Chapter 18 – Surprise!
Oxford, England. 12:57pm, 6th November 2032.
Another Friday night out...
She knows that most of her classmates would be getting smashed tonight to finish the week off in not much style at all. Alcohol unlocks the mind much a like a key unlocks a safe, people's lives seem to spill out of their mouths; parts which, when sober, they would not think of saying. It's for that reason, and many others, she doesn't hang around in that crowd and much like at school, is usually only ever consulted when someone doesn't understand something.
It's a chilly night, getting close to zero degrees Celsius. She's warmed herself in a black nylon jacket with a high neck that goes hallway up her neck over a grey long sleeve shirt and a black beany which covers most of her hair, with one part of her fringe just popping out from above her right eye at the front and also the hair from the back. She also has a pair of black gloves that are very similar to Alex's except their not designed for climbing and a backpack for carrying her things that's less than half full of books. Erin walks into the lobby of a recently built block of flats designed for student housing; 4 separate buildings each 8 stories high. She takes the lift to the 3rd floor, only sleep is on her mind now, as soon as she gets in there she will get straight onto the bed and fall asleep. She walks up to her small flat, only 25 square metres, and touches the handle; it feels… off. She takes her right glove off and touches it again, it's too warm, recently touched and no sign of forced entry. She goes to the room across and touches that one; it's noticeably colder. She returns to her own room and presses her ear against the door to hear for anything but hears nothing. She puts her key in the lock with caution and turns it slowly to avoid making too much noise.
The lock unlocks and she inches opens the door open to get a peak inside. Once she sees nothing, she opens the door fully, to make sure someone isn't hiding in the blind spot where the front door can cover their body from view. Half of her space is taken up by the tiny kitchen and living room with the other half being split by a partition wall with a gap in the middle into a bedroom/study area and a bathroom. She walks into the kitchen area with the living area, a couch and a TV, on the far side with a window looking into the housing complex.
"If someone's in here!" She commands. "You show yourself before I kick you out!"
She moves into her bedroom and puts her backpack down next to a small wardrobe that look more like tall narrow kitchen cabinets. She reaches past a think winter coat on a hanger into the back and grabs the cane from the back. She knows how to use it too, but she hasn't needed to do so very often. She moves to the bathroom and opens the door quickly to check inside for only a few seconds since there are no hiding spots inside the cramped room. She returns to her bed, a raised bed that makes use of the lack of space by allowing for a desk to be put underneath, and checks in the last hiding place she knows of. What Erin sees is that the blanket is raised in the centre despite nothing being there, the pillow is also sunken near the middle with nothing on it as well. She turns the cane around and uses the shaft to see if her brother has decided to crash here for the night. She feels the invisible raccoon lying in the bed.
"I know you're awake." She warns but at the same time she's giving him some slack.
"I'm sorry for breaking in and sleeping on your bed." He apologises. "I tried calling you but you didn't answer."
Erin gets out her phone from her pocket and realises that she has 21 missed calls to her surprise. Her phone was on silent, not wanting to be disturbed.
"I guess I would have done the same thing." She replies jokingly. It brings a brief smile to Alex's face. "So… how long did it take for you to pick the lock?"
"You don't think I came through the window?" He asks tiredly.
"Was it, more than a half minute?"
"I wasn't counting, I just wanna go to sleep." Alex moans as he readjusts his position on the bed.
"The handle was warm, you've been here for less than 5 minutes. It's about that details Alex, details make or break." Erin explains.
"So you're the master thief now?" Alex asks sarcastically.
"I'm being supportive." Erin replies. "You can sleep there just for tonight, if you're planning to stay any longer you have to take the couch."
"I'll take the floor if I have to." Alex replies, it feels so good to be here right now even if the roof is only a metre above him. It doesn't matter to him, he falls asleep the same way.
6:14am
"Breakfast!" Erin shouts, having somehow gone into the kitchen and gotten some cereal without him hearing anything. He turns his head and sees her walking from the kitchen bench next to the fridge with two bowls of cereal with spoons already in them. She's walking to the couch to put them on the small coffee table, the only table in the flat, which she only uses in formal occasions when people are around, if not the kitchen bench is good enough. Alex shuffles himself across the bed and leaps off the top into the floor to get some food into his mouth, but there's already someone there.
