by J. N. Chaney
Remi finished shoving everything in the gear bag and came into the outer office. “C’mon kid, we’ve been humiliated enough tonight.”
The manager gave a dismissive wave but then followed us into the elevator. He called back to the guards, “You finish resetting here, I’ll escort them out.”
We boarded the elevator, and the doors closed.
Remi stood quietly in the corner and I kept my hands jammed into the pockets of my jumpsuit. After a few floors, the manager spoke up. “No recording devices in here. You did great.”
Remi nodded. “Everything as planned.”
The manager looked to me. “Good idea using the kid. Tossed all their suspicion. Hey, kid, don’t ever let anyone know you have that thing. Destroy it as soon as you’re out of here. We’re talking major corporate espionage charge.”
We reached the lobby. As we walked out, the manger put on a show for any prying eyes. “Your dad here is probably getting the ol’ pink slip tomorrow. Better hold on to your savings. Goodbye and thanks for playing.”
We stored our gear back in the transport and took off.
When we were a few blocks out, Remi started talking. “Good work catching onto the plan. Evelyn wasn’t sure you had the acting to pull it off, so we kept you in the dark, but I knew you would figure it out. If you’re wondering, the manager will play the stock on Chrysalis and invest in Klemtite before he defects over there. They’ll take a huge hit when it gets out how easy their prototype is to defeat, but for now, they will look strong.”
I considered the small patch on my wrist and the ramifications of having it. I had no intention of destroying it, no matter the risk. I needed to know what it was before I made any decision.
Remi’s point about the manager, though—that struck a chord. People always did their worst when they thought they had won. For my Canton plan to work, I had to make him feel like he was in charge. I would have to gain his confidence and then give him the wrong answers as an apology. He would never doubt what I sold to him.
Despite the weight of the major puzzle being lifted and my plan for Canton well underway, I found it difficult to sleep. I had a nagging ache in my thoughts about how things were going. The initial thrill I had felt overcoming the challenges in a heist had faded. The puzzles had occupied me for a time, but now I was out of things to do.
The loss of Vance and the need to see Canton pay for his actions ran deep, but it wasn’t enough. I struggled to put the pieces of my drive together.
As I tossed in bed, I went back to the question Mr. Black had asked me about my future. I’d had more time to consider the answer and still I had nothing satisfying. My talks with Vance and Remi had made it clear that shaping a future was more important than choosing one.
I got on the network and patched a message through Vance’s empty room to Evelyn. I wanted a distraction and hoped she would have something to give me.
Do you have anything? I’m sure you heard about the recent job. Went smoothly. Looking for something more challenging. – A
I stared at the screen for some time, going back and forth between willing a response out of the cosmos and trying to relax so I could sleep.
Finally, a message came through.
Open communication? You know better than that. Nothing going on for now. Bigger gears in motion. Everything will come together. Relax and save energy. You will need it for the future. – E
I turned off the pad and stared at the dark ceiling. Everything was going too well and not well enough. I should have been content but wasn’t. I resigned myself to not knowing, for now. Eventually, sleep came.
19
The next several weeks were busy but unfulfilling. Per the plan, I began showing off in biology and chemistry classes.
These were the classes I shared with Canton. I was quick to comment about how simple and obvious all of the answers were. I even responded to a few questions before they were fully asked to give the impression that I knew something beyond the in-class information.
My days continued this way for a time. Meanwhile, my nights were filled with planning as I, along with Evelyn and Remi, continued executing small and profitable jobs.
After nearly a week, Evelyn had cleaned up a lot of Winston’s place. The dirt was gone, and the apartment no longer carried a heavy lived-in odor.
“You are infiltrating an industrial fabrication complex,” explained Evelyn, shortly after Remi and I had taken our seats. “You’ll be making a few tools with their machines. I need you to erase the recordings, of course.”
The industrial fabrication plants were in the industrial sectors to the west of the academy. The streets in the area hummed and shook with the vibrations of machinery processing, pressing, and manufacturing. The industrial sector took up almost eighty percent of the power produced in the city. On Meridian, there was never any end to the transports arriving with raw materials and finished goods being pumped back out.
We arrived in a nondescript transport filled with a couple of block resources. Different chunks of materials we would use to refill the stock at the fabricator. Guards patrolled the outside of the building in force. We parked a distance from our target and walked in, watching for gaps.
“What makes this easy,” began Remi as he drove us through the street and toward the factory, “are the protocols inside the building. Rent-a-guards don’t have the clearance to see the innards of the fabrication plants, so we have to rely on a power outage to trick the sensors. Evelyn has been arranging meetings here for the past few days with a—well, let’s call him a gentleman.” He chuckled. “She used the opportunity to convince him to do a favor for her and sabotage the grid. We’ll be able to slip in and out without a problem.”
I struggled under the heavy bag of raw materials. It was far heavier than the usual gear bag for break-ins. Good thing I’d invested in myself with exercises on the track.
