by A. J. Markam
I hadn’t thought about it like that.
But at the end of the day, I still knew what I was: a second-rate safe cracker who’d gotten caught twice.
“I just don’t want to make myself out to be something I’m not,” I said. “I did that once, and I almost lost you.”
She nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“…did I lose you?” I asked hesitantly.
She bit her lower lip before she answered. “I’m not ready to go back to what we were… whatever that was. Not yet.”
My heart sank, but I nodded. “I understand.”
“I know the guys talked to you last night.”
That surprised me. “You do? How?”
“They’re not as crafty as they’d like to think,” she said with a little smirk. “The long and short of it is, I know they’re going to help you out.”
“Yeah, they are.”
She walked over to the window and looked out. The merchants were beginning to set up their booths in the street, and the city was just coming to life. “These Russian mobsters you’re going after – they’re really bad people, right?”
“The worst.”
“What do they do? I mean, what specifically are they doing out in the world that’s so bad?”
“Everything you’d think the mob would be into. Definitely sex trafficking – kidnapping women and teenagers and forcing them to be prostitutes. Blackmail, extortion, selling guns and drugs, theft, murder – just about anything and everything you can think of that’s illegal, immoral, and would make them an extra buck.”
“And you’re trying to get them to… what? Hire you?”
“Basically.”
“And once you infiltrate them, you’re going to take them down? You and the FBI?”
“That’s the plan.”
She looked over at me again. “So every lie you told me was for a good cause, right?”
I wanted to say ‘yes,’ but –
“They were still lies.”
“But for a good cause, right?”
“I guess.”
She nodded. “And Seth and Russell and Richard are going to help you?”
“Yeah. They’re not going to infiltrate the mob or anything, but they’re going to help me do what I need to do to get in.”
“Then I’d like to help, too.”
“Jen… it’s going to be dangerous. I can’t guarantee your safety.”
She walked over and stood in front of me. “I think if you and my three best guy friends are all going to work together to stop a bunch of assholes who hurt people – especially women and children – then I can’t really walk away and bear to look at myself in the mirror tomorrow morning. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah. I do.”
She smiled. “Good. So what can I do to help?”
“Actually, the first thing you can do is meet Arkova. She should be here any minute.”
As if on cue, there was a knock knock. I held up my hand to say Shhh, then went into Stealth and walked over to the door.
I could hear three voices on the other side whispering amongst themselves.
“Dude, this is the right room, right?”
“It’s what he told us last night – number 19.”
Another knock, louder this time. “Jimmy,” a voice closer to the ground whispered. “Come on, mate, open up before the bleedin’ Russians get us!”
I opened the door while still invisible, and Richard, Slothfart, and Russell all hustled in – then froze when they saw Jen standing there in the center of the room.
They stood like that for a second – and then Russell leered at her. “You’re here awful early, luv! What did you and Jimmy get up to last night?”
“Nothing,” Jen said. “I just got here.”
Russell grinned and looked at her sideways. “Suuuuuure you did.”
Richard looked concerned. “If we’re interrupting something, we can leave and come back in 30 minutes – ”
“Dude, I think five should do it. Ten at most,” Slothfart said.
“Are you impugning Jimmy’s stamina when he does the ol’ in-out?” Russell asked.
“No, dude, I only take two minutes.”
“That might be why you haven’t had a girlfriend in a while,” Jen said drily.
“Yeah, yeah.” Slothfart looked around. “Where’s Jimmy?”
I closed the door and came out of Stealth. “Keep it down!”
“Right!” Slothfart whispered loudly, then put a finger up to his lips to pantomime Shhh!
“So…?” Richard asked, looking back and forth between me and Jen. “If you didn’t spend last night here, then… why are you here?”
“I’m on the team.”
“On the team to… do this thing?” Richard asked delicately.
Slothfart was more dramatic. “The James Bond thing?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, the ‘James Bond thing.’” She looked over at me with an expression of mock disdain. “They’re just helping you for the adventure and excitement, aren’t they?”
“Not me,” Richard said in a deadpan voice. “I’m doing it because of peer pressure.”
I shrugged. “I’ll take all the help I can get, for any reason whatsoever.”
“Yeah,” Russell said as he waggled a finger at Jen. “Don’t you judge me.”
“So what are we waiting for?” Slothfart asked. “Let’s get to the spy shit!”
“We need Arkova first,” I said.
“The name ish Bond,” Slothfart said, doing his best impression of a Sean Connery accent.
“Jane Bond,” Richard finished up.
Suddenly there was another knock on the door.
“And there she is.”
I opened the door in Stealth to find Arkova standing there with a large leather satchel.
She breezed right into the room. “Look, we don’t have much time, so let’s – ”
She stopped short as she saw Jen, Richard, Russell, and Slothfart.
“James – who are these people?” Arkova asked in an alarmed voice.
