"Step seven: open the ventilation shaft located just in front of you and take it to the governor's office."
Wrapped in a catsuit on the twenty-second floor of the capital building, Ilsa paused, crouched, and tapped on her earpiece with a frown. "Repeat message?"
"Enter the ventilation shaft and go through it until you can drop down in the governor's office. Should be a straight shot."
Ilsa rapped on the tiny, six-by-ten-inch vent cover just above the baseboard. "Yeah, I think we've got a problem here."
The line crackled as if the other end had turned on the speaker, then thought better of it and turned it off again. Ilsa gritted her teeth. "Please don't tell me what I think is happening is happening."
"Look," came the voice through her earpiece hotly, "there's a lot of steps to my plans, and sometimes a detail gets missed, okay?"
"Yeah, a pretty important detail, Control! This thing could fit a starved cat on a good day!" Ilsa sat back on her haunches, resting her hands on her thighs, and scrutinized the large bay window at one side of the room. "Fine. We'll go to Plan B."
Silence. Ilsa pushed her earpiece a little farther into her ear. "Control? Can you hear me? What's Plan B?"
"...It was perfect, I swear to god. I triple-checked, quadruple-checked, quintuple-checked everything."
"Control."
"Every little detail! Every single one! And then they go and do something stupid like change the goddamn vent sizes on me!"
Ilsa sighed. "There is no Plan B."
"There is no Plan B."
Ilsa straightened, dusting herself off and checkimg her watch. 3:36 am. "Look, Control, this is the most important job of your or my life."
"I knowww and I'm sorry. I really am. Look, pull out the way you came and we'll try again tomorrow night. I'll come up with something in time, I promise. We can still pull this off."
"Are you kidding?" She clicked open the window latch, swinging the glass pane into the night sky, and stepped out onto the thin ledge that ran along the building's outside. Cars from the night crowd honked and beeped like distant bugs below her, and wind whistled in her ears. "One way or another, the governor won't be waking up tomorrow."
"Wait, is that wind I hear?"
Ilsa caught her balance on a flagpole above her, gritting her teeth. "Yep."
"Ilsa oh my god what are you doing—"
"I've got it handled, Control." Once again in control of herself, she took a deep breath and began sidling along the building's edge. "You said it was a straight shot to the governor's office?"
"Ilsa get off of—of wherever you are, right now, it's not safe, get back inside and I'll make a safe plan, it's not worth your life—"
"Control. The vent to the governor's office. Straight across? Parallel to the building wall?"
The microphone clicked on and off in her earpiece, but no response came through. Ilsa kept inching along, passing the next window. Her earpiece buzzed again: this time it transmitted rapid breathing, in and out. Hyperventilation on the other end of the line.
Ilsa frowned, breathing intentionally slowly. "Control. Deep breaths. Count with me." She looked down, pausing on the ledge, and spared a single thought to the irony of her being the one calming down the party on the other end of the earpiece. "Breathe in...two, three, four...Hold, two, three, four...and out, two, three, four...Again."
The line was silent, but that was because the microphone was off. Eventually, a small voice came through. "If you—If you die, we can't pull this off, okay? You know that, right? So you can't—"
"Control, I'm a professional. If there's one thing you can trust me to do, it's this." She began moving again.
"What, stupidly dangerous stunts?" The voice was shaky, but Ilsa thought she could hear a smile. Hoped she did, at least. She didn't respond. "The governor's office is dead ahead. Should be the...third window on your left, if these floor plans are right. So, yeah. Vent's a straight shot."
"Third after the window I left from, or third including it?"
"After. Once you're in, do the deed and leave...leave the way you came in. Pickup will be waiting at the dropsite."
Ilsa smiled, tapping her earpiece as she passed the next window. "Understood." She swung the pane open.
