Something, Umji decided, was definitely Up.

Enthroned in her favorite armchair, the young hacker was absently dismantling a defective droid for parts as the rest of her attention was neatly compartmentalized by the various programs she was currently running on the Matrix.

User Thumbelina has joined the session

AnarchistNet appeared to be in its usual state of chaos, which was perfectly normal. Umji compiled a quick program to sift for the usual keywords that would interest her, skimming the previous threads that had gotten her attention at the same time. Meanwhile, one of her avatars was engaged in a ferocious debate on the relative ethics of genetic manipulation as a personal stylistic choice versus genetic engineering of a foetus at conception. It was getting good, so Umji diverted a little more processing power to it to try and press her case more convincingly.

She poked a thumb on a pointy bit, making her wince. In her mental landscape, her avatar flinched, and it took her a moment to register that the pain was physical and not a neural feedback. That brought her back, if briefly, from also spying on illegal drift races through one of her hacked camera feeds.

It wasn’t deep enough to bleed, but Umji stuck it in for a bit, eyes wandering as she switched interfaces again, this time to the indoor cameras of their base. She had the entire place under surveillance inside and out, and would have put cameras inside the bathrooms as well, if Sowon hadn’t put her foot down on that particular suggestion. Privacy, honey.

Umji decided not to tell her about the bugs she put in there to make her feel better.

She liked observing her unnies, even if she didn’t always spend a lot of time with them in meatspace. She was always watching, like their own personal cyber angel, making sure that everyone was okay and not in trouble. She couldn’t stand it if any one of them were hurt. Not on her watch.

This was her family, ragtag bunch of misfits all of them, and Umji would never let them out of her sight, for fear that they would be gone and never return. It was a deep seated fear, one that Sowon understood and tried to ease as much as she could, but Umji couldn’t help but need to monitor everyone constantly instead. It was the only way she could be certain.

And something was definitely Going On. Umji nibbled on her nails, heedless of the mess of electronics in her lap. Her hair was sloppily pulled back into a messy bun, and her socked feet rubbed restlessly against the fabric of her seat. Her overly large sweater and pants were folded at the hems, but still hung loosely on her petite frame. It wasn’t like Sowon hadn’t tried putting her in clothes that fit, but then Umji would raid her closet for spare training wear anyway, which made the point moot.

Things had gotten interesting since about two days ago, when SinB came back with Yuju and Yerin in tow. Umji hadn’t thought much of it at first, except Yuju-unnie suddenly became about twice as awkward around Eunha-unnie all of a sudden, and Umji didn’t believe in coincidences, especially not with SinB smirking in the background like a cat that had gotten the canary.

It wasn’t like Umji hadn’t tried to find out where they had disappeared to when they were out that day. However, SinB had a knack for finding abandoned passageways that were hidden from her electronic eyes, and Yuju had simply dropped off the radar after taking a few turns into the maze of the Underground. Umji didn’t even try tracking Yerin, because it was a pain trying to run recognition software on a professional chameleon. That and Yerin was somehow always slipping into blind spots of cameras and generally staying one step ahead of electronic surveillance. Pretty much all the data Umji had on her was literally gathered from when she was within the base with nowhere to hide. And even then, she still couldn’t figure out why she could recognize Yerin on camera but not when she was looking at her in person. It was as if her brain couldn’t parse the older girl’s face properly.

Yuju wasn’t much help either when she consulted the shaman on the subject, because apparently she didn’t have any problems recognizing Yerin at any given time. To confirm her hypothesis that it had something to do with magic, Umji had even interviewed Eunha on the matter, but the answer was…vague at best. Eunha could see Yerin, but identifying her took some effort. It apparently had something to do with astral sight and Umji learned a lot from that particular conversation (all recorded in Notebook No.3).

She supposed she could have asked Yerin directly, but where was the fun in that? But she was getting off track. Umji watched with amused fascination as SinB hauled Yerin off to spar, leaving Eunha and Yuju alone together once again. This was not the first time a similar scenario had played out, except rehashed in about a dozen different ways. Umji had it all figured out after the second time it happened.

