The Heister

Friday, 29th of January, 198 A.C, 17:10

“The situation East of Central heated up last night as a contingent from the Watch began a pursuit of Pennies members operating in the area. The Veiled squad is known for pickpocketing and muggings, frequently running afoul of the authorities after their jobs go loud. No arrests have been made, to the relief of anyone out there with Pennies members on their draft league teams.” - SNN Bulletin

Skedaddle? Really? Who was I, Axel? I needed to have a talk with Trace after this.

:Sorry! Some of us are simply born with fun vocabularies

I pushed down a sudden urge to laugh. My mind-roommates were mocking me.

With most of the guards dealt with, exfiltration was going more smoothly than our initial breakout. Of course that would stop being the case if we stuck around, so we were hoofing it to the roof – the ground entrance was almost certainly surrounded by Watchmen and hired guns at this point.

The helicopter blades sounded from above as we took the stairs.

:Choppers are a bit unfair when it comes to chases, aren’t they?

~Like hunting deer with a nuke

~There’s just no sport in it

Fortunately for us, we had our Veils to help. Reaching the roof access, the five of us paused to agree on a plan. What we came up with was… not the cleanest, but it would do.

The Runner went first, activating his Veil as he climbed the ladder and swung open the hatch. He wasn’t immediately domed by a sniper clambering out on the roof, which was a good sign.

I went next, hopping up to survey our surroundings. As it turned out, there were *two* choppers waiting for us. One, as expected, was a more chunky, military style affair with Shell’s logo plastered onto the sides. The other one was smaller, a Spark News helicopter there to observe, not interfere. Our antics must have attracted a bit of media attention.

~Smile for the camera

While the Fool came up to join us, the door on the side of the bigger helicopter slid open, revealing two gunners getting ready to help us with our swiss cheese impression. Now, if the Deadeye had been with us the solution here would be simple. *Unfortunately,* as our little item check earlier had shown, I was the only one of us with a Knockout-compatible weapon.

I slid behind a ventilation box, joined by the Runner and the Fool. The latter peeked out over the side and flipped on his Veil. I heard a shout coming from the helicopter and took a quick glance myself. One of the mercenaries was watching helplessly as his gun fell forty-something stories to the street below. He drew a sidearm, but I would take that over something automatic.

The other gunner had much less trouble keeping a hold of her weapon. I ducked back behind cover as she opened fire. Impact after impact shook the vent box, but despite how thin the metal was, no shots went through.

The mercs let up for a second, meaning it was time for the next step in our plan. The Duelist clambered up through the hatch and targeted me with his Veil. The world went hard and, next to me, the Fool and Runner turned fuzzy.

The Duelist strolled up to me and stretched. “This is gonna be so cool.”

~So much for keeping the kids safe

I got the feeling I should double check with him before he committed to this. “You sure you’ve got enough in the tank for this? You were barely standing on your own a few minutes ago.”

“What,” he said, “you wanna take this moment away from me? ‘Course I’ve got enough in the tank.”

“Okay man,” I said. “Just don’t go taking a nosedive. I *Really* don’t want to have to explain to the Surgeon why we brought a pancake back to the safehouse.”

I rolled onto my back and braced myself, feet in the air. We counted down from three, then the Duelist took a running start at me. His stride never looked quite right in the world of his Veil. For starters, he covered far too much ground with each stride. It gave me the impression of someone gliding along on rollerblades, an illusion that was broken as soon as you watched his feet and realized that they were still properly contacting the ground.

The Duelist hopped up when he got close, then planted his feet against mine. I used my legs like a springboard, coiling up before rebounding out and launching him into the air.

As he hurtled up towards the helicopter, the Duelist turned off his Veil for just a moment. To the others it would have seemed that (alongside my own disappearing act) a screaming Veiled had just popped into existence a good ways past the ledge of the building.

Then, after pointing at the mercenary who still had her gun, he was gone again. A small, marble-like object dropped to the floor of the chopper where the mercenary had been. We wouldn’t know if he had made it over until that marble burst.

In the meantime, the Magpie was up. I laid down some covering fire while she came up and ran to the side of the roof.

