The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 328

Chapter 328: 328 | Environmental Denial, Civilian Betrayal

I spread my hands over Percy’s notebook like a general surveying a battlefield, which was a comparison I found privately hilarious because three months ago I’d been an Unmarked kid whose most dangerous tactical decision involved choosing between instant ramen flavors.

"The original teams treated this like a siege," I said. "Four squads rotating breach attempts through predictable entry points, each one getting displaced the moment they entered the Villain’s sight line. They were playing his game on his terms."

"Obviously," Camille said without looking up from her tablet.

"So we don’t play his game. We don’t breach at all."

That got her attention. Her brown eyes lifted from the screen and found mine with the specific intensity of someone who had just heard something wrong and wanted to confirm it was as wrong as she thought before committing to dismantling it.

"You don’t breach," she repeated flatly.

"We don’t breach. We deny." I pointed at Percy’s floor plan. "His Aspect requires line of sight. Every window, every doorway, every open corridor is a firing lane for displacement. So we remove the firing lanes. We seal the building."

Percy’s pen stopped. Felicity leaned forward in her chair.

"Think about it," I continued, warming to my own brilliance in the specific way that usually preceded someone telling me I was wrong. "If we block every window on the ground floor, barricade every external door, and eliminate every sight line from the Villain’s documented positions on the third floor to any point outside the building, his Aspect becomes useless against our approach. He can’t swap what he can’t see."

Felicity’s eyes went wide with the particular brightness of someone who had just heard something that sounded incredibly smart and was already composing the compliment.

"That’s actually kind of genius," she said.

"It’s not genius, it’s environmental denial. Dravid literally covered this concept in his first lecture. Remove the conditions that enable the threat and the threat neutralizes itself." I was on a roll now. The words came out smooth and confident in the register that Diane had taught me to use when selling an idea to a room full of people who hadn’t decided whether to buy yet.

"We send a team to the parking structure, which Percy’s blind spots confirm has no sight lines to the third floor. We use Aspects to block every window from the outside. Then we send a second team through the maintenance corridors on the ground floor to seal the interior sight lines on the first and second floors. By the time we’re done, the Villain is operating in a box with no visual access to anything beyond his own floor."

"And then?" Camille asked. Her tone hadn’t changed. Still flat. Still waiting.

"And then we send Percy through the service elevator shaft on the east side. It’s one of his blind spots. No line of sight from any documented position. Percy runs Analyze on the floor, identifies exactly where the Villain and all seventeen hostages are positioned, and feeds that information back to us in real time. We breach from below through the floor using structural disruption, which bypasses every door and window the Villain is monitoring, and extract hostages through the same route."

I sat back in my chair with the particular satisfaction of someone who had just solved a problem that four licensed Hero teams couldn’t figure out in six hours.

"Questions?"

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