[quote=@Grey Omen][color=BurlyWood]"I'll take the back alley. Best to cover all ways in and out. Rose and Iris, it's up to you where you go. We could split evenly to both paths, unless you got some tricks or ideas up your sleeve. And I assume Fluke will make sure to report our deaths if anything goes wonky."[/color][/quote]
Fluke threw out an enthusiastic thumbs-up, jumped backward and perched like a cat on top of the weapons chest, clicking and wiggling the drone controller like the mission was a video game.

The little flying sphere glimmered and flashed and zoomed over the crowd at breakneck pace, perhaps out of Cedar's sight for awhile, zigzagging among the tents and banners and throngs of people. The drone waited for him at the entrance to a narrow alley between the potter's workshop and the florist, bouncing up and down in midair like an impatient hummingbird.

As soon as Cedar approached the alley (which was more of a gap between buildings) the drone sped off through the dark narrow space.

There was barely enough room here for Cedar to walk without turning sideways. The stucco walls dripped with old inexplicable stains, the ground under his feet had probably been recently used as a urinal and a compost site, and-- the deeper he went into the seemingly endless corridor --there was a burning, ever-present smell of rotten eggs.

Something moved behind him.

Cedar would see, in the corner of his mask's vision, a flicker of a shadow rippling along the wall beside him-- but then it was gone. Or it could've been a trick of the dim light, an illusion in the dank dripping stains.

Just ahead, an armadillo wiggled in the middle of the narrow aisle, snuffling and digging in the rancid dirt.

The drone continued onward, far ahead toward a brighter light at the end.

[quote=@LuckyBlackCat][color=ff4f61]"It's safe to say I'll blend in best here, and Listener, I'm guessing you will too?"[/color] she asked. [color=ff4f61]"How about you, Iris? Which path is it gonna be, marketplace, alleyway, or your own?"[/color][/quote]
"WHY DON'T YOU JUST SHUT UP, OLD MAN?" A younger man with a scraggled goatee pointed up at Ruskali with a brown hand full of rings and bracelets. "It's always the same drivel: the world's going to end, the sky'll catch fire, the same story day after day and it never HAPPENS, does it? When will you get a clue, ya lunatic?"

Ruskali raised his bearded chin and puffed his chest. "People like you-- nonbelievers! --will be the first to repent when the end is upon us--"

"I know what you're really doing!" the goatee-man sneered with a smirk. "Come down here to earth with the rest of us, give up, and accept that NOTHING goes on forever. Everything's not ending. Just one thing's ended--"

"YOU KNOW NOTHING!" Ruskali howled with a spray of spittle, his eyes bugged and wild. "THE PREMONITIONS FORETELL--"

"Keep your trauma to yourself." Goatee-man turned his back on Ruskali, paid for a handful of wildflowers, and strode off toward the main street.

Ruskali wheezed as if he'd been punched. He dropped weakly to sit on the stairs, hunched with his head bowed low.

[quote=@Plank Sinatra][color=6ecff6]"I got the gist of it,"[/color] she assured her fellow recruits with easy confidence. [color=6ecff6]"Nobody's going to be able to tell me apart, and if there's trouble I'll have the birds-eye view. So no need for anyone to report any deaths or anything."[/color][/quote]
The bike cache was brimming with hoverbikes and folding gliders, left behind while their owners perused the wares of market day. The passersby left them alone-- save for the occasional glance that was impressed or envious or appraising --out of unspoken respect for the high fliers that lived on the wind.

The only disturbance was a little girl who'd dragged a hoverbike away from the wall and sobbed and choked and gurgled shaking, teary breaths while she squeezed the handles and kicked the engine and jumped up and down on the seat hoping to make it go.

"Come on..." she wailed. "Go up! Come on! Don't do this to me!" She was shaking, she couldn't see through her streaming tears.

High above, atop the building against which the other hoverbikes leaned, there was smoke.

Sickly blue smoke wisped swirling into the sky, from something burning atop the roof. It began to billow and spark with flying red embers, deeper and darker as the moments passed, shifting color from blue to heinous, swirling, unnatural violet that flashed and glowed within.

No one had noticed it. Not yet.