~That didn’t sound like Knockout

That’s because it wasn’t. You think I’m gonna waste the Bits on shots that’re never gonna hit anyone?

~Gun safety

~Just saying

Says the person who keeps a fully loaded smg in a glass case in his apartment

~Touché

Apparently not *all* of the scrap the Magpie kept in her cloak was nonfunctional. She took out what looked like a spiked wheel with metal handles running out from either side, then jammed it against the lip of the roof. As she did so, the handles extended to allow room for two or three people on either side. Satisfied, she gave a thumbs up and melted back into a portal, where she would wait for a previously agreed upon ten seconds.

Ahead, the marble exploded into light. The Duelist had made it into the chopper! And the mercenary was down. He went back in, this time to take out the other gunner. One more disappearing act to threaten the pilot, and the helicopter was pulling away.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The world hardened around me again. The Duelist bounded back to the roof, rolling as he landed and my surroundings softened back up.

With the most pressing threat dealt with, I gave a cheeky wave to the news helicopter. I was unsure exactly how clearly it would be picked up by the camera with my Veil getting in the way, but I couldn’t resist an opportunity to showboat a little.

We hurried to the device that the Magpie had set up. The unkempt Veiled exited through a portal as we came close, the ten seconds up, and climbed carefully over the lip of the roof, one hand on each of the gizmo’s handles. The rest of us joined her, the Fool and Runner taking the left handle while the Duelist and I took the right. No sooner had we found our grip than the gadget shot to life. The spiked wheel dug into the wall and spun down the side of the building, its passengers hanging on for dear life.

I had anticipated trouble when we hit glass, but some property of the spikes let it punch clean holes into the material without shattering it. The more pressing issue, it turned out, was the Duelist. He was having a hard time staying awake, let alone keeping a hold of the handle.

~How are we feeling about your grip strength, Heister?

The Duelist yelped as he lost his grasp, but I was ready with an arm to wrap around him before he could tumble out of reach. It was definitely better than the classic hand-to-hand cling, but my left arm, the one still hanging onto the device, still wasn’t happy with me.

:At least this thing’s not having a lever action moment

I supposed I should be glad about that. Credit to the Tinkerer, the device was taking the torque like a champ.

In an effort to lessen the strain on my hand, the Magpie grabbed my wrist and pulled up, relying on her cybernetic left hand to maintain her own hold. The other two passengers, too far away to help, sent worried glances our way.

I risked looking down – we were still about seven floors up, moving at about four meters per second, so I only had to keep my shoulder from dislocating for… five or so seconds. I could swing that.

We hit the ground and fell into a heap unceremoniously. Beside us, the wall spike thing… fell apart. It didn’t smoke or explode or anything, just went to pieces. It was as if it had been holding together through sheer force of will, which had run out now that its job was complete.

We were in an alleyway between the Shell building and its neighbor, hidden from the news helicopter’s view. While the scrambling effect of our Veils was enough to keep our identities obscured, a constant recording of our location would have made shaking off the heat on us tricky.

Speaking of heat, I heard shouting behind us, accompanied by the clomping of boots on glass. I looked to the Magpie, who nodded and motioned towards the wall, where she summoned a portal. We stepped into it (the Duelist moreso *fell* into it), the Fool much less hesitant than those of us from Impulse.

An inky blackness surrounded me as my eyes crossed the threshold. When my ears followed suit, the sounds of our pursuers, and the city beyond, abruptly cut off.

~Well this fucking sucks

Somehow, I didn’t actually mind it. It was somewhat similar to being in the wings while Diz or Trace were up front, although in that instance I still had a sort of mind’s eye window into the physical world, and into the presences of the other two. Besides, I still had my mind-roommates for company, not to mention an intact sense of touch.

The major downside of our situation was that, well, none of us had any idea when it would be safe to come out. The Magpie had warned us about this, but I hadn’t recognized the degree to which the uncertainty would get to me.

I tried focusing on any vibrations that could be felt through my shoes, but quickly realized that there were far too many sources for it to be helpful at all. Cars, speakers, pedestrians – all the vibrational noise made it impossible to tell what the Shell goons were doing.

Occasionally, the Magpie would create a pinprick of a portal to look or listen through. To the outside, it would be just about impossible to notice, but in here that tiny light was blinding.

