Finally, it was time to act. A switch turned on inside Poison, pulling her mind from inactivity into focus. Orion took a deep, silent breath beside her, and turned his head. Poison locked eyes with him firmly and nodded. They were ready. Orion released his breath and returned the nod.
No going back now. Poison felt excitement rising in her chest, the promise of exercising and testing her limits.
Orion twisted the ring on his finger for a check-up. She could feel his muscles shifting where his arm touched hers.
Immediately, Lilly’s voice perked up in her ear.
‘Hey there.’
Orion twisted the ring again to signify he had not made a mistake, and they were not in danger, but ready for their plan to continue. Amazing how much information could be transferred with good enough coding.
‘Wonderful. The guards are calmed down, there’s nobody watching the roof, and there are no drones. You can speak freely.’
‘Okay,’ Poison whispered. ‘Any open windows?’
‘Conveniently, yes. Two of them. It’s a warm enough night. One is on the front, way too dangerous, the other is on one of the sides. There’s guards below, though, so you’ll have to be very quiet.’
‘Where’s the window?’
‘Your feet are pointing at it. There are lights on inside, so beware your shadows. Take care nobody is walking by when you slip in, and don’t hang outside for too long. Your outlines will be well visible from below. If one of those guys looks up, we’re done for. Good luck.’
Orion rolled away from her and was gone the next moment, the tarp settling slowly to take up his place. Poison waited for a moment and then mirrored his movement while he held on to his end so she wouldn’t get tangled in the material. They left the tarp there, lying flat and mostly even. Maybe they would need it again. If not, they might get a chance to recover it later. And if that failed too, well, it had been cheap.
Save for the strange ventilation outlet in the centre, the roof was flat, naked stone. It dropped away abruptly into the walls on either side, no surrounding wall or railing. A quick glance over the edge and down. They were at the side of the building, with the front all the way to their left. To the right was their escape route, and the post where Greg the Guard had been. Just below the line of windows running the entire length, lights shone down onto a narrow strip of earth. A path, of sorts, around the building. The lights were spaced evenly, ensuring there were no shadowy spots.
A few paces along the path, to their left, a guard patrol stood smoking and talking among themselves. They kept glancing around idly every now and then, bored but vigilant.
Poison brought out the small dentist’s mirror she kept in her pocket. She extended the telescope handle to full length and slipped it over the edge, down towards the nearest window, focusing on the open one. It gave her a limited field of vision into the structure.
Metal walkway. One guard that she could spot. No places to hide. But there had to be a way down to the floor. The roof wasn’t accessible, and the guard on the walkway had to get down somehow. A ladder inside, then. No signs of one in her field of vision, but there might be one on their side, maybe towards the front of the building.
The guard walked the length of the U-shaped walkway, then turned and walked back along the same path, pausing slightly whenever he reached one end and had to retrace. He glanced down towards the floor level every now and then.
Poison made a signal for Orion to show him the guard’s patrol length. They waited until he had passed them by and was walking away from the window. Poison retracted her mirror and drew her favourite Hook. I looked a bit like a small crossbow. She took careful aim through the window and fired hanging upside down. The length of steel silk shot across the building and hit the wall above a window opposite them. The Latch caught on the stone and stuck, sending a sub-audible whirr through the steel silk and back to Poison to signal it was done.
With Orion’s help and only due to a lot of back muscle workouts, Poison pulled herself back up onto the roof, drawing the steel silk line tight. They held their breaths for a few seconds, waiting. Maybe the guard on the walkway had heard or seen something, or maybe he would spot the line. They waited, and nothing happened. Poison checked the situation inside with her mirror, and everything was fine.
She nodded at Orion and he handed her a small orb. It was a hollow, transparent case with a weighted camera inside. It would always roll and orient so the lens was down. Orion pulled out one of his newer toys, not unlike a zip-line’s trolley. It had a motor and small wheels and another Latch that he connected to the orb. The wheels clamped around the steel silk without problem. Poison relaxed the line far enough that the orb could slide down and around the corner, into the building, and then pulled it taut again.
‘Got that pretty eye all set up, I see. Moving it now.’, Lilly spoke up. He could control the trolley motor remotely and move the orb along the line to get a look at the inside of the warehouse.
Poison could feel the vibrations in her hand, from the wheels working their way along the steel silk. Just a faint tremor.
They hadn’t been noticed, it seemed, or Lilly would have warned them. The quick lean and shoot had gone unwitnessed from the guards on the path below. It would have been colossal bad luck to have one of them look up in the second Poison had been visible.
‘I spy, with my little eye, …’, Lilly murmured in her ear, ‘some strange shit. Crates, moving patrols, strange contraption in the middle of the space, blocking most of my view. No idea what’s at the front. I assume you saw the guard on the walkway. Ooh, there’s a treat! A desk full of papers. Looks important, too. Lemme see what I can read from here.’
