Safety First: Revamped - Rule #1: Always Have an Exit Strategy
It was moments like these that Air wished he hadn’t joined this job all those weeks ago, but when they had come to him he hadn’t been able to pass up the amount of money that it was going to procure. They had cornered him at his favorite hangout spot, a small bar in the darker part of Chicago; it was one of the only places he had found that the patrons spoke Romanian almost fluently. The first time he had stumbled upon the small building he had felt almost a crushing sense of home, and had immediately rented out the place on top.
He had just been sitting down to a nice beer when the bar’s door opened, letting in the last rays of light of the day before they were blocked by the body of the person entering the bar. Ari had ignored the stranger’s entrance for the moment, used to the random patron wandering by every once in awhile, wanting to know what the smaller building was. He didn’t look up from his drink until the stranger sat down on the stool next to him, ordering a beer for himself. Ari looked around at the empty seats, scattered about the bar before lighting upon the man sitting next to him, eyes widening at the sheer mass that occupied the space.
The man sitting next to him looked as if he could eat the entire contents of a supermarket and still be hungry a few minutes later. Ari rolled his eyes slightly before turning his gaze back to his drink, if this man was here for him then he damn well wasn’t going to speak up first. He had learned long ago that if you wanted to procure respect in his way of life, then it was better to stay silent and make the client talk to you. Something about the whole ‘strong and silent’ type got to these scumbags better than anything else and just made his job easier.
‘You Umbra?’ The stranger has turned on his stool to better face Ari, placing his left elbow on the bar next to the drink he had ordered. Instead, of responding Ari continued to look dead ahead, taking the occasional sip of his drink, his lack of response just caused the behemoth to grunt and continue to look at him.
‘Yeah, I suppose that answers that question. Well, we’ve got this job that me and my boys are thinking about hittin’ and we need someone with your, erm, talents to help us. Wonderin’ if you wouldn’t mind joinin’ us for a bit. We’ll make it worth your while.’ The man slid a folded piece of paper across the bar, moving it into Ari’s eye line; before he turned back to his drink and took a sip.
Ari glanced down at the piece of paper, before slowly reaching up with his gloved fingers and opening it. Written on the paper was the information of where and when the job was to take place, and the blueprints of the safe he would need to crack. Glancing at the info he saw that they were going to hit the Chicago National Bank a few weeks from now. Ari had gone after banks before, but never one of this size and was a bit intrigued as to why this group was interested in it.
Shrugging softly he folded the paper back up and slipped it into one of his jacket’s pockets, missing the smug grin that flitted across the other man’s face for a second before being wiped away as he took a drink from his beer.
‘We’ll be waiting for you at 25th and Lex to go over the plans tomorrow. Can’t wait to see you there.’ The behemoth of a man finished up his beer and pushed himself off of the stool, turning to go before sneaking a glance back at the quiet man at the bar. ‘Be seeing you.’ With a wave he exited the bar in much the way he had entered, blocking out all of the light in the doorway with his sheer size. That had been weeks ago and now here he was, stuck with this group of buffoons as he tried to open up the vault as quick as he could.
Ari snorted softly as he turned the dial in front of him, trying to ignore the shuffling coming from behind him as the others in the group started to get restless. After a few meetings here or there to discuss their plans it had all culminated into this night. They had been able to break into the bank easily enough, hacking into the security system and disabling the alarms.
He had been a bit surprised by their proficiency, expecting to have to take over and accomplish everything by himself, but when they had easily gotten into the bank, he was glad to know that all he would have to do would be to open the vault. He wasn’t willing to give away all of his secrets to a bunch of people he wouldn’t trust with a ten foot pole.
‘C’mon, Umbra. We don’t have all day.’ One of the younger members of the group stood behind Ari’s shoulder, masked face glaring at him through the reflection of the bank’s vault. He was about to retaliate when one of the other members grabbed the younger man and pulled him away from the safecracker.
‘Tommy, don’t piss him off. None of us here can get it open but him and if he decides to leave we’re screwed.’ The other man pulled the irate Tommy away from Ari as he grumbled under his breath about ‘lousy safecrackers’. Ari just rolled his eyes before closing them to continue concentrating on the inner wirings of the vault’s door.
It had been awhile since he had encountered a safe this intricate and it was going to take all of his concentration if he was going to open it without any of the others knowing exactly how he did it. He was so busy visualizing the bank’s innards in his mind that he almost missed the slight beeping he could here from behind him, along with the sudden panicked whispers, alerting him to the fact that something had gone terribly wrong.
Sending out his senses he could feel that one of the other group members had hit a silent alarm that they had missed earlier and now all of the security guards were on their way up. Ari wasn’t too worried about the guards, knowing that most of them hadn’t lifted anything heavier than a jelly donut in the past five years, but he hadn’t counted on them having a new recruit that had just started that night.
