Who do you think you’re talking to?
Michael had the door to the balcony slid open and the noise of downtown droned up twenty stories. He could see the highway through the glass balustrade, a strip of silver concrete winding through a mass of black and scattered streetlight. Celeste was sitting outside curled up under a cardigan in a woven deck chair, hot toddy in hand, the small fire pit crackling with blue fame. They smiled at each other and he went back to work.
Sitting on the bed with a laptop on his thighs, he was at war. EP had gotten into the distribution center’s systems, and every other network of any importance for miles. He skimmed the layouts, the blueprints, the spreadsheets and tables. Reaching out, he pushed here and there. He guided Philip in his trailer down a route his Self had used to avoid the police, helped EP get access to the more upper echelon systems, sent her leaked software it was a crime to even know about, but most importantly, he looked for the telltale signs of Hardworlders.
He started on the cops, the ones on leave from the first shooting, who had turned up at the admin building during the second. Phone calls, GPS pings, credit and debit card purchases, all stopped a few hours ago. Taken under the wing of some more experienced operators. From one phone number, he found a whole nest of them. Ex-military, underground connections, protected assets of law enforcement. Their lives the past few days followed a familiar pattern.
The drop, the sharp shift between the Self’s life, and the life they started to live after a Hardworlder took up residence, was easy to spot, clear as day, three days ago. It was marked by silence. No more phone calls to friends, Instagram stories with their training companies or tactical gear contracts, or replies to tagged posts. The rage-tinged paranoia of their underworld associates, triggered by their sudden absence, came through in frantic texts and calls.
But the best Hardworlders were near invisible, and Michael had to look for other signs, things too subtle for EP to pick up on, at least not yet, but that for Michael felt like waking up at a friend’s house and sensing them moving around in the next room, comfortable, the way they could only be in their own home.
The hospitalization of a few pilots had left the local police with only one chopper fielded, and its uptime was cut in half. A warehouse fire, barely reported on, its contents suspiciously absent from the news reports. Ransomware attack at a bank a few weeks ago. And other things that could easily be normal happenstance, but for Michael screamed activity by higher level Hardworlders, which were now surely reinforced with other splinter units.
With a general idea of the kind of fighters the team would be facing once the location of the Coin reached the buzz, Michael started setting up a plan of action, coordinating with Philip for specific weapons, with EP for more detailed and up-to-date photos of the DC (employee social media posts, camera feeds, etc), ran through it over and over, casting himself as each member of the team, and as the enemy, from door kicker to gun runner, spotting moves and counter moves. It made him want to be there, gun in hand, but he kept himself from reminiscing about his own warehouse shootouts, if only just barely.
“Hey, have you seen this?” EP sent him a screen cap on the messenger. She had multiple monitors pulled up in different windows. Luke’s self’s cell phone home screen, Celeste’s smart TV in her apartment, two of the computer screens at Cooper’s work, the lock screen of a computer in the homicide unit. They all showed the same thing. A message, typed in a blocky sans serif, white on a black background:
“Call us about the coin: 1-800-376-7688”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“I checked the line. It’s bounced around pretty good. Tried calling it. Lady comes on, asks for a name, clicks off. What do you think?”
“I’m calling it now. Try and get a fix on the voice.” Michael took out his phone and dialed the number. A woman answered.
“Dreamland, can I get a name?”
“No.” Michael waited. After a moment, the woman chuckled.
“One second.” A few beeps, then a man answered.
“Well, it’s been quite the cluster fuck, but there’s no accounting for decision making in this business. I must say you’ve handled it quite well.”
“Mhm.” Michael pulled a gummy worm out of the bag in his pocket. It was the last one.
“There were about five other teams on this one, if you can believe it, and yours is the last one standing. You really should be proud.”
Michael popped the worm in his mouth and exhaled into the phone. The man on the other end pretended not to hear.
“To get right to it, I want to make a deal with you, save us both some trouble.”
“I’m not in any trouble.” Teeth smacked on sugared gelatin.
“Oh yes you are. Look, I can tell you’re a veteran. What you’ve managed to do with the manpower at your disposal is impressive to say the least.”
God, Michael missed the old days. Back then, if you got the other side's number, it was nothing but prank calls and “If you can manage to so much as graze one of my guys, I’ll buy you a round in the Allclub.”
Now here he was, listening to the most corporate Hardworlder he had ever heard, if he could even be called that.
“However,” the guy continued as Michael smacked. “This job is beyond you now. It’s nothing against you. To be honest, it’s a shame they drug you into this. The idea, I believe, was to hire a bunch of lower-rung outfits, no offense, and get it back without attracting too much attention from the big players. Have you all eat each other alive and muddle the story at the same time. But word got around, and here I am.”
“Gee. Guess you’re like a big shot, huh?”
There was a pause, then a scoff.
“Don’t be childish. I might as well tell you, I’m with GSK.”
Michael smiled but quickly wiped it away so it wouldn’t come through in his voice. Instead, he did his best to inject his words with an awed respect.
“All right. So what’s that deal?”
“Thought that would get your attention. Here it is. You tell us where he stashed the coin, we collect it, and you get half the payout. No more pointless shootouts. No more collateral. You’re a realitist, aren’t you?”
Michael said nothing, but he continued anyway.
“We can tell from your work. Very clean. I’m sympathetic myself. Unfortunately, my associates don’t feel the same. Solipsists, all of them.” He affected a tired tone, as if confiding a secret pain to an ally of the faith. Michael opened his Dr. Pepper with a hiss.
“Gonna get pretty messy then, if I don’t play ball?”
“That’s a fair assumption. On the other hand, being the last team standing is a fine accomplishment. Your reputation will already far exceed your status.”
“Are we the last team standing?”
A pause. Celeste moved inside during the silence and loaded more ice into the shaker.
“As close as you can be. As close as you’re going to get.”
“So, the deal is, we give up, and as a reward, we get half of what we’ve already got?”
“You’ve gotten nothing. You think you’re getting paid for shooting some methhead with his back to you? Every operator on the job will claim they did it, and who’s to say? As for the coin, you’ll never even see it.”
“Well, everyone’s entitled to their opinion.”
Ice clinked in Celeste’s glass and she shifted her weight spectacularly.
“Suit yourself. If you change your mind, call us back, but be warned, the offer evaporates the moment the first shot is fired. And after that, your people will die.” The call ended. The timer on the screen flashed 02:28.
“You get any kind of a trace?”
“Nope.”
“All right. Let me know if his voice comes up on the buzz.”
“Ok. Did you see my alert?”
Michael tabbed over to it. Philip's safehouses and the homes of many of his underground connections had been raided. FBI swarming Coopers POE. Highlighted emails about anonymous tips and informant testimonies.
Little late in the game boys. It’s getting close to high noon.
“Cute,” he said. EP beeped off.
He smiled and tried to enjoy it. That greasy sack of shit had no idea who he was talking to, and his men had no idea who they were fucking with.
But, as his thoughts returned to the team, his team, speeding towards a sheet metal death trap, a voice in the back of his head reminded him,
Now that was an awfully long time ago, wasn’t it?