“You seem pretty interested in the militia.” He nods over to the police station. So he noticed.
“Yeah, I’ve been cooking for a while. I was thinking of trying something new.”
“You know what? I think we’d be lucky to have someone responsible enough to manage an entire restaurant. Wanna take a look inside? I’ll even get you an application, if you really want.” He says, offering up a plastic smile.
“Sure, couldn’t hurt, could it?” As they walk across the street, Rachel runs through all her options. She couldn’t punch and run without blowing the operation. She thinks up a million excuses that could have gotten her out of this in a socially acceptable way, but saying them now would only confirm this guy’s blatant suspicion. The only thing left to do was to play the part.
They walk past the two guards at the front door. Apparently, you don’t need to be patted down if you’re under escort. They walk up to the guy at the front desk, where Rachel is scanned with a metal detecting wand until she turns in her phone, stylus, and her headphones wrapped around the radio. She notices cameras mounted in the ceiling corners and overlooking the walkways. The brown-eyed militiaman shows her to a sea of desks out the right side of the lobby, past the elevators. He sits her down by one of the middle desks.
“I’ll go ask the captain if it’s ok to show you around right now, just wait right here.” Then he goes off to the corner office towards the back. She doesn’t have much time. He will probably pull her face from the cameras to run a background search. The tour and application will be his stalling tactic.
She looks around, noting more cameras and the familiar stench of paper and bureaucracy. There are a handful of militia scattered about the sea of desks, typing away on computers and talking on phones. Looking back into the lobby, she sees two people emerging from another hallway, running down the other side.
The sound of a car pulling up and a door slamming outside turns her attention back to the desk room. A small hallway leads to an open back room. A sign reading ‘Interview Room’ sticks out of the left side of the hallway above a door. Next to that is an unlabeled door, probably to the observation room.
She hears the grinding and clanging of metal coming from the back room, followed by Stephan, mechanical hand still in its cast, being escorted to the interview room. The two of them lock eyes before he walks in.
So, they took him straight to the prisoners.
If she hadn’t messed up, this would have gone perfectly. Now, how were they supposed to get out of here without drawing suspicion?
We can’t.
She was blown. It was only a matter of time before they figured out who she was. She needed to leave with Gail. After she was found out, they probably wouldn’t get another chance. The brown-eyed militiaman returns with a printout of the application.
“Ready to take a tour of the place?” He asks.
“I need to make a call first. Tell my employees not to expect me.”
His eyes narrow for just a split second before he breaks out a half-assed smile. “Of course, right this way.” He says cheerily.
The man at the front desk pulls out the box with her stuff in it. She sees the microphone button on her headphones is still depressed by the way she wrapped them. She pulls up her messaging app and pretends to make a call while she leans over the desk, and her radio, casually.
“Hey, it’s me. I’m touring the militia’s police station right now. I need you to run interference at the kitchen until I get back. And don’t forget to take out the trash.” She pretends to hang up and smiles at the brown-eyed militia man.
“Alright, let’s go.” She says. Everything hinged on these strangers understanding that message, if they even got it in the first place.
“Second channel.” Sal says, before switching to that channel herself.
“You hear that?” She says.
I’m surprised she didn’t call it off.
“Yeah, baby’s first heist is about to get interesting.” Curt’s voice buzzes in response.
“I’ll go ‘run interference’.”
“Trash is usually taken out the back of the building, right? So I guess I’ll reposition the van.”
“Don’t move in until those guards are dealt with.”
“Okay.”
Rachel couldn’t recall a single thing this guy said as they walked through the station. She just smiled and nodded and looked interested when it seemed appropriate. She can’t believe how badly she screwed up. Everything was going right, but she decided to sit in a restaurant right in front of the station during lunch. Of course she was going to get caught staring right at it. This was a mistake. She should never have agreed to take charge. Her sweat feels cold in the air-conditioned hallways. Her chest starts to hurt.
“Do you have a bathroom?” She asks suddenly. Interrupting her tour guide’s monologue.
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“Uh, yeah, right over here.” He leads her down a miniature hallway that bent around several doors. She goes into the woman’s restroom, makes sure she is alone, then starts taking deep breaths and splashing water on her face. Stephan was in the interview room. Sal and Curt either got her message or they didn’t. She would wait as long as she could for a distraction, but she had to assume it wouldn’t come. She needed to get to her stylus. If she took them by surprise, before people started coming back from lunch, she could fight her way to the holding cells. Hopefully Stephan would catch on when the fighting started, but she had to assume he wouldn’t. So her first stop would be Stephan. Once he was alright, they would hit the holding cells together. If they could make it that far.
She dries her face and walks back out after flushing a toilet.
“I would love to work here.” Rachel beams, “Do you mind if I go ahead and fill out the application now?”
He hands her the folded up application. “I think we have a conference room right over here.”
Again with that plastic smile.
