For two weeks, X pulled on the form fitting Red X battle suit and robbed the big banks who owned the U.S. congress, who rigged the stock market, who rigged the bond market, who rigged every financial market. He looted the big banks who, after doing all that, when their corrupt antics blew up the economy of the U.S. and the world they got their puppet congressman to sign off on a gift of billions of dollars to make up their self inflicted losses.
X felt energized. He felt great. He'd never been so focused in his life as when pulling off these jobs. It was exhilarating. The feeling of triumph from each job after he'd teleported away was tremendous. He got that hair standing up on the back of your head sensation with each job. Once or twice he even thought of his father.
I'm getting 'em, Pop. I'm getting 'em.
On a more superficial level, he got plenty of reinforcement, too, because once X's spree of vengeance on the big banks got under way, the string of impossible robberies was the talk of Jump City. For two weeks it was the biggest story in Jump City every day. Every other day or so there would be a picture above the fold on the front page of the Jump City Chronicle of some doofus bank executive looking disconsolate amid a just robbed vault with a few dozen hundred dollar bills strewn haphazardly across the floor and a wall of safe deposit boxes neatly sliced open, rough metal edges visible.
Stories about the obviously related robberies were trending as the most popular items on both Faceplant and Twitter for days until suddenly they disappeared from the list and multiple postings about the robberies also disappeared.
But the Jump City Police Department couldn't just make the stories go away like the corrupt social media corporations and the steady drumbeat of questions and criticism only got louder with each additional robbery. What are you doing about it? Why can't you catch these guys?
JPCD *hated* the way whoever was pulling these jobs was making them look powerless and incompetent. By the end of the second week, JPCD was frantic, alternately issuing public statements about how they had solid leads implying they were just about to nab the perpetrators and then issuing desperate pleas for anyone who had any knowledge about the robberies to call a tip line.
X smirked watching the TV coverage. Just as he'd expected, one newscast said that JCPD were now going through vault footage of all these banks to see who had got in there and if one person or group of persons had somehow let thieves in. He knew they would find no connection between him and Derek Swift, Chip Goodly and Suzy Wong the cloaking ring versions of himself who'd opened accounts at these banks.
He also knew that they'd do a couple other things. They'd try to catch the "thieves" by locating the stolen money and safe deposit box contents. Catch the thief in progress or find the thief afterward or find his loot afterward and use that to find him. There wasn't much else to the game. Wearing the form fitting Red X suit with teleporting and stealth capabilities, it was pretty freaking unlikely that that cops would catch him in the course of a job.
Literally no one on the planet except for his buddy Park knew he'd robbed these banks. His girlfriend, ballerina Natasha Suvarov, did not stay with him at his apartment more than once or twice a week. She was always having Russian friends over her place. If you were Russian and visiting Jump City it seemed that a City ordinance required a visit to the apartment of Natasha Suvarov. But X was fine with it. If his childhood pals Hao and Yong had ever visited Jump City they would certainly have been over his place.
X would go to her apartment after jobs sometimes and sleep over, always spooning with her or holding her even if they were just watching tv. Natasha was from Archangel in northern Russia and X sometimes wondered if she would feel cold all her life as a result of growing up there. As soon as they were away from the ballet company's studio and offices, where she had her regal image as the great Natasha Suvarov to keep up, she was always trying to cuddle with him. As a boy who'd grown up in always steamy hot Singapore, this was new to him but he certainly liked it with Natasha. They were so physically perfect together.
As happy as they were together and as great as the sex was, there was always a small distance between them that never closed. Eventually he sensed that she was going to leave Jump City and go back to Russia or at least Metropolis while she was still at the peak of her career. He first picked up on it from the way she stopped and watched anything on the news about Russia or any story about the top ballet companies in Metropolis. She would stop everything to watch. She didn't even hide this ongoing fixation. It made her enduring interest clear to him. X couldn't reproach her. He had such affection for her. If retrospectives on her career remarked that her two years spent partnering with Xavier Li of Jump City Ballet had rekindled her stardom, that would be fine.
He never told Natasha anything about being Red X and her side of accepting the distance between them that never closed involved accepting without question that X, who only slept 4 hours a night at most, was doing . . something late at night but she didn't know or care to find out what.
