The Robin Hood Thief

by H. C. H. Ritz

  “There she is!”

  Helen looked down the stairwell.

  A concierge in a gray hotel suit ran up toward them, one hand on his Earworm. “I’ve got her! Stairwell four, thirteenth floor! Everybody to stairwell four!” He was… smiling.

  Helen stared in confusion.

  Behind him, people came up the stairs and into the stairwell from every other floor. A cheer echoed as they looked up at her.

  Helen’s mind refused to believe who she saw in the crowd. Egemon. With half a dozen weapons strapped to him. He took the stairs three at a time.

  “What—” Helen couldn’t even figure out how to continue the sentence.

  Egemon grinned. “The call went out over Whatsit. Got here as quick as I could. Did you really think we would leave you to get killed?”

  A stream of people filled the stairwell. All kinds of people—many were hotel staff and people in assorted employee uniforms she realized must have come from the Lake Estrelle Shops connected to the hotel. Others looked like ordinary people, like Helen. But some were recognizably among the wealthy, either patrons of the hotel or customers of the shops. She even saw, to her astonishment, some police officers and hotel security on her side. Together, the assortment of people packed the stairs and formed a mob.

  “These people are all here for you,” Egemon said. His dark eyes shone and his breath came fast. He raised his voice triumphantly over the crowd. “Make way for Ms. Robin Hood!”

  People pushed back against the sides of the stairwell, and Egemon helped Helen down into the very thick of the crowd.

  Shouts and gunfire rang out from below. Another explosion.

  “I don’t want these people to get hurt because of me,” Helen said into Egemon’s ear. “You can’t do this for me.”

  Egemon shook his head. “We have to do this for you. You understand?” His dark eyes met hers.

  She saw his determination, and suddenly she understood. This was about people taking action, taking control. Standing with her was a way of standing up for themselves.

  Still… “I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” she repeated.

  Egemon smiled. “I don’t think you’re in any position to argue.”

  He put her arm around his shoulders and wrapped his arm around her waist, and Helen leaned on him as they rapidly descended the stairs. The mob moved quickly, then even faster, and Helen focused on her footing. At this speed, if she stumbled, she would be trampled.

  Swept along by the crowd, she heard a spontaneous chant break out, at first unintelligible, and then clear: “We—love—the Robin Hood Thief. We—love—the Robin Hood Thief.”

  Acrid, burning smoke rose to meet them as they descended to the ground floor and Helen’s feet reached the marble of the lobby. The lights were off, and the smoke defeated the sunlight that came through the double doors and the vast windows. Gunfire flashed here and there in the swirling clouds.

  The mob kept up the chant, “We—love—the Robin Hood Thief,” as it swept through. Helen could see nothing over the heads of those taller than her. Shouts, cries, and gunfire mixed in the air. People moving too quickly bounced off each other to her right—people were knocked down—she dodged sprawling limbs as Egemon half-lifted her along.

  The doors were open in front of them and now those ahead of them were running. Egemon swept Helen up in his arms and carried her at a jog.

  Police and SWAT officers were scattered outside the doors, but holding their fire, their expressions confused. Perhaps they could no longer make out who their targets were—not with policemen and security guards and the ultra-rich in the tumultuous mix that swept out of the doors past them.

  They were going to make it.

  2 Days, 10 Hours

  Afterward, Egemon, Helen, Mandy, Christian, and Zara met at the pawn shop, where Egemon left the CLOSED sign up and ordered in food for everyone. Adrenaline and exhilaration ran high. There were giddy hugs and introductions all around and the chance for everyone to tell and retell their own story of what had happened. Meanwhile, Zara patched up Helen’s gunshot wound and Mandy’s head injury.

  After everyone ate and the nervous energy settled, and as Mandy started working on Tolbrook’s Earworm, Helen knew the time had finally come to make her confession.

  They stood at the counter, Egemon in his customary pose behind it, Christian and Mandy leaning on the front of it, Zara cleaning up her medical supplies nearby. Thunder boomed overhead as the afternoon’s rain set in.

