ALTRUISTS & INSECTS
It was a rainy Monday morning when Lester and Paige next showed up at my apartment. I buzzed them in, put on a fresh pot of coffee and showed them into the heist planning room. Paige slapped a photograph of a disheveled looking stoner onto the whiteboard and started writing out a bunch of stuff next to it.
"This is Austin Sento." Lester began. "A while back he did a five stretch for tax evasion, but for the last couple of years he's been living up in the hills with a bunch of cultists who call themselves the 'Altruists'." I looked closely at the photo wondering what possible use this long-haired old guy in filthy clothes could be to us.
"Sento's a legend in hacking circles," said Paige. "One of the original kids who worked out how to manipulate the phone system into giving him free phone calls just by blowing a whistle he'd found in a packet of cereal." I could tell that Paige held Sento in high regard.
"His speciality is slot machines," continued Lester. "In fact, he's the only person ever to find a glitch in the Lady Luck machine, like the ones we saw inside the Casino. If we can break him out, Sento is going to win us a Sandking," explained Lester.
"Couldn't we just steal our own?" I asked.
"No, we need Sento to win the one that's in there now so the Casino will order a replacement. That replacement will be your getaway vehicle, specially prepared with a few modifications."
Paige stuck another photo up next to the one of Sento and I knew this was going to be a two-part mission.
"We're on a tight schedule, so at the same time as you're getting Sento," Lester continued, "you'll also need to collect something from a contact at the Humane Labs. After going over Paige's daily reports on the security setup in the Casino, I've been thinking about how to get you and some of your crew inside to do the job."
"They've got their own in-house maintenance team," said Paige, "so the old 'hey we came to fix the air conditioning' trick won't work."
"But, we can turn off the air conditioning and infest the building with thousands of genetically modified bugs!" Lester chuckled. "Then you guys show up as pest control with the only bug spray in the world that can kill them and we're in. Well, I mean you're in. Me and Paige will be sitting outside, but don't think we don't appreciate all your hard work." He laughed nervously as he and Paige made their way out of the planning room and back through the door to my apartment.
As usual, Lester had left the finer details of how to achieve these two tasks to me. Once they were both gone I spent the rest of the morning studying maps, doing online research and reading through old news archives. It seemed that a lot of hikers had been going missing in the mountains around the Altruist camp for years, so I reckoned the best way to get someone inside would be to get a couple of us up there with backpacks and pretend to get lost.
As for the Humane Labs, Lester had given me the name of a scientist who was willing to sell us the bugs, but to get through the security gate we'd need to source a postal van and some uniforms. There had been a spate of thefts of postal vans in Paleto Bay recently and I hoped that one more wouldn't attract too much attention from the local law enforcement. Neither task on its own would be too complicated, but as usual everything depended on putting the right people to the right tasks. After a little more planning I called up my crew to meet up at my place the next day.
I selected my Sister Jane and Stone to take on the Altruists job, while myself and Wilby would do the Humane mission. We all got changed into our outfits, checked our comms channels then headed off up the GOH to Paleto in Jane's Rancher. When we got to the side road which led up to the mountains Jane dropped us off and carried on with Stone up towards the Altruist's camp. Me and Wilby walked along the highway until I found an Oracle XS parked nearby and broke in and hot-wired it.
We cruised around Paleto looking for the Go Postal van, knowing roughly what it's daily route was. We were so busy looking for our van that we didn't really notice the nondescript SUVs positioned strategically around the town, or the guys standing beside them, but they'd noticed us. After a quarter of an hour we spotted our target by public restrooms behind the Up-n-Atom burger. We could see one guy sitting inside the van smoking a cigarette and the other at the concession stand buying hot-dogs. It was as good a time as any so we put on our masks and made our move. Wilby drove in front of the van, blocking it from pulling away, but as we jumped out the driver got spooked and hit the gas, smashing our car out of the way.
I got into the driver's seat and backed the Oracle up, pausing to let Stone get back in, then I went after the van. By the time we caught up to it we were almost back in Paleto and we had two of those SUVs on our tail. Wilby started firing, warning shots at first and then into the bodywork of the van, trying not to hit the tyres or cause too much damage. When we passed the gas station we met another of the SUVs and I realised they were IAA. It hurtled past us on the wrong side of the road and swung a handbrake turn. The driver of the postal van was now panicking and weaved all over the road, desperately trying to stop us getting past him to get a clear shot.
