The city of Valtryn was already awake by the time Joren settled into place, mimicking a sniper's duties on a rooftop of an old shop now used for training by the soldiers. Wind pushed across the quad below and thinned the sounds of routine into a soft hiss. From here the Department of Defense looked clean and ordinary as he observed from his nest.
He took a slow breath and checked the line of sight again. Joren's role was that of an observer, using communication between his three friends now integrated in the base using radio channels to find out places that may be of interest later. This was all a part of their quest to find those behind the coup that is being planned. In front of him was full maps of the entire compound, multiple pages for each of the floors and underground rooms.
This was going to be a long two days.
Gus went in first. He did not look like someone who made trouble. He wore a plain surveyor's vest and carried a clipboard and a pen tied to it with string. When he reached the entrance gate for his rounds, he smiled in a way that made the watchman's shoulders drop half an inch. Gus's role was to play the part of a Continuity surveyor, a typically routine inspection tactic they used. However, it would be one that would help incite panic in the command chain behind the growing unrest of the Defense department.
On the far sidewalk a trolley creaked. Bartholomew's hat rode low, his eyes looking two ways at once like always. The snack cart was stacked with covered trays and a glass jar of pickled carrots that trembled at every bump. He paused at the corner and pretended to struggle with a wheel that did not actually stick. A guard helped him. Joren watched the exchange, then wrote some words. Guards tend to be friendly and bored.
A group of trainees came in from one of the halls. Their boots were too loud. They laughed at each others jokes. Joren did not bother to count them, because the numbers didn't really matter. The point was not to know names or heads, only how the people of this base operated. As they passed what Joren guessed was a sergeant, they quieted down and marched with respect. Joren noted that.
Willow appeared last. Her uniform made her blend in to the masses of soldiers strolling the base, each with their own purpose and missions. She walked like a true recruit, covering distance between two points in a similar fashion to the group Joren just saw a few minutes ago. A supervisor met her at the checkpoint and handed her a small errand bin. Joren ticked the minute. 08:19. He followed the supervisor's actions, one of which was many pointed gestures. He had a habit of talking without looking at the person he spoke to. That went into the notes as well.
Gus's first check-in came through the earpiece in a low, unhurried tone around lunchtime.
"Buildings A and B have good flow, but won't finish B until after lunch. Evacuation maps match the ones Nyra went over. No unlocked side doors and it all runs as expected. I'd mark them as safe for now."
Joren ran a pencil line through a stairwell on his map and marked it green, moving between multiple buildings as he marked more of them. One less place they would have to waste time on tomorrow. He rolled over on his back and covered his eyes with his right forearm, resting his neck and the rest of his body from laying prone in that position for the last thirty minutes.
Bartholomew's voice followed a few minutes later, casual as if they were talking over lunch.
"Complaints about squad H break bell ringing five minutes late, could be useful for infiltration. Guy in blue scarf hates the carrot pickles. Some groups are doing training procedures in the west wing for the next three days."
Joren jotted the information in a separate notebook, details that could prove useful when they regrouped tonight. He decided to disregard the scarf comment. Bart always dressed his intel in clutter, and Joren had learned to skim it like a cypher text.
From afar, the quad swelled again with movement. He spotted couriers cutting across the open ground unbothered, a maintenance crew wheeling past with mops and buckets, two guards swapping posts without a word. Joren drew small ticks beside each change, building a timeline in pencil. Perhaps Willow could take on one of these roles tomorrow to get into places without raising suspicion.
Willow checked in at last, voice level, nothing indicating any major findings.
"Assigned to Greenline corridor and south annex this morning. Standard patrol measures. Two-man rotation every three hours on the corner doors. Nothing weird yet."
Joren put two neat green bars across those routes on his map. The south annex bled traffic all morning; if anything lived under the surface, it wasn't going to be spotted by them. The same went with the Greenline corridor, its traffic somewhat lighter, but more varied in people. It was safe to assume they were not places to observe more closely.
"Posting list says I'm on lift runs after lunch," she added. "Moving supply bins between B and D. High-visibility work. I'll see if there are any rooms that are heavy in security or inaccessible when I'm doing that.
"Logged, thanks Willow." Joren murmured, pencil scratching on the margin of his map.
That was all for now. No off-limits doors, no strange silences, just corridors and routines filed under ordinary. With Gus clearing wings, Bart plucking gossip between co-workers and Willow working closely with other soldiers, the safe zones would continue to grow until they narrowed it down.
This was a really long morning already, and the afternoon would be no different.