SinB was clearly trying to set the two magic users of the team up. Umji had known months ago that Eunha was attracted to Yuju -- heart rate and infra-red temperature monitors never lied. Eunha might have been good at keeping a straight face, but her biometric readings had given her away. Do not question why Umji kept track of that as well, because it is for your own good…health. Yes. Health was important.

Yuju, on the other hand, had been blissfully oblivious the entire time. For someone so intelligent, the dog shaman was also remarkably dense. That had changed two days ago, and SinB was obviously to blame. If Umji were a betting kind of person, she would have staked her entire collection of gadgets on it, but alas Sowon would never take the bait. Pity, she could have used a new processor core for the prototype she was working on.

What Umji wouldn’t do for some popcorn right now. Unfortunately Sowon had confiscated her snacks as punishment for forgetting to eat proper meals on time. You would never know she was already almost 20 years old, what with Sowon insisting on treating her like she was twelve. Umji sighed dramatically to herself. At least she wasn’t like the two idiots out in the hall right now. In fact, she was disappointed SinB hadn’t asked her to help run interference, because she wanted to have fun…uh, help. Help those two out. Because they obviously weren’t of much use on their own.

Yuju was fidgeting like a three year old and Eunha’s heart rate was ridiculously elevated to the point where Umji had to check to make sure she wasn’t going to keel over suddenly from an aneurysm. Not that actually keeling over would be a problem, because Eunha was very comfortably ensconced in Yuju’s arms right now, courtesy of a suspiciously well timed electric shock that had made her trip about ten seconds ago. Umji took a sip from her water bottle. You’re welcome, Eunha-unnie.

Alas, her enjoyment of the ongoing drama was interrupted by the beeping alert of one of her many avatars, specifically the one she had set to retrieve the location details for their next mission. It was routine to pull up floor plans and security detail for any job, and Umji was the perfect person to do so. If it existed on the Matrix, she could get a hold of it, eventually.

Taking hold of the newly decrypted file in cyberspace, Umji adjusted her perspective with nary a blink, immersing herself into the virtual world where she was most at home. What she saw made her frown, and immediately ping their dear leader on her communicator.

Sowon wasn’t going to like this.

“You’re not coming in with us, Umji.”

“But mooooom, you know you need me.”

SinB snickered quietly as Umji pestered Sowon for the umpteenth time while they were prepping for the mission. She had stripped her guns for cleaning, and was calmly reassembling them while keeping an eye out for shenanigans; specifically, the trio behind her on the couch.

Yuju and Eunha were holding hands: progress. Yuju’s other hand, however, was also locked with Yerin’s: not that much progress after all. In fact, the dog shaman looked fairly resigned. It was probably a good thing that she didn’t actually need her hands to ready her spells, because in the next moment SinB felt a familiar feeling wash over her, her senses sharpening preternaturally. The same thing was happening across the room, Umji included. At least someone agreed with the hacker about her inclusion for the night’s mission.

“You got us the floor plans, Umji. You don’t have to follow us in for this, it’s not like a corp run or anything.” Sowon triple-checked her loadout and secured her gear. She spared a glance over at Yuju. “And you, save your strength for when we actually need it.”

“Actually, I agree with Umji and Yuju.” Yerin interjected. “None of us are hackers. I can disable simple electronic locks, but I won’t be able to do anything more complicated on the Matrix. We’re going in almost blind with just old floor plans, I don’t really like it.”

“The place is an old museum that’s off the grid. We’re lucky we even have floor plans from the construction phase at all. It hasn’t been open to the public since before the Purge. They won’t have updated their security since then.” Sowon retorted calmly, folding her arms. Next to her, Umji tugged at her sleeve pleadingly, trying her best puppy dog eyes. Sowon didn’t look. It would have been dangerous to.

“Hey if it’s supposed to be easy, maybe she should be joining us.” SinB clicked the last of her parts together, engaging the safety before holstering the gun. “She won’t get any practice in otherwise for when we actually need her to come along.”

Sowon scowled, and Umji looked hopeful.

“We can keep her safe, Sowon.” Eunha added helpfully. “Between the five of us, we could probably take down a Spartan unit, and you know it.”

