The car came speeding directly towards me. Time seemed to slow down as i looked up and saw the car getting closer and closer. I could see every detail of the car, from the driver's panicked expression to the heat waves coming off the engine. I could even feel the heat on his face as he froze in terror with the car being only few millimeters away.
"Am I going to die again? But that's way too soon and not when I just started adapting to life here, not when I have just discovered my powers. I can't let things end like this." I thought to myself before
the sound of a crashing car hit my ears. I looked behind me and saw the car on the floor, upside down and its bumper was compressed like it hit a very hard wall.
It turned out I was subconsciously able to create a force-field just at the nick of time. That moment while I thought I had met my eminent end in this world, I somehow was able to calculate the speed of the incoming vehicle and the strength of the field needed to counter the momentum due to the impact.
While the chaos proceeded, most people were trapped in their seats, while others were flung out of their car windows. The sound of shattering glass and bending metal was deafening.
The sound of siren filled the air as it sounded like a beacon to calm the nerves of the victims, the blue and red lights assured them that help was on its way.
The police soon arrived at the scene along with a few ambulances and were rescuing people. I guess they estimated the number of casualties would be radical considering the amount of damage done at the center of the road. I then signified for help as medics rushed down to my position with a stretcher between them.
They carefully removed the driver's seat belt and slowly lay him down before they carefully extracted him from the vehicle, avoiding cuts from the pieces of broken glass which were all over the ground.
They laid him on a stretcher and took him to the ambulance, my classmates and everyone else in our school bus had now started to assemble near an ambulance. I wasn't surprised when I saw a few with injuries, they were just running blind without observing their surroundings provided they got away from chaos.
The paramedics arrived quickly on the scene, but the damage had already been done. They tended to the injured persons, administering first aid and stabilizing those who were in critical condition. The persons who weren't able to walk were helped out of their vehicle and onto stretchers, where they were evaluated for injuries.
The paramedics worked tirelessly, their faces etched with concern and determination. They knew that every second counted in these types of situations. They worked quickly and efficiently, triaging the students and ensuring that the most critically injured were taken to the hospital first. The students who were able to walk were helped onto the ambulances, where they were given oxygen and further medical attention.
The medics were a blur of activity, their hands moving quickly as they tended to the students. They were calm and reassuring, speaking softly and soothingly to the students as they treated their injuries. The students were in shock, some were crying, others were silent and staring blankly into space. It was a traumatic experience for all of them.
They all looked shaken to the core, the five minute madness we all experienced was a life and death marathon in which only the luckiests got out unscathed. The incident might have traumatized most of the victims as they looked like empty shells of their previous selves.
I on the other hand was having mixed feelings of thrill and fret, the scene was as scary as it could be. My heart skipped a few beats as I feared dying for a second time would be a real lameass move, while at that same moment I was in awe of how I was able to deflect a moving car and without a long term concentration to make up the strength of the barrier.
If the speedster had not arrived at the scene on time, it might have ended up a catastrophe. Multiple lives may have been lost. I saw people on stretchers being rolled away with limbs missing.
I wondered what would make a person just decide to cause havoc on a road and take lives like they don't matter.
I almost threw up my lunch at the sight of the disfigured victims who were unfortunate and were not able to get out on time. I assumed they might have been at the front, up close to the psychopath's unpredictable attacks.
Being aware of the dark nature of humanity and experiencing it first hand were two things entirely different from each other after all. And for all my bravado and willingness to stand up for myself, I'm still just a regular person with no experience of dealing with such dark happenings.
For a person to wake up in the morning and decide that he was going to kill a bunch of people and disfigure many that day, that was exactly what I would describe as madness and it definitely falls under the radar of psychopaths.
Yes shit happens, but what had happened that day was plain out madness. The villain was arrested by the police and of course with the help of the speedster but it was a sad day for most families.
The students who were once excited to get back home and share their wonderful field trip experience with their families, were now going home to tell them about the most horrifying incident they have ever experienced.
…
It was a hell of a day for everyone present that day, myself included. I laid on my couch as I reminisced about that day when I heard the ringing of my burner phone. Leo must be at it again.
I picked up the call and heard his ever chill voice vibrate through the phone's speaker as he spoke.
"Hey kid, got a sec?" He asked as he awaited my imminent response.
"Yeah, been a while I heard from you Leo. Was beginning to think you've gone awol." I responded to his sudden question.
"Something like that kid, I had to lay low for a little while after our previous job. Well enough of that, I have a job which requires that mind of yours." He spilled out his main reason for calling me.
"What kind of job is it this time around?" I asked him plainly out of curiosity.
"It is a job for a Mafia boss and it requires a smart criminal mastermind who could cook up a plan or strategy for his men to successfully infiltrate a max security estate and steal a painting from a rival Mafia family." He explained.
"The Mafia ehn, so when are we getting started on the job?" I asked Leo as I thought about how dangerous the Mafia was from the movies I had watched about them.
"Nah, this one is all you kid. It isn't my job but yours." He said frankly like he did not have an involvement with the job.
"What do you mean?" I asked him in an inquisitive tone.
"I was asked for the job but it does not fall under my specialty, only yours. I took the job and assured the client that I know the perfect man for the job. I will brief you on the operation soon. Got that?" He asked me after giving me sketchy info about my involvement in the job and his absence from it.
"Any advice for a rookie?" I asked him in hopes of him telling me the dos and don'ts.
"You could decide not to take the job but once you do so, you would have to see it through without the option of backing out. The Mafia are known for their ruthlessness as they wage the price of betrayal with the life of the culprit." Leo made it sound casual like it wasn't as big of a deal as it actually was.
"Okay hook me up, it's not like I have anything currently going on with me anyway." I replied as I tried subduing how anxious I was, just thinking of doing a job for a real Mafia boss alone was something I didn't see coming.
