Dethroned 2 by Jim Kozak

Author:Jim Kozak [Kozak, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-15T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen:

Symbols of Tyranny

An hour before Samid Mazar, Chief Prosecutor of the City of New Cairo, fell teeth first into the pavement in front of the Arcology, Victoria was installing trash cans. They weren't very nice trash cans, but they weren't particularly ugly, either. They were that perfect mixture of unassuming and stylish that blended perfectly into the background of the school’s aesthetic. Because if anyone looked inside, they would find that each one was lined with high-yield, remote detonated explosives capable of collectively turning Septurra Military Academy into a pile of steel-reinforced rubble.

The trash can idea came up after quite a bit of debate. Seth had suggested one massive bomb, disguised as a statue, left in the center of the main atrium. Richard brought up lining the vents with explosives. Whereas Victoria wanted to make a substance that would dissolve the building's superstructure when detonated.

They were all interesting, entirely reasonable ideas, but there were too many issues with each of them. The statue idea would require too large a bomb – possibly nuclear – that might leave too much fallout, thus making the area unlivable. Frederik vetoed anything involving vents right away. And Jens shot down Victoria's idea – stating that they needed a spectacle, not a puddle.

More than anything, Victoria hated that he had a point. Once they decided on the current plan, things set into motion quickly. Within two months, they had everything arranged and ready to go. Victoria, Frederik, and Richard had arrived early to start the process. And since it'd be just the three of them, it gave them more than enough time to scout the lower levels of the school and mark possible entrances for the abandoned lab.

A few were duds – just spare rooms marked on the blueprints but kept unused for whatever reason. From what they could tell, this wouldn't be another situation like Flagstand with a disguised or hidden door, but they couldn’t rule out the possibility. So far, they'd checked all locations but two that looked like they led outside the floor plan of the building. One was a big, heavy, sliding door – the kind large enough to fit oversized cargo through – that was chained shut on sub-basement four. Whereas the other was much smaller and welded closed on sub-basement five. Victoria guessed it would be the latter, but once they triggered the evacuation there wouldn't be enough time to check both. Which was why they'd agreed that whoever finished first that night would go crack the big door open.

Frederik and Richard won the lottery on that, while Victoria was left to finish her last run. She was okay with that. It avoided the unnecessary argument about who got to use the cutting torch. And for some reason, she just knew she’d have gotten stuck standing there, critiquing either one of them on their sloppy torchwork.

Victoria reached the twenty-eighth floor and started swapping out the last load of bins from her cart. The area at the top of the pyramid was mostly for administrators and meetings.

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