Chapter Six: Occupational Hazards

T-86400

Rhaemyr North, District Three Male

Even with the chilly wind, I'm still sweating like crazy.

Not out of actually being overheated, of course- more nervous about how the next twenty or so minutes will unfold. No matter how many times you do it successfully, pulling off a burglary is beyond stressful.

Turning on the walkie-talkie I carry with me at all times, I whisper, "Matrix! How's shutting down this security system coming along?"

Her voice comes back a few seconds later. "I have control of the thing, I just can't figure out how to shut off the burglar alarm because the interface is so confusing!"

Great. Time is of the essence in every single job we carry out. And at this rate, we'll have to leave the scene before Matrix comes even close to figuring out the interface.

Matrix, of course, is not her real name. In this business, you only give your real name to someone you know would die for you. And I doubt I'm there yet. So, we all gave each other code names that make sense to us, but will be useless in tracking the rest of us down if someone gets caught.

All of a sudden, my walkie-talkie beeps, and Matrix starts talking again. "I got the thing figured out. The back door is unlocked, just give me a minute to set the cameras on a loop of the past ten minutes and we'll be good to go."

Then, Stryker, another girl who works with us, says her piece. "Frenzy, Ghost, you get the message?"

I wait for Frenzy to confirm first, then tell her, "Yep. Loud and clear."

After a tense minute or so, Matrix pipes up again. "Everything's set. You know the drill. Get in, find stuff to steal, get out."

I'd been walking down the street a couple of blocks away, so I wouldn't be noticed, but I break into a run now, heading for where the back door to the house is.

Frenzy and Stryker are already waiting by the fence by the time I get there. They look worried, and I know exactly why. Disabling the security systems took way longer than usual, meaning we're well behind schedule right now.

Relax, I say to myself. Something always goes wrong. If this is all that goes wrong, we're in good shape.

The fence in between me and the door is not a good climbing fence- ten feet high, made of slippery metal with only vertical bars for support- but Stryker scrambles up it like a squirrel. Then, she gives a hand in helping Frenzy over, and Frenzy does the same for me.

"Thanks," I whisper quietly as we run for the back door.

Once we reach the door, we open it slowly. For all we know, there could be a backup alarm that Matrix didn't know about and we'll need to make a break for it in a minute. Even worse, the alarm could be silent, meaning it's gone off already and we just haven't noticed. Fortunately, though, that outcome is unlikely- I've learned from experience that most people want to get in your face, not actually catch you. (I'll never know why, though.)

As we enter the house, it's clear that someone who lives here has a serious hoarding problem- this place is packed to the brim with junk. That makes me feel a little better about myself for doing this. Cleaning up the place a little would almost be a service to these people.

Most of the clutter is useless, but we do manage to find a couple of odds and ends that might have some value- Stryker's picked up a surprisingly well-kept set of pea-green vases, Frenzy's taken some reasonably clean winter clothes from an enormous bundle, and I've found a guitar that's dented, but looks functional (I don't want to put that to the test in here).

We scan the load of junk one more time to see if we can take anything else that won't be missed. Finally, we take a plastic Frisbee out of a huge stack and what appears to be a gigantic nesting doll missing a couple of layers, and add them to our bags.

However, just before we leave, I notice something sitting on top of yet another pile of junk. It's a telescope, of all things.

I've always wanted one of those.

Without thinking, I snatch the thing and manage to just barely squeeze it inside my bag. The, I hurry out the back door, making sure to close it behind me, and join Frenzy and Stryker by the fence.

"What took you so long?" This from Stryker.

"I found one more interesting thing that probably won't be missed. But let's get out of here."

Scaling the fence again, I wonder how we got in and out so easily. Jobs never work like this. There's almost always a catch.

As soon as we finish clearing the fence for the second time, we hear a sound that we hope to never hear on a job: the sound of police sirens in the distance.

Well, there's the catch. I guess this place did have a backup alarm that none of us noticed.

"Cops! Come on, let's blow this joint!" I whisper this as loud as possible into the walkie-talkie, but it's a pointless statement. By the time I finish my sentence, I'm talking to air.

I pick a direction at random and begin hurrying away from the sirens, but I know it's only a matter of time before they catch up. Then, we'll all be irreparably screwed.

A couple of blocks later, I start feeling lightheaded, but I don't slow down. I can't stop, not until I've put as much distance as possible between myself and the job site as possible.

My head pounds furiously. My heart pounds even harder. My back begins to hurt. But I still don't stop.

Finally, after a few minutes, the sound of the sirens begin to fade. I risk looking back, and I notice that the police cars aren't continuing on; they're all clustered around the house. It seems that they're more interested in learning what happened than figuring out who or what caused it.

Works for me, I think as I leave the noise and flashing lights behind, trying to ignore the fact that we might all be caught in a few hours.

Finally, after alternating between jogging and walking for several hours, I finally arrive at the abandoned warehouse that serves as a substitute for home.

Someone inside clearly sees me, and gives me the prompt: "Who are you and why are you on my property?"

I immediately give my "password response," as everyone calls it, to let them know it's me. "I'm Harold Wilkins, from the electric company. I'm here to fix the wires."

