Kurt stood and adjusted his jacket, feigning umbrage as he moved past her. He gave Jimmy and Gadot a brief nod, noting that Gadot was still glaring at him with obvious mistrust. Rouge moved up next to him, slugged him in the shoulder, and pointed to the helicopter that had parked in the middle of the dance floor. Climbing down the short ladder, Kurt’s feet slipped, and he stumbled down the last couple of rungs. He quickly looked around, hoping nobody had seen his mistake. Rouge was the only one who seemed to have noticed, an eyebrow raised as she shook her head, unimpressed. She cheerily conversed with the pilot as he vacated the craft, before she took his place at the controls. The helicopter had a large Illusion News graphic on its side.

  Sliding into the seat next to Rouge, Kurt noticed she was putting on a parachute and rapidly followed her example. With a bumpy jerk, the helicopter lifted off and the tanker became smaller at an alarming rate. Accustomed to Gadot’s somewhat frightening driving, Kurt was able to control his reaction to the jostling ride the helicopter provided.

  Rouge looked over at him, narrowing her eyes. “You ever been on the Delight?”

  “No, why? Something I should know?” He didn’t take his eyes off the dark sea, focusing on the small lights in the distance.

  She rolled her shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. “Probably. We’ll figure it out as we go. Just follow me and watch my back.” Rouge pointed at a particularly bright cluster of lights on the horizon. “There she is.”

  Kurt strained in his seat to see as they continued their ascent. The ship came into closer view quickly, and he was struck by the sheer scale of the thing. “That’s a floating city.”

  “Ha! Yeah, pretty much.” Rouge adjusted the angle of approach, moving out in front of the gigantic ship. Along the sides of the vessel were what appeared to be full-sized buildings with windows at regular intervals, and a vast empty space between them to compose the main deck. At the front of the arrangement was the control tower and helm, atop the hotel-style buildings. She pointed at it, opening her door. “Try and land there. We need to get close to the helm.”

  “What?” Kurt turned to shout at her, but she had jumped out from the cockpit, her form plummeting from sight. The helicopter began to buck and wheel around with no one at the controls. He scrabbled at his own door, finding the handle and wrenching it open to tumble out of the vehicle.

  Kurt’s descent was less graceful than his previous parachuting experiences. He tore at his ripcord when he noticed that Rouge had already deployed her own parachute below him. Struggling to control his angle of approach, he managed to mostly follow Rouge in, diverting further along the rooftops. She landed gracefully on a rooftop, with a few running steps and a quick disconnect from her parachute. Kurt slammed down next to her, stumbling and falling into a slide that rapidly drew him towards the edge of the roof. He fumbled at his straps before managing to get the quick release locks undone and allowed the wind to take his parachute over the edge without him.

  Rouge stood with her arms crossed, the wind tugging at her hood. “Impressive. How new to this are you again?”

  “Shaddap. A little warning before you bail out would be nice.” Kurt scowled as he watched the helicopter spiral into the ocean far off to the side of the cruise ship.

  “Yeah, I bet.” Rouge smiled and nodded, lifting her hood as she moved to the lip of the roof. There was no railing or access doors, just a handful of sealed hatches scattered across the rooftop. While the area they were on was expansive, the swaying and wind caused Kurt some hesitation as he sidled up next to Rouge and peeked over. Becoming immediately disoriented, he swayed back and fell on his butt, scooting away from the edge again with concern on his face.

  “Really, dude?” Rouge shook her head, turning around and lying flat on her stomach, pushing herself backwards off the edge in one quick movement. She grabbed the lip and swung inward, disappearing from view. “Fall behind and get left there, noob!”

  Kurt took a deep breath, turned himself around and lay down on the roof. Slowly but steadily, he shoved himself backwards until his legs dangled off the ledge. The ship rolled and he squeezed his eyes shut, palms flat against the smooth metal while he tried to get his fear under control. After taking a couple of deep breaths, he pushed himself back enough to let gravity take over. At the sloped lip of the roof, his hands slid and gripped at the ledge, swinging him inward and allowing him to drop to his feet on the patio of a cabin.

  Leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, Rouge gave him a quick nod before turning to a glass door. She knelt and produced a lock pick gun, pressing it into the lock while peering inside. Kurt drew his Walther and slid up next to her, keeping out of sight behind the curtained half of the door.