That part was true. They were an incredibly balanced team, with Sowon and SinB focused on frontline combat, Sowon being very difficult to kill and SinB being very difficult to hit. Yerin was an opportunist, good at avoid attention and shanking people when they least expected it. She was also uncommonly interested in rigging things to explode, a hobby shared by Umji. Given time to prepare, Umji and Yerin could y trap an entire battlefield to murder a battalion.

And then there were the mages. They had two, which was rare enough in any unit. Most special unit forces employed by corps only had one mage attached per unit if they were lucky, because talented combat mages were hard to find and even harder to keep under control. Eunha was a gifted pyromancer, and with Yuju to give her a boost she could cast faster and further than normal. Everything burns, if the fire is strong enough.

Yuju specialized in countering enemy mages, defending her team from hostile arcane forces. Healing, buffing and scouting were all within her repertoire, and while she never attacked anyone directly, locking them down for someone else to finish them off was entirely within her principles.

Umji rarely joined them in the field, partially due to Sowon’s overprotectiveness, but no one underestimated her value to the team. Digital reconnaissance, hacking robotic sentries, disabling security and cameras; all of these were invaluable to any team wanting a quick in and out on a mission. She could do most of it remotely too, so long as the network had a link to the wider Matrix. Some systems were more difficult to penetrate than others, but so long as it was connected, it could be made vulnerable.

The exception was when a system was completely closed. If there were no external connections, any electronic security within the area ran independently and can only be penetrated by hacking an internal terminal that was hooked into the system. This was the case with either older buildings, or maximum security facilities with a network lockdown.

Clearly, a defunct museum holding old curios and other pieces of questionable interest was hardly a place to be classified as maximum security. From Umji’s research, the owner of the building was currently noted to be uncontactable, and his legal representatives were apparently unwilling to discuss the sale of what remained of the collection in the museum. This led to their employer resorting to more unorthodox means of acquiring his desired item; i.e., them.

Burglary wasn’t the most glamorous of jobs, but it paid the bills. It was certainly a lot less dangerous than breaking into corp buildings, and less stressful than being the hired muscle for some thug. They all occasionally took their own gigs on the side, but for bigger operations with more money involved, the whole team got involved.

And this run was lucrative. Enough for all of them to stop working for a few months and still have enough to eat and keep their base running. Sowon had been justifiably suspicious at first about the generosity of their employer, but the middleman was an old contact Sowon had been taking jobs off for ages. Their employer was anonymous, but what employer wasn’t these days? The point of hiring people like them was to bypass any existing laws and remain plausibly uninvolved and thus free of any consequences. They were disposable assets, and Sowon never forgot that.

There was very little actual trust in the transaction, but there were rules, and the universal language of cold, hard, credit. Reputation was everything as a runner; it affected the kind of jobs recommended to you, to the kind of payout you could expect to receive, if you were known to be effective and reliable.

And they were all those things. Fast, effective, and reliable. Her contact had described the employer as an “eccentric collector”, which translated to “too rich to know what to do with all that money”. Those were usually the best types to work for, because they could and would pay disgusting amounts to get what they wanted, no questions asked. The job asked for things to be quick and quiet, and they could do all that easily enough.

Which led to the present problem: to include Umji on the field team or not. Sowon could admit to herself that she would prefer to keep Umji out of harm’s way whenever possible, but SinB and Eunha had a point: Umji did need more field experience, and even if things went sideways they had the firepower to fight through a small army.

Perhaps sensing Sowon’s wavering on the issue, Umji glomped onto her mother figure like a giant koala. Sowon didn’t last very long under the close range assault of puppy eyes. Umji whooped and dived towards Eunha (and by proxy, Yuju and Yerin) for a hug. To the side, SinB pointed at herself, mouthing “no hug for me?”.

Umji stuck her tongue out at the other girl. Serves SinB right for not inviting her to play matchmaker. Grudges were made to held.

Sowon sighed and rolled her eyes.

“We leave in fifteen, people.”

“Is it always this boring?”

Umji was currently in the middle of a phalanx formation, with Yerin taking point and Sowon bringing up the rear.

“Boring’s good.” Yerin commented, halting at a corner to peer cautiously around it. “I like boring. Exciting is what gets you killed.” Umji pouted.