"You can come in," replies the voice. Then, I hear the sound of multiple locks unlatching before the battered front door swings open.

I'm greeted to near-total darkness. Despite my response, the building that acts as both a storage space and a place to live lacks electricity. There's some moonlight shining through the one open window, and a candle is lit on the metal table we put together out of scrap parts from the junkyard, but they don't do much.

Discord, the girl who acts as our sort of housekeeper- she does a lot of the maintenance the place needs while we're away- leads me to a chair that has a couple of cans placed on it. "That's your dinner ration. Enjoy."

Tonight, it's chicken in water and canned green beans. Not exactly the finest meal on earth, but it sure is filling. Once both cans are scraped clean, I toss them into the old bin that serves to store the recycling.

"I got rid of the last load of stuff," Discord informs me, referring to the goods we managed to snag on our last job. "Sold it off to a secondhand store after I was done modifying it to be unrecognizable. Got enough money that I can buy food and candles that'll last until things cool down from this job."

Well, that's good news. Except for her, the rest of us rarely leave the warehouse except for carrying out jobs and to move to the safe house we're not currently in, which, as of now, is a shack sitting on a vacant lot across town.

"Is everyone here?"

"Matrix got here well before you did, from what I heard she left the scene immediately after she thought she disabled the burglar alarm. Stryker got here about an hour ago. Frenzy isn't here, but when I tried to communicate with him about half an hour ago, he said he was waiting at the other safe house and he'd be here tomorrow morning."

"Well, OK then. Does Stryker need to talk to me about anything?" Stryker does most of the planning for these jobs, having been doing this since she was six. We just help her on the execution.

Discord shakes her head. "Nope. We can't plan anything around tomorrow anyway, tomorrow's Reaping Day."

Well, crap. Reaping Day is always a wasted day for us- we're all required to be crowded together and wait for the mayor to finish his (overly long) speeches before sending two people off to die.

Thankfully, my chances of being picked are still pretty low, despite being seventeen and technically homeless. We do get tesserae every year, but we rarely ever use it, so we only get one per year. Rotating who takes it each year helps keep our odds relatively low. This year, it's my turn, considering I'm the oldest besides Stryker and she took the tesserae for us last year.

Relax, I tell myself, one extra slip isn't going to change anything. I'll have almost exactly the same odds as last time.

Finally, despite the fact that Stryker has nothing important to talk to me about, I decide to go see her anyway. There are a couple of things I want to say to her before tomorrow.

Stryker's sitting on the mattress she shares with Matrix when I find her.

There aren't any candles nearby, but her eyes are so bright and vibrant that she's pretty easy to spot, even in darkness.

"Ghost," she says, "Anything you want to say, or are you just going to stare at me?"

"That was a close call."

"Of course it was," she says, nodding like crazy while she says it. "We usually don't get cops on our tail, but when we do, they're so annoying."

"You can say that again."

I plop down next to her on the mattress, grateful for a place to sit.

"So? You have any ideas where the next job should be?"

I frown. I was supposed to be scouting some neighborhoods for sites that looked easy to infiltrate last week, but I must have forgotten or something. Either way, I have no idea where we're even supposed to be.

Still, best to be honest with Stryker. "No clue."

She starts scowling, but holds it back. "Oh well. Again, tomorrow's going to be pretty much a waste otherwise. We can walk through those neighborhoods then and figure it out from there."

Matrix pops into the room. "Guys! Just got an update from Frenzy!"

Stryker pops up like a jack-in-the-box on steroids. "What did he say?"

"He's saying that they haven't searched the shack yet, but the whole area around that house we hit today is crawling with cops. He doesn't want to risk trying to go through town to get to us, so he's headed for the woods and probably won't be back anytime soon."

Stryker stares off into the distance for a few seconds before she responds. "That's fine, just tell him to send messages as frequently as possible so we know he didn't get snatched or something."

"Got it." Matrix bolts from the table towards her walkie-talkie and whispers some breathless words into it that I can't quite make out. Then, she shuts off the walkie-talkie.

"I'm sorry, guys, but it's late, I'm going to bed," Matrix says. She puts out the candle before staggering over to her mattress and practically falling on top of it.

Stryker follows suit a minute later, trying not to land on top of Matrix as she crashes onto the other side of their mattress. Finally, I give up on trying to stay awake, and head for the mattress I usually share with Frenzy, nearly tripping and falling on my face several times on the way there.

But I make it anyway, sitting down on the mattress that seems much emptier without Frenzy's body sprawled over the other half.

I'm worried about Frenzy's safety, and it refuses to exit my mind even after I begin to nod off, but eventually, I fade away with one lingering thought remaining:

Well, everything should be normal after tomorrow.

Author's Notes:

-Thanks to Sparky She-Demon, once again, for sending in Rhaemyr. Coming up next is his last tribute, the D10M.

-Thanks to everyone for bearing with me until I could finish the chapter. School just wrapped up for winter break, so I should have more time to write for the next week or two. Expect at least one and possibly two tributes to come out before New Year's.

-After the D10M comes the D4F, D4M, and D3F. Those will be the next four chapters.

-We're a quarter of the way through the tributes! Six down, eighteen to go.

-Merry Christmas to all!

-See you next chapter!