  They sensed her mood sobering, and they all waited, watching her expectantly.

  “I feel like I owe you all an apology,” Helen said. Christian shook his head, and she lifted her hand to ask for his silence.

  She had to take a deep breath. Even through her exhaustion and pain and the ravages of the disease, she could still feel her heart ramp up in anxiety. To finally say those words out loud to the people she cared about most…

  “The rescue… I owe all of you my heartfelt thanks for saving my daughter’s life. But for myself… I feel that you ought to know…”

  Helen’s focus narrowed to the person most precious to her in the world—her daughter, who still looked down at Tolbrook’s Earworm.

  The words stopped in Helen’s throat.

  There could be no coming back. There could be no escaping the pain. And Helen would do anything to avoid hurting her daughter.

  She took another deep breath.

  It was always part of the deal, she reminded herself. Mandy had known this reality since she was six years old. She understood that this was how it worked, that they were both helpless in the face of this.

  The moment became hyper-real. The traffic sounds from outside the pawn shop. Mandy’s face a few feet away. The way Helen’s own dry lips parted as she drew breath to say the words.

  “I’m dying.”

  The words filled the space and then dropped and settled into nothing.

  Mandy’s eyes searched Helen’s face. “No way.”

  “I am. I’m sorry. I don’t want to leave you—” She had to stop.

  Mandy’s eyes filled with tears. “Of what? Dying of what?”

  “A brain disease… A rare prion disease. It’s incurable… I only have a few days left.” Now the words were tumbling from Helen’s lips.

  Mandy stared. “A few days?”

  “Yes. I know. I’m sorry.”

  Helen braced herself. She suddenly realized that she deserved Mandy’s anger and scorn for not telling her sooner, and it felt like a heavy weight on her chest. “I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner. I couldn’t find the right way, or the right time, but I should have anyway. I should have just made myself do it.”

  Mandy looked down at Tolbrook’s Earworm, pretending to adjust something on it. Her chin trembled.

  Quietly, she said, “I kind of knew, I think. You’ve gotten really thin, and your sleep has been weird, and you’ve been acting… bizarre.” When she looked up, there was maturity in her gaze. Mandy wasn’t six years old anymore. “I guess I was afraid to ask you about it.”

  They hugged each other at the same moment.

  “Did you get a black pill?” Mandy asked, tears in her voice.

  “Yeah.”

  They squeezed each other hard for a moment, then pulled apart. Egemon scrounged behind the counter for some napkins, and they both wiped their faces.

  What came after the revelations? After the tears? Helen’s brain wouldn’t fire properly. Suddenly all she could think about was Old Blue.

  “I was going to leave you the car,” she said, “but it kind of got blown up this morning.”

  Mandy almost laughed.

  Helen looked at Egemon, afraid of what she might see on his face.

  She saw only regret.

  “Now you understand,” Helen said. “About… not having much time.”

  He took a drag from his e-cig. “A few days, yeah?”

  Helen didn’t answer. There was nothing to add.

  “I’m sorry f
or that,” he said quietly.

  “But it can’t end here,” Christian said. “What you started. The people need this. We all do.”

  Egemon nodded. “I agree completely.”

  Mandy looked up from Tolbrook’s Earworm. “I’ll keep it going,” she said.

  They all looked at her, and she met their gazes with a determined stare. “Mom, give me your Whatsit information and I’ll keep up your profile. You didn’t encourage your copycats, but I will. Because what they’re doing is awesome. And I still have my whole posse. We’ll keep working on the stock market thing. And whatever other ideas we can come up with. We’ll keep the whole thing going. In your honor. You know?”

  Helen stared in admiration.

  Perhaps it was ironic that now, knowing her daughter was a proficient hacker, Helen finally trusted her to be fine. To take of herself. It was hardly the kind of dream every mother had for her daughter.

