Chapter 30 – Never Normal

London, England. 12:06pm, 8th November 2032.

"I'm sorry, normal people?" Alex questions as they walk down the street. "We're not normal people, we are as far away from that as possible."

"Your right, but I know what… other people our age do for work." Erin answers. She was about to say 'normal people', but changed her mind because using the word normal would be wrong; everyone is different in someway or another.

"I'm think you want me to do this more than I do." Alex says as they walk in sight of the clinic that Tim runs.

"Exactly." Erin answers. "I'm making you do this to show you that giving up being a master thief is the worst decision you will ever make."

"I wasn't giving up, I was…" Alex responds.

"I don't care what you meant, the fact that you said or even contemplated saying it was heart breaking. While you are working in there, I want you to remember to never say that to me, or anyone else, ever." Erin demands.

"You're giving me hell over this." Alex comments as they reach the steps to the entrance.

"Rightly so." Erin responds.

"I know that I deserve it. But my life is difficult and… it's difficult." Alex complains.

"Suck it up, you're not the only one with problems." Erin coldly says before walking away and dialling her phone, leaving Alex to negotiate this next part by himself. He opens the door and sees the small, cramped waiting room to the right with single chairs lined around the wall in the converted house with the reception placed in where he thinks a dining table would have been. He glances briefly at the four patients waiting to be seen as he walks up to the counter, he is the youngest in the room by far.

"Um… Hi." Alex says nervously to the receptionist, who is expecting him to arrive.

"Come around the side here, you need to start as soon as possible." She instructs pointing to the side door on the left saying 'staff only'. Alex steps through it, immediately turning right where the middle-aged receptionist is waiting for him.

"You'll be handling all of the backroom tasks, maintaining records, ensuring we have the right equipment and most importantly, making sure that everyone is adequately stocked up on coffee. If any one of the partners orders something, you go to the café 3 blocks down on the corner and get it from there; they'll know the difference if you don't. Oh, and they don't have drone delivery so you'll have to walk down there yourself." She explains.

"Okay." Alex responds.

"In that case I want a tall long black thanks." She immediately responds.

"Same." An assistant answers.

"Short black, one sugar." A nurse answers.

Alex is having trouble remembering all of the orders being thrown at him in a rapid-fire sequence.

"There… off you go."

"I don't have any money." Alex responds.

"Take 50 out of the till and be off." She responds. Alex walks up to the cash register and searches for the button to open it up, he scans each of the coloured buttons quickly but can't see anything. He turns to ask for help but she effortless presses a few buttons on the screen and a 50 pound note comes out of a small slot just below the bench. Having this system means there is no physical cash register for someone to steal or for someone to empty easily, not that Alex considered doing it in the first place. He takes the note and walks out of the staff area and through the waiting room where nothing has changed and out into the world where the rain has started to fall. He turns his hand around to feel how heavy it is before looking down to his right towards the shopping strip beyond. People are beginning to scatter towards shelter as the rain heaps down; but not Alex. He stands still as he gets wet, looking up at the grey skies above. Even as he is getting wet, he smiles, like he knows that even the weather is punishing his for his actions.

"I guess I deserve that too." He comments to himself before walking calmly down the street, embracing the wet conditions. The journey is itself boring, but predictable; it has some stability. That stability is comforting, knowing that he's not going to be risking so much just for this journey. He reaches the café on the corner and discovers that there is a lengthy line waiting for him that takes up almost all of the standing room inside as people get out of the cold and seek a warm beverage. He stops at the back of the line and looks inside at the very large coffee machine with steam rising out of the top, whirring away as it works frantically to serve everyone. He suspects this will be a long wait.

As he progresses through the queue, which gets longer despite people being served, he looks around at the people waiting around him, mostly business people but there are some women who look like parents, others are just here to treat themselves; and still he is the youngest person in the line when he gets to the front where he's trying to recall all of the orders.

"Hi, can I have two long blacks and…" Alex begins to order, but the sudden surprised and shocked look on the attendant precludes the next event.

"Freeze! You in the black jacket!"

Alex doesn't turn around quickly, not because he was expecting this, but because he's annoyed that he can't simply do anything without the police being on his back. He sees that everyone has shifted across to the walls to get out of the plain clothed officer's way.

"Hands up!" the officer shouts, pointing a Taser gun right at Alex.

Wait, they can see me?

"Can you see me?" Alex asks directly.

"Hands on your head!" He repeats.

Alex slowly does what the officer says; resting his palms one on top of the other on his head. The officers slowly advance on him cautiously, expecting the raccoon to fight back ferociously, but Alex doesn't see himself having a chance against them with his bare hands. One has a pair of handcuffs ready and moves around the side to attach both clasps around Alex's wrists. They push Alex out of the shop much to the horror of onlookers who just see the police arresting a teenager for no reason whatsoever, they couldn't even arrest him for queue barging. Once outside in the rain, one opens the rear door of the unmarked police car and the other pushes the raccoon inside. The rear door shuts and the two officers get into the front seats of the car. One tries to start the electric engine, but none of the systems are working; no indicator from the inside to show that the engine is running. He presses the accelerator but the car will not move, naturally their aggression turns to their captive.

