The Duelist

Friday, 29th of January, 198 A.C, 14:58

“Changing. Bigger. Less feathers. New feelings. Don’t know new feelings. Scared of new feelings. Getting hungry. Need food. No friends. Can’t get big food. Can get little food.” - ???

Of everything in Central, it was the way my shoes squeaked against the road that messed with my head. Of course I knew that it was textured for traction, but something about that sound of rubber against glass gave me the feeling that one bad step would send me right on my butt.

“Don’t look *too* out of place, now.” I started at the sight of the Heister strolling along beside me. She took a load of joy from my reaction, judging by her lopsided grin.

I delivered a swift punch to her shoulder as payback. “Why are you so good at that?”

“It’s in the name, love.” The Heister rubbed the spot I had hit, confusion briefly flashing across her face. “Rubbing off on my speech habits now, are we?” She gave me a light rapping on my own shoulder. “Sorry, talking to myself. Anyway, you’re developing a nice arm there, kid. Let’s see if we can’t teach you a bit of *finesse* to go along with it.”

“I thought this was a job, not training.”

The Heister pointed surreptitiously towards a day trader whose path was crossing ours. She presented her empty hand to me like a street magician about to pull a card out of thin air. The man passed and, *voila*, she presented a brass pocket watch. With a flourish, she slid the watch into one of her pants pockets.

“Who said it couldn’t be both?” she said.

I slowly raised my eyebrows. “You have my attention.”

“Do I now? What if I told you that this is just the warm up?”

“You would have my…” I thought for a second, then gave up on finding an end to the sentence. I instead made an ‘ok’ sign with my hand. “Nice.”

The Heister nodded. “That’s what I was looking for. Now come on, dork. These yuppies aren’t going to lighten their own pockets.”

She started me on the easier marks – people whose belongings were sticking out of or hanging from their pockets already, or who were sitting down next to their bags, occupied with their Chippers. I was… definitely not great at it, but after a few close calls I got a feel for the rhythm. The trick, I found, was to commit to your attempts, but not to hang onto them. If you went for something and came up empty, it was better to just move on and look for the next opportunity. Words to live by, I supposed.

I was struck by how little attention everyone was giving us, out in public as we were. Anywhere else in the city, folks would give us wide berths as a rule. Here in Central though, we didn’t get much more than half-interested glances.

I thought to ask the Heister about this. “Folks here don’t give much thought to Veiled, huh?”

The Heister put away a score that she had been inspecting. She was, of course, blowing my performance out of the water. By the time I had snagged a Bit stick and an as of yet unidentified small gadget, she had stuffed half her pockets with ill gotten gains.

“Maybe if there was only one of us,” she said. “A lone Veiled means trouble, but when there’s more than one of you, people in Central tend to assume you’re after bigger fish than them. It’s all of us outside that know better.”

I tilted my head. “Is *that* why you had me tag along?”

She slapped me on the back. “Of course not! I’ve got another drop or two of usefulness I want to squeeze out of you”

“Alright then,” I said, “let’s hear it.”

The Heister stopped walking and gestured grandly to the building behind her. It must have been at least three dozen stories tall, chrome lines tracing shapes filled with glass. A large portion of the building’s front was taken up by a massive LED screen advertising the latest line of prosthetics. The company’s name was etched proudly onto a black glass sign that oversaw the front entrance. “Shell Cybernetics.”

“I brought you here today,” my partner in crime said, “Because I haven’t been living up to my moniker. It’s about time we had an honest to goodness heist.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

***

I liked being in my little pocket dimension. Here I was free, I was strong. My golden aura hardened around my arms and legs, offering both power and protection. Most of the folks that got dragged inside didn’t realize that anything had changed before they were out cold. The ones that struggled might last long enough to notice that their surroundings didn’t give a darn about them. Push and pull as they might, objects wouldn’t be picked up, doors wouldn’t open, buttons wouldn’t depress, you get the idea. Those outside looked like poorly focused photographs, oblivious to what was going on inside.

Take this guard, for example, dressed up in his dark suit and proprietary weaponry. He didn’t so much as stop his patrol when I brought him in here. I dropped through the missing ceiling tile I had been hiding in and jetted towards him, my aura leaving the barest of wisps trailing behind each of my limbs. I caught him in the neck and he dropped, barely getting out a gurgle before his consciousness failed him and the world came back into focus. Mostly. It always took a second for the smudges to fade from people.

