CHAPTER NINE: THE HEIST

 He pulled the ski mask over his face and turned to her as she donned her own black mask.

“Ready?” his voice was muffled.
She nodded, her eyes locked on the building in front of her, “Ready.”

***

It didn’t take a genius to plan a heist. But did it take a genius to execute one?
These were the thoughts that ran through Flame’s mind as he scrambled to unlock the door with Scarlet’s hairpin. Or did it take luck?

Maxwell Banker happened to be on night patrol outside the station.
Scarlet had somehow managed to render the officers who were at the station unconscious.
And Gio successfully disabled every security measure that could threaten their mission, even the lights.

It was surprisingly going according to plan.

Click.
The door swung open and he answered his own question, “So it takes luck.”

His eyes widened at the sight of tall cabinets, each and every one of them filled with files.
“That’s…” Scarlet muttered, following him as they stepped further into the room. “That’s a lot of files.”
“I know…”

Suddenly, something caught his attention – a safe encased in the wall at the back. He froze. He had a strange feeling that that safe contained what he was looking for.

“A six-digit code,” Scarlet observed, holding a finger against her earpiece. “Guys, can you think of any possible combinations?”

They heard Gio’s fingers flying across the keyboard before hearing his voice, “It’s not a combination, but a date. 15th of August 2009. Apparently a very important date to them.”

“Wait a minute,” Chloe’s voice came through their earpieces. “I think I’ve heard my dad talk about it a lot. Over phone calls.”
“Me too,” Blaze’s voice followed. “My mother usually likes to keep those conversations behind closed doors though.”
“Same with my father,” Chloe added. “I’d usually overhear it.”

“15th of August…” Flame echoed as he stared blankly at the safe.
“Does it mean something?” Scarlet asked softly.
“It’s the night my mother died.”

***

Cherry stood behind Silver, both girls collectively watching the screen of her laptop.

2:30am.
Silver cracked her knuckles and got to work.

2:33am.
She infiltrated the server.

2:34am.
She noticed something was wrong–

“What happened, Sil?” Cherry leaned in closer. “Why does it look like that?”
“Everything,” Silver knitted her brows, growing restless as she peered at what was in front of her. “All the surveillance cameras, the security systems and even the fire alarms. Everything.”
“What about them?”
“They’re all switched off.”
“What does that mean?”
Silver turned to Cherry with a troubled expression on her face, “It means I’m not the only one who’s hacked into the system tonight.”

***

Flame reached out to the safe and keyed in the combination, 1-5-0-8-0-9, with trembling fingers.

He held his breath as the red light turned green and they heard the gears unwinding. The safe door hung open by an inch.

Scarlet glanced at him. He was frozen still, just staring at the safe.

She chewed on her lip, folding her arms and tapping her foot on the concrete floor. She should be patient with him. She returned her attention to the safe. Whatever it was that was inside, be it even a small sheet of paper – it could change the course of his life.

“Flame?” she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, hoping it would help him speed things up before the chief got back.

Suddenly–
“Guys, something’s happening!”
Gio sounded worried. Really worried.

Scarlet removed her hand from Flame’s shoulder and spoke sternly into her earbud, “What is it, Gio?”

Without warning, the CCTV cameras switched on and flashing red lights blinded them, a blaring siren accompanying them. They turned to the door as a motorised gate dropped from the ceiling, blocking their only way out.

Scarlet and Flame shared a look of alarm, “Uh oh.”

***

When Gio noticed the second hacker, it was already too late – they’d turned the surveillance cameras back on, restarted the intrusion detection systems and set off a warning alarm within the span of a single minute.

He scanned the screen with rising panic, hammering the keyboard as he tried to fix everything before the police caught his friends. Chloe and Blaze had already run downstairs, grabbing two extra earbuds so that they could keep in touch while they tried to figure out another plan.

“Who even are you?” he muttered, taking his hands off the keyboards, running one through his hair. “And how did you know I’d be here tonight?”

