Chapter 35 – Adapt or Die

Central London, England. 8:40pm, 8th November 2032.

Everything Erin planned went accordingly. The car was abandoned; they retrieved the priceless cane and went off in search of a place to plan. They couldn't stay at Tim's house, considering how much they were on surveillance. So they continued on, constantly aware the every drone flying above and every security camera could be watching them. The rain has slowed to a constant drizzle that can only be seen by looking directly at a source of light as they come out of the underground into the surface of central London.

"Any more ideas on where to go?" Alex asks as he looks across the road to gather his surroundings.

"Unless we find an abandoned building or something like it, there's not going to be a place which is totally safe from surveillance." Matt answers as he visually searches for any drones or cameras nearby. There is a pause as they collectively think about a more concrete location to head towards.

"We have to go underground, we need to find a sewer cap." Erin says, looking along the streets for such an object.

"Hiding the sewers?" Alex replies.

"Got a better idea?" Erin replies, to which either Matt or Alex has one. "There isn't one I can't see on the street."

She gets the location of the nearest sewer cap and an arrow pointing down the street and around the corner with a full head up display.

"This way." Erin commands as they jog along the footpath towards the destination past the few people walking outside in the wet weather. The nearest sewer is in a small laneway, making it easier for them to access without the added difficulty of foot traffic. Erin bends down to lift the heavy cap away and signals to the others to go in first before she covers entrance to street level and climbs down the short, partly rusted ladder to the bottom, which this time is dry. For Alex and Erin, their sight is enhanced to see in dark by the mask but Matt is completely in the dark.

"Does anyone have a light we can use?" Matt asks with one hand firmly planted on the sidewall as to not lose his bearings in the darkness.

"Grab your laptop out of my bag." Alex insists, reversing until he is standing in front of Matt with his bag directly in front of Matt. The rat extends his free arm out to reach for the bag and once he does have a firm hold, he shifts his other hand to the bag to find the zipper before performing the necessary actions blind to grab his computer before opening it, giving him enough light to see.

"Let's move further into the tunnel so we don't freak out anyone topside." Erin suggests, looking on further into the tunnel.

"Hang on a sec." Matt replies. "I want to record this location in case we get lost."

He types away at his keyboard, sitting against the wall to do the necessary actions to do as he said. After doing so, his attention turns to the mysterious unnamed text file sitting idly on his desktop. He walks along with his laptop as he follows Alex and Erin up ahead, holding the computer with one hand and doing everything else with his other.

"We'll sit down over there." Erin points out a few metres ahead. They all sit down against the walls, crouching as to not let their bottoms touch the ground in fear that it might have traces of sewerage or other materials that may have escaped from the pipes anchored to the sides of the brick arched tunnels.

"So… any ideas? Otherwise I'll just start spitballing." Erin says.

"Why don't we do an anonymous tip to the police?" Alex suggests.

"That's stupid Alex." Erin replies.

"It can at least get the police off of us while we can escape." Alex explains.

"Escape?" Erin replies.

"Here we go." Matt comments to himself, sitting next to Alex.

"That's the opposite of what we should be planning to do. Those gold bars, even the fakes are worth something. Matt, how much do you one of those bars is worth?" Erin asks.

"It's hard to say without actually having one of the bars, depending on how much real gold is inside, it could be worth roughly… maybe £100,000 each." Matt suggests doing some calculations on his computer. "It depends on the thickness of gold because it's that's what covers the outside. But tungsten has almost the similar density as gold and since it's slightly lighter, they'd have to compensate with something heavier like platinum; only a small amount. Take the tungsten and platinum, wrap it in gold and…"

Matt looks up, only to realise he's all alone in the dark. Shocked, he gets himself up and looks around, first back to the exit and further into the tunnel, shining the screen light around to help him see but it turns up nothing but empty tunnels. He begins to run around, searching for his missing friends.

Erin wakes up as fast as she was drugged to sleep, with a sharp inhale before leaping onto her feet to get her surroundings quickly. She's still underground in the sewers, but she doesn't know where; it all looks the same to her. The next thing she notices is Alex is still drugged, sitting to the left of where she was. Erin bends down to check on Alex. Realising due to the reduction in weight that her backpack has been taken.

"Wake up, come on Alex, wake up." His sister quietly pleads face to face. Alex jerks out of sedation in the same instant reaction as she did. Erin slightly turns away to shield her mouth from Alex's breath before stepping back to give him a bit of space.

"Erin." Alex exclaims.

"We've been drugged, we're still in the sewers; we've got to get out of here." Erin quickly explains to bring him up to speed before holding out her hands to lift him off the ground. She pulls him up to stand but as she finishes the sewer becomes extremely light, forcing both of them to shield their eyes from the brightness.

"My mask!" Alex exclaims. Feeling his face instead of the felt like material that partly covered it before. They both slowly try to see where the light is coming from; at the end of the tunnel.

Follow

In white plain text, the floating hologram is like a waypoint.

"Come on." Erin hurriedly says.