"Morning Alex." Jeremy says kindly as Erin comes down to sit next to him and already getting to the task of eating.
"Wha? You!" Alex accuses as he steps back and grabs his cane to pound him. When he returns, Erin is lying unconscious on the couch with milk dripping down the side of her mouth that poisoned her.
"You're dead!" Alex shouts at him, but he can't move, stuck to the floor.
"No." Jeremy replies calmly, reaching into his suit jacket pocket with his leather-gloved hand.
"You are."
Bang! Bang! Bang!
2:45am
Bang! Alex hits his head against the roof as he wakes out of the nightmare. He breathes in sharply to ease the pain.
"Argh." He exclaims before he puts his hand onto his forehead to help with the pain as well. He lies back down in the bed in relief that it was a dream, and with that thought his breathing gradually begins to slow down again. He's too tired to stay awake, besides, he's not going to get worked up about the dream when already so much is happening in the real world.
25th November, 9:31pm.
"We've got 3 minutes." Matt rings in his ear. "The guards are leaving their posts. Deactivating electronics in 30 seconds. You better be at the grate by then."
"I'll be there." Alex radios in as he moves through the vent system, the heating is turned on very much tonight to Alex is sweating. He sees the 3 metre drop in the vent that Matt warned him about. He takes the magnetic anchor and attaches it to the top of the vent and puts the tiny carbon nanotube cable that's as thick as a string around the hook before he rappels down to the bottom. He presses a button on a small watch and the electro magnets deactivate on the anchor whilst the cable spools back up to onto to a wheel attached to the centre of a utility belt. He catches the anchor and puts it onto a magnet on the right of his belt. He crouches down and sees the final grating. He crawls up to just behind the grate to wait for Matt's cue.
"5 Seconds." Matt says. "Positions."
"3, 2, 1." Matt counts down before the power goes out in the room, he knows this because the lights go off and the heating turns off. Alex takes out a tiny cylinder shaped like a vial and places the open end over the first bolt. He shifts his thumb and presses down on the back, there is a muffled explosion before he takes it off, the screw has been melted away. He quick does this on the other three before he takes the grating off and places it behind him. Alex gets his first peak at the paintings and other artefacts that are due to be sold tomorrow, amongst them are the 5 paintings he's been waiting to steal for 3 weeks.
"I've got the paintings." Alex radios in, stepping towards them all. "Removing canvas."
He takes the first painting and turns it onto it front to see the nails holding it to the frame. He takes a specialised device about the size of the device he used previous made from carbon fibre, not only because it's light or strong but mainly because it's non-magnetic. It contains a powerful magnet that will remove the nails holding the painting to the frame. He move it over the nails and one by one they slip out of the painting like they were inserted into sand on a beach. He separates the frame from the painting itself and lies the canvas face up on the ground. Once he does this, he can hear something very strange, a distant rumbling coming from outside the safe.
"Do you hear that?" Alex asks.
"No time for distractions." Matt warns. Alex follows his instruction and grabs the second painting and lies it face down, but the rumbling is getting louder. He can hear the frame begin to rattle on the concrete floor. It makes the process of removing the nails difficult, what makes it worse is that the noise is becoming unbearable. Alex stops and backs away from the direction it's coming from. The noise rises to a crescendo before a huge hammer blow is struck as one of the walls of the underground strong room caves in, along with a part of the Black sea rushing along the sides of the object that has intruded rather bluntly. He looks up at it past the broken reinforced concrete and sees that it's a huge safe with the same door he saw in hidden vault that's almost the size of the wall it broke through. Alex is in shock as the water gets to his feet. He looks towards the vent he came in which is only 50 cm off the ground for safety from drowning. He was about to step towards it but he sees the safe open by itself to reveal it's contents.
"Too late again Alex." Jeremy taunts as he steps out of the dry safe and onto the wet floor where the water is up to his knees. "I've spoiled your prize."
