Page 109 of Iron Unicorn

Chaos would reign. Chaos always reigned when shit hit the fan. The test would be if the RPS could contain the chaos so it was something manageable.

Unbeknownst to the RPS, my partner-in-crime had done some intel gathering, tipping me off to the dinner event in the evening, one meant to entertain a foreign dignitary. The rulers of India would find the scenario amusing, especially as Will had informed them dinner might not work out as everyone hoped due to the day’s scenarios.

Upon learning their young daughter loved all things magical, a suggestion had been made to stash her with the Texan queen. Kidnapping two princesses and a queen hadn’t been on the agenda, but the six year old would love the festivities and serve as a reminder that Queen Jessica needed to keep her talents reined in for the relocation scenario.

An hour later, Carl confirmed I could begin the scenario at my leisure, and that we had a six hour window to work with. If I did trash the electrical systems, they had generators on hand to power the entire palace.

I appreciated their foresight.

As the Texans expected one man to infiltrate the palace, I would bring Holly along for the ride. Once I was dressed up as a woman, wearing a formfitting blouse that worked rather nicely with the pair of fake breasts I wore, Holly handled transforming my face into something feminine. Contacts turned my eyes blue, a wig handled giving me long, blonde hair, and my new glasses fell into the feminine and delicate category. My voice would be an issue, but fortunately for me, Holly knew a few tricks for pitching higher and adding a more feminine tone. As long as I took care when I spoke and played at being demure, I stood a good chance of pulling it off.

The Texan palace had one loophole, one that would let me sneak in without anyone paying me any attention at all.

The palace’s janitorial staff wore business casual attire with a preference for knee-length skirts for the women and slacks for the men. As such, we both wore skirts, and Holly had spent an hour shaving my legs and making certain my clothing wouldn’t betray my gender. During the day, security was generally lax, relying on memory and behavior to identify infiltrators. On event days, temporary staff was brought in to ensure all went smoothly.

Holly and I would play at being one of the temps, and Holly had done the footwork necessary to get us all the access we needed in form of taking advantage of the temp system.

That morning, she’d grabbed two of the badges by playing at being one of the temps, which was all the access we needed to reach the queen, Olivia, and the young princess from India.

Today would be a good day, and I looked forward to crowning myself as a premier RPS agent.

We dreamed of taking out evenoneroyal in a scenario, but I would get three. And while Holly’s help made it a duet, she deserved to come along for the ride.

Two pairs of hands would make corralling three royals feasible.

Twenty minutes after the start of the scenario, we showed up at the palace, made use of the temp badges to gain access, and claimed a cleaning cart. Once on the ground floor and through the first of the RPS checkpoints near the kitchen, we began the first phase of our plan.

We cleaned.

Later, I would go visit Sabina’s grave and thank her for teaching me how to properly clean, subjecting us both to several weeks of working for a service as a way to keep our home tidy and gain a better understanding of life beyond our elite circles. Holly lacked my practical knowledge, but she caught on quickly, so anyone who did take notice of us would believe I was the experienced maid while Holly learned from me.

An hour after starting, having dusted the crown molding leading to the grand banquet hall, handled a rather trafficked section of floor, and otherwise gotten under foot of more than a few RPS agents while doing our work, we packed up our cart, and I referred to a notepad, one Holly had pilfered while picking up our badges. She’d even gotten lucky and had gotten a good look at the assignment chart, which included the agency’s code names for the wings that needed to be cleaned.

Queen Jessica’s office had been labeled, was marked to be cleaned if time allowed but low on the priority list, and would allow us to handle our work. Holly had the available time slots, and in five minutes, it opened for us.

As my voice might betray us, Holly handled the talking while I pushed the cart. She picked the first RPS agent she spotted, approached with the confidence of someone who belonged in the building, and said, “Pardon, but can you escort us to Q25-A, please? That’s our next assignment.”

Only the Q betrayed it as belonging to the queen, a security loophole I would suggest they close after I finished my work.

The agent, a younger man who verified that Q25-A was on the schedule, nodded a moment later and guided us through the palace, up the staff elevator, and directly to Queen Jessica’s private office. To my amusement, the queen was present, and she waved us in while shooing the pesky RPS agents out.

The resulting five minute battle with the RPS agents amused the hell out of me, and I went to work cleaning the molding while Holly did a dust check of everything, behavior all parties expected.

“Goodness gracious, I’m meeting with a princess, not conspiring against my spouse. If I wanted to conspire, I’d do so in my old rooms!”

I controlled my expression, although I needed to pinch myself to do so.

King Patrick poked his head into the room from the connecting office. “What’s this, now?”

“The pesky agents refuse to leave.”

“But you’re going to steal Aanya and Olivia. I have them right now. We’re playing cards.”

“So, bring them in here and we’ll play cards together. We’ll defeat the boredom that way. If we need extra players, we’ll just recruit the ladies. They’re trying real hard to be polite.”

“Honestly, I’m wondering what they did to deserve being sent up here,” the king admitted. He stepped back into his office, bringing the young Indian princess and Olivia with him. “Between all of us, I’m sure we can handle just about anything. Just let us play cards in peace. The faster you’re out from underfoot, the faster they’re finished and the happier we’ll be. But I’ll be sending them to my office next, and frankly, the bedroom could use a vacuum after the chip explosion. I’ll return the cleaning staff when I feel like it. And if you push my buttons, I’ll feed them first!”

Apparently, the king ruled the RPS through threats of keeping unknown actors around for longer, ensuring good behavior from said actors through food.

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