Chương 13: The Crew
Max followed Leo down the hallway before she suddenly made a left turn. After a few meters, she stopped and faced the door labeled 'Mission Room'. She knocked once and without waiting for a response, she pushed the door open. It seemed that the knock was just to signal that she was coming in.
The room behind the door wasn't big; it was roughly the size of a volleyball court. There was a round table at the far end where three people—all whom Max had met earlier, namely Dylan, Ryu, and Travis—were talking with each other. Next to the table was a set of counters, on which snacks, coffee machine, and water dispenser were placed. Just across the door was some sort of computer station, with six projector balls displaying six holographic screens. The whole set was connected to a power plug; meaning, no magic.
But that wasn't what made Max's jaw drop.
[Lukas?]
Sitting on a green swivel chair at the desk that housed the projector balls was a teenage boy with messy short brown hair, seemingly younger than Max. He was wearing a black long-sleeve and a dark green padded vest, paired with a pair of black cargo pants and sneakers. He had turned his chair around when hearing Leo's knock. After the robotic voice from Max's speaker called out his name, Lukas grinned.
"Surprise, surprise!"
The seventeen-year-old boy was Lukas Rodriguez, Debra's little brother. He wasn't as close to Max as his sister, but both boys had known each other for a couple of years already. And seeing the familiar tiny drone parked on the left end of his desk, it was clear who had been hounding him along the rooftops earlier that day.
Max couldn't figure out where to even begin. But before he could start questioning the boy, Leo touched his shoulder and pointed to a chair next to the round table. "Take a seat."
Still numb after the surprise, Max absent-mindedly obeyed. He walked and sat down, unaware of the giggling Lukas and Dylan shaking his head at the boy.
Leo clapped her hands twice, the sudden rippling of the sound strings woke Max up from his stupor.
"Alright, I've told you guys I was going to get you the final member. Now here he is!" Leo announced, referring to Max.
Max looked around quizzically, only to receive a nod of greeting from Dylan.
"I did assume he was a decent candidate based on his track record. But I can't believe you actually went ahead and put him here." Ryu pointed out. "Are we not gonna test him or something?"
Leo waved her hand dismissively. "We have no time for that. The shift change is in a few hours. And we can't leave Maya there for the whole night until the next shift change."
"Right. Well, I guess we'll just have to see if he can be useful."
"Don't worry. If he can't pull it off, then we're just gonna get Maya back and try again some other time."
Max quickly raised his hand up high. He even waved it around, as if begging for everyone to stop talking. [Excuse me. But can you start from the beginning? Who's Maya and what is it exactly I'm supposed to do?]
Leo, her arms crossed, glanced at him and jerked her head at the biggest screen on Lukas' desk. It was showing some sort of huge circular metal door. "You are to crack that open. And these four here, plus Maya but she's not here right now, are the members of this heist crew. Lukas is the totem techy, and Ryu is the driver. Both of them aren't mages.
"Dylan is the brawn and Travis is the silencer. Maya is the infiltrator; she's a light mage, so she's good at disguising herself. And being invisible." As she uttered the last sentence, her eyes quickly flitted toward Max's hoodie pocket, but he didn't notice this since his eyes were squinted toward the image of the metal door.
There was no way he could mistake what the image represented. [Is that what I think it is?]
Lukas was seen chuckling. "Yup. You're looking at a vault. I believe you have the expertise to crack it open?"
Oh. Well, it wasn't as if Max had never opened a safe before. This just meant that it would be the biggest safe he'd have to deal with so far.
[What's in there?]
It was Dylan who answered. "Mana stones. An entire deposit of probably about fifty thousand of them. We need them for our members to cultivate. The government has been hoarding them all to themselves and only let out a small portion to the people. Oh, before you ask, yes the government also has their own mages."
Ignoring the bombshell Dylan had just dropped in his last sentence, Max stared at the guy in disbelief. They were going to steal from the government?! Max had done a lot of illegal things before, but definitely not on this scale!
Not giving Max a chance to respond, Dylan continued. "This will be our first time aiming for one of their vaults, which is why we're in desperate need of a safecracker. Before this, we have just been accumulating mana stones by intercepting their delivery trucks. But not only does that take a long time, the number of stones is also quite minimal."
Max didn't even want to start imagining what would become of him if they were to get caught.
But before that, he really needed to address the elephant in the room.
[Hang on, why is it that you seem to think as if I'm already in for this mission? Can't I get a say at least?]
Ryu blinked her eyes. She looked at him confused. "I thought Leo offered you this opportunity and you accepted it?"
Max stared at her, even more confused. [No. She was just staring at me all creepy and was suddenly like, "Aight, you're gonna go on this heist."]