Ari returned his attention the safe in front of him, feeling accomplished as the last tumblers slid into place with a soft click. Grinning in satisfaction underneath his mask he stood back from the vault door and started packing up his tools into his bag. Seeing Ari move away the others quickly moved over to the vault and opened the door fully, starting to stuff their bags full of as much money as they could before the guards arrived.
They all looked up as a door at the end of the hall slammed open, echoing down the corridor towards them, before returning to filling the bags faster than before. Ari moved silently over to the doorway leading into the vault room, plastering himself to the wall beside the opening. He waited there as he heard cautious footsteps moving down the hallway towards them, wondering who had been able to make it up the stairwells that quickly.
Tommy had been able to disable all of the elevators earlier; after, knowing that something like this might happen, Ari had suggested it. The others had looked at him oddly before finally deferring to his decision, knowing that he was one of the most successful thieves in the world right now and not willing to disregard one of the only suggestions he had given.
Ari watched as a young man slid open the door, watching cautiously for any of the criminals to be around, before hitting him in the back of the head with a lamp that Ari had picked up from a nearby desk. He caught the younger man in his arms as he slumped and slowly lowered him to the ground behind the door, using his body as a weight to wedge the door closed.
Wiping his gloved hands against his thighs he turned back around to see how far the others had gotten on packing up the vault’s contents. The others had gotten almost all of the money stuffed into bags that they stacked outside the vault’s doors, when Ari heard more footsteps rushing down the hallway.
Knowing that the younger guard’s body would only delay them for a few minutes he quickly scooped up his bag of tools and moved over to the stack of bags full of money. Grabbing one off the top he quickly tied it to his bag of tools and hung them on his back before silently moving to the other side of the room. None of the others noticed his absence, too busy trying to grab as much money as they could before the guards got there.
Walking quickly he moved towards a darkened hallway, where he knew lead to a fire escape, and inevitably his freedom. He had just reached the hallway’s opening when he heard the doorway, blocked by the guard’s body, bang open. Glancing back he watched as the medley of guards streamed through the open door, training on their guns on the robbers still in the vault. Ari chuckled as he moved into the shadows, blending seamlessly, and watched as each of the group members was handcuffed and forced to lie on the ground face down.
Deciding that this would be the time to go he turned around and headed silently down the dark hallway, towards the window at the end. Reaching it, he quickly slid open the pane, sticking his head out and looking around to make sure the way was clear. Seeing the empty alley he slid open the window the rest of the way and slipped through the opening, landing silently on the rickety metal, as he closed the window behind him.
Looking down he started down the creaking fire escape, sparing a glance up every once in awhile to see if anyone had noticed his exit. Reaching the bottom he dropped down silently into a crouch, looking around into the darkened alley for any surprises. He waited a few moments to make sure he was alone before moving quickly over to where he had left his bike, leaning up against the brick wall, covered in dirt and trash, obscured slightly by a few trash cans.
Wiping off the grime he swung his leg over the bike and kicked it on, feeling the thrum of the motor through his legs. Smiling slightly he bent over the body of the bike and sped out of the alley, leaving the dirt and grime behind. So focused on getting away as fast as he could he missed the pair of eyes that followed his movement down the street. The owner of the eyes smirked slightly before tossing down their cigarette, crushing the butt under the heel of their boot before sauntering down the street, hands in their jacket’s pockets.
Ari sped through the streets, taking a roundabout route to his place, just in case anyone was following him. Pulling into the back alley of the bar he parked the bike in the corner where Dave had said he could put it. Double checking to make sure that no one had followed him he turned to walk up the back stairwell that led to his apartment. This stairwell was one of the main reasons he had chosen the place, a quick getaway was always a plus when finding a place to live.
Sighing softly he unlocked the door, entering the darkened room; he ripped off his mask and tossed it to the side. He smiled softly, knowing that his black hair would be messed up more than it usually was, and sat down on the edge of his bed. His smile turned a little sad at the edges as he remembered how his sister used to fix his hair whenever he came home with it mussed. Grabbing him by his lapels to reach her level as she ran her fingers through his locks, threatening to shave it all off while he slept.
That had been almost eight years ago now, but it still felt like yesterday that she was running about the house, her laughter trailing after her. If he concentrated, he could almost hear the echo of her feet on the floor as she’d run past, smiling happily at whatever game she was doing. Shaking himself out of his thoughts he finished divesting himself of his gear and double-checked that all of the windows and doors were locked. He’d made the mistake once of not checking to make sure that he had locked everything up properly once and it had landed him with a knife in his side and a dead enemy at his feet.
Snorting softly he set his alarms, feeling the power thrum through his fingers as he trailed them along the walls. Years he had been at this and it still felt like yesterday when he had first gotten his first job that day. Slumping onto the bed he lay on his back, staring up at the darkened ceiling unable to sleep, thinking back on that day.