Remi was on his headset again, and I was safely concealed in my coat.
Guard patrols covered the area out to a 50-yard perimeter. It was a difficult jog with nearly 100 pounds of raw materials, but when Remi gave the signal I made a break for it and arrived at the building without being seen.
It was my first time working a clicker in the field. I had practiced on some test locks before, but there was always a difference from practice to actual application. The power dropped exactly when Evelyn said it would, though it took me longer than I would have liked to clear the door. Still, I managed to enter within the allotted time.
I waited inside the darkened factory for Remi’s signal. It came seven minutes later—a few light knocks. I opened the door and he was in. He placed his bag next to mine and we made our way to the fabrication unit in question.
It took us another minute to link up a dummy terminal, which fed the necessary schematics to be fabricated into the machine.
Remi hit the activation sequence and pulled up a chair. “This could be a while. No reason we can’t have a chat.”
I took another seat and stretched my legs. “Do you know what we’re building here?”
Remi smirked. “I thought you knew. This is all part of your plan, I’m told.”
“What plan?” I asked.
Remi frowned. “C’mon, kid. All of this work you’ve been doing solving Evelyn’s little puzzles? She’s clearly pumping you for information to get free legwork out of you. I would complain, but it’s good training.”
I paused, quickly going over everything I had done so far with her. The first puzzle had been a test. She wanted to know how quickly I could come to a conclusion they had already found. From there, she had started putting me to tasks that she didn’t have answers for but wanted to save time in finding. I ran back through the list in sequential order, trying to determine which of my solutions we might currently be using. After a few seconds, I returned my eyes to Remi. “You installed the cameras in the engineer’s apartment?”
Remi nodded. “Yeah. That was good thinking, made my job low-risk.”
&
nbsp; “Do you know what she was working on?” I asked.
Remi shook his head. “No. I know she had a dozen degrees, so figuring out exactly what she might have been doing would only be a guess.”
The process took just over three hours. When it was complete, we had three oddly shaped handles.
We made our way to the resource bin, took out the resource blocks, and inserted new ones according to the readout on the dummy terminal.
I was back in my room barely an hour later. We had just constructed the control mechanisms for the box in the complex.
The next day at school, I made a show of being depressed and angry in the hallway when I knew I would pass by Canton. I brooded my way through class, rarely volunteering answers but always offering the right ones when I did. He was increasingly watchful of me but didn’t approach.
The next week, Evelyn gathered us at Winston’s place again. All of his furniture was gone, replaced by cheap but sturdy rentals. The apartment felt like a facade now, but it was far cleaner than it had been. I briefly wondered what Winston would think about the changes when he returned.
“Everything you’ve been doing up to now has been in preparation for a large-scale job,” began Evelyn. “Sometime in the next few weeks, a shipment of neutronium will arrive at this facility and be held for approximately seventy-two hours before being processed. We need everything in place to capitalize on that window.”
Remi, despite himself, leaned forward and took a step towards us. “Neutronium, you say? That’s a big score. A get-the-hell-off-the-planet-afterward type of score.”
Evelyn laughed. “Yes, Remi. Astute as always,” she remarked. “You will be compensated enough from this single heist to set you up for several years, I would imagine. It will also be your final job with me. I’m sure you’ve trained Alphonse adequately by now for the task ahead, so I remain confident in our ability to complete the project.”
“What about the drilling?” I asked. “That alone will take weeks to do. If the neutronium shows up before we’re done, we’ll miss the window.” I paused. “No, that’s where Winston is. You’ve had him drilling this whole time.”
Evelyn was pleased with herself. “He’s a simple man. He doesn’t mind being in a dank hole for days and days. I took the opportunity of his absence to redecorate. Do you think he’ll like it?”
Remi scoffed. “No.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know that he’ll care. So we still have several parts of the plan to get ready?”
Evelyn dropped her smile. “Fine. All business. I was expecting at least a kind word on the décor.” She opened a box on the table and handed us each an earpiece. “Wear these at all times. When the shipment arrives, I will need to coordinate you into position quickly, no time to assemble. Alphonse, get yourself an excuse in place to leave class at a moment’s notice.”
We each took our earpiece and it buzzed in my ear as it calibrated. Afterward, I could barely feel it.
Remi worked his jaw in a circle a few times. “These things always make my ears pop. Years later and the pressure on this planet still screws with me. Put your tongue to the roof of your mouth to activate the transponder. Then whisper sub-vocally and it will transmit. Handy gizmos, but they burn out quickly.”
Evelyn showed the contents of the box, where there was a dozen more. “You’ll come back here each week for a fresh one until the job is done. As for tonight, Alphonse is correct, you are going to go cause problems with a financial office that handles the pensions for both the Union civilian maintenance workers and all the parts suppliers for the complex. One blow will cause issues with everything.”