So, the cops couldn't catch him in the act and would never get anyone else to betray him. And he wasn't exactly the type to go into a bar and, after several drinks, start bragging about what he'd done. Hell, he had a whole other job to talk about and that he liked to talk about, being a rising star ballet dancer.
But that still left one avenue for chasing him. At the same time as they were completely failing to catch him in the act or afterwards, X knew that the cops were desperately trying to locate some of the swag he'd taken.
One night, at 1 a.m., with most of the bank jobs done, he'd been crouched on a ledge outside the J.P. Morgan headquarters in Jump City. Three stories up in his skin tight Red X suit he saw everything but no one saw him. He imagined this was how Batman spent a lot of his time. He was only there because he wanted to look at the approaches to the building one more time. He was thinking of setting up another teleport node but not on the street and he wanted to see what time the various garbage trucks and other service vehicles arrived in that area.
He saw that but he also saw the Jump City cops pulling some guy out of a club. Even from three stories up, without resorting to the distance vision lenses, the guy registered as a barely got it more together than being strung out junkie. The emaciated, sweaty guy first howled then whined and begged as two beefy cops dragged him out the door, past an awning and toward a squad car. Finally, sick of his pleading they told him that he wasn't being arrested. They just wanted to talk to him. What do you know about these bank robberies, demanded one cop as they tossed him up against their car.
Red X laughed out loud on the ledge 30 feet up.
How freaking desperate can you get?
If that drugged out, pilled out loser knew anything then the whole world would know it. He'd trade his whole family for his next hit of fentanyl. X grinned under his skull mask. This was absolute proof that JPCD had nothing. They must be down to their least useful snitches if they're questioning this guy.
That just left looking for the loot. However, that was a problem, too. X didn't take marked bills or die packs or tracers. He was too smart to get snagged by some dumb thing like that. It was just duffel bags full of anonymous cash for X. And the holders of safe deposit boxes weren't exactly anxious to declare what extremely rare or perhaps illicitly acquired goods they'd been hiding that he'd taken. For instance, the beautiful Velazquez painting that Red X took from one bank CEO's private safe deposit box had been stolen from a Zurich art museum 10 years before that. How would that CEO explain his having possession of that painting? To whom was he going to appeal for help?
On top of that, X was perfectly happy to be incredibly patient with the money, jewels, bearer bonds, paintings and other valuables he'd taken. The cops weren't used to a thief being this smart and this disciplined. But X wasn't like the thieves they'd dealt with in the past. He was perfectly happy to let millions and millions sit idle. In part this was because he'd found the perfect stewards to watch over the proceeds of his robberies.
The Jump City Police Department.
One summer day, right after moving into Jump City, X had changed into shorts and a singlet and gone for a run north and then west from his apartment building to a section of the City with which he wasn't familiar. He was trying to familiarize himself with his new environment. His run took him past a giant, chain link fence bordered vehicle impound lot run by the JCPD. Cars that had been used in crimes, that were abandoned, that were towed from Jump City's streets because the owners had 147 unpaid parking tickets, or that had been taken as part of providing restitution to victims would be towed there, dropped off and largely forgotten until someone came to claim them.
X ran by the lot, initially surprised at how huge it was. There were hundreds of vehicles parked on the cracked pavement within its weed and chain link fence enclosed limits. He continued on his run which included a nice overlook of the bay. So, X made it a regular route that he would run.
But after a few times, it wasn't the view of the bay but the impound lot that fascinated him and inspired him to stick to that running route. As near as he could tell the cops only had a vague idea what vehicles were even in the lot. He'd overheard the guys who manned the booth at the entrance say as much.
"Ah, jeez, Sully! Nobody knows what the fuck's in here!" one attendant had told a visiting cop.
And JCPD only seemed to care that nothing left the lot without an official okay, without the right signature on the right form. No one was trying to keep vehicles out. Why would they? Who wanted to sneak a car into the lot? People only tried to get their cars out of the place, right?
X's next step was a little hacking of JCPD's files. He needed a way to get in there without any problems. He found that there had been an Officer Cho who had served with JCPD only a few months before moving away to another city. The guy was Chinese American and was even six foot one just like X. Perfect. X switched Cho's badge number to the active list and got a hold of a badge that he easily altered to be Cho's. He got a hold of a uniform and for all the disinterested attendant in the booth could tell this bored guy in a blue uniform sticking a clipboard in front of him to sign was some Officer Cho bringing in some stolen van.
