Chapter 379: We Stole the Entire Spa Weekend

Rex arriving early should have canceled the theft, but James studied the revised schedule and said the owner could explain the controls if we got stuck, which told me how little fear he had budgeted for the day.

Lukas rejected that plan before James finished admiring it. We needed the route console, a way out and enough distance from Rex to keep my other wing attached, preferably without turning the sponsor reception into a hostage situation.

The bathhouse stood beside a raised reception platform, its side doors open to guests and its service ramp facing the workshop road. A waist-high barrier separated the platform from the loading lane. Staff carried linen across it while a guard checked arrivals against a tablet.

James wore his old contractor badge. Lukas pushed a laundry cart in the attendant’s tunic he had insisted on receiving, and I lay across a padded display stand beneath a small sign describing me as an imported relaxation feature.

[System: Finally found your calling, mate. Six feet of overpriced bathroom clutter that gets aggressive when somebody asks where the batteries go.]

I would remember that when you wanted a drink holder with wings.

Old Mate offered fifteen thousand EXP and fifty IP for escaping with the working route console while leaving the staff and guests safe on the reception platform. I accepted before a woman in an expensive robe stopped beside my stand and asked whether I dispensed advice.

"Only if you were prepared to make the problem considerably more expensive."

She considered that, then asked whether she should forgive her partner for buying somebody else a necklace.

"I would ask for the matching earrings before making any promises."

She thanked me, called me remarkably lifelike and went to find the partner. Lukas kept his face turned toward the clean towels until his shoulders stopped shaking.

The service door opened onto a narrow corridor. James pointed out the route console beneath a protective cover beside the driver’s station, then showed us the guest exit and the emergency announcement switch.

He knew the layout because he had driven the building here, not because confidence had suddenly become a map. I liked that distinction enough to forgive the next terrible idea for almost three seconds.

Rex appeared through the steam-room doorway wearing his white suit beneath an open robe. Apparently he had committed to looking expensive even while preparing to sweat through it.

His eyes settled on my display stand, then on Lukas’s borrowed uniform.

"You should have called," he said. "I would have arranged a proper entrance."

"I had seen your arrangements, and most of them needed a warning siren."

The guard beside the service door caught Lukas by the upper arm and tried to drag him into a staff room. My humming began before I decided what tune I had picked.

James stopped talking. Lukas twisted toward the grip, and I drove my tail against the guard’s knee, then pinned his wrist against the doorframe until he let go. His tablet hit the floor before the rest of him followed.

I slid between him and Lukas while James hit the emergency announcement switch. His voice filled the reception area, telling every guest and worker to step onto the platform because of a pressure fault.

Rex touched the metal serving cart beside me. The mark brightened, and I remembered Bridget asking about his hands.

I shoved the cart through the open service hatch. It rolled down the loading ramp, gathering speed along the marked lane while Rex’s fingers tightened beside his robe.

The cart jerked toward him while it remained near the ramp. Eight seconds later it had passed the painted thirty-meter loading boundary, and his next attempt produced a bright mark without any movement at all.

I didn’t know every limit yet, but distance had just become something I could use.

Lukas held the guest door open while the last worker guided an elderly visitor onto the platform. James released the parking brake from the driver’s station, but kept the vehicle still until Lukas checked the rooms visible from the corridor and called them clear.

Rex lunged toward the controls. I dropped an ordinary rolling privacy screen across his path and followed it with the linen cart, buying a fraction of a second rather than pretending furniture could defeat an A-rank fighter.

The fraction was enough for James to move.

The bathhouse rolled away from the platform with a deep mechanical groan. Rex shoved the screen aside, saw the widening gap behind him and stepped out onto the platform before he could be carried away from his guards.

He chose his position instead of being beaten. I understood the difference when his next glance promised he would correct ours.

Lukas closed the passenger-side door and checked the rear view. Staff and guests remained behind the safety barrier, with the fallen guard sitting up beside the service entrance and shouting into another worker’s radio.

James drove down the maintenance lane, grinning so broadly that I wanted to charge him for the view.

"If you hit anything, I was taking it out of your share."

"Mate, this thing had a steam room and eight showers. If we crashed, at least we’d arrive moisturized."

We cleared the reception grounds before Old Mate paid the objective. My EXP climbed to fifty-two thousand and my IP to six hundred twenty-five, while the working console displayed Rex’s relay stops and production-yard routes beside the driver’s hand.

[System: That’s the spirit, you velvet VIP barrier rope. Steal a bloke’s bathroom and make him watch you leave with the good soap.]

I checked the storage shelf and discovered individual snack boxes arranged beside folded robes. For the first time since breakfast, I felt the operation had considered my needs.

James turned onto a narrow road beneath a freight bridge. The bathhouse’s decorative balcony scraped a warning post, and Lukas demanded that he slow down before we became an insurance advertisement.

Around the next bend, daylight showed through a broad missing section of the maintenance bridge.

James glanced at the gap, pressed the accelerator for one awful second, and asked how strongly we felt about landing upright.