The Chapters

Chapter Fifteen

"Really?" Keon asks sarcastically. "You know how to get into there?"

"Yes, I do." Alexien crosses her arms in the low light.

"And you're supposedly here to help us?"

"Well, no. I'm here to get whatever's left of my Kin out."

"How do we know you're not actually from the Death Towers?" He questions again.

"At least he's upfront about his suspicions," I hear her mutter quietly. "I don't know, ask me something about the Kin. I know the place inside out."

"Inside out, huh?" Keon scoffs. "Then what's written at the bottom of the far left table outside of the main hall?"

I don't even know how Keon knows that, much less how Alexien would.

Alexien thinks about it for a while then suggests, "'Lies are a fuzz'? It was hard to read and made no sense. We had to scrub it off, anyway."

Keon switches to a brighter tone immediately, much to my surprise. "Alright, good enough proof for me. Welcome to the Yellow Stripe rescue team."

I sigh. "We aren't calling it that."

"The actual message was 'Bees are a buzz', so yes, in honour of that, we are calling our team the Yellow Stripe."

I crinkle my nose. "Who even wrote that?"

Keon laughs. "Rey."

"What?"

Alexien nods along. "That makes complete sense. He was probably drunk."

"That's what he told me," Keon adds. "So if you know both Vettie and Rey, you must know why we're here."

She nods again. "The Death Tower Kin probably knew, too. That's why they chose this time."

"So how did you run into Mica?"

"I ran into him climbing up to the Kinship."

Keon fixes me with a stony glare and I give him a weak smile. "I wasn't doing anything, I swear."

"It's not safe up there," he tells me sternly. "You're lucky you weren't found out."

"He was talking to himself,"  Alexien adds coolly. "If that makes any difference."

Again with the glare. I feel like glaring at Alexien myself.

I try and play it innocent. "I was thinking out loud."

"Not unlike you, but this is getting out of control." Keon shakes his head, dismissing the topic. "Nevermind. Are we going to formulate a plan before the sun rises or just bullshit everything on the go? "

You guys are probably gonna bullshit it. At least, you are.

Improvisation never hurt anyone.

False.

"They've got two ways to get in through the front," Alexien starts off. She sits on the ground and points the flashlight at the ground, the light rebounding off the rock and onto her face. She scratches in the stone with something as she speaks. "One of them is used on foot. It's about the size of a cabin, with all sort of security scans and protocols to get through. Unless we can shut those down, we won't be able to get through there."

She scratches something else in the first, but the light isn't good enough to see it. "The second entrance, for vehicles is about three times that size. It leads to a huge garage, with low lighting, easy to hide in. There are scanners that go through every entering vehicle, though, and sensors for dangerous materials that have not been declared. On top of that, I bet you need security clearance to even more from one room to another."