by A. K. DuBoff
“But… why?” Jack worked his mouth, trying to understand.
“Mr. Ordello himself,” Triss murmured. “It is so much worse in person than the thumbnails on the Net.”
“Do we want to know if he actually posed for it?” Alyssa asked.
Triss shook her head. “No, we do not.”
“But… this isn’t art!” Jack objected.
“In what way is it not? Someone created it using painting skills and a sense of composition that make it unique. We don’t have to like the subject matter, but that doesn’t make it any less artistic,” Triss countered.
“Except, the entire point of this mission is to get paintings we can sell,” Jack insisted.
“Oh, there’s more demand for this one than for any of the others we’re picking up today.”
“Why would anyone want this?!”
“So they can burn it,” Triss explained. “The vlog had eighty-seven comments expressing a desire to buy the painting just so they could eliminate it from the multiverse.”
“That’s a sentiment I can agree with,” Finn chimed in.
“And what drives up bid prices? Controversy. Everyone wants to be the one person to end this painting’s existence,” Triss concluded.
Alyssa held up her hand to shield her eyes from the exaggerated portrayal of Vincent’s nether regions. “That is, unless we burn it first.”
“We most certainly will not.” Triss approached the painting and inspected the frame. “We’re going to get at least five million for this. We’ll find a replica to burn.”
“As much as I want to personally make this no longer be a thing, I can’t imagine bringing another one of these nightmares into existence,” Alyssa said.
“I second that,” Jack agreed.
“We’ll sell it to the highest bidder and rejoice,” Triss muttered while she gently pulled the painting from the wall to look at the mounting. The movement was sure to show up on a camera, but if the nanobots had done their job, the video feed wouldn’t be showing the live footage.
“How are we getting something that big out of here, anyway?” Finn asked while eyeing the three-meter-wide horror.
“Cut it out of its frame, of course,” Triss replied. She released the painting and it settled back flush with the wall. “It’s a simple mounting—wouldn’t take much to get it down, but we may as well cut it in place.”
Without offering further explanation, Triss rummaged around her bag and produced a compact laser cutter. She activated the device and did a sample cut along the painting’s bottom right edge next to the frame.
“Like butter,” she said, and continued along the bottom.
“What should we do?” Alyssa asked.
“Be quiet and let me concentrate.”
The three members of the team followed Triss’ instruction, though Jack found himself growing increasingly more anxious the longer they stood still. It took seven minutes for Triss to complete her careful trimming of the large painting, and by the end, Jack was certain the guards would come looking for them in any second.
“Give me a hand with this,” Triss requested, breaking the silence.
The painting was only hanging within the frame by two narrow strips—one on either of the upper two corners. Triss motioned for Finn and Jack to each grab one side. When Jack was in place, she used the laser cutter to snip the final segment, and the painting’s canvass went limp in Jack’s hands.
Finn’s end was soon freed, as well, and the two of them worked together to roll the painting lengthwise into a tidy bundle.
“And that’s how it’s done,” Triss said with satisfaction.
“It’s almost like you’ve done this before,” Jack commented.
“Who says I haven’t?” she replied.
Alyssa crossed her arms. “You never talked about it, if you did.”
“And you never told me until recently that you were the daughter of famous research scientists.”
The group’s captain sighed and picked up her bag. “Where’s the next painting?”
“Upstairs,” Triss responded.
The group walked further into the manor and took a different set of stairs up to the third floor. The second target painting was immediately to the left of the stairwell. Unlike the first, which was eye-gougingly graphic, the second painting was another matter entirely.
“It’s a… square,” Jack said, tilting his head as he stared at the painting. “A red square on a white background.”
“Very observant,” Triss replied with thick sarcasm.
“But I could paint that—and I haven’t picked up a paintbrush since elementary school!” Jack exclaimed.
“I think you’re missing the subtleties.”
“What subtleties? It’s a plain red square on a white background.”
“Symbolizing the massacre of free thought perpetrated by the establishment,” Triss shot back.
He stared at her, mouth agape behind his mask. “Seriously? You get that from this?”
Triss snorted. “Hell if I know. That’s what the artist statement on the Net said.”
“People actually believe that?” Jack questioned.
“Look at it this way: who wants to be the rich person to admit they don’t ‘get it’? No one. Instead, they keep outbidding each other to prove some sort of fictitious intellectual superiority.”
He eyed her. “In other words, I could paint a black line, make up some profound meaning, and convince people to give me millions of dollars?”
“Only if you’re ‘discovered’, though,” Triss replied. “You must go from ‘painter’ to an ‘artist’.”
“And that happens by…?”
“Dumb luck.” Triss shook her head. “But now Square #7 is ours.” She activated her laser cutter.
Just before the beam touched the canvass, a clang sounded down the hall.
“Shit!” Alyssa swore, pressing herself back against the wall.
Jack grabbed his bag and hid behind a potted plant. It offered no cover beyond his suit’s capabilities, but at least he’d be out of the way if someone approached.
