Web of Chaos - Chapter 16: The Mirage

Step one: Find an alibi.

“Here’s another problem,” Akari told her team. “Everyone at school thinks I’m a troublemaker now.”

Arturo chuckled from his desk chair. “You were always a troublemaker, shoka. But everyone thought you were harmless before. Now the kitten’s got claws.”

She rolled her eyes. “Point is, they’ll blame me if something goes missing. Especially time techniques.”

“Who says they have to go missing?” Arturo twirled the silver Master Key between his fingers. “Those manuals are all dream tablets, right? Dream tablets can be copied.”

“Wait, seriously? 

“Sure. I’d bet every tablet up there is a copy. You think they let students play with the originals?”

“Hold on.” The wooden floors creaked beneath Kalden’s boots as he stepped forward. “Then why don’t we pay someone to copy the tablets for us? Someone who already has access?”

“Never said it was easy, shoko. They’ll have special cases to prevent tampering, plus anti-copy sigils, and cameras.”

Kalden gave a slow nod. “But you could do it? If we get you inside the restricted section, I mean.”

“That’s the idea,” Arturo said. “All the best crimes go unnoticed.” 

Akari gained at the exchange. It was almost comical how they’d become a group of criminals overnight. Then again, they’d never been ordinary students in the first place. Even Arturo and Zukan had been rebels down in Creta. 

“Money’s the next problem,” Arturo went on. “One blank tablet will cost you ten grand. And I’m guessing you’ll need at least five or six.”

“I’ll pass that on to Irina,” Kalden said. “It might eat into the budget, but it’s still better than stealing the tablets.”

Zukan cleared his throat from the corner. “Akari should still have an alibi for when things go wrong. We all should.”

Arturo's eyes lit up with sudden inspiration. “I know!” He gestured toward Akari and Kalden. “We’ll throw a party to celebrate your promotions.”

They all stared at him, but Zukan broke the silence first. “A . . . party? During the break-in?”

“This alibi’s gotta be rock solid,” Arturo said. “And a party’s the perfect cover. Picture this—free booze, music, and dancing. We’ll invite everyone in the Artegium, and we’ll let them bring their friends. Hundreds of people will see us there. They might even take some videos.”

“Then we slip away when they’re drunk,” Akari said. “Take a portal to the library . . . ”

“ . . . and be back before anyone misses us,” Arturo finished. 

She frowned. “But will people actually come to this thing? We don’t have that many friends.”

“I said free booze, shoka. Free booze!” He leaned back in his chair, looking pleased with himself. “And you can speak for yourself. I’ve got plenty of friends outside this room.” 

“But where do we host it?” Kalden glanced around the loft. “Here?”

