My Scumbag System Chapter 731: A Statue Carved From Vigilance

"That’s the job."

"You weigh two thirty."

"Two twenty-six."

"Whatever. If you pass out on me I’m dragging you by the collar and your head is going to hit every stair."

"Wouldn’t expect anything less."

He grunted and went back to the gym. Ten minutes later the sound of his fists hitting the bag changed tempo and got faster, which meant he was running scenarios in his head while he punched, which meant he had already committed.

That was the thing about Raphael. He complained the way other people breathed and he fought the way other people prayed, and when you gave him a job that required more heart than sense he transformed from an angry teenager into something that reminded me of the old enforcers back in Kaelen’s world. The ones who stayed not because they were paid well but because they had decided the boss was their boss and that decision sat deeper than bone.

Skylar appeared around two with a folder of building schematics she had acquired from sources she declined to name. When Natalia asked how she obtained classified architectural blueprints for the most secure building in Valoria, Skylar took a long drag on her clove cigarette and said, "I know a guy."

"Which guy."

"A guy who knows a guy. The chain has four guys in it. One of them might be a girl. The blueprints are accurate to within six inches."

"And Sublevel Eleven?"

"Doesn’t exist in any blueprint. Which means whatever’s down there was built off-book, off-grid, and off the official structural survey, which means it was either added during initial construction and removed from final documentation, or someone came in after the building was finished and dug down without the city knowing."

"Can you dig down eleven floors without a city noticing?"

"You can dig to the center of the earth if you have an Aspect that moves dirt and a government that doesn’t ask questions." Skylar spread the schematics across the coffee table, displacing three of Natalia’s datapads and earning a glare cold enough to frost glass. "The elevator shaft runs to Sublevel Ten. Standard security doors, biometric locks, one guard station per floor below Seven. After Ten, nothing. No stairs, no shaft, no access point. So either Sublevel Eleven has its own entrance that we haven’t found, or someone punched through the floor of Ten and built a way down that isn’t on any plan."

"The Key can open it," I said.

"The Key opens one door per week and you already used it Wednesday."

"Friday."

"Friday." Skylar tapped the blueprints where the elevator shaft terminated at Sublevel Ten. "Assuming you can get to Ten without setting off every alarm in the building, and assuming the Key opens whatever barrier separates Ten from Eleven, and assuming what’s down there isn’t worse than the A-Rank you killed twelve hours ago."

"It’s definitely worse."

"Yeah." She folded her arms. "That’s what I figured."

Emi refilled my water glass without being asked. I drank it because I have learned that refusing Emi’s water results in a lecture about hydration that involves statistics, tears, and a prolonged guilt trip delivered with the sincerity of a golden retriever who has been told to sit and has decided to also be disappointed about it.

Cel arrived at three with Noah in tow, both wearing Academy uniforms so clean they looked like they had been assembled from component atoms ten minutes ago. Cel sat at the edge of the group, close enough to hear but positioned so that she could plausibly claim she had stopped by to borrow a textbook if questioned. Noah stood behind her chair like a statue carved from vigilance.

Cel did not ask about the plan. She watched Natalia work, and occasionally her periwinkle eyes would narrow at a detail in the wireframe, and she would murmur something to Natalia in a voice too low for me to catch, and Natalia would make a small adjustment and nod without looking up. They had developed a shorthand during the tournament that bypassed me entirely, and I found that I liked it. Two women who understood power at the structural level, pooling their knowledge without ego.

Cel caught me watching and her cheeks colored slightly and she returned her attention to the schematics, but her foot shifted under the table until it rested against mine. A small contact. Private.

The pendant went cold for approximately half a second.

I moved my foot.

By six the common room had emptied out. Natalia rolled the schematics into a tube and tucked them under her arm and told me to be in her room in one hour. She said it the way a general says be at the front by dawn, and then she was gone and the only people left were me and Bartholomew.

The snail sat at the top of his terrarium and regarded me with tiny stalked eyes. I regarded him back.

"You’re the only one in this building who doesn’t want something from me," I said.

He ate lettuce.

"Respect."

I showered. Changed. Checked my phone. Seventeen messages. Reyna had sent a photo of herself on a training mat with her crimson hair pulled back and one eyebrow raised and the caption: Heard you killed something this morning. jealous. Skylar had sent a single knife emoji. Emi had sent a voice memo that was just her humming a song while she washed dishes, which she had clearly sent by accident and which I saved to a private folder because the sound of Emi humming while she thought no one was listening was the single most peaceful thing I had encountered since waking up in this body.

Akari had sent her invoice.

I went to Natalia’s room at seven.

She was sitting cross-legged on the bed with her hair down and the Ring glowing on her finger and a fresh pad of paper in her lap. She wore one of my shirts and nothing else, which I noticed because I am a person with eyes and because the shirt hung to mid-thigh and because the buttons were done wrong, two holes off, which meant she had dressed quickly and not bothered to fix it, which meant she was not performing for me.

"Close the door," she said.

I closed it.

"Sit."