by Craig Boldy
The guy had hit me in the back of the head while my back was turned. I guessed he must have been hiding in one of the cubicles and had seen the opportunity to knock out one of the criminals. I looked from the file to his face as I tried to put my hand up and open my mouth to warn him off, but stopped as I saw the flash of a Taser in his hand. He was advancing on me quickly, holding out the weapon out in front of him. I watched as the blue bolt of electricity danced between the electrodes.
I jumped back in an attempt to dodge the prongs, but I was too close to the sink. It hit the small of my back, and I felt the heat of the Tasers electrodes pushing thousands of volts into my body. My jaw clamped shut, and I completely lost control of my actions. I stood there shaking and making involuntary noises for what felt like hours, even though I knew it had only been a few seconds.
The shock stopped, and my limp host hit the floor. I felt my control slipping, and everything went dark. The next thing I knew I was back in my mental corridor looking at the door I had just been ejected from, cursing myself for failing the mission.
I tried to enter the doorway again, but the handle had gone. I waited for a few moments to see if the handle came back. I couldn’t go from the roaring success of my first mission to abject failure in this one. The words of the Director stuck in the forefront of my mind ‘back to your own body permanently’.
As I waited, I realised that I could just make out the sounds of the voices of those around my real body. "It's almost as if something is interfering with the main control software of the generators." That was Filch. "Ordinarily I would say it could be some sort of virus, but the system is isolated. The only communications in or out of this place other than are amplifier network are the hard lines, and there's no way that they can . . ."
The voices faded away to the point where I could no longer make out the words, I didn’t know what the issue was but I’m pretty sure they were seeing the results of my mistake, I almost moved back into my body to let them know what happened when I saw another door I hadn’t noticed before. Maybe this was the good luck I needed. More than one of them might have ingested the nanotech.
I approached the door, and a handle appeared. I pressed it and hoped it would take me back to the situation I had just left, rather than taking me to another host for a future mission. I crossed the threshold and made a mental note not to be electrocuted again.
The voices dimmed and dwindled to nothing as my consciousness grew into the new target. I opened my eyes and found myself stood in front of the counter with one of the robbers, both of us holding our guns at the hostages laid prone on the floor.
I reassessed my position out in the bank. Two distinct groups had emerged; the first I labelled 'crowd control’, which consisted of the two robbers next to me and me. We seemed to have been tasked with keeping the hostages out of the way of the raid and away from any alarm points.
The second group I labelled 'smash and grab'. These were the ones currently emptying the counter drawers and ramming bundles of cash into duffel bags.
My previous host must have been the safecracker, which was now an issue. The whole raid would be centred on the ability to get into the safe and at the real cash. Who knows what the gang would be prepared to do to the hostages to get into the safe if their plan had gone awry.
I needed to go back there again and find out what was going on. Even if my previous host were knocked out, I would need to make sure the man who had stunned her didn’t get found over the body.
I stood for a moment, surreptitiously checking myself over; I wanted to make sure I knew what gender I was before I got any more surprises. After a little while, I motioned to the others in crowd control to show I was going to go to help with the safe. They nodded, and I walked back over to the door and into the corridor.
This time I was going to be more careful. I would not be taken by surprise and risk losing another host to that Taser, and my lucky second chance at this mission.
I carefully and silently opened the door to the men's room, held it for a few seconds to listen to the noises within, then slipped in silently, closing the door behind me. I had no worry of my footsteps warning the man, even though it was a tiled floor, the rubber soled boots on my feet were muffling my steps.
I crept around the corner and saw the prone body of my first host, still twitching slightly on her back, staring up at the ceiling. I sighed as I realised she was foaming at the mouth and red channels of blood ran from her ears to sad little puddles on the otherwise light grey tiles.
I got down to my knees and checked her vital signs, keeping a wary eye out for my assailant. She wasn’t breathing. I checked for a pulse but found nothing. The shock must have caused some sort of catastrophic malfunction with the nanotech in her brain. I gently closed her eyes and noticed the Taser laying not far from her. I reached out and picked it up, turning it over in my hands. I squeezed the button on the side, and it gave a small crack of a spark before becoming inert. I checked the battery indicator and was happy to see it was empty.
I placed it back on the floor and stood up to deal with whoever was hiding in here. It was not as if there were many places to hide, I slowly checked under the doors of the cubicles. There were no feet in any of them as far as I could see. He must be stood on one of the toilets and crouching. I couldn’t risk kicking in the doors and getting shocked again. I would need to take a different tactic.
"Hello? I know you are in here. You don’t have to be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you. I need your help" I heard the sound of my own voice, distorted through the modulator and hoped the guy would either give up or not be too frightened by the odd voice.
I heard a splash, and then a muffled swear word from the end cubicle and walked over to stand in front of the door. I carefully opened it to see the man, one foot in the bowl and motioned him out of the cubicle.
