Betrayal. It is a hazard in my line of work. You want to survive, you've got to harden your heart, lock your feelings away. You see, there's two types of people in this world: there're folks with something worth taking, and there are folks like me who take it.
When you grow up in fear, you have two choices: succumb to it or become it. Victim or predator, those are your options. Me, I refused to be a passenger on life's carousel of fear. The best way to escape the monsters was to be one.
Inside the chrysalis of my small, frail body, I hardened myself against the world, until, outgrowing my vulnerable outer shell, I sloughed it away, discarding the used-up skin of the girl I used to be. Unlocking the beast within, I came out fighting.
The most profound scientific discovery of our time, and they locked it away behind an impenetrable vault door. Forget the philosopher's stone; this was the recipe for creating a substance more valuable than gold. And it was the proprietary secret of a private lab owned by people who take what they want from the world and leave the rest of us with the scraps that remain.
Me? I climbed a long way to emerge from the pit into which I was born. But even if I had reached the top of the food chain, it was only in the microcosm of my limited ecosystem. I was still living a hand to mouth existence, a daily battle to remain top dog by fighting off all the curs hungry to take my place.
I was feared; I was feral; I was strong. I took what I wanted from those beneath me, but I lacked the wealth and power to rise above the daily struggle for survival. I was still subject to the rule of the jungle, the law of kill or be killed.
But the secrets locked away in that vault–sold to the highest bidder, they would buy me freedom from the endless cycle. That scale of fortune would irrevocably alter the trajectory of my poor, nasty, brutish, and short existence. That sort of payday would launch me to a new stratosphere of influence and power, high above my savage dog-eat-dog world.
That's why I ignored the warnings. Don't break into that vault, they cautioned. Don't swim in the shark-infested waters where the world's foremost power brokers eat pond scum like me for a snack. That's the cowardice of pack animals. It is the mindset that keeps people weak and powerless. That marks them as prey. We lions, we don't flinch in the face of danger. We see what we want, and we take it.
I already had a buyer, a tech mogul willing to crown me a multi-millionaire in exchange for delivering to him the secret contained in that vault. The next step was assembling a crew for the operation.
Lu Wei, the inside man, is best described as a sheep turned weasel by the scent of opportunity. The ravenous glint in the lab technician's eye warned me that his appetite could not be trusted. But I didn't need to trust him; I just needed him to help us access the premises. After that, trust became a nonissue. I like to travel light. That means discarding a tool the moment its usefulness is exhausted.
Pooky is the muscle. A mammoth meathead with a speech impediment. My partner in crime since we were wee ones making our first crooked foray into the streets. Unable to express himself in words, Pooky instead developed a more physical form of eloquence. I've never seen anyone win an argument with Pooky. Oh, you might try to trip him up with logic or confound him with intellect, but no matter your debating skills, all arguments collapse when confronted by Pooky's skull-cracking rebuttal. I trusted Pooky implicitly. Not because he's not a crook–he most definitely is–but because he's too dim-witted to betray me. Lacks the imagination required for subterfuge.
Dingo is the dangerous one. Used to run the territory before I took it from him. Deadly with a switchblade. He had every reason to want me dead. But what are you going to do? Caper like this one, you want the best help possible. And next to me, Dingo's the deadliest bloke I know. Sure, we got bygones, but a few million and the promise to relinquish the territory I took from him goes a long way towards making amends. We both understand the arrangement is temporary and that he is almost certainly plotting his payback the moment it's done, but I don't plan to be around long enough for him to see his plan to fruition. As soon as I bank my take, I'm out of here.
Might take Pooky with me because even outside the mean streets we hail from, a bit of muscle comes in handy. Especially when you're loaded. But Dingo and the rest, I don't plan on ever seeing them again.
So, that's our crew. Except for Dae Han. Dae Han isn't crew so much as connector. A discredited researcher expelled from the lab, he's looking for vengeance and compensation since his name has been blacklisted in his field. He's the one who reached out to me, put me in contact with the tech mogul buyer and the lab tech, Lu Wei.
"It's very dangerous," he warned me. "Do not talk about it to anyone."
"Do I look like an amateur?"
"Word gets out."
"When you work with wets," I replied. "That's why you came to me. Because I got the creds."
"You've never handled anything like this."
"Know anyone who has?"