To one side, SinB snorted, studying the covered paintings on the walls. Dust lined the canvases, and their footsteps echoed in the long hallway.

The cameras were mostly dead, even without Umji’s interference. Any remaining active security in the halls had been disabled when Umji jacked into the terminal at the reception area. Yuju had diverted the night watchman with a local spirit earlier. He wouldn’t be an issue until dawn.

“Why do we need all of us anyway? Yerin could have done this alone.” SinB went to examine an ornate vase on a pedestal. Sowon eyed some of the still existing displays with a critical eye.

“We have to hand over the prize before we get the money later, I figured we might as well all come along for that. I don’t trust them to not stiff us, it’s a big sum.”

“Fair. Wouldn’t be the first time some dip decided to gank the merch off honest runners.” SinB squinted at a jewel encrusted necklace. “Think this is worth something?”

“Hands off, SinB. You can loot whatever you like after we get our hands on the target.”

“You’re no fun.” SinB backed away from the display cases. “So what’s this thing we’re supposed to get anyway? Got a picture or something?”

Sowon shook her head. “Don’t you read the files I send? There’s just some crappy low-res image and a general description really. We’re looking for a statue of dragons wrapped around a giant ruby. It’s called ‘Heart of the Dragon’, apparently.”

SinB looked interested. “Giant ruby? How big?” Sowon made a fist. SinB whistled appreciatively. “No wonder they’re paying us so much to fetch it.”

“Yeah, Yerin steals it, we guard her. That’s the plan.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, guys.” Yerin was kneeling by the vault door. The mechanism wasn’t electronic, which left Umji out of the equation, and if necessary, Yerin still had a giant explosive (re: Eunha) as backup to blast it open. She preferred to at least try to crack it the old fashioned way though. For one thing, it was a lot quieter, and Yerin didn’t like unplanned explosions. If anything was going to blow up, it would be on her own terms.

“This place feels so…dead.” Yuju murmured, her eyes slightly unfocused as she watched the area on a different spectrum. The only living spots were on her own team.

“No people, no emotions, no mana.” Eunha agreed, walking close to the taller girl. Her fingers twitched reflexively. “Not sure if I can cast anything big here.”

“See, this is why guns are superior. I can always shoot someone.” SinB took a wide arc around the corner, making sure there wasn’t anything they had missed. Even if Yuju was monitoring the area magically, SinB felt more reassured to confirm things with her own two eyes. Nervous tic, but it had kept her alive thus far.

“Until you run out of bullets.” Eunha countered. SinB replied with a raised middle finger.

“I think I got it.” Yerin announced. Sowon pushed herself off the wall she had been leaning against, striding closer to where Yerin was carefully undoing the mechanism on the vault door. It clicked.

“Behold. I am the master of unlocking.”

The vault door swung slowly inwards. Sowon was about to step in when Yerin held up an arm to stop her. She complied. You left burglary to the experts; Sowon knew she was just really good at breaking things, and allowed Yerin to run this op. It was how they were so efficient, all of them had their strengths.

“Yuju, take a look first?” Yerin called out, while putting on a special pair of glasses to check for infra-red sensors. She had another pair of glasses for magical stuff, but it wasn’t as good as having an actual practitioner scan the zone.

The dog shaman ambled over, half guided by Eunha’s hand on her arm. The half open vault wasn’t particularly large, about the size of a bedroom, maybe slightly larger. Shelves lined the walls, and only some of it were occupied. It seemed entirely harmless at first glance, at least on the physical spectrum. Yerin didn’t get this far without being justifiably cynical though. When you live in a world where magic was real and quantifiable, you learned very quickly not to always trust your own eyes.

“It’s…warm.” Yuju cocked her head. Eunha mimicked the action, then sank into the astral plane herself to check it out. “Oh, you’re right.”

“I don’t speak mage, please explain.” SinB came back from her short patrol, pulling up a fair distance from the crew as she kept watch on the only known exit point. Umji was sitting at the opposite point of the hallway, fiddling with a tiny droid she had brought along for the mission.