  “I’ll be an advocate for you,” Christian said. “For the Robin Hood Thief. First I’ll have to bail myself out of the trouble I’m in, and I’ll have to get a new job. But in every way I can, I’ll make sure the public is aware of what the Robin Hood Thief is doing and why it’s important.”

  “Anything you need,” Egemon said to Christian and Mandy, “you come to me. I have a lot of connections.”

  “I can patch you up when you need it,” Zara volunteered. “You people seem to need a lot of that.”

  Everyone chuckled, the tension and grief replaced by camaraderie.

  “The Merrie Men,” Christian said suddenly.

  Everyone looked at him.

  “We’re the Merrie Men. You know, for Robin Hood.”

  There were smiles of recognition all around.

  “Okay, but Mandy, you have to use spell-check if you’re going to post as me,” Helen said with mock disapproval. “Otherwise everyone will know. You have the worst spelling and grammar—I can’t believe you ever passed an English class.”

  Mandy rolled her eyes with a sigh. “English is so overrated.”

  In the next hour, Mandy broke into Brock Tolbrook’s financial accounts via his Earworm—“This guy didn’t even have retina security turned on. That’s so basic”— and e-signed away all his assets.

  Two hundred sixty-three million dollars were donated to charities that helped ex-convicts build new lives.

  They set aside five million for the work of the new Robin Hood Thief and her Merrie Men.

  And after a lot of persuasion, Egemon, Christian, and Zara each accepted a quarter of a million dollars for services rendered.

  It was victory.

  The little group was reluctant to disband, even temporarily, now that they had each other. Purpose and friendship were a wonderful new drug. But eventually Zara muttered something about the grandkids and made her goodbyes, and Christian set out soon after.

  Mandy observed how Helen and Egemon were looking at each other, and she rolled her eyes and pretended to go examine the merchandise.

  Egemon’s expression was both stormy and deeply sad. His eyes, always in shadow, were dark and liquid.

  He took a long drag from his e-cig, then came around the counter and put his arms around Helen and held her quietly for a while.

  She listened to his heartbeat and savored his warmth and the scent of his cologne. It was a sort of paradise.

  Eventually, Helen pulled back to look up at him, and he released her, taking her hands instead.

  “You wiped out my record,” he said. “You and Cobalt. And with that little payment you just made me take, I’ve got options.” He half-grinned, looking embarrassed about what he was going to say next. “I’ve decided I’m going to open that antique toy store.”

  Helen smiled.

  “I’ll go straight,” he said. “Except for helping Cobalt, of course.”

  Helen’s smile grew bigger.

  Mandy called enthusiastically from across the showroom. “Hey Egemon, how much for this awesome bass guitar? The bright blue one?”

  “For you? Free,” Egemon called back.

  Mandy whooped, and Egemon and Helen grinned at each other.

  “Will I see you again these next few days?” Egemon asked quietly.

  “If you want to,” Helen said soberly. “I don’t know if I would choose that if I were you.”

  “Didn’t you say life and death are not in charge of us?” he said with a sad smile, and he put his lips to hers.

  Zero Days

  Two nights went by with no sleep, even with the meds, and the heavy curtain of utter exhaustion closed in over Helen’s senses.

  On Thursday, Helen said goodbye to Jessie. Then she, Mandy, and Egemon went to the hospital where she’d received her diagnosis. They wouldn’t let her go alone.

  As they stepped out of Egemon’s car, Helen put on a surgical mask to hide her face and protect her identity. She held Egemon’s arm, because her legs were too unsteady and unpredictable.

  On the way to Wing D, Helen stopped in front of the cramped drugstore with the three pharma machines. She looked around.

  How things had changed for her since she’d been here last, on an afternoon that had changed her life completely. She still felt enlivened by all she’d done—her life made purposeful. Her body was unable to carry her any farther, but her spirit felt as if it could fly forever.

  It made her want to believe in life after death. It didn’t seem right that such feeling could be terminated by a black pill.

  She wanted to believe she would go up into Heaven and be able to look down at Mandy and just wait for her daughter to join her after she’d had her own adventures.

