Novels2Search
Niko and the parade of shadows
Chapter 2: Cab ride fare

Chapter 2: Cab ride fare

Easily slipping out from the hospital, Niko made her way through the city, eventually being met with a large abandoned building infront of her.

It was a fairly tall building that was probably intended to be used for office space by some company before being abandoned.

However it seems that the building was never finished, as it had several large holes in various places, with metal bars sticking out menacingly like fangs, as if threatening to bite.

The space around the building had various weeds that were starting to grow all over the place. Various building materials, metal bars, wooden planks and similiar items were scattered all around, rust and rot having already made their way through most things.

Over all, the place had a very depressing and creepy atmosphere, a perfect place to shoot a horror movie.

"Ah home sweet home"

Niko said as she took a deep breath of the slightly damp air.

"Nothing beats coming home to a warm welcome, isnt that right?"

She gave a nearby shrub a poke as a greeting and headed inside through the doorless opening in the building.

The inside of the building looked much worse than the outside, various graffiti covered the walls, with trash filling every corner of the inside space. A family of rats had decided to make this place their home, and by family, it meant close to hundreds of the little bastards.

"Geez damn kids littering on someone elses property" Niko sighed.

"Well not like i particularly care about it, aslong as they dont enter my bat cave, although it technically would be a Niko cave, nyahaha!"

Niko chuckled as she ascended down some stairs leading to the basement of the building. The door to the basement was a heavy steel door, covered in chains and locked with a combination lock. The eery look of the door kept unwelcome visitors at bay.

"This is such a pain..i should just hire a guard to keep people out, or atleast a dog, even a chihuahua would be nice"

Niko muttered as she took off the lock before wrestling the chains to the ground as if they were a particularly aggressive snake.

Behind the heavy steel door was yet another door, this one a chrome door without a handle.

Niko put her thumb on a small barely noticable space on the door. A loud beep echoed through the corridor,as Niko realised what she had done.

A hole at the top of the ceiling opened up, a large black turret peeking through it, with a laser sight making a very apparent line towards Niko's forehead.

"Oh crap, ehm..Code, password, password override!"

Niko nervously yelled at the turret as she tried to remember the password, which she usually didnt need to use.

"Uh.. Niko is better than Lupin!"

The turrets laser sight slowly faded from Niko's forehead, as the turret disappeared back into the wall.

"Phew...I forgot i wasnt in my real body right now, that could have ended badly.."

Niko braethed out as the chrome door slowly opened.

"I should be more careful..easy to forget that i'm currently in the body of this young girl...damn cheeky brat.."

Niko said as she pinched her own cheek, like an annoyed parent.

"Did i just call myself a cheeky brat... but this isnt my real body so its ok, right..?"

Niko scratched her head and shrugged, before entering through the now open chrome door.

The room inside had a fairly low temperature compared to outside . Even the walls were covered in slightly light blue metal plating as if to accentuate the cold.

An old looking brown sofa rested in the far corner of the large room, Other than the sofa however, the room was completely empty.

"WHERE'S ALL MY STUFF!"

She yelled, making her words echo in the now empty room, 'My stuff, my stuff, stuff, stuff, tuf..'.

"How ironic...i have been robbed... such bad irony.."

She cried out, before getting a thoughtfull look in her currently large and cute eyes.

"It can't be a robbery, i'm sure no one should be able to find my hideout, and the locks werent broken or anything, thats right, no one except me should be able to come in and out of here, yea, me and..and..my lawyer."

Niko scratched his head thoughtfully.

"No that cant be, he may be the scum of the earth, but he relied on his credibility, without it he has nothing... then what..."

Niko groaned in annoyance over her current predicament, before noticing something shiny underneath the sofa.

"Hm, whats this..."

Niko quickly went up to the sofa and picked up the shiny object. It was an old laptop that Niko had presumably dropped down there and never bothered to pick up, which was probably neglected by whoever robbed this place.

"Perfect, i can check if they managed to steal any of my money.."

Niko said as she started up the laptop and began typing away on it. A few minutes of frantic typing later and Niko was on her knees in shock.

"Its gone..all of it..all of my hard earned money..my hard earned millions..gone from each and every bank account from every corner of the planet..all of it..HOW!"

Niko yelled out at the injustice that had befallen her.

"No, it cant be, no one should be able to steal all that money, atleast not from every single account, thats just wierd.. The only possible reason that would happen is if.."

Niko stopped herself as a sudden realisation hit her. Her things disappearing, her money gone from all of his accounts. It was certainly something she had talked to about with her lawyer before.

