Myth-Ing Persons by Robert Asprin

confident of my abilities to get us through this crisis that she had time to think about appearances! Of course, the possibility of betraying that confidence set me off in another round of worrying. Wonderful.
    "You okay. Boss?"
    "Hmmm? Yeah. Sure, Guido. Okay. Now Massha floats up to the window, which leaves you and me free to…"
    "Hold it, Hot Stuff," Massha said, holding up a hand. "I think I'd better explain a little more about this belt. I bought it in an 'as-is' rummage sale, and the controls are not all they should be."
    "How so?"
    "Well, the 'up' control works okay, but the 'altitude' is shaky so you're never sure how much you can lift or how high it will go. The real problem, though, is the 'down' control. There's no tapering-off effect, so it's either on or off."
    I was never particularly good at technical jargon, but flying was something I knew so I could almost follow her.
    "Let me see if I've got this right," I said. "When you go up, you aren't sure how much power you'll have, and when you land…"
    "…it ain't gentle," she finished for me. "Basically, you fall from whatever height you're at to the ground."
    "I don't know much about this magic stuff," Guido commented dryly, "but that doesn't sound so good. Why would you use a rig like that, anyway?"
    "I don't… at least not for flying," Massha said. "Remember, I told you I think it makes me look silly? All I use it for is a utility belt… you know, like Batman? I mean, it's kind of pretty, and it isn't easy to find belts in my size."
    "Whatever," I said, breaking into their fashion discussion. "We're going to use it tonight to get up to the cell even if it means rigging some kind of ballast system. Now all we need to figure out is how to open the cell window and a getaway plan. Guido, it occurs to me that we might pick up a few lessons on jailbreaks from your experiences even if they were unsuccessful. I mean, negative examples can be as instructive as positive examples. So tell me, in your opinion what went wrong in the plans you followed in the past?"
    The bodyguard's brow furrowed as it took on the unaccustomed exercise of thought.
    "I dunno, Boss. It seems that however much planning was done, something always came up that we hadn't figured on. If I had to hang our failures on any one thing, I'd say it was just that… over planning. I mean, after weeks of lectures and practice sessions, you get a little overconfident, so when something goes wrong you're caught flatfooted, know what I mean?"
    Nervous as we were, that got a laugh from both Massha and me.
    "Well, that's one problem we won't have to worry about," I said. "Our planning time is always minimal, and for this caper we're going to have to put it together in a matter of hours."
    "If you take hours, you'll never pull it off," Vilhelm said, entering our planning room just in time to hear my last comment.
    "What's that supposed to mean?" Massha growled.
    "Say, are you sure you guys are on the level?" the vampire said, ignoring my apprentice. "It occurs to me that I've only got your word on all this… that Vic is still alive and all. If you're taking advantage of my good nature to get me involved in something crooked…"
    "He's alive," I assured him. "I've seen him myself since we were here last… but you didn't answer the question. What was that you were saying about what would happen if we took hours to plan the jailbreak?"
    The Dispatcher shrugged.
    "I suppose you guys know what you're doing and I should keep my mouth shut, but I was getting a little worried. I mean, it's sundown already, and if you're going to make your move before the execution, it had better be soon."
    "How do you figure that?" I frowned. "The action isn't slated until high midnight. I had figured on waiting a while until it was dark and things quieted down around town a little."
    "Are you kidding?" the vampire said with a start, his eyebrows going up to his hairline. "That's when… oh, I get it. You're still thinking in terms