The Iron Skeleton

Chapter 10

Ace hurried along the rooftop of one of the buildings of the Danlashian garrison. He'd snuck inside the information center and snatched up a map of the facility, but now needed to find a spot where he could look over it without himself being seen. 

He ducked and rolled as the bright beam of a spotlight swept across his path from one of the lookout towers planted on the rooftop. Then he dashed over to the tower itself and flattened himself against it. He used the residual light to glance over the map before it moved too far away. 

With a nod, he changed direction and headed for the east side of the building. If he travelled in a straight line from here, he only had to pass through one patch of open field to reach the confiscation bay. 

After sliding to avoid another lookout's spotlight, he found himself right at the edge of the roof. He peered over the brink and plotted out his plan. Below, a group of newbie soldiers stood in a circle and stared down at a trio of officers holding shovels, who instructed them on how to dig a trench. 

Ace inhaled sharply and prepared to carry out his quickly-formed plan. He slipped a black ball from one of his inside coat pockets, shook it vigorously, and hurled it down into the growing trench. 

One of the soldiers jumped at the black ball's swift descent. "What was that?" he cried out, frantically glancing upwards. 

Before anybody could answer, the ball erupted into a flurry of blinding lights and vivid colors. The soldiers covered their eyes and tried to blink their vision back. 

Ace hopped down from the rooftop and rolled on impact. With special lenses covering his own eyes, he dashed over to the trench and unstrapped his machine gun from his back. He pulled the trigger, swept the stream of bullets over the soldier's heads, and released it a mere three seconds later. 

He slipped down into the hole, carelessly stepping on the unmoving bodies as he did so. Then he shot one last bullet at the ball, and the shell cracked. A viscous liquid of every imaginable color oozed out of the fractured husk. With a sigh, Ace removed the lenses and pocketed them. He glanced over at the soldiers' bodies, searching for anything worth looting. Then he spotted something imbedded in the dirt beside one man's hand. 

A silvery stone carved into the shape of a skull stared eerily up at Ace, its eyes shining a dim red, despite the complete lack of any light source. He raised an eyebrow at the strange sight. Then, as running footsteps came closer, he snatched himself back into reality. He stooped down, picked the stone out of the earth, pocketed it, and clambered out of the trench. As before, the frantic waving of flashlights failed to reveal his location as he dashed across the open terrain toward the confiscation center. 

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Several hours later, Ace looped a rope around his waist, freeing his hands to pry the second-story window open as he dangled from a fascia post on the balcony above. With some effort and several shoves of the tapered piece of metal in his hands, he'd made a gap large enough to slip his hands underneath and push it open. 

After dislodging the rope from the balcony and coiling it up again, Ace crawled through the window. He smirked and nodded as he realized he'd reached the right place. Keira slept in the bed nearest the window, her back to him, while Wendy snored in the second bed. Aaron slumbered in an improvised hammock stretched between a knot tied around Sila's metallic neck, and a supporting pillar in the middle of the expansive hotel room. 

Ace stalked across the floor to the coat rack, sighing quietly as the restful expressions on Aaron and Wendy's faces caused him to realize his own suppressed sleepiness.