Why would the attendant doubt that? Who would put a vehicle in there if they didn't have to? That wasn't how the place worked. 100% of the stress for the attendants was people trying to get their cars out after they'd been towed.
So, while the police were desperately questioning every snitch, every undercover guy, anyone they thought might have info about the money and valuables stolen from six too big to fail banks in Jump City in a two week period, the proceeds were all in the back of a beat up old van with a faded plumbing company logo on the side parked in the back corner of JCPD's own impound lot. Every few days X would run by and confirm that the van was there and hadn't been touched. It never was.
And if the police were frantic, the heads of these big banks were frantic squared. They had footage from the huge, gleaming vaults of their giant banks showing . . . nothing. There would be a flash of light and then their vault cameras would be turned up to the ceiling or have a dollar bill glued over the lens or something like that. All their expensive surveillance systems got them nothing, nothing at all. Seeing their sweaty, nervous faces on tv trying to seem like they were still in control was very entertaining.
And now, after he'd robbed all of them, local newscasts showed that some of them were actually stationing guards inside their banks all night long. One video clip showed two rent a cop quality guards sitting on comfy chairs next to a vault door. X had laughed out loud seeing it. He was almost tempted to rob that bank again just to show them they couldn't stop him.
But that would've been hubris.
Besides, X was done with their banks. He was on to robbing the CEO's now. Actually, first, before robbing any of the corrupt CEO's of the corrupt big banks, he robbed Mark Smuckerturd, the arrogant, weirdly awkward head of scumbag social media giant Faceplant. X had taken the contents of Smuckerturd's safe deposit box in one of his first bank jobs. The contents of the box included gold and platinum bars, $250,000 in cash, diamonds, other gem stones and bonds and documents that listed Smuckerturd's home address.
X drove out to that suburb, the richest one in metro Jump City then pulled on the Red X suit and went for a walk. Sure enough, that address was a huge estate with a high wall all around. X shook his head. Smuckerturd had had his Faceplant minions actively work against anyone on the site advocating the construction of a border wall. But it was okay for his property to be surrounded by a high wall. What an asshole.
When he hit the place a few nights later, X took particular delight in the job. Oh, there was the usual busting of a large safe replete with more bearer bonds, cash and gold bars. But even better than the haul of valuables was the video that X released after the job.
X had used the video feature in the mask to film the inside of Smuckerturd's mansion in selenium valley outside Jump City. Among the features in the expensive but poor taste decor which he zoomed in on and then sent out over the internet were a wallet on a table as he opened it revealing Mark Smuckerturd's driver's license with its address in clear view, documents that revealed the address of other Smuckerturd properties, papers indicating that company staff was to explicitly intervene to stifle any politically incorrect opinions on the site, other personal items and, the piece de resistance, some books on a shelf over a desk in the den including the not quite best selling titles, Living With Your Micropenis, Satisfying a Woman With Your Micropenis and Surgical Options For Your Micropenis.
The internet exploded in derision for the obnoxious tech titan whose invariably awkward public persona had always seemed to be the opposite of socially confident and this revelation reinforced and explained that perception. For weeks, late night talk show hosts used large parts of their monologues to mock Smuckerturd.
"That Smuckerturd mansion looks kind of weirdly futuristic, huh? You notice, there aren't any light switches. That's not a futuristic touch. Mark Smuckerturd just can't stand the comparison. Maybe if he was excited."
"Even though her husband is the head of a rival tech company, when asked to describe their honeymoon, Mrs. Smuckerturd gave a one word response, 'Microsoft'."
"A new study out, no surprise in this, says that men who don't have physical gifts with which to woo women invariably try harder than other men to gain riches to win a woman. Hmm. Mark Smuckerturd is nearly the richest man in the world . . . so . . . yeah, I guess they're right."
But Smuckerturd and Faceplant faced serious criticism, too. For a few years, Faceplant had been seen as openly partisan for political correctness and also a corrupt seller of personal data. Protesters now with knowledge of his address, started showing up in front of his mansion demanding that he stop censoring other points of view and, of course, implying on their signs that his mania for controlling political expressions on Faceplant was him compensating for extreme shortcomings.
