Deadly Heist

by Jack Heath

  Shoes clack into the bathroom. Someone’s here. The cop?

  He walks past your cubicle and stops at the one with the locked door.

  ‘I know you’re in there,’ he says. ‘Come on out.’

  You stay silent.

  ‘Resisting arrest is a very serious offence,’ he says. ‘But if you turn yourself in now, we can pretend you stayed in the car.’

  ‘That’s him!’ cries a voice.

  The cop grunts. There’s a buzzing sound, like a faulty light bulb, and then a thump.

  You peek out the door. Two police officers, a man and a woman, are standing over the fake cop. The woman is holding a taser.

  ‘That’s the guy who stole your car?’ she asks the policeman.

  He nods. ‘We’ll have to try to figure out what he was planning.’

  ‘He was the lookout,’ you say, your voice wavering as you step out of the cubicle.

  The policewoman’s eyes widen. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I was at the HBS bank,’ you say. ‘On Collins Street. I saw—I mean, I think I saw a bank robbery. This guy was supposed to stop any real police from turning up, I guess.’

  The man laughs. ‘Well, he did a lousy job. We caught all three robbers, and rescued all the hostages.’

  ‘Come on, kid,’ the woman says. ‘Let’s get you a hot chocolate and you can tell us what you know.’

  You exhale. It looks like everything worked out OK.

  00:00

  You survived! There are thirteen other ways to escape the danger—try to find them all!

  ‘Brianna,’ you say.

  ‘And your last name?’ Miss Scarlet demands.

  ‘Brianna Catton,’ you stammer.

  ‘Hmm.’ You’re not sure if she believes you.

  ‘Brianna Elaine Catton,’ you say. ‘I go to school at—’

  She cuts you off. ‘I need a favour, Brianna.’

  You look at Kye. He looks as perplexed and terrified as you.

  ‘The building is locked down,’ Miss Scarlet says. ‘Any minute now, the police will call. I need someone to talk to them for me.’

  She pauses, as if waiting for you to speak. You open your mouth, then you close it again.

  ‘You’re going to say exactly what I tell you to,’ Miss Scarlet continues. ‘Otherwise . . .’ She points the laser pistol at Kye. Her finger is on the trigger. He trembles.

  ‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ you say quickly. ‘You don’t have to hurt anybody.’

  Miss Scarlet smiles. ‘Good girl. I’ll be back in a moment.’

  She and Mr Sharp walk over to the counter, out of sight. You can hear them talking to someone, but can’t make out the words.

  While they’re distracted, you scan your surroundings, looking for a way out. The air conditioner catches your eye. The brackets are loose, and the bolts are scattered on the floor. The vent behind it looks just big enough to crawl through.

  Can you and the other hostages get out of sight before the bad guys come back?

  If you try to escape through the vent, Click Here.

  If you don’t risk it, Click Here.

  You are vaporised.

  A split second later, so is Kye.

  The nanobots sizzle away into harmless flakes of charcoal. The water in the sewer turns to steam as the shockwave flashes outwards through the sewer tunnels. Manhole covers explode upwards all along the street. Up above, the bank is rocked by the explosion. The police behind the cordon throw themselves to the ground and cover their faces as debris rains down.

  Inside the vault, the device—the completed bomb—falls from Miss Scarlet’s hands and shatters.

  The police recover quickly, and storm into the building. The hostages are rescued. The robbers are arrested. Alhamed is congratulated for his heroism.

  The world is safe. But you and Kye are dust.

  THE END.

  To try again, Click Here.

  You slam your elbow against the window.

  ‘Ow!’ Your elbow is in agony, but the window is completely unharmed.

  Wild with terror, you pound your fists against the glass. It’s no use. You can’t break it.

  The massive metal claws crush the car, bit by bit. Then the window cracks under the pressure.

  You punch the glass with renewed desperation. Chunks pop out and fall to the gravel far below.