  She glanced up at him and scowled. “Nice piece. Put it away, though. We talk first if we get caught.” Her lock pick finished, she pocketed the gun and stood while sliding open the door. “Always a good chance of talking your way out of trouble in a place like this. The drunken lost guest routine is a good one.”

  Clothing was scattered around the room, along with various bottles of liquor, discarded room service containers, and suitcases. Kurt holstered his Walther, looking at the mess of a room while they moved through it. “How likely are we to meet somebody?”

  Rouge cracked the cabin door, peering out into the hallway before stepping out, leaving the door open for Kurt to follow. She lowered her hood again and assumed a natural gait as she walked down the hallway. “It’s a cruise ship. We’re not in a restricted area yet, so it won’t matter much.”

  Thinking for a second, Kurt turned back and grabbed one of the partially filled bottles of booze, slipping it into his large inside jacket pocket. He then followed Rouge out of the door and down the hallway, making sure his jacket was buttoned to conceal his arsenal. They moved through what appeared to be a hotel corridor, aside from the ship terminology on the walls and the slight but constant motion of the deck beneath their feet.

  The two stopped at a map in the middle of an elevator hub, hallways leading off in either direction. Rouge checked their location. “Um, this way.” She led Kurt through a set of double doors, heading roughly towards the front of the vessel. They passed civilian NPCs enjoying their cruise, several with beverages in hand, wearing black tie formal wear. He was pleased to watch his disguise skill ticking upwards once again, and swiped his phone closed with a smile.

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  After only a few moments of walking, they came to a set of locked double doors with a camera watching them. It was a small, black, boxy thing, quite obvious, jutting out from the corner of the wall and pointing directly at the door. Rouge looked both ways down the corridor, then slipped along the wall towards the camera, careful to keep out of its line of sight until she was directly underneath it.

  “Keep an eye out. This’ll be fast, so stay out of sight, but get through the door when I say.” She waited for Kurt to nod his understanding before reaching into a pocket in her sweatshirt. Raising a small, shining metal disk the size of a coin to the camera’s underside, Rouge made sure the disk was affixed before tapping a button on it. The red light beside the camera’s lens blinked to green, and she immediately thrust her lock pick gun into the door and opened her phone to watch the progress. A click sounded and she opened the door a crack to peek through, checking the hallway beyond for guards or cameras before turning back to Kurt. “Okay, now!”

  He darted through the door as she held it open, noting that it clicked locked behind them again. At an inquisitive look from Kurt, Rouge explained, “That disk is a looper. You stick one to the camera and press the button for fifteen seconds of looped footage before it wears off. Usually enough for a quick door pick.”

  Kurt added loopers to his mental list of items to always carry, before recoiling as two guards walked past the end of the hallway up ahead, chatting amiably with one another.

  Kurt’s hand went instinctively to his rear holster and the suppressed Walther, but a look from Rouge convinced him to restrain himself. They moved down the hallway slowly, peeking around corners and keeping a sharp eye out for more cameras. The floor was painted with different colored lines; red, blue, yellow. Following the red stripe, they moved through the ship.

  “Where are we going?” Kurt hissed as they huddled behind a corner, waiting for a uniformed ship security agent to walk away.

  Rouge glared at him before answering at a low volume. “There’s emergency access to the engine room from right outside the Helm. If we can just get past these guards.” As she spoke, the guard turned and started to walk away. They slipped around the corner and approached a door marked ‘Helm’. The red line on the floor ended there. The way forward was heavily locked and reinforced, with thick metal sidings. Another camera was positioned over the door, but they diverted and moved down a nearby hallway, approaching a door marked ‘Engine Room Access’.

  “Okay, watch my — dammit!” Rouge paused, her lock pick gun out. She glared at a small, white box directly above the door, with wires leading from it to the door’s frame. “It’s alarmed. Once we open that door, the alarms go off and totally screw our timetables.” She pocketed the lock pick gun and leaned against the wall, scooting down until she was seated with her knees raised in front of her and her wrist held up. “Hey . . . yeah, problem. The door is alarmed.” She rolled her eyes at an unheard response. “Yeah, cause I control the randomized mechanics. How far out is the tug?”

  Nervously peering around the corner, Kurt noticed a guard coming their way and turned back. “We have a problem.”

  “Shit. I guess we pop it and hope for the best. Gotta run. Get here fast.”

