The V10 engine of Exalibar's cruiser purred like a contented beast as he navigated the late-night streets. With the windows down, the cool air was a welcome contrast to the heat of the fight.
"Okay, it's just the two of us now," Exalibar said, glancing at Aisha. "Start talking. What's this 'one mission' that's so important you'd resort to blackmail?"
Aisha shifted in her seat ,"Children have gone missing. Three of them, all from high-profile families. There's no pattern, no ransom demands. They just vanished. But I have a lead on where they're being held."
"And the kidnappers?" Exalibar prompted, eyes still on the road.
"That's the problem," Aisha admitted, frustration in her voice. "We know exactly who they are and where they're hiding, but we can't touch them."
"Let me guess," Exalibar cut in, a smirk on his face. "It's the Richman Organisation isn't it?"
"Worse. The Lekratian Embassy."
Exalibar let out a low whistle. "Right. You can't set foot in there without giving them a blank check to cry 'act of war, and with the way they have been acting lately I know they will definitely do it'"
"We actually can enter Exalibar," she corrected, "but we can't apprehend anyone. And even if we tried a covert snatch-and-grab, the place is wrapped in a Level 5A mana shield. It's a fortress."
"And?" Exalibar prompted, his tone implying the obvious. "I've seen you turn a concrete wall into confetti. Your alchemy could probably convince that shield it has to take a paid vacation to The Bahamas ."
"It's not only about penetration okay there is also the alarm," Aisha countered, rolling her eyes. "The shield is monitored. Any tampering at all triggers a city-wide alert and gives Lekratia a legal excuse to use lethal force on any of our heroes. It's a provocation waiting to happen."
"Okay, so how do I factor into all of this?" Exalibar asked, finally seeing the chessboard. "You need a pawn they've never seen before."
"You're not a pawn, you're a wild card," Aisha said, a gleam in her eye. "You're an unaffiliated civilian. So, you can lead a small, deniable team inside. Your job is to extract the cell leader, a man named Kaelen, and get him to talk before his government knows he's gone."
Exalibar mulled it over, his fingers tapping the steering wheel. "A team. What's the roster look like?"
"Still assembling it. But you'll need muscle. I'm looking at Jack."
"Jack? Ah yes the guy who bench-presses buses for warm-ups? Isn't he a little... obvious?"
"Sometimes you need a sledgehammer, not a scalpel," Aisha retorted. "He creates a fantastic distraction. While they're focusing on him, you can do the real work."
"Fine. Who else?"
"A mana-based tech specialist. Someone to handle their internal security. I'm thinking Theo."
Exalibar frowned. "Or you could do it, I know how skilled you are."
"Not as skilled as him when it comes to mana-based tech. He can do that AND give you eyes and ears without tripping the main shield."
"Okay, so I've got a hammer and a ghost. What's my entry point? I'm not walking through the front door."
The conversation was cut short as they pulled up to her driveway. Leaving his car outside the gate the 2 made their way inside with Exalibar having to climb through Aisha's bedroom. Her walls were a controlled chaos of complex formulae and tactical maps. A large holographic screen flickered to life, displaying a rotating 3D schematic of the Lekratian Embassy.
"Dylan can't know you're here," Aisha whispered, zooming in on the structure.
"Forget Dyla, what's Jack going to say about you bringing boys home through the window?" Exalibar quipped, pulling up a chair.
"Stop acting like this is your first time here. Now, focus." She highlighted a service duct on the blueprint. "This is your in. It leads from a storm drain directly into the sub-basement, here, bypassing the primary perimeter sensors."
Exalibar leaned forward, his eyes tracing the path. "It's too tight. Jack will never fit."
"He doesn't need to. His job is to cause a scene at the main gate at the precise moment you're going in. It will pull half their security away."
"Clever. So, Theo and I go in through the pipes. We get to the sub-basement. Then what?"
"Then," Aisha said, her voice dropping, "you find the mana source for the residential wings' shield emitter. It's on a separate, lower-priority grid. Theo can disable it without triggering the main alarm. That's your doorway to the upper floors where Kaelen is."
They spent the next hour drilling into the details. They argued over timings, debated backup plans, and studied the dossiers of every known guard. Aisha's voice was a steady stream of information, and Exalibar absorbed it, his mind running simulations, finding flaws, and patching them.
"...so if we cut of the building's energy supply here," Aisha was saying, pointing to a junction in the wiring schematic, "we can create a blind spot for exactly sixty-seven seconds. That's your window to cross the main hall."
Exalibar didn't answer.
"Exalibar? What do you think? Is sixty-seven seconds enough?"
She turned. He was out cold, his head resting on his arms atop her desk, his breathing deep and even. The glow of the screen illuminated his face, finally free of its usual tension. A small, fond smile touched Aisha's lips.
"You always did find boredom in details"
She grabbed a blanket from her bed and draped it carefully over his shoulders.
The first hint of dawn was colouring the sky when a loud, insistent fist hammered against the bedroom door, making the walls vibrate.
"AISHA! GET UP WE WILL BE LATE FOR CLASSES AGAIN!"