(LIMITLESS) CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: THE CALM II

Finding Bakuda wasn’t the hard part.

Taylor’s eyes saw more than colors and images, and more than the not-so neat lines of concrete, brick, and steel that made up Brockton Bay. She saw beneath the veil of the world, to the passengers superimposed over every parahuman. Alien shapes, vast and strange, tethered to their hosts in ways she couldn’t fully understand but could track with ease.

Bakuda’s work was impossible to miss.

Fine, hair-thin tendrils radiated outward from her position, each one anchored to another human being. Those threads weren’t just connections, but chains, and every person at the other end was an unwilling, walking bomb.

Taylor had tested it earlier in the week, just to be sure she could trace them back to their source. One glowing thread had led her across six blocks, down a graffiti-stained alley, and straight to a trembling man in a janitor’s uniform. He’d been moving with the sluggish inevitability of someone already counting down the minutes of their life. The thread had been dull then, which meant there was no imminent detonation, so she’d made the call to the PRT. They’d scooped him up and moved him somewhere safe.

But there were more, always more.

Now, another tendril wound through the skyline, slipping between rooftops and hugging the edges of a nondescript warehouse deep in ABB territory. Inside, the thread thickened, merging into the grotesque, pulsing shape superimposed over a masked woman’s body. From there, it split again into dozens (no, scores) of lines, disappearing outward into the night.

Bakuda. 

Taylor crouched in the shadow of a water tower, the metal cold against her back, her gaze sweeping the perimeter. The obvious approach, straight in through the front, was suicide. She could already map the building out in her head: tripwires strung waist-high and hidden in places only the ABB members knew (or didn't, Bakuda seemed the type to like unpredictability); sensors tuned for vibration or heat; and detonators wired into every single entry point. Even if she reached Bakuda before the woman could react and trigger them, one wrong move and her ‘army’ of human explosives could make sure the victory was pyrrhic.

And with every second it took her to subdue Bakuda, more of those people could be forced into carrying bombs she couldn’t block.

Because that was the other problem.

Bakuda’s bombs could bypass her forcefield. Taylor wasn’t sure how—maybe it had to do with frequency, subatomic manipulation, or some quantum Tinker nonsense Kid Win would drool over—but the fact was, it had already happened once. She wasn’t going to let it happen again.

Which meant rushing in was off the table.

She took another slow breath, eyes narrowed as she tracked the sentries: two on the loading dock, another pacing the side lot, and all armed. Funnily enough, it wasn't the guns that held her focus, but the faint, internal glow in each one, centered deep in their heads. Hidden payloads.

She could take them out fast—far faster than they could aim—but all it would take was one of them twitching in the wrong way, hitting the wrong switch, or even screaming, and the whole block would vanish.

No. She needed to get close without setting off a single trap and without Bakuda ever realizing she was there until it was too late.

That left one option: the roof.

Taylor’s gaze slid upward to the corrugated sheet-metal panels reflecting the moonlight. If the access hatch wasn’t rigged, she could be inside without setting foot on the ground floor. And if it was rigged… she’d deal with it. She had to.

She rolled her shoulders, the wind tugging at the hem of her hoodie. Every muscle in her body vibrated with the tension of waiting, but she forced herself to check her surroundings one more time. There were no patrols above eye level, and no spotters on the nearby rooftops.

She could do this.

A muttered, “Blue,” and the world seemed to tilt, her muscles tightening in response to the immediate boost. She blurred forward, the air snapping past her as she launched toward the warehouse roof.

Taylor hit the roof in a crouch, the corrugated metal flexing ever so slightly under her weight. She stilled, every muscle taut, listening for the telltale click of a pressure plate beneath her or the faint electric beep of a triggered sensor. Nothing, apart from the haunting groan of metal buffeted by the night air.

She stayed low, her eyes sweeping across the rooftop. The hatch sat a few paces away, a square of reinforced steel bolted flush to the surface, and painted the same dull industrial gray as everything else up here. It seemed too obvious a trap, but if she were Bakuda, it would be wired six ways to kill: pressure plates just before the threshold, vibration triggers along the frame, and maybe even a proximity sensor tuned to pick up changes in weight distribution.

Then again… Bakuda might be arrogant enough to think no one would dare approach her in this manner or some other bullshit.

Taylor slid forward on silent feet, her body automatically making subtle micro-adjustments for balance with each step so she could glide over the uneven gravel without a sound. Well, almost without a sound. One pebble crunched faintly under her boot.

She froze. 

Below, a sentry’s footsteps slowed, paused… then picked up again.

Taylor’s eyes went back to the hatch. The metal frame around it showed faint scoring at the hinges, as if someone had opened and resealed it recently. That was a good sign; it meant people used it often, maybe even Bakuda herself. But it was also a bad sign, because Bakuda would never leave it unsecured unless she was sure she had the upper hand over anyone trying to open it without permission. 

Or maybe she really was that arrogant.

Taylor flexed her hands, weighing her options. She could rip the hatch open in under a second, drop inside before any potential mechanism had time to arm fully, and trust Blue to push her fast enough to dodge whatever came next. Or she could take the careful route, search for signs of the traps, and give Bakuda more time to notice she had company.

Either way, once she went through, there’d be no turning back. One way or the other, this night would end with Bakuda stopped.