  You clear out the last of the glass and pull your shoulders through the window. The car is crumpling behind you, getting smaller and smaller around your kicking feet. You drag your legs out just in time.

  But now you’re dangling from a car window frame at least ten metres above the ground. The evil cop is nowhere to be seen. The claw that crushed the car hangs from a crane. The only sound is the creaking and groaning of the cable above you.

  You hang in terrified silence for a few minutes. Your hands and arms are starting to hurt, but you can’t see a way down.

  Suddenly you spot a guy in a hi-vis vest inside the control cabin of the crane.

  ‘Hey!’ you call out.

  He peers at you from under his hard hat. ‘What are you doing up there?’ he shouts.

  ‘Help me!’ you shout. ‘I can’t hold on much longer!’

  ‘Don’t worry, kid,’ he says, fiddling with the controls. ‘I’ll get you down.’

  After what seems like a long time, the crane whines, and starts to lower the car.

  As you descend towards the ground, your eyes turn to the horizon. The bank stands tall amongst the other buildings in the distance. A helicopter is landing on the roof.

  Your feet touch the ground, and you scramble out of the way so the crane can put down the half-crushed car. You’re safe now, but Kye might not be. You wonder what’s going on inside the bank. Did the robbers get caught? If only there was some way to find out . . .

  00:00

  You survived! There are thirteen other ways to escape the danger—try to find them all!

  You scramble into the footwell and curl into a ball, just in time. The claws rip and tear through the car above you, tearing your shirt.

  Then they stop. Silence falls, except for the ringing in your ears. The top half of the car is crushed in the grip of the claw, but the bottom half is mostly intact. You’re safe.

  The car lurches sideways. The crane which picked it up whines as it rotates. Hopefully the claw will lower the car to another part of the lot, and you can find a way out.

  The windows have smashed under the pressure, but the frames have folded into themselves. You can’t see where the crane is taking you. You wonder if the corrupt cop is controlling it, or if it’s just a regular crane operator, unaware that you’re inside.

  The crane stops. The car sways sickeningly from side to side. Silence again.

  And then the claw opens up, dropping the car.

  Wham!

  THE END.

  Click Here to try again.

  You race over to one of the big cardboard boxes, pull out half a chair to make room, and scramble inside. It’s not as roomy as it looked. There’s barely enough space to close the lid over your head.

  The footsteps get closer and closer. They stop right next to the box.

  There’s a pause. You hold your breath, and wonder what the person—security guard, or bank manager, or whoever it is—is thinking. Did he or she hear you enter the stairwell? Are they wondering why a piece of an office chair is lying on the floor, or noticing that the box is now closed?

  A huge hand plunges into the box and grabs you. You scream as the hand drags you to your feet. You find yourself face to face with one of the strangers from the van—the man with the knife tattoo—you call him Mr Sharp in your head.

  ‘You’re coming with me,’ he says.

  He shifts a stack of boxes, revealing a narrow corridor you didn’t see before. Then he drags you along it and through a door marked STAFF ONLY. You emerge into the main area of the bank, where four customers are huddled in the corner. One of them is Kye. His head is down, and his hands are
shaking.

  The red-headed woman with the scar—Miss Scarlet, you find yourself calling her—stands nearby, threatening them with some kind of futuristic weapon. It looks like a laser pistol from a sci-fi movie.

  The window above the counter is mostly covered by a security shutter, but there’s a gap up the top. A hole has been cut through the exposed glass.

  Your heart is pounding. This is definitely a bank robbery—and now you’re a prisoner of the robbers.

  There’s no sign of the man with the overalls and the silver tooth, or the one with the signet ring. You wonder where they’ve gone.

  ‘Got another hostage for you,’ says Mr Sharp.

  ‘Sit over there,’ Miss Scarlet tells you, pointing. ‘Away from the air conditioning unit. What’s your name, kid?’

  If you say ‘Jacob’, Click Here.

  If you say ‘Brianna’, Click Here.

