Technomancer: Birth of a Goddess

Chapter 129 – City Infiltration

“Glad you enjoyed it,” Emily says, pulling a plain black cloak from her belt and throwing it over herself before flashing Podrick a small, mischievous grin, only visible by her eyes in the gap of her scarf. “Now, are you ready to sneak into a possibly hostile city?”

“Yes!” he practically shouts in response, eagerly nodding his head.

Emily turns away from him, her face falling back into neutral as she suppresses her mana circulation and wraps her heart with a concealing veil of machina. She sure-footedly climbs the steep dune, with Podrick scrambling up behind her, and stops as the city comes into view. Her gaze quickly scans over the bustling slums before coming to rest on the large metal wall shielding the inner city. It rises up about twenty metres, taller than the one around Eimdon but paling in comparison to Chroni’s, and from her raised vantage point Emily quickly locates all the guards stationed along it.

She mentally marks all their positions, drawing a map in her mind and quickly spotting a few possible dead zones in their perception. Before Podrick can even ask why she’s stopped, Emily moves again, stepping forward and dropping into a slide down the slope towards a scrap pile. She hits the flat ground below and smoothly continues walking as Podrick hits the floor on his arse, scrambling to stand up and follow her.

“Do I not need a cloak?” he asks with obvious disappointment as he awkwardly clambers over the pile of junk a few steps behind her.

Emily glances back at him and scoffs, “It’s mostly to conceal my obviously magical armour and weapons, but if you really want one, knock yourself out.”

She pulls another blank cloak from her belt and tosses it back to him, returning her focus to scanning the discarded materials around her. She grabs a few random scraps of metal as she passes, keeping those that could work and tossing away any that she deems too weak or misshapen to help. Halfway over the pile of junk, Emily starts producing tools and fastenings from her belt, weaving together a simple item without the help of her magic.

“What’s that for?” Podrick asks as she nods with satisfaction at the strange item with multiple claws of metal curving down from a central metal cylinder, like a gnarled metal tree.

“You’ll see,” she answers dismissively, changing their direction to walk parallel to the wall, extending their stay in the piles of junk as her eyes scan for the final piece of her puzzle.

It’s not until they reach the edge of the junk piles, a quarter of the way around the city from where they started, that Emily locates something usable. Jutting out of the pile is a discarded winch, reminiscent of the one used for pulling back in Calypso’s drone. She bends down and places a palm against the winch before sending a spark of machina into it, quickly analysing its state.

Just a little bit of rust, the cable should still hold.

She pulls the winch out of the pile, barely impeded by the wood and metal resting on top of it. After it’s exposed, Emily undoes the rusted bolts holding the reel to the rest of the structure before she continues walking. Podrick watches with interest as she detaches the hook on the end of the thin cable and mounts her scrap contraption to it.

With her preparations finished, Emily tucks the junk under her cloak and leads Podrick into the slums. He follows quietly as she winds between tents and dilapidated buildings, sticking close to her and trying to ignore the people lying in the dirt in the shadows, some begging for scraps as they pass, but most not moving at all, leading him to question if they’re even still alive.

Emily for her part completely ignores the slum-dwellers, her eyes locked onto the wall as they approach the dead zone between watches. The closer they get to the wall, the fewer tents they find, with more structured buildings taking their place, all in a state of disrepair with rust and rot colouring the sorry excuse for streets a dirty brown shade. A dozen metres away from the first dead zone she marked, they step onto a street with a straight run to the base of the wall.

Emily instantly notices several shifty figures looming in the dark corners between the buildings lining the street, watching them closely as they approach.

It looks like they’re guarding this section of the wall. Is it a known smuggling route? Ah well, not my problem.

Emily glances over her shoulder at Podrick, noticing how uncomfortable the boy looks as he glances around.

“Don’t make too much noise,” she says, drawing his focus as she raises a finger to the fabric against her lips. “No matter what happens.”

Without another word, she turns and walks towards the wall. The shadowy figures tense as she approaches, and the moment she steps in line with the first, he steps out of the shadows and pulls a small knife from his pocket.

“You should turn a-“ he starts in a deep, rough tone before cutting off as Emily’s arm shoots out, the blade of her Claw severing his head from his neck with ease.

Emily keeps walking without sparing the corpse a glance, hearing Podrick squeal in shock behind her before covering his mouth as he follows.

“HEY!” one of the other figures watching cries as he sees his friend’s head fly, stepping out of the shadows to confront the killer.

An unseen flicker of irritation crosses Emily’s brow, and she rushes forward in a burst, burying her Claw into the loud man’s throat. None of the people watching can follow her movement and, the moment they see her dropping another body, they turn tail and run away, deeper into the alleys they lurk in.

“Pathetic,” Emily mutters with disdain as they run, wiping the blood from her blade before turning to glance at Podrick.

He’s standing beside the headless corpse, a hand over his mouth and his face pale as he glances between Emily and her kills. Without a word, she gestures for him to follow before turning away and approaching the wall.

Looking up at the towering metal above, Emily’s eyes scan for purchase, quickly locating a cluster of pipes jutting out near the top. She pulls out her scrap contraption and holds the cable firmly, spinning the head around to gain momentum before deftly flicking it up, releasing it and sending it sailing up towards the pipes above as the spool of cable unwinds. The jagged metal head falls onto the pipes and catches, holding firm even when Emily gives it a few strong tugs.

“That’s what it’s for,” she says, glancing at Podrick beside her and finding his face has returned to a healthy colour.