Remi smacked the side of his head and continued to work his jaw. He looked annoyed. “We doing this clean or pinning it on somebody?”
Evelyn stroked the fabric on the sofa and looked into the air. “I’m sure you will find somebody has been skimming once you get into the specifics. Might as well give credit where it’s due.”
Accessing the financial offices was easier than any previous job. While the elevator to the office floor was guarded from the lobby and used a keyed system for access, other floors were open with the press of a button. The building in question had a garden terrace restaurant. Traffic in the elevator and moving through the building was busy for late evening.
I went in plain clothes, but Remi stuck with his usual garb. He blended into the background easily, moving only when needed and not drawing attention to himself. We went up to the restaurant and requested a table before heading back, finally entering a restroom above the target floor and dropping down through an industrial duct system.
We slipped into the office from the restroom and surveyed the area, finding a dozen desks and workstations, an outer office for reception, and an inner office belonging to the company president. Remi got to work on opening the inner office while I started looking through desks.
Most of the workstations were easy to hack, though the president had attempted an extra layer of security on her own. Notes on other terminals indicated she had created a two-part passkey that had taken her staff hours to deal with whenever she wasn’t in the office and they needed special approval. Apparently, the issue was so egregious that they had disabled the auto shut-off on her terminal several weeks ago, so it simply stopped locking. Great news for us, all things considered.
It took us thirty minutes to sift through the important files and reroute money from one company to another. It would take months for the affected businesses and personnel to detangle where the money had gone and why. We ran the initial and final transfers through the president’s terminal, which would almost certainly cause the investigation team to cast blame on the office staff. With the well-documented undermining of her fastidious security protocols, they would likely be fired, which would slow down the recovery even more.
When our work was concluded, we retreated through the ducts, back the way we came, making it in time for our reservation at the terrace restaurant.
I intensified my attitude problem in class. I started wearing clothing I’d picked up that was worn and used. It was enough to have several teachers ask me to stay after class to confirm I wasn’t having problems. I told them I was trying new things but always left it vague. The day before break, Canton finally approached me.
He sauntered up to me with a swagger that was a poor imitation of Vance’s slouched walk, which flared an anger in me. “Alphonse, isn’t it? Hey, you doing okay? Seems like things have been rough for you the last couple weeks.”
I ignored him at first and trudged down the hall, intentionally looking at my feet.
He walked in front of me and stopped short so that I had to backpedal not to run into him. “I’m not here to rub it in. I want to help you.”
I gave him a calculated look, one-part anger and one-part eager hope smothered under several parts of brooding. “I don’t need help. It’s fine.”
He put his arm around me in another unwelcome imitation of Vance’s behavior. “I know about you, y’know?”
I doubted that he knew anything more than rumors and the impressions I had spread myself. “You do?”
“Oh yeah. Look, it doesn’t matter what you did to get tossed here. I see you working hard, trying to get through classes. It’s tough when you don’t have any outside funding coming in. Yeah, the academy gives you the basics, but who really can live on that? You need those premium perks to really put in the effort, right?”
I didn’t respond.
He continued as if I had. “Yeah, you know. Well, I could help you out with that. I always have a little extra something I can spread around. It would be like a favor. Among friends.”
I felt my skin crawl with his arm around me and his voice in my ear. “Really? I . . .” I let my voice trail. “No, no. I can’t. I’m fine.”
He hooked me a little tighter. “We both know that’s a lie. Look, it doesn’t have to be a favor. You don’t have to owe me. Maybe you can do me a solid now and it won’t even be a problem.”
I brightened to that. “Yeah? I have some old clothes I can sell. Maybe a watch I’ve been holding on to.”
He shook his head. “Nothing like that. You seem to be on top of things in bio, right? Like more than just on top.”
There it was. The question I’d been waiting for.
I pretended to pull away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He pulled me in tighter and dug his other hand into my ribs. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Answering questions in class before the teacher can even finish asking. You never miss an answer. You’re an amateur at this whole thing. You’ve got access to the answers, you gotta miss some of them or it’s obvious. You’re just lucky I caught on before the teachers did.”
“Fine, I have a source,” I said, reciting the script I had been rehearsing. “Some things Vance showed me. Look, I can’t fail, and if I give you things, they’ll know.” I tried to sound panicked.
“It will be no problem. You get me the answers for the final, I slip you some cash after. You just make sure you answer more than a few wrong. Keep your score just above passing and nobody will know.”
I again tried to push free and he relented. We were outside the science building now, so I turned like I was headed back to my room. “I’ll get you what you need tomorrow. When can you get me the money?”
He laughed. “I’ll need time to go over your work first. Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you get taken care of. Trust me. We’re pals now.” He smiled, and I forced myself to do the same.
He continued following me and we traveled to my room. I had a set of “answers” there that I had prepared in advance. He came into the room and I shuffled in my desk to bring out my pad and transfer the doctored file.