Dae Han frowned. I had him there.
"So tell me," I said.
He did. Told me until my eyes crossed. Didn't help. Came away understanding less than when I started.
"So, lots of folks want to get their hands on this," I concluded.
Dae Han arched an eyebrow. "That's what makes this so dangerous."
"And valuable," I added. "All I need to know."
But I was wrong. Turned out that there was more that I needed to know.
In my experience, every caper has its complications. Nothing ever goes precisely to plan. That's why you need to come prepared for contingencies. Only rookies take on a job without planning for failure. Most of them come to a bad end.
Me, I'm still in business-on top of the heap, in fact-because I don't make rookie mistakes. I live by the rule that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. And I come prepared.
So, no, I did not trust Dae Han. I didn't trust Lu Wei. And I would never make the mistake of trusting Dingo. Trust in my line of work gets fools killed. But it turns out that even the saltiest of us have our blind spots.
Things began going south right from the get-go.
"I thought this place was supposed to be unoccupied," I glared at Lu Wei.
"There's no one in the lab this late at night," Lu Wei assured me.
"They usually leave the door unlocked after they close up shop?" Dingo asked him. "Security seems lax, don't you think?"
Lu Wei shrank from the murderous glint in Dingo's eye. There was always a murderous glint in Dingo's eye. It was one thing I appreciated about the guy. No subtleties. But I guess Lu Wei didn't work with a lot of hardened killers in the physics lab.
"I-I don't know," the lab tech stammered. "It should be locked."
"Should be," I agreed.
Dingo and I exchanged a glance. "Could be a trap," he said.
"Probably is," I nodded.
Dingo cocked an eyebrow at me.
I looked to Pook. Pooky's face was expressionless as ever. The unlocked door didn't faze him one bit. He wasn't the type to worry about what might be waiting on the other side of that door. He'd wade through all the demons in hell just to put a whooping on old Lucifer himself.
A hundred million dollars, I thought to myself. "More than a mil," I said to Dingo.
Dingo nodded. Flashed me a smile, light reflecting off his gold eye-tooth. "Let's do it then."
And just like that, braced for trouble, we let ourselves in.
"Whoa," Dingo paused on the metal landing overlooking the laboratory below. "What is this place?"
I'll admit the sight of it took my breath away too. Had no idea what I was looking at. Only that there was a lot of money here. Money in the shape of huge, hulking pieces of machinery that did who knew what? Banks of computers, cylinders, tubes, vats, cables.
"This is proper mad scientist shit right here," I whispered, looking to Lu Wei, the only one among us familiar with what it was all for, how it all functioned. "What kind of crazy hoodoo you cooking up in this place?"
But Lu Wei didn't answer; instead, he pointed to something moving between the apparatus.
"There's someone there," Lu Wei said.
"Security?" I breathed, crouching low behind the railing.
Dingo shook his head beside me. "Not security, they're over there."
I followed Dingo's eyes and saw the three uniformed men bound back-to-back and gagged. Someone had saved Pook some work.
"Someone's trying to scoop our job," I growled, hand falling to the stun baton hung on my belt.
Dingo had felt the sting of that baton himself. Put a gap in his teeth he'd replaced with the gold one. But Dingo was a hard one. Didn't flinch when he saw my hand go to my weapon. Just flicked open his switchblade and flashed me a razor smile, "Shall we go say hello?"
If we hadn't been deadly rivals, I really could have liked Dingo. Too bad there's only room at the top for one.
We eased our way down the steel staircase, eyes on the floor below us, Dingo in the lead because I didn't trust him at my back, and Pook covering my six. Lu Wei played caboose, cowering behind the shield of Pooky's bulk.
We made it to the laboratory floor without seeing or being seen by the intruders, but once down amongst the forest of lab equipment, we heard voices conferring in hushed tones.
"They're at the vault," Lu Wei hissed.
"Oh no, they don't," I gritted my teeth and started toward them.
There were three of them in front of that vault. If you've seen a bank vault, then you have a basic idea of what that vault door looked like. Only this was much bigger. Could have driven a truck through it.
"Sorry, fellas," I said as the three spun around at the sound of my voice. "Lab's closed to the public and the vault is definitely off limits."
The three men in matching jumpsuits looked at the switchblade in Dingo's hand, the stun baton in mine, and Pook looming behind us.