The van swung a tight right hander into a side street and then left into another, dodging the traffic. I mounted the kerb, smashed into a light pole, a bench, then a stop sign, sending debris flying everywhere. People ran into and from shop doorways, away from us and into our path. They screamed, they ran, they fell over then they got back up to do it all over again, just like the chickens that this town was so famous for.
By the time we'd made our second lap of the Fire Station, four IAA cars were behind us. Taking the van without completely wrecking it was going to be almost impossible, I was considering aborting.
"We need to box him in somewhere, an alleyway or a parking lot or something," said Wilby. As though the driver had he'd heard us, he busted through a corrugated iron fence into a construction site.
I saw the exit he was heading for and took a shortcut over a pile of dirt and some foundations, destroying the car's suspension but putting us between the gates and him. He swerved into a pile of wooden pallets then tried to back up, but Wilby placed a bullet into the guy's head so cleanly that he didn't even look like he knew he'd been shot. I looked around for the SUVs, but they'd all overshot and were still on the other side of the fence.
Wilby dragged the guy out of the van and got in behind the wheel. He backed it up and I jumped into the passenger seat. We punched through the other fence onto the main road just as the IAA cars entered the construction site behind us.
"How the hell are we gonna lose 'em in this thing?" Said Wilby. The van was heavy, slow and handled like a ninety-foot yacht on a sea of jello. We passed the Dignity Village and I had one of my brilliant ideas.
"Swing around and take us back," I said. I took out my 9mm Micro-SMG and strapped on my seatbelt.
Wilby pulled on the emergency brake and jerked the wheel violently. I thought we were going to flip, but instead we made huge half-circle from one side of the highway to the other, scattering the oncoming traffic as they all tried to avoid us. The IAA cars all went in different directions, one slammed into a truck and trailer causing a pile-up on the southbound carriageway and the other three ended up off-road.
We were soon back at the entrance to the Dignity Village, a concrete tunnel under the railroad which led into a farmyard, now occupied by a group of anti-capitalist protesters. Wilby drove into the tunnel at full speed while I aimed my gun at the gas canister I'd noticed as we'd driven past the first time. I hit it and a stream of flame immediately shot out the side. There was a second canister at the other end of the tunnel and I put a bullet into that one too.
As we drove over the small wooden bridge towards the barn I looked back and saw the first IAA car entering the tunnel, with the second and third close behind it. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. The first gas canister exploded and set off the fuel tank of the first SUV. It span sideways in the narrow tunnel. The cars following couldn't do anything to avoid it. They T-boned the burning wreck, pushing it onto the second gas bottle just as that went up. The tunnel became a furnace of twisted metal and flames, nothing was going to be following us.
We carried on along the side of the barn, through the trees and up the embankment onto the railroad. We followed the tracks through the Braddock Pass all the way south to the back road which led to the Humane Labs, watching the cops and firetrucks racing along the highway below us. Then we stopped to check the truck and cover up the bullet holes and broken glass. It was dented and scratched but no more than the average Go Postal van. I made a quick call to Jane to see how things were going with them, but there was no signal. They'd be on the opposite side of Mount Chilled to us, I told myself, or else they'd be tied up and undergoing some horrific ritual.
It was a short drive down the access road to the Lab and we tried to look as much like feckless postal workers as we could. We pulled up at the gate and the security guard barely even looked up from his iFruit phone. He kicked the button that raised the barrier with the heel of his shoe that had been resting on the security desk. We drove in. Lester had told me to go to Building 8, to the Genetics department, and meet a guy in a white lab coat smoking a cigarette. That could be almost anybody, I thought, but sure enough there was a guy standing outside on his own down at the end of the plaza. I took out the package with the money, or whatever Lester had stuffed in there (who knew with Lester, it might even be photos of the guy doing something saucy with one of his lab monkeys), and handed it to the guy just like any normal delivery package. He told me to pull the van around to the loading bay and ask for 'the parcel for Mr. Briggs'. I said nothing more and walked down through the staff car park, texting Wilby to meet me there.
The parcel was about the size of microwave oven and weighed about the same. It felt like there was a lot of packaging around it. We found out later that it was a small chiller unit with the samples of fruit flies kept in hibernation, plus a canister of specially formulated insecticide which would kill them.