"Where's Matt?" Alex asks. Erin is very briefly filled with embarrassment but pushes it down in order to hide the massive oversight on her part.

"I don't know." Erin says. "Let's just… follow, see where it leads."

They move slowly to the end of the tunnel with Erin releasing her cane, just in case someone is hiding at the end; it causes Alex to do the same. Erin runs to the end, trying to surprise any attacker but finds nothing save for another hologram saying the same message further down the tunnel.

"Come on." Erin says, leading from the front. They reach the next marker and find another one. This pattern continues, going left and right down tunnels of varying lengths following floating holograms.

"Are we going around in circles?" Alex jokingly asks as they follow a monotony of right angled bends and brick lined sewers. Erin quickly thinks back the path in her head to give an answer.

"It's not a circle." Erin says. "But it has to end soon."

They keep moving along the tunnel until one of the holograms is out in a wide-open area with the brick pillars that Erin quickly recognises.

"This is that place under the bank where they stole the gold from. There's a hole in that wall opposite us that they used to get inside." Erin explains, as they both walk slowly into the area.

"Why would they bring us here?" Alex asks, and Erin realises why.

"It's a set up. Run!" Erin commands, turning swiftly for the exits. After taking only 2 steps, she hears a loud cacophony of noise; 3 simultaneous explosions being set off to fill their escape paths with rubble. Both raccoons stop instantly in their tracks.

"It's him, that's got be him." Alex quickly exclaims, beginning to panic.

"Calm down Alex." Erin affirms, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Focus, we're getting out of this."

"No you're not." Rasmus corrects in a taunting high-pitched voice echoed through speakers placed around the area as well as his somewhat repulsive face, especially for Erin, being shown on the hologram projector that used to show the plain white marker. "You're getting too close, and that's bad for me. So, I'm going to drown you in here and throw you into the Thames. Make no mistake, unlike Le Paradox, I don't have the same… need to keep you two alive. I'm not like him; I don't work for honour, I'm not bound by some ancestral legacy, it allows me to be more… ruthless, apathetic."

"I'd like to see your face when Jeremy realises you're trying to kill us." Erin taunts, but Rasmus is completely disinterested in an argument because of his losing streak against her.

"The only way out of here leads directly into the bank of England, where you'll be arrested and locked away for life; It'll make that girl Charlotte very happy."

It's clear to Erin that Alex is panicking as he sees no way out, but Alex holds it in and be stays calm, drawing from the same unmoved calmness his sister is displaying; but fear is slowly creeping towards him. Erin leans in close to hold him and whisper something into his ear.

"Just follow me… we will not die." She whispers comfortingly before turning towards the hologram to reply. Suddenly, a rush of water starts from the back corner where the small channel of stagnant water leads to, now the channel has completely overflowed in 1 second.

"2 minutes to your death or arrest, your choice." Rasmus says before the holographic projector shorts out and is disabled by the running water.

"Check the rubble, maybe we there's some cracks we can get through." Erin quickly instructs. Alex quickly climbs up to the top by feeling out the uneven rocks to see if they can be moved, but they are as steady as rocks. He gets down from the top of a pile of rubble to ankle deep water. "There's no gaps here, this rubble is stable."

"Same here." Erin replies, He's planned for this, he's planned for everything; but that's his weakness." Erin quickly explains, looking back to the concreted wall to the vault. "He's going to realise his mistake of giving us this option."

They both wade through the rising water towards the wall to where they think the hole is. Erin feels the wall and finds the circular hole that slants upwards towards the vault.

"In here." Erin says, bending down to climb into the hole the size of an air conditioning duct. In the pitch darkness, Erin blindingly climbs upward at about 20 degree angle for several metres before encountering a blockage; the sealed concrete disk blocking their path to the inside of the vault.

"Alex, the vault's on the other side." Erin says as Alex grabs her feet as she stopped without Alex knowing. Erin feels out the edge of the blockage before pushing out at the bottom, the piece of concrete is heavy so it requires the better part of her strength to move it. The perfect disk shape falls out towards the inside, towards landing on the floor and triggering the pressure sensitive alarm. Erin reaches over the top with her hand and on the bottom with her cane to stop it from doing so and balances the upright disk as she looks for a place to put it.

"Alex, crawl around me and get out of the tunnel." Erin whispers, contorting her body so she's on her side, facing the left and holding the disk next against the wall with her cane holding it from underneath.

"It's going to be tight." Alex whispers back as he slowly tries to climb around his sister in the tight space. He crawls towards the front, and pokes his head out to see Erin straining under the weight of the disk.

"Find a place to get to whilst I deal with this." Erin whispers whilst Alex is mesmerised with all of the gold glistening due to the light from the fluorescent tubes onto all of the gold bars. Alex looks around the room and finds a thin, exposed air-conditioning vent going around the entire room. Alex pulls his torso out of the vent before sitting up with his outstretched legs still in the vent. He grabs his cane with his right hand and reaches up with it as high as possible to try and hook onto the vent.

"I need a boost." Alex whispers.