He was in a dark pinstriped suit, expensive looking with a pastel shirt and matching tie and pocket square. He was too well dressed for a clerk; I guessed at him being one of the managers. He started to walk towards me, and I looked down to see his left leg was soaked and he squelched at every second step, water seeping out of his shoe whenever he put his weight on that leg.
He was a couple of steps from where I stood in the centre of the room, and I watched as he put one hand behind his back pulling the Beretta from the back of his belt. He raised it and pointed it toward me. He had a determined look in his eye but was holding the weapon like a person who has never held one before; one-handed and arm outstretched.
I held up my hands in the universal sign of 'take it easy' and proceeded to very slowly unclip my P-90 and place it on the floor. I could see the end of the barrel weaving a tiny figure eight as his hand started to shake with the adrenaline. I didn’t think that the guy would know there was a safety switch on the weapon, let alone know how to activate fire mode but I wasn’t going to take that chance.
I slowly removed the voice modulator and began to try to calm him down with a regular voice. My mind raced as I tried to think of something he would believe.
"Don't do anything silly now. I'm not your enemy." A thought occurred, "I'm undercover with the FBI." Not exactly a full lie, as I was undercover. The man seemed to deflate. He lowered the weapon slowly and backed up against the wall before sliding down it and sitting on the floor. He was more visibly shaking now; the adrenaline would take a few minutes to wear off as he calmed down.
"I'm Evan Moss. The bank manager," he said, almost breathlessly. I took the gun from his unresisting hand and in one motion, dropped the clip out and tucked it away in one of my pockets. I checked the chamber and the safety. Not only had Evan not disengaged the safety, he hadn’t even cocked it. If he had pulled the trigger, there would have been little more than a click. I slid down the wall to sit beside him and patted him on the shoulder while he continued talking
"I got one of them with my Taser. I only wanted to knock her out, but she started foaming at the mouth. I think I might have hurt her. W
hat do I do now?" he asked, staring at his hands sullenly.
"First of all, you’ve got to calm down and take a deep breath. You need to stay in here and keep quiet. I'll take care of the woman, but first I need your help. I need to know everything about the alarm system, all the access details for the safe and response times for the authorities."
He spent the next few minutes giving me all the information I would need. There were alarm points under every counter and desk in the building, the type where you had to press two buttons at the same time to activate. Once triggered a silent alarm would go off at the local police station and a SWAT response would be outside the bank within three minutes. The safe and all of the cash registers would also lockdown. He gave me the key for the entry cage and the code to open the safe.
I stood and thought for a few minutes. I couldn’t risk one of the other robbers coming in here and seeing the body, even if it was unlikely one of them would need to take a toilet break. I walked back out into the corridor and located a storage room. I propped the door open as I went back to the men’s room and picked up my previous host, placed her as carefully as I could inside and closed the door.
Evan was still sat staring at his hands. I pulled him up to his feet and told him to go hide while I strapped on my P-90 and voice modulator. All I needed now was a plan; some way to ensure the gang didn’t get away with any of the money while also keeping the hostages safe. I wasn’t happy with losing one person on this mission, even if it hadn’t been my fault. I wasn’t risking losing anyone else, good or bad.
∆∆∆
Chapter Nine
I went back out into the corridor and to the end where the large bars of the security cage prevented me from going any further. I put Evan's key in the lock and turned it smoothly. I don’t know why but I was expecting some sort of heavy metallic thunk as I turned the key, almost like it was unlocking large deadbolts somewhere, but the key made barely a sound as it turned and the door swung open easily.
I walked through and stood in front of the massive vault door, looking for the keypad. When I eventually saw it, there was a message flashing on its small screen. “security door open”. I turned and pulled the cage door closed behind me, and the message disappeared. I entered the code and watched the vault door slowly swing open on its pneumatic hinges, impossibly quiet.
Once it was fully open, I was surprised to see the door was over a foot thick. I stepped inside as the lights came on and stared around me. Pallets and shelves full of money stared back at me, and I gave out an impressed whistle. This was more money than I had ever seen; millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands in various other currencies.
I left the door open and hoped I could still unlock the cage door with the main vault door open. Thankfully, it didn’t give any resistance. I half expected the vault door to close once this one reopened but everything seemed happy to stay open.
I walked back up the corridor and out into the lobby once more. Smash and Grab had finished their drawer rummaging and were throwing their bags into the back of the van. The other two were still standing menacingly over the hostages. I waved at Smash and motioned him towards me. He had placed his weapon in the back of the van as he was putting the bags in and walked back towards me without picking it back up, choosing instead to grab four more empty bags from the back of the van. I led him down the corridor and pointed into the vault. He gave me the thumbs up sign and passed me two of the bags before walking in.
I followed behind and waited until he bent down to start filling a bag. I unclipped my P-90, raised it above his head and smashed the butt into the back of the neck. He folded up into a heap on the floor, and I quickly tied his hands and feet together before dragging him behind one of the stacks of money, nicely out of sight.