"Cute outfits," Dingo observed. "You three part of a clown act?"
"Think their momma just likes to dress them the same," I said.
The one in the centre just smiled at me. "Looks like you folks came prepared for a fight."
I was about to say something threatening to chase the curs off when the flanking jumpsuits both raised their submachine guns.
"Understand that you have the combination for the vault," the middle jumpsuit met my eyes.
Was it Dae Han that betrayed us then, or did the tech mogul think he could undercut us and save himself a few mil by hiring a discount crew?
"I like your costumes," I started to say, but at a nod from the man in the middle, the jumpsuit to his left squeezed the trigger. A muzzle flash and Dingo went down with a cry.
That killed the quip dead in my throat as I looked down at where my onetime rival lay, realizing two things: it wasn't Dingo who betrayed us, and the jumpsuits were not here to play.
"Hope he wasn't the one with the vault code," Middleman said as his men turned their submachine guns my way.
I instinctively edged in front of Pooky as if my slight frame could shield him from their weapons. They weren't going to risk shooting me, I reasoned. Not as long as they suspected that I was the one with the vault code. Lu Wei had already disappeared, crouching behind Pook's girth, safe from the jumpsuits' bullets unless they shot Pooky dead and he crushed the lab tech flat beneath his collapsing bulk.
"Who you working for?" I asked. Not because I cared so much as I wanted to buy us a moment.
"We work for someone who wants what's in the vault. Now give us the access code before we have to make you bleed."
Okay, so maybe Dingo and I had come into this caper too lightly armed. But, like I said, I'm no rookie. I don't walk into any operation without a contingency plan.
"Pooky," I said, "why don't you show these boys our all-access pass?"
As I said it, I threw myself flat, giving Pooky a clear shot with the double cannons he had concealed under his coat. But the blasts never came.
"Pooky?" I looked up from where I lay prone, like an idiot, on the tiled laboratory floor.
Pooky was just standing there. I got a sinking feeling in my gut then. Like maybe I had made a major miscalculation.
"Pooky, this is embarrassing," I said.
"Can't put a price on loyalty," Middleman said. "Oh, wait, turns out that yes, you can. In the case of Phineas Omar Ozias Kaczanowski, a little respect goes a long way too."
"Phineas, what now?" I was still looking up at Pook, "Is that really your name?"
"Would you bring her here for us, please, Mr. Kaczanowski?" Middleman asked.
Bending over, Pooky lifted me off the floor like I weighed nothing.
"Really, Pook?" I sputtered. "After all these years?"
How had I not known his real name?
Pooky's eyes were hard, his mouth set in a grim line. He never was much for conversation. And now I understood why. I wouldn't want to talk with people either if I had to start every conversation by introducing myself with that train wreck of a name.
"Well, geez, Pook," I said, my feet dangling in the air as he carried me toward the vault and the jumpsuit trio, "if you didn't like being called Pooky, why didn't you say something? You could have been Mr. K or Special K or something."
I'm not sure which hurt worse: Pook's betrayal or the fact that I had not seen it coming. He'd been at my side through my entire climb out of the gutter to the top of the trash heap. In all those years, he'd never faltered. No doubt Dingo had offered him a small fortune to turn on me. He'd paid others in my gang to betray me. But strong, silent Pooky had always been a rock I could depend on.
If Dae Han or the tech mogul had betrayed me, well, that was just business. If Dingo or Lu Wei double-crossed me, it was just in their nature. Heck, my own brother tried to cut my liver out on a dare. So, I wasn't exactly the trusting sort. But Pook. That was personal.
"I was going to cut you in on my fortune, Pook," I said.
Not exactly true. I mean, I planned for Pook to live in my luxury mansion, I would need the security to guard my fortune after all. And what's the difference between being rich and living in luxury, anyhow? So, the wealth might not technically be his, but he'd get to enjoy the benefits vicariously, courtesy of his generous boss.
"Maybe if you'd just said something, Pook," I continued. "I mean, I'm not a mind reader, okay?"
Who knew the guy harboured ambitions and resentments of his own?
Pooky planted me down in front of Middleman.
And that's exactly when Lu Wei clobbered him. The lab tech! Who would have thought? If anyone betrayed me, I would have guessed Dingo or Lu Wei, but here he was trying to save me from my own bodyguard. Well, it is more accurate to say that he was trying to save the code and his share of the take, but in this moment, it amounted to about the same thing.