Silence. Poison spent the moments of waiting with her muscles comfortably tense, holding the line taut and keeping an ear out for anything gone wrong. Orion was just as vigilant beside her, his eyes never quite resting on anything. She missed this, going out and just making trouble, not just listening for scraps on something that might relate to something else that might involve Michael. That’s how close they were to finding him, and how far-fetched the hints were they chased.
This was the way she liked their work. Crouching on a roof somewhere, looking out for guards, breaking in through a window. Not thinking about how the outcome of the job related to everything else. She almost shuddered with excitement, but of course she didn’t actually move. She needed to keep still.
‘Okey-doke,’ Lilly muttered in her ear. ‘I caught some of it, but the pages overlap, and it’s not much of anything yet. Take a look at what’s at the front, and we’ll see if we can get our hands on anything solid once you’re inside.’
Poison was torn between disappointment and excitement. Going inside would be dangerous, and they didn’t have any guarantee that there would be anything worthwhile here. But that was the thrill, wasn’t it? Going in without knowing what you might gain. Seeking the rush of avoiding danger. If she’d wanted a safe job without risks, she wouldn’t have become a thief. Well, she might have anyway, but still. She loved the risk.
She knew Orion did, too, from the way his lips quirked up at one corner. He was enjoying this.
Lilly navigated the orb back towards them along the steel silk line and Orion unclipped it. Poison released the Latch on the other side of the building with a button on her Hook and the line retracted on its own, whirring as it drew itself in. It was quick enough that the Latch didn’t fall and drag the line down, and soon Poison had the spooled line in her hands.
They timed their entrance, once again using Poison’s small mirror. When the guard was turned away, she made a signal and they climbed over the edge of the roof.
Poison let Orion go first, watching as he clung to the edge and took extra care not to let his feet hit the windowpane. He found the lower ledge of the open window and shifted one hand to the upper ledge, gripping the frame.
The windows were large, easily as tall as Orion himself, and hinged halfway up their sides. The lower half tipped outside, the upper inside, to keep any rain out. Orion was perched next to the window, bending his body to keep his grip. He ducked and pulled himself through the lower gap, wobbling for a moment. But then Poison heard the soft thump of his landing inside, and he took off down the walkway, towards the front of the building.
Poison opted to take a different approach. She checked again that the guards below were busy talking, held onto the frame with both hands, and drew her knees in. With a controlled twist of her body, she slid through the upper gap, feet first. She could feel the muscles in her sides work, twisting her around, turning her body along its full length. Poison felt like a cat stretching in the sun. Her body folded around to avoid the windowpane’s edge and she landed on the walkway, scooting to the side.
Orion shot her a quick grin and mouthed a quick “nice work” that could be anywhere between praise and jealousy. She felt a spike of pride.
‘Guards outside are not agitated. Seems like you went unnoticed.’
Good. It would be a shame to get found out now, especially since it would probably earn them a few bullets before they could get away.
The guard on the walkway was opposite them, at the front, just now doing his little pause and turning around. Not much time. If he looked over, he would notice them, exposed as they were. They were in the shadows, but that could only conceal them so much. She tugged on Orion’s shirt and pointed. They sped up, towards an opening in the walkway ahead, almost all the way to where the metal grid met the front wall of the building. The ladder, leading to the floor below.
The whole building was far too well lit for Poison’s tastes, but it also spurred the streak in her that loved the challenge of going unnoticed with this many lights. It was a rather large streak, she admitted. Maybe they could build a workout space somewhere, and try to sneak around each other for a challenge. That would make for fun Saturday nights.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
None of the guards that she knew to be somewhere, patrolling, were directly visible from their perch. At Orion’s signal, each clutched a rung of the ladder, Orion a few steps below her, and froze. Poison pressed her dark-clad body flat against the metal and went very still.
The guard’s steps approached above them. Poison could see his silhouette through the walkway grid. The steps slowed and stilled next to the ladder, and the guard’s shadow slipped onto her face. Poison held her breath. Her muscles tensed in anticipation, prepared to fight, jump, run, climb, find the closest exit and make herself scarce, with no particular preference on which was about to happen.
She had to look out for Orion, though. He was slower, less agile, less of a fighter than her.
Old instincts told her to leave, whispered in her ear that if he was too slow, the guards were Orion’s own problem to deal with. Get out, cut her ties, move on.
The guard turned around and walked back the way he had come.
The tension bled slowly out of Poison’s clenched muscles. They weren’t quite cramping up on her, cramps could be lethal. But at some point of exertion, her muscles locked into a rigid state of contraction and stayed there with little conscious effort on her part. It was all the harder to let go of that rigidity now.