And a week after the first video release, X sent out a second video showing him hacking into Smuckerturd's phone and starting to scroll through his contacts list. That contacts list was sent out over the internet and included three different CIA officers. The internet exploded again with virtual shouts of "We knew it!" that Faceplant had willingly helped U.S. intelligence agencies steal data from and surveil all their users.
But, before that second video release, X robbed the palatial mansion of Tim Sloan, the CEO of Wells Fargo. Along with the usual safe full of cash, gold bullion, diamonds and bearer bonds, there were the account numbers and codes for multiple secret off shore accounts in the Cayman Islands and Panama, locales that had taken over for Switzerland as the places where the super rich hid their money.
These secret accounts became the subject of a third video release. And now the local news in Jump City and the local papers were in complete hysteria mode.
But there was a clear dichotomy in the response to these events. While the big banks were putting as much pressure as they could on JPCD and the public to stop this reign of robbery, a lot of the public was cheering on the thieves. Whoever they were had robbed the too big to fail banks that had ruined the economy in 2008 and gotten their bought and paid for politicians to give them billions of dollars in bailouts in response to what they'd done. They'd shown the corruption of Smuckerturd and Sloan and were verging on being folk heroes. If only the public had a face, a name to which to attach its affection.
But X had decided to try to keep the identity of the thief secret for as long as he could. Just knowing that it was Red X who was pulling all these jobs would give the cops some help in narrowing down the suspects.
But a few days after the Sloan robbery, X attended a charity gala to honor the arts in Jump City. He and Natasha, both in full ballet costume, represented Jump City Ballet, beside representatives of Jump City Symphony and Jump City Opera. X and Natasha danced a pas de deux from Don Quixote across the hard marble floor of the main entrance of Jump City Hall. They got a long ovation when they finished. After that, they stood around, next to a string quartet from the Jump City Symphony while various City officials and billionaire patrons of the arts in Jump City came by and shook their hands and not so discreetly ogled both of them.
X couldn't care less about the City officials. It seemed like he got introduced to 50 of them, all coming by and shaking his hand and either treating him like a joke in his snug, quilted velvet top and white tights or almost openly leering at him depending on whether they were straight or gay. When the line of them coming by was finally over, he looked to Natasha with a roll of the eyes and she smirked. Just part of being a guy in ballet.
He and Natasha were getting ready to leave as the place was emptying out. Hand in hand they started toward the door to the parking garage when, across the room, they saw the ballet company's director wave for them to stop. They paused in the middle of the floor. A woman and her daughter approached and asked for Natasha's autograph. A couple gay guys circled around behind X, gasping and taking pictures of his derriere in his white tights.
X was looking to Natasha with another roll of his eyes when a tall, very heavyset man in a police uniform talking on the phone and not looking where he was waddling almost ran into her. X saw him out of the corner of his eye along with hearing his thick Chicago accent approaching. "We tried that, O'Hara! It got us nothing!"
X had an instant recollection of a feeling of enmity toward this guy. So, it was with a secret delight that X stepped forward,"Hey!" and in perfect martial arts fashion focused all his momentum and energy into the point of contact, not moving far but slamming his shoulder into the spherical bulk of the 300 pound policeman sending him flying 15 feet away to land on his fat ass on the hard marble floor.
The cop literally bounced and, when he stopped sliding, looked up, astounded and angry at what had happened. He scrambled first to sort of sit up, the guy was morbidly obese. His first instinct had clearly been to hit whoever had collided with him. His angry scowl only gradually melting into a more reasonable expression.
X recognized him. Captain . . . O'Riley. That was it. O'Riley! This blimp had been the cop who had spoken to the press after the outrageous shooting death of a kid in the Jumpton district. Police had shot a 14 year old kid 17 times though he had never made any sort of threatening move whatsoever. They had initially claimed that he'd brandished a toy gun, as if that would excuse firing their real guns 81 times and hitting him 17 times. Then dashboard camera footage had gotten out showing that the kid had never even taken his hands out of his pockets. Captain O'Riley had been at the podium announcing to the world that a police review of their fellow officers had found they were completely justified because all 12 officers were justified in fearing for their lives from one 110 pound kid and shooting wildly and repeatedly at said unarmed kid.
What's more, this Captain O'Riley had practically sneered at the very idea that policemen should be disciplined under any circumstances.
