[sub][sub][h3][i]Devi Rana | Regalia - En route to Safehouse[/i][/h3][/sub][/sub][hr]
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Devi leaned against the window, watching the city disappear.  The glass vibrated against her cheek, the reflection of her painted eyes staring back at her as they drove further and further into the empty foundations of Regalia, picking up speed.  

It was a strange, lonely feeling.

She never drove herself anywhere anymore.  There was always someone waiting, ready to open a door and make sure she ducked through it.  Today, that was Jim Hawj; a doughy, loyal Hmong thug with a shaved head and round-framed sunglasses that never seemed to come off.  Devi's eyes kept drifting to the black submachine gun nestled beside the driver's seat.  She'd never really considered what it was for until today.

The zone outside the window was empty.  It FELT empty, as though this part of the city had simply atrophied and died from loss of blood.  Concrete structures loomed like tombstones, stripped warehouses laying open like the carcasses of dead whales.  There weren't even any rats.  But there [i]were[/i] cars outside her destination as they pulled in.  She wasn't certain whether that was a good sign or a poor one.

They slowed, tires grinding to a halt against dirty concrete.  Her driver pointed.

"Hong's car." He muttered, nodding toward an askew BMW parked in front of a set of black treadmarks . "Shit got real."

Devi blinked.  "Beg pardon?"

"It's fine, ma'am."

"No, it's [i]not[/i] fine," she leaned around the seat, trying to look him in the eye, "I want to know what you meant by 'shit got real'.  I've just walked away from a set of assassins, I wasn't expecting it to get any [i]realler[/i].  If there's something I should know then I [i]want you to tell me[/i]."

"It's fine, ma'am." he repeated. "I watch front entrance.  Just in case motherfuckers not get memo."

He patted the gun, firmly.  Devi threw up her hands and got out of the car.

[hr]

Gloved hands tossed her red-and-gold silk scarf closer around her neck as the wind cut through the back of her coat.  The clicking of her heels echoed back at her forlornly, amplified by the vast theater of the warehouse as she stepped through the wide doors.  A dark labyrinth of painted metal crates towered in front of her.

"Hello?" she called, a soft chorus lilting back at her from the four walls, fading and dying by degrees.

No, of course not.  Too easy.


It's true that anyone in the know would have no difficulty navigating the dense maze of shipping containers.   But Devi was not in the know.  Whether by accident or design, nobody had introduced her to the Regalia branch bolthole during her brief engagement with the Ariella Syndicate.  She didn't know the route.

But she knew labyrinths.

Mazes followed rules, basic, simple, mathematical rules.  Understand the algorithm, and you could understand the mind of the architect.  She had a regular subscription to the Minotaur Society's puzzle books.  This was the sort of thing she did for fun.  And it was the kind of thinking that had in some part gotten her headhunted by the Syndicate in the first place.

It took two false starts before she had it nailed as a poor man's Hopcroft–Karp sequence and found herself standing in front of the red container.  A panel set into its side rotated with a smooth, mechanical whine, revealing a hi-tech retinal scanner.  Devi stared at it.

"...got to be joking." she murmured, leaning in to present her eye to the glass.

There was a clunking, and a dull thunder of machinery as the far end of the crate opened into a cargo elevator, radiant in white light.  Devi stepped inside, wrapping her arms around her waist.  A sleek security camera that looked as though it were designed by Steve Jobs caught her eye.  She glared up at it, gesturing toward the doors.

"I'm sorry, I thought I was working for a criminal fraternity, not [i]James Bond[/i]."

The doors closed.  

She was going down.

[hr]

The doors opened with a musical chime.  Devi stepped out of the elevator, feeling less and less real by the moment.  The safehouse was bright and comfortable, more like an upscale train station than the modern oubliette she'd been expecting.  The facilitys other residents had already made themselves at home.  Quinn Gyles she knew.  A well-groomed, boyish-looking man of some reputation, though what that reputation actually [i]was[/i], nobody quite wanted to tell her.  People tended to stop looking her in the eyes when she pressed the matter.

Along with him slouched a petite Asian woman shoveling chocolate pretzels into her mouth, who looked vaguely as though she wanted to spit in Devi's face on general principle.  Devi wondered, briefly, what her role in the organization was.  Was that [i]her[/i] car outside?  No.  You know what, never mind.

She clicked over to the inset sofa, easing herself down and crossing her legs as the huge television flickered silently.  Her fingers toyed with the maroon leather handbag in her lap.

"Why--" she cut herself off, recrossed her legs, digging her nails into her temple. "Why was I nearly killed in my own office, by the people I'm supposedly working for?  They seemed to think there was some sort of conspiracy going on, that I had something to do with it, and I'm fairly sure they were simply going to kill me and then hunt down the loose ends through the books.  This is not actually how I wanted to spend today."
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