“The rest of the place is cold. No life, no activity. Dead.” Yuju broke out of her trance, frowning at the vault. She pointed inside. “It’s warm inside.”

“Magic?” Sowon’s brow furrowed together. Eunha nodded, then shook her head.

“More like…ambient energy?” The smaller mage made a vague gesture with both hands. “Lots of people in a place makes it warm just by being around.”

“You’re telling me there are invisible people in there or something.” SinB raised an eyebrow.

Yuju shook her head decisively.

“No, this is…old.” The shaman struggled to express herself. “Not living energy.”

Sowon sniffed at the entrance, then sneezed. “Figures. Dust in there is thick, no one’s been in there for a long time for sure.”

“Are there traps or not? It’s clean on my end.” Yerin, as usual, went straight to the point. Yuju shook her head.

“No, but there might be magic items in there. Don’t touch anything.” Yuju turned to look at Eunha. “Keep the Sight on, we go in first.”

Eunha nodded. She trusted Yuju’s grasp of the astral. Eunha was never quite as sensitive on that plane, even though she could channel a lot more raw power through it than Yuju. It was the major difference between a hermetic mage like herself, who commanded the aether to do her bidding, as opposed to a shaman like Yuju, who coaxed it to assist her instead.

The room was warm with magical energy seeped into the walls and ceiling, even the floor. Eunha felt it the moment she stepped in, a sharp contrast to how the outside felt. Magically, it felt like a night at the club, power ready to respond just a short call away. It was basically the difference between dial-up internet outside and highspeed network in here.

Eunha felt the fire gather instinctively at her fingertips, and she had to work to suppress it. The tension eased slightly when Yuju took her hand, squeezing her fingers gently.

“I know the fire’s loud, but don’t be afraid of it.” Yuju lifted Eunha’s hand to her lips, her breath brushing the smaller mage’s skin. “Don’t fight it, it’s your gift.”

“I might burn you.” Eunha whispered, cringing back slightly. Yuju kept a firm grip on her hand.

“I can heal.” Yuju reminded her. Eunha did not seem entirely convinced. Her breath caught when Yuju leaned forward and embraced her.

“I’m not afraid. And you shouldn’t be too.”

Eunha buried her face into Yuju’s neck, inhaling the clean, earthy scent of the taller girl. Her magic calmed, though her heart raced. It excited her, almost as much as letting the fire out to play did. Yuju toyed with the strands of Eunha’s shoulder-length hair, humming a calming tune deep in .

Behind them, Yerin coughed loudly, trying to remind the pair to get a move on. Sowon smirked, even as she scanned the vault from outside, trying to locate their mark for easy retrieval. Her eye zoomed in on a low shelf deep into the vault, where the coiled head of a carved serpent winked a jeweled eye at her.

“Guys, bottom right. Second row, third from the inside. That might be it.”

On hindsight, she could have gone in. Sowon would ask herself this later, but right now, she just didn’t want to step inside. Magic made her uncomfortable. It made her skin crawl, complete with inexplicable feelings of dread. Yet magic was also a powerful tool, but she preferred to leave it to the professionals. Much like SinB, she preferred to bust things up the old fashioned way, lasers and all.

The pair broke apart, even as Yerin shot Eunha the stink eye quietly, moving forward to check the shelves with her torch, careful not to touch anything. Yuju shook her head at Yerin, while Eunha shuffled forward to investigate the shelf Sowon had indicated.

The fire mage knelt down, carefully inspecting the area in her astral sight as she did. The soft, ambient glow of the environs made everything look radiant, like a filter was applied over the image. The statuette wasn’t particularly large, but substantial enough to need both hands to hold. Eunha switched back to regular sight to study the figurine, to make sure it was the thing they were sent to retrieve.

Gold dragons s around the central piece, their onyx eyes lifelike even in the gloom. The fist-sized ruby was an almost perfect orb, caged within the swirling dragons like a heart seen through sinuous ribs. The red surface was so smooth you wouldn’t believe it had been cut at all.

“This is it.” Eunha announced, picking up the statue gingerly. It was heavier than she expected, the cold weight of the dragons slippery in her hands.