X did not like this guy. It was all he could do to suppress his smile at getting to knock the fat jerk on his ass. And he could see that the guy was mortified at realizing he'd been sent flying by slender X the pretty boy ballet dancer in his white tights and quilted velvet top.
X glided over to him in two quick steps and offered him a hand up with no apology, only noting "You were about to collide with my girlfriend."
Natasha raised her hand.
The last bit of the fat police captain's angry scowl melted away with the recognition that this must have been true and he stammered out an apology twice, all the while looking slightly shocked or horrified that X was casually walking around in public in tights like that. X knew that sort of look well. If he'd been with other cops he'd have been making jokes about X's attire. Right now he couldn't do anything.
The police captain then took off his hat and ran his other hand through his hair and put the hat back on. "You see," he explained, "They're running me ragged trying to get somewhere on these crazy bank robberies."
X saw an opening and decided to play the effete fop that this guy probably expected just to see what the guy would say.
"Oh," said X, leaning his upper torso back, physically recoiling at the mere mention of a violation of the law. "But I . . I thought the Department's spokesman said yesterday that you have a bunch of strong leads."
The fat captain rolled his eyes. "We . . we don't have much right now."
"Oh my," said X, one hand over his mouth. "Well, you must have an idea who the hoodlums are who did this."
The rotund officer sighed. "Well, between you and me," he muttered, feeling pretty safe letting a guy in tights know, "We don't. We're not sure how they did this or who would have the ability to do it. Even the best gangs we know about couldn't do this. We're grasping at straws so bad that somebody's contacting the Teen Titans this afternoon to see if they can help us figure out who it is."
"Well, aren't there . . aren't there . . . ," X gave a vague wave with one velvet covered arm, ". . Other things to do? I thought, from the-the . . caper films that I've seen, that the police would see if they can trace the proceeds of these-these . . crimes. Yes?"
The officer gave him an exasperated look. "We thought of that, too. But we haven't found any of it yet. Nothing. Not a bill, not a jewel, nothing. They left all the traceable stuff anyway. But nothing's turned up and our sn- our informants haven't been able to get us any useful information at all."
The officer's phone went off and he waddled away barking into it as he slowly made his way across the marble floor.
X looked to Natasha with a shrug. She rubbed his back.
"Thenk you foor prootectink me, Ix."
X gave her a de nada smile.
But it wasn't just nothing to him. He'd gotten something useful out of that. JCPD was about to speak to the Teen Titans. The Titans would undoubtedly suggest him as a possible suspect if not the prime suspect for the robberies. There'd be no further point in hiding the fact that it was he, Red X, who was doing these jobs.
A few days after that incident illuminating the desperation of the police, X got further evidence of the desperation of his plutocrat targets. He and Natasha Suvarov were backstage after a performance of Le Corsaire along with several other dancers. It had gone tremendously well and everyone was in effervescent spirits
X was bare chested and wearing the gauzy loose, powder blue pants of the slave role. Natasha was in more typical tutu and top. X had been particularly feted as the dancers had taken bows, more roses being thrown on stage toward him than any of the other dancers. It was one of X's favorite roles. There were few parts that a guy could dance where he could show off his athleticism as much as dancing the role of the slave in Le Corsaire. The audience exploded in cheers at X's fantastic leaps and spins. For her part, Natasha had been amazing in how supple and smooth she was in her pas de deux with Daniil dancing the starring role of Conrad.
The company director had asked all the dancers to be sure to stick around backstage after the performance as one of the ballet's biggest backers, the CEO of Citibank wanted to say hello. They would have stuck around anyway, all the dancers' faces were aglow with smiles at how wonderfully it had gone. They were like the members of a sports team that had just won a great victory. Finally, a guy in an expensive suit and his blond trophy wife came down the dressing room hallway pushing between the flamboyantly costumed young men and women.
She was congratulating everyone with a clasp of both her hands and a nodding gasp of "that was wonderful" or "you were wonderful." He was a multi-tasker, distractedly patting everyone with one hand while in the other he had a phone and he was alternately giving a saccharine smile to each dancer and bitterly scowling as he snapped questions into his phone.
