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xp_logsThe Black Court is livid and accusations fly.
They had moved from the party into the main Hellfire Club building. Shaw was livid. An attempted theft was an attack against him personally, attempting to upstage his night of glory. Worse, it made Harkness suddenly as valuable as the man had claimed, and honour dictated that he be properly rewarded for his foresight. Fuming, he assembled his Court at the table as the White Court joined them. He knew the rumoured associations Emma had with an underground faction of mutants, and that they almost certainly had the skills to accomplish the attempt. But why is it so obvious? A failed attempt by her court or its allies, especially tonight of all nights, was a risk far beyond the possible reward.
“If you haven’t heard, there was an attempt to steal from the collection while the ceremonies were proceeding. Our security has swept the area and re-secured the item that was targeted, but as of now, they have no suspects and no evidence. How particularly effective these villains were, right up until they reached a final layer of security only three people knew about.” Shaw said, his voice dripping with menace. “How… curious they’d have so much knowledge about our systems.”
"Oh, please, darling," said Emma, her expression bored. "If you will insist on the lowest bidder, you can hardly be surprised when it's all so..." she wafted her hand around airily, "hoi polloi."
"A book, as mentioned, with magical properties that your allies are reported to covet, Alarm bells are ringing, my Queen. He paused and shifted in his chair. “Fortunately, Mister Harkness had reason to believe that book was going to be targeted specifically. Which is why the one on display is a forgery. The real book has remained sealed in the vault of the Black Court this whole time.”
Doug rolled his shoulder under the asymmetrical jacket he had picked out for the event. "Are you planning on making an accusation in there somewhere, or just scattering implications around without a shred of proof?" He let the silence after the question drag out just shy of impertinent before dropping a "My King" and lowering his eyes away. "You certainly know Emma and I have been in plain sight the entirety of the evening."
"Oh, do I believe my White Queen would don a black outfit and try and pick the locks herself? I'm told that you are an intelligent man, Douglas. Perhaps you've had too much to drink." Shaw dismissed him contemptuously. "I have also noted that your two guests have been conspicuously in sight and confined to public spaces. In fact, the innocence of the current White Court and their guests couldn't be more open and obvious."
“Excellent, Sebastian,” beamed Emma. “Well, now that we’ve cleared that up, can we get back to the party? There’s a bottle of Dom Perignon 1995 with my name on it. Quite literally - the darling vigneron put one aside especially for me back in the day.”
"Some very nearly successfully broke our security, Emma. I would think, as innocent as you are, you'd have some interest in finding out how they managed such a feat. I'm surprised the White Court is so uninquisitive. It's almost as if you expected it. Even already know who is responsible." Shaw mused.
"Maximoff." Harkness said with certainty. "She's coveted it for years. Considers herself an expert on it. "Se- my lord, if I might suggest - confront her with the text. Tell her that we caught the thief. I am certain that any plot to steal it has to involve her in some way."
"Hmm... since she is your guest, Emma, custom demands that I question her with your court present. Guards, ask Ms Maximoff to join us. And her companion, Ms Sefton. We will soon get to the bottom of this."
A few minutes passed before the guards came back and Wanda and Amanda swept in behind them. Despite the presence of the guards, Wanda came in, as always, with confidence and a small smile. "Emma," she said, dangling a half-finished glass of red wine from her fingers. "Mr. Shaw." Her gaze went to Harkness and her smile didn't change but the light in her eyes did, turning her smile a little more sharp. "Nicholas." She turned back to Shaw and Emma. "We were asked to come, ah, assist, as it were, with a matter?"
Amanda, for her part, didn't bother to hide her contempt for Harkness with even a fake smile. "Well, they really do let just about anyone in here, don't they?" she said, mostly to Wanda but pitched to reach Harkness. "Trying your luck with the hoi polloi, Scratch?" Coincidentally, the one-shouldered leather outfit she wore - elaborately ruffled and skin tight top with a miniskirt and fishnets - revealed a white scar on her shoulder where she'd been stabbed during her last meeting with the magic user.
“There was an attempted theft tonight during the party. They were trying to steal a rare book on display. Jan Amos Comenius’ ‘Janua Linguarum Reserata’. I believe that you have some knowledge of the work?” Shaw paused for a moment for her to nod. “Fortunately, we captured the thief before they could steal it. Would you mind confirming for us that this is the correct copy and it hasn’t been damaged?”
"But of course. If I could bother your staff for something to clean my hands with, I'd be happy to begin my appraisal." It wasn't long before Wanda's drink was handed off and her hands thoroughly cleaned. In a swish of skirts, she turned towards the book in question. Leaning over, she gently picked it up in her hands. Her inspection was gentle but thorough - she started with the binding and worked her way inside, seemingly in no rush, despite the intense stares of everyone in the room directed her way. Wanda cradled it as she turned the pages, humming quietly to herself as she worked.
Finally, Wanda straightened and placed the book back where it had been resting. Her gaze met Shaw's and the others mildly. "I can confirm that there is no damage," she said, "and please extend my congratulations to the creator of this very fine forgery."
Harkness was disappointed Wanda did nothing to tip her hand. “We created the forgery for display as I believed it was targeted. The real one was safe in the vault this whole time.”
“I’ve sent for it.” Shaw said, turning back as an identical looking book appeared. He was hoping for some reaction as well, trying to goad Wanda. “Please, feel free to confirm it.”
Once again, Wanda went through the same motions she'd done with the first version.
“As I said, this is a very good forgery.” Wanda said, looking over at the copy. She turned back to the original and scanned it for a moment before looking up. “And so is this.”
“What?”
As they challenge the theft, flashback to Marie-Ange and Doug making three forgeries.
Years ago Marie-Ange had appropriated one of the former classrooms at the mansion and turned it into a shared art studio. Most of the time, she worked from an easel, or an angled table, but today she had cleared the entire workbench. As the door opened, she was under the bench, plugging cords into a surge protector, and slid out, puffing her hair off her face as she did. "Before we even craft anything, we are going to need research. So very much research." She pointed with her free hand to the laptop on the workbench. "Emails from N, everything Wanda could find on the book, and two sources for materials. Can you start making lists?"
