3.6

“First attempted heist, final notes;

Could have gone better.”

— Vincent Hall, Encoded Notebook; Section 8, page 39

The hiss of a spray can is harsh against the almost-silence of the city, bouncing around and reflecting back in on the small alley where I swing the canister around madly at a small backing of cardboard.

My old suit lays on top, equipment and all. Separated out, of course, nothing’s gonna stick if I can help it. Still, minimal effort.

I swing the spray can again, carving another bright red streak across the formerly glossy black uniform.

Ugh. It’s exhausting, it’s annoying, and it has to be done in an hour because someone couldn’t be bothered to tell me we were doing anything important today; ‘oh by the way, what are you gonna wear?’ Seriously?

God. It’s been like three days, and I’m already robbing a bank.

The red spray paint coats on thick enough to dribble down, leaving smaller trails of crimson along the suit. I toss the can and pull out a darker shade.

I already emptied the thing’s pockets. Vincent’s notebook, a number of calorie bars that I intend to save, and the mask.

The scuffed, broken thing I used way back then. It rests off to the side now, far enough away that I won’t get paint on it.

I considered replacing it.

Not happening. I’m lucky I got out with any kind of keepsake at all.

The darker shade gets layered on top of the lighter one, no attention paid to the creases or gaps left in between, where the red cuts off, giving way to a stark black. The dark red blends in nicely.

It looks a little like blood.

I toss away the can, grab the suit and shake it out a little. The paint drips, flakes and crinkles in between the compound fabrics. The thing is less decorated, or painted and more completely ruined. The only part still intact might be the structural integrity — it’ll stop a knife. Or a bullet.

Perfect.

I scoop up the suit, the belts, pockets, tonfas, and my mask, and head back to the shack

—

Chloe whistles as I step out from the shack, fully armed and mask hanging at my hip.

“Wow. That’s some high-tech shit you got going on, there. Is that a flexible carbon-fiber compound?” She asks, and I have to bat her hand away while she starts trying to poke the fabric over my midriff.

“I have no idea. Doesn’t seem to help as much against blunt force trauma as I’d like.”

“It wouldn’t,” she agrees. “That’s what the plating is for, right? It’s still a fabric, no structural integrity. Should help prevent shrapnel from projectiles, and it’s usually perfect against cutting implements…”

I trace my hand over the scuff marks closer to my hip.

Back at the raid, the one targeting Vincent… I got shot then, and I didn’t bother to analyze the wound, but…

The resulting tear is minimal. It looks like the bullet just barely punctured the suit, going far enough to rupture skin and draw blood apparently, but not far enough to do any lasting damage.

“Huh.”

“Alright, enough gawking. C’mon, we’re taking —“

“Stop. If you tell me we’re taking that fucking monstrosity you have in the back alley, I am running away,” I state.

Chloe smiles.

I am not fast enough.

—

“Ha haha!!” Chloe shouts, taking a turn sharp enough to grind the vehicle’s tires against the pavement and spit up enough smoke to cloud our vision.

“Yes! I missed this!” She declares, taking a hand off the wheel in order to wave it around and immediately making my heart drop in response.

“Hands on the wheel!” I counter, desperately gripping the feeble railings on either side.

She doesn’t. Instead, she laughs maniacally and makes another hilariously dangerous turn.

The tires screech, the metal chassis shrieks, and I can barely hear myself think over the sound of Chloe’s clockwork vehicle emitting harsh clangs and sharp ticks every second.

It’s built more like a small go-cart than a proper vehicle, and from what I can tell it’s powered by an enormous spring bank strapped to the back of it, topped with a cartoonishly over-sized toy crank.

Upon hearing my request, she’d dragged me behind the shack, ordered me to turn the thing two full rotations, dumped me in the back seat and taken off.

I still have no idea what the plan is, actually.

“Hey!” I shout. “What’s the plan?! You didn’t tell me!”

“Oh yeah!” Encouraging. “It’s nothing special! The bank we’re going to — it’s at the edge of downtown! Low payout, low security! They practically expect it to be robbed!”

“Only issue is, of course,” she shouts, swerving past an oncoming vehicle, “that they expect it to be robbed! Last time I checked, there was a standard-issue Brightheart alarm installed on the desk! We’re gonna get in, then make a beeline for the button!”

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Sounds more than a little risky. “What happens if we don’t make it in time?!” I call out over the cacophony.

“Then we’ll have five minutes before a Brightheart Association hero arrives at our location!” Another harsh drift around a corner and through an intersection. I thank whatever god is up there that traffic is so sparse today.

“How confident are you that you can take on, say, Splash Zone?!” Chloe asks, turning around to look at me quizzically.

I’m sure my eyes must be bugging out of my skull. “Eyes on the road!”

I can’t tell over the noise, but I think she snorts. Mercifully, she turns back around.

“Well?!”

I pause. Splash Zone… conditional hydrokinesis, average track record… usually seen dealing with small scale petty theft and optics tasks. I think.

“…We could probably take him!”

She nods. “Good! How about Lancer?!”

I scowl. He was at the riot. Some kind of remote-case super dealing in sporadic instances of extremely effective weapons tech.

“Probably not!”

Chloe tilts her head. “Stellara!”

I begin staring holes through the back of her head. “Are you fucking with me?!”

She laughs. “We’re coming up on the bank now! Just follow my lead and we’ll be fine!”