" . . Wonderful, wonderful . . . . but, they have to pay! We were robbed! Those insurance bastards! . . . . Wonderful, wonderful . . . . How-how could they say it was an inside job?! We were hit the same as Goldman and Morgan! . . . . You were splendid . . . . Of course there's evidence! If it had been an inside job would we have had to cut all those boxes open?! . . . . Wonderful . . . . just a minute, Morty, I've got Kroll on the other line."
"What is it, now, Stan?! . . . . Lewis?! . . . . You were amazing . . . . But . . you said it was Smuckerturd that got hit . . . . and two nights ago Sloan?! What's next? Who's next in this insane rampage?! How am I supposed to protect myself and how can this even be happening?!" he finished in a feral growl.
The CEO abruptly shut off his phone and saw everyone looking at him. He plastered a smile over his scowl and saw that he and his wife had finally reached the ballet's stars. He let out an angry sigh as his trophy wife reached handsome Daniil, who'd danced the role of Conrad and sighed. She grasped one of his hands in both hers and told him how wonderful he'd been. The CEO took in Natasha from head to toe.
X suppressed a smirk. Tasha hated these super rich guys with their sense of entitlement. She despised the crook oligarchs of Russia and guys like Sloan were barely any different. He gave her a meaningful look, maybe thinking that he was going to instantly win her with his aura of power or something. She gave him a polite look of forbearance back as she might regard the sight of a dung beetle in a nature documentary.
He moved on to stand beside X. "Susan," he said to the trophy wife. "Here's the boy who was so impressive flying around the stage."
The trophy wife sidled up to X, staring at his 8 pack abs and patting first his shoulder then waist then leaving a hand at his hip. "You were truly amazing," she said and X saw that she was sincere and had maybe been sincere to all the others. He felt a little sorry for her.
"You're the one who beat the basketball player so easily, aren't you?"
X nodded. "Yes, I am."
The CEO now patted his shoulder and then gave him a slap at the side of his derriere as though X was a thoroughbred he owned. "Great stuff," he muttered, not clearly talking about X's dancing or his body. "Not just athletes, artists, too, isn't that what the commercial says?"
X nodded toward him. "Yeah, it's true."
His phone beeped in his pocket and the CEO cursed as he shut it off then sighed. "Sorry I'm so distracted. All these robberies . . !" he explained with great sigh and an indistinct wave of his hands.
"News ees fool uff stories about zees robberies," seconded Daniil with a nod and a raise of both eyebrows over the CEO's shoulder clearly expecting the man to elaborate.
"I thought I read that there are 1,200 robberies a year in metro Jump City," said X.
"Yes, but those . . but living in some parts of Jump City you expect to get robbed. These are-these are major international banks and estates in, well, in a section of the City where you never think you'll be robbed! It's got us all on edge," said the CEO his voice reaching an angry crescendo before tailing off at the end. He then removed his pocket square from his suit and wiped his face.
"It must be even tougher for the people who have to put up with expecting to get robbed," said X. "What about them? What about their lives? Don't they count?"
Natasha nodded as did Daniil.
"You're-you're Chinese, aren't you?" the CEO stammered
X nodded. "Mostly. I'm from Singapore."
The CEO threw his head back. "Singapore! A big crime is chewing gum in the subway. What would you know about how things are here in the U.S.?"
"I know there aren't supposed to be official castes of people," said X looking the CEO in the eye. "Why are you entitled to have no worries at all while some working man is supposed to live with a constant threat of being robbed?"
Not only Natasha and Daniil but also a couple other dancers were now leaning in all looking at the CEO with insistent gazes demanding he answer though they all knew he couldn't say a damn thing in response.
The tension of the moment was only broken by the company director swooping in and leading the CEO and his wife away to some sort of champagne reception for backers of the ballet, throwing one reproaching look at X as he went. Don't make our patrons look stupid, X!
But X had taken note and had loved it. The pressure of the situation was getting to these guys, these guys who were never supposed to get hurt. It was okay for the people in the poor neighborhoods to live in perpetual fear of robbery and assault. They were supposed to accept a degraded quality of life from the day they were born till the day they died but not these pampered plutocrats who started cracking after just a couple days of anything remotely similar.
Well, they were just going to have to get used to it for a while thought X, leaving the ballet that night. He stepped up his robberies of the heads of the too big to fail banks and added the mansions of some more of the high tech company leaders who lived in the Jump City metro area.