The dark clothed figure walked up to the steel gate. The two guards standing in front of the gate, bathed in moonlight, crossed their large rifles in front of the figure.
“Hold it right there mister,” one of the guards said. They didn’t notice Chase hiding in the bush on the side of the pathway, stealthily pointing his stun gun at the left guard.
“In position?” Rana said into the coms in Chase’s ear.
“Yes. Are you ready?” Chase replied, glancing over to the small dark haired, Asian girl in the branches of a tree across the path, also pointing a stun gun.
“Yes,” Rana replied. Kane, the boy at the gate, produced a small yellow card, handing it to the guards.
“They’re about to notice the fake,” Chase whispered.
“Shh,” Kane whispered into the coms, “Three, two, one, fire.” The sound of both Rana and Chase’s stun guns going off sounded through the pathway up to the gate. Both of the guards went down. Rana and Chase rose from their hiding places and started towards the gate of the Vault.
Kane grabbed the real card off of the guards kevlar vests and inserted it into the lock at the gate. The gate opened and all stood to the side of the gate raising their stun guns and waiting to see or hear if they had tripped the alarm. Helen, a taller, red haired girl slunk towards the wall at the side of the gate. Helen scaled the wall and towards the camera, she opened the information card in the camera and inserted a new one, loaded with viruses.
One by one, they walked stealthily through the gate, into the Vault.
“You’ve got an hour to pull off the heist or we’re taking the stealth chopper out of here,” Rider said through the coms. “I’m still trying to convince the pilot that this is a good idea.”
“You said it yourself,” Kane replied. “You were the one who tried to convince us that this was a good idea.”
“You still want revenge, don’t you Kane,” Rider said back. Kane didn’t have a reply for that.
“We all want something out of this,” Chase said, ending the conversation. They headed to the side entrance that they had found through their inside person.
“Is the loop for the camera feed ready,” Helen asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Rider replied from inside the helicopter. They headed inside and worked their way through the complex. The maze of hallways confused all of them, but Rider managed to keep their team steady as they worked their way through the complex.
* * *
Dylan Hart was having a bad day. He was the head security manager of the Vault, a place where the authorities stored the worlds hardest to find blueprints, prisons, banks, you name it, the blueprint of it was here. It had some of the world’s best cameras, guards, and maybe not the best security manager. On the way to work, he tripped and hit his head on the concrete. Of course, his boss, X, leader of the Empire, had forced him to continue on with work. His headache was incessant from his fall, as well as watching nothing happen on the security cameras. Nothing ever happened. Ever.
But, Dylan wasn’t complaining. He was paid very handsomely for doing nothing. But, he always had to keep looking at the security cameras. The last security manager was blown to bits by landmines in the doorway of his house for failing X. X was very harsh and if you messed up around him, you paid the price.
His eyes fluttered closed as he reached extensive boredom, and sleep found its way into his tired and sore mind.
* * *
As the different team members of the heist went their separate ways, Chase made his way to the actual vault part of the Vault. Helen had gone into the security room and hooked up more bad footage. Rider had stolen electronic versions of as many files as possible. Rana was in the server room and working on the servers, and Kane had gone ahead to scout the way for Chase.
“Everybody in position?” Chase asked through the coms. “Is it clear for me to grab the blueprints?”
“Yes,” the team all chorused quietly in unison. Chase quickly made his way up the long hallway, avoiding the lasers and cameras and got to the titanium double doors leading into the Vault.
“Do you have the code, Rider?” Chase asked.
“Yes. It is 3417-A49D-CV21. Do you have that?” Rider replied.
“Yes, on it,” Chase said, putting the long string of digits and letters into the machine. It made a beeping noise and slid open. Chase slid inside and looked slowly around the room, awe spreading throughout him that the rumors of the Vault’s reputation were true.
“Whoa,” Chase said.
“Stick to it, Chase,” Kane said, “We don’t have all day.”
Chase looked around before grabbing the blueprint they needed: the safest bank in the world. He also snagged as many other blueprints as could fit in his arms and satchel.
Chase almost dropped all of the blueprints as Helen, in the security room said something into the coms.
“What did you say, Helen?” Chase asked.
“I said, ‘I think we might have a problem’,” Helen replied.
* * *
As Dylan Hart’s eyes fluttered open, he looked up to see a tall, red haired girl hacking his security monitor.
“What the hell,” Dylan said. Helen turned around, her face paled before she said, “I think we might have a problem.”
Dylan reached into his back pocket and pulled out a Glock 17 handgun and pointed it at Helen.
“What are you doing here and give me a reason why I shouldn’t gun you down.” Dylan said menacingly. Helen raised her arms, while saying, “I said, ‘I think we might have a problem’.”