"Make ink from boysenberries, tan hides for covers, make glue from animal parts..." The urge to declare that they were hacking history a la Alec Hardison was definitely strong. "I can probably write an algorithm to create the content to fill the pages, but how are we going to source this stuff?" Doug shook his head. "Is there a reason we can't just pay N to forge it for us?" Angie's contact was probably the best forger he could think of.
"Second honeymoon in Paris." Marie-Ange answered. "Or third? Third and a half?" She stood and leaned against the table, relaxed and at ease, despite the tall order. "Do honeymoons even count if you are in a throuple? Regardless, he is in Paris, so all I have from him is advice and one or two names I can call for materials."
Doug covered a wince badly at the mention of a throuple. Damn Wade for sending him a pallet of Reese's cups on Wade's own birthday. "I guess we start with those contacts, then, and see where they lead us." One thing was certain, if the man that Marie-Ange always went to for advice about the art world vouched for people, they were the best around. "How do we reach them?" Some of the people N knew could be...eccentric.
Marie-Ange let out an absolutely beleaguered sigh. "I leave a note in a specific tree in Central Park, and then wait for a text to a burner phone." She shook her head. "I suppose it is secure, but it is absurd. My bigger worry is that even if you have a very smart program to create content, I have to hand calligraph pages on pages, unless you think you can build an autowriter that uses a fountain pen."
A thoughtful noise came from Doug as he tapped his chin with a finger. "Autopens are definitely a thing, but hardware is less my bailiwick." He cocked his head. "I wonder if I could teach the nanites to do autowriting." Then he took a while to consider the follow-on ramifications of teaching his nanites to write independently. A harrowing mental image of his arm writing messages while he was asleep caused him to shudder. "Then again, maybe that's not the best idea."
"Ah, no. I think it is best if I learn to calligraph in that handwriting style, and you provide me words." Marie-Ange said. "Just understand that even before we source the right paper, and I have only a limited idea how we are going to even find the right paper, I am going to have to devote so very much time to practice, so you get to do the dirty work."
Why did it feel like he had just fallen into some little trap of hers? And why... "Why do I get the feeling that the 'dirty work' is going to involve actual dirt, Angie?" Doug asked. When she made a noise that was equal parts thoughtful and amused, his frown deepened. "Angie?"
=
Marie-Ange's phone rang as she was washing her hands. She hit the screen with her elbow, recognizing the ring tone. "Bonjour. How are you finding your excursion?" She scrubbed under one fingernail with a stiff brush, trying to remove the sticky residue caked underneath.
"Dirty." A huffing noise and the distinct crunch of a shovel blade hitting dirt came through the connection. Doug wiped sweat off of his forehead with the back of his arm and tilted his head to make sure the earpiece was still properly seated. "And sweaty." He picked the shovel back up with his nanite-built right arm, then sighed. "And full of a number of awkward questions from the cohabitants."
"That is not a consequence I had anticipated." Marie-Ange replied. "I was expecting complaints." She continued to scrub, grunting slightly as she did. "The glue is cooked, and Topaz has sourced parchment for us." She paused. "My bank account may suffer for that, I had to give her my credit card."
"It's Topaz," Doug countered. "She won't even come close to the limit. She'll get us all something like those nifty cubical lamps, and you'll barely notice the balance next to however much the parchment is going to cost." He picked up a skull and barely resisted the urge to quote 'alas poor Yorick'. "How much skeleton do you need?" he asked. "Rough percentage."
Doug could hear some whispers as Marie-Ange talked to herself, calculating through the process of making boneblack. "Thirty percent?" She clearly was not entirely sure. "I am basing this off a three hundred year old recipe, there is guessing I have done."
Doug shoved the skull, spine, and ribcage into the lined bag he had brought to store the remains in. "Hey, want a bonus femur that we could try and pass off as a holy relic?" he asked lightly. "This one's in pretty good condition for how old it is."
***
"Nine hundred and twenty five degrees." Marie-Ange read from the digital gauge on the side of the kiln. "Melting point is very soon, so please be ready." She pushed the protective goggles back up her nose, and tapped the gauge with a gloved finger. "At least it is brass and not gold?"
"Did you know that brass is believed to have been discovered by accident?" Doug stared at the kiln, his ungloved right hand very near the cup. Granted, he knew for a fact that the nanites that were now serving as his forearm could take very high amounts of heat. After all, that was the reason they -were- now serving as his forearm.
"I did know." Marie-Ange answered absently. "That friend of my friend, he gave me a very informative lecture on how to determine the age of cast metals, and then I had to hear the entire history of brass." She made a minute adjustment to the pressed sand mold, and then stepped back. "Ready, please skim and pour."
It probably said something about how much Doug had already become used to the nanites as a presence in his existence that there was only the slightest quiver in the flesh of his upper arm as he bare-handed picked up the cup of molten brass with the silicon based hand and then very precisely tipped it to pour into the mold. "So where did we source the actual brass from? Medieval church plaque?"
It was several seconds before Marie-Ange answered, distracted by the wisps of fine smoke coming from Doug's fingers. "That is, ah, that is going to take getting accustomed to." She said, with a quick shake of her head. "Oh, ah, no. I stole a very ugly statue of some minor nobility. Hideous thing, poorly made. It deserved to be melted."
That was new. Normally she was the utterly unflappable one of the two of them. To be fair, though, Doug had been more or less getting used to it the entire time since the nanites had entered his body. "All right," he said as he placed the empty cup back in the kiln. "That's ink, glue, fasteners done. Topaz is getting the parchment. What's left? The cover?"
Marie-Ange shook her head, and pulled her gloves off her hands. "Almost completed." Her fingers were dye-stained where they weren't bandaged. "I would rather not talk about the smell of centuries old leather. How is the research into content generation?"
"Without getting too far into mathematical analysis of dialect and writing style..." Which Doug was sure was more pleasant than talking about centuries-old leather, but still. "From looking at the quill-strokes and nib marks, the writer almost certainly was right handed." In this sort of thing there was never one hundred percent certainty, but he was very good at this sort of thing, so it was very close. "I've cut about a dozen nibs based on that, which should be enough for you to get through."