I sent an all clear message to the Heister’s Chipper. She slipped out of the ceiling and swung to the ground, landing softly on the carpeted floor. She pointed to a door at the far end of the hall that was protected by a biometric scan, then down at the guard. I grabbed his legs, she grabbed his shoulders, and together we carried him over.

We had broken in from the roof. The skyscraper next door was a cinch to get up and just the right height for Casey to jump over to the Shell building from. I momentarily used my Veil on her after she had landed, utilizing the resulting boost to follow her lead. From there we took the stairs down to the floor above our target, where we found a maintenance shaft to shimmy down.

A security camera watched us as the Heister brought the guard’s hand up to the scanner. I got her attention and gestured to it, but she smirked and tapped her Veil. A few seconds later I received a message from her on my Chipper. “These little guys are scramblers, remember? Just have to be quick.”

The scanner dinged and the door slid open with the slightest of hydraulic hisses. The room inside resembled an airlock, just a small corridor with a screen hanging above the door at the far end. This one didn’t have a scanner, instead favoring twin keyholes, one on the left wall and the other on the right.

Another message from the Heister. “Head in and sit tight. This is gonna be finicky.”

Once we were both crammed into the room, the Heister slid her lockpicking tools out of a pocket and fingered through her options. She selected two identical tension wrenches and picks, then set one in each lock. A slight frown of concentration developed as she manipulated all four tools at once, one hand per lock.

The lock on her right gave way with a click. In the same moment, the door behind us slammed shut and the screen flashed a green ‘5’. The Heister swore and redoubled her efforts on the left lock. The screen changed to a yellow ‘4’. Then an orange ‘3’. Then a red ‘2.’ Then…

Click

The second lock turned, the screen shut off, and the far door swung open to reveal a sterile room lined floor to ceiling with filing cabinets. I had expected that much from the room – we were here to steal a design document, after all. What I hadn’t expected was for the room to already be occupied.

Two Veiled were pouring over the contents of a manila folder they had taken from one of the cabinets. One had a red cloth Veil with a toothy grin drawn onto it. The other had a black bird mask that was covered in feathers.

They looked up as the door opened. The Heister’s bat was already out of its case and gripped tightly in her hand.

She snarled. “You.”

Startled, the Bird-masked Veiled stumbled back into a dark portal that had suddenly appeared behind her. The cloth-masked Veiled had a more measured reaction, sliding a metal rod out of each of his jacket sleeves and spinning them around experimentally.

“You know these fellas?” I asked.

“They’re the ones that beat us during that gem hunt. Springtrap. The one with the grin on his Veil is the Fool. The one with the portals is the Magpie.”

“Hey, you remembered our names!” said the Fool. “Gotta give some respect for that.” Behind him, the magpie popped out of another portal, the manilla folder clutched close to her chest.

“What the hell are you two doing here?” asked the Heister.

The Magpie patted the folder. “We popped in to grab the Chip-Shell specs for a friend. Let me guess, that was your plan too?”

She was right, Chip-Shell was the line we were after as well. “Wait,” I said, “How did you get in? I didn’t notice any disturbances.”

“Oh, that’s simple,” said the Magpie. “We just tailed some big wigs, then hid with my Veil until we were pretty sure they had left.”

“However you got here,” the Heister growled, “you’re not leaving with that folder.”

The Fool kept his weapons low. “Let’s not be hasty. I’m sure we can come to a peaceful solu-” His voice cut off as the Heister lunged for his head. He ducked under her swing and rolled back into a squat.

This time he shouted, “Heister, wait!” but he was falling on deaf ears. He braced himself against the next strike, the composite metal of the Heister’s bat ringing out as it struck the Fool’s rods.

The Magpie slunk around the melee, hoping for an opportunity to slip out. Unfortunately for her, I hadn’t moved from the entrance. I unhooked my yo-yo from my belt and slipped the string’s loop around my finger.

The Fool’s eyes were glowing red with his aura now. “Careful! This place is-” His dodge was more of a tumble than a roll this time. Still, it was enough for the Heister to catch air and keep going. Her bat crashed into one of the filing cabinets, leaving an oversized dent in the aluminum.

The lights turned red. The door shut behind me with much more force than seemed necessary. The magpie dropped the manilla folder and clutched her ears in an attempt to block out the alarm that was now sounding off throughout the building.

The Fool dropped into a seated position, aura fading from his eyes. He sighed and finished what he had been trying to say. “Heavily alarmed.”