  Instead of just going to sleep and never knowing the difference.

  Either way, she’d be free of struggle. Free of pain, free of ugliness and despair. Forever.

  But she would never again see her daughter or Egemon or little Jessie. Never again Oliver or Christian or anyone else she had ever cared for or admired.

  Never again.

  “What is it, Mom?” Mandy asked. She looked concerned.

  “Just remembering,” Helen said. “We can go.”

  The three of them went down the hallways with the too-dim, half-burned-out LED lights overhead. They passed a cleaning bot on the way, dormant and awaiting repair next to the janitor’s closet, and Helen thought of Jack. If there was a God, he’d better have some apologies ready for Jack.

  Wing D. The crematorium. They went through a door into a small waiting area. It was empty for now. Perhaps two in the afternoon wasn’t a popular time of day to self-terminate.

  Egemon helped Helen up to the counter. “I’m checking in for termination,” Helen said. “Jane Doe.”

  A nurse, a middle-aged woman with dyed red hair, was distracted by something on her Earworm, and she only gestured with long fake nails toward a projcom on the counter. “Fill in the form.”

  Helen stepped up, pulling down the surgical mask that was now in the way.

  She filled out the form on the screen agreeing that her check-in was voluntary, that she was of sound mind, and that she was acquiescing to her own death. She skipped the twenty pages of disclosures and checked “I agree.”

  “Done,” Helen said.

  When the nurse stood up, she did a double take, then leaned forward with a smile that brightened the whole room. “You’re the Robin Hood Thief! What are you doing here?” Then her smile disappeared. “You’re not here to terminate, are you?”

  At Helen’s resigned look, the other woman shook her head. “You can’t terminate. You can’t go. We still need you.”

  Helen shook her head slowly. “I can’t help it,” she said quietly. “I’m sick. And I’m just about to my limit.”

  The nurse looked Helen up and down. She must have taken in Helen’s thinness and the sunken look of her eyes. Her face changed. “Oh, no.”

  “I’m sorry,” Helen said dully. “I wish I could stay. I wish I could have a chance to see what happens next. But this body is done. Anyway, they know wh
o I am now. I wouldn’t be free for much longer.”

  The nurse turned to Mandy and Egemon. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  Mandy just nodded. Her chin wobbled.

  “Don’t tell anyone, okay?” Helen asked. “I want people to keep believing in what I was doing. Others will carry on in my name. But it will work better if they think it’s me, at least for a while.”

  The nurse’s eyes showed her understanding. “But it’ll be in our records today. They know your name now.”

  “Not if you don’t tell anyone I came here today. I signed in as a Jane Doe.”

  The nurse nodded slowly, her mouth open as she came to understand. “Oh… I see.” She looked like she wanted to make Helen take it back or change her mind or somehow just not be here to die today. But she settled for giving Helen a grave nod. “All right, then. You have your termination pill?”

  “Yes, it’s right here.” Helen held up the locket. Mandy went yesterday to the drugstore to get the replacement for her.

  The woman cast about again for something to prolong the moment, but there wasn’t anything any of them could say.

  “Right this way, then.” The nurse ushered them into a small room adjoining the waiting room.

  It had a bed covered in white paper, like that in any exam room. But someone had decided that heavenly imagery would be appropriate at this stage, so the walls were painted: clouds hung against a blue sky that got darker and darker as it went up the walls, and a night sky with yellow stars decorated the ceiling.

  “Well, this is it,” the nurse said regretfully.

  Helen turned to her daughter, and they exchanged a long hug. Helen treasured the comfort of holding her daughter in her arms for the last time. Her little girl who had become a young woman.

  She hugged Egemon for the last time. His face was as serious and inscrutable as ever. He helped her climb up onto the bed.

  She felt again the pain in her thigh and the whole-body tremor and the thudding palpitations that never went away.

  Now they were going to go away.

  She took the black pill out of her locket and contemplated it.