hands absolutely steady, then pull out my magnifying goggles and a small soldering iron. The faint tinny burning smell of the heated iron is a welcome cover for the sewage and rot, but my wrist aches with the effort of the tiny movements required. Adrenaline and my racing heart make me hyper-focused, though, as I process every minuscule thread of each wire, the solder needed to coat them. Once I’ve established a few temporary contact points for the cables I brought, I pull up the goggles and set them on my forehead, blinking a few times to readjust. Game time.
“It’s been ten minutes, Diz. Should we be planning to take afternoon tea down here? Maybe roll out some sleeping bags?” Jaesin asks. He and Ania exchange a glance, that perfect parental balance of amused and vaguely concerned.
I clench my teeth. “I’m aware, Jaesin. Doing the best I can.”
I pull out my deck and slip the other end of the cable into its port, then dive in. With the direct connection, I bypass the worst of the security in a matter of minutes. Finally, back on solid footing. I breathe the tiniest sigh of relief as I search the code for the valve control functions; we could just release it manually, of course, but that would be recorded in the logs and possibly set off an alarm somewhere at the station. Only amateurs do that. This way I can get in, get the valve to open itself, make it look like a normal pressure release was triggered, and start directing the flow from farther up the pipe. Much quieter.
“Get those vials ready, Ania. Remi, you ready?” I ask. Everything’s set. This is the hard part. We have to be perfectly coordinated, and fast. Without Ania, we only have one set of eyes on watch, but she’s done setting up her outer wards, and we need her talents elsewhere.
Ania leaves her post and retrieves the vials from her bag, lining them up on a small ledge near the valve. That done, she steps back and weaves a second set of wards, this time encompassing Remi, the valve, and the vials in one area, separating them from us. The maz in these pipes is already scrubbed of the spellplague contaminant, but you can never be too careful when it comes to the thing that left three-quarters of us without parents. Remi hovers there, eyes on the first vial, nimble fingers poised and ready as I work on the code side of things. They always love this part, but today they’re grinning from ear to ear, waiting to make a discovery. Maz is a huge part of their life. Finding out there might be a new kind when it’s been hundreds of years since the last strain was discovered must be like . . . I don’t even know. Like the jump from screens to smart lenses? Bigger? Like the world is a different place.
I prep the final command to open the valve, then hold my breath. This guy asked for way too much, really, more than I’d usually be comfortable siphoning of any one strain. Too noticeable. And last time we barely got a trickle, accidentally mixed in with something else. We’re just hoping there’s more where that came from.
But after this, we’re done. No more jobs. One enormous payday. Definitely worth the risk.
And then I’ll see what life will look like at the end of the week for real. Who knows, maybe we’ll be rocking a top-floor apartment in one of the high rises together, rolling around in ice cream and tacos, watching garbage TV and eating Jaesin’s experiment of the week. Screw MMC, I’ll open my own business building top-of-the-line custom maz hardware, with Remi there as adviser. And more?
If we can just get through this job, maybe we can have it all.
“Okay, opening the valve in three . . . two . . . one . . .”
I hit ENTER, and silently beg the universe for some good luck. Please let Remi be right, let this pipe have the maz we need. There’s a tiny part of me that still doesn’t totally believe it’s real, that the stuff we gave Mattie was a fluke, but it’s too late now.
The pressure valve hisses open.
Remi’s on it immediately, holding back the flow with one hand while they use the other to carefully separate a handful of bright violet threads. They direct it with expert precision into the first vial, mouth open wide