I picked up one of the empty bags and quickly walked back out to the lobby. I waved for the second robber’s attention, pointed to the bag, and then back towards the vault. He nodded and grabbed more bags from the back of the open van as I turned and ducked back into the toilets. I waited a few seconds before I heard the heavy thud of the boots on the hard floor tiles. I gave it to the count of three and then silently opened the door and stepped out behind. The second robber was just walking in through the vault door as I crept up behind him. I tapped him on the shoulder and hit him square in the face with the P-90. He collapsed to the floor, and I dragged him inside, tying his hands and dumping him next to my first prisoner.
My task now became much more difficult; what could I do with the remaining armed men. I needed to be able to sneak up on them without the others getting suspicious, and there was only a finite amount of times my current plan would work before one of them would start to wonder why the rest of the gang were disappearing.
I needed to replace one of them outside while simultaneously knocking the replaced person out. Something that may have been easier if I still had control of my first host and could switch between them at will. I would just have to make do with the tools at hand.
I called back into the toilets and checked on Evan. He had regained some of his colour now. I looked him up and down once more. He appeared to be roughly the same size and shape as my host; maybe a little wider around the middle but not far off and it gave me an idea.
"I've got a plan, but I need you to help me," I asked. His eyes widened in panic.
"What the hell am I supposed to do?" I could hear the terror in his voice. The guy was only just keeping it together.
"Bear with me here, I need you to take my clothes and pretend to be me. I need you to go out and take the place of one of the guys holding the hostages. I've taken care of some of them, but two against one is still worse odds than I would like."
"What! I... I... can't go out there. They're armed to the teeth."
"I know it's going to be tough on you, but I need you to do this. All you have to do is go out and tell one of the others to go back and help with the safe. Your face is going to be covered, and your voice will be altered. Nobody will know you are not who they think you are."
"There's no way. I'm not getting shot for this."
"You won't get shot. I promise. I can't do this on my own, and this is the best way to make sure that none of your colleagues out there get shot either." Evan's resolve crumbled at the mention of his friends, and I could see he had begun to change his mind. "As soon as the guy gets to the safe I will be waiting for him. I will take care of him, and then we can change back."
He nodded, and I began to undress. Thankfully, I had clothes under the combat gear; I didn’t want to be wandering around naked. As I gave my combat gear to Evan, he began to take off his jacket and tie, placing them carefully on the hangars in the cubicle. Once fully dressed I looked him over. The gear fit him quite well, all except for the boots. Evan was three sizes too small for the boots, but they tied tight enough to stay on his feet.
I helped him with the scarf and helmet, with his voice modulator he sounded no different than I had. I gave him one last pep talk before we walked back out into the corridor. My plan hinged on Evan maintaining his cool and getting one of the other guys back to me.
He walked out as confidently as I could have expected and I went back to hide in the vault. I waited for what seemed like hours before I heard heavy boot steps coming down the hallway once again.
I braced myself against the wall around the corner from the heavy door so the robber wouldn’t see me until the last second. He walked in, inches from me. Thankfully, he had his weapon lowered, and I could see it was not clipped into the straps attached to his vest.
He took a few steps into the room, and I swung the butt of my gun. I knew the blow was no good about halfway between him and me. This guy was taller than the other two had been and the angle was all wrong. It glanced off his helmet and did nothing other than push him forward forcefully. His gun clattered to the floor and slid a little way into the room and mine slipped out of my hands and dropped to my feet.
He stumbled a few steps forwards and righted
himself on one of the towering stacks of money in the room. He turned and even though I couldn’t see his face, I would have sworn he scowled at me. He righted his helmet to move it out of his eyes and lunged for me.
The first blow I was expecting and caught it by tucking my arm in low deflecting it to my side. The second one I wasn’t expecting, and it caught me under the ribs on my right-hand side and knocked the wind out of me. I involuntarily crumpled forward wheezing, and the guy took his opportunity to grab the gun from the floor.
I drew a deep breath and leapt towards him, closing my hand around the top of the weapon and squeezing the magazine release buttons either side. The magazine ejected into my hand and, in one movement, I slid it back and smashed it into his face. It wasn’t a big enough impact to knock him out but it dazed him for the few seconds I needed to kick his legs out from under him.
I put too much effort into the kick and the few seconds it bought me were wasted when I overbalanced myself. My assailant took the opportunity to draw a long knife from a sheath on his belt. It was a military knife. The type fitted to a weapon as a bayonet if needed. It had a long cutting edge on one side, and the other was serrated; it looked very deadly. Why was it everyone seemed to be carrying knives?
We circled for a few moments as I tried to guess his first move and he tried to guess mine. I jumped back as he slashed at where my throat had just been. He was very quick for a large man. He slashed again as I was on my back foot and I felt the knife slash across my chest. The cut wasn’t too deep, but it still hurt like hell, and it began to weep blood out into my shirt.
I had been trained to defend against an attacker with a knife, not to mention the encounter on my previous mission. Knives were easier to get hold of, and to hide, than guns, and you didn’t need a permit to own lots of them.