Chapter 163: ~Chapter 57~ Part 3

Stone walls and eerie blue lights set in fancy wrought iron torch sconces. As far as ambience was concerned, the School's private back-entrance got the whole 'medieval dungeon' aesthetic down pat. Well, except for the glowing green 'emergency exit' sign on the ceiling, but few things in this world are perfect.

All of a sudden, there was a soft sound in the dark as a door opened up to the outside. There was no light coming in, which wasn't surprising, considering it was it was well after ten in the night.

"Galatea. Time."

"It's ten hundred and eleven hours, master."

Correction: It was only eleven minutes after ten. The creeping duo of the mad scientist cosplayer and his ever-faithful android companion gingerly closed the door behind themselves in order to make as little noise as possible. Their cautious glances and the furtive way they moved were so obviously sneaky even Stevie Wonder could tell they weren't supposed to be here.

"Status report," Labcoat Guy whispered under his breath after setting his back against the wall. Unlike his usual appearance, this time he was wearing a pristine black lab coat, with matching trousers, sneakers, and a similarly colored beany keeping his hair in check. By the looks of it, it must have been his stealthy attire.

"The alarm wards have been successfully circumvented," the fembot declared, after which she dramatically raised the high-tech night vision goggles covering her eyes. "We are in the clear, master."

Speaking of goggles, her outfit was considerably more professional than Labcoat Guy's. In particular, her getup looked like it was modeled after police riot gear, except trimmed down to show off her curves, and with a window in the middle of her vest to allow a peek at her generous cleavage. Honestly speaking, the fact that this could still be considered more sensible as far as stealth was concerned said more about Labcoat Guy's outfit than hers.

"Kihihi! Good. Very good indeed!"

Once he learned that it was safe to move around, the man in the beany detached himself from the wall and strode in the middle of the hallway with all the undue confidence that characterized the kind of fools who would willingly go into the lion's den. Luckily for him, this time the world must have been too busy to punish his conduct right away. However, all is not lost that is delayed.

The android woman seemed just a bit more cautious, and she continued to monitor the perimeter through her night vision gear, occasionally pausing and pointing a finger at one glowing spot on the floor or the walls or another. Whatever she was doing, it worked, as the two of them successfully reached the stairwells leading to the bowels of the complex, and after descending three flights, they reached a large, riveted steel door set into the stone wall and secured by multiple enormous, old-timey padlocks with distinct key-holes on them.

This time it was Labcoat Guy's turn to shine. After a couple dozen military-style finger gestures, he managed to communicate the incredibly complex notion of 'Grab this door, dammit!' to his companion. Once she got into position and clamped her fingers onto the door, he proceeded to take out a pair of sophisticated entry tools from his breast pocket. In technical terms, one was an omnidirectional percussive force applicator, while the other was an elongated, acicular mechanical force transmitter made of a ferrum-oxide alloy. In layman's terms, it was a hammer and a rusty nail.

Instead of the padlocks, his target was the hinges, where he promptly knocked the pins out of each one of them, and then the fembot anti-climactically lifted the door out of the casing and pulled it aside just enough for someone to slip through the gap.

There was a small lull in the operation while she collected the discarded pins and Labcoat Guy took a sip from the energy drink he had in his other breast pocket for some inexplicable reason. After they finished their intermezzo, the android carefully stuck her head through the opening, and after a few short seconds, she turned back and told her creator, "I have successfully accessed the observer orbs, master. Do you want me to proceed with the looping?"

"Ki-hi-hi! Of course!" There was a long beat of silence after even the echoes of his request died down, but then she nodded with an implied 'Done and done.' Labcoat Guy let out another shrill chuckle and exclaimed, "Great! Let's go!"

With that, he slipped through the door, and it only now became apparent that it led to the familiar, if currently dark, hallway where the Arch-Mage's office was situated. The androidess followed after him and reset the door behind herself, after which they hurriedly made their way over to the fanciest door in the vicinity.

"It's your turn again, Galatea," Labcoat Guy urged her forward, and so the fembot took a small, rectangular box out of her cleavage... somehow. Said box had a series of dials on its sides, with the only free part completely covered in minuscule magical script and circles gently glowing in the dark. She attached it to the office's door, and the gadget made a series of whirring noises reminiscent of a cappuccino vending machine trying its best to function without water.

She let out a small grunt, and then proceeded to twist a few of the knobs, which resulted in a different series of noises, followed by more twisting and turning. The process repeated itself a couple dozen more times, and Labcoat Guy seemed just impatient enough to start complaining when the door let out an unexpected clicking noise, and she declared, "We are in, master."

"Ki-hi-hi! Marvelous! Quick, let's move!"

Under his urging, the android woman pushed the door open, and they both quickly entered the familiar office of the island's de facto supernatural oligarch. The place was unusually untidy, with even more documents scattered around than usual, and a half-empty open bottle of rum was still sitting on the desk in the middle. The duo scanned the perimeter, and once he concluded that they were in the clear, the resident mad scientist whispered, "Make sure you don't touch anything."

"Understood, master," the fembot nodded with a serious expression, and they immediately took a beeline towards the unassuming door in the back. So far, things were proceeding unexpectedly smoothly for the infiltrator duo, but they were about to meet a challenge that they simply could not have ever anticipated.