So consumed in his thoughts he almost missed the soft tapping against his window outside, a soft ‘Umbra’ floating through the air. Ari groaned softly knowing only one person who would bother him at this time of night, Jonathan.
He had just been sitting down to a nice beer when the bar’s door opened, letting in the last rays of light of the day before they were blocked by the body of the person entering the bar. Ari had ignored the stranger’s entrance for the moment, used to the random patron wandering by every once in awhile, wanting to know what the smaller building was. He didn’t look up from his drink until the stranger sat down on the stool next to him, ordering a beer for himself. Ari looked around at the empty seats, scattered about the bar before lighting upon the man sitting next to him, eyes widening at the sheer mass that occupied the space.
The man sitting next to him looked as if he could eat the entire contents of a supermarket and still be hungry a few minutes later. Ari rolled his eyes slightly before turning his gaze back to his drink, if this man was here for him then he damn well wasn’t going to speak up first. He had learned long ago that if you wanted to procure respect in his way of life, then it was better to stay silent and make the client talk to you. Something about the whole ‘strong and silent’ type got to these scumbags better than anything else and just made his job easier.
‘You Umbra?’ The stranger has turned on his stool to better face Ari, placing his left elbow on the bar next to the drink he had ordered. Instead, of responding Ari continued to look dead ahead, taking the occasional sip of his drink, his lack of response just caused the behemoth to grunt and continue to look at him.
‘Yeah, I suppose that answers that question. Well, we’ve got this job that me and my boys are thinking about hittin’ and we need someone with your, erm, talents to help us. Wonderin’ if you wouldn’t mind joinin’ us for a bit. We’ll make it worth your while.’ The man slid a folded piece of paper across the bar, moving it into Ari’s eye line; before he turned back to his drink and took a sip.
Ari glanced down at the piece of paper, before slowly reaching up with his gloved fingers and opening it. Written on the paper was the information of where and when the job was to take place, and the blueprints of the safe he would need to crack. Glancing at the info he saw that they were going to hit the Chicago National Bank a few weeks from now. Ari had gone after banks before, but never one of this size and was a bit intrigued as to why this group was interested in it.
Shrugging softly he folded the paper back up and slipped it into one of his jacket’s pockets, missing the smug grin that flitted across the other man’s face for a second before being wiped away as he took a drink from his beer.
‘We’ll be waiting for you at 25th and Lex to go over the plans tomorrow. Can’t wait to see you there.’ The behemoth of a man finished up his beer and pushed himself off of the stool, turning to go before sneaking a glance back at the quiet man at the bar. ‘Be seeing you.’ With a wave he exited the bar in much the way he had entered, blocking out all of the light in the doorway with his sheer size. That had been weeks ago and now here he was, stuck with this group of buffoons as he tried to open up the vault as quick as he could.
Ari snorted softly as he turned the dial in front of him, trying to ignore the shuffling coming from behind him as the others in the group started to get restless. After a few meetings here or there to discuss their plans it had all culminated into this night. They had been able to break into the bank easily enough, hacking into the security system and disabling the alarms.
He had been a bit surprised by their proficiency, expecting to have to take over and accomplish everything by himself, but when they had easily gotten into the bank, he was glad to know that all he would have to do would be to open the vault. He wasn’t willing to give away all of his secrets to a bunch of people he wouldn’t trust with a ten foot pole.
‘C’mon, Umbra. We don’t have all day.’ One of the younger members of the group stood behind Ari’s shoulder, masked face glaring at him through the reflection of the bank’s vault. He was about to retaliate when one of the other members grabbed the younger man and pulled him away from the safecracker.
‘Tommy, don’t piss him off. None of us here can get it open but him and if he decides to leave we’re screwed.’ The other man pulled the irate Tommy away from Ari as he grumbled under his breath about ‘lousy safecrackers’. Ari just rolled his eyes before closing them to continue concentrating on the inner wirings of the vault’s door.
It had been awhile since he had encountered a safe this intricate and it was going to take all of his concentration if he was going to open it without any of the others knowing exactly how he did it. He was so busy visualizing the bank’s innards in his mind that he almost missed the slight beeping he could here from behind him, along with the sudden panicked whispers, alerting him to the fact that something had gone terribly wrong.
Sending out his senses he could feel that one of the other group members had hit a silent alarm that they had missed earlier and now all of the security guards were on their way up. Ari wasn’t too worried about the guards, knowing that most of them hadn’t lifted anything heavier than a jelly donut in the past five years, but he hadn’t counted on them having a new recruit that had just started that night.
Ari returned his attention the safe in front of him, feeling accomplished as the last tumblers slid into place with a soft click. Grinning in satisfaction underneath his mask he stood back from the vault door and started packing up his tools into his bag. Seeing Ari move away the others quickly moved over to the vault and opened the door fully, starting to stuff their bags full of as much money as they could before the guards arrived.