“Who are you talking to, miss?” Dylan asked.
“I –” Helen started to say, before dropping to the ground in a defensive position. Dylan fired his gun at the place Helen had been, but Helen had already risen up and punched Dylan in the stomach. Dylan fired one more shot, blindly, before clutching his stomach in pain. The bullet seemed to travel in slow motion, to Helen, before burying itself in her shoulder.
Helen screamed in pain before launching forward and trying to grab the Glock 17 Dylan had dropped. Dylan also tried to grasp the handgun and they both got their hands around the gun.
“We have caught a heist team in the act,” Dylan said into his coms, alerting the rest of the security team that there was a heist going on.
Alarms blared throughout the building and Helen kicked Dylan in the chest, before snatching the Glock 17 away from him. Dylan staggered back as Helen cocked the weapon and aimed it at Dylan’s head.
Dylan held his hands up in surrender, realizing that there was no way out of this. Well, maybe there was.
Two security guards rushed up the stairs to the security office, right before hearing a bang. They readied their rifles and got ready to blow open the office door.
Helen readied the Glock 17 and then the door blew open off its hinges.
The two security guards rushed inside to find a tall, red haired, American girl pointing a pistol at the head security manager’s head. The walls of the office were scorched from the blast and the two guards pointed their AK-47s at the girl.
“Stand down, both of you,” the first guard said.
“Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air,” the second guard said, quickly after the first. “You’re under arrest.”
The first guard moved toward Helen with handcuffs, while the second maintained his AK-47 on Helen.
The handcuffs bit into Helen’s skin as they clamped around her wrist. Things kept getting worse and worse.
* * *
Chase was getting worried. Helen had not responded to his couple of tries to see what was going on and he had heard the gunshots. Then, finally, Chase got a response from Helen.
“Code 9,” Helen said into the mike. “Co-.”
Helen was cut short when Chase heard the microphone being taken away and smashed.
“Guy’s,” Kane said, “Helen’s been captured. We need to go. NOW.”
Chase grabbed the blueprints and started to run out of the complex.
“What about Helen,” Chase asked.
“She’s not coming back, Chase,” Rana said. “They’re going to interrogate her.”
As the remaining members of the heist team made their way out of the building and to the stealth helicopter, Helen was struggling as she was forced into the back of a military vehicle.
As Helen pressed her face against bars of the cage she was in, she saw, through the barred window at the back of the vehicle, the team rising into the sky in the stealth chopper.
“Don’t let them break you,” Chase said through the back of the helicopter. Helen wished she could respond, but the gag in her mouth prevented her.
Don’t let them break you.
A year earlier:
Chase walked down the hallway of the science building of his high school. The Empire had taken a lot from him when he was young. His father. His mother’s money. Their home. It had been rough, so when an adult asked him if he wanted to join a group of rebels against the Empire, he was ready to accept.
Chase went to the rebel’s hideout to find a bunch of other teenagers. They said that they had been trying to find someone who could steal and they also knew that Chase could steal. And he did it a lot.
The reason that they needed someone who could steal was because they needed a lot of money to take down the Empire. They were going to steal the money from the most secure bank in the world to show them that the rebels had teeth.
Chase was the last person for the heist. Rana, Kane, Rider, and Helen were the others that Chase quickly got to know. Helen was the climber and the camera person. Rana had the guns. Kane was the scout and the decoy, and Rider was the control, pilot and computer person. The last piece of the puzzle was Chase, the thief. The one who actually stole the thing.
Chase was tasked with stealing the blueprints from the Vault, one of the most secure places in the world. It housed the blueprints to the most secure bank in the world so that Chase and the rest of the gang could steal it.
They practiced working together on fake banks and real ones.
Rana and Chase shot the dummies with their guns. They had been practicing for a week now, getting a feel for the gun. The bullets rammed into the dummy’s heart and head. They practiced on moving and stationary targets to get used to the guns they would be carrying for the heist. After two hours of work on the firing range they got ready to practice on a real bank. After taking out the guards and hacking bad feed into the cameras, they were easily able to unlock the locks and take the money. Hopefully their good luck would hold up against a thief’s nightmare: the Vault.
As he worked more and more with the group, he found that they were becoming the family he had never really had. They became his closest friends, so when it came the time where they were going to steal the blueprints, he was ready.
Now:
Helen was being driven in the back of a military vehicle. The vehicle bumped and jostled around with Helen in a cage in the back. She was repeatedly thrown against the walls of the cage as she tried to keep track of where they had gone. After a while, she gave up trying to escape and tried to fall asleep, but Chase’s words continued to echo through her head denying her the opportunity.
