“What if—”
“Let’s get you kitted up.” Hagar unbuckled her safety harness. “It should be a smooth flight from here on out. Unless you keep asking me questions I can’t answer. Then I’ll toss you out the hatch.”
She jumped up and rummaged through the storage compartments attached to the walls of the transport. She found a black plastic package and dropped it on the seat next to me.
“Get your robes off, and put that on,” she said. “I promise not to look.”
The inside of the transport had ten seats, and they were all empty except for the one I’d taken. Each of the comfortable chairs had a flight harness dangling from its shoulders, and a few of them had heavy steel rings mounted to the ends of their arms. Cargo containers lined the sides of the roof, and other compartments occupied the spaces between the seats. The interior was lit by a thin strip of light overhead, and there were no windows. A bulkhead toward the transport’s nose had a heavy, secured door in its center.
“Turn around,” I said.
Hagar rolled her eyes at me and moved toward the bulkhead. She twirled her finger over her head.
“Hurry it up,” she said. “We’re on a tight schedule.”
The plastic bundle held a simple black jumpsuit that unfolded as soon as I tore the packaging. The material was stretchy, with plenty of pockets on the thighs and chest, along with carabiners sewn directly to the fabric above the waist.
“Seriously, don’t look,” I said.
Hagar snorted.
I stripped out of my robes and tossed them on the chair to my right. The new suit fit like a glove. It was tight where it needed to be and still loose enough to allow an easy range of motion.
“I’m dressed,” I said.
“Good to know,” Hagar said. “We’re getting close.”
That announcement sent my thoughts in a dozen different directions. Where were we going that was within a few minutes’ travel of the school? And how had they flown the transport into my private quarters?
Before I could ask any of the questions, Hagar returned to me with a black helmet under her arm.
“This will hide your face.” She rapped on the helmet’s mirrored full-face visor. “It’s also got a full communication suite, encrypted, of course, and it can take a pretty good knock without cracking. We’re using this instead of the eye-snapper this time.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Not your concern,” she said. “Focus up. Here’s a picture of your guy. I’ll put his apartment number on the HUD in your helmet. Focus on this, okay?”
“I guess,” I said. “This is all happening pretty fast.”
“That’s how it goes.” Hagar grinned. “Don’t get distracted. We’ll be back at the School before you know it.”
“I’m not distracted!”
“Get your shoes on,” Hagar said, pointing to the low boots I’d discarded when I took my robes off. “We’re five minutes out.”
“From where?”
“Stop asking so many questions,” she said.
I slipped my boots on and tightened the laces. Hagar was right. The less I knew, the less chance there was I’d let something slip and screw it all up for the elders. I took a deep breath, cycled jinsei into my core, and purged the tension and anxiety aspects from my core on the exhalation. I cleared my thoughts and let all the questions go.
“Ready,” I said.
“Good.” Hagar took a seat and fastened her harness. She pointed at a rail over the hatch. “Hang onto that. We’re coming down.”
With that, the transport’s nose tilted alarmingly toward the ground, and it spun into a sharp circle. The sudden motion made my stomach jump into my throat, and I hung onto the rail for dear life.
“Helmet on,” Hagar called.
I grabbed the black armor from the seat and pulled it down over my head. There was a disconcerting moment as the cheek and neck pads tightened to secure the helmet in place. In the time it took for the helmet to adjust itself to the shape of my skull, the visor shifted from an impenetrable black to transparent.
A red circle floated in the center of my vision, obvious but not distracting. Smaller red triangles dotted the edges of my field of view. When I focused my attention on any of those, small words appeared next to them: cargo compartment, electrical access panel, restraint system, fire retardation nozzle, emergency oxygen mask.
I turned toward Hagar, and the circle flickered green.
She was now wearing a helmet, too, and a small keyboard rested on her lap.
“All right, champ,” she said, “when the door opens, move out. I’ll be right in your ear.”
Her words were tinny and distant through the speaker’s helmets. I decided I liked trading slightly less clear audio from my handler for the eye-snapper’s headache.
The transport descended slow and silent, and a moment later I felt a faint bump as we touched down. The hatch opened, and the stairs tumbled down with a ratcheting noise I could barely hear above my own breathing.
“I’m out,” I said and raced down the steps.
My Eclipse core stirred the instant my feet hit the flat tarred roof the transport had landed on. The skyscrapers that surrounded our landing spot told me we were in a big city. Most of the windows I saw were dark, and the sky overhead glowed with ambient light that blotted out the stars. I instinctively looked up for the bright flares of an overcity’s lift crystals, but the only lights in the sky came from the city itself.
I tried to think of any big cities without an Empyreal presence. Nothing came to mind.
“I’ve highlighted your door.” Hagar’s voice disrupted my thoughts. “Once you’re inside, give me a moment to secure our tie into the security cameras.”
My HUD pointed me toward a door set into the side of a small cube of aluminum that jutted from the roof’s top. I darted around ventilation fans and jumped over ductwork to reach it. I cycled jinsei as I ran, purging any stray aspects of tension or worry from my aura to keep my mind as smooth and