"Kinda occupied here." Erin reminds him, still holding the concrete disk up off the ground.

"Don't worry, I've got another idea." Alex replies, looking straight ahead this time towards the cylindrical concrete pillar in front of him. He puts his cane onto Erin's back for the time being, which she ignores, and puts his right foot against the edge. He concentrates on the pillar and explosively leaps out of the tunnel and attaches himself to the pillar about 30cm from the ground. Erin the moves to place the concrete disk inside the tunnel, but can't put it inside as a circle is the only shape which can't fit through it's own hole. She feels the water getting up to her feet again and realises that time is running out. She turns the disk into various positions to see if she can force it inside but can't until she finds there's a small groove in the top of the tunnel to allow for the disk to be rolled down the tunnel for easy removal. She rolls over to one side before rolling the disk into it's place and past her body where the water is still rising. What she doesn't know is when it's going to stop.

"The water is still rising." Erin tells to Alex. "I have to seal this hole up."

"I'm not letting seal yourself in." Alex replies.

"Don't be stupid, jump over to the duct above the hole." Erin commands, and Alex follows, leaping across and onto the vent, hanging by his fingertips.

"Now I'm giving you your cane and your going to hold me up with it." Erin says, passing Alex's cane out of the hole. Alex reaches down and just manages to hold onto the hook of the cane. He throws it in mid air to invert the cane's position and hangs the hook outside the hole.

"Get ready." Erin warns. She extends her legs outside of the hole so Alex can hold them up. As Erin backs herself out, Alex begins to take the strain of both himself and part of Erin. She rolls the disk back up the tunnel, causing more and more of her to be outside of the tunnel. She puts her own cane underneath her shirt on her back to free up her hands to position the disk to fit into it's hole. Alex focuses purely on keeping everyone from falling onto the ground. Once Erin places the disk back, he's holding up almost her entire weight; and hoping that the vent doesn't dislodge itself from the wall.

"I'm going to have to climb on you." Erin warns as she reaches her arm backwards to feel for the cane Alex is using to hold her up. She finds it with one hand and swiftly turns herself over to grip it with her other hand.

"Hurry up, I can't hold you for a lot longer." Alex says, fighting through the pain. Erin takes this message to heart as she climbs up Alex's cane and arm as fast as she can before reaching onto the duct herself and reliving Alex of the cause of pain; with the pain still lingering in his right arm.

"That was impressive." Erin commends to her brother. "I don't know what you're worrying about."

"Well… I wasn't going to, you know… drop you." Alex replies.

Erin pauses to reflect.

"You wouldn't do anything to fail me…"

"Can we do this somewhere else? Somewhere less… precarious?"

"There are no security cameras in here and we haven't tripped any alarms." Erin argues.

Alex considers her convincing argument.

"Let's shuffle along to that vault door whilst you talk." Alex reasons before moving along the wall with the cane secured in the same way as Erin's. "What were you going to say?"

"Did you miss me while you were away?" Erin asks.

"We were always one video call away."

"No, I mean… on the job."

Alex hesitates. "What are you implying?"

"I'm saying… we work much better as a team than both of us separately."

"We both knew that already." Alex answers back casually. "It's just we've never tried it before until now."

"How many jobs did you have to abandon because you couldn't crack a safe?" Erin asks lightly.

"A lot, okay… and every single time I'd wish that you could have been there to do it for me. You're the better thief at everything…"

"Alex." Erin says, trying to stop Alex descending into a mope.

"You can crack safes much better than me, smarter, better looking; not to mention you did all those jobs without anyone knowing and stole a lot more loot than I did." Alex explains.

"Alex."

"Just say it, okay. Don't deny it, you know that I'm right." Alex challenges.

"Okay Alex." Erin says as if it is pointless. "I am the better thief, I am much better than you could possibly imagine."

"You don't mean it." Alex replies.

"Of course I don't, it's completely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is bettering those who are coming after us; the police, Interpol, Le Paradox and whoever else crosses our path. I'll tell you this, we are better than all of them." Erin positively says, trying to motivate her brother.

"I hope so." Alex says, getting closer to the vault entrance.

"Not, 'I hope', we are better." Erin reiterates. They reach the vault door which Alex opens by kicking the large green exit knob which swings the large steel door open after the locking pins deactivate. They wait, hanging but the duct, for the door to open. After a loud clank as it locks into place, Alex moves onto hanging by the frame of the vault door before swinging through the opening and into the weight room, where all of the gold is weighed before and checked before it is stored inside. He looks up to see the bodies littered on the floor but no blood. Erin swings in to see this carnage that has taken place.

"Let's go Alex." Erin commands, knowing about his aversion to lifeless bodies. Before they can take a step, two bags are thrown in their path but they both dive out of the way, thinking that they are grenades or some form of explosive. Once they both spring to their feet, they see that the identical black backpacks are the same ones they had before, with the two rings on the back to hold their canes. A creaking noise comes from the scales that causes them to both back away. Readying their canes, they prepare for a fight.