Don’t let them break you.
* * *
Chase awoke with a start. He had fallen asleep in the helicopter and had been shocked awake by nightmares of what might have happened to Helen. She was probably enduring torture to keep the information of the rebels out of the Empire’s hands.
“We’re landing,” Rider informed them as the chopper touched down in the rebel’s base. The remaining members of the team got out of the helicopter and walked down the ramp, onto rebel soil.
“Where’s Helen,” Commander Sloane asked, his dark colored hair, and blue eyes piercing the area as he walked up to the heist crew.
“She didn’t make it out,” Rana replied grimly.
“She wasn’t killed though, only captured,” Kane said.
“We need to get her back. The Empire will torture her trying to find us,” Chase said.
“Chase, how would we find her?” Commander Sloane asked.
“We would search all the files to find the prison she is in. We have to,” Chase said desperately.
“We all know you want Helen back, but it would be too risky,” Commander Sloane said. Chase threw his hands in the air and stormed off to his room, slamming the door behind him.
“Uhgg!,” Chase said. Chase ran his hands through his hair angrily. He sulked on his bed frustrated with how the heist went. After an hour sulking in his room, he heard a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Chase said. It was the rest of the crew.
“Hey,” Rider said. “We all know you like Helen, so we’re going to help you break her out.”
“I like her, but I don’t like her like her,” Chase said, his face turning pink.
“Whatever you say,” Kane said.
“Well, anyway,” Rana said, glaring at Rider and Kane, “We’re going to help you break her out.”
“Really?” Chase asked.
“Yes,” Rider said.
“Let’s do this,” Chase said. “Do you have the location of the prison Helen is being held at?”
“No, but we do have the files that might get us the coordinates.”
* * *
Several hours, and a lot of research later, Rider had found some coordinates that might lead to the prison. On the maps, it didn’t show anything, more proof that the Empire was hiding a prison there. They planned to covertly steal a stealth chopper, then fly out to investigate. Commander Sloane, a fatherly figure to the heist crew would say it was impulsive. Probably because it was.
They snuck out at 10pm together, and loaded up the helicopter. They all got in and started the engines. The helicopter took off into the sky, with furious guards yelling threats from below.
While they were in the air, they realized that they had left the blueprints from the Vault in the helicopter. As Chase was sifting through them, he found a prison blueprint. It might not be the one we need, Chase thought, but at least it was a prison layout.
“You’ll want to get some shut eye,” Kane said. “It’s almost 1am.”
“I’d say the same to you, Kane,” Chase replied, slowly closing his eyes.
* * *
A long time had passed since Helen had seen the sky. After being taken out of the vehicle, she had been forced into a small prison cell. They had left her there with nothing for almost a day now.
Helen screamed at the walls. She heard a noise coming from the door. She whipped around, the dark shadows under her eyes becoming apparent to her captors.
“Come here,” someone said outside the door. Helen immediately walked away from the door.
“I said ‘come here’,” the person said, more forcefully this time. The shadow of a gun crossed the floor. Helen, raising her hands, walked to the door, fear, smothering her features. A bag went over her head as soon as she came in reach of the person outside the door.
Helen was dragged out of the cell and ushered down the hall struggling with her captors. She was pushed into another room and she heard the sound of a lock being put into place. She was forced into a chair and felt her arms being bound around the back of the chair. The bag was lifted off her head and her eyes protested as the massive lights in the room blinded her. She could make out through her squinting eyes, a person standing in front of her. As her eyes adjusted to the bright light, she could also see a bucket of water, and a cloth.
Dammit, Helen thought. A torture chamber.
The man in front of her said, “Are you a rebel? Answer correctly and we won’t torture you. Answer wrong, and we will.”
“No,” Helen replied, doing her best to sound convincing.
“Wrong answer,” the man said. The man standing in front of her dipped the cloth into the bucket of water and pressed it against her nose and mouth. Helen fought for oxygen trying to get the cloth off her face.
She coughed, but the cloth trapped the cough in her lungs, preventing her. Her lungs, face, and body burned, and just as the world started to black out, the cloth tore away from her face.
Helen hacked and coughed, before breathing in air. Sweet, sweet, air.
“Answer wrong again, it’ll happen again,” the man threatened. “Where are the rebels hiding?”
“Somewhere near the coast of the north eastern part of the continent that was originally called Africa,” Helen lied. The man punched her in the jaw, sending pain shooting through her head.
“Don’t lie to me. It will get worse every time.” The cloth went over her face again, and Helen fought again to breathe. Water entered her lungs and Helen struggled, the world turning dim. Helen gasped as the cloth came away from her face.
