The bomb is where you left it, looking completely innocuous.

The bomb is where you left it, looking completely innocuous.

Not even the faintest tick from within -- the ancient payload is keeping your secrets close.

You approach the luggage rack once more.

What's above the rack?

Minimally-reinforced ceiling. The explosion will blow through it and disintegrate anyone sitting above.

COLD OR HOT, THE WORLD WILL STOP.

... Disintegrate?

Mostly.

Significantly maim, at the very least.

Digging that part, have to say!

And your enemies will soon be digging bits of broken tram out of their face.

How do I know if the Lich will sit on the top or bottom floor?

You don't, really. Your plan is based on a series of educated guesses and crossed fingers.

The random variables in this situation have proliferated to the point where you can't even attempt to count them.

I don't like feeling uncertain about something so important.

Then you may be in the wrong line of work. But it's far too late to switch careers now.

All part of the fun.

That's the spirit, operant.

Butterflies in your ribcage, wings caught between bone.

Place the bomb.

You lift the bag with both hands and wedge it into the luggage rack.

As she looks over her deteriorating wares, Carmuna pulls her shawl closer and glances towards the shrine of Canopus. She could've sworn she heard familiar music.

The explosive device is completely silent. For all anyone can tell, it is a regular pelota bag, a muddied kit rammed inside, waiting to be thrown in the corner of a non-existent bedroom.

A sleeping thing, indifferently dreaming, sensitive only to the music to which it will violently awaken.

On second thought... [Leave.]

This may be your only chance to set the explosive -- if you want to set it at all.

You peer up at the luggage rack, an overhead shelf of crisscrossing metal.

Suddenly the four kilograms of PE-4 in the pelota bag become a leaden thousand.

This isn't volatile. It won't go off without the song.

The volatility you are feeling isn't the explosives -- it's your plan.

A glass chandelier on fraying rope.

So I just... put it up there?

It feels too easy given the potential scope of its impact.

Let's do this.

It is time to commit. Or not.