infiltrating the court

[msmortal]

The plan is refined and strengthened, contingencies are set to deal with various ways Thorn could've strengthened his defences, Mortal receives a very interesting email concerning one of their mother's contingency plans - namely that her assets have all been either frozen or transferred to Mortal themself, so Thorn doesn't have access to them -, and when Mortal and Promise judge there's nothing more to be gained from further planning they (eat dinner, sleep again, have breakfast, go over the plan once more when it's not completely fresh in their minds so they see if they come up with anything new, purchase Promise a mobile phone and a power generator to charge its battery in fairyland, eat lunch while Mortal teaches Promise how to use that, and) part ways.

On this side of the veil, Mortal gets to work. The first step: getting at least two safe houses, one for their HQ and the other for contact with the place near Thorn's court. They end up getting five, for redundancy's sake. The main HQ is near Seattle, the other four safe houses are in Greece, Russia, Japan, and Argentina. That, and getting the necessary existing equipment, is the easy part - you end up with contacts of the relevant sort when the bulk of your wealth comes from the kind of thing you can get with sorcery. The hard part is getting the various specific bits of technology that don't exist yet, including the the many types of trap and ammunition they'll need. Processing fairy voices with software turns out to be a dead end - apparently they're weird magical superpositions of sounds that make software go ?!?!?!?!? - but everything else, as agreed upon, can be made to spec nicely enough.

It'll take a couple of weeks beyond the one month for everything to be ready. Mortal hires someone who talks very fast.

And after the ball's going, there's not actually much for them to do with their time. They fret about details of the plan, order more redundant pieces of stuff (especially the to-spec stuff, not being mass-produced means they'd better have a lot of it to start with in case anything goes wrong), and have various antsy and anxious and calm and relaxed and terrified and panicked moods. A month is a long time...

At one point it occurs to Mortal that Promise might've decided to run away and not help, and then they'd never see her again and that would be terrible, and why would it be terrible anyway? It's just some fairy, fairies are evil, one must remember that. Even though she wasn't, of course, she was smart and resourceful and moral and ridiculously hot, and if they never see her again she'll never order them again and the tingly feelings won't ever happen again. Except what the heck, what are they even thinking? The answer, of course, is that they want to see Promise again. Why? To save their mother, of course. The only reason being ordered like that felt good was because Science. Of course. Of course.

The month passes-

Comments

[imeanforever]

"Good."

[mrmortal]

"So, should we try to capture one of the probably-better-sorcerer-and-better-warded lone fairies, or try to take down the probably-not-as-good pairs?"

[imeanforever]

"The pairs might be warded by someone else," Promise points out.

[mrmortal]

"Yeah, true. So, probably one of the singles. Any last requests, cold feet, insanely obvious ideas we somehow missed, not-so-obvious ideas we may be excused from having missed?"

[imeanforever]

"Nothing leaps to mind."

[mrmortal]

"Good luck to us all, then. I'm gonna go set up the traps."

[imeanforever]

Nod.

[mrmortal]

So off he goes to set up traps in the appropriate locations. There are detectors pointing to both courts, to make sure whoever they capture is in fact Thorn's vassal. The computers show an approximate map of the locations, and will warn when outgoing movement from either court is detected.

And then: they watch and wait.

[alicornucopia]

And eventually, a sole fairy departs the cliff court and heads for the other.

[mrmortal]

The computer calculates the fairy's velocity to estimate when they will be passing somewhere the trap can reach them. Mortal activates the automatic trap, so it'll shoot as soon as a fairy flies within range. He restricts the time window where it's active to the ninety-five percent credibility interval to minimise the risk of capturing some other unlucky fairy that may pass through (even though that's pretty unlikely), and then the trap is ready.

[alicornucopia]

She's warded. She's not warded enough. A bullet clips her through the metal-lace wing and a dart gets her in the cheek and she tumbles to the ground, suddenly bleeding from the ears.

[peterxy]

A little RC vehicle with a screen was waiting on the ground, and it darts towards the fairy. Someone's voice started coming from it, blasting the word 'stop' loudly and repeatedly from the moment she cheek got darted, and the screen shows that same someone's hand writing the word 'stop' on paper several times.

And should that not be enough, a tranquiliser dart will be shot at that fairy, and an invisible, inaudible, and warded-to-the-best-of-Promise's-skill Yellow should be heading that way to collect her.

[alicornucopia]

The fairy doesn't look at the screen; apparently she got her ears fast enough, too, because she struggles until the tranquilizer takes effect.

Yellow drags her off.

[imeanforever]

Promise fixes her ears.

[mrmortal]

Mortal injects her with something meant to wake her up, and that same first someone's voice comes from a speaker, still repeatedly saying "stop."

[alicornucopia]

The fairy doesn't open her eyes, but she does stop breathing. Must be awake.

[mrmortal]

Mortal sends a message on the computer and the speakers says "Say your name."

[alicornucopia]

"Canamirana," says the fairy softly.

[mrmortal]

"You may breathe. Answer all my questions truthfully and completely, using your sincere best up-to-date model of what I will find most relevant to prioritise. If you ever find any loopholes in my orders, inform me of them at once and do not attempt to exploit them."

[alicornucopia]

No response.

[mrmortal]

Good, so probably no loopholes.

"Except for genuinely personal information, what are you hoping I won't ask or think about?"

[alicornucopia]

"Security procedures, names, patterns of movement, contingency plans."

[mrmortal]

"How long would it take you to explain to me everything you think I would want to know about those things, and when are you expected at your destination?"

[alicornucopia]

"Forty-five minutes. In two hours."

[mrmortal]

"How long would you normally take to arrive there from the spot where I captured you?"