They all looked up as a door at the end of the hall slammed open, echoing down the corridor towards them, before returning to filling the bags faster than before. Ari moved silently over to the doorway leading into the vault room, plastering himself to the wall beside the opening. He waited there as he heard cautious footsteps moving down the hallway towards them, wondering who had been able to make it up the stairwells that quickly.
Tommy had been able to disable all of the elevators earlier; after, knowing that something like this might happen, Ari had suggested it. The others had looked at him oddly before finally deferring to his decision, knowing that he was one of the most successful thieves in the world right now and not willing to disregard one of the only suggestions he had given.
Ari watched as a young man slid open the door, watching cautiously for any of the criminals to be around, before hitting him in the back of the head with a lamp that Ari had picked up from a nearby desk. He caught the younger man in his arms as he slumped and slowly lowered him to the ground behind the door, using his body as a weight to wedge the door closed.
Wiping his gloved hands against his thighs he turned back around to see how far the others had gotten on packing up the vault’s contents. The others had gotten almost all of the money stuffed into bags that they stacked outside the vault’s doors, when Ari heard more footsteps rushing down the hallway.
Knowing that the younger guard’s body would only delay them for a few minutes he quickly scooped up his bag of tools and moved over to the stack of bags full of money. Grabbing one off the top he quickly tied it to his bag of tools and hung them on his back before silently moving to the other side of the room. None of the others noticed his absence, too busy trying to grab as much money as they could before the guards got there.
Walking quickly he moved towards a darkened hallway, where he knew lead to a fire escape, and inevitably his freedom. He had just reached the hallway’s opening when he heard the doorway, blocked by the guard’s body, bang open. Glancing back he watched as the medley of guards streamed through the open door, training on their guns on the robbers still in the vault. Ari chuckled as he moved into the shadows, blending seamlessly, and watched as each of the group members was handcuffed and forced to lie on the ground face down.
Deciding that this would be the time to go he turned around and headed silently down the dark hallway, towards the window at the end. Reaching it, he quickly slid open the pane, sticking his head out and looking around to make sure the way was clear. Seeing the empty alley he slid open the window the rest of the way and slipped through the opening, landing silently on the rickety metal, as he closed the window behind him.
Looking down he started down the creaking fire escape, sparing a glance up every once in awhile to see if anyone had noticed his exit. Reaching the bottom he dropped down silently into a crouch, looking around into the darkened alley for any surprises. He waited a few moments to make sure he was alone before moving quickly over to where he had left his bike, leaning up against the brick wall, covered in dirt and trash, obscured slightly by a few trash cans.
Wiping off the grime he swung his leg over the bike and kicked it on, feeling the thrum of the motor through his legs. Smiling slightly he bent over the body of the bike and sped out of the alley, leaving the dirt and grime behind. So focused on getting away as fast as he could he missed the pair of eyes that followed his movement down the street. The owner of the eyes smirked slightly before tossing down their cigarette, crushing the butt under the heel of their boot before sauntering down the street, hands in their jacket’s pockets.
Ari sped through the streets, taking a roundabout route to his place, just in case anyone was following him. Pulling into the back alley of the bar he parked the bike in the corner where Dave had said he could put it. Double checking to make sure that no one had followed him he turned to walk up the back stairwell that led to his apartment. This stairwell was one of the main reasons he had chosen the place, a quick getaway was always a plus when finding a place to live.
Sighing softly he unlocked the door, entering the darkened room; he ripped off his mask and tossed it to the side. He smiled softly, knowing that his black hair would be messed up more than it usually was, and sat down on the edge of his bed. His smile turned a little sad at the edges as he remembered how his sister used to fix his hair whenever he came home with it mussed. Grabbing him by his lapels to reach her level as she ran her fingers through his locks, threatening to shave it all off while he slept.
That had been almost eight years ago now, but it still felt like yesterday that she was running about the house, her laughter trailing after her. If he concentrated, he could almost hear the echo of her feet on the floor as she’d run past, smiling happily at whatever game she was doing. Shaking himself out of his thoughts he finished divesting himself of his gear and double-checked that all of the windows and doors were locked. He’d made the mistake once of not checking to make sure that he had locked everything up properly once and it had landed him with a knife in his side and a dead enemy at his feet.
Snorting softly he set his alarms, feeling the power thrum through his fingers as he trailed them along the walls. Years he had been at this and it still felt like yesterday when he had first gotten his first job that day. Slumping onto the bed he lay on his back, staring up at the darkened ceiling unable to sleep, thinking back on that day.
So consumed in his thoughts he almost missed the soft tapping against his window outside, a soft ‘Umbra’ floating through the air. Ari groaned softly knowing only one person who would bother him at this time of night, Jonathan.