After about ten of those peepholes, I felt the Magpie reach across all of us and tap twice. I had to cover my eyes as the hole expanded until it was big enough for all of us to fit through.

I blinked the bright spots out of my eyes. We were back in the alley, no sign of our pursuers anywhere.

“Holy shit, Magpie,” I said, “How the hell do you do that in the middle of a fight and not go blind?”

The Magpie waved me off with her metal hand. “Oh you get used to it. Besides, I’m not *usually* in there for very long.”

We opted to get out of dodge before another outfit came along. Without anyone chasing us, we may as well have been invisible in the Central crowd. Hell, most of Shell’s lackeys wouldn’t know who they were looking for beyond whatever general details our victims had communicated via Chipper. The toughest part of skedaddling was making sure the Duelist didn’t collapse from exhaustion.

:Hehehehe

:Skedaddle

Well, at least I hadn’t said it out loud that time.

When we had gone far enough out for the buildings to dip below the twenty floor mark, the Runner popped a question.

“Soooo… I missed the context for Springtrap being here. Aren’t we supposed to be rivals?”

I sighed. “We… hugged it out, I guess.”

~If your definition of hugging involves a baseball bat, sure

Shut up, you.

The Magpie discreetly waved the manilla folder containing the Chip-Shell schematics. “We’ll be making a copy of this real quick, then it’s all yours.”

I fingered my bat case. “You’d better not decide all of a sudden that you’d rather keep it for yourself.”

The Fool put up his hands. “Wouldn’t dream of it!”

“That does beg a question though,” said the Runner, tapping the side of his jaw. “How do you plan on getting it to us? I don’t suppose you’d like to share contact info?”

“Now that there,” said the Fool, “Is a great idea. Unless there are any objections?”

He looked around. The Magpie gave a thumbs up and the Duelist was too zonked out to raise a complaint if he had any.

I shrugged. “I’m not about to *turn down* a peace treaty. Just don’t expect me to go out of my way helping you, dig?”

The Fool snapped his fingers. “Awesome! Let’s get to it then.”

After we gave our IDs and did the ceremonial trading of awkward messages to make sure that everyone had put in the right numbers, the members of Springtrap left to make the copy and do whatever it was that they needed the schematics for. The three of us, meanwhile, decided to head back to the safehouse.

The Runner and I were taking turns letting the Duelist lean on us for support. I would be lying if I were to say that I wasn’t a bit worried about the little guy. He had pulled way too many extended trips into his Veil’s world in such a short amount of time. Nothing he couldn’t sleep off, but it was never pretty when a Veiled pulled something like this. Would make it harder for the Duelist to go back to being Kai.

I gave him a noogie. “You did good, kid. Raised some real hell out there.”

The Duelist mustered up enough strength for a fist bump.

My eyes wandered to an ad for VA being displayed from a sidewalk panel. Smiling lab coats were joined by text bragging about the university’s Psychon research wing. As if they knew at all what they were doing, and weren’t just stabbing blindly in the dark until something bled.

A news bulletin trundled its way over the ad. A couple pundits were squabbling on its screen, highlighted by the breaking news banner running along below. The shot changed to a video taken from the view of a helicopter atop the Shell building. The details were blurred, of course, but behind the corruption I could tell it was the Duelist making his flashy entrance onto the other chopper. And the Runner, Fool, and Magpie running around, doing their parts. And there *I* was, waving for the camera, my arm clear as day outside of my Veil’s disruptive effect.

The pundits may as well have been commentating on a sporting event with the opinions getting tossed around. A bit of excitement, an opportunity to root for or against particular parties, a chance to speculate on what looked like two different squads teaming up. Not being an ‘official’ squad, we wouldn’t be known or documented well enough to show up on any draft league teams. Springtrap though… I wouldn’t put it past one or two of these pundits to have a bit of money on their victories or defeats.

I pointed the bulletin out to the Runner and Duelist, a grin on my face. “The Pugilist is gonna be *pissed* about this!”

“Yeah,” said the Runner, lips curling up a bit. “Yeah, I guess he probably will be.”

~Mission accomplished