008 - Double Robbery
“You're sure our guy starts working around this time?” Daven said, flying over the town with no lights on to not alert their target. He was letting the ship's sensor pick up any black sedans in the area below. He didn't have much faith in the ancient sensor working at all when he turned it on, but it surprisingly began working like new.
“Looking at the history they all happened around twelve at night,” She said with a shrug. She stood next to him, holding onto his seat with a vice grip.
“You know, you don't have to insult my driving,” he said, looking down at the sensor. It had picked up two cars matching the description but they were moving away from town.
“I didn't.”
“You're holding onto my chair so hard you're wrist looks about to snap!”
The wind hit them from the side, making the aircraft tilt. Everything rattled hard and Vamil took a stumbling step but held onto the chair. “Well, maybe if you didn't drive so badly I wouldn't!”
“That was the wind!” Another car showed up on the sensor. “Wait, hold up. I got another, it's driving down 3rd Street. Is that somewhere they hit?”
“Let me see,” She said before saying, “It's around that area, yes. The last hit was on 6th and the one before that on Grenald Avenue just next to the same street.”
“Okay, we'll hover over here and see what they do,” he said, turning the sensor off and switching on the infrared camera. On the monitor, he watched as the man stopped at a small charging station and got out of the car. In his hand was a folded-up duffle bag. Daven looked at the map, the building was on 218 3rd Street, named Power Plus.
“Alright, that might be our guy, let's move in,” he said, moving the ship down to the single designated landing zone for the Power Plus. The ship touched lightly to the ground and it thanked him for the relief with several metallic groans.
“What's the plan?” Vamil asked, moving to the door.
“Um, I guess watch the guy?”
She looked at him, her face flat. “That's all you have?”
He threw his hands up. Feeling the twinge of pain in his shoulder. “What do you want me to do?”
She gave a disappointed sigh and opened the door. “Well, I guess let's go watch the guy.”
“Do you have a better plan?” he asked as the two of them stepped off the ship.
“Nope.”
Great, we're both bad at plans then.
He couldn't be entirely disappointed by that, though. He hadn't even expected Vamil to be so easy to convince to join his team, hell, he didn't even convince her. She just did. Sure, she didn't have anywhere else to go, but that didn't mean she had to partake in all of this. He thought about asking why she was going along with it all, maybe it was just a sense of repaying a debt of saving her life. Or maybe it was something more than that. Something deeper.
He didn't know nor did it matter. They were on a mission.
They made it to the entrance and Vamil stopped. “What is it?” He asked, nearly running into her. “I'm blue.”
Jesus Chist, they really were fucking terrible at plans. “Okay, well what do you want to do?”
She thought for just a moment before saying, “I have a plan of my own, I suppose.” She walked away, quickly looking her shoulder at him. “Have fun.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
That same sly smile. She was so...interesting. He looked through the glass door toward and saw the man walking through the many isles of candy and bags of chips. That cleared his head, he just had to pay attention to what this guy was doing.
He went inside and began to walk around the isles too, not the same one as he but ones next to the man. The man had a dark brown complexion, wore a large jacket, a plain white hat, and silver, round glasses.
It was strange to see glasses above ground, it was something usually fixed through surgery or implant at what amounted to little cost to people up here. But, then again, that was in the city, where the money poured in from all over. They weren't in the city, they were in a small town. A small town with a robber, surely someone welling to rob a convenience store wasn't someone with a whole lot of credits on them.
The man grabbed a bag of chips, inspecting it closely before turned, putting one eye on the bag and one on Daven. Daven looked down quickly, trying to act like he was looking at something as well. He let his eyes glaze over the plethura of candy bars, feeling a knot form in his stomach. This was their guy, he was sure of it.
He chanced another look up and saw the man not even bothering to cover it up, who was staring straight at him. Daven decided to stare back, not imposing nor kind, just staring. The man broke their staring contest and went up to the counter, pulling a metallic, black object out of his pocket. A handgun. “Give me all your money, he said, almost pleasantly to the man at the counter.
Daven walked out of the store, not knowing what else he could do. There was a 'thwunk' sound that was almost like an object stuck in a vacuum that gets suddenly sucked into it. For a split moment, he thought perhaps the man had shot the cashier with some sort of blank or something but looking through the door, he saw the cashier putting cash into the man's bag.
He walked quickly to the ship. The sound didn't matter, all that mattered was that they were right about finding the guy. Now, they could track down where he lived and...do something at that point? He wasn't quite sure on the details, details didn't matter. He was one step closer to a new recruit. Unluss he screwed it all up.
He was about to go up the stair to the ship with he took a glance back toward the ship, seeing Vamil appear off the side. Once again, she had that sly smile. “What'd you do?” he asked, getting a creeping feeling he knew exactly what she did.
She came up to him, holding out her hand. “Thought I'd get something for you,” In her hand were two small, four inch long plastic chips. “I cracked the safe in their back storage area.
With a trembling hand, he took the plastic chips out of her hand. There was a small bar code on them that read with his implant said for the first one: seven-thousand credits. The second chip read: four-thousand credits.
Eleven-thousand credits. All within a night's work.
“Come on,” He said, quickly going back inside their ship. “Let's focus on the task at hand,” He said, going to the cockpit and carefully sitting the two chips into the glovebox. The ship lifted up into the sky, rattling as it did so.
He turned to Vamil quickly, who was now sitting on the couch, her eyes closed. “Thanks, I, uh, didn't think you'd want to help me in my questionable pirating ways.”
She shrugged. “I have my own history.”
A vague answer, but he supposed he could go with vague. He nodded and looked back at the infared monitor. The man was exiting the store and then got in his car. He watched as the car slowly went out of the driveway onto the street. The car went down the street, took several turns, and then went into autodrive as it hit a small highway. They followed the car for several miles before it took an unexpected turn onto a dirt road not even on GPS. The car went down the road before then taking another turn onto undriven looking land. It went across the unkept dirt for several minutes before stopping at a small shack that was surrounded by trees. The man got out and went inside.
“Well, I guess we know where he lives. Or at least where his hide out is. That all seemed way too easy.”
“What do you mean?” Vamil asked. “We had to track down the guy with infrared.”
“Yeah, but Peace Officers are equipped with all kinds of technology to catch guys like this. This guy should've been caught way sooner than now, and especially not by two broke ass pirates.”
This was the first time he had included her in the pirating objective, and it seemed she didn't object. “Well,” She said with a shrug, “Maybe a few hands were greased.”
“Hm, maybe,” He didn't like what that entaled. Dirty Peace Officers were easy to find, but not by lone acting robbers like this guy. Unless he wasn't acting just for himself. But if he wasn't, that'd mean they'd be stepping into a whole mess of trouble down there.
Guess we'll have to take our chances. We need crew members.
“You ready to land?”
She shook her head. “In the morning. I want to sleep.”
“You slept the whole way here!”
“I was resting my eyes. Now, I'm sleeping,” She stretched out on the couch and put her head against the arm rest. He supposed he couldn't blame her, just yesterday she had killed two men. Just yesterday they were in the Underground. But he wanted so badly to get their show on the road. But there was no use, she was already fast asleep.
Begrudgingly he reclined his chair, feeling his shoulder sting as he did so. He closed his eyes and began to dream of better days.