Chapter 29: Mail?
"I saw two of my officers come here — Ethan and Marcus. Are they still here?"
Rick looked at Ethan and Marcus, his stare saying everything.
"They... aren’t here. It seems you have the wrong room."
"Ohh, I see. Must have gone to another room."
Step! Step! Step!
Everyone finally let out a breath, her footsteps echoing smaller and smaller.
"She’s keeping tabs on us?" Marcus asked.
"She does that," Rick said. "She’s one strange woman, I’ll give you that. But where were we...?"
"The time zones," Ethan replied.
They went over the timing again. Rick marked the minutes on the edge of the map with a grease pencil.
Entry at 02:10. Cut the alarm line by 02:14.
Reach the vault floor by 02:18.
Locks open by 02:22. First load of crates moving by 02:25. Second load by 02:32. Back in the service room by 02:40. Down the tunnel and gone by 02:50 at the latest.
Dayan talked through the uniform details. The jackets had the right patches. The boots were scuffed to match the maintenance crews. They would carry toolkits with false bottoms for the small charges they might need if a door refused to open.
Toren explained the boat arrangement. Two small craft tied under the dock at the river. Engines already checked. Fuel full. One person waiting with them who would not ask questions as long as the payment arrived on time.
Angelia went over the ventilation shafts one more time. The gaps were tight. Anyone with broad shoulders would have trouble. She looked at Marcus when she said it. Marcus was wider than the others. He would stay in the tunnels.
Ethan asked about the guards’ weapons. Standard-issue rifles. Sidearms. No heavy support expected inside the vault complex itself. The real firepower stayed at the outer perimeter. If the alarm stayed silent, the perimeter would not move.
They spent another twenty minutes on contingencies. What if a guard wandered into the service room early? What if the shift change ran late?
What if one of the crates was heavier than expected and slowed them down? Each problem got a short answer and a backup path. None of the answers felt complete, but they were the best the group had.
Rick folded the map when the discussion wound down.
"Okay, that’s the plan. We leave in thirty-six hours. Get rest if you can. Meet back here at 01:00, and we’ll start the rebriefing."
Everyone nodded and scattered. Meanwhile, Marcus stepped close to Ethan again. "You good?"
Ethan nodded. He looked at the map one more time before Rick rolled it up. The routes were clear. The timing was tight. The numbers almost worked on paper. In theory, it was perfect.
But Ethan had seen plans like this before. Too many moving parts. Too many places where one late guard or one stuck lock would cascade.
The tunnel was a single point of failure. The shift-change window was guesswork dressed up as precision. The secondary exit depended on boats that might or might not be there when the shooting started.
He knew in his heart — or maybe it was his instinct — the plan was going to fail. The pieces did not fit tightly enough. Someone would get left behind, or shot in a corridor, or trapped when the tunnel came down.
He could feel it the same way he had felt other operations that looked clean until the first real problem hit. But—
He said nothing.
"You know you shouldn’t be explaining this to me..." she whispered. Her soft voice came through his wrist terminal, along with the hologram of her lying on her bed in Sector 19.
"Yes, of course I know," Ethan replied. He was still on his bed. It was already nearly morning, well past the time he should have been asleep. "But I know it in my bones — this will fail. And I know if I say anything, they won’t listen to me."
Karisa smiled a little, then covered it. Some part of her felt something. Maybe she was glad, though she knew she shouldn’t be. What could she do, seeing Ethan in a difficult situation like hers? She had thought he was like the gods, able to do anything. But here he was, frustrated. She was glad, in a way.
She knew this couldn’t continue. She needed to come back to reality. "Ethan..."
"Yes?"
"What about Marcus? What did he say? He is stupid in every sense, but he should be right there with you."
"He was yelling at me for not saying anything, for crying out loud," Ethan muttered. "Maybe I should have. Something might have changed. Maybe I’m being a nervous wreck, like he told me..."
Karisa’s red brows contracted. Her eyes showed more hatred than usual. She wanted to yell right then, cursing Marcus, but she breathed in and out. In some ways he was right.
"Ethan, do you remember what happened on our first mission — what you did?"
Ethan stayed quiet for a moment. He looked away from the hologram. "...Yeah..." he finally said.
"Whatever happened, in the end the results were there. I am here now in Sector 19, handling business instead of my sister, and you are there, given the hardest mission there is. You shouldn’t deny the fact that it happened for a reason."