“Eunha, wait--” Yuju interrupted from above, even as Eunha struggled to push herself up while holding on to the heavy statue with both hands. Her fingers slipped through the ‘ribs’ of the dragon cage, coming into contact with the inert ruby within.

There was no explosion, no flash of light. At the threshold, Sowon felt a cold rush, like a lump dropping to the very bottom of her stomach and weighing down like a thousand-ton weight. Her breath caught, and for a moment she felt like she was suffocating, before the world returned to reality.

Yuju caught Eunha before she hit the ground, moving faster than was thought possible. She had only caught a glimpse of the magically dark gem ensconced within the golden cage, but instinctively felt that something was off about it. When everything else was glowing, something that wasn’t was automatically suspicious.

She wasn’t fast enough to stop Eunha from touching it. The statue clanked onto the ground, denting one of the pure golden dragons. Yuju was trembling as she lowered Eunha to the ground to take a better look at her. She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t breathing.

Worst of all, she had gone dark in Yuju’s magical sight.

Yerin came up slowly from behind.

“Is she…”

“I don’t know.” Yuju’s voice was quavering, like a lost child. Yerin knelt by Eunha’s other side, taking her wrist professionally and feeling for a pulse.

“Weak, but still there. Barely. We’ll get her checked out when we get out of here.” Yerin reported briskly. She pointed at the abandoned statue. “Can I touch that?”

“Not the gem. The gold is safe.” Yuju mumbled, still in shock as she traced Eunha’s face with a trembling finger. Trying to reassure herself that Eunha was still there, and not gone.

“Okay.” Yerin scooped up the statue gingerly and tossed the entire thing into a sack. Out of sight, out of mind. She looked back at Yuju, who was still clinging on to Eunha as if her life depended on it.

“Do you need me to carry her?”

Yuju seemed to snap out of it, eyes coming back to focus.

“No…no I’ll do it.” The shaman carefully picked up the fire mage in a bridal carry, afraid to even jostle her. Sowon met them at the entrance.

“What happened?”

Yerin shook her head. Yuju’s head was bowed. Sowon met Yerin’s eyes, reading what she needed from them.

“We’ll settle this later. First, we get out.”

SinB stared at the unconscious Eunha in Yuju’s arms, levering a death glare at the already guilt-ridden dog shaman. Sowon grabbed SinB by the elbow, steering her towards the exit before unnecessary violence occurred.

“Not now.”

“Is Eunha…?” SinB looked over her shoulder.

“Yes, but she needs medical attention.” Yerin tapped Umji. “Fastest way out, now.”

Umji was also staring at Eunha disbelievingly. Yerin snapped her fingers in front of the hacker to get her attention. Umji blinked.

“On it.”

The team was grim and silent as they swept out of the building in about a third of the time it had taken them to get in in the first place. The mood was somber, compared to the light spirits with which they had begun. SinB was seething quietly, and the moment they were in the truck, she cornered Yuju, grabbing the shaman by the front of her shirt.

“This is how you look after her?”

Yuju said nothing, her jaw clenched as she stared downwards. Umji was running a quick diagnostic over Eunha, and elbowed SinB to stop her from doing something foolish.

“Her vitals are weak, but stable. She’ll be fine.”

“No, she’s not.” Yuju’s voice was hoarse. Her eyes were reddened when she looked up.

SinB rounded on her. “The do you mean.”

Yuju closed her eyes, trembling as she clawed at her own arms.

“I can’t sense her.” There was a quiet horror in her voice. SinB paled as she took in the implications of that. In the front seat, Yerin also stiffened. Sowon glanced over.

“Explain.”

“I can feel all of you. You’re alive and well and present.” Yuju clutched her head, her teeth grinding together. “All the time, as long as you are near enough, I can sense you.”

“That sounds really creepy, but okay.” Yerin joked weakly. Her gaze fell on Eunha’s unconscious form. “And she’s…?”

“Empty. Dark.” Yuju’s voice was hollow. She reached for Eunha’s hand, wrapping trembling fingers around the motionless digits.

“Here, but not here.” Her bottom lip trembled.

“I can’t sense her. I can’t find her.” Yuju squeezed her eyes shut.

“I keep trying, but she’s not here.”

A tear fell.

“Missing.”