Suddenly, a single thought flashed through his mind.
The thought.
That thought.

He swallowed, his fingers trembling, “But it might work…”

***

Scarlet pulled the mask back over her face, scanning the room for an escape route when a vent caught her eye. She frowned thoughtfully. If only she could reach it–
Her eyes lit up and she muttered, “The file cabinets.”

She stripped off her gloves, “Come on Flame! Time to go!”
She jumped, opening the drawers and climbing up the cabinet to grab the grille.

They heard officers rushing towards the door, their footsteps sounding like a terrifying stampede. Flame looked at Scarlet and back at the safe. It was his last chance.

He swung the safe open and grabbed the single brown file inside, climbing into the vent with Scarlet’s help just as the gate rose and three officers, including the chief of police, burst into the room.

***

Blaze and Chloe turned a corner into a hidden alleyway outside the station. They could hear the alarm blaring from within and the officers rushing inside in an attempt to catch the intruders.

Chloe ran her eyes over the wall when something grabbed her attention. She tapped on Blaze’s shoulder with a broad smile on her face, motioning to the vent, “That could be our entrance.”

“Guys,” Scarlet’s voice came as an echoed whisper, the shouts of the policemen performing as background vocals. “We made it into the ventilation system.”

Blaze’s lips curved into a grin as she shared Chloe’s look of satisfaction, “Or their exit.”

“Guys, we have a plan,” Blaze spoke into the earpiece.
“Wonderful,” Flame answered, sarcasm laced in his voice. “Can you hurry up so we can get the hell out of here?”
“Fine,” Chloe groaned. “Gio, do you think you can pull out the schema you scanned for the vents?”
Silence.
“Gio?” Blaze echoed, a feeling of uncertainty washing over her.
“Aren’t you guys with him?” Scarlet asked.
Chloe furrowed her brows, “That doesn’t matter right now.”
“Yeah,” Blaze said as they started running back to the building, past the occupied cops. “We’ll get the blueprints and get you out of there ourselves.”

***

Gio growled quietly at the pain of his finger stuck to the screen. He had managed to deactivate the alarms, but at what cost? He was halfway between being embedded within his own computer and freeing himself from the technology. His finger was visibly glitching, as if it were an image on a malfunctioning computer.

He had to get it off, he thought as he pulled backwards, no matter what it took.

He finally succeeded, tumbling backwards. He was short of breath, trying to recover as soon as he could. His head was drumming violently and his pupils were dilated, imitating his finger’s glitch a few moments earlier. He held his chest, feeling his heart thumping wildly like a caged animal trying to escape. He hated that feeling.

“Gio!” Blaze called out. “Why didn’t you answer us?”
His eyes shot open, he’d recovered enough.
“Are you okay?” Chloe asked as both girls hovered over him, worry painted on their faces.

He pushed himself up to a sitting position, “Sorry, girls. I just got…”
He glanced at them sideways, “... dizzy.”

“Hurry,” Chloe ran to her backpack. “Pull out the schema you scanned.”
“Schema?” he tilted his head, his mind still in a frenzy.
“The one for the vents,” Blaze ran after her. “Flame and Scarlet are trapped in there, G. We need to get them out. Now!”
“Oh,” he crawled towards his laptop, his vision blurring. “Okay…”
“Nevermind!” Chloe said, pulling out blueprints from her bag and spreading it open on the floor, skimming through it. “I got it!”
“Gio, are you okay?” Blaze stared at him. “You don’t look too good.”
“Yeah,” his voice trailed off. “I’m fine.”

And then–
It all went black.

***

“Silver…” Sarah’s voice was distorted. “He’s gone now… I think.”
“What do you mean you think?” Silver chewed on her lip.
“He left a message.”

Cherry held onto the back of Silver’s chair and leaned in closer to the screen with her as the message from the mysterious hacker was displayed, each word consistently glitching:

DO NOT MESS WITH THE FRIENDS OF THE HUMAN GLITCH.