Page 82 of Seer Prophet

The safe was exactly where the Sword told him to look.

The Bridge’s vision had been eerily accurate, even compared to track-scans by teams of infiltrators utilizing known and confirmable real-time targets.

That was…veryaccurate.

Loki clicked his fingers.

He sent a pulse towards the painting, and the wall safe behind it.

“Open it,” he said to Illeg, using the link despite how close they stood to one another. “…Hurry,” he added. “They’re saying we may have company when we surface.”

He felt the ripple of humor on Illeg and Ontari vanish at his words.

Theiraleimistilled to razor-sharp focus.

Loki waited patiently while they worked, periodically glancing at Holo and Jax at the door. Illeg and Ontari first used a physical scanner to determine if any dead-combustion (non-organic) charges lived in the hinges, then began conducting preliminary scans on the hinged door to the safe, using both their light and semi-organic instruments.

Minutes later, they removed the image hanging on the wall.

“Kind of old school, isn’t it?” Mika grunted. “A safe in a wall? Hidden behind a painting? That’s like… a movie.”

“Humans can be nostalgic,” Ontari said, shrugging.

“Can you break the lock?” Loki asked.

Illeg and Ontari glanced at him.

“We’ll get it,” Ontari assured him.

“Work fast.”

None of them bothered with the links anymore.

Loki felt it when a flush of adrenaline hit his bloodstream, seemingly out of nowhere. Up until that instant, the danger Yumi warned him about felt abstract. Now, he felt the difference in his light. They were in trouble.

He opened yet another channel on the comm.

“Preela?”

She answered at once, even as his light skated out, taking a quick snapshot of what he could now feel converging on the grounds of the White House building.

“In the air, sir,” she confirmed. “We’re looking at structural damage on the roof?”

“And?” he cut in.

“No good, sir. Sensors say it won’t hold us. Looking for an alternate until you’re ready for pick up.” She paused, and Loki heard the whine of the Chinook’s rotors in the background as the bird turned. “…Any idea when that might be, sir?”

“Not yet?” he began, but Illeg cut him off.

“Gotcha.” She smiled grimly at the safe door.

“?But soon,” Loki added into the comm, his light refocusing on the safe and the three seers now standing in front of it. Rex had joined the other two. The ex-Rook appeared to be the one who cracked the last part of the locking mechanism.

Loki remembered that the big-shouldered seer had a background in explosives and safes. He’d been a professional thief at one point, back in Russia. Like many seers in those years, he’d been recruited by Galaith directly out of the Russiangulag,where he’d been awaiting sentencing for one of his many crimes.

Loki heard somewhere that the Sword had been recruited similarly.

“Where are you with it?” Loki pressed.

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