"The one time I want you to go into the math of something and you skip it?" Marie-Ange said, laughing as she gently tapped the molds for the brackets to settle the brass. "How heavy handed do I need to be? Just give me the math, I know you want to. I do actually read your technical specification emails, you know."
Doug's face grew a bit sheepish and his mouth quirked as his shoulders came up. "I just know I can be a bit much..." His hands came up as Marie-Ange rolled her eyes at him. "So, if you view handwritten characters as a mathematical function, you can run a Fourier analysis on them..."
Next, Jubilee breaches the secure basement of the Black Court with Emma's help.
“Come now, Sebastian. Are you suggesting that someone could possibly breach the Black Court secure basement without being seen or logged in?” Emma said. "Pay low rates, get cheap product."
***
~The RFID chip will get you in and out of the door.~ Emma put a map inside Jubilee’s mind, showing the location of the service door that led to the basement. ~In the unlikely event that you get caught, make sure they don’t find it. Swallow it, if you have to. Doug will get rid of the records of your entry and exit as soon as you’ve got in and out. Once you’re in, there are ducts and vents everywhere. It’s an old building and it’s been repurposed a few times. I got them to re-do the electrical wiring to bring it up to code, but the rest of it was too antiquated to bother with.~ Her crystalline mental presence slipped out of Jubilee’s mind and then returned a moment later. ~Oh, and look out for the rats. And… detritus. I’ll have antibiotics on standby when you get back to the office.~
Jubilee muttered to herself as she used the RFID chip to open the door and then closed it quietly behind her. She'd not have a backup on this one and so if she was caught, well, they just wouldn't think of that until it became something to think about. It was easy enough to find the nearest entrance to the system of ducts that ran through the HFC headquarters, just as Emma had said.
~So, are you like, listening all Jiminy Cricket conscience like in the back of my head, or am I all alone in here?~
Jubilee left the thought in her head as she squeezed through the small entrance and then reached back to pull the grate back into place. She made quick work of the screws with the small electronic screwdriver she carried in her vest before turning over and starting to crawl.
~Because like, I'm not saying there's anything in here that's disgusting or anything, but maybe you don't want to have a craving for Fried Chicken all of a sudden is what I'm thinking'
~If you need me, I’m here,~ said Emma. ~I will happily avoid over-hearing any of your thoughts about rats, though. Or fried chicken.~
Jubilee smiled and continued crawling, if the map Emma had shown her was still accurate, there'd be a drop-off soon that would lead her to a lower level, and then she'd need to get across an open hallway to find the next set of connected ducts. Most of it wasn't anything she hadn't done before, but the added interest of perhaps coming across a random mutant hanging out as a transformed giant rat, or maybe some of the odder games she'd been told about that happened in the HFC made it spicier than a lot of her 'get in, open a door, get out' jobs.
~Like, should I take a detour to Shaw's office and do some secondary recon while I'm here? I mean, it's like totally on the way if I take a left and then a right. Pretty sure the guy probably uses Dragon21 or 'I am God' as a password.~
~Believe me, Jubilee,~ said Emma, ~if I ever need to know Sebastian’s password, I can pull it out of his head whenever I would like. But I am the Queen and the Court demands a certain level of courtesy and I have no need for you to go snooping. But thank you for the offer.~
~Fine, but imagine how much you could have mocked him in your head if I was right.~
Jubilee paused at the drop-off to carefully squeeze herself into a ball before dropping herself feet first down the duct. It was dangerous to do this sort of thing without a rope or a climbing buddy but she hadn't gone free climbing every day for the past ten years and spent a god awful amount of time with squishy circle hand crunches to not be good at this. Locking her body into the sides of the duct, she started downwards, using the grips on her gloves and boots to keep herself from sliding too far downwards with each movement.
~Someone really needs to dust in this place, like I mean, I'm a fan of lube as much as the next girl when the situation is right but can I just saw, ew?~
She could hear rustling from a side vent as she climbed downwards steadily and she wrinkled her nose as she noticed the furry snout that raised itself just as she went by. Rats, she hated rats. Like, not the cute critters that you could buy at a pet shop, but the dirty, stinky black rats that you found in New York subways and always seemed to want to say hi, especially when you were buried in the trash and trying to stay unnoticed by the mark you'd been trailing for the better part of a day. It wasn't like she chose this life, or, well, okay, she'd totally chosen this life but if she could go back, she would totally tell her nineteen-year-old self to stay in school and to stop chasing after boys. Girls always smelled nicer anyhow and were softer, and liked to cuddle, and didn't break her heart because they couldn't get over themselves for two seconds flat. Frankly, she just wanted someone who would pet her hair and tell her she was pretty once in a while, was that too much to ask for? Okay, and lots of sex, but that didn't preclude petting and pretty saying.
~God I'm boring. Tell me something interesting before I bore myself to sleep and fall down and break a leg. ~
~The city of Venice is sinking 1mm per year. It’s likely to be entirely submerged by 2100. So if you want a gondola ride, you should get in fast,~ replied Emma.
Jubilee continued down the seemingly never-ending tunnel of ducts, finally coming to the bottom and a cross-tunnel that she would need to take to her destination hallway. This would be the more dangerous part of the mission, and the place she'd most likely get caught.
~Just let me know if you sense anyone coming, also, does dry cleaning get covered in the operational budget? I mean, like, Kevin has all those suits but he's totally ancient and probably got a pension from the CIA for killing him or something. Do they do that? 'Sorry I killed you' pension? They should totally have done that.
She was getting off-topic, and the opening to the hallway was here. Jubilee breathed deeply and took out her non-electrical screw-driver, reaching delicate fingers through the gaps in the grate to slowly unscrew each fastening, stopping to pull back every time she heard so much as a whisper. It took concentration and a certain degree of singular focus to do what she did, even the smallest parts of it like making sure a grate didn't just crash down and alert the entire staff on one particular hallway. Breathing softly through her nose, she finished loosening the bolts and slowly eased the grate downward, listening for any sign of notice.
~Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, CIA. You'd think being all spy force, America, fuck yeah! they'd take better care of their people. I mean, you take care of us pretty well and we don't go over to the Russian's every other week. Maybe if they paid their people better and stopped trying to kill them, they wouldn't be losing assets all over the place. Don't feel like you gotta say anything or nothing, this is mostly so I don't think about the rats. By the way, that last one I saw, totally the size of a dog. You sure nobody like, dropped some alligators down the toilets in here? Cause I mean, I can totally fight alligators but I'm gonna want to take photos and Marie-Ange always gets that look in her eyes when I post to Insta from jobs. Not like I don't use like, a million different ways and Doug to make sure nobody is gonna trace it. Shit, God himself couldn't break our crypto these days but 'it's the principle of the thing'. And like, I totally get that but I did a sick kickflip off that building in Belgrade and the world totally needed to see that. Even Kyle was impressed, and that Dude is bendy as fuck. ~
Jubilee slid out onto the floor of the hallway and carefully stripped before pulling a more revealing outfit from her backpack and stowing the other and the backpack back in the vent she'd come from. She placed the grate back into place, pushing the bolts back in but leaving them loosened so that she could get back through without having to spend so much time on this side of the vent. She needed to go down in an elevator from here, which required looking like she was meant to be here. She was glad skimpy outfits were the weapon of choice for most of the women who came to this place, anyone questioned her and she could pretend to be a hired escort.
She took off with a strut in her stride, emulating the confidence she'd seen Emma enter a room with many a time in the past.
'What was it you always used to stay? Head and shoulders back, and think 'murder'?' she thought at the woman in question.
It wasn't far to the elevator and she pressed the button with a black-gloved hand. Normally she'd be wearing white to one of these things, but given where she was, black was more appropriate. It was a quick trip down several floors to reach the floor just above the sub-basement, and her destination. From here it would be more crawling through an old prohibition era tunnel and then through water mains before reaching her destination.
'Almost there, but man this stuff is uncomfortable. How does anyone move in a bustier? Although I gotta say, it makes the girls look good.'
~Practice, darling,~ replied Emma. ~And access to the talents of a truly fabulous corsetiere.~
Jubilee didn't answer, too busy slipping through the gap in the wall she'd just opened before closing it softly behind her. She paused in the darkness beyond for more than a few moments, listening carefully in case anybody else was nearby. She grinned as she heard noise finally from the other side of the wall, the guard who was patrolling right on time from the schedule Doug had fed her earlier. She loved it when a plan came through, almost as much as she loved a good margarita mix.
'Continuing on, remind me to give Doug a big kiss the next time I see him for those guard rotations. If only to see the look on his face when I do.'
Natasha and Topaz find a way to create a hole in the Black Court security.
“Once inside, completely evade all your cameras and electronic sensors?” Emma sighed. "Did you buy them on ebay or Amazon?"
***
Natasha had slipped into the ebbing and flowing waves of servers without anyone giving her a second glance. The mousy brown wig and brown contact lenses behind oversized glasses along with the neat uniform of white blouse under a black vest and black slacks made her just part of the wallpaper. It also allowed her unquestioned access to all the behind the scenes areas for the gala. No one looked twice as she ducked in and out of hallways carrying trays and assorted boxes to the kitchen and dining areas. Tucked into the numerous pockets in the vest she wore under her uniform were her favorite little gadgets for bypassing cameras and sensors. The comically obvious laser sensors and easily reprogrammed cameras made her roll her eyes.
"And you... and you... and you..."
While Topaz probably could have gotten away with a similar disguise, she'd noticed that the staff was overwhelmingly white (even the working class wasn't allowed to have color, apparently), and had decided her place was the same as always - in the shadows, emotionally sniping anyone who might cause trouble. A couple security guards suddenly didn't care about their underpaid jobs and went to get some donuts. An organizer who didn't remember hiring that brown-haired woman with large glasses was suddenly overwhelmed by anxiety that she had forgotten some small detail, and ran off without giving Natasha a second glance. A little bit of magic here and there to clear out Natasha's path as the people in front of her suddenly felt the need to go left or right or any other direction that wasn't in her way.
One of the waiters was being particularly annoying, his gaze following Natasha, his feelings about her body a little too loud. Topaz waited until Nat was a few feet away from him before giving him a small shove - as if he'd just tripped over his own feet - right into a stack of plates. The resulting crash and shattering had everyone's attention on the new disaster, and the organizer from earlier immediately started yelling at the man, who was staring at his feet in bewilderment. "People love a good show," she murmured, disappearing completely behind a cloak of magic and moving ahead.
Natasha was highly amused and highly appreciative of Topaz's use of magic. It was making her life so much easier. She tossed a grateful wink in Topaz's general direction when they crossed paths. It was hard for her to tell since Topaz was hidden but her long honed senses could tell when someone was close even if her eyes couldn't physically see them. Each room she walked into, she tossed a small electrical bug up next to the camera that cloned the view of what was going on and played it back to the main security office. The image updated every 30 seconds or so to ensure that no one that needed to be unseen was seen. Their specs were also tied into a program that helped the bug erase their presences from the last captured image if needed.
The next time she crossed paths with Topaz, she murmured, "I'd forgotten how nice it was to have magical support. It does make ops like this so much easier. You doing okay? Anything tricky you've run across that might need a stronger, concerted effort to blind?"
Topaz almost scoffed. "Nope. I'd say I'm surprised given how much magic and psis are involved in the Hellfire Club, but of course they wouldn't bother to protect the lowly staff. How's the security doing?"
"Of course not. They don't care about those beneath them as long as things run smoothly. They also don't care to know how to make things run smoothly. Their money is supposed to make that happen without notice." Natasha glanced up at the most recent camera she'd tossed a bug behind. "Most of the cameras are under my control and hiding us in plain sight. Their security team is really lackluster so far. Though I bet they're too busy watching the people in the big fancy room to notice anything back here."
"To be fair I would also be more worried about the fancy room and the people who are probably trying to steal what's there," Topaz said with a small shrug. "Rich people are dodgy. Still a bit of a flaw, but paranoid people don't make the most rational decisions."
"Especially when it involves money. They think the consequences they can level at folks is enough to keep the trouble coming from within their own circle." Natasha shook her head. Assumptions always made for an op going sideways and this is why she hated playing in the upper echelons. You fit an image and no one looked deeper than that.
"Lucky for us." A couple of wayward workers caught Topaz's attention. She sent them away without any issues, spinning a bit more magic just to keep anyone else off that path. "I think this area is mostly clear."