Ethan heard her words clearly. She was right. He was thinking too much again. In the end, results mattered more than thoughts. He looked at the mission brief once more on his terminal: Mission Prometheus. Named after a legend who took from the guilty and rich and gave to the poor and needy. He had done that alone last time.
He always wondered why both Marcus and Karisa saw him that way, as if he could make everything possible. Now he understood why Marcus had yelled at him.
He stood up and walked to the mirror. He looked at himself. "Karisa..."
"Hmmm?"
"This mission will be a success."
Karisa smiled from the hologram. Her eyes lit up when she saw his face change. "Good..."
"Okay then, I’ll call you back. Rest well," Ethan said.
"You too. It must already be 3 a.m. there — sleep is important too."
"Yeah... thank you," he said, and cut the call.
She had told him to sleep, but he knew he couldn’t. He still had time before duty. He still had time before the mission started.
He sat back down on the edge of the bed and stared at the dark window for a while. The base outside was quiet. Most of the lights in the barracks were off. Only the patrol drones moved along the outer walls. Mission Prometheus was scheduled for the next evening. The target was a high-value convoy moving through the eastern sector under heavy guard. Officially it was a standard interdiction. Unofficially, everyone in the room had known it was more complicated than that.
Marcus had wanted him to speak up during the briefing. Ethan had stayed silent. He had seen the gaps in the plan. The timing was too tight. The extraction route depended on weather that the forecasts could not guarantee. The support team was undermanned. He had seen all of it, and he had said nothing. Marcus had called him a coward after the meeting. Ethan had not argued.
Now, alone in the room, he admitted to himself that Marcus had a point. Silence had not protected anyone. It had only left the plan unchallenged.
He opened the system interface with a thought.
"Open store."
The store panel appeared in front of him. At the same time, something else opened in the corner of the system window. A message notification. One unread email.
He opened it.
[From: [email protected]
Subject: Family stuff
Hey there, mortal. Ethan, was it? This is me — the actual god Hephaestus. Yeah, I sent my photo, just in case. Yeah, I kind of heard — I wasn’t eavesdropping, but I was brought in by Hermes. He’s literally the god of time and speed, and I’m just the god of... tools.
Ah, I sent this email not to threaten you or anything like that — I hacked your system pretty easily. Father — oh, sorry, King Zeus created it out of the old versions. That’s why Hermes was easily able to take your points. I’ve sent the upgraded link below; just click it, and it will download and upgrade the system on its own.
And yeah, you’re my brother — half-blood, maybe, but still. Just mail me whatever you want, and I’ll try my best.
—----------------
Embedded link...
Embedded photo...]
Ethan stared at the message for several seconds. The photo showed a broad-shouldered man with a scarred face and a thick beard, standing in what looked like a forge. The man was smiling like someone who found the whole situation funny.
"Hot diggity damn, that’s a true brother for you," Ethan said quietly. He sat near the window, hands together. "I will pray for you, my one and only brother."
He did not click the upgrade link yet. He did not want to sit through a long loading screen. First he needed to buy what he could. He selected the shop button.
[Shop]
Divine Relics
Olympian Artifacts
Ember Crystals
Divine Essence
Military Weapons
Legion Equipment
Praetorian Arsenal
Divine Armor
Monster Materials
Divine Materials
Alchemy & Potions
Spell Scrolls
Divine Blessings
Skills
Divinity Fragments
...
Ethan blinked. He had not realized how many categories existed. Most of them were grayed out or required higher clearance. For now, he opened Military Weapons, the only section he had partial information on from previous missions.
Click.
Roman Military Equipment
Legionary Gladius Mk-IV: 800 Gold
Ember Steel Gladius: 6,000 Gold
Tactical Scutum Shield: 4,500 Gold
Mythril Scutum: 35,000 Gold
Centurion Armor Set: 18,000 Gold
Praetorian Armor Set: 45,000 Gold
Divine Legion Cloak: 9,000 Gold
Pilum Launcher: 12,000 Gold
Ember Grenade: 2,800 Gold
Military Supply Crate: 15,000 Gold
1 stat point = 10 Gold
[Would you like to convert your said experience points?]
[Yes] or [No]
"Gold? I guess... I need to purchase it?" he muttered. He checked his current resources.
[Total stat points: 560 > 1,060]
The fifty thousand experience from the last mission had already converted into additional stat points. That put him at 10,600 coins if he converted everything. He did not plan to convert all of it. He still needed points for attributes later.
He selected [Yes].
[Converting...]
[Done. You now have 5,000 gold]
Five thousand gold. Not a fortune, but enough to start.
"Let’s start buying, then..."