“Don’t move,” Alyssa whispered to the team once everyone had found a place to hide out.
Another clang reverberated down the hall, followed by the indistinct voices of two men.
“I told you it was purple!” one said, accompanied by hurried footsteps approaching the Little Princess II’s crew.
“Well, the replacement we have is green,” the other replied.
“Our entire plan is shot!” the first man groaned.
The two men came into view. The one who’d just spoken was in his late-thirties and reasonably handsome in a rugged sort of way, while the other was slightly older and had the bent posture of an individual who was accustomed to being repeatedly humiliated.
“I’m sorry,” the second man muttered.
The first glared at him. “Go get the rest of our kit. Maybe we can—”
The laser cutter dropped from Triss’ hand.
“Who’s there?!” the younger man demanded. He zeroed in on Triss’ position, pointing to his eye. “I see that stealth suit. All four of you.”
It was then that Jack noticed the iris of his right eye was gleaming silver—a proper cybernetic eye, unlike the hack job Jack had in his own head.
“Do we fight him?” Finn asked.
“No,” Triss and Alyssa replied simultaneously.
“I know him,” Triss continued. “This is Trent.”
CHAPTER 6: Tenuous Alliances
— — —
Jack stared at the strange man standing in the hall across from him. “The same Trent as ex-boyfriend Trent?” he asked into the comm within his stealth suit.
“The very one,” Triss replied, then slipped the mask of her stealth suit from her face and touched the controls on her wrist. The rest of the suit’s fabric returned to its shiny metallic finish.
“The hell…?” Trent inhaled sharply.
“Trust me, I’m as su
rprised to see you here,” Triss said.
“Is that one of my stealth suits?”
“Your suits? I was the one who stole them!”
“On my orders.”
Triss crossed her arms. “You weren’t my boss then or ever. We were colleagues.”
Trent scoffed. “And it’s a wonder that partnership didn’t work out.”
“Shocking.” Triss rolled her eyes. “At least I fared better than Kayla.”
“You never stabbed me in the back—literally.” He paused. “Actually, it was figuratively. Laser pistol, but she did shoot me in my back.”
“I can see how that would cause a rift in your relationship.”
“Slightly.” Trent held his thumb and index finger half a centimeter apart.
Triss looked him over. “What are you doing here?”
Trent’s eyes narrowed. “Stealing some jewelry.”
“Oh. We’re stealing the artwork,” Triss revealed.
“Huh.” He nodded. “I guess Vincent’s going to have a bad day tomorrow.”
“It would seem that way.” Triss paused. “Why wouldn’t you take the stealth suits for yourself, if you were breaking in here?”
“Wasn’t a necessary part of the plan. Easier this way.” He looked around the hall at the others. “Who’s with you?”
Alyssa removed her hood and gestured for Jack and Finn to do the same. “Hello, Trent,” she said.
“Alyssa? Didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
“That makes two of us.”
Triss took a slow breath. “This isn’t a reunion. It sounds like we’re both here for different things, so we should get back to it.”
“Not sure I get the art angle,” Trent said.
“You wouldn’t,” Triss said with a prim smile.
“How are you getting the art out with the stealth suits, though?” Trent asked.
“Stealth bags, of course. But we also have the cameras on a loop.”
His face paled. “We already set up a loop.”
Triss and Alyssa exchanged glances. “What happens when two sets of nanobots try to do the same thing?”
“They’ll fight each other,” Trent replied. “It’ll work at first, but eventually one will seek dominance and the system will glitch.”
Triss checked the time on her wrist. “How long will that take?”
“Maybe twenty minutes?” Trent guessed. “I have no idea for sure.”
“If that’s the case, time’s almost up.”
“Shit!” He glanced back in the direction he’d come from. “Then the guards could be here at any moment. I guess a decoy gem doesn’t really matter.”
His companion looked slightly vindicated.
“No, that doesn’t get you off the hook, Larry,” Trent told him.
Larry scowled.
“We’d counted on at least an hour here,” Alyssa said. “Aren’t there four more paintings?”
Triss nodded.
“I have another safe to crack, then one more stop. I’ll never have time.” Trent groaned.
Finn lit up. “Safe cracking, you say?”
Triss glanced between the two of them. “This may be a terrible idea, but should we team up? Finn can help you get the safe open in record time, Trent, and the four of us can break into two teams to get the remaining paintings.”
Trent and Larry shrugged. “May as well,” Trent agreed.
Alyssa shot Triss a worried look but said nothing.
“Let’s move.” Triss motioned for Larry to follow her. “Alyssa, you and Jack grab the two in the bedroom. We’ll meet back here in ten minutes.”
“Can we cut them out that fast?” Alyssa asked.
“There’s a higher setting. Won’t be as neat, but it’ll get the job done.”
Alyssa nodded. “See you back here.” She restored the hood of her stealth suit.
Jack did the same. If the cameras might stop looping without warning, they needed to take all the precautions they could.