"Not this time." Alex retorts as he steps through the rising water towards the skunk to end him. To Alex's dismay, Jeremy takes out a weirdly shaped gun and fires it straight at him, the projectile being a net with several heavy balls on the end to weigh it down. Alex is caught right in the centre, the sheer momentum of the net takes him off his feet and almost sends him into the far wall. He's bundled in the centre with all of the heavy steel balls quickly converging on each other.
"Magnetic weights, you won't be coming out of there soon, which I estimate to be in about 30 seconds. Bye." Jeremy says cheerfully as he disappears from view. Alex takes his last gulp of air, the net weights him down and he can't stand up because he doesn't have the room to do so. He begins to thrash wildly at the net, hoping it would open up for him, he struggles and struggles, tosses and turns before the whole room begins to fall…
5:48am, 6th November 2032
A thud like a sack of potatoes rings out from Alex after he rolled off the bed. He moans tiredly with a hint of anger, how can Jeremy be infiltrated in his mind like this?! Alex does feel like getting up at all but not because of the pain, that's minimal as he's used to falling from heights, but because the wood is somewhat comfortable and it puts distance from him and the place where horrible dreams are made up.
"Alex?" Erin asks from the other room, the thud has woken her up. "D'you fall?"
Alex's muffled aching and moaning from the fall brings Erin to action.
"Here." She says, offering her hand to get him up which Alex accepts but won't help along himself. Erin gasps his wrist with two hands to lift him up with as much effort as she can. Seeing that she's doing this for him, Alex gets up using his own energy and once standing, it takes a short few seconds for him to get his balance that is unusual for him to do.
"Nightmares?" Erin asks with deep concern.
"No I…" Alex tries to lie about it, but Erin can see straight through him. He looks into her eyes, words can't display the imagery he's seen. His eyes jitter to either side before going back to Erin for one second before looking wildly around for somewhere to hide. Erin places a hand on his shoulder to stabilise him.
"Really bad nightmares?"
"Please, just… go back to sleep." Alex replies, afraid.
"It's nearly 6 o'clock, I'm not going back to sleep and besides. You look like you've been tortured. You need to know I'm here for you."
"I know, you don't have to say so." Alex says modestly.
"I hope so too, cause one day I might need yours." Erin replies back, but that statement seems such a distant possibility. She looks like she's has no problems, the whole world at her feet. "So, hungry? I've got cereal, it's not much but I get by."
She moves to the kitchen and opens a cabinet mounted high on the wall and grabs a box of cereal from the kitchen, she takes it out and quickly puts it back upon seeing the contents. She grabs another one and this time puts it on the bench before grabbing two bowls from the lower cabinet. She then moves to the fridge in a well-timed routine she's done every morning. Erin opens the fridge the smallest amount she will allow before quickly taking out the milk and shutting it again. She does a quick double take but he doesn't look like he's eager to eat, she didn't need to worry as much.
"Here, eat." She instructs briefly. He trudges into the kitchen and looks at everything laid in front of him.
"Maybe later." Alex answers.
"It's not coming out again." Erin warns.
"I can find where everything is, it's not a big kitchen." Alex comments.
"I have things in order here, in such a small space everything has to be positioned perfectly for it to fit." Erin warns.
"So I can't just grab what I need around here?" Asks Alex.
"If you need anything, I'll get it for you, okay."
"Okay." Alex agrees. He goes to the couch and sits down and turns on the TV to find a 24-hour news channel being the channel that was last watched.
"You watch the news?" Alex asks out curiosity.
"I like to know what's going on around the world." Erin answers as she pours the milk into her bowl having put the cereal in it already.
"The same but for different reasons." Alex remarks.
"…Now to end on something unusual. What would you do if you found out artworks that you owned were all fakes? Seems unlikely but that's the question facing a group of art dealers planning to auction more than £100 million of rare art in a few weeks in Romania, have been found to be fake. The dealers in question have been taken into custody and will face charges of fraud and forgery."
Alex sits stunned; there is nothing that could compound his woes more. He holds his head in his hands and shakes his head in pure disbelief.