  You try the handle. The laminated door hasn’t been closed properly, so it swings open. Unable to believe your luck, you dart through and pull it closed behind you. The lock beeps and a red light blinks on next to the door. You have a feeling you won’t be able to come back this way.

  You’re not sure what you expected the inside of a bank to look like, but it’s not this. The walls and floor are covered with polished white tiles. The lights are painfully bright overhead. A computer sits on a stainless steel bench next to a giant microscope. There are no people. This place looks like a science lab.

  The doorhandle behind you rattles. The door is locked, but whoever is following you knows which way you went, and they might have a key card.

  You look around for somewhere to hide. There’s a small, dark room to your right—a storage room, or maybe an office. You duck inside and close the airtight metal door. It seals you in with a hiss.

  A petrol-like smell hangs in the air. There is a thick glass window near the door, but it’s too narrow to let in much light. The room is bare except for a steel box, and an unsettlingly lifelike doll. The doll sits upright on the floor in the centre of the room. It wears a cotton onesie and a baby-size bonnet. Its realistic blue eyes don’t move but still seem to follow you as you search the room for somewhere to hide.

  There’s nowhere. You try to open the steel box, but it’s tightly sealed. A keypad is fixed to the side.

  A light snaps on above you.

  ‘Any explosive compounds left in the air?’ a woman is saying. Her voice is muffled by the window.

  ‘Less than two percent,’ a man says. ‘The nanobots consumed most of the flammable gases before they returned to the box.’

  ‘And what about the doll? Did they make it to our specifications?’

  ‘I haven’t checked yet. Let’s take a look.’

  Your heart beats faster as you realise that they’re headed for the room that you’re in. Before you can crouch under the window, two faces appear on the other side of the glass. A woman and a man, both wearing lab coats, stare at you.

  ‘Hey!’ the man says. ‘How did you get in there?’

  You raise your hands. You’re busted. ‘I came in looking for my friend,’ you say. ‘I’m sorry—I thought the bank was getting robbed.’

  It doesn’t sound believable out loud.

  ‘Incredible,’ the woman says. ‘It’s so lifelike!’

  You look down at the doll, which hasn’t moved. It takes you a second to realise the woman is talking about you.

  ‘You think . . .’ the man begins.

  ‘I think we should be more careful when programming the nanobots,’ the woman says excitedly. ‘They haven’t just created a toy. They’ve made an artificial life form! A moving, breathing, talking person!’

  This must be some kind of prank. You reach for the airtight metal door. The woman locks it before you get there, sealing you in with the doll and the box.

  ‘It’s even trying to escape,’ the woman says. ‘I’ve always said it was possible for the nanobots to create life—but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon!’

  ‘I just walked in,’ you say, starting to panic.

  ‘It could be telling the truth,’ the man says. He sounds doubtful, and he’s still referring to you as ‘it’.

  ‘How?’ The woman points at the laminated door you came in through. ‘The door is locked. And this lab is hidden in the staff area of a bank. People can’t just wander in. Besides, someone would have told us if there was a robbery going on downstairs.’

  The man looks you up and down, becoming convinced. ‘It’s so realistic,’ he says. ‘How did this happen?’

  ‘Let’s find out,’ the woman says. ‘Instruct the nanobots to disassemble it so we can see the insides.’

  ‘Disassemble what?’ you say.

  Ignoring you, the man walks over to the computer and types in a password.

  ‘Disassemble what?’ you say again.

  The woman ignores you. The man keeps typing.

  Behind you, the steel box opens.

  A grey cloud emerges from inside. It looks like smoke at first—then it starts to shimmer. It floats towards you, as though it can smell your terror.

  If you try to cancel the man’s instructions using the keypad on the side of the steel box, Click Here.

  If you pick up the box and use it to try and break the window and escape, Click Here.

  You dodge around the shimmering grey cloud and run over to the steel box. There’s a little screen above the keypad which reads OPERATION IN PROGRESS.

  You look for a cancel button. There isn’t one.

  You push the escape key.