When they were away from the others, Jack switched his suit’s comm to a private channel with just Alyssa. “So, what’s the deal with this Trent guy?”
“He’s a jackass.”
“Really?” Jack shook his head. “Word choice.”
“Fine, and asshat.”
“Better.” He nodded. “Then why are we partnering with him?”
“Because if we pretend to play nice, at least we can delay him trying to double-cross us,” Alyssa explained.
“That means that Kayla…”
“Probably had a damn good reason for shooting him in the back.”
“And we can expect him to turn on us?” Jack asked.
“Almost certainly.”
“What’s that history with him and Triss? When he was mentioned before, I got the impression he was an associate of Svetlana’s, or something.”
Alyssa hesitated. “Not exactly. Triss and I were casually dating when we joined up with Svetlana’s crew. Trent was kind of an… occasional collaborator. He took a liking to Triss and wanted them to be a thing, she shut him down, Trent took it as a personal slight and more or less blacklisted Svetlana’s entire operation. That supply cache was the last remnant from our joint operations before he threatened to kill all of us and stormed out in a huff.”
“So, seeing him here is—”
“Really freakin’ awkward, yeah.”
Jack rubbed his hands together. “This is turning into some right proper drama!”
“You are way too excited by the prospect of running into someone who’d leave you for dead.”
“But look at us! Out doing things together, getting up to all kinds of shenanigans…”
Alyssa sighed. “We really should have let you out of your room more.”
“Let the record show you brought my reckless enthusiasm on yourself.”
“I was getting that impression.”
Jack halted when Alyssa pointed up ahead. “I think that’s the master bedroom.”
The set of double doors opened into what certainly appeared to be a chamber befitting of the manor’s lord and lady. A four-poster bed stood against the back wall, complete with a fabric treatment cascading down either side of the frame. The right wall overlooked the manicured grounds, while the left had doors into the bathroom and spacious walk-in closet.
However, the greatest showpieces in the room were a pair of paintings on the same wall as the entry door, directly across from the bed. One was of a blue blob, and the other was a red blob. Granted, those with a particularly artistic eye would certainly find profound meaning in the forms and how the background faded at the edges. But to Jack, it appeared as though a child had broken out in a tantrum in the middle of finger painting.
“And what, pray tell, are these supposed to be?” he asked Alyssa.
“The nature of feminine and masculine power in the interstellar era.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “This is all complete BS, right?”
“Oh, certainly.” She switched on her laser cutter. “Come on, we’re almost out of time.”
Jack held the loose edges taut as Alyssa worked her way around the perimeter of the first painting. When the final section of canvass came free, he began rolling the painting while Alyssa moved onto the second. He jumped in to brace the canvass for the final stretch. The fast cuts had caused some singes around the painting’s edges, but it was nothing a new frame couldn’t hide.
“There!” Alyssa declared as the painting came free. “Now let’s—”
“Is someone there?” a woman’s voice interrupted her, speaking with a thick accent.
Jack froze. “She can’t see us, right?”
“Our tools are visible, and someone is obviously holding this painting,” Alyssa replied.
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know! No one was supposed to be here.”
Jack spun around to see a young, blonde-haired woman emerge from the bathroom. She wore a plush red robe and her hair was wet, as if f
reshly showered.
“I know you’re there,” the woman said, crossing her arms. “This isn’t the meeting place.”
Jack rolled up the bottom half of his face mask to expose his mouth. “Um, hi,” he stammered
The woman’s gaze passed from the rolled-up canvass in Jack’s hands to the empty frame on the wall to the laser cutter floating in Alyssa’s cloaked hand.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” Jack blurted, then snapped his mouth shut when Alyssa slapped him on the arm.
“You’re stealing our most valuable artwork,” the robed woman stated.
“Well, maybe a little of what it looks like,” Jack admitted.
The woman scoffed. “Good riddance.”
Alyssa did a double-take, then rolled up the bottom portion of her own mask. “Wait, what?”
The robed woman fluffed her wet hair with her fingertips. “When I agreed to marry Vincent, I thought he actually cared about my interests. Turns out that his only motivation is acquiring objects—and people. You think I actually wanted to pay five million credits for a red square painted on a white background?” She scoffed. “The only painting I actually like in this whole house is a little mountain landscape by the servants’ entrance downstairs.”
“See?!” Jack glared at Alyssa.
“We didn’t say that we didn’t like it, just that it had no market value,” she replied.
Jack decided to drop the issue. “Anyway,” he turned to the blonde woman, who was apparently Merica Ordello, “you’re really okay with us taking these paintings?”
“Well, we’d agreed on just the jewels, but I don’t see the harm in adding these,” she said.
“Right, the deal…” Jack faded out.
“You know, to kidnap me and then help me fake my death,” Merica supplied.
“Uh…” Jack looked to Alyssa.
“And why do you want to do that, again?” his friend asked.
“Because Vincent is awful, and he’d never let me leave of my own accord. I arranged this jewelry theft so there’d be precedent for a kidnapping. Adding artwork into the mix is even better.”