"Aaaaaaarrrrgh!" He shouts raising his fist high before bringing it down in rage towards the table, the table winds the fight. The pain is excruciating but the anger dulls it for Alex.
"No!... No! No! No! No!..." Alex shouts, banging his fist down in time with every single shout until the pain is no longer dull but sharp. Erin would have interfered, but it's easier if he burnt out his anger on his own, even if it might wake up some of the neighbours.
"Reminding you of our top story, The US is precariously close to having to default on it's $30 trillion plus debt. If the debt ceiling is not raised before the 10th November deadline, no doubt the effects will be catastrophic…"
"What happened?" Erin asks once this happens.
"Argh!" Alex exclaims in continued frustration. "That auction was going to be my heist and now it's worthless."
"What was the potential take?" Erin asks.
"5 paintings worth £20 million total." Alex replies.
"Decent." She replies before taking another spoonful.
"What do you mean decent? Is that nothing for you? Is this apartment worth £50 million and that cereal is worth £1 million. Is rare art no longer worth anything?" Alex rants.
"Apparently." Erin replies, referencing the news report. Alex starts to chuckle before it escalates into a full on laugh. "That wasn't that funny."
"I should have seen it coming." He says to himself.
"What?"
"That crime lord I told you about on the phone, he did this. I don't know how he could do this but I know that it's him, I'm sure of it." Alex realises.
"Looks like you need to go steal something of his, something he values." Erin suggests.
"I don't know of anything he values when he thinks millions is nothing to him." Alex rebuts.
"If someone stole your cane or the Thievius Raccoonus, you'd be pissed because you value them so highly, as would I. No one can be so completely detached that they value nothing in the world." Erin explains.
"He complains about being bored, I'm like this little play toy and when he's gotten enough use out of me he'll discard me, I'll be nothing." Alex complains.
"Now, that's only if you let yourself be tossed around. You need to let him know that you won't accept that." Erin responds.
"How?"
"And we come back full circle, you have to steal something from him, to prove that he's vulnerable and not as powerful as you think he is and also that you have power over him. Think of the fear that would induce in him if he knew that Alex Cooper could just waltz inside and leave him bare at a whim." Erin explains.
"That's nice and all having faith and belief in me. But the short story is that I don't know anything about him, where he lives or even what he actually does apart from ruin my life." Alex replies.
"Then, find them out. Track him down and exact revenge." Erin replies.
"You seem to want this more than me."
"Isn't this what you want? Or am I totally off track?" Erin asks.
"I don't know. I have to think this over. I need time." Alex states.
"Tell you what." Erin suggests, thinking of a new way to calm down her brother. "You can come hang out with me, come meet my friends."
"You have friends?" Alex asks.
"Well, yeah. Met them during my classes." Erin says, finishing her food. "Come along, they won't mind."
There's not much that is worse than seeing is what was just on TV, so he thinks that this will certainly be better than that. He drags himself off the couch and towards the door where Erin is already putting on her jacket to leave. She also takes her backpack that was where she left if from last night and leaves in front of Alex who shuts the door behind her. They move down the concrete stairs and out into the same cold morning. Alex pulls his sleeves to the maximum length, which goes up to his fingertips. They walk down the footpath along the road for about 10 minutes with Alex following Erin until they reach a disused shop front in town front that looks to be either in disrepair on in renovations depending on the way one looks inside it.
"Your friends live here?" Alex asks in surprise, he's not thinking of the shop itself but of the floor above it.
"You could say that, they spend most of their time here." Erin says. "We'll go around the back, it's the easiest way in."
"Or…" Alex answers, looking at the surroundings. "We could try…"
Alex looks to left where his sister was standing but she is no longer there, instead, she's standing on the top of the ledge of the shop, opening the front window from the outside.
