"No." Worick said firmly, "Absolutely not," Nic grunted in agreement from his spot by the window, "there is no way a rookie is even getting near this job."
"I am not a rookie!" Emma seethed, "besides neither of you can complete this job without it turning into a fiasco." Emma stared both of the Handymen down, refusing to give in. They had been arguing like this for over half an hour without coming to an agreement, it all started with Dr Theo's request the previous evening.
Emma caught the ball as Nina threw it back to her, they had both been kicked out of the clinic while Theo talked to Nicolas and Worick. She watched them out of the corner of her eye, her lip reading skills were average at best and that was without playing catch at the same time, though she still caught most of the conversation. "So what do you need Doc?" Worick asked, he seemed genuinely interested it wasn't too often she saw such a serious expression on his face.
The doctor sighed running a hand through his hair, "The Cristiano's ... to deliver a chemical...experiment, ...stolen en route ... get it back." Feeling a pair of eyes on her, Emma let her eyes drift to the left slightly, Nic was staring straight at her, 'Drat' she cursed internally 'he caught me' looking away as inconspicuously as possible she returned her attention to Nina just catching the ball before it hit her in the face. Letting a few moments pass she tried to catch another snippet of their conversation, she groaned as she saw that Nic had moved in front of the window completely blocking her view. 'He's too sharp,' she thought, resigning herself to finding out only half the details later on if that.
When the men finally exited the clinic the sun was beginning to sink behind the buildings, "Ready to go?" Worick asked, Emma's eyebrows drew together slightly, 'If I go now I won't have a chance to ask Theo about their conversation, but it'll look suspicious if I don't head back too.'
Emma nodded reluctantly, pocketing the ball she and Nina had been playing with, and started to catch up with Nic and Worick, "Can't you stay for dinner?" a small voice called out, Nina latched onto Emma's arm. "Please," her big blue eyes pleaded with her, Emma couldn't help smiling it felt like most of the time she spent with Nina it was laying in the clinic injured, it would be nice to spend some normal time with her.
"Well don't mind if we do," Worick sauntered over, "I love your cooking Nina," the girl blushed at the compliment, her crush on Worick painfully obvious to everyone.
"She didn't ask you Handyman," Theo called from the clinic, leaning in the doorway so he could have a cigarette, "you're welcome to stay though kid," Emma smiled, happy for an opening to talk to the doctor alone. She stuck her tongue out at Worick as she let Nina drag her toward the door, but not before she caught the look of annoyance on Nic's face, ignoring him she continued inside.
Nina hurried off to the kitchen and soon a tantalising smell wafted into the main room of the clinic, an uncomfortable silence settled between her and Dr Theo, now that she finally had the opportunity to talk to him without Nic or Worick interrupting she couldn't figure out what to say. Dr Theo put the pack of cigarettes in the drawer then looked her straight in the eye, "You want to know about the job right?" Emma sat up straighter in the chair, she didn't think Theo had noticed her spying earlier.
"Yeah," she admitted, "I thought I could maybe help."
Theo nodded, "I wanted you to at least listen in, but both of them refused."
"Why?"
A knock came at the door before she finished the question. A young man walked in, dressed in a smart suit and tie he was a far cry from the usual clientele of Theo's clinic, a scar marked the right side of his face although it did little to detract from his handsomeness, Emma was positive she had seen him somewhere before. "Hello Miss Handyman," he greeted her politely, "it's been a while," Emma blinked as her memory clicked into place, Marco Adriano, right hand man of the Cristiano's leader Loretta, probably the closest thing to a gentleman you could find in Ergastulum.
"Mr Adriano," she replied hesitantly, "good to see you're doing well."
Dr Theo sighed, "The bearer of more bad news Marco? Then again your timing may be spot on, I was just filling Emma here in on our predicament."
Marco smiled charmingly, "Actually I have some good news, but I'm surprised you haven't asked for the Handymen's help already." Emma snorted and looked away "Or should I guess that those two excluded you from their plans?" receiving no response he continued, "As you are aware the Cristiano family is in charge of the supply of Celebrer into the city, we can also procure other chemicals, however as the last shipment was being delivered to our compound it was ambushed."
"Which is where my requested chemical was, and in exchange I got the three Cristiano men who were guarding the shipment to treat, they were beaten badly." Reading the question forming in Emma's eyes Theo added, "The chemical is essential for my research in creating a new Celebrer compound."
Emma's eyes widened in surprise, "A new Celebrer compound?" the doctor nodded, "What's different about it?" 'Could he be making a Celebrer without the added toxicity and side effects?' it was almost too much for her to hope.
"A more potent compound, it'll exaggerate the effects of the uppers for a short period of time, but I'm still trying to stabilise it, the side effects are also magnified and could end up being fatal," Dr. Theo looked her straight in the eyes, she could tell he was being honest with her, her heart sank a little, her naive hope at a cure or at least a better treatment for Nicolas and the other Twilights in the city crushed.
But if they didn't get this chemical back for Dr Theo then when he decided to test this new drug, it wasn't even a question of if, then she knew who would be his lab rat, voluntarily or not, 'If Nic's going to be the guinea pig for this thing, then I want to him to suffer as little as possible.'
Closing her eyes, she took a breath to calm her mind, "I found something that the Handymen might find useful," Emma's ears pricked up at the sound of Marco's voice, he was holding out some rolled up papers to the doctor.