We put the parcel in the back and drove out, up onto the main highway, and that was when we saw another IAA car. It followed us along the highway, through Grapeseed and along the dirt road that followed the northern shoreline of the Alamo Sea.
"What do you think," said Wilby, "are we gonna take 'em, lose 'em or what?" Just then my earpiece crackled and Jane's voice broke through the static.
"We're at the end of the tunnel. We got Sento but there's a big ugly mob looking for us, so hurry the hell up!"
"Stay in the tunnel, we're nearly there" I said.
Wilby put on some speed, but it was tricky on the twisting loose-dirt road. I'd seen plenty of getaways go wrong along here with over zealous and inexperienced drivers in fast cars simply sliding off the road and down into the lake.
"Quick, switch places," I said to Wilby. He looked at me in disbelief, but knew me well enough to know I wasn't joking around. When I got into the driver's seat I really started to pick up the pace, swinging the van around the corners like a Finnish rally driver.
The IAA SUV behind was keeping up, but just by the fork in the road, where it branched off up to the Mount Chilliad tunnel, I slammed on the brakes and turned as late as I dared. The SUV missed the turning and swerved to avoid an oncoming motorhome, then skidded off the road and down the embankment. I didn't look back to see the rest, and raced up the hill and over the bridge that led into the tunnel, hoping we could switch vehicles before the IAA caught up with us.
Jane's Rancher was parked right in the middle of the tunnel with the engine running. We ditched the van and grabbed the insects from the back. Sento was on the rear seat of the Rancher and Wilby and me got in either side of him.
"So what happened at the cultist's camp?" I asked Jane.
"I don't want to talk about it. I NEVER want to talk about it!" Was all she would say. I looked over at Stone and he fixed me with a thousand-yard stare.
"We saw things." He said. "Things nobody should ever see."
It was only when we pulled away that we noticed that the daylight at each end of the end of the tunnel was gone. Then the lights lining the roof of the tunnel went dark, and finally the engine of the Rancher cut out and all the electrics died, including the headlights. Even our phones and comms went off. Seconds later a set of headlights came on behind us and a car drove up and stopped about ten feet away. A woman got out, silhouetted in the lights. She stood there, like she was waiting for something. There was a tense pause while I waited for a gunshot, or something, but there was nothing, she simply stood there.
"I'll go and speak to her," I said, finally breaking the silence.
I walked towards her. Two bodyguards, totally unseen in the darkness, came from either side and frisked me. I heard my gun clatter off to my left and the knife I kept sheathed at my back was pulled out and thrown away. The woman got back into the car and the bodyguards pushed me into the seat next to her.
"How's retirement," she said. "That is what you were supposed to do after the Pac Standard job. It was too dark to see her face, but I recognised the voice instantly. The same woman who had given us the codes to the Humane Labs and had met us at the lake after the Humane Heist. "Seems that someone's been robbing our Postal Vans." She said. "Nobody's supposed to rob our postal vans except us."
One of the guys outside passed her a smart phone through the open door and she read its screen.
"What have you been doing I wonder? A visit to the Humane Labs, an old hippy, a stolen submarine? Oh, but not just any old hippy. Austin Sento! The 'Game King'. Now why would you need a slot machine expert, genetically engineered fruit flies and a submarine?" I realised I hadn't even taken a breath since I'd got into the car. I had to stay silent, I couldn't afford to give her any clues, but it was obvious she'd worked it all out already. "The Casino? Yes, that's it, it has to be. You're going to rob the FIB's Laundromat!" She clapped her hands together and laughed. It wasn't a nice sound. "Oh that's wonderful! You know, if it were anyone else, I'd turn you in right away, have you renditioned to somewhere, but you might actually be able to pull this off. Is there anything you need from us? Guns, vehicles, equipment? Really, just ask." Without waiting for a reply, she signalled her bodyguards, who then bundled me out and pushed me back in the direction of our truck. I stumbled back to my crew and tried to think of how I was going to tell them about this new development.
I got into the Rancher and everything came back to life. The lights in the tunnel, the Rancher's engine, even the light at the end of the tunnel had returned, but the car, the bodyguards and the IAA's super-bitch were all gone.
"So, what did they want?" Asked Wilby.
"They know," I said. "They know everything. We have to call it off."