Whatever he hit Pook with made a metallic clang as it cracked against Pook's skull. The big man didn't even flinch. Just turned his head to look down at the cowering lab tech who had just remembered that he was more sheep than weasel. So much for a rescue. You cannot count on others to save you. So, I stuck Pook with my baton.
Squeezing the trigger, I put a charge right through him, watched him stiffen as every muscle in his body contracted. There's not enough charge to kill a man, but my baton can knock out a horse, which is just about right for a guy Pook's size.
Well, jumpsuits weren't amateurs, and they were not going to just stand around watching the show without joining in. As soon as I'd run current through Pook, I spun to clobber Right Flank, baton busting him across the side of his head. It was at best a glancing blow, but flinching away from my weapon's impact, his skull collided with the steel vault with a hollow boom, and he slumped to the floor like his bones were made of overcooked spaghetti noodles.
At the same moment, Left Flank opened fire on Lu Wei, saving me the trouble of cutting the lab tech out of the deal. Given how he'd come to my rescue, I felt vaguely bad about the fact that I'd never intended to cut him in.
Middleman lunged for me, but I poked him with the charged end of my baton. I'd drained most of it to drop Pook, but there was still enough juice to give him a jolt. As Middleman staggered back, I tore the submachine gun from Right Flank, where he lay, limbs splayed out, blood trickling from his nose. Assuming he survived the head trauma, he was going to have one heck of a headache from his double concussion.
I turned on Left Flank just as he spun to face me. "I've got the code," I reminded him as we stared down the barrels of each other's submachine guns, just in case he was the type to get caught up in the heat of the moment and forget who he was supposed to kill and who he was supposed to keep alive.
"Give it up," Middleman suggested, recovering from my baton's stun. "We've got you outgunned."
He had drawn a revolver from his jumpsuit.
"So, you can count," I replied. "But getting the code from me is going to be hard after I'm dead."
"Oh, we don't plan to kill you," Middleman's grin was unsettling.
It occurred to me to just shoot them both where they stood, but before I could squeeze the trigger, Right Flank arched back crying out. As he fell, I saw Dingo stand up from behind him, fresh blood on his switchblade.
"Dingo, you don't look so good," I said. Blood loss had bleached his features.
A shot from Middleman's revolver put an end to Dingo's health problems. A spray of blood from his temple as Dingo's head jerked sideways proved he still had blood left to give. As my onetime rival fell dead to the laboratory floor, I opened fire on Middleman. Quick as a cat, he dove between some brewery-sized vats, and the submachine gun's bullets whined off the metal, shattering beakers and a computer screen on a nearby table.
"Might want to watch the ricochet," Middleman suggested from behind cover. One bullet had punctured the metal, and a slow leak of noxious green fluid oozed down the side of the vat to pool on the floor. I had no idea what it was, but I didn't like the look or smell of it.
"We going to play cat and mouse now?" I called. Seems Middleman was not as bold without Left and Right Flank at his side.
"We could split the take."
"Not likely," I answered. "I've got trust issues."
"Why is that? Things didn't turn out as you planned?"
"How'd you get to Pook?" I asked.
"Come on," Middleman said. "I heard you were a pro. Everyone's got a price. Don't tell me you've never been betrayed before."
I scowled. Not by Pook. My fingers convulsed, squeezing the trigger. The instruments on the opposite side of the vat shattered.
"Whoa, easy," Middleman shouted. "Ricochet, remember."
"We should finish this up before the authorities arrive," I suggested.
I heard the scrape of broken glass crunching under his shoe. Firing in frustration hadn't been a total waste. Turning toward the sound, I saw Middleman's shadow cast on the vat opposite the one he was creeping around as he tried to get the drop on me. I could wait for him to come into view, see who was quicker on the trigger. I could change my position so I wouldn't be standing where he expected me to be. Or…pointing the barrel of the submachine gun up, I opened fire.
"Ah, shit!" Middleman shouted as shards of fluorescent lights rained down upon him. I grinned as I watched his shadow scurry away. "That's just annoying," he called.
"But so therapeutically satisfying," I answered.
"You're going to run out of bullets."
"Then I guess I'll have to beat you to death."