“My friends I was telling you about,” I said as I locked the door. “The ones I’ve been questing with.”
“Ah. Nice to meet you,” Arkova said curtly, then looked at me in irritation. “I think they had better go now so we can talk.”
“They’re helping us out.”
Her eyes almost bugged out of her head. “You told them?!”
“I had to, if I wanted them to help me with the bank.”
“You told them everything?!” she hissed, her voice rising to the level of near-panic.
“More or less,” Richard shrugged.
“He told us enough,” Jen said.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be awesome!” Russell whooped.
“Unless we get swords up our buttholes,” Slothfart said.
Arkova looked at them in horror and confusion, then back at me. “Jimmy? Private chat room. NOW.”
I sighed and accepted the window prompt. Then Arkova started screaming at the top of her voice.
“WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?! You can’t just involve civilians in a situation like this!”
“You did,” I pointed out.
“Who?!”
“Me!”
“That was different! You were selected for this!”
“That’s what we’re calling you framing me now?”
She ignored the dig. “We were able to get assurances from you that we don’t have from them!”
“Actually, I’m an ex-con you’re blackmailing into helping you. These are all upstanding citizens who volunteered. If anybody is going to be a security risk, it’s me, not them.”
As our argument was playing out, I glanced over at my friends. They looked incredibly confused. I assumed it was because they couldn’t hear anything we were saying, but they could still see everything – especially Arkova screaming like a crazy person and flinging her arms around wildly. It probably looked funny with the sound turned down to
zero.
Wasn’t so funny to actually hear it, though.
“I can’t sign off on this!” she yelled. “My superiors sure as hell won’t!”
“So don’t tell them.”
She looked aghast. “I have to tell them!”
“Why? I didn’t tell you a bunch of stuff, and here we are, ready to start the mission.”
“NO. Get rid of them.”
I crossed my arms shook my head. “No.”
“I said get RID of them!”
“And I said no.”
Her eyes bugged out again. “You’re refusing a direct order?!”
“I can’t do this without them,” I snapped. “If I do it alone – especially with what I have planned now – I’m going to fail, guaranteed. If they help out, we stand a really good chance of pulling this off.”
She paused. “How good?”
“At least 50/50.”
“That’s your idea of good?!”
“The chances of me doing it by myself are less than 1%. So yeah, I’d say it’s pretty damn good.”
She stood there looking angry, almost like she was poised to leap over and claw out my eyes –
Instead, her shoulders slumped.
“Damn you, Stanislavsky,” she muttered.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’”
She shook her head wearily. “The Bureau is going to have my ass over this.”
“No they won’t,” I said. “Nobody takes this video game shit seriously, or they wouldn’t have let you recruit me. Besides, I think they’ll forgive you if you can take down a $10 billion money laundering operation. With me and my friends’ help, of course.”
She glared at me, but didn’t say anything.
I jerked my thumb over at Jen and the others. “Don’t you think it’s time we invite them into the private chat?”
We sent them the invitation, and within seconds we could hear them again.
“Whoa, that was freaky!” Slothfart enthused as soon as they joined us.
“You couldn’t hear us at all?” I asked.
“It was like someone turned off the audio completely,” Richard said. “Could you hear us?”
“No.”
“Russell and Slothfart started imitating the two of you, doing high-pitched voices as you talked,” Jen said.
“Dude!” Slothfart hissed. “Stop making us look bad – we’re trying to make a good impression!”
“Too late,” Arkova said gruffly. She surveyed them, then shook her head. “I assume he’s told you of the dangers inherent in the situation?”
“Possible swords up our arseholes,” Russell said.
Arkova blinked. “What?”
“That’s what the Russians threatened to do to us if they caught us again,” Slothfart explained.
Arkova closed her eyes as though in pain. “From now on, you are not to ever refer to them as Russians. They are ‘the orcs’ from this point onward. Do you understand?”
“Why?”
“Because if they find out that you know they’re the Russian mob, they might hunt you down in the game and question you. And if you let something slip, they might just track you down in the real world and do everything they threatened to do to you here – except to your real flesh and blood bodies. Understood?”
My three green friends all got a little paler at the implications of that comment.
“Can they find out who we are in the real world?” Jen asked, alarmed.
“Theoretically it shouldn’t be possible, not without the collusion of the game company – but we don’t know who they’ve bought off or blackmailed. Plus we’re talking about a criminal organization with roughly the same capacity for gathering intelligence as the FBI – because they’re not hampered by following the law, while we are. So I can’t make any promises.” She glanced over at me. “I’m assuming that whatever plan you came up with, you’re limiting their involvement and exposure?”
“Yes.”