"Sure kid, expect the details anytime soon. Oh, and good luck with it." With that he ended the call.
…
Later that evening I received an email from Leo on my laptop which contained the summarized details of the job I was about to take on.
I received the information and was briefed on the job that was being offered to me, a job to steal an art from a safe house located in the middle of an estate and it belonged to a rival Mafia family with an absurd amount of security. The art was worth half a million dollars and my cut from this job was to be $80,000 assuming everything went according to plan.
He sent me the blueprints and the map of the estate where the safe house was located. Every information I might need for the job was there but I had a feeling there might be more to it. For a job to pay this amount of cash over a painting, I'm sure there was more to it because they must have attempted it before and failed. I would have to figure it out myself.
Leo called my burner phone once again.
"So what do you think, gonna take the job?"
As a mischievous smile creeped across my lips, the last words I uttered before hanging up the call was…
"You've got yourself a deal."
Few minutes after the phone call from Leo came to an end. Tom sat on the reading desk located at a corner inside the room as he studied the blueprints sent to him, which included every information required for this operation.
He saw this job as a challenge because there were definitely others who must have attempted to steal from there and were not successful in their agenda. A challenge which would show him where he stood among the top criminal masterminds around. For someone to reach out for a person with his specific set of skills, then that man must have narrowed it down to the need of a mastermind in the operation.
As he studied the information concerning the job, he discovered frankly that certain things didn't quite add up and were too obvious. Almost as though leading anyone who studied how to successfully escape that estate with a stolen art, to a particular region which would seem like a blind spot to a normal thief driven by greed.
He took a closer look at the schematics, as he observed the angles at which the cameras were placed and the lay lines of what seemed to be a minefield.
The art to be stolen is a very important painting which is known only to a selected few and it belonged to a mafia family in Italy, they had kept it in a very secured location where no one has ever entered to steal and lived to tell the tale.
The mansion housing the art is located in a remote location which was in the middle of a private property and was surrounded by armed men who guarded the premises.
Corners which may serve as blind spots were being watched with surveillance cameras, the region surrounding the mansion is a minefield which only people who are familiar with the territory can actually avoid the mines and move freely without activating them.
There were watch towers located at both the north and south of the estate respectively. Tom spent an hour studying the job and tried to figure out why no one has ever been successful in stealing any valuables from that estate. He noticed something strange about the schematics of the ground surrounding the mansion's region.
Tom dove deeper into thoughts trying to figure out why that region's ground is that way in the schematics, like something was built beneath it. At first Tom thought they were mere mines, but yet there are people who walk about the regional premises, ensuring that there are no intruders lurking and yet they don't get blasted into bits.
The mines only activate when an intruder exits the mansion and goes a certain distance from the mansion with the mentality that they've outsmarted the guards and have succeeded in stealing an art that will make them rich.
He looked closer and tried to devise a full proof plane with a success rate of ninety-eight percent, he noticed a route that is just too good to be true and eventually it will be seen as a perfect spot for an escape.
An escape route which isn't being guarded but is being monitored by CCTV cameras. It was a very tempting route that any logical thief would take because it meets the requirements for a not only perfect, but a neat escape. It looked like a perfect bait which would draw a thief that way, like a moth to a flame.
He sat back right in front of his study desk with the schematics of the estate on it and thought for a while, analyzing every bit of data and hoping he didn't miss anything they didn't want people to see.
"FUCK!"
Was the only word Tom said that moment as he came to a realization that solves a crucial question which has been nagging at the back of his mind for a while now.
'Why do the guards who go to patrol the minefield region leading to the escape route don't get blown into pieces even as they keep stepping on mines? But an intruder steps on a mine and gets their legs blown off completely within a period of 0.9 seconds after they stepped foot on the minefield and released their body from it.'
"Holy shit!"
"That's just fucking diabolical," Tom says with a tone of excitement as a smirk starts cracking on the side of his cheek. This indicated that he had figured out what exactly was built into the ground and why it was impossible for people to get out alive.
Tom then looked at the plans from a different perspective, hoping to get a better insight and discovered that the CCTV cameras placed in that region are actually security sensors which allows only registered persons to walk upon the mines without it blowing up.
People whose identities haven't been registered or programmed in the system are blown to bits the moment they step foot on a mine, after being scanned and identified as an intruder by the system. That's when the mines on the ground explodes and this all happens within a reactionary space gap of 0.9 seconds.
Tom then realizes that he'll need something like a short range EMP that will produce a shut down pulse which would cause the system to malfunction along with the mines at the cross section between the two parts of the building, creating an entering and exit path that was not on any blueprint.
The only problem was that the time gap it would take for the system to get back online is extremely thin and he calculated it to be an estimate of 45 seconds to a minute before the backup power for the part of the estate comes back up which will definitely alert the guards, a small window get out of the minefields.
The time period is extremely thin because it's almost the exact amount of time needed for the guards to arrive at the scene and open fire on the intruders before leaving the minefield through the routes that he believed to be the actual escape from the minefield.
"The entire estate's only escape plan is a fucking trap within a trap, wrapped and gifted to the intruder as another trap. It actually showed the thieves the escape route and suitable solutions to avoid the traps. Which would lead them to that particular situation but at that moment when they can almost taste the ecstasy known as success, that's when they fall prey to the actual trap and end up dead even before they realize what had just happened."
The thieves who succeed in countering the minefields and head for the escape route end up being killed brutally by a swarm of bullets fired by the guards overseeing that region, shooting them down when they are just moments away from escaping.
"Now I'm even more excited for this job, a grand theft auto experience which has never been successfully attempted. The feeling of outsmarting people who thought themselves to be smarter than everyone else