"You were saying?" Erin says, waiting for her brother to get the picture. He's clearly stunned that she would do this, he's not sure of the reason why though. What he does do is look at the side of the shop and see a small ledge for where a large wooden sideboard meets a glass window, aided by the shimmering lights. The boost from that ledge is enough to jump up to the small overhang of the shop to get onto the first floor. He does this in a few seconds, probably as long as Erin took to do the same thing he thinks. Erin is already inside and Alex moves through the same window and into an empty room full of plastic tubs with various pieces of materials in them sitting on the unvarnished wooden floorboards. This spot is in terrible shape; the pain is flaking, some floorboards are missing and the roof as several signs that it's not water tight as indicated by the stains that turn the white paint a yellowy brown tinge.
"Where is everyone?" Alex asks, he can't see anyone in this room or in the room beyond.
"I don't know." Erin says in confusion. "I wasn't expecting this."
"So what's meant to be happening here?" Alex asks, he too sensing that something is wrong. Erin does take on board that question; or if she did, which Alex thinks she certainly did, then she's deep in something else. Alex tries so see what she's looking.
"Just say there, don't move." Erin instructs, not wanting him to enter into the next room. So Alex looks around makeshift storage room for something which Erin doesn't want to tell about right now, unusual for her because in front of Alex, she's not that secretive. It looks to be in the same condition as the room Erin's in, but there's nothing that he can see that Erin would be looking for over where Erin is. It's empty from his view.
"What are you looking for?" Alex asks. "I can help."
"Just, hold on a second." She says as she looks at the condition of the floor. She sees the dust outlines of things that used to be here but are no longer.
"I'm just going to make a call." Erin says as Alex sees her get out her phone and quick call someone, probably one of her friends.
"It's Erin." She replies. "Where are you guys? Did you take some of the stuff home?...Everything's gone… woah, slow down, I can't hear what... That's not happened… Yeah, okay, okay… bye."
"What did they say?" Asks Alex.
"There was some equipment laid out along the side of the room. We had this table which had a 3D printer and some other things on it. This was where we'd go after university and build stuff like… like anything we wanted. In those tubs we'd scrounge materials like plastics and then melt them down to use to make new things." Erin explains. "And now it's all been stolen."
Alex immediately makes the only correlation he thinks is possible right now.
"That's low." Alex states. "Going after you."
"That's not…" Erin refutes. However, she sees Alex's reaction to this coincidence.
"Do you think… that, right after I see you, something being stolen from you is just a coincidence? It's not possible." Alex rants. "I'm going to get that stuff back for you."
"We don't know…" Erin tries to explain, trying to slow down the pace that this is going.
"I know, you just won't accept it." Alex answers. Erin grabs her brother by the upper arms to clasp him and to prevent him from rushing off and doing something hasty.
"Slow down Alex! We can't do much unless we have facts." Erin replies.
"Time is being wasted, we need to get back to your place and protect dad's cane and mine as well, and the Thievius Raccoonus!" Alex counters.
"We don't need to worry about the book." Erin replies. Alex wonders why.
"But…" Alex tries to reply, hoping that his sister has not been misrepresented in the importance of it.
"It's in my bag." Erin answers.
"Thank god." Alex says with a massive reply. "Can I see it?"
"Yeah, do you think it will help?" Erin asks as she takes off her backpack and puts it down to open the zipper to reveal the massive book, which is so revered from the both of them. Alex takes it out carefully and opens it to close to the end and points to a photograph.
"This guy. Cyrille Le Paradox, it's his son, that's who's after me. It's like he has some obsession with me, I don't know if it's because of what happened with dad or something else but I'm sure he's behind everything. See, look at this. 'He tried to prove he was better by stealing the canes of me and my ancestors. I don't know if he was spurred on by revenge or just pure competitiveness. But I consider him no better than Clockwerk in thinking that by depriving me of something it would somehow make me weak. That, without either my cane or this book I'd be somehow won't be able to do anything. But what they don't know or just can't see is that they don't give me special abilities, but that it's the other way around." Alex reads from the Thievius Raccoonus.
"So, is history just going to repeat itself?" Erin asks, but for all that's rational in her thoughts, she's not exactly going to take his words as gospel. Alex was about to explain but he's put off by a siren coming from the distance.
"Police." Alex notes as the siren becomes two sirens.