"Blueprints?" she asked curiously, Marco nodded, now resolved she reached out to take them from him, "I'm in." A smirk tugged at Theo's lips as if he'd anticipated her answer all along.
"Dinner's ready!" the shout echoed out from the kitchen.
Marco quickly took his leave, while Emma stowed the blueprints safely out of sight she replied "Coming, it smells great Nina!" and hurried through to the kitchen, hoping the young girl hadn't overheard their conversation. Cracking each of her knuckles in turn, the cogs in her mind began grinding, 'I guess this is my first real job then,' she was itching to start studying those blueprints but pushed the thoughts from her mind, determined to enjoy Nina's dinner, and have a little bit of peace before the real work began.
Nic shook his head resolutely, then signed something quickly, Worick laughed "Exactly Nic, he says you shouldn't have been eavesdropping in the first place."
Emma resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at them knowing it would only make her seem as childish as they thought she was, "Technically I couldn't hear a thing through the window, so I couldn't have eavesdropped."
Nic snorted in disgust, 'Kid has been spending far too much time around us already,' he could sense this would be a losing battle but this job was different to what they usually did, more dangerous, usually they hit targets and left others to clean up the mess, this was an extraction job plus they didn't know what type of obstacles they'd face.
"Besides do you even know what you're facing security wise?" Emma asked staring them down," or were you just going to go in all guns, and swords, blazing hoping to find what you need?" Worick's face twisted in a grimace, he scratched the back of his head trying to find an answer, while Nic remained impassive as ever Emma knew he didn't have a plan either, "Thought so, well these might be of interest," taking the blueprints from the inside of her jacket she spread them over the office desk, Nic and Worick leaned over to see the plans clearly. "The building is the Ergastulum headquarters of a pharmaceutical company, it develops new drugs and it doesn't have any problem finding people to trial them in exchange for pittance," shuffling the papers she drew out the floor plan for the director's office," this is the top floor with the head honcho's office, while the floor plans show the office taking up the entire floor it's not exactly the case," grabbing a pencil she drew a line across the page cutting off about a third of the room, "I think that the safe containing the company's most valuable assets is in this area, which would include their recent acquisition of the chemical Dr Theo had ordered from the Cristiano's."
Nic tapped the table to get her attention, Worick translated the signing, too rapid for Emma to keep up, "How do you know that's the location of the safe? Wouldn't it make more sense for it to be with other chemicals down in their laboratories?"
Emma chewed her lip carefully considering her answer, "You would think so, but from observing the building today that office isn't big enough to be taking up the entire floor, plus I saw people bringing test tubes back to the office and placing them in the safe, the door is behind a large painting behind the desk."
"How the hell did you see all that?" Worick demanded.
"Ow," Emma cried as Nic gave her a clout around the back of the head, he looked even angrier than his friend, Emma shrank back slightly from him before explaining herself, "look I didn't go anywhere near the building okay, I picked a good rooftop with a view of the office and lay with binoculars for a good four hours this afternoon, it looks like they removed the materials from the safe at the beginning of the day and were returning them in the evening which was when I was watching them. There aren't many guards that patrol the building, I'd predict there will be less when the night shift comes on, if we find the shift change time it'll probably give us the best chance to get in and out."
"What do you mean us?" Worick demanded, "You aren't involved in this job, where did you even get all this anyway?"
Emma sighed, she had known it would be this difficult to get them on board, "Marco dropped them off at Theo's last night before dinner," she admitted, "it wasn't hard to find the building and then just wait and watch, its standard recon." Nic's face twitched into a half smile, it wasn't often Worick got schooled by anyone, "The easiest way into the office would be to scale the outside and climb in through the window, there weren't any security guards stationed in the actual office, someone could feasibly slip in and out of there in five minutes in the best possible scenario."
"Well thanks for the info but Nic and I can take it from here," Worick's tone left little room for arguments, but Emma was determined not to be shut out of this.
"No, you can't," she insisted, before Worick could butt in again she quickly continued, "I'll admit that you're in good shape and there's no doubt that Nic could jump up there easily but do you really think either of you could do it quietly enough to avoid raising an alarm. I'm good at climbing and doing it quietly, I slipped into Ergastulum undetected, this building's old with tonnes of decorative stone work it'll provide enough foot holds once I've climbed up the gutter on the side."
'This kid just doesn't give up,' Nic groaned internally, he signed to her, "Are you sure this isn't just about your pride?"
Emma stiffened up slightly, he'd hit a nerve, "I do want to prove myself, I've been here a month and I've done nothing to earn my place here," frustration leaked into her voice, Nic could see her fists tightening, "but at the same time it's about your pride as well, you both think that I'm just some weak little kid, and that you don't need any help." Nic began to shake his head but she held up a hand to stop him, "Don't patronize me Nicolas. Putting all of our egos aside, I'm still the best person for the job no matter which way you split it, I can do this, and I'd rather be part of the plan than just sit here and watch you two fail and possibly get yourselves killed." Tears threatened to spill over as she thought about what Dr Theo had said about the drug he was developing, if he can at least make it safer for Nic to take then it'll be worth it and maybe one day he'll have enough time to work on a cure for the Celebrer poisoning effects, she clung on to that small hope as she looked Nic straight in the eye.
"Fine," he said aloud, his deep voice filling the room, Emma looked up in surprise struggling to keep the grin off her face.
"You can't really mean this partner?" Worick asked incredulous.
Nic nodded before adding, "One condition."