They had moved from the party into the main Hellfire Club building. Shaw was livid. An attempted theft was an attack against him personally, attempting to upstage his night of glory. Worse, it made Harkness suddenly as valuable as the man had claimed, and honour dictated that he be properly rewarded for his foresight. Fuming, he assembled his Court at the table as the White Court joined them. He knew the rumoured associations Emma had with an underground faction of mutants, and that they almost certainly had the skills to accomplish the attempt. But why is it so obvious? A failed attempt by her court or its allies, especially tonight of all nights, was a risk far beyond the possible reward.
“If you haven’t heard, there was an attempt to steal from the collection while the ceremonies were proceeding. Our security has swept the area and re-secured the item that was targeted, but as of now, they have no suspects and no evidence. How particularly effective these villains were, right up until they reached a final layer of security only three people knew about.” Shaw said, his voice dripping with menace. “How… curious they’d have so much knowledge about our systems.”
"Oh, please, darling," said Emma, her expression bored. "If you will insist on the lowest bidder, you can hardly be surprised when it's all so..." she wafted her hand around airily, "hoi polloi."
"A book, as mentioned, with magical properties that your allies are reported to covet, Alarm bells are ringing, my Queen. He paused and shifted in his chair. “Fortunately, Mister Harkness had reason to believe that book was going to be targeted specifically. Which is why the one on display is a forgery. The real book has remained sealed in the vault of the Black Court this whole time.”
Doug rolled his shoulder under the asymmetrical jacket he had picked out for the event. "Are you planning on making an accusation in there somewhere, or just scattering implications around without a shred of proof?" He let the silence after the question drag out just shy of impertinent before dropping a "My King" and lowering his eyes away. "You certainly know Emma and I have been in plain sight the entirety of the evening."
"Oh, do I believe my White Queen would don a black outfit and try and pick the locks herself? I'm told that you are an intelligent man, Douglas. Perhaps you've had too much to drink." Shaw dismissed him contemptuously. "I have also noted that your two guests have been conspicuously in sight and confined to public spaces. In fact, the innocence of the current White Court and their guests couldn't be more open and obvious."
“Excellent, Sebastian,” beamed Emma. “Well, now that we’ve cleared that up, can we get back to the party? There’s a bottle of Dom Perignon 1995 with my name on it. Quite literally - the darling vigneron put one aside especially for me back in the day.”
"Some very nearly successfully broke our security, Emma. I would think, as innocent as you are, you'd have some interest in finding out how they managed such a feat. I'm surprised the White Court is so uninquisitive. It's almost as if you expected it. Even already know who is responsible." Shaw mused.
"Maximoff." Harkness said with certainty. "She's coveted it for years. Considers herself an expert on it. "Se- my lord, if I might suggest - confront her with the text. Tell her that we caught the thief. I am certain that any plot to steal it has to involve her in some way."
"Hmm... since she is your guest, Emma, custom demands that I question her with your court present. Guards, ask Ms Maximoff to join us. And her companion, Ms Sefton. We will soon get to the bottom of this."
A few minutes passed before the guards came back and Wanda and Amanda swept in behind them. Despite the presence of the guards, Wanda came in, as always, with confidence and a small smile. "Emma," she said, dangling a half-finished glass of red wine from her fingers. "Mr. Shaw." Her gaze went to Harkness and her smile didn't change but the light in her eyes did, turning her smile a little more sharp. "Nicholas." She turned back to Shaw and Emma. "We were asked to come, ah, assist, as it were, with a matter?"
Amanda, for her part, didn't bother to hide her contempt for Harkness with even a fake smile. "Well, they really do let just about anyone in here, don't they?" she said, mostly to Wanda but pitched to reach Harkness. "Trying your luck with the hoi polloi, Scratch?" Coincidentally, the one-shouldered leather outfit she wore - elaborately ruffled and skin tight top with a miniskirt and fishnets - revealed a white scar on her shoulder where she'd been stabbed during her last meeting with the magic user.
“There was an attempted theft tonight during the party. They were trying to steal a rare book on display. Jan Amos Comenius’ ‘Janua Linguarum Reserata’. I believe that you have some knowledge of the work?” Shaw paused for a moment for her to nod. “Fortunately, we captured the thief before they could steal it. Would you mind confirming for us that this is the correct copy and it hasn’t been damaged?”
"But of course. If I could bother your staff for something to clean my hands with, I'd be happy to begin my appraisal." It wasn't long before Wanda's drink was handed off and her hands thoroughly cleaned. In a swish of skirts, she turned towards the book in question. Leaning over, she gently picked it up in her hands. Her inspection was gentle but thorough - she started with the binding and worked her way inside, seemingly in no rush, despite the intense stares of everyone in the room directed her way. Wanda cradled it as she turned the pages, humming quietly to herself as she worked.
Finally, Wanda straightened and placed the book back where it had been resting. Her gaze met Shaw's and the others mildly. "I can confirm that there is no damage," she said, "and please extend my congratulations to the creator of this very fine forgery."
Harkness was disappointed Wanda did nothing to tip her hand. “We created the forgery for display as I believed it was targeted. The real one was safe in the vault this whole time.”
“I’ve sent for it.” Shaw said, turning back as an identical looking book appeared. He was hoping for some reaction as well, trying to goad Wanda. “Please, feel free to confirm it.”
Once again, Wanda went through the same motions she'd done with the first version.
“As I said, this is a very good forgery.” Wanda said, looking over at the copy. She turned back to the original and scanned it for a moment before looking up. “And so is this.”
“What?”
As they challenge the theft, flashback to Marie-Ange and Doug making three forgeries.
Years ago Marie-Ange had appropriated one of the former classrooms at the mansion and turned it into a shared art studio. Most of the time, she worked from an easel, or an angled table, but today she had cleared the entire workbench. As the door opened, she was under the bench, plugging cords into a surge protector, and slid out, puffing her hair off her face as she did. "Before we even craft anything, we are going to need research. So very much research." She pointed with her free hand to the laptop on the workbench. "Emails from N, everything Wanda could find on the book, and two sources for materials. Can you start making lists?"
