The city’s shields are active when they get back. The girls can’t help but stare at the blue flickering dome stretching over it, knowing the thousands of absols a second activating it costs, even in this lower output setting. Expensive, but necessary as it takes minutes to fully activate. They can’t help but notice none of the house lights are on as every item’s absolution is being directed into the city’s grid.

  “How long can it stay like that?” Allia asks.

  J shrugs. “I’m not privy to the status of the absolution banks, but I understand it to be a few weeks.”

  “How long can the city last without functioning infrastructure though?” Sarrah asks.

  J glances at her and nods. “The water lines are still functional, which is main issue, as are coldboxes, though those will be shunted in a few days. Everything else can be handled by freecasting. By the way, absols are paid at double rates for absolving the city’s network in an emergency, in case you wanted to take advantage.”

  The girls nod at the suggestion.

  “Anyways,” J continues, “we estimate the shields will hold for no more than 5 minutes if the baited breath attacks. You should be able to make it to the nearest shelter in that time if you keep ready.”

  “My parents have a bunker in the basement,” Sarrah says. “It’s probably not as robust as a public one, but it has its own shield generator and is a decent way underground.”

  J nods. “Smaller might be better anyways. Less of a target, and Allia can put up barriers to intercept. Though I recommend keeping them at least a hundred feet away to trigger the blasts early.”

  “Will you be opening up your secret lab tunnels as a shelter?” Allia asks.

  “Ah… no,” J looks away as if embarrassed or ashamed. “We still haven’t combed through them for any surprises Zexel might have left us. There may be some unexploded bomb waiting to be bumped into.”

  “Doesn’t seem very likely. Are you sure the reason isn’t because you still haven’t admitted to their existence?” Sarrah asks.

  J looks at her and moves on. “Well, it’s not likely that they’ll attack the city anyways. We might not have enough forces nearby to sink them, but they can’t completely ignore what we do have either. Anyways, we will drop you at the dock. The busses are still running, but will stop in an hour. A general curfew will be under place an hour after that. Make sure you’re home before then. I’ll be reachable at this address if you need to reach me.” She scribbles it down on a paper. “Sprites will be intercepted after curfew, so start any message with the included passphrase. Just don’t include sensitive information.”

  Once they’re down, Sarrah finds a sprite marker and sends a message to her house saying “Back on Newflor. Heading home.” Then they grab a bus back to the stop where they got on from that morning and go to Allia’s house to get a few things before finally walking back.

  Sarrah’s mother is on the porch waiting for them in a much more militant attire than the previous night. She has the same armoured vest and helmet that the AL soldiers with J had, but her outfit underneath has more utility pockets. It’s likely similar to what she wears on her survey missions in more dangerous regions. She’s leaning coolly against the wall, a carbine leaning next to her and a lit conetstick in her mouth that she’s puffing away at, the blue glowing ember on the end flaring with each breath.

  The moment she sees Sarrah she immediately extinguishes the conetstick by pressing it against her armour in a spot that seems well worn by similar snuffings, and rushes to give her daughter a hug.

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  “We were about to go to the dock when we got your message. How’d you get back so fast? The announcement said the Crystal point ferry wouldn’t be back for another 10 minutes.”

  “Oh, um… it’s complicated,” Sarrah says, still in the embrace. “

  “Well, you can tell us about it later. Your father is inside talking with someone from the League. They wanted to check the possibility that the Chthonians might have detected a new island somehow without our sensors going off or something crazy like that. Maybe even a precursor for a rising. But we’re not seeing anything new in the data.”

  Sarrah shakes her head. “They’re not here for islands, they’re here for… something else.”

  Rachel stoops down to bring her eyes level with her slightly shorter daughter. “I guess it really is complicated.”

  “Um… yeah… I um… I thought you quit those, by the way.” Sarrah lightly jabs the burn mark on Rachel’s armour.

  “Very smooth redirection,” Rachel says with a teasing smile.

  “Mom. I’m serious. You know they’re no good.”

  “Heh… yeah. And I did quit… mostly I only smoke them in situations like this.”

  Sarrah raises an eyebrow. “You find yourself potentially under imminent bombardment from rouge Chthonian battlecruisers often? Your surveys really are more exciting than you let on.”

  Rachel chuckles, her smile going wide from the jest as she ruffles her daughter’s hair. “You know what I mean… waiting to do maybe something dangerous.” Her eyes briefly takes on a distant look before resuming the smile at her daughter.

  “…Yeah… I guess… come on. Let’s go in.”

  Rachels smiles and pulls her into another hug before they walk in together. “Oh, by the way Allia. Some sprites came for. You should probably take care of them, since you wouldn’t want the responses to be interdicted after curfew.”

  “Oh, um… yeah. I’ll do that now. See you inside.”

  She reaches the feeder with a dozen glowing balls of various colours pulsing contentedly, clinging via static discharges to the outside of the black box lifted into the air by a single metal pole. She touches the cube and says her name, and the orbs all spontaneously rearrange so that those addressed to her are separated from the others.

  There’s nothing serious. Mostly just a few inquiries from friends, Alex and Emil among them, asking about her well-being. She answers them all quickly and succinctly, simply stating that she was fine but thank you for asking.

  During this, she spots Gerrald exiting the house accompanying a bearish, muscular man with a wide moustache and sunshades on even in doors. Both of them have the adventurer league’s standard armoured vest on, though they lack the helmet. The man has a formal jacket over his while Gerrald is wearing a turtleneck under his.

  She tries not to listen in, but still gets the essence of their farewell exchange. Gerrald seems confident that no new islands have emerged in the past few days and there’s no evidence of one being about to for at least 200 miles. In response the shaded man thanks him for his time, or rather says “the league thanks you for your effort,” and then goes through various farewell pleasantries. Everything’s well? You don’t need anything? That sort of thing.

  “Who was that?” Allia asks after he goes.

  “Oh, um… Regional Associate Director. He was really hoping there might be a new island to explain what the CNS is doing here.”

  Allia scrunches her face. “Did they have any evidence that would warrant having a RAD check the possibility in person?”

  Gerrald suppresses a chuckle at her impromptu acronym. “No, nothing whatsoever. But there’s not much else that would justify us getting in on the action.”

  “Oh,” Allia says, tilting her head to a side, then suddenly tilting it the other way as if having an insight. “He wasn’t asking you to lie, was he?”

  Gerrald glances at her, assessing, before shaking no. “I did point out a way to massage the data if he wanted to go that route, but I asked to leave our name out of it if he did that. He agreed that the hit to our reputation when it got out wouldn’t be worth a minor role in whatever is going on.”

  “Oh, that’s good then,” Allia says and they both go inside.

  Sarrah is sitting seriously at the table with Rachel washing her gelato bowl at the sink. “Oh, Allia, please have a seat,” she gestures to a spot next to Sarrah. There’s a tension in the tone indicating that it’s not a suggestion.

  Allia looks at her friend as she sits, who is leaning slightly back, arms crossed and staring straight ahead. She tries to make a questioning expression, but Sarrah just shrugs and raises her eyebrows in a non-elucidatory manner.

  Rachel quickly finishes with the bowl and sets it in the rack before taking a seat opposite to Allia, a false smile plastered on her face. Not a lying smile, but a smile meant to be seen as false to evoke unease.

  “So, Allia, our daughter says you have a secret to tell us?”

  Allia glances over to Sarrah, who just sighs and covers half her face with her palm at her mother’s theatrics.