Ryu whipped her head at the redhead woman. She gave her a questioning look.
Leo maintained her impassive look as she just spoke, "It's part of his examination. He doesn't have a say in this."
Reading the transcription of her words, Max was befuddled. Didn't one of the organization's slogans literally say 'freedom'? Where was his freedom of choice?
[Hold up. What will I get out of this?]
There was finally a hint of emotion shown on Leo's face. She looked slightly annoyed by Max's question. "If you passed the examination, I'd officially welcome you to our organization, obviously."
Max shook his head. He didn't want to be robbed of some profit! He raised a finger.
[I want one more thing for my reward.]
Leo, looking even more annoyed, was about to speak when Max suddenly raised another finger and interrupted her.
[Sorry. Two things, actually.]
[Wait, no. Three.]
Leo had to take a deep breath to calm herself. "State your demand."
Max folded his previously-raised middle and ring fingers and kept the index finger up. [Money.]
He then raised his middle finger. [As you know, I'm homeless. So I'd like a roof above my head, rent-free.]
He needed a safe place to cultivate, after all. He still wasn't super motivated to become a powerful mage, but he had to at least get the first ring finished so he didn't need to worry about mana overflow anymore.
Finally his ring finger was back up. [And lastly, I'm sure The Revolutionaries have the power to cover for me, should I feel like getting away from a deal that may or may not involve the black market.]
Surprisingly, Leo's annoyed expression gradually lessened as she heard Max's words. After he was done, she turned her head and looked at him with an eyebrow raised. "Is that it?"
Max paused for a moment, thinking the woman had been about to decline at least one of the three. He hesitatingly typed.
[Yeah, that's it, actually.]
Leo shrugged. "Well, then that would be no problem. You'll get your money. As to how much, we can negotiate it later. And once you join us, you'd naturally get a place at one of our living quarters. Not all of the members live here, but it is safer to stay here rather than outside.
"What else? Ah, the black market. That's not a big deal, either. I have to ask you though, why do you need us to cover for you? Did you fail your last job?"
Max hastily typed. [No! It's not that I failed. It's just that, something unexpected came up. And because of that, now I'm simply unable to deliver the item to my client.]
Hearing his response, Leo remained silent for a few seconds. It looked as if she was peering into his mind, trying to figure out what this 'something unexpected' was all about.
Suddenly, Lukas chimed in. "I'm more surprised you didn't ask for a portion of the mana stones. Don't you need it for your cultivation?"
If Max had to be honest, he'd totally forgotten about this aspect. He was still not used to mana stones being used as a source of cultivation. Besides, it wasn't like he really needed them; he was able to take in ambient mana in the atmosphere, after all.
Trying to cover up his slip of the mind, he attempted a smooth recovery.
[I thought that was obvious. Each of us will get some of those, right?]
Lukas gave him an ambiguous grin. It was as if he knew Max wouldn't have considered bargaining mana stones had he not asked about it. "Of course!"
"Right," Dylan suddenly spoke. "Have you actually absorbed potential mana from a mana stone before? You obviously have just formed the ring foundation today."
Max shook his head almost absent-mindedly as he was suddenly reminded of something. [By the way, how do you guys conceal your cultivation? Don't I need to do that before heading out for this mission? You said the government had mages, right? What if they saw me and instantly knew I was an infant mage? You guys don't get along well with the government, which is an understatement. So it wouldn't be good if they found out you managed to recruit a new mage, would it?]
Ryu, leaning back on her chair with her boots propped on the table, answered, "You don't need to worry about that. Mages are rare, you know. And we're positive that there will be none of them inside the facility. Well, there might be one or two guarding the vault itself, but Dylan or Travis can take care of them."
Dylan then continued where she left off. "As to concealing your cultivation, we're not going to teach you today. As Leo has said before, we don't have much time to prepare for this mission. Besides, adding Insulation—that's what we call the concealing technique—might carry significant risk for someone with a meek cultivation like you. Mages usually will start Insulating their Mana Regulators once they've fully formed their ring. But if you still insist on learning the technique after we're done with the heist, then I'd be down to help you out."
So did that mean Max would remain vulnerable against any mage wanting to gauge his cultivation until he was officially at the Ring Formation stage? Unless of course, he was willing to take the risk—whatever that entailed—brought by the Insulation.
He couldn't help but wish he could talk to Nami about this right now. But it seemed she was sort of spooked by Leo's presence, for some reason, and was reluctant to connect with him.
Leo finally had had enough with the chit chat. She wanted to go straight to discussing the mission. "Alright, everyone. It's time to get serious. Lukas, show us the blueprint of the National Bank of Prime Elysia."
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