"Make ink from boysenberries, tan hides for covers, make glue from animal parts..." The urge to declare that they were hacking history a la Alec Hardison was definitely strong. "I can probably write an algorithm to create the content to fill the pages, but how are we going to source this stuff?" Doug shook his head. "Is there a reason we can't just pay N to forge it for us?" Angie's contact was probably the best forger he could think of.
"Second honeymoon in Paris." Marie-Ange answered. "Or third? Third and a half?" She stood and leaned against the table, relaxed and at ease, despite the tall order. "Do honeymoons even count if you are in a throuple? Regardless, he is in Paris, so all I have from him is advice and one or two names I can call for materials."
Doug covered a wince badly at the mention of a throuple. Damn Wade for sending him a pallet of Reese's cups on Wade's own birthday. "I guess we start with those contacts, then, and see where they lead us." One thing was certain, if the man that Marie-Ange always went to for advice about the art world vouched for people, they were the best around. "How do we reach them?" Some of the people N knew could be...eccentric.
Marie-Ange let out an absolutely beleaguered sigh. "I leave a note in a specific tree in Central Park, and then wait for a text to a burner phone." She shook her head. "I suppose it is secure, but it is absurd. My bigger worry is that even if you have a very smart program to create content, I have to hand calligraph pages on pages, unless you think you can build an autowriter that uses a fountain pen."
A thoughtful noise came from Doug as he tapped his chin with a finger. "Autopens are definitely a thing, but hardware is less my bailiwick." He cocked his head. "I wonder if I could teach the nanites to do autowriting." Then he took a while to consider the follow-on ramifications of teaching his nanites to write independently. A harrowing mental image of his arm writing messages while he was asleep caused him to shudder. "Then again, maybe that's not the best idea."
"Ah, no. I think it is best if I learn to calligraph in that handwriting style, and you provide me words." Marie-Ange said. "Just understand that even before we source the right paper, and I have only a limited idea how we are going to even find the right paper, I am going to have to devote so very much time to practice, so you get to do the dirty work."
Why did it feel like he had just fallen into some little trap of hers? And why... "Why do I get the feeling that the 'dirty work' is going to involve actual dirt, Angie?" Doug asked. When she made a noise that was equal parts thoughtful and amused, his frown deepened. "Angie?"
=
Marie-Ange's phone rang as she was washing her hands. She hit the screen with her elbow, recognizing the ring tone. "Bonjour. How are you finding your excursion?" She scrubbed under one fingernail with a stiff brush, trying to remove the sticky residue caked underneath.
"Dirty." A huffing noise and the distinct crunch of a shovel blade hitting dirt came through the connection. Doug wiped sweat off of his forehead with the back of his arm and tilted his head to make sure the earpiece was still properly seated. "And sweaty." He picked the shovel back up with his nanite-built right arm, then sighed. "And full of a number of awkward questions from the cohabitants."
"That is not a consequence I had anticipated." Marie-Ange replied. "I was expecting complaints." She continued to scrub, grunting slightly as she did. "The glue is cooked, and Topaz has sourced parchment for us." She paused. "My bank account may suffer for that, I had to give her my credit card."
"It's Topaz," Doug countered. "She won't even come close to the limit. She'll get us all something like those nifty cubical lamps, and you'll barely notice the balance next to however much the parchment is going to cost." He picked up a skull and barely resisted the urge to quote 'alas poor Yorick'. "How much skeleton do you need?" he asked. "Rough percentage."
Doug could hear some whispers as Marie-Ange talked to herself, calculating through the process of making boneblack. "Thirty percent?" She clearly was not entirely sure. "I am basing this off a three hundred year old recipe, there is guessing I have done."
Doug shoved the skull, spine, and ribcage into the lined bag he had brought to store the remains in. "Hey, want a bonus femur that we could try and pass off as a holy relic?" he asked lightly. "This one's in pretty good condition for how old it is."
***
"Nine hundred and twenty five degrees." Marie-Ange read from the digital gauge on the side of the kiln. "Melting point is very soon, so please be ready." She pushed the protective goggles back up her nose, and tapped the gauge with a gloved finger. "At least it is brass and not gold?"
"Did you know that brass is believed to have been discovered by accident?" Doug stared at the kiln, his ungloved right hand very near the cup. Granted, he knew for a fact that the nanites that were now serving as his forearm could take very high amounts of heat. After all, that was the reason they -were- now serving as his forearm.
"I did know." Marie-Ange answered absently. "That friend of my friend, he gave me a very informative lecture on how to determine the age of cast metals, and then I had to hear the entire history of brass." She made a minute adjustment to the pressed sand mold, and then stepped back. "Ready, please skim and pour."
It probably said something about how much Doug had already become used to the nanites as a presence in his existence that there was only the slightest quiver in the flesh of his upper arm as he bare-handed picked up the cup of molten brass with the silicon based hand and then very precisely tipped it to pour into the mold. "So where did we source the actual brass from? Medieval church plaque?"
It was several seconds before Marie-Ange answered, distracted by the wisps of fine smoke coming from Doug's fingers. "That is, ah, that is going to take getting accustomed to." She said, with a quick shake of her head. "Oh, ah, no. I stole a very ugly statue of some minor nobility. Hideous thing, poorly made. It deserved to be melted."
That was new. Normally she was the utterly unflappable one of the two of them. To be fair, though, Doug had been more or less getting used to it the entire time since the nanites had entered his body. "All right," he said as he placed the empty cup back in the kiln. "That's ink, glue, fasteners done. Topaz is getting the parchment. What's left? The cover?"
Marie-Ange shook her head, and pulled her gloves off her hands. "Almost completed." Her fingers were dye-stained where they weren't bandaged. "I would rather not talk about the smell of centuries old leather. How is the research into content generation?"
"Without getting too far into mathematical analysis of dialect and writing style..." Which Doug was sure was more pleasant than talking about centuries-old leather, but still. "From looking at the quill-strokes and nib marks, the writer almost certainly was right handed." In this sort of thing there was never one hundred percent certainty, but he was very good at this sort of thing, so it was very close. "I've cut about a dozen nibs based on that, which should be enough for you to get through."
"The one time I want you to go into the math of something and you skip it?" Marie-Ange said, laughing as she gently tapped the molds for the brackets to settle the brass. "How heavy handed do I need to be? Just give me the math, I know you want to. I do actually read your technical specification emails, you know."
