Jasper couldn’t blame Grace for having a torrent of questions, but this robbery was going to go much smoother if she wasn’t distracted trying to infodump in a way that wouldn’t scare Grace off. Ordinarily, Jasper would have stashed Grace away somewhere and picked her up later, but the Blades out and about made that a terrible idea.
“Why would Starr let me live in the palace for so many years if he wanted me dead the whole time?” Grace asked.
Jasper paused in the middle of an intersection. “This way,” she said as she headed down the hallway to her left. “And Starr’s public image is of the utmost importance. Offering a home to the poor, amnesic orphan who saved his life made him look good. You had no memory of the labs, so you weren’t a threat until Kara showed up.” She threw a glance over her shoulder to make sure Grace was following.
Grace’s brow furrowed. “My earliest memory is of a man—a scientist—leading me out of…some underground facility, I guess. We were chased, and he was killed. I ran into Starr later that day.” A faraway look crept into her gaze.
So, Kara wasn’t the first person to die saving Grace. That couldn’t be great for the whole “emotional stability” thing most people had going. Nothing like a heaping serving of survivor’s guilt first thing in the morning!
“Huh. Surprising that one of those scientists would help you escape.” Jasper led Grace around another corner. They passed offices and conference rooms, all of which were dark and empty thanks to Holly and Dax’s earlier evacuation. “I bet Starr was hoping the public would forget about you, but they really tried to keep up with you. They were hoping you’d be sent out to do more heroic acts and good deeds as you got older.”
“Well, I failed at that,” Grace muttered. “And saving Starr turned out to be a mistake, too.”
They took another turn. “You want to make things right?” Jasper asked.
Grace jogged a bit to catch up on Jasper’s right. “Huh?”
“Help me help you. The reason I think you’re valuable, the reason I’m keeping you alive, is because I want to take down Starr. And you want that too, right? He’s corrupt and wants you dead.” Jasper stopped in front of her destination: a custodial closet.
“If Starr’s so terrible, why do you want him gone?” Grace asked as she paused next to Jasper. “I have a hard time believing a supervillain cares about fixing the government.”
“Let’s just say it’s personal.” Jasper opened the closet door.
Grace looked over the cleaning supplies neatly organized on the other side. “Where are we?”
“This floor is mostly offices. The jewelry store is directly below us.” Jasper adjusted her gloves. “The top few floors of the building are closed today for fumigation.”
“Uh, is it safe to be here?”
“Of course.” Jasper entered the closet and flipped on the light. “I suppose I should mention that there’s not a real pest problem, and the people who evacuated the building aren’t real fumigators.” She pulled out the laser they’d recovered from evidence, pointed it at the ground, and turned it on. Over the hiss of the burning floor, she added, “With the building empty, all we have to worry about are alarms.”
“What about security cameras?” Grace asked.
A small section of floor broke away and fell into darkness. After turning the laser off, Jasper dropped to one knee next to the hole. “Thea has them playing empty rooms and hallways on a loop. No one can see us,” she explained. “That being said, we still need to be careful in the store. Instead of putting alarms on the cases, they’ve rigged the whole floor with sensors that the employees activated before leaving. Even moving within a few inches of it will set it off.”
Thea spoke up over the comms. “Holly, Dax, you’ve got incoming.”
Jasper sighed. “What kind of incoming?”
“What?” Grace asked, brow furrowing in confusion.
Jasper procured a spare comm from her coat and tossed it to Grace. “Put this in your ear.”
Grace nearly dropped the thing when she caught it. She hesitated a moment before sliding it in.
“Security’s headed our way?” Holly asked, sounding more annoyed than concerned.
“No, no, it’s not security,” Thea replied. “It’s Red Blades.”
“The Blades aren’t here for us,” Jasper told them. “Technically. We just need to hurry.”
“Wait, Jasper, who’s with you?” Thea asked.
“I’ll explain later. Holly, Dax, take care of the Blades. I’m entering the store.” Jasper reached into her coat. “I finally get to use my new grappling hook.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Holly told her. “There’s a display case directly below the ceiling tile I marked, and a whole maze of them covering the store.”
“Ugh. Fine.” Jasper hopped into the hole she’d carved in the closet floor.
Grace followed her into the dark space between the floor above and the ceiling below. An “X” marked a ceiling tile a few feet away in red spray paint. Jasper lifted the marked tile, set it aside, and went through the opening. She landed on top of a jewelry display, dropping just low enough for the tips of her gloved fingers to graze the glass before rising. The overhead lights were off, but the display cases gave off a soft golden glow.
Jasper took a step back and looked up. Grace attempted to slide off the edge of the gap but lost her balance and fell awkwardly. She landed hard on top of the display and stumbled to the left.
Jasper grabbed her arm before she could fall. “Careful.”
“Couldn’t your hacker just turn the alarms off?” Grace regained her balance and shot the floor an apprehensive glance.
“Thea says—”
“Their system is super sensitive,” Thea interrupted through comms. “It’s constantly scanning for intrusions and adapting to keep out the best hackers, even technopaths. I could set the alarms off just trying to find a way in.” After a moment, she added, “Don’t get me wrong, I could do it with enough time. But it’s easier to just avoid the floor.”