Sal turns the corner and walks down one of the main streets, jacket tied around her waist to conceal her tool belt. The streets's alive with people and vendors selling food, clothes, and an array of useless junk. It reminded her of the flea market she went to every week as a kid back home. People made way for the occasional car, which should have known better than to take this street during the lunch hour. She also sees quite a few reflective armbands mixing with the crowds.
This’ll be fun.
She picks her way through the migrating gaggles of people, pulling out two cylindrical grenades. She waits until she finds a suitably large crowd, away from children, and close enough to the police station the next street over, before tossing the first grenade under some bystander’s feet.
The grenade erupts in a chain reaction of mock gunfire. Sending everyone screaming and scrambling in all directions. Anyone who knew what real gunshots sounded like could tell these were blanks. But taken by surprise, in the heat of the moment, it would sound the same to them. She runs with the crowd to blend in, then pulls the pin and drops the second grenade shortly after.
The renewed wave of terror brings a sadistic smile to her face.
Look at the sheep run. Imagine if I used my real flashbangs, and not these cheap toys? Not even enough to cause hearing loss.
She remembers when she was just like them, three years ago, wasting her life as an elementary school teacher. She loved the kids, but that life was a waste of her talents.
She ducks into a nearby alley and makes sure she wasn’t spotted. No pursuit. Just chaos. Larrisa was right. The crowd was small enough, and the streets wide enough, that no one trampled each other, though some people got shoved to the side and some stands spilt their guts across the sidewalk.
There were more militia running away than there were searching for an alleged gunman. She follows another crowd running through the street, toward the station. Sal ducks into another alley and makes her way around to the fence covering the back lot of the station, small set of bolt cutters in hand.
Rachel sits at a large conference table. She’s filled out the first page of the application with fake, then nonsensical, answers as the brown-eyed militiaman’s scrutiny wanes and he grows bored. She’s straight up doodling when she hears the faint sound of people screaming outside. Her heart skips a beat, and she finds herself smiling.
“Did you hear that?” The militiaman asks. She straightens her face.
“Hear what?”
The screaming grows slightly louder.
“Whats that noise?” She plays dumb. She hears another man’s voice echo down the hall. The militiaman walks up and pokes his head out the doorway. Rachel falls in silently behind him.
“Emergency on Main Street! Possible shooter! I need someone to take over the front door so I can check it out!” People are marching and running down the halls.
“Wh-” The brown-eyed militia man is cut off when Rachel wraps her arm around his neck in a blood choke, biceps and forearm squeezing the arteries, elbow aligned with the Adam’s apple, and drags him back into the conference room, the door conveniently closing behind him. He struggles and thrashes to regain his footing, but Rachel keeps dragging him back and around the conference table until he slows, then stops moving.
Rachel emerges from the room and follows the small crowd gathering in the front lobby. Some guy calls for a lockdown as Rachel silently walks behind the front desk, snagging the box with her belongings before going back to the office room. She sets the box on a nearby desk as she walks, and starts putting her things back in her pockets.
“Hey! What are you doing?” One of the people cowering at their desk yells across the room.
Rachel strides to the conference room, powering up her stylus as she makes her way down the hall. She hears several people’s feet stomp after her. She turns, and stares down the incoming group of four. They hesitate as the hallway becomes basked in that familiar pink glow and she spins the stylus in her hand. Catching it and swinging the fully formed blade out, leveling it at her entourage.
A door behind her swings open, she turns her head to see Stephan emerging from the interview room, robot hand exposed, tazer visible.
They look at each other.
Stephan steps forward and faces the crowd, pointing his robot hand at them menacingly. Rachel heads to the back room.
“Alright, everyone, be cool. Don’t move. We will be out of your hair shortly.” Stephan says.
Rachel slices through the lock of the metal bar door, and walks into a room with three large holding pens containing at least a dozen wide eyed, plain-clothed prisoners. They just look like a bunch of regular people. Not one of them had the steely gaze and bravado of a hardened criminal or veteran soldier. Not even their target, Gail.
Rachel glides straight to the back door, listening for the guards. She hears one shuffling his feet around. She swings the door open, hoping to nail the guard, but he’s too far and jumps away in surprise. Rachel moves and slices his rifle in half as he turns to level it at her.
As the guard hesitates to comprehend what just happened to his gun, she kicks him in the stomach. He doubles over and falls off the ledge.
The back gate smashes open as Curt backs the white van up to the loading dock. Rachel looks over to see Sal zip-tying the other guard in between the fence and the dock.
Rachel pops back in and starts slicing through all the prison doors.
“Lets move.” She commands the crowd.
Sal slips in and trades places with Stephan, pistol in hand.
“I’ve got room for eight. Four of you are going to have to leave on foot.” Gail calls out.
Everyone piles out the back door. Sal tosses a flash bang and runs back to the holding cells as shouts erupt from the next room, followed by an explosion that shakes the walls, a blinding flash that lights the room, and a cloud of gunpowder.
“They found their guns. We gotta go.” She says.
Rachel sees Gail is in the van before it shuts and drives off. Everyone else scrambles and disappears into the various crowds and alleys.