“She’s not talking,” the man said to someone that Helen couldn’t see. The man nodded before punching her in the face again. Blood streamed down Helen’s face as she fought through the extreme pain.
“Where are the rebels hiding!” the man screamed at Helen.
“I said ‘Somewhere near the coast of the north eastern part of the continent that was originally called Africa’,” Helen said. The man looked ready to kill her, but stopped, before saying, “Okay. I’ll do just that.”
“I’ll let you go back to your room. Forever,” the man said menacingly. She was forced down the hall and shoved into her room. She heard the lock clicking, then silence.
* * *
The helicopter touched down silently on the grassy plain. Up ahead, a massive structure loomed in the night. Chase, Rana, and Kane slowly moved toward the prison. Rider stayed back at the helicopter, ready to fly at a moment’s notice. The crew made their way to the prison gate. Kane scaled the brick wall and barbed wire, before signaling the all clear sign. Rana and Chase scaled the wall, holding the barbed wire back for each other. With scraped pants, and determined minds, they made their way into the prison.
The hallways were lit with large lights. Kane shot out the cameras with his gun. With no Helen, they had to shoot out the cameras. Chase heard a noise.
Footsteps. Coming from down the hall. Chase motioned for Kane to hide as he and Rana readied their guns. Two guards rounded the corner. Three gunshots went off. One met its mark with Kane being hit in the knee. As he fell Rana shot a bullet at the ceiling light wire, sending it crashing onto the guards.
Sparks flew, with Chase being thrown back by an explosion. Glass littered the floor of the battle. The two guards were motionless, with glass shards sticking out of them everywhere. Rana knelt beside Kane, before picking him up.
“Go,” Chase said. “I’ll get Helen out of here. Kane needs medical attention. He’s losing blood. Fast.”
Rana nodded grimly, before taking Kane and running towards the exit. Chase walked down the hallway, looking at everything down the barrel of his gun. He passed cell after cell. Most of them empty. The ones that weren’t held bodies. He saw people with ragged limbs and hollow expressions. They glanced pleadingly at him. He wished he could help them, but he needed to find Helen.
He ran past security cameras and alarms blared. He ran and ran looking and needing to find Helen. He heard it before he saw it. The screaming. Helen’s screaming. He went to the door the screaming was coming from. It didn’t have bars, just a steel plated door. He grabbed a lock pick and began working away at it.
The lock held up, much to his dismay as he continued to work at it. He heard a click and the door swung open. Helen sat on the floor of a bare room. Metal plates covered the cell from head to toe. Chase rushed inside as Helen got up off the floor. She wasn’t screaming anymore. She hugged Chase, crying.
“We have to go, Helen,” Chase said.
“Yes. Let’s go,” Helen said, regaining her composure. Chase and Helen ran back through the hallways. A patrol of four guards stopped them before they could make it to the exit. The lead guard raised his gun. Before the guard could shoot, Chase shot him, a bullet embedding in his chest. The other guards raised their weapons. Four bullets fired. A guard went down to Chase’s bullet. Chase went down to the three other bullets.
Pain rocketed through his body as the bullets tore through him. Helen swept Chase up in her arms and ran for the exit, bullets whipping around her.
She dashed to the helicopter and rolled into the helicopter as it rose into the night sky.
* * *
X looked through the window of the top floor of the building. X heard a knock at the door.
“Come in,” X said through the face mask covering his face, a synthesizer masking the real sound of his voice. His lieutenant, Hunter, walked into the room, bowing as he entered.
“Sir, a heist crew raided the Vault,” Hunter said quietly.
“What!” X said, outraged. “I thought the place had the best security.”
“We found a culprit. His name is Dylan Hart. He fell asleep watching the security monitors.”
X’s features twisted in anger.
“Send for him now.” X said. “I will have a talk with him.”
“Yes, my lord.”
As Dylan walked into X’s office, he felt a sense of dread wash over him. He had fallen asleep on the job. He knocked on the door.
“Come in,” X’s synthetic voice said. Dylan entered the room.
“You did an amazing job,” X said.
“Really?” Dylan asked, relieved.
“Yes. I will up your pay by 20%.”
“Thank you so much,” Dylan said.
“You’re welcome,” X said, smiling grimly behind his mask.
After Dylan left, X sent for Hunter. Hunter entered.
“Hunter,” X said, “Can you have the Phantom go after the heist crew?”
“I don’t mean to say that you are incorrect, but Phantom is incredibly expensive as assassins go.”
“Send for him anyway.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Dylan Hart was smiling. He had not immediately died after the conversation with X so he counted that as a win. He was still smiling when he got gas for the tank. He was still smiling when he got off the freeway. He was still smiling when his car blew up, killing him instantly.