"Did you do this?!"

Alex chooses to be silent; the clear plastic grating that separates the two halves creates a barrier, meaning he can't be attacked. Usually it was designed to protect officers from criminals, and now Alex thinks it's protecting him from them.

"He must have EMP'd the car." The officer notes.

A crack comes from behind Alex's left ear. He whips his head around and sees that someone has smashed the side window in. This suited person is breaking Alex out, but Alex is wary of what may happen next. Alex is grabbed by the arms of this person and is dragged out of the vehicle and out onto the street to where there are many onlookers. He quickly glances to his right and sees that two others are holding the doors shut and watching over the police so they don't try anything stupid. Alex is lead into a large black SUV waiting behind with the door already open for him to go inside, even though he's not 100% sure who is doing this. He is bundled into the back and as soon as he is inside, the door is shut and the vehicle speeds away from the scene. Alex is pushed upright by the same person who got him out of the car to see the occupants inside. Weirdly, the seating arrangement is more like a van with the two rear banks of seating facing each other.

"Alex."

The snap of fingers focuses the raccoon's attention.

"Focus."

The Slavic accent of his voice is very noticeable on the short mongoose in his late 20's.

"You're not worried at all?" He asks. Alex doesn't answer the question as he's figuring out whom to trust.

"Good, good. I am Krasić, Ivan Krasić. I work with Jeremy Le Paradox." Krasić introduces.

"Why save me?" Alex immediately asks. As the occupants brace themselves as the vehicle turns around a corner at high speed.

"Whether you like it or not, you represent a significant investment on the part of Le Paradox."

"Investment?" Alex asks in disbelief.

"You really know nothing." Krasić chuckles. "I'll tell you a story."

"You see; I didn't choose the criminal life, the criminal life found me. I was working at a major bank in Paris in La Defense; I liked working with numbers you see, and I was working very late nights just to impress and work my way up. It was in one of those nights where was the last one left, a Friday night I believe, that I first saw Jeremy. He was, in a stark contrast to what he is now, a cleaner." Krasić explains.

That came as a massive surprise to Alex.

"I didn't pay much attention, he was a cleaner of all people. He pulled the cart, which has all of the cleaning materials in front of the restroom, just like I had seen the cleaners do many times often. But, I could see him reaching inside to the rubbish bin on the cart like he accidentally threw something away. I see him take out a computer disk of some sort, like a hard drive and start to walk towards me. I first instinct I recall was to call security, but he was watching me and I was trying to not be afraid so I couldn't. He approached me and started to have a conversation about what I did because, he said he was studying to be an accountant, which I later found out to be a complete lie. Then he couched down and began disassembling the computer next to me, we kept on taking as we both worked. I liked the guy, he had confidence in the way he spoke and worked, like everything he did was planned in advance. Once he put the computer back to normal he turned it on and waited. I briefly glanced across at what he was doing and I could see that it was being hacked into. I began to panic a lit bit, and he knew it. So, in the same confident casual tone, he explained what he was doing."

"He said that he had already done this at all of the major banks in town, he was installing software to stabilise against hacking attempts. So, by hacking into it, he said he would fix the system and make it more secure. But, and I don't think I have done this very often to him, but I found a fault in his plan. I said 'you'd have to do that every computer to fix them all', he said that he was only doing this level. I then said 'you're not the IT staff, they can fix everything from their room; they never come out unless there is a hardware problem. For that brief few seconds, I saw something that only occurs even more rarely in him; him being stuck, forced into a corner. He was looking for a way out and I was about to reach into my phone to call the police, but then he stopped me. He began to explain the true nature of what he was doing, and as his ideas unravelled, I began to realise how brilliant he was."

"What was it? What did he do?" Alex asks eagerly.

"It was brilliant because it was so simple I should have thought it myself. Essentially, on some transactions, the numbers can go to many decimal places. So naturally, we have to take that extra off for simplicity. Where does it go? Now, those tiny fractions of a cent go into his pocket. What was even better is that he'd thought of how to cover it up; since all of the legwork is done by computer, he would trick the computers into thinking that there was no error; everyone would be better off. I initially doubted whether such a scheme would even be worth it, we were taking only fractions of a cent here. But what I remember most was me sitting there thinking, why is he telling me all of this? I was in the process of remembering details about what he was saying when he made me an offer then and there. He took out his phone and showed me his bank account to prove that his method worked; he had a 7-figure sum of money that was nearly 8. He said, 'I'll pay you 1 million euros if you quit your job and work with me.' What I noticed most weirdly is that he said 'work with', not 'work for'. I questioned him further about what I would do because, it was a lot of money, and I worked so hard for that job. But, fighting all my preconceived notions of morality and conscience, I accepted."

The vehicle enters into an underground car park and all of the exterior lighting is replaced with artificial lights.

"All we needed to do was wait in order to become rich, but now, time is no longer on our side." Krasić explains as the car comes to a stop outside the central pillar of the building where the elevators are situated. "Follow."

Alex, Krasić and the legion of guards walk towards an empty car park space.