Arkova sighed. “Fine. And by the way,” she said to the rest of the group, “everything that is said in this conversation and every other conversation to follow is deemed classified under the United States Code Title 18. If you reveal any of this information to any outsiders, including family members, friends, or significant others, I will prosecute you to the full extent of the law for improper disbursement of classified information and endangering an undercover operation of the FBI. No more talk of the FBI, either. I don’t want to hear any mention of the Bureau, the federal government, the FBI, nothing. You can refer to them all collectively as ‘Arkova’s friends’ or ‘the Guild,’ and that’s it. Got it?”
“Jeez,” I muttered, “try to scare them a little bit more.”
She glared at me, then looked back at the group. “Am I understood?”
Everyone nodded somberly – except Russell.
“Got it,” he grinned. “Ix-nay on the B-I-F-nay.”
Then he made a motion like zipping his lips, turning a key, and throwing it over his shoulder.
Arkova looked at him like he was a moron, but let it pass. Then she turned to me. “All right, Mr. ‘Master Thief,’ what’s the plan?”
“Well, first I need to open an account with the Shadow Bank.” I pointed at the bag she’d brought. “That’s where you come in.”
Arkova put the bag on the bed and opened it up.
It was filled nearly to the top with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, with a few random objects, like jewel-encrusted gold goblets.
“Holy shit,” Slothfart muttered.
“Bloody hell!” Russell whooped. “Can I get on the bed naked and you just pour it all over me?”
Arkova looked at him with undisguised contempt. “No.”
“How much is in there?” I asked.
“At current rates of exchange, our accounting guys pegged it at about 5.29 million.”
“Holy SHIT!” Slothfart yelped.
I nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll have to spend some on expenses, but… it’ll be enough.”
“You hope,” Arkova said grimly
“If it’s not, this whole thing is going to be over a whole lot quicker than we thought.”
57
Wednesday Morning
Shadow Bank
I walked across the town square in Stealth, careful to keep a lookout for any tattooed orcs. I didn’t see any, but that didn’t make me feel much more secure.
Arkova had warned me there would be magical defenses against my Rogue abilities. I didn’t want to alarm anybody more than necessary, so I uncloaked about 40 feet from the Shadow Bank.
I was immediately approached by four burly guards as I walked up to the front gate.
A big Level 50 Warrior with black plate armor put out a spiked gauntlet. “Halt.”
“I’m here to make a deposit,” I said, and held up my leather satchel.
The fact that I knew this was a bank made the guard take me a little more seriously – probably since 99% of the players in the game had no idea.
He looked me up and down from under his shadowy faceguard. “What’s the password?”
“I have no idea. I’m a new customer.”
“New accounts are only open by invitation of the bank.” He motioned with his hand for me to turn around and have a nice day, minus the ‘have a nice day’ part.
“I want to talk to your manager,” I said. “Elf guy? Wears these robes with spiky patterns on them? Has a bunch of magical keys on a chain around his neck?”
The guard stared at me in open wonder. I’m sure he was thinking, How does THIS asshole know that?
“Well?” I barked. “Go get him. I don’t have all day.”
I’m not an asshole in real life at all. Low-key and laid back, remember? But I’d been around enough shot-callers to know how they acted.
That I knew at least something about the manager, and my relatively confusing demeanor (I sure didn’t act like a Level 27 player) finally did the guard in.
“Wait right here,” he said,
then walked over to the iron doors of the building and spoke to someone inside who disappeared. I waited a moment, then saw a figure approach in the shadows. It was my old friend the elf, who I’d only seen while I was a ghost.
After they talked for fifteen seconds and the elf stared at me suspiciously, the Warrior motioned for me to approach. I walked over to the iron portcullis, and the Warrior left me there to talk to the elf.
“Yes?” the elf said in a voice that said I can’t be bothered to fake being interested.
“I want to open an account.”
“We don’t accept new accounts except by referral.”
“What about this?” I asked, and pulled the biggest ruby I had out of my bag, about the size of a grapefruit. “Is this referral enough?”
The elf smirked. “No.”
“I have 4.9 million in jewels here.”
“Good for you. Put it in the DarkWorld bank.”
“I need discretion and anonymity.”
“Plenty of our smaller competitors would be happy to provide that.”
“I also need security,” I said. “Ironclad security.”
“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for less with our competitors,” the elf said, and started to walk away.
“What if I agree to more than your standard 6%?”
The elf turned back. I could tell he was at least slightly intrigued that I was familiar with their fee structure.
“For accounts smaller than ten million, it’s 7%.”
“Not a problem.”
“It is for us, since we still have no idea who you are.”
“What if I told you who I am in real life, and you check me out thoroughly – would that satisfy your need for security?”
58
Monday Morning
Morningstar Inn
Arkova gasped. “You can’t tell them who you are in real life!”
Slothfart looked around, confused, as though everybody else but him knew the reason. “Why not?”
“Because if any part of his plan goes sideways,” the FBI agent said, “and the Bank knows who he is in real life, they will send people to kill him. They’re a bank for mobsters and criminals. They can’t afford to let someone screw them over, or everyone will start to do it.”