“So, we’re climbing over the wall?” he asks with a slight quiver in his voice, still shaken. “Won’t the guards see us?”

“There should be a gap in their watch directly above here. It’s why I didn’t want anyone making enough noise to grab the guards' attention.”

“So, you killed those men to keep them quiet?”

“The second one, yes. The first pulled a knife on me and seemed like he’d cause trouble,” she explains, meeting the nervous boy’s eyes. “Don’t feel pity for them Pod, they’re not worth the effort.”

Emily reaches up the cable and pulls herself off the ground, pinching the cable between her feet to reach up further.

“Wait until I signal for you, then grab on,” she says before she rises up past the rooftops of the surrounding buildings.

Within a few seconds, she arrives at the pipes holding up the cable and climbs over them. After unlatching the hook, she kicks off the pipes, clearing the short distance to the top of the wall and smoothly rising to stand on it. She glances towards the nearby guards, confirming their line of sight to her is obstructed before reaching out and gesturing for Podrick to grab the cable.

The moment his hands clasp on, Emily begins reeling him in, quickly pulling the boy up the wall. As he clambers up to join her, she raises a finger to her lips and gestures towards the nearby guards. He nods in understanding, his nerves nowhere to be seen as excitement lights up his eyes.

Emily leads him across the wall to the inside edge and glances over. Below them is a group of four, rough-looking men gathered in a narrow, otherwise empty alley between the wall and a large warehouse. They’re lazily hanging around, two of them sitting on the steps to the warehouse’s back door, and the other two standing on either side of them, smoking from pipes as they talk quietly.

Looks like this is a smuggling route after all. If that doesn’t scream crime, I don’t know what does.

Podrick watches from the side as Emily reaches into the belt at her waist and pulls out four simple knives. She takes all of them in her right hand and snaps her arm forward with four precise flicks of her wrist, burying the knives in the skulls of the men below. All four of them go limp and hit the floor at the same time, barely a fraction of a second between their deaths.

Nodding with satisfaction and ignoring the mixed look of fear and awe from the boy beside her, Emily hooks her climbing tool into a small gap between two panels of metal, lodging it firmly into place before lowering the reel quietly to the floor below.

“Follow me,” she whispers, grabbing the cable and swinging herself down to hang on it.

She slides down smoothly, her feet hitting the floor below with barely a sound. She steps out of the way as Podrick lands with a thud. Emily grabs the cable after the graceless boy moves out of the way, giving it a quick flick and sending up a burst of machina. The hook above unbinds itself from the metal panels with a crackle of electricity before falling into her waiting, outstretched hand.

“Are people not going to find their corpses?” Podrick asks quietly, nodding towards the four dead men.

“Probably not,” Emily responds, walking over to try opening the door beside them. “But we’ll hide them anyway.”

She finds the door locked shut. Unphased, she crouches down beside the corpses on the steps and starts patting down their pockets, searching for the keys. Podrick grimaces but moves to help, doing the same to one of the men slumped away from the door.

Emily finds several knives tucked into the first man’s clothes but no keys, but on the second she finds a keyring hooked to the back of his belt. Trying the keys from it, she opens the door after a few attempts and looks into the warehouse. Inside is full of loud, metalworking machinery, with several people moving between them with purpose, some carrying clockwork rifles.

Ignoring the obvious criminal activity, Emily looks around, quickly spotting a tall, metal scrap bin a short distance from the door with a conveyor belt dropping offcuts into it. She turns back to Podrick, gesturing for him to quietly move back as she slings two corpses over her shoulders before ducking into the warehouse.

She stalks forward, ducking behind a few machines as she moves to stay out of sight, and quickly approaches the metal bin. As a worker walks past the bin, Emily tucks herself between a wall and a large industrial metal cutter to hide from him, watching calmly as he takes a few readings from a few gauges at the base of the machine she’s pressed against before moving on.

The moment the worker’s back is turned, Emily silently steps out of her hiding spot and throws both bodies up and into the scrap bin, each landing with a light thunk. Glancing around and making sure no one saw her; Emily returns to the door and brings in the other two corpses to do the same.

After disposing of the evidence, Emily meets Podrick outside again, locking the door behind herself before clipping the keys to her belt for now, just in case.

“Right,” Emily says as she walks past Podrick, patting him on the shoulder. “Let’s go do our shopping and get out of here.”

They quickly walk away from the wall through the narrow alleys of the industrial district, heading towards the commercial centre of the city.

“Did Anton give you enough money to buy everything you need?” Emily asks a few minutes after they join a more crowded street with wealthy-looking people milling about.

“Yes, I should have enough in here to pay for everything on my list,” he responds, tapping the pouch at his waist.

“Good. Also, don’t make it obvious that that’s a spatial pouch. Best to take out and put away things when you’re out of the public eye. We want to draw as little attention to ourselves as possible.”

“Okay!”

They continue walking in silence until they reach an open street with several stalls lining the edges, offering everything from expensive fabrics to rich spices. Glancing around at the nearby shops and noting their wares, Emily nods to herself in satisfaction.

“You should find everything on your list here. Meet me back here once you’re done shopping,” she says, her eyes flicking to a few people ducking into the side alleys of the market street. “I’m going to go dig for some information and do my own shopping. If you’re not back here in an hour, I’ll assume you’ve run into trouble.”

Podrick nods and goes to respond, but as he turns his head to look at her, Emily vanishes into the crowd, disappearing from his view.

“Okay,” he says quietly to himself with a hint of disappointment in his voice, nervously bringing a hand to grasp his spatial pouch as he sets off to complete his tasks.