"We've put in excess of 15 million euros worth into you, and we refuse to let you ruin it by getting arrested or by throwing your life away." Krasić explains as the car park space rises from the ground using two pneumatic rams that raise the concrete slap at an angle, revealing a hidden tunnel. The two of them walk through it, even though Alex wonders where this is leading.

"I don't get it." Alex replies angrily, coming to terms with the news that he's not fully accepting. He refuses to accept the fact that he is 'an investment', even less so that 15 million euros could have been spent on him when he hasn't received anywhere near that amount over his entire life. "An investment? I'm a person."

"I hope for both of our sakes that you will pay off significantly." Krasić comments as they step inside.

"Where are we going?" Alex asks.

"Escaping from the police." Krasić answers as he calmly walks in the underground tunnel that quickly intersects with another tunnel, although this next one is more legitimate than the previous one. Two of the guards remove the metal vent cover away which conceals this tunnel and allows Alex and Krasić to leave. The mongoose moves ahead of Alex inside the dimly lit and narrow service way.

"If you can tell; I handle the financials of the enterprise, Rasmus handles the day to day operations and Jeremy thinks more in the creative department." Krasić explains further as he casually walks through the tunnel as if this has been rehearsed.

"Who's Rasmus?" Alex asks.

"Eventually you'll find out." Krasić explains briefly, walking straight with eyes forward; he knows Alex can't run back otherwise he's trapped. "I'm certain of that."

"I wouldn't be so confident." Alex comments.

"In all my time working in this business, if there is one other thing that is certain, it's that what Jeremy wants, he gets." Krasić explains with a weirdly calm demeanour, as if he is not at all concerned with Alex possibly escaping. The mongoose reaches a service door and opens it, leading straight into a tunnel for the London underground. He looks both ways before stepping down onto the tracks and quickly reaching the other side where there is a door for them to get out of danger and back into the safety of the service walkways.

"He has an obsession with you, he talks about you like he is your best friend. About, how he needs you to work with him instead of against like he said your father did. Mergers reduce competition and increase the profits so I can understand his view point." Krasić explains, not once looking back. He reaches the vent grating for this service tunnel which leads into another apartment building. The mongoose looks back and sees that Alex isn't there. He immediately scans around the area to see if he's hiding nearby and quickly takes out his phone and calls for security.

"He's run into the tunnel. Find him quick before he gets himself into trouble." Krasić sternly instructs. He then quickly runs down to a specific, heavily bolted electricity board and knocks on it at a specific point in the top right corner of the left hand door to unlock it and reveal the secret passage. He steps through the door before it shuts behind him automatically and sees that the guards on the other side are already rushing into the tunnel to look for Alex, going in the opposite direction. Krasić goes out of this comparatively crude tunnel compared to the first one, into a heavily packed storeroom that's overstocked with office supplies. The mongoose hurriedly pushes some of the boxes and shelving back into place to cover up the hole in the wall before he hears the door leading out of the room shut on him. He attentively looks up, he was sure the door was open when he entered the room but he's doubting that now. Krasić walks up to the door but he feels something in his pocket, something has been planted on him.

'Don't be so confident'

A handwritten calling card, he doesn't react angrily because this just shows that there is a sign that the investment is worth something; but instead sprints to the door and looks into the foyer from behind the reception desk. Alex can't be found, he realises how bad this could be if they can't track him down quickly. He quickly swallows his pride and informs Rasmus of his failure.

"I've lost him." Krasić admits.

"Don't worry, I'll redeploy the surveillance drones once they are charged up. I'll put them outside his house, some will scan the streets and others will patrol as usual; as long as he is located before tonight then we don't have to tell Jeremy." Rasmus calmly replies. "Just stick to the numbers, I'll find Alex so the plan can proceed as normal."

"You told me he was not the one to worry about." Krasic explains.

"I know, just think of what will happen when Erin finds you." Rasmus taunts.

He would have celebrated wildly, but Alex is not out of the woods yet considering how easily Jeremy has managed to find him all around the world. What Alex has done has finally manage to control his invisibility, he had to concentrate hard for it to work, and he wasn't even sure if would work, but all he cares about is that he's escaped and that his plan worked. He doesn't know why it's suddenly beginning to behave and heed his commands, even if it's acting stubbornly, what matters is that it worked; he'll let Matt and Erin worry about those questions later.

Even if he looks calm on the outside, every second he checks behind his back just to make sure he's not being followed either by Jeremy's men or the police. Guided with his sense of direction and several glances at maps, he returns to the coffee shop that started all of this commotion. The scene looks docile, as if nothing had happened; except that the line is shorter, which is good news for him, having to reorder the coffee again. He stops briefly and tries to remember what he was meant to order. There were two long blacks but that's about all he can't muster inside his head. He re-enters the café having checked that there was no one about to ambush him and waits a short time before being served. This simple task he was sent to complete has finally finished as he carries the cardboard insert with four cups of coffee back down the street. He's still on the look out, with his current luck, someone is most likely going to come after him. Much to his relief, that situation doesn't eventuate and he finally returns back.

If he's realised one thing, Alex Cooper can't simply stop being Alex Cooper; even if he is not working as a thief.