Afternoon – Valtryn Base
The roof had a smell to it, the kind only old places kept. It felt like rusted metal and that mildew smell, like a couch that was left out in the rain, now being pounded by the intense heat of the sun later that day. Joren shifted to his side for a moment, cheek covered with small rocks and sand. He wiped it off and rolled onto his back. Now that the sun was behind him instead of in front, he could look up at and not feel like his eyes were burning.
From up here, the base felt more alive than it did on paper. The quad was a slow pulse, swelling and thinning with meal breaks and changeovers like a blood stream might operate. He traced the walkways with his eyes, following the straight lines of soldiers moving from one shadow to another. Now and then he'd drift off from counting rotation timelines, watching something less important like a bird a few feet from him. He spotted a bag drifting in the wind as a soldier ran after to pick it up.
He rolled back onto his stomach, elbows digging into the grit, and adjusted the laminated map pages so the wind wouldn't flip them to other pages. Every line and mark he'd made since morning spread out in front of him, notes next to the binder that they would review together in about seven hours.
The static in his earpiece broke the quiet.
"Finished the rest of building B and I'm moving on to C soon," Gus said, adding. "I've noticed a lot of people moving around in pairs towards the West Wing attached to B and C, some glancing at my badge. Could be members of the group. No rooms seem to be of suspicion, but I'd mark the West Wing as something to observe."
Joren shaded the west side of the grid in a single pass in orange, then leaned his forearm across the page so it wouldn't curl in the wind as he removed the green markings on B and put yellow over it. He would watch to see if he could spot any of these pairs circulating and follow where they were going. He would have Willow check to see what squads were stationed in B today when she checked in.
For a while, there was nothing but the sounds of the base: distant laughter from the south end, a door slamming twice in the east, the low hum of a carriage moving on the pathways, delivering something to one of the buildings. From what he could tell, it was just food rations.
Bartholomew's voice drifted in next, layered with the muffled clink of trays. "East post grumbling again about C-lift 'acting up' after lunch. Some guard waved a civilian courier through without a scan according to a captain. Three people were not a fan of todays lunch selection, they wanted sandwiches."
Joren wrote only two things from Bart's chatter: C-lift (post-lunch) and civilian courier no scan. The rest went into the noise column. The no-check on the courier credentials and objectives could prove useful later.
Below, the quad had picked up again, the heat pulling most movement into the shaded walkways. A couple of soldiers lingered by the east steps, their conversation obscured by the wind. Beyond them he spotted a higher-rank yelling at a lower one for some sort of mistake he made. Typical stuff, really.
Willow checked in a few hours later, her voice steady. "Finished supply runs of B to D. No locked or mislabeled rooms so far. Some rooms were a little tight in security for building D, could be a building to keep an eye on."
"Sounds good. Can you check the squads listed on building B today? I need to see something." Joren said, circling Building D on the map in light orange. He noticed a few pairs of people coming and going, but based on his position, it was hard to tell if they were just pairs on watch like Willow, or ones like Gus mentioned. A few made their way to building D, which did align with Willow's notes.
The wind shifted, carrying the faint scent of oil and hot stone from the motor pool. Somewhere near the west gate, a whistle blew, sharp and short, followed by the shuffle of boots moving into formation. Joren let the sound fade before scanning the north wing again.
Bart's voice came in one last time before shift change. "Nothing else big. Couple of squad leaders griping about paperwork delays. Oh, and the carrot pickles are gone. Completely out. Could be sabotage."
Joren smirked faintly but wrote nothing.
The sun had dropped low enough to set the ground into a dark imitation of the place he spent all day watching. From his rooftop, Joren watched the shadows stretch across the quad until they pooled against the base walls as it reached somewhere around seven o' clock. The day's map sat beside him, laminated pages covered in pencil marks and markers: greens for cleared routes, orange for watch areas, yellow for partial info. The ones marked yellow also had information in the other notebook to clarify other details.
There were still three buildings that weren't looked at as extensively yet, but that narrowed the total from ten to six. The three they hadn't investigated were the food hall and two administration buildings. The food hall would be too obvious to hide meetings and paperwork, so the buildings they would need to investigate further would be Admin 1, Admin 2, Building C, Building D, and the West Wing. Five total buildings was far better than ten.
He stowed the sheets in the binder and slid it into his pack, taking one last sweep through the scope. A pair of soldiers crossed the yard, their heads down, voices low. Someone laughed from a far balcony. Beyond that, the base was settling into the muted pace of evening.
Eleven hours of sitting in grit and heat had left a dull ache in his neck and shoulders. He brushed the dust from his sleeves, slung the pack over one arm, and made for the stairs inside the abandoned shop.
By the time he reached the street, the air had cooled and the steady thrum of the base was softened by distance. He kept to the edge of the street until he reached the rendezvous point where he would meet the other three and head back to Halrec. Tomorrow, they'd start pressing on the gaps until something gave.