For you see, the door to the archives was protected by a technique that denied one's ability to unlock it on a conceptual level, something that no lockpick, magical or mundane could overcome. It was such an ingenious defense line that it took the two of their combined intellects over ten minutes to surmount this devious defense mechanism operating on the ingenious principle of 'you cannot lockpick a door that's already open'.

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"Argh! I can't believe this!" Labcoat Guy grunted aloud as he finally realized what was going and threw the door open. "We wasted so much time on this!"

"Aggravating. The chances of the door being left open were under 0.03%."

"I know, right?" he continued to grumble, but not for long, as he soon entered the archives and quickly pinpointed their main target. He gestured for his accomplice to follow after him, and this time they were prudent enough to actually check the door of the safe before they broke out the stethoscopes. It was, naturally, open. The two shared a completely understandable incredulous look between each other, but didn't dwell on it for long before they would proceed to rummage through the documents inside. Then, as he reached the bottom of the pile, Labcoat Guy's eyes lit up with excitement. "Ki-hi-hi! Jackpot!"

"Scanning. Processing..." After a few moments, the robotic woman nodded towards her master and declared, "100% match. It's the original of the binding contract."

"Goooooood!" Labcoat Guy had a frankly creepy grin on his face, as if he just found some kind of treasure, but he quickly wiped it off and turned to his companion again. "Galatea, the misdirection, please."

She nodded and wordlessly reached into her cleavage again (or, in retrospect, maybe an inner pocket accessible through the cleavage window on her vest, but it was functionally the same) and successfully retrieved a folded up piece of paper.

The black-clad scientist let out a subdued cackle and placed the hand-written page inside the safe, and then immediately closed it with an expression hovering on the border between relief and excitement.

"Ki-hi-hi! Mission accomplished. Let's get out of here!"

Without any further ado, the two of them tiptoed out of the archives, and did the same to the office as well, making very sure not to touch even a single fallen piece of office paper on the floor. They proceeded to open the door again, and then the fembot put the magic gadget onto the door and did the entire knob-turning song and dance routine backwards.

And then, just as they were about to leave, confident in their flawless success, a tall, smart, handsome, and criminally humble devil appeared on the other side of the door, with them none the wiser!

Jokes aside, my arrival was subtle and unceremonious as usual. I readjusted the balaclava on my head with my gloved hands, as I had to put it on in a hurry when I realized where our genre-shift agents were heading. I didn't have time to put on a jumpsuit this time, but based on my previous experience with infiltrating this room, even the headgear was a bit of an overkill. Still, it never hurt to be cautious, so I made sure I had it on properly before I did anything else.

I'm not proud to admit it, but the fact that I managed to catch these two red-handed was entirely due to blind luck. I just Phased back from the base, and I was sick as a dog after the multiple transfers and being unable to stop myself from messing with the disabled Chimera anyway (I'm starting to think I might have impulse control issues), but I still forced myself to do a roll-call on the usual suspects. As they say, the rest is history.

Now then, first I should find out what this 'misdirection' was supposed to be. I made my way into the archives, without bothering with leaving the scene intact, and I soon stood in front of the safe. Thankfully they were considerate enough to leave the new piece of paper on the top of the pile, so I didn't even have to look for it.

"Let's see..." I whispered under my breath and my eyes skimmed over the content. "Blah-blah-blah, your fort's defenses are lacking, wingless one, yada-yada, we now hold your secret in our hands, something-something glory to Deus. Huh."

So, on the first read, this page was supposed to make it look like the Celestials infiltrated the school, stole the contract binding Labcoat Guy, and were planning to use it to blackmail Lord Grandpa into doing some entirely vague stuff or else they'd reveal it to the Assembly, and that's apparently going to make him embarrassed or something. Needless to say, the whole thing was written in Celestial Script, which also meant...

"Goddammit, ninja..." I grumbled aloud before quickly Far Glancing in his direction, and... yep. Mike was currently enjoying the hospitality of an honest-to-goodness giant metal cage inside a certain mad scientist's backup-lair. How come I wasn't even surprised?

My first instinct was to just Phase over, grab him by the scruff of his neck, and deposit him somewhere else, but I quickly reined back the impulse. Not only because I was feeling queasy enough without another forced transfer like that, but because then I would have to somehow explain how I could actually do it to him, and considering that he was still mainly loyal to the Celestial Intelligence Network, I doubted he would keep it a secret just because I asked nicely.

The more I thought about it, the more annoying the situation felt, so I ended up letting out a groan and throwing the whole kerfuffle with Mike to the back of my mind in favor of focusing on the kerfuffle in front of me.

In short, I felt irritated over other people making my life complicated, so I did the most natural thing that came to mind under the circumstances and decided to vent by making those people's lives extra complicated in return. With that determination in mind, I casually crumbled up the piece of paper in my hand, and whispered, "As they say, revenge is a dish best served complicated."

...

That sounded much better in my head.

"Oh well, you can't win them all," I muttered, and then promptly headed back into the office. I still had the whole night ahead of me, but that didn't mean I shouldn't start cooking my complicated dish as soon as possible.

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