“And where is this intelligence?” Roo asked. “So far you have demonstrated none of it.”
I let them go at it, twisting my arm out of Roo’s line of sight when my wristband vibrated with a comm from my cousin Blair. I scanned the words quickly, positive I was about to develop some kind of stomach ulcer and die a slow and painful death. This was not going well.
Do something drastic, his message said. There are still half a dozen guards on rotation down here.
Drastic? If I weren’t busy trying to get a stupid guard to join in my completely fabricated cause, then I could have hacked the security system and had them all in and out of the vaults already, but this was the plan they’d wanted to go with. Now I’d really have to take things up a notch.
More social interaction. This was so above my pay grade.
“Hey! You there!” I waved to a treasury employee entering the main doors, and to another exiting the lift against the wall. “And you! Say it with me! SAVE. THE. SLUGS. SAVE. THE. SLUGS.” My voice echoed around the cavernous lobby as I chanted. “SAVE. THE. SLUGS.”
“Save the—beep—slugs!” Elio joined in.
I leaped onto the security desk, scaring away a new wave of employees that had just entered the lobby. “You, sir, in the suit! Don’t run! Ma’am! Join our cause! Yell it loud and proud! SAVE THE SLUGS!”
Drastic enough for you, Blair?
“That’s ENOUGH!” Roo pulled his blaster from his belt like he was unsheathing a sword. He brought his free hand up to his mouth and muttered into an armband, calling for backup to aid in our untimely demise.
Like that was going to happen. I was already jumping back down to the lobby floor, motioning for Elio to come closer.
Roo’s large face contorted in rage. A black storm cloud swirled around his entire body—the aura of the majorly pissed off. I knew that one well: my mother showcased it to me all the time.
I almost jumped out of my skin as he charged forward, the light at the end of his blaster glowing like a sun. He blocked our path to the door just as more guards burst into the lobby. Six in all. The vaults were clear.
“You should have left when I told you,” Roo said with a sneer as the rest of them surrounded us.
“Well, lucky for you,” said Elio, “we’re adorably stubborn.” He took a protective step in front of me, giving me the perfect opportunity to reach into the satchel hanging from his shoulder.
“No, what you are is one move away from being carted to the waste management sector.”
Elio hung his head. His ears drooped as he let out a feeble, teary beep.
“And you.” Roo rounded on me. “I’m going to need to see some identifica—hey!” He leaned closer. “What’s wrong with your face?”
“What do you mean what’s wrong with my face?” I wasn’t winning a Miss Galactica pageant anytime soon, but I wasn’t hideous.
“It’s … It’s flickering.”
“What do you mean it’s … Oh no.”
Not caring what he would think, I plunged my hand down my shirt and ripped off the paper-thin contraption stuck to my chest. A visual enhancement device I’d invented a few months prior during a particularly dull evening at home. Even though I swore I had charged the battery this morning, the enhancer had gone dead.
Beside me, Elio whimpered. It looked like we were dead too.
What the guard had seen before had been merely an illusion—a plain, slightly rumpled Earthan girl. Certainly not a member of the Saros crime family with our fluorescent yellow eyes and the pointed ears that most citizens on our planet of Condor possessed. But that disguise had gone right out the window, along with Roo’s angry aura. As soon as the cloud around his head pulsed bright orange with curiosity, I knew he was looking at me. The real me.
And he knew that I had something to hide.
He pulled the trigger on his blaster.
“DUCK!” I yelled. Elio and I rolled across the lobby floor, barely missing the red burst of energy that soared over our heads. It connected with the wall, leaving a gaping hole in the stone. The treasury’s alarm system blared so loud that it felt like a knife in my brain. White lights flashed along the walls, almost blinding. The group of guards closed in, body armor glinting, blasters raised and ready to annihilate.
“Saturn’s rings.” Elio tottered to his feet. “I think a few of my bolts got knocked loose. Cora, can you check?”
“Sure thing. After we escape imminent danger, I’ll get right on that.”
“Thank you.”
I jumped back up as my wristband buzzed with a second, long-overdue comm from Blair: When I said “drastic,” I didn’t mean “make things go boom!”
It was followed by a third: Oooh, you’re in trouble!
“Don’t move!” The guards were blocking us from all sides. There was only one way out. And as far as I could see, that way was to plow directly through them.
I held up my hands to placate Roo as he pointed his blaster at my forehead. “Sorry, okay? We’re sorry. We’re leaving.”
“In chains,” a female guard piped up.
“Well, before we do that, I have to ask … do any of you happen to have plans for the rest of the day? Meetings to go to? Net programs to watch?”
“No,” grunted Roo. “Why?”
“Oh. Splendid.” I dropped my arms and shook out my sleeves, letting a homemade stun grenade fall into each hand. “Because you’re about to be unconscious for the next ten to twelve hours.”
Then I pulled the grenades’ pins with my teeth and lobbed the weapons through the air.
They exploded in a pulse of electric blue light and a bang that shook the building to its foundation. The guards toppled one by one, landing in a tangled heap. The noise was disorienting, but it didn’t affect me the way it affected them. The reinforced plugs I’d grabbed from Elio’s satchel and shoved into my ears had absorbed most of the sound.
I bolted for the tall doors across the lobby. The blast took them down, but it was the gas that would spill from the grenades within the next ten seconds that would keep them unconscious. I didn’t intend to be around to join the party.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Elio scurrying toward Roo. The Vaotin was on his knees, wavering, but he hadn’t collapsed yet. As soon as he fell, Elio tugged the blaster from his hands.
Across the lobby, more guards appeared. They were just about to shoot when Elio raised his stolen blaster and fired, sending them sprawling as half the ceiling crashed down on their heads.
“Sorry about that!” I called as Elio caught up with me and we slammed through the treasury doors.
The air outside felt like a wall of ice. I pulled up the collar of my coat to ward off the cold, but it didn’t help. Snow stung my cheeks, numbing them instantly.
The few guards left standing were giving chase. I could feel their presence even if I couldn’t see them through the swirls of snow and sleet; the glow of four warm bodies pulsed like amber lights through the ice.
Elio grabbed my hand and yanked me sharply to the right, his stubby legs working overtime. “Serpentine! Serpentine! We’ll be harder to shoot!”
He swung the blaster behind us and pulled the trigger. An explosion and a chorus of screams greeted us as our feet pounded the crowded city streets of Vaotis. “This thing is awesome! I feel so cool. I can’t believe you said that you bought me at an antique sale!”