Doug's face grew a bit sheepish and his mouth quirked as his shoulders came up. "I just know I can be a bit much..." His hands came up as Marie-Ange rolled her eyes at him. "So, if you view handwritten characters as a mathematical function, you can run a Fourier analysis on them..."
Next, Jubilee breaches the secure basement of the Black Court with Emma's help.
“Come now, Sebastian. Are you suggesting that someone could possibly breach the Black Court secure basement without being seen or logged in?” Emma said. "Pay low rates, get cheap product."
***
~The RFID chip will get you in and out of the door.~ Emma put a map inside Jubilee’s mind, showing the location of the service door that led to the basement. ~In the unlikely event that you get caught, make sure they don’t find it. Swallow it, if you have to. Doug will get rid of the records of your entry and exit as soon as you’ve got in and out. Once you’re in, there are ducts and vents everywhere. It’s an old building and it’s been repurposed a few times. I got them to re-do the electrical wiring to bring it up to code, but the rest of it was too antiquated to bother with.~ Her crystalline mental presence slipped out of Jubilee’s mind and then returned a moment later. ~Oh, and look out for the rats. And… detritus. I’ll have antibiotics on standby when you get back to the office.~
Jubilee muttered to herself as she used the RFID chip to open the door and then closed it quietly behind her. She'd not have a backup on this one and so if she was caught, well, they just wouldn't think of that until it became something to think about. It was easy enough to find the nearest entrance to the system of ducts that ran through the HFC headquarters, just as Emma had said.
~So, are you like, listening all Jiminy Cricket conscience like in the back of my head, or am I all alone in here?~
Jubilee left the thought in her head as she squeezed through the small entrance and then reached back to pull the grate back into place. She made quick work of the screws with the small electronic screwdriver she carried in her vest before turning over and starting to crawl.
~Because like, I'm not saying there's anything in here that's disgusting or anything, but maybe you don't want to have a craving for Fried Chicken all of a sudden is what I'm thinking'
~If you need me, I’m here,~ said Emma. ~I will happily avoid over-hearing any of your thoughts about rats, though. Or fried chicken.~
Jubilee smiled and continued crawling, if the map Emma had shown her was still accurate, there'd be a drop-off soon that would lead her to a lower level, and then she'd need to get across an open hallway to find the next set of connected ducts. Most of it wasn't anything she hadn't done before, but the added interest of perhaps coming across a random mutant hanging out as a transformed giant rat, or maybe some of the odder games she'd been told about that happened in the HFC made it spicier than a lot of her 'get in, open a door, get out' jobs.
~Like, should I take a detour to Shaw's office and do some secondary recon while I'm here? I mean, it's like totally on the way if I take a left and then a right. Pretty sure the guy probably uses Dragon21 or 'I am God' as a password.~
~Believe me, Jubilee,~ said Emma, ~if I ever need to know Sebastian’s password, I can pull it out of his head whenever I would like. But I am the Queen and the Court demands a certain level of courtesy and I have no need for you to go snooping. But thank you for the offer.~
~Fine, but imagine how much you could have mocked him in your head if I was right.~
Jubilee paused at the drop-off to carefully squeeze herself into a ball before dropping herself feet first down the duct. It was dangerous to do this sort of thing without a rope or a climbing buddy but she hadn't gone free climbing every day for the past ten years and spent a god awful amount of time with squishy circle hand crunches to not be good at this. Locking her body into the sides of the duct, she started downwards, using the grips on her gloves and boots to keep herself from sliding too far downwards with each movement.
~Someone really needs to dust in this place, like I mean, I'm a fan of lube as much as the next girl when the situation is right but can I just saw, ew?~
She could hear rustling from a side vent as she climbed downwards steadily and she wrinkled her nose as she noticed the furry snout that raised itself just as she went by. Rats, she hated rats. Like, not the cute critters that you could buy at a pet shop, but the dirty, stinky black rats that you found in New York subways and always seemed to want to say hi, especially when you were buried in the trash and trying to stay unnoticed by the mark you'd been trailing for the better part of a day. It wasn't like she chose this life, or, well, okay, she'd totally chosen this life but if she could go back, she would totally tell her nineteen-year-old self to stay in school and to stop chasing after boys. Girls always smelled nicer anyhow and were softer, and liked to cuddle, and didn't break her heart because they couldn't get over themselves for two seconds flat. Frankly, she just wanted someone who would pet her hair and tell her she was pretty once in a while, was that too much to ask for? Okay, and lots of sex, but that didn't preclude petting and pretty saying.
~God I'm boring. Tell me something interesting before I bore myself to sleep and fall down and break a leg. ~
~The city of Venice is sinking 1mm per year. It’s likely to be entirely submerged by 2100. So if you want a gondola ride, you should get in fast,~ replied Emma.
Jubilee continued down the seemingly never-ending tunnel of ducts, finally coming to the bottom and a cross-tunnel that she would need to take to her destination hallway. This would be the more dangerous part of the mission, and the place she'd most likely get caught.
~Just let me know if you sense anyone coming, also, does dry cleaning get covered in the operational budget? I mean, like, Kevin has all those suits but he's totally ancient and probably got a pension from the CIA for killing him or something. Do they do that? 'Sorry I killed you' pension? They should totally have done that.
She was getting off-topic, and the opening to the hallway was here. Jubilee breathed deeply and took out her non-electrical screw-driver, reaching delicate fingers through the gaps in the grate to slowly unscrew each fastening, stopping to pull back every time she heard so much as a whisper. It took concentration and a certain degree of singular focus to do what she did, even the smallest parts of it like making sure a grate didn't just crash down and alert the entire staff on one particular hallway. Breathing softly through her nose, she finished loosening the bolts and slowly eased the grate downward, listening for any sign of notice.
~Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, CIA. You'd think being all spy force, America, fuck yeah! they'd take better care of their people. I mean, you take care of us pretty well and we don't go over to the Russian's every other week. Maybe if they paid their people better and stopped trying to kill them, they wouldn't be losing assets all over the place. Don't feel like you gotta say anything or nothing, this is mostly so I don't think about the rats. By the way, that last one I saw, totally the size of a dog. You sure nobody like, dropped some alligators down the toilets in here? Cause I mean, I can totally fight alligators but I'm gonna want to take photos and Marie-Ange always gets that look in her eyes when I post to Insta from jobs. Not like I don't use like, a million different ways and Doug to make sure nobody is gonna trace it. Shit, God himself couldn't break our crypto these days but 'it's the principle of the thing'. And like, I totally get that but I did a sick kickflip off that building in Belgrade and the world totally needed to see that. Even Kyle was impressed, and that Dude is bendy as fuck. ~
Jubilee slid out onto the floor of the hallway and carefully stripped before pulling a more revealing outfit from her backpack and stowing the other and the backpack back in the vent she'd come from. She placed the grate back into place, pushing the bolts back in but leaving them loosened so that she could get back through without having to spend so much time on this side of the vent. She needed to go down in an elevator from here, which required looking like she was meant to be here. She was glad skimpy outfits were the weapon of choice for most of the women who came to this place, anyone questioned her and she could pretend to be a hired escort.
She took off with a strut in her stride, emulating the confidence she'd seen Emma enter a room with many a time in the past.
'What was it you always used to stay? Head and shoulders back, and think 'murder'?' she thought at the woman in question.
It wasn't far to the elevator and she pressed the button with a black-gloved hand. Normally she'd be wearing white to one of these things, but given where she was, black was more appropriate. It was a quick trip down several floors to reach the floor just above the sub-basement, and her destination. From here it would be more crawling through an old prohibition era tunnel and then through water mains before reaching her destination.
'Almost there, but man this stuff is uncomfortable. How does anyone move in a bustier? Although I gotta say, it makes the girls look good.'
~Practice, darling,~ replied Emma. ~And access to the talents of a truly fabulous corsetiere.~
Jubilee didn't answer, too busy slipping through the gap in the wall she'd just opened before closing it softly behind her. She paused in the darkness beyond for more than a few moments, listening carefully in case anybody else was nearby. She grinned as she heard noise finally from the other side of the wall, the guard who was patrolling right on time from the schedule Doug had fed her earlier. She loved it when a plan came through, almost as much as she loved a good margarita mix.
'Continuing on, remind me to give Doug a big kiss the next time I see him for those guard rotations. If only to see the look on his face when I do.'
Natasha and Topaz find a way to create a hole in the Black Court security.
“Once inside, completely evade all your cameras and electronic sensors?” Emma sighed. "Did you buy them on ebay or Amazon?"
***
Natasha had slipped into the ebbing and flowing waves of servers without anyone giving her a second glance. The mousy brown wig and brown contact lenses behind oversized glasses along with the neat uniform of white blouse under a black vest and black slacks made her just part of the wallpaper. It also allowed her unquestioned access to all the behind the scenes areas for the gala. No one looked twice as she ducked in and out of hallways carrying trays and assorted boxes to the kitchen and dining areas. Tucked into the numerous pockets in the vest she wore under her uniform were her favorite little gadgets for bypassing cameras and sensors. The comically obvious laser sensors and easily reprogrammed cameras made her roll her eyes.
"And you... and you... and you..."
While Topaz probably could have gotten away with a similar disguise, she'd noticed that the staff was overwhelmingly white (even the working class wasn't allowed to have color, apparently), and had decided her place was the same as always - in the shadows, emotionally sniping anyone who might cause trouble. A couple security guards suddenly didn't care about their underpaid jobs and went to get some donuts. An organizer who didn't remember hiring that brown-haired woman with large glasses was suddenly overwhelmed by anxiety that she had forgotten some small detail, and ran off without giving Natasha a second glance. A little bit of magic here and there to clear out Natasha's path as the people in front of her suddenly felt the need to go left or right or any other direction that wasn't in her way.
One of the waiters was being particularly annoying, his gaze following Natasha, his feelings about her body a little too loud. Topaz waited until Nat was a few feet away from him before giving him a small shove - as if he'd just tripped over his own feet - right into a stack of plates. The resulting crash and shattering had everyone's attention on the new disaster, and the organizer from earlier immediately started yelling at the man, who was staring at his feet in bewilderment. "People love a good show," she murmured, disappearing completely behind a cloak of magic and moving ahead.
Natasha was highly amused and highly appreciative of Topaz's use of magic. It was making her life so much easier. She tossed a grateful wink in Topaz's general direction when they crossed paths. It was hard for her to tell since Topaz was hidden but her long honed senses could tell when someone was close even if her eyes couldn't physically see them. Each room she walked into, she tossed a small electrical bug up next to the camera that cloned the view of what was going on and played it back to the main security office. The image updated every 30 seconds or so to ensure that no one that needed to be unseen was seen. Their specs were also tied into a program that helped the bug erase their presences from the last captured image if needed.
The next time she crossed paths with Topaz, she murmured, "I'd forgotten how nice it was to have magical support. It does make ops like this so much easier. You doing okay? Anything tricky you've run across that might need a stronger, concerted effort to blind?"
Topaz almost scoffed. "Nope. I'd say I'm surprised given how much magic and psis are involved in the Hellfire Club, but of course they wouldn't bother to protect the lowly staff. How's the security doing?"
"Of course not. They don't care about those beneath them as long as things run smoothly. They also don't care to know how to make things run smoothly. Their money is supposed to make that happen without notice." Natasha glanced up at the most recent camera she'd tossed a bug behind. "Most of the cameras are under my control and hiding us in plain sight. Their security team is really lackluster so far. Though I bet they're too busy watching the people in the big fancy room to notice anything back here."
"To be fair I would also be more worried about the fancy room and the people who are probably trying to steal what's there," Topaz said with a small shrug. "Rich people are dodgy. Still a bit of a flaw, but paranoid people don't make the most rational decisions."
"Especially when it involves money. They think the consequences they can level at folks is enough to keep the trouble coming from within their own circle." Natasha shook her head. Assumptions always made for an op going sideways and this is why she hated playing in the upper echelons. You fit an image and no one looked deeper than that.
"Lucky for us." A couple of wayward workers caught Topaz's attention. She sent them away without any issues, spinning a bit more magic just to keep anyone else off that path. "I think this area is mostly clear."