  A message flashes on the screen: ACCESS DENIED.

  You try control, alt, delete.

  ACCESS DENIED.

  The cloud lands on your back like a million flies. Your skin starts to tingle, then to sting.

  These must be the nanobots.

  ‘No!’ you shriek, trying to shake them off. The cloud only becomes thicker.

  In desperation, you wrench the keypad off the box, hoping to use it like a flyswat—

  Then you see the circuitry underneath. Maybe you can use it to stop the nanobots.

  It’s not like the movies. There’s no manual override button. But there is a nine-volt battery.

  In science class, you once got shocked by one of these. The teacher told you to lick your thumb and touch the prongs. The saliva completed the circuit, so the battery zapped you.

  The scientists’ voices echo through your mind. . . . Any explosive compounds left in the air? . . . Less than two percent.

  Can you use electricity to start a fire and fry the nanobots? It’s an insane plan. You’re likely to blow yourself up. But you have to do something, and fast.

  You rip the battery out of the casing and lick your thumb. As your wet skin approaches the prongs, a blue flash lances out.

  The spark is tiny, but it’s enough. Your hand turns into a fireball as the flammable gas in the air ignites. You scream as the flames shoot outward—

  Knocking the nanobots stone dead. The grey cloud drops suddenly, silently, to the floor. Flakes of it fall from your back like dandruff.

  As quickly as it appeared, the fire is gone. The gas has all burned up, leaving only air. Your whole body hurts. The air feels like ice. But you’re alive.

  The door opens. The man runs in and falls to his knees amongst the dead nanobots. ‘My babies!’ he screams.

  ‘Pull yourself together.’ The woman walks in behind him. ‘We have plenty more in the vault.’

  The man chokes back a sob.

  ‘I just got a call from downstairs,’ the woman continues. ‘The police are arresting three bank robbers right now.’ She glares at you. ‘It looks like it was telling the truth after all.’

  You should be furious but all you feel is relief.

  The woman digs a cloth from her pocket, and pours a bitter-smelling substance onto it.

  ‘So . . . I can go?’ you say.

  She nods. ‘Right after the memory wipe.’

  ‘Memory what?’<
br />
  She presses the damp cloth over your face. The world goes dark and cold.

  00:00

  You survived! There are thirteen other ways to escape the danger—try to find them all!

  You grab the sides of the box and pull. It’s heavier than you expected. For a horrifying second you think you won’t be able to move it. Then you adjust your grip and the adrenaline kicks in. You haul the box to the window.

  The deadly grey cloud swirls around you. Flecks of it settle on your face and hands. At first they just tingle. Then they start to sting, like biting insects. These must be the nanobots.

  You reach the window. Sweat pouring from your brow, straining like a weightlifter, you raise the box.

  Your skin feels like it’s on fire. You’ll only get one chance at this. With the last of your strength, you hurl the box at the window.

  Thunk! The steel bounces off the thick glass without leaving a scratch. The box thuds to the floor.

  ‘No!’ you shriek.

  Your last thought is that no-one will ever know what happened to you.

  THE END.

  Click Here to try again.

  ‘It’s 137!’ you cry. ‘Don’t hurt anyone. The code is right there on a sticky note!’

  Miss Scarlet looks at where you’re pointing. She chuckles. ‘Huh. Did none of you think to search the room?’

  She didn’t think of it either, but none of the other robbers says so.

  ‘We didn’t think they’d be dumb enough to write it down,’ Mr Sharp grumbles.

  Miss Scarlet punches in the new code.

  You hold your breath.

  The keypad beeps, and the bolts withdraw. Mr Signet hauls the door open.

  ‘Well done, kid,’ Miss Scarlet tells you. ‘You saved your friends’ lives . . . for now.’

  ‘You can just let us go,’ you say. ‘We’ll sneak out the back way. The cops will think you still have hostages. You’ll still get what you want.’

  She shoots you a thin smile. ‘Nice try. The building must be surrounded by now—but soon that won’t matter.’