Jasper aimed the laser at the glass below her feet. “Put the jewelry under bulletproof glass,” she said in a mocking tone. “That’ll stop those thieves.”
Grace surveyed the store while Jasper lasered open the display. “Won’t it take forever to go through every case?”
“It would, if I didn’t have this.” A disk of glass dropped into the case, and Jasper pulled out the last tool she needed for the job: a gun-sized electromagnet. She pointed the magnetic end at the case and turned it on. A gold necklace flew out of the hole she’d made and slammed into the device.
Jasper guided the magnet along the top of the display, pulling the rest of the jewelry up and through the opening. Once she was done, she shoved the cluster of jewelry into a pocket, hopped over a small gap to the next case, and started the process again.
“I have a question,” Grace said.
Of course you do. More jewelry disappeared into Jasper’s coat. “Go ahead.”
“Usually, I see you on the news because you make a scene.” Grace glanced toward the front of the store, where a metal sliding door spanning the store’s length blocked any view the doors and windows might have offered. “But right now, you’re going out of your way to avoid getting caught.”
Not technically a question, but Jasper got what she meant. “I’m only noticed when I want to be,” she explained. On to the next case.
“Jasper, we have a problem,” Thea said.
Jasper restrained a groan. “What now?”
“Security guards are coming your way. Real guards, not Blades.”
“Okay.” Jasper straightened up. “I’ve got one more case to get through.”
“Can’t you just leave it? If you don’t get out now—uh oh.”
“Thea?” Despite Thea’s protests, Jasper moved on to the last display.
“The security system’s kicking me out.”
“Well, get back in!”
“I can’t just ‘get back in.’ Hurry!”
“How far is security?” Holly asked.
“I can’t access those cameras anymore,” Thea said. “Last I checked, though, they were a floor below you. You’ve got about a minute.”
Jasper lifted an eyebrow. “They went past the fumigation signs we put up?” She pointed the laser at the glass beneath her and turned it on.
“They did stop in front of the warnings, but it didn’t stall them for long.”
Holly jumped back into the conversation. “How many?”
“Two,” Thea answered.
Jasper’s eyes rolled. “We can handle two security guards.” Laser off. Magnet on. Shiny jewelry come to Jasper.
“You said you wanted stealth,” Holly reminded her.
“Stall them, then. I’m almost done.” Jasper brought up the last of the jewelry and turned the magnet off.
Grace spread her wings and pushed herself up to the ceiling. She hung from the edge of the opening for a moment before climbing up with a grunt, followed by a thud.
“You good?” Jasper asked. She strolled to the edge of the display case and jumped to the next.
“I’m okay,” came Grace’s muffled reply.
“Guards are here,” Holly muttered. She cleared her throat. “Excuse me, what are you doing up here? We’re about to start the fumigation, you really shouldn’t be—”
Grace’s head popped down from the ceiling, brown eyes wide with panic. “Are you coming?”
“Relax, I’m almost there.” Jasper hopped to the next case.
“Well, that can’t be right,” Holly said. “They called us yesterday complaining about the roach problem, didn’t they?”
“Yep,” Dax added, his tone a little too cheery to be discussing an imaginary roach infestation. “Scheduled us to come in as soon as possible.”
Jasper paused. Holly, Dax, and the two guards were standing directly in front of the jewelry store. The metal door hid them from view, but she could just make out the guards’ voices from here.
“Who exactly scheduled this?” one of the guards asked.
“The building manager,” Holly replied.
“Do you have your contract?”
“Jasper!” Grace called in a half-whisper.
Jasper leaped to the case she’d started on and looked up. “Could you scoot over?”
“Do you need help?”
“I think I can manage.” Jasper shook out her hands.
“Where’s your equipment?” the second guard’s voice asked outside.
“It’s on another floor. We just came to scout out the area,” Holly told him. “Yeah, it sure is…roach infested.”
Something glinted at the end of the case, catching Jasper’s eye. Damn it. She’d missed a bracelet.
The first guard spoke again. “I don’t see any roaches.”
“Well, you’re not a trained professional, are you?” Holly snapped.
“Forget the contract,” the second guard said. “I’m supposed to be on my lunch break. Let’s just check the store and go.”
Jasper pulled the magnet back out and darted to the end of the case. “I need thirty more seconds!”
“The store?” Holly blurted at the guard. “What store? The jewelry store?”
“Yeah. We were told something weird happened with the security system and came to check it out. If we’d known there was a fumigation scheduled—”
“Jasper!” Grace was even more frantic now.
“I’m coming!” Jasper pulled the bracelet off the magnet and slid them both into her coat.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Holly said. “I mean, we’ve been here all morning and we haven’t seen anything weird.”
“Probably a false alarm,” Dax added.
The second guard was insistent. “We need to check it out to be sure.”
Jasper raised her arms and jumped. She grabbed onto the edge of the gap, swung, and pulled herself up and in.
“They’re coming in,” Holly warned under her breath.
Jasper slid the ceiling tile back into place while the metal door screeched open. Footsteps entered the store below.
“Come on,” Jasper whispered to Grace. “We’re going back the way we came.”
“What now?” Thea asked.
“We’re taking the jewelry to the meeting. Regroup on the roof,” Jasper ordered. “We’ll go from there.”