The Second Layer

Chapter 23: Lily

Chapter 23: Lily

For the last hour the team had been circling the compound Vanning had given them the address for, keeping to the shadows and making sure they weren't seen by the guards posted out front. There was a sign not far from the guard station declaring the place to be some kind of private research facility, but they all knew that to be a lie.

They'd spent the time trying to get the measure of the place, to figure out its defenses and their best method of attack. Usually they would've just used Lily's vision to not only get a full layout of the place, but the position of every guard within and the larikin they were after. But when they'd arrived they'd made a startling discovery. Something was blocking Lily's vision inside the compound. She couldn't see an inch past the walls using her ability. When she tried she just ran into a blank spot. The discovery had the entire team worried. Though Lily's vision had occasionally hit blank spots in the past, especially when extreme distance was involved, for one to just happen to be a federal compound they were targeting, even when she tried looking inside it at close range, was a bad omen.

Was it possible the NSA had actually discovered a way to block such abilities? And if so, what other surprises might wait inside? There'd always been rumors that certain divisions of the government might be aware of their kind. And the fact that they'd locked a larikin in a vault within the compound spoke to the fact that they must have some idea of what they had their hands on, even if they couldn't sense it.

There shouldn't be anything there that would truly be dangerous for them, though. After all, these were only humans they were dealing with, and no matter how well-trained and well-equipped they were, humans were never really a threat. And yet the team wasn't used to having to deal with the unknown. And to have a target that seemingly might have been able to prepare against them in ways they'd never seen before had made them all nervous.

So they'd waited for nightfall, and when it had come an hour before, they'd begun circling the compound, studying it, each of them moving on their own. They dared not use headsets and transceivers, after all there was no telling what sort of radio signals might be getting picked up inside the compound, and they couldn't risk even the smallest chance that they might have a conversation overheard. And so they'd all simply studied the building on their own, until finally a few minutes before Evan had given them the signal, and they'd all gathered at a distance from the compound to speak. They'd already gone over their observations and were in the midst of discussing strategy.

"You're sure we can't go over the wall?" Lily asked.

"I told you, I'm positive there are sensors along the top of the wall. I'm not sure how high they go, but it could be up to a hundred feet or even more. And not only that, I think there's also a decent chance they're scanning the air over the entire compound. Which means that, if I'm right, even if one of us leaps over the range of the sensors along the wall we'd still have to drop through the others, and we're large enough that there's no way we'd get mistaken for a bird. So it's not worth risking that way to find out whether I'm right or not," Evan stated firmly.

"Well, I saw no other entrances except for the front gate. Trying to break through the wall would make way too much noise. And trying to go under the wall would take far too long," Alaine pointed out.

"Well, I'm sure there are plenty of shadows in there, but as you all know, it's hard for me to shadowstep in when I have no idea where I'm going. I could wind up coming out in front of a dozen security cameras," Silver added.

"So what does that leave us? Go in through the front?" Kade queried.

The rest of them actually paused to consider that. "I think the front," Silver added his support a few seconds later, but he was watching Evan for a final decision.