explosion. Nor for the screaming. She kept her sight locked on the first of the walls between her and the fake construction sealing off the shrine from the outside world. Which left himself in an odd position. Should he follow Hera or investigate why there was an explosion?
His decision came easy when additional explosions rocked the chamber, sending tumbling several of the smaller pillars.
A siren blared to life.
More shouts, yells. One word decipherable through all the chaos.
"Monsters!"
Have You Ever Had a 'Body Emergency' at Work?
