Skyborn

Chapter XXI: The Cold, The Odd And The Trap

It was quiet during that time and Suno said the guards on duty would be tired and unobservant from being stuck with the long night shift. They had about a little more than an hour before the new guards came in. They moved fast, Goku, Chichi, Suno and Kinto'un, keeping themselves low, seeking what coverage they could in the snow.

The dark line of the tower came into sight. They came to a halt as one and knelt down. Suno had packed a pair of binoculars and that was good for surveillance. Even from the distance, Goku could tell Muscle Tower was a mixture of the old and the new. It was made of sinister gray stone blocks and the couple of balconies it had were protected with barbed wire to make it impossible to climb. The few windows were too small for a person to crawl through. The place was a fortress, impenetrable and inescapable.

It deserved to be on a rocky cliff, Goku thought, with a sinister black sky behind it. The snow and rising sun seemed out of place.

Suno poked Goku hard on the ribs and pointed to their target: a small camera placed on the high left side of the structure. That was the outer camera, Suno had told them, the one that activated the automatic rifle they had shot Goku with. If Goku didn't want to go home with another hole, she said, that was the first thing he needed to get rid of.

Goku signaled to Kinto'un to move forward with the plan. The cloud went ahead fearlessly and flew around in front of the camera until it had capture its attention. The camera wasn't manned controlled, so their plan actually had a pretty good chance to work. The device followed Kinto'un's movement for half a minute until it made up its mind deciding the cloud was a threat.

The automatic rifle came from behind a wicket and started to shoot. The bullets pierced through the cloud, but Kinto'un wasn't affected. It kept moving from side to side, dancing in the face of danger, playing with their enemy, regenerating every time it was shot through.

"Go!"

Goku obeyed. If Suno were to be trusted, and Goku she was, he had about forty-five seconds before the camera noticed his movements. He ran toward Muscle Tower, coming to a halt just underneath Kinto'un, and using a grown Nyoibō he crashed the camera into pieces. The rifle stopped shooting immediately, moving around slowly, as if confused by its newfound blindness.

The Nyoibō returned to its usual size and Goku put it away. He whistled to Kinto'un to come down and hopped on it. Chichi and Suno joined him. He had tested the woman beforehand to be sure she could ride the magic cloud and was pleased to find that she could. She was one of the good guys. He had known it.

It was a bit awkward with the three of the onboard, but they made do. Suno directed them to a low square window on the second floor that was a bit more roomy than the others. She pulled a small black device from her inside pocket and glued it to the bars on the window. The thing made a little beep sound and then crash, the bars were torn in half like they were made of paper.

"Here we go," Suno said and she squeezed first through the hole. Goku went after her and Chichi followed suit.

The inside of the building was as grim as its exterior. Whoever had designed Muscle Tower had tried to emulate the haunted medieval castle look. The harsh stone walls continued around them, gray and foreboding, and the air was chill and damp. It had to make for unpleasant working conditions for the soldiers assigned here. But only the decor was from the Dark Ages. Their equipment was top notch.

The room they were in served as some sort of office. There were tables every few feet holding computers with many screens, books and papers, and other administrative accessories. Goku went to the nearest one, curiosity taking hold of him, and what he saw gave him a chill. The computer had a logo: a circle and two Cs, one inside the other. He recognized it immediately.