The Fire Shadow

YUKI

Yuki sat on the front seat, next to Chinatsu. In the back, Kaito and Ryuu were arguing about something, but Yuki classified it as useless bickering and directed her attention to the road in front of her.

The car advanced smoothly and soundlessly. Chinatsu's manicured hands rested on the wheel, lightly and surely.

"So, one hour?" asked Chinatsu.

"Yeah, if there's some kind of problem we will contact you somehow," said Yuki.

Chinatsu nodded and sent her a side glance.

"God, I will never get used to this," she said, grimacing.

Some months before, Kotori had gotten ahold of a cosmetic surgeon's device that changed people's physical appearance through hologram projection over the features. It was similar to the robot wardrobes Chinatsu and Kotori owned, only instead of solidifying clothes' holograms, it solidified holograms of body features. The device had been disposed of by its previous owner though, because it was just an early design and the effects didn't last more than two hours and a half.

Kotori had researched the ID files of all the soldiers working at the military airport, and the infiltrated its database to see who would be on duty that exact night. Then, she had chosen three of them and used the surgeon's device to project their faces on Yuki's, Ryuu's and Kaito's faces.

Yuki touched her hair again. It was curly and frisky, so long she had had to braid it so it didn't get in her way. It felt so strange.

With Chinatsu driving, the ride to the military airport wouldn't take more than fifteen minutes. The highway was empty, since most people didn't venture out of Circle Four at night.

The car slowed down, and in the distance, the military airport appeared into view. Since Kotori had first changed their faces, half an hour had passed. They still had two hours to go in and out.

Yuki pressed a finger to the earpiece in her right ear.

"Ko," she said. "We're almost there."

"God, even the voice sounds different," said Chinatsu, with a grimace.

Kotori had also found voice samples of the soldiers they would be impersonating and loaded them into microchips she had glued to their throats with an edible substance that was becoming very popular lately among those in the music industry. The use of voice-altering devices had been a common occurrence among singers and performers for a long time, but Yuki had never thought they could change one's voices this drastically.

"Heya! Can everyone hear me?"

Kotori's voice came loud and clear, asking if all could hear her. Yuki looked to the back seat, and Kaito and Ryuu sent her a thumbs up.

"Noice!" said Kotori, when Yuki told her they all did. "So, you need to get in through Entrance B. There are only two guards there and the storage room is closer. The cargo got there three hours ago, so it has to be already stored, most probably in the front rows of the storage room."

Immediately, a three-dimensional projection of the layout of the airport blinked to life from Yuki's phone. Chinatsu looked at it and nodded. With a small move of her hand on the wheel, the car swerved to the right and took a smaller side road. Chinatsu turned off the headlights, leaving the greenish glow of the hologram as their only source of light.

They looked on in silence as the small dot signaling their position advanced through the road on the hologram. When they were a kilometer away from it, Chinatsu stopped the car.