“Sorry, who did you say you were again?” The soldier in black knit his brows together skeptically.
“Private Pultz, sir,” Norok replied with a cheery grin, straightening out his back.
“As in the Sergeant Pultz?” One of the other soldiers behind him balked. “What, we’re supposed to believe you’re related to Father Frost himself?”
“You don’t have to. He doesn’t want to believe it either,” Norok said dryly, earning a chorus of half-amused snorts from the group. “I’m just here to pass on a message from the top.”
The soldier crossed his arms, leering down at Norok. With a grunt, he gave a sharp nod, gesturing for Norok to continue as he shooed his fellow soldiers away.
“There’s a shipment coming in from our friends across the way,” Norok said in a hushed tone. “We’ll need you to join the retrieval crew.”
“I thought the Blem girl was in charge of that now,” he replied.
Kell cleared his throat, stepping forward. He tapped his nose with a gloved index finger. “Can’t trust a Blem with this one. There’s more than just manual labor on the board for tonight, and any willing operatives could be up for promotion.”
The soldier’s eyes glittered with the imagined reward, his lips parting slightly. “When will it be in?”
“Now,” Norok said. “I have a few more I need to gather for the crew, but we’ll meet you at the usual pick-up location.”
“The northern one,” Kell quickly clarified, then as if explaining more to Norok than the soldier across from them, he added, “It’s closer to the facility for sake of ease. Since, you know. The delivery is so--”
“--Sensitive,” Norok finished, trying to hide his embarrassment over Kell’s intrusion. Didn’t he know the more details you add, the worse the lie sounds? He’d really need to give Kell lessons in deception later. Luckily, the soldier showed no signs of disagreeing with the order. Norok had found that most of Fable’s personnel, including Will, were easy enough to coax into doing things for him once he started using phrases like “orders from the top” and “promotion pending.” Assuming the identity of Pultz’s estranged bastard child also helped, as most people found it reasonable that Pultz would have an estranged bastard child tucked away in Base Alpha too far to be responsible for.
They watched the soldier jog off, weaving through the people walking through the district.
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“Well now what?” Kell sighed. “We gather a pick-up crew and hope for the best?”
“What? No,” Norok snorted, clapping a hand around Kell’s shoulders. “You’re so gullible Kell, seriously… Now, we follow.”
They kept a healthy distance from the soldier, flattening themselves against walls and peering down the alleyways he traversed. The path made Norok dizzy, with sudden lefts and hard rights that only followed the rhythm of moving north. Slowly, Norok realized they weren’t just trailing through the maze of the civilian district, but they were moving downwards, every turn leading down a steep incline that made his ears pop with the droppage. Still, he and Kell remained behind the soldier in perfect silence, merging with the shadows just as he came to a halt.
In an archway looking out to the endless sky outside of the domed district, a landing pad was built into the side in a large half circle. There, two figures stood before a massive bird, easily the size of a one-story house. It had jet-black feathers, with a long, naked neck that glistened with pale scales under the light. It let out a silent yawn through its curled beak.
Standing before the bird was a woman with the head of a panda, leaning down in her verdant green robes to present a leather bag to a girl Norok recognized. The pigtailed girl took it carefully, pulling the straps over her shoulders carefully. As she turned to the calls of the soldier, the panda-woman crawled onto the back of the giant bird and flew off from the landing pad.
“What’re you doing here?” The girl asked, stepping away from the soldier as he approached. He extended a firm hand towards her, reaching for the bag. A pair of canine ears emerged from beneath her hood, and Norok watched as she bared fanged teeth towards the outstretched hand.
“Hey!” She shouted. “This isn’t for you--”
“--I have orders from the Corporal that say otherwise,” the soldier surged forward, his gloved hands catching fire as he neared. Before he could do any serious damage to the girl, her eyes suddenly glowed with a brimming, white light, and with a blinding flash, the soldier was shoved backwards, falling onto his back limply. Foam spilled from the corner of his mouth while he twitched once, then twice, then he lay there motionless.
“I can hear you two over there,” the girl shouted, curling her hands into fists at her side. “Don’t think I need to see you to do the same!”
Norok stepped under the arch. He raised both his hands, wiggling his fingers with a smirk. “We're not looking for trouble. We just have some questions for you.”
The girl's eyes widened, her mouth forming an astonished circle. Norok realized that she wasn't quite looking at him. Her gaze was trained higher than his face, the reflection of his bright pink hair caught in her stare. It wasn't the usual shock Norok had grown used to seeing people gawk at him with. This was recognition.
The girl clutched at the straps of the bag. “I don't have anything to say to you.”
“C’mon, don't be like that,” Kell said, brushing past Norok and kneeling before her. “Just give us the name of who you report to, and my friend and I will be on our way.”
As Kell offered his hand to her, the girl flinched, scurrying backwards. Her foot teetered on the edge of the landing pad, and soon she was toppling over the edge. Norok sprinted forward, using his magic to pull her body back over the edge, but it was like grasping at the wind. He stared down over the edge, watching her plummet below.
Something suddenly shoved Norok, an invisible force brushing just by his elbow. The sound of footsteps echoed from below the archway, and without further hesitation, Norok chased after it.