"Look, I think you're taking this personal. It's just business, right? We can make a deal. Work something out. Sixty-forty in your favour?"
"How about one hundred-zero?"
"Seems a bit one-sided."
"I got the vault code, what do you bring to the table?"
"I won't shoot you."
"Tough talk for a guy hiding behind a vat of green radioactive goo," I answered. "Also, trust issues, remember?"
"Look, I get it," Middleman said. "You're bent out of shape about your best friend selling you out, or whatever."
"Best friend?" my raised voice echoed off the laboratory walls as I stormed around the vat's circumference toward where that coward was hiding, shooting everything in sight. "Pooky was my bodyguard, a big, dumb henchman!"
"Then why are you crying?"
Crying? I hadn't even noticed the tears. Also, how'd he know I was crying? I threw myself flat even as the bullet whined above my head.
"Ricochets," I reminded him as he barrelled around the corner, revolver pinning me in place.
"Put down the gun," Middleman said, standing over me.
I squeezed the trigger. Click.
"I warned you." His finger tightened on the revolver's trigger.
"Vault code, remember?" I laid down the submachine gun and tapped my temple, reminding him I still had something valuable that he wanted hidden away up there.
"Get up."
I did.
"They were tears of rage," I lied.
Revolver pointed at my back, Middleman marched me to the vault. "Open it."
"There's a nicer way to ask."
"Don't make me hurt you."
"I need you to take out an eyeball," I said.
Turns out Middleman was squeamish.
"What did you think?" I asked, standing up from Lu Wei's corpse, the lab tech's right eyeball in one hand, Dingo's bloody switchblade in the other. "That something so valuable was going to be locked in a vault that could be opened with just a simple code? Of course, they control access with biometric scanning. Why else would I drag a useless lab tech with me?"
"You were going to cut out his eye?"
"Not if your stupid henchman hadn't shot him dead first," I replied. "But I'm not going to try to hold his corpse up to the scanner while I punch in the code, am I? And I'm pretty sure you're not stupid enough to put down the gun to hold him up for me."
Middleman blanched as I approached with Lu Wei's eyeball. "I could have punched in the code while you held him up."
"I'm not giving you the code," I said as I tossed him the eyeball.
It works every time. The catch reflex is hard-wired into us. Well, in Middleman's case, he was more of a dodger than a catcher. Guess the eyeball really grossed him out. Either way, it was enough to make him flinch, and that flinch cost him. Because while he was watching the eyeball, he was not watching the blade in my hand. I owed Dingo twice.
"Biometric scanner," I scoffed as Middleman folded over the switchblade I buried in his gut. "Do you even know anything about vaults, you amateur?"
I spat on the floor beside the dying man, ashamed of myself for getting emotional about it. Jumpsuit was just another crew doing what crews did. Keeping a locked heart was the key to keeping a level head. That was what differentiated the professionals from the amateurs. But looking at the bodies spilled across the laboratory floor-the three jumpsuits, Lu Wei, Dingo, and Pooky-evidence of an operation gone sideways-I struggled to find the necessary sense of detachment.
"On the bright side, no one to share the spoils with," I consoled myself.
But when I tried to picture my millionaire future, I just couldn't do it. Every wealthy fantasy I'd entertained was now marred by a Pooky-shaped emptiness. I'd never asked Pooky about his dreams. To be honest, I never really imagined he had any. But it turns out that he did. And it hurt to realize that I hadn't been in them. Ours is a hard business. Your heart is liable to get hurt if you don't lock it away where no one can touch it. I thought I'd done so.
Pook groaned from where he lay as I punched in the code and spun the wheel in the centre of the big vault door. I'd run enough charge through him to drop a bull moose, but it would take more than that to put Pooks down for good.
The door swung smoothly open on well-oiled hinges. Nothing remained between me and my fortune.
"It's the most valuable substance in the world," Dae Han had told me.
Of course it was. Why else would they lock it up in this vault? Why else would the person you trusted most in the world-the only person you'd ever trusted in the world-betray you for it? Something that valuable, you've got to lock away real secure.
My eyes went from the open vault door to the spill of bodies on the floor. Watching Pooky begin to stir, I chided myself. A professional knows better than to harbour attachments. And a human being, I decided, as I turned my back on the vault and climbed up the steel staircase out of that laboratory, knows when to walk away from empty dreams.