She was glad her instincts hadn’t won out. They always jumped her like that, suddenly, driving her to be cold and ruthless and egoistical. It was the one part of the more risky jobs she didn’t enjoy. She didn’t want to betray Orion, didn’t want to leave him. She liked him. She didn’t want to return to begin the person she had been. Damn her instincts.
But would he do the same for her? Would he stay and fight when he could just leave her behind?
Yes!, she reprimanded herself. As he’s proven, many times over. Orion is family. Lilly is family. They protect me. I protect them. We don’t leave each other.
She felt a mixture of annoyance and guilt at her own thoughts. Three years, and she still expected them to ditch her in a tight spot. And the thoughts always rose up in inopportune moments.
A hand touched her ankle, making her jump slightly. Luckily, she’d trained herself to only make a tiny outward reaction, a faint twitch of the leg. She glanced down. Orion was looking up at her, concern in his eyes. Concern for her.
Poison smiled at him and glanced over at the guard. He had reached the other side of the warehouse, the other end of his patrol route, and was starting back. The ladder would be in his blind spot for a few seconds. She gave the signal, and Orion started down the ladder, with her in tow.
The warehouse was neatly organized. Rows of stacks of crates along the sides, a clutter of desks at both the back and front, and a sealed off area, like a smaller room inside the building, with ventilation tubes leading up to the roof. They probably connected to the outlet they had spotted above. It was all as Lilly had told them. The only new thing was the second collection of desks, and that seemed to mirror the one at the back of the building.
Poison wondered what the room-inside-a-room-thingie was all about. Looked almost like a quarantine set-up. Were they hiding something in there? Containing? Doing experiments with bio-weapons?
Voices reached Poison’s ears. Faint, but steadily getting closer, echoing in the open space. She tapped the disk at her throat twice, sending a flicker of static through the channel. Orion glanced back at her, then made a gesture with his hand. They moved along the wall until they reached the crates. Poison climbed onto the stack in a second, then helped Orion up after her. They lay down and waited.
Two patrols of three guards each approached from either side of the quarantine section. They passed each other without taking much notice and continued on, moving slowly, stopping every few steps. One group was slightly faster, so the point their circuits crossed would shift a little with each round.
Poison didn’t know how the moving patrol system had won out over stationary guards, but she wasn’t about to question it. Her mind was trained to break security, not build it up.
Still, it was a miracle they’d gotten as far as they had without being spotted. This job was one big clutter of happy coincidences. Maybe the random element was the whole point of the security pattern. Poison silently thanked fate for their unbelievable luck thus far, then looked at Orion.
He was the one with the plans, the one who knew what to do, and she was the one who executed them and thought of the details. He seemed to be working on one at the moment. His face was impassive, eyes unfocused. She was used to that expression by now.
With a lot of breaking and entering as a base experience, Poison had concluded that people were unpredictable. Nobody ever held on to their paths, their patterns. People were beings of habits, they loved routine, but they messed up on the details. Nobody did anything the same way twice.
Someone had to go to the toilet. Someone walked a bit faster than usual. The main chunk of avoiding guards was waiting and timing and observation, with a healthy scoop of luck and a good exit route. Orion managed to combine all of those into strategy, and he always got them out safe.
After a minute or so, he blinked, rapidly to ease his burning eyes after staring at nothing so long, and looked over at her. He made a few of the hand gestures they had established over the years, and their intent was clear. They would wait to confirm the guards’ pattern and deviations, then time their next move accordingly. Orion had already worked out what that move would be, they only had to time it right.
From their spot, Poison could see the front of the quarantine section. There was an air-tight-looking door of heavy steel. Keeping something in, or out. It supported her quarantine idea, anyway.
Regardless of what the thing was for, their chances of getting in there were tiny at best. Direct light and the two patrol teams, plus a door that would most likely take a very long time to crack.
Much more inviting were the two desks halfway to the large front doors, with a few sheets of paper neatly on top. Poison glanced at Orion and received a nod as he followed her gaze.
She started sliding over the crates, along the wall, moving very quietly, up and down with alternating stack heights. At the back of the building, she waited for the guard on the walkway to face away from her and the patrols on the floor to meet at the other side of the room, out of sight. It took a while for that to happen simultaneously.
While the tops of the crates were mostly in shadow, and the stacks were high enough to be out of the guards’ sight when she huddled at their back, the expanse in front of her was empty and open and vulnerable. Poison slid down, ran lightly across to the other side of the room. She paused at the desks to scatter the pages there, then quickly ran on.
Reaching the other side, she climbed the crates there. She made it safely, and managed to move quietly along the stacks, back to the front of the warehouse, despite much larger differences in height. It slowed her down.