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"Of course..i had arranged to have all my things sent out to a random charity when i died, i mean i certainly had no use for my money when i was dead, but i'm not dead, i'm still here, wait that cant mean.."

Niko quickly went online onto the website of the cities newspaper. There, in big black stylised letters, it read: 'ROBBER DEAD AFTER DESPERATELY TRYING TO ESCAPE FROM A 100 STORY BUILDING'.

Underneath was a photo that a journalist had taken just as they were covering the body. The face of the vitctim, although blurred, was undoubtedly his.

"This cant be...I'm...dead...?"

--

An eerie laughter echoed in a certain underground chamber, flowing through the corridors and somehow managing to squeeze outside, into the ears of some passerbys, who promptly ran away from the creepy abandoned building.

"But seriously..i'm dead..i knew it would happen eventually but i didnt think i would be there to witness it..my own death.."

Niko smiled sadly, a sad smile which made her small petite female body seem very fragile and delicate, which would make any man feel the need to comfort the small pitiful figure.

That illusion was shattered instantly as Niko stood up in sudden realisation.

"I'm here to witness it, i'm not dead, not really, i'm still me, its a shame that my body is gone with all the work i put into shaping it, but thats a small price for being alive, and now i can continue spreading my legend, the legend of the great Niko, its not like i need my old body to do that, a perfect thief is never seen, so no one would even know about me looking any different, its perfect, what was i even worried about!"

Niko blabbered quickly to herself, as her natural optimism dragged her out of her sudden despair and into a happy enthusiatisc, and even slightly excited mood.

"But all my money is still gone.."

As if hit by a hammer, her mood instantly plummeted down back into depression.

"Well i can just go visit that damn lawyer, and get my money back, and also see if he can figure out what the hell happened to me, smart thinking Niko!"

Niko spoke to herself while laughing, which would normally make anyone observing assume that she was somewhat strange. Currently however, Niko resided in the body of a cute young girl, which made her otherwise odd actions seem 'cute'.

"Now then, off to see that damn idiot of a lawyer, ah but i dont have any money to buy a train ticket or get a taxi..."

Niko muttered after she was out of the abandoned looking building and standing in the middle of a fairly busy street a good few meters away from the space around the building.

"Ah excuse me mister, could i borrow your phone real quick, i dropped mine and really need to call home"

Niko called out whilst approaching a fairly young looking man wearing a business suit, most likely a newly hired office worker or some such, Niko figured.

"Come on, i really need to get home or else my parents are going to be angry, it would mean alot of you just lent me your phone for a second~"

Niko continued in a slightly cheeky voice, which made the man blush slightly and agree while quickly fumbling around for his phone.

"Thanks i'm gonna be quick i promise~"

Niko quickly grabbed the fairly compact smartphone, quickly pressing a few buttons as if dialing a number, before putting it up to her left ear, so the man couldnt see it.

"Ah yes, hello, yea it's me-"

Niko pretended to be talking while her fingers which were holding the phone swiftly clicked away at the screen with Niko only occasionaly giving the phone a glance when the man wasnt looking.

"Ok here you go, thank you for lending it to me, bye bye"

Niko quickly returned the phone and walked off towards a bank office.

"Hehehe...too easy.."

Niko smiled as she entered the bank office and talked to one of the employees about how she had lost her bank card, and was looking to get a new one, which she got after a few questions and confirmations.

Niko spun the card around in her hand as she walked out, the card was connected to one of her spare bank accounts that she had created just incase, for keeping money to be later moved. It was empty of course, like the rest of her accounts, but as of 10 minutes ago, it had a fairly large sum of money on it.

Niko didnt specialise in computer hacking and she disliked acquiring money that way, she considered it boring and uninspired. During her younger years, however, she usually had to resort to such petty methods, such as acquiring bank info from someones computer after sneaking into their house.

Nowadays however it was much easier, due to everyone having a small personal computer on their person at all times, all she had to do was get a hold of someones phone for a few minutes, and all their accounts were mysteriously emptied to a strange bank account, which upon contacting the bank company in order to cancel out the transfer, find out that its too late and that the money had already been transfered to yet another account and that the previous account had been deleted.

"Too easy, too boring, well not like i plan to do this stuff for a living again"

Niko spoke to herself as she looked at her new card, luckily none of her bank accounts were connected to any specific person, so she could easily get her bank card by just pretending that it was some kind of problem on their end for deleting her personal information.

Niko quickly waved a cab over and paid with her new card. Normally she would transfer the money over to another account and so on to avoid having the money being tracked and retrieved, but right now she didnt particularly care as the bank card and money she just acquired were simply for paying her cab ride. Completely disposable.