Oh Godson Where Art Thou?

The Pavlovna Pre-Test Caper

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The night.

Not a sound or a flutter.

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Until cascades came down in seething orange tails.

A resounding boom creating a wave of black soot.

Outer layers.

Vested thugs checking the supports inseminated. Now a bone structure than a full body.

Gunpowder had been ignited which was a lucky blow, but were likely kept in bronze as a precaution either way.

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From Prague, to Brno, and here in Ostrava...

Slept soundly.

The city slept when glass broke.

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The harried squeak of shining black shoes on linoleum floor when gas hissed green and thick.

The rotted out rook tower within the fringes of the reclusive town chosen as their hideaway provided a rounded space with an arching high ceiling.

Their breaths from gas masks and strides echoed.

Torches on several beams fell on emeralds now gleaming and glittering.

The hundreds upon hundreds in glass cases minutely identical from the cut of the green jewel, to the markings in the sterling bind.

"Frauds, all of them," Operative Staccato hissed in surly tones.

"No duh."

"They'd have the real set in..." Wisp thought for several moments.

"Probably in with the factory where they cut the things," said an Operative; daintily thin but voice deep and rough. His own lightweight carbonite suit creaking as a real leather skin would. Irritation pricking as he said so, then proceeded to search for a door or loose brickwork.

"Here Adder," said his colleague softly, as he turned him away by the shoulders.

Grey eyes gleamed under his visors that flashed red.

As his fingers ghosted a panel somewhat above, a look of concentration away from their view, the wall gave way with a crash.

Revealing a hidden wooden door now opened.

Down the sloping, curving corridor the five were forced to huddle tight, near single file.

The one leading them growled. "Sixteen enemies upon the sides, we take another step..."

"And what? Any worse than them catching us right now?" Staccato challenged. "I could kick some ass right now."

A dark undercurrent lay in that whisper, some like a razor. 

"Spread," Operative Adder grunted and the burlesque Sensor and Chemist expert didn't need telling twice.

Sliding both legs to an arc.

Letting Adder run his tongue in a series of unintelligible, cruel lisped hisses.

Slimy skin uncoiled from his person, hand petting at a streamlined spearhead.