At one spot, she had to squeeze in between the top of a crate and the walkway. She had to wait for the guard overhead to pass by for that. At another, the floor patrols had to be gone so she could cross a gap with only one box in a stack, where she couldn’t move out of their line of sight by inching towards the wall. A few times, she had to wait to climb up where the difference in height between stacks was more than three crates. They were heavy enough to support her weight on the side, though.
Finally, she was back at the front of the building, opposite from where she had left Orion. She tapped her throat again, to tell him she was in position, then waited for the patrols to meet in the back and the lone guard to turn his back.
A rustle of static in her ear, and something small and shiny caught the light above the desk a second later.
Poison reached out to catch the orb Orion had hurled across the room. It was the same type as the one they had used earlier.
Shooting a steel silk line across the room wouldn’t have worked here. They were too low to the ground. The patrols would have spotted the line and discovered them. Manual job, then. Poison hoped the in-flight pictures were good enough.
‘Got a nice bunch of pictures. See if you can do it again.’
Getting around the room had taken her almost a full hour. Retracing her steps, Poison should manage to get to the back of the building in twenty minutes, if everything went well.
Surprisingly, it did. Just before she reached her spot at the back of the building, Orion signalled her that he was in position. No guards in sight. Poison settled into place and signalled back. If she squinted, she could make out his shadow directly across from her, in line with the second collection of desks. She waited a moment, made sure the guard overhead was turning away, then tossed the orb across the open space.
It sailed over the desk and hit a crate at the other side of the warehouse, producing a dull thud. A hand reached out of the shadows, snatched the orb before it could fall, and retreated. Poison held her breath.
For a few seconds, everything was quiet save for faint, unhurried footsteps.
‘No good,’ Lilly said in her ear. ‘The pages are still overlapping too much. You’ll have to do it again in person.’
Poison lay there for a few seconds, until her heart had slowed. The patrols met just below her spot and stopped instead of continuing like usual. Poison had to keep herself from inching further back on the box. Sudden movement and the sound of her shuffle would give away her position much sooner than any glance they might catch of her. She was a black figure deep in shadow, completely still. All was well.
One of the guards dug in his pocket and produced a pack of gum. Another pulled out a thermos flask. After a brief exchange of coffee and shoulder taps, with one guard retying his shoe laces, the group went their separate ways again.
Poison exhaled. The guard on the walkway was coming towards her. She had to wait out two more full circuits until the floor guards were gone and the overhead guard was on his way towards the front of the warehouse. She lowered herself from the boxes and deliberately relaxed her muscles. She could feel her hands almost shaking and stretched her fingers once. Not much time.
Poison scooted across the width of the warehouse and spread the sheets of paper on the table again, making sure everything was visible. She plucked another orb out of her pocket and held it over the desk in her hand. She hoped the angle was wide enough to catch everything they needed.
‘Good enough, go!’
Not a second too soon for Poison’s taste. She shifted the papers about to where they’d been and turned to run.
The motion disturbed the air enough to whisk a sheet of paper off the desk and send it into a spiral towards the floor. Poison caught it, returned it, and kept her eyes on the desk while retreating. She thought she could hear steps coming closer.
Pocketing the camera, she ran towards Orion and let him pull her up onto the crates. She tried to catch her breath as quietly as possible. The first guard patrol came into view.
She cast a glance back. No paper on the floor. That had been close.
Grinning, she shoved Orion into motion.
----------------------------------------
They hurried back towards the ladder, then up. They followed the guard along his path, back to the open window. Orion motioned for Poison to climb up first and chanced a last look back. They had a few seconds before the guard on the walkway turned around. Time to leave.
Someone groaned outside and a second later, a shout arose. Orion discarded stealth and scrambled out the window and up, hitting the windowpane with his foot in the process. There were more shouts, both from the in- and outside of the warehouse.
It had started raining, seemingly just now. One of the guards outside must have looked up in dismay and spotted Poison clinging to the edge of the roof. Great. Talking about luck. Maybe this was balancing it out.
Orion rolled onto the roof as the first bullets whipped past with low whines, some chipping away the stone at the edge of the building. So much for a clean exit.
He grabbed the board of wood from underneath the tarp – they would have to leave the fabric after all – and dumped it across the gap, not bothering with the ropes. The board jumped as bullets hit the wood from below. It was thick enough that the bullets lodged themselves fast instead of punching through the board.
At a gesture, Poison sprinted across in two big leaps, her foot touching down on the board just that once. Orion followed a bit more clumsily, and they ran.
Three buildings further, they got down to street level again, discarding their hoodies and scarves and walking away in separate directions.
Orion pressed a hand to his bleeding side beneath his jacket and let the early worker crowd coming out of subway stations and cafés swallow him up with sunrise.