The vehicle seems to speed up as a large commercial building bordered in bright red and proudly displaying the bank’s logo up top comes into view.

Chloe waits until the last second to wrench the wheel sideways, sending the vehicle skidding across the parking lot and screeching to a halt next to the front door.

I let out a wheeze.

Chloe steps out of the car and slings her bolt gun over her shoulder, and I scramble to follow, slipping my mask over my face.

The suffocating feeling is almost nostalgic.

Chloe strides confidently, ignoring the panicked looks she’s being shot through the glass doors. She walks right up to the entrance, raises a steel-toed boot, and lashes out.

Both of her boots are clad in some kind of rusty iron contraption, one that extends violently as she kicks forward, bending the metal doorframe and shattering glass.

People scream and start running for the exit, and a number of guards struggle to draw their weapons.

Four of them, at first glance. Chloe has no armor.

I break into a run, boots hitting the tiled floor with heavy thunks until I manage to slide into place in front of her.

The guard closest to us finally manages to level his gun and fire off a desperate shot. The crack echoes, my ears ring, and the bullet ricochets off my chest-plate, jerking my shoulder back.

Chloe barks out a laugh. “My knight in black leather armor!” She drops into a crouch, hefting her bolt gun and firing off a shot.

The bolt expands in mid-air, tackling the guard in a tangle of steel cables.

She lowers the bolt gun, changes targets, and refocuses.

Bang. Another bolt wooshes through the air, small strips of metal along the sides flying outwards as it leaves the barrel and deploying another large net of cables.

At this point, the remaining two — no, three, I’d miscounted the first time — guards are starting to get the message, and I still need to keep the fire off of Chloe.

I lean forward and start another sprint towards the guard near the center of the lobby.

My gambit pays off.

Her eyes widen, and she raises her weapon. I hear two shots, one glancing off my left shoulder plate, the other grazing my thigh. No one’s aiming at Chloe anymore.

I just barely manage not to stumble from the impacts, and the instant I close in on that first guard I snatch the gun from her hands and kick her in the chest.

She goes down, and I turn just in time to watch another net bolt clobber the guard farthest from me.

The last guard starts visibly trembling as I advance. “Fuck, man,” he mutters.

I pause. Can’t I just…?

“Drop the gun and we’re cool,” I order.

He grits his teeth. “No can do, kid.” He grips his weapon and aims it in my direction.

I tilt my head. “Why not?”

“Bank policy. Sorry.” And then he fires.

Or tries to, at least. Right as his muscles tense and his arms jerk into motion, an expanded net bolt captures his arms, tangling them around and sending him spinning to the tiled floor.

Chloe follows up quickly breaking into a dead sprint towards the counter and the cowering bank teller.

“C’mon, Red! Alarm, remember?!”

I curse, and follow her over.

She immediately vaults over the counter-top, shoving aside the teller and crouching down to look at something under the desk.

“Dammit,” Chloe mutters, dragging a hand down her face while I stare down from over the desktop.

“Too late?”

“Yeah,” she says, jumping up and jogging towards a door in the back. “Follow me, we’ve got five minutes to crack the safes and get out of here.”

She stops to slam the but of her gun against the door’s handle, snapping it and swinging the door open. I quickly follow her into a room lined with polished lock-boxes, built into the walls.

I snort to myself. What, no giant vault door?

Hearing Chloe digging through her pockets, I turn to her. “So. What now?”

She pulls out a crowbar — not a full-sized one, more like something that’s been cut in half for ease-of-transport — and hands it to me. “Start cracking safes, I’ll pull out the valuables.”

“Ah. How many?”

“Until I say stop,” she grins. I roll my eyes, grip the crowbar in both hands and jam it forcefully into the nearest gap in lock-boxes.

The metal crumples, and the tool pierces easily. Experimentally, I yank downwards on the bar, tearing out the metal tray and letting it hit the carpeted flooring with a thunk.

Chloe snatches up the tray and starts picking through the contents. “Great! Just about two hundred more in here to go!”

I groan, and pry open another box.

From what I can tell by idle glances, most of this stuff is documents, and stuff. Only occasionally will we come across a hefty amount of cash.

Guess it’s a good thing we can comb through these so quickly.

As I’m wrenching apart flimsy metal cases, a thought crosses my mind.

“That guard, back there. Said something about bank policy?”

“Oh, when he was trying to shoot you?” Chloe asks, sifting through a particularly dense case. “Yeah, they’re required to put up a certain amount of resistance. Still, once you put them down, they’ll stay down. Perks of the contract, I guess,” she snorts.

“They’d risk their life for a security guard job?”

“Jobs aren’t easy to get, and if you break the contract you get blacklisted.” She shrugs. “S’just how it is. C’mon, I think we got enough.”

Chloe seals her pockets, kicks aside some stray boxes and marches out into the lobby.

And then she stops. I peek around her to try and see what’s going on.

A man stands in the center of the lobby, seemingly analyzing the scene. He’s wearing an almost skintight yellow suit, wrapped in stark black stripes and only revealing the slightest hint of armoring under the bright patterns. The suit rises into a full cowl, adorned by a pair of futuristic rounded goggles resting over his eyes.

His head snaps around to stare at us as soon as we exit the room.

“Damn,” Chloe mutters. “That was not five minutes.”