“Oh, no! Making backup plans is never excessive, and we should definitely make sure we’re aware of every possible exit — for non-escape reasons as well, even. Would you pull up the blueprints again? I’m almost done with this list.”

She pulls up the blueprints. These are of more interest to her than the flagged people profiles -- she already has everything there memorized, and she already knows that that's not enough information to juggle all the moving pieces tonight.

"This mark here, we are not sure on the blueprint whether it is a window or a door. One of us should check early on, when we arrive."

"Any window is a door if you spend some time convincing it," mumbles Sookhee, eyes still flickering across the list of profiles.

Then she catches herself. "I mean -- yes, we should definitely still check. Property damage would -- not be helpful, should be avoided, yeah."

She lets Sookhee finish her memorization.

And then they can work on escape routes.

Eventually it will be time to get ready. They dress each other. Hideko is not feeling as flirtatious as she was yesterday, but she still skims her fingers over the back of Tamako's neck because -- might as well.

This is fine. Sookhee is very chill and undistracted by this.

She tucks the bugs into the provided purse alongside her wallet, and slings the purse haphazardly over her shoulder.

Hideko takes a break from putting on her jewelry to lean over and neaten the strap. "Are you ready? Prepared to wear heels for hours?"

"I've been instructed very well, 'm sure I can handle it. Are you ready?"

As ready as she's going to be.

They take the lift downstairs together. They walk through the lobby, heels clicking. The elegant receptionist glances briefly at them, but they don't attract particular notice; this is a luxe hotel on a luxe planet, and many of its visitors regularly flounce about in extravagant dresses.

They take a taxi. It's a long ride, out into the grassy country and between the nearest crest of mountains and onward...

And finally, in the center of a sprawling and excruciatingly well-gardened estate, rises a mansion. 

Well that's the prettiest house she's ever seen.

Also arguably the first house she's ever seen; the shacks filling the slums she grew up in hardly count, compared to this beauty. It's as tall as the hotel scraper that they're traveling from. Sookhee knows from the blueprints that the first floor has an excessively high ceiling. The gala will be hosted on the first two floors. There are four more floors above that, each boasting its own flared roof, and two below.

As the taxi slows to a halt in front of the entrance, she sees two thick-shouldered guards with charcoal suits and shaded glass implants covering their eyes, standing to either side of the front door. Sookhee's instincts gnaw at her to avoid their line of sight, dart away from the front entrance, find some way in the back -- but that's not what she's here to do. 

The taxi doors click open, and Sookhee steps out one clicking heel at a time, as gracefully as she knows how.

Hideko emerges from the other door, and the taxi doors swing shut with a happy chiming sound as soon as it is empty. The taxi orb sails cheerfully away right back the way it had come, and they are left there in the shadows of the mansion.

Tamako appears to be hesitating, glancing at Hideko as though seeking reassurance about her posture or her wardrobe. (Hideko would have no critiques, even were it a good idea to offer any; she looks beautiful.)

Hideko goes before her partner, slowly ascending the front steps until she stands in front of the guards. Mob thugs, but she isn't sure which group. She smiles and raises one eyebrow at the man on the left. The shape of his forearms are mismatched underneath his suit. Weapon enhancements, presumably, on one or both of them. He still has ordinary hands, which means that the work was expensive, high quality. "The gala started at eight, yes?"

"Name?"

"Kiniyaki Miya," she says, with a cool smile. This is a slight risk, going with the fake name, but with Tamako right behind her she doesn't have much of a choice.

He doesn't respond for a moment. A faint blue light glows from behind his right eye-implant; he has to be scanning a guest list. "Mm," he says eventually. "Welcome."

She dips her head to him, and then glides through the doors. She can hear the tinkling of her not-sapphire earrings as she walks. She can hear her heartbeat in her ears.

Miya looks so correct in a scene like this, natural and poised, melting seamlessly into a tapestry of wealth and beauty that Sookhee has never before been this close to touching, that for a moment Sookhee worries she won’t be able to follow. Some invisible peasant shield will block the door for her, or those guards will be able to smell the imposter on her and have her arrested, and she will have left Miya here alone, to wander into the mouth of this beast and get herself killed.

She folds her hand together and steels herself as she steps forward, pushing the idea out of mind. Even if that happens which it won’t — Miya isn’t Sookhee’s responsibility. She has enough stress to deal with looking after her own skin.

“Eri Tamako,” she tells the guard, and she watches his lenses flash blue.

“...Welcome.” The doors open a second time.

Her shoes click a neat line across the polished foyer floor; when she looks down, she sees her reflection in the black marble. Sookhee walks down the long adjoining hallway: all dark, glassy surfaces and a spray of pinprick-lights installed across the ceiling to mimic stars. At the end of the hall, a set of glass doors hold themselves open. She steps through them into a large ballroom.

The room is elegant and old-fashioned. All the walls are paneled with finely finished dark mahogany. Real wood. It's a popular style, for extremely wealthy people, to make the interiors of their mansions look technologically primitive. This ballroom is furnished much like casino parlors from millennia ago. Everyone in sight is dressed at least as finely as Sookhee, in evening gowns or suits or combinations of the two. There is lots of shining jewelry to catch her eye, and not all of the stones are fake.

She tries very hard not to gawk.

"Now we split up?"

"Now we split up. I'll take the left side of the room, you go around the right. If you encounter someone from our list or who says anything especially interesting, or anyone from our list, yknow. Come and let me know. Not right away, remember, the most important thing is to be as natural as possible." She leans in and murmurs softly under her breath so that no nearby microphones could be able to pick it up. She smiles when she finishes speaking, so that it looks like they were just gossiping.

She and Miya already went over this, and reviewing the details in public is nothing but a risk no matter how covert she's being, but Sookhee can't help it. She's nervous about sending Miya off on her own, and it's tempting to find some excuse to hover over her the entire night. Is this how parents feel about sending their young children to school? None of the children Sookhee's known have ever gotten sent to school. "Are you ready?"

"Yes. Don't spend your worry on me, Tamako, you have a harder job." She smiles, small and delicate. "See you around."

And then she glides off to the right, weaving through the crowd.

It doesn't take Miya long to pass entirely out of sight.

Well.

The only thing she can do for Miya now is be as competent at her own tasks as possible. She has to trust that the agency wouldn't put anyone incapable on a job like this. She has to trust that Miya's naiveté won't interfere with the intelligence she's demonstrated during their planning.

Once Sookhee shoves those concerns aside, the only thing she needs to worry about is planting bugs on the five most interesting people present, which she doesn't actually find worrying at all.

There sure are a bunch of people here who seem plausibly interesting! It's difficult to gauge who is more or less important based on their outfit; apparently Sookhee can't trust synthstones to reliably indicate a lack of wealth.

She spends lots of time looking at clothes and jewelry anyway, because she's entitled to a few job perks.

She's also paying attention to the glimpses of conversation that she's able to overhear without lingering anywhere too conspicuously.