Hurricane #30: The Team-Up (Patreon)

“A studio.” Serrano stared at Ward. “The magic box is in a fucking recording studio.”

“It’s a quantum router, but yes. Rockhopper Recording.”

Sarah lifted her brows, looking down at the coyote. “That’s not the one your cousin is recording at, is it?”

“No, thank the Lords. That’d be hard as hell to explain, wouldn’t it, but…oh, shit. The Iron Spikes are probably there, finishing up their new album.”

Ward looked blank. Mrs. Webb looked up from her computer, where she’d been typing as the vixen spoke. “The Iron Spikes?”

“The bar band Serrano’s been slumming with the last few years,” Sarah explained.

“Oh.”

“Hey, that’s not fair.”

Sarah crossed her arms. “What isn’t fair, the ‘bar band’ part or the ‘slumming’ part?”

“Stop sounding like Chiltepin, goddammit.” She sighed. “And could you go back to normal size instead of looming over Agent Vixen and me here?”

“Yes, but I won’t.”

Serrano rolled her eyes. “Okay, the chances they’re going to be there at the same time we’re storming the place are pretty low. What the hell is a quantum router, again?”

“I only know by inference, Ms. Layotl. Every device we’ve used to affect your powers, whether it’s the extractors that pull energy through you from your source or the firewalls that cut you off from it, connects to that router, and that router somehow connects to Sark’s world. Destroy it, and the devices stop working.”

Webb raised a hand fractionally. “But he must have a way to get those devices here in the first place. What’s to stop him from just setting up another router?”

“Apart from marshaling the resources to start over from zero, nothing. But it at least buys you some time.”

Serrano nodded, then skewed her ears. “Wait a second. ‘Firewalls?’ You guys have never successfully cut me off from my power, other than by pulling so much away at once it made it hard for me to do shit.”

The vixen paused, lifting her brows as she thought, then shrugged, spreading her hands. “Then expect them to try to deploy them against you as part of the defenses they’re preparing against your attack, Ms. Layotl.”

“How would they know we’re coming?”

Sarah gestured at the vixen. “They know we want to take out Sark’s connection to you definitively. They also know Agent Ward showed up uninvited at the scene of their attempted kidnapping, and they already believed she was a double agent.”

Ward nodded. “And it’s their job to assume the worst.”

Serrano grunted. “I was hoping they’d be too incompetent for that.”

“They’re not.”

She nodded, then skewed her ears, hearing what sounded like a helicopter. In the library. Where the hell—

It was a helicopter. Sort of. Really, it looked like a chair suspended from a small set of helicopter rotors, zooming briskly toward the head librarian’s desk, then decelerating to make a landing. Irsaw unbuckled the safety harness, springing out of the suspiciously Victorian-looking seat as the engine cut off and the two rotors—mounted right on top of one another, spinning in opposite directions—slowed down. Ward stared incredulously.

“What happened to the jetpack?” Webb’s tone had a hint of amusement.

“It’s being retooled,” the hyena replaced, sounding just a little defensive. “I’m given to understand you were talking about…quantum routers.” Irsaw walked to Ward. “And that you need some medical attention. Let’s look at your leg, hmm?”

Agent Ward took a deep breath and repeated what she’d told the others. As she spoke, Irsaw examined the wound, prodding carefully, then pulling a pair of forceps out of their briefcase and carefully working out the bullet. Ward gritted her teeth, wincing.

“I see. Fascinating.” Irsaw took out a Victorian-looking spray bottle, complete with rubber pump, and sprayed something on the wound. “This is a combination antiseptic, anesthetic, and bandage. It was a very clean puncture, so besides being sore for a while, you should be fine.” They pulled out another spray bottle and started spraying her pants. “And this should remove stains, although I think the tear in your jeans will need some old-fashioned mending.”

Sarah looked back to Ward. “So, what do you think we’re up against?”

The vixen looked up from Irsaw’s ministrations. “You’ve already faced the only unusual technology we were given access to, other than the firewall.”

“So that’s what they’re going to be using for their defenses, which between us, we can literally walk over.”

“They may not know the extent of her powers,” she nodded at Serrano, “but we had a good understanding of their source and the mechanics. So expect them to use that knowledge any way they can. While they clearly want to keep the coyote alive, if Sark is close enough to finding a way to cut her out of the process, they may be willing to take her out if they have a chance. Furthermore, they’ve met you and the coyote twice before and the mouse once now. They’ll try to prepare.”

“How?”

