"They'll be sending the best people after us," Wizah noted immediately. "Ghost isn't stupid."
"Who would that be, then?" Uari continued to sip his tea nervously, wondering if anyone would find the passage they used to escape.
Wizah seemed to read his mind. "We should be safe, for now. There's a layer on the bottom of the drawer that casts a holographic image. It should just look like the bottom of a drawer, full of medical shit and notepads and maybe some half-chewed pens."
"Ah."
"As for who they're sending, I can think of four people off the top of my head. The first pair would be Io and Temmy together."
He could understand why. Although Io and Wizah would be the pair he'd choose for infiltration, Io and Glasses would be a great pair for pursuing targets. "Does Io know about this place?"
"He shouldn't. I've been pretty cautious since I...realised his priorities weren't the same as mine." There was a bitter twist to her mouth. Uari didn't say anything else, and Wizah continued.
"Io has Immovability, and Temmy has Teleportation. It seems that you've figured out how to deal with both somewhat, though."
"But not together."
"But not together," Wizah echoed. "We need to figure out a way to get past them."
"The second person would be Ozcar Rubeland."
"Oscar?"
"No, Ozcar, with a 'z'. If you pronounce it with an 's' she'll get really mad."
"That's an...interesting tidbit. "
"Whatever. Ozcar's ability is called Fisherman, and despite how stupid it sounds we really can't make light of it. She can...well, she can fish from any source of water and pull up anyone who exists in the world."
"Any...what?"
"Yeah, it's cool, isn't it? She can reel in 'fish': other people. But it takes time to trigger, so she spends all day just sitting in front of a pot with a fishing rod."
That sounded dangerous. "I'm assuming you brought this up for a reason?"
"Yeah. If you feel something yanking at you, even if you can't see anything, that's her. As long as you hold onto something sturdy, like a tree or something, she can't yank you in."
That sounded dangerous. "How long does it for her to reel in a person?"
"Anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Depends on how far they are, really. She can reel them in as long as she has a picture of them, but it's harmless unless Ghost is involved."
"Ghost?"
"She's the last person the Gravts might send. She's out on a mission right now, but I'm certain she's already heard the news. She's not stupid enough to expect any low-level Gravts to be able to catch you, so she might deal with it herself."
"And her ability?"
"We call it 'Breakdown'." Wizah gripped her cup a little tighter. "Even we're scared of it, a little. The rest of us have some pretty straightforward abilities, but Breakdown is on another level entirely."
"Why?"
She downed the rest of her tea. "Breakdown gives Ghost the ability to strategise very well."
"I mean, that doesn't sound very dangerous..."
"Try again." Wizah slammed her cup down. "Do you remember the break-in at the AgroAuthority two months ago? The one where seeds were stolen and distributed across Southernland?"
"Yeah?"
"That was Ghost. And do you remember when BedGate happened?"
"Don't tell me that ridiculous idea was her too?"
"It was, but only as a cover to hide the fact that we broke into the AgroAuthority again, even after they stepped up measures."
"What."
"Look," Wizah refilled her cup, downed it again, and motioned for more tea. "Breakdown gives Ghost the mental capacity to be able to analyse a lot of things, to break things down. That's why we called it that. She can look at one thing and think of a thousand ways it can be used in a plan, and she's the brains of the Gravts. She comes up with all our plans."
"And everyone else executes."
"Correct."
"Has any of her plans ever failed?"
"Not a single one, but," Wizah grinned. "The ability does come with its own shortcomings. There's another reason why we call it Breakdown."
The grin made him fear for his life, just a little. "What's the reason?"
"It also allows her to see all the potential ways a plan can fail. She'll go on a paranoid bender, dissecting every little thing and trying to make contingency plans for it. The plans are great, very comprehensive, very effective, but she kinda suffers from a nervous breakdown every time she uses the ability."
"So..."
"She'll be out of commission for a while from the current mission she's on, but once she's recovered and coming to get us, we're both in for it."
Uari covered his face with his hands as a length groan dragged out of his throat. How were they supposed to counter something like that? Especially if she had Temmy and Io? They would just formulate a plan to consistently track him, teleport there, and then immobilise him! That was some bullshit right there.
"Okay. Okay. Okay. It'll be fine. Just—tell me everything you know about everyone."
"Everything?"
"I don't want to undergo a memory wipe, so yes. Everything."
Wizah pondered his words only briefly before launching into a full-scale oral documentary on each and every Gravt member located in the Southernlands. Unspoken was her bitterness at her brother's betrayal, his loyalty to a goal that was bigger than her, and the Gravts' willingness to reshape her entire experience to achieve their goals.
Whether it was out of spite or a desire for revenge, Uari would use her well. It was, after all, important to keep his enemies much closer than he kept his friends.
There were over 50 members of the Gravts in Southernland, which made sense because this was where their base of operations lay. While most of them were laypeople with minimal training, Uari still had Wizah recite their abilities and nature out of pure paranoia.
There were several people in the organisation that gave him pause, either because they had abilities that complemented their four likely pursuers very well, or simply because they had potentially-lethal abilities in the first place. He would address them later.
By the end of several hours, Wizah had finally finished her manifesto, and Uari finally had the information he needed on the Gravts' personnel. Unfortunately, he would need the worn-out Wizah to talk just a teeny bit more.
"Io said that we were all from a different universe, right?"
"Yes," Wizah croaked out, throat worn out from speaking. The remains of a packaged dinner lay in front of her, picked clean; he had given her one of his so they didn't need to order anything online lest their transactions were being tracked.
"So, well, how did we all get here in the first place?"
"Haha, um, well…"
Uari narrowed his eyes. "What? Spit it out."
Wizah scratched the side of her chin and gave him a sheepish grin. "We don't...really know."