"Just sit tight." Erin assures Alex not to make a hasty getaway when they don't even know that they are going to come for them. But Alex moves to the edge of the window to see if they are indeed police vehicles because he can't use the sound of the engine to tell apart vehicles because they're electric. The tyre roar makes all vehicles sound the same, so Alex takes just a tiny peak over the window to see that they are not police cars but fire trucks, two of them shooting down the road in haste to somewhere.
"Phew, no worries, it's just a fire truck." Alex answers, moving back from the window a tiny bit.
"We have to go back to my place." Erin concludes.
"We have to protect your stuff, that's going to go next." Alex says, opening the window to the tiny amount of sunlight that's appearing over the horizon. He places the Thievius Raccoonus back into her backpack before they both leave via the normal exit down a rotted wooden staircase that has been subject to a lot of water damage. They go through the shop and move out on to the street where they walk along back to Erin's tiny and cramped apartment. What becomes apartment quickly is that there is a light over the horizon, not the sun, but something brighter and much, much closer. As soon as Erin realises what it is, she breaks into a full sprint along the road because her building is on fire! Alex manages to just keep up with her and it only takes them both a bit over a minute to reach the foot of the building, where fire trucks are already controlling the blaze. Much to her relief, the fire was not near her apartment. It was one of the first floor flats which had flames bursting out of the windows and high pressure water flooding in from the fire-fighters as well as the in built sprinkler system. There are police and ambulances in attendance as well amongst all of the tenants which have rushed out onto the street as part of an evacuation.
"That's probably the most scared I have ever been in my life." Erin remarks to her brother as they see the flames start to die down a bit as the fire fighters tighten their grip on the blaze. They're a lot of nervous chit chat which is dying down as anxiousness takes over about when they will be allowed back in. Alex catches a glimpse of the victim whose flat has been severely damaged both by fire and water. He's wrapped up in a reflective blanket sitting in the back of an ambulance as a precaution, speaking to the police about the ordeal.
"Can I please have everyone's attention?" The fire chief instructs over a megaphone to the crowd amassed outside the building whose voices begin to quieten down. "The fire has been contained to just one property and a small section of the outside corridor so once we have fully extinguished the fire, we will give the all clear to return inside except for those on the first floor. The police are treating the fire as suspicious so they are sealing the area off for a period of time to examine the scene. Thank you for your attention this morning for firstly evacuating quickly and safely and for also raising the alarm as soon as possible so we can get here and do our job."
The crowd goes back to chatting with their neighbours after his speech has finished. But Alex doesn't have anyone to talk to, he instead what's what the emergency services are doing. The police are setting up a drone to get some imagery of the damage from the outside, they don't seem to care that a thief is amongst the crowd. After another five minutes of blasting water into the apartment to be 100% sure that the fire is completely put out. The firemen and women begin to filter the tenants and guests back in slowly. Alex and Erin move in with the crowd and up the stairs to her apartment. They see other walking into their with a sign of relief, Erin opens up her apartment to a look of shock. The kitchen cupboards are open, items are strewn on the floor; the flat has been ransacked.
"You were right." Erin admits, looking through the kitchen cupboards for any items that were stolen, which turns out to be a significant portion of them, but what Alex wonders is why she would look to see if there are any missing items in there first. Alex checks to see if the cane is still there, and to his massive wave of relief, it is exactly where he left it from before he went to sleep, resting up against Erin's desk underneath the bed. It was a deliberate move Alex thinks, Jeremy must have learnt from the mistakes of his father.
"I was hoping I was wrong." Alex comments.
"The fire was a distraction, someone lit it, forcing the evacuation of the building. Whilst everyone is outside he breaks in and steals everything he can get his hands on without worrying about being seen before leaving out the back." Erin explains, thinking the probable method that the thief would have taken.
"In any case, I don't think he even knows what rule one is, or even cares about it." Alex notes.
"It doesn't matter." She answers as she completes her inspection.
"What so important in those cabinets apart from food and cutlery that you'd get worried about being stolen?" Alex asks, this question brings hesitation and doubt into Erin's mind.
"I haven't been… totally honest to you, about me." She says.
"Why?"