  Rouge started to get up but paused when she saw Kurt holding his legendary ECM to the alarm. He aimed the antenna at the alarm box and pressed the button on the side, causing a tiny shower of sparks to erupt from his target. No alarms sounded, and he shrugged to Rouge as he pocketed the ECM. Wasting no time, she stood and jammed the lock pick gun into the door, impatiently watching her wrist as it worked. The door clicked open and they slipped through before the guard could walk past the short hallway and spot them.

  Her gaze was stuck to him. “You really downed Clancy already?” She looked him over, a more serious expression on her face. “You might be alright after all. C’mon.”

  As she moved away from the door, Kurt took a moment to look at the room he was in. It was tiny, not much bigger than a supply closet. The only thing of note in the room was against the rear wall, opposite the door. A part of the wall bowed out in a tube shape from ceiling to floor, with a long metal handle on the side. Rouge moved over and grabbed the handle, sliding open a door in the curved wall and revealing a cramped area that held a fireman’s pole. The smell of oil seeped from the hatch, along with the muted sound of machinery.

  “Uhhh . . .” Kurt nervously stepped over to the pole and looked down into the cavity, immediately regretting it. He swayed back from the massive drop and looked at Rouge.

  “Yup!” She smiled at him before lifting her hood and grabbing a tiny SMG from a holster behind her back. It was small enough to fit in one hand, with the general appearance of an UZI, but had a suppressor jutting from its barrel and an oversized magazine sticking out from under her hand. She gripped the pole with her other hand and slid down out of sight with a laugh.

  “Why is there so much to do with heights in this frigging game?” Kurt sighed and drew his Walther, stepping gingerly into the cavity and gripping the pole with the soles of his shoes. Eyes squeezed shut, he loosened his grip and promptly lost control of the slide, dropping his gun as he attempted to recover. It rattled and banged down the pipe and landed with a soft thud as he followed, desperately trying to slow his descent to a survivable speed.

  The landing was not soft, but it didn’t cause any health damage either, just forced him to fall on his butt in front of Rouge again. She snickered and shook her head. “I’m gonna have to run with you again, this is fun. Gotta find some more stuff for you to fall off of.”

  “Don’t start.” Kurt grabbed his Walther from the padded mat beside him and went into a crouch beside Rouge. “Okay, what are we doing?”

  Pointing ahead of them with her SMG, she stood and moved towards the exit. “Once we get into the engine room, we have guards to kill and engineers to capture. We have to make sure we get all of them, and it’d be great if we could do it without the alarm going off.” She glanced back at him. “You have zip ties?”

  Quickly checking his pockets, Kurt produced one, feeling its replacement form in the pocket. “Yep. Standing order for me.”

  “Smart. Wags can raise a racket in them, but down here that won’t matter. If we can hold the engine room until the tug arrives, we’ll have done our part.” Rouge dropped the magazine out of her gun, checked it, and slapped it back in place. “The engine room is big, with lots of guards and wags.”

  Kurt drew his Walther and nodded towards the door, trying not to act as embarrassed as he felt. “What’s on the other side?”

  “What, through here?” Rouge shoved the door slightly and let it swing open to peek out into the area beyond. The already loud sound of machinery became deafening, and Rouge patched in a com channel for the two of them. Once he accepted, Kurt was still deafened by the machinery, but Rouge’s voice came into his ear clearly.

  “Okay! In the next area there are two main engine blocks, with four hallways running along either side of them. Above those are catwalks, which will also have guards and sometimes wags. We split up and take one engine each. Kill the guards, tie down the wags, then when we get the signal we shut down the engines.” She started to move in a crouch through the door, but hesitated, turning back to face him. “I almost forgot. There’s a first aid room and a break room around here somewhere, but the location changes all the time. Each of those has a panic button that sounds a ship-wide alarm, so be super careful when clearing them out. Okay, good to go?”

  Kurt nodded. “Good to go.”

  She slipped out of the door and made her way towards the left side of the engine room, leaving the right to Kurt. Upon exiting the locker room, he immediately pulled up his map and began watching the guards and civilian NPCs within range. The guards were denoted by a cone of vision in red, while the civilians’ cone of vision appeared in a light blue color. Approaching a corner of the massive engine block, he peeked around it to take in the corridor. Two guards stood in place, watching over a civilian work team of two men in yellow jumpsuits. The civilians were working on part of the engine, with a guard on the catwalk above and another standing just behind them.

  Everything was in place. It was time to engage.