“Be looking for your attack and try to catch you by surprise. If possible, get backup. Other weapons, other technology, other teams.”

Serrano grunted. “Great. So how easy would those be to handle?”

”Remember, Sark’s been stealing technology from other branches, not just this one,” Sarah interjected. ”So we have no way of knowing what technology—or even magic—he has.”

Webb frowned thoughtfully. ”If they go all out to stop you, though, that means he believes you’re capable of stopping him, at least if you get to him before he finishes his project to bypass you. The question is how.”

Serrano rubbed her face, then started pacing. “If he could bypass me and Ulohne, why didn’t he start out doing it that way? Why didn’t he build some fantastic machine right from the get-go that taps into the energy from the weather system? Back when we were talking about, what was it, global warming in other worlds and how this one doesn’t have it, Professor Irsaw thought some worlds might have more real gods than others. That’s got to be the key here.”

Sarah waved a hand. “I’d think having a storm god in the way would make that project harder, not easier.”

“But what about the Maxwell’s Demon thing?”

Ward blinked. “There are demons, too?”

“This is a metaphorical demon, not a real one.”

“Although there are real demons,” Webb added.

Ward rubbed her forehead.

“Maxwell’s Demon is a thought experiment about regulating entropy,” Irsaw explained. “Our original storm goddess—and by extension, Miss Layotl—seem to regulate our world in such a fashion.” They looked at Serrano, raising a brow. “So you think, perhaps, that Mr. Sark needed you as the way to tap into our world’s hydrological cycle.”

She nodded. “Yeah. Maybe all the storm gods across all the parallel worlds are weak points, if someone’s figured out how to exploit them. Since I’m not exactly a storm god, and I had no fucking clue about any of this until just a couple months ago, I might have been weaker than most.”

“But the more you learn, the less a weak point you are. Which this Mr. Sark undoubtedly understands by now. So his plan has shifted from using you to replacing you. Wise, but it doesn’t explain how you can stop him. Destroying this ‘quantum router’ isn’t enough, as he can just—”

“—just bring in another one. Yeah, I know.”

Sarah shrugged. “If we can find and destroy this one, we can do it again.”

Ward gave her a flat stare. “You’re finding this one because I’m telling you where it is.”

“Between us, we can figure out how to detect them when they pop up.” She looked at Irsaw. “Right?”

“It’s possible. But we have no guarantee.” Irsaw shook their head. “And if he does learn how to access the energy without using Miss Layotl, then every time he successfully brings a new router online, he drains as much energy as he can until we can locate and destroy that new device. In that scenario, the odds are heavily in his favor.”

“So what’s he worried about, then?”

Serrano ran a hand through her hair. “What if he’s worried we can get to him through the router?”

Ward lifted a brow. “As in, find his world, and go pay him a visit.”

“Maybe not that literally, but…something.”

Sarah spread her hands. “I can literally get to that world now, Serrano. I’ve already been there, remember?”

“You can, by going through Faerie. Can anyone else? Is Her Royal Pruning Shear up for having us mortals cross between worlds through her realm?”

“No.” The wolf’s ears lowered. “Especially one whose storm powers are seen as a potential threat.”

Serrano grunted and spread her hands. “Bingo.”

After a few seconds of silence, Webb made a soft hmm noise. “Is this ‘quantum router’ just a siphon, or is it a two-way device?”

Irsaw tilted their head. “You’re wondering if it can receive across dimensions, from here to Sark’s.”

“I am.”

Serrano’s eyes lit up. “I could start pulling the power back through it!”

Irsaw lifted a hand in a hold on gesture. “We don’t know that, Miss Layotl.”

“We don’t know know it, but we have a pretty good idea that Sark wants to keep me away from that router. So either it really is hard for him to replace, or access to it lets me do something he really doesn’t want me to do.”

“Your plan can’t be to just storm in, hope you can find the router, and hope you can figure out what to do with it.” Ward shook her head.

Serrano shrugged. “I was hoping to sneak for as long as possible and only start smashing shit when I had to. But between us,” she gestured at Sarah, Webb, and Irsaw, “I think we have a pretty good shot.”

Irsaw and Webb both lifted their brows. “We both do have jobs, Ms. Layotl,” Webb said, readjusting her glasses.

“And as Professor Irsaw pointed out earlier, me saving the world seems like a prerequisite for you keeping them.”

“Not precisely my language, but it is a compelling argument.” Irsaw grinned.

“Damn straight!” Serrano bounced in place. “Let’s go to a recording studio.”