Chapter 260: Twelve Little Health Violations

I had infiltrated enough unpleasant buildings to recognise a promising drain, which felt like the sort of personal development nobody should put on a birthday card. The cold store’s washroom pipe gave me a route inside before the supervisor finished hiding our control key beneath his shirt.

I activated Miniature Multitude behind the scale office, turning my whole body into twelve five-inch versions of the same poor decision. There was no large Matt left with Bridget, and the three-hour cooldown meant every small body needed to leave with the others.

[System: Twelve criminals sharing one brain, mate; that’s a council meeting with better attendance, so prove me wrong and pinch the key before the vans leave.]

I’ve appointed three managers and a complaints officer, so you can expect a written response once the little bastards approve the stationery budget. I sent four copies through the washroom gap and the others beneath the loading office door, keeping their views sorted before moving farther than I could comfortably follow.

The supervisor stood at a sink arguing into his own phone while his shirt hung open around the key cord. I climbed the pipe behind the basin, using another copy to steady the first where the metal bracket had pulled loose from the wall.

His conversation concerned whether the last truck needed passengers or only matching curtains, which answered one question before he’d realised he was helping. Somebody on the other end mentioned a dummy load, and he told them the captain wanted all three vehicles leaving together.

In the office, two copies reached the desk while the others watched the door and loading window. The lure controller sat beside a half-eaten pastry beneath its hinged cover, with three camp markers glowing on a simple map Pike had already identified.

I wanted the pastry, but explaining the delay to nine prisoners seemed a poor introduction to my heroic public image. I settled for dragging its paper wrapper across the desk, causing the clerk to turn towards the office fan and complain about the draught.

[System: Don’t eat evidence, champ, even if it’s got icing. I’ve got a koala’s attention span and a beer on the go, and even I can see the bloke in the washroom’s about to tuck your key somewhere much less convenient.]

If he puts that key down his trousers, you can explain to Bridget why my next romantic gesture requires industrial-strength hand sanitiser. One copy dropped from the basin pipe onto his collar while another tugged the loose cord, pulling the key towards the sink as he swatted at his shoulder.

He blamed a large insect and bent forward to find it, giving the copy beside the drain enough room to catch the key before it fell. I dragged the cord over the edge with two bodies, then hurried under the door while he argued that the company should pay for pest treatment.

The office clerk left his chair to investigate the shouting, and six of me carried the key beneath the desk like a group of removalists handling a piano. The supervisor came out behind him with his shirt half open, searching the floor for something he hadn’t yet realised was missing.

I reached the controller’s slot while two copies watched their boots and another kept the door gap clear. Turning the key took three bodies braced against the cover, which suggested the manufacturer had never considered twelve snakes an important customer demographic.

A copy slipped on pastry grease beside the slot, and Old Mate added, [System: There’s your employee safety breach, champ; use the tie before you sue yourself.] I used the supervisor’s discarded tie as a grip mat and briefly enjoyed the idea that his poor eating habits had nearly defeated a trained criminal organisation consisting entirely of me.

The yellow stop switch clicked beneath a coil, and the three camp markers changed to a halted schedule. I held it until the confirmation appeared, then pulled the key free and left the controller disabled rather than assuming one hurried press had solved anything.

[System: Camp release schedule stopped and the source disabled, so there’s your seven hundred and fifty EXP. Ten thousand seven hundred and fifty total, and the pastry still isn’t a mission reward.]

You’re ruining a perfectly good reason to celebrate, but I’ll take the numbers and complain after we’ve got everyone outside. I couldn’t carry the entire controller through the drain, so I dragged the operator key towards the exit while the office copies checked the loading yard.

Nine workers were being divided between two vans, five in the nearer vehicle and four in the one behind it. The third truck received blankets over weighted boxes, and its driver shut the rear doors before anyone outside could see how much trouble had been spent making emptiness look frightened.

Niall climbed into the second van with his satchel still on, helping a woman whose ankle had been wrapped badly enough to worry me. He refused to let the driver take her walking stick, holding the door until the man gave it back with a shove. I followed the vehicle’s number with two views until I could remember it without confusing it with the empty truck beside it.

The supervisor finally noticed the missing key as the clerk returned to his chair. He opened the controller cover, saw the halted schedule and shouted hard enough to make all twelve of me dislike the room’s acoustics at the same time.

I pulled every copy towards the drain before they started closing doors, counting each body through the gap as boots struck the floor behind us. One copy had to release the stolen key to squeeze past a loose tile, so another pushed it ahead rather than leaving anything trapped.

All twelve reunited beside Bridget’s vehicle with the key secured between my coils and the three-hour restriction still running. I gave her the two occupied vehicle numbers before the supervisor reached the yard, then told Lukas which truck he’d dressed up as bait.

He crossed the false route off his photograph, but the convoy had already begun moving. The occupied vans turned towards separate exits while the empty truck drove straight ahead, forcing us to choose between catching both real loads now or following one while the other disappeared into the frontier.