Spirit,
how long has it been? Six years? It hasn't changed at all.
The
Nobles' Quarter dome was exactly the same: the same white stone
shops, the same blue “sky” made of paint and clever lighting
tricks, the same clean clear air scented only by the flowers lining
each avenue. She could see the edges of the illusion now – the
carefully-concealed security cameras at every corner, the spots of
the ceiling where the paint was beginning to fade. But it was still
so easy to ignore
them, to slip into a state where you felt you were wandering beneath
the open sky.
The
stolen carryall pulled up in front of the bank. The architects had
built it to look like a fortress from the Long Night, with
crenellations atop the stone walls and thick steel doors to seal shut
in an emergency. They'd have done better to actually make
it a fortress. She heard a
click from her earpiece – the signal that the dome's security
cameras had been disabled – and she jumped out of the carryall.
Half a dozen others piled out of the back, all wearing airmasks that
covered their faces, all carrying spray cans and automatic rifles.
Two stood guard at the entrance while Mara and the other four ran in.
Mara started to count under her breath – one one
thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand
–
The
lobby was almost deserted, just a handful of customers. A manager
looked up from his desk - “can I help you” - Mara screaming
“Everybody on the floor NOW!”,
the rifle at her shoulder – cracks of gunfire as Ger and Pel fired
into the ceiling, two others spreading out to spray the security
cameras, where's the guards, guards, one getting on the floor, the
other –
She
pulled the trigger twice, blam blam,
and the guard dropped, head covered in blood, a pistol sliding out of
her hands. Ger grabbed the gun, Fir taking the weapon from the
other. She checked; the cameras in the lobby were covered. She
turned to the manager, her rifle aimed straight between his eyes.
“Vault, now!” He
didn't argue. Fifteen one thousand, sixteen
one-thousand...
They
left Pel and Fir in the lobby to tie up the customers and bank
workers, genuine police cuff-ties, accept no substitutes. Mara and
the others headed down the corridor in the back, spraying as they
went, her rifle in his back to keep him from dawdling. The vault
lay at the very end, for those special customers who had
reason to deal in actual solid gold rather then numbers in computers.
One lock to get into the anteroom, the manager almost fumbling his
keys in fright, then the biometric scanners on the vault door.
Sixty-nine one thousand, seventy one thousand, and the vault
door beeped and hissed and popped open, sliding to the side to reveal
14 kilos of gold bars and 59 kilos of silver, looking dreadfully
small to be worth a man's life. Into the backpacks they went, and
then out to the lobby. Ger laughed – “Pleasure to do business
with you,” he said to the manager, and Mara glared at him through
the goggles of her mask.
Then
they were out, back to the carryall, six seconds shy of two minutes
after they'd entered. They moved slow, heading for the closed-up
tunnel they'd used to get into the Nobles' Quarter, a construction
access shaft from when they'd first built it, still covered in
graffiti from four centuries past, and completely missing from the
official maps. The alarm sirens started to blare just as they
closed and relocked the gate to the tunnel.
“Well
done, lads,” Mara said as they sped down the tunnel back to the
maintenance level under Hive Four. A few friendly nods from the
others, looking shell-shocked now that the adrenaline of the heist
was leaving them.
Fourteen
and fifty-nine, just as their informant had said. When they reached
the Hive they'd hide it at one of the safehouses in the bowels, wait
for a few weeks for the heat to die down, then smuggle half of it out
to Ermon in the Wastes, then from there to their contact in Bloc
intelligence to buy guns and explosives and blank memory sticks.
And
the other half... The other half had a different purpose.
I
promise you, MuniPrin, we'll get you out.
No comments:
Post a Comment