“Hell no,” he said. “We’ll rent out a bigger place. Just leave that part to me.”

~~~

Step two: Get inside the library.

Arturo clearly knew his stuff when it came to parties. Less than seventy-two hours had passed since their planning session, and things were already in full swing. Electric music flooded every corner of the Mirage Nightclub, and the bass hammered through Akari’s body like a second heartbeat, rattling her bones and buzzing in her skull. Drinks flowed freely from the open bar, and hundreds of their peers danced beneath the flashing lights.

The room itself seemed to change with every song, not so different from the arenas at school. One minute, the crowd danced in an urban cityscape, with skyscrapers rising and falling around them. The next minute, they were deep underwater, surrounded by glowing fish and sea serpents. 

Akari stumbled her way through the crowd, and her vision swayed as she bobbed her head. She hadn’t had a drop of alcohol all night, but Kalden had brewed some potions that mimicked the effects for a short time. Mockohol, he’d called it. This let her team loosen up for a few hours without relying too much on their acting abilities.

Well, all except for Zukan, who served as their designated bouncer for the night. But she doubted any drink or potion could loosen him up.

Akari reached the edge of the dance floor and checked her watch. 11:43. The library closed at ten o’clock on Talekdays, but they’d given themselves two extra hours to let the staff clear out.

‘Ready to put on a show?’ she asked Kalden through their soulbond.

‘Ready when you are.’ He sent her a mental image of his location, and their eyes met across the crowded dance floor.

She’d already done her share of dancing on the catwalk, leaving a sheen of sweat across her forehead and chest. Even her Artisan body couldn’t keep her cool forever, and her black dress clung to her like a second skin.

Meanwhile, Kalden looked as fresh as a sunrise. There wasn’t a drop of sweat on his forehead or a single strand of hair out of place.

‘Cheater,’ she told him. She didn’t know how, but he’d definitely brewed up some alchemy bullshit to stay cool.

Kalden grinned as he closed the distance. ‘You’re just mad I didn’t share.’

‘Hell yes I am. You think I like getting all sweaty?’

‘It helps sell the story,” he replied. ‘Besides, you’re much cuter this way.’

They met in the center of the dance floor as the song shifted again, the underwater scene dissolving into a starlit galaxy. Lights like distant suns swirled around them, casting prismatic shadows across Kalden's sharp face.

She wrapped her arms around the back of his neck, and his hands found her waist, pulling her slender frame against his. Akari melted into him, inhaling the cedar scent of his cologne. That smell never got old, even after all these months together.

Stars streaked around them as they moved, painting white lines through the green and blue nebulas.  Akari turned around, pressing her back against Kalden’s chest. His breath was warm against her neck as they swayed, hips grinding in sync with the bass. Sweat glistened on her arms as she reached back, threading her fingers through his hair.

‘Thought you couldn’t dance like this,’ she said through their bond.

‘Who said that?’ 

‘You did. At Arturo’s party last year.’

‘Ah, you’re right. Not my proudest moment. Then again, neither is this.’

Akari laughed. ‘Then stop thinking so much. We’re not Masters yet.’

She followed her own advice, and they moved together for three or four songs—long enough to lose all sense of time. The room changed to a dream-like mana storm, then back to an urban skyline.

‘Almost midnight,’ he said. ‘Ready to ramp things up?’

Akari tilted her head back against his shoulder, letting her eyes fall shut. Kalden's lips brushed her exposed neck, sending shivers down her spine despite the heat.

They faced each other again, hips still moving with the music. Kalden’s hands traced the curve of her lower back as he pulled her closer. The bass pulsed around them as their lips finally met.

Akari inhaled sharply through her nose and lost herself in the moment once again. His tongue slipped into her mouth, and his hand found its way up her left thigh. Akari ran her right hand through his hair while the other traced his jaw.

Their hands kept wandering as they shuffled off the crowded dance floor. Their movements grew more urgent as they reached the staff bathroom at the back of the club. Zukan followed several paces behind them, ready to stand guard for the next hour.

This was definitely the sleaziest thing they’d ever done, but it served its purpose. If the police questioned her fellow students, they would all remember seeing her at midnight, grinding against Kalden, all sweaty and buzzed and completely unfit to break into any locked buildings.

No sooner had Kalden closed the bathroom door than the clock struck midnight and the mockohol faded from her system. The change happened in a blink, quicker than flipping a light switch.

Kalden pulled away once they were alone, cycling battle mana to the leather pouch on his belt. Two bundles of clothing appeared in his hand a second later, and he passed one to Akari without comment

She yanked off her dress and stepped into a suit of thin black armor, not so different from what the shadow artists wore back on Arkala. But while those suits relied on special aspects, these came with sigils to convert the pure mana from their bodies. Conversion was always less efficient than the real thing, but those costs were pocket change for Artisans. 

Once they’d changed, Akari stretched out her hand and opened a portal in the empty wall. Arturo stepped through from the adjacent bathroom, dressed in his own suit of black armor with the mask rolled up above his eyes.

She half-expected a joke about their show on the dance floor, but Arturo was all business as he pulled several smaller bags from his own pocket dimension. After that, he got to work installing a complex system of wards and sound suppressors around the room. Even if someone got past Zukan, it would probably take a Master-level technique to break down that door.

Akari closed the first portal and shot a second spacetime Missile into the wall. This one led straight into the library itself.

The Mirage Nightclub was just over two miles from campus, and most Artisan-level space artists would struggle to maintain their techniques at half that distance. Not to mention the time involved; she’d positioned the first half of the Construct on Hansday, more than forty-eight hours ago.

But Akari was a spacetime artist, not a space artist. She’d been practicing her semi-permanent techniques all summer, and her actual limit was closer to three miles. Maybe four if she pushed herself to her limits.

This new portal was less than five inches in diameter. And, as expected, Akari stared into the page of a closed textbook.

“Okay,” she told Kalden. “You’re up.”

Kalden knelt by the small portal and conjured a dull, paper-thin blade in his right hand. Then he wedged the small Construct downward, slipping between the pages until he found the wooden shelf it rested on. Several minutes passed as he guided the book forward, inch by inch like a tiny rowboat. Akari probably could have handled this step, but Kalden was their team’s best shaper, and they weren’t taking any chances on this mission.

Gravity took over at the end, and Kalden shot a light burst of pure mana through the portal, catching the book before it struck the ground. Now, it faced the ceiling of the main stacks.

Kalden got to his feet and nodded toward Arturo.

The other boy took his place by the portal, feeding a small camera through the hole. The camera perched on top of a flexible stick, and the video feed showed up on his laptop. 

“We’re clear,” he said after a short pause. 

Akari stuck her hand through the portal and shot another spacetime Missile at the nearest wall. The new portal was over four feet in diameter, large enough for all three of them to duck through. 

They emerged on the top floor of the main stacks, just outside the cameras’ blindspot. Not that a few security cameras would slow her team down. Arturo carried an advanced camouflage unit that should fool almost anyone below the Master realm. The device came with a two-hundred-pound mana battery, but they’d outsourced the mass through his spatial delivery network. Plus they still wore their shadow armor as a second layer of precaution.

Her team rounded the corner and crept along the edge of the dark library. Moonlight shone through the stained glass windows, but they cast no shadows as they walked. Their footsteps echoed on the marble floor—loud to their own ears, but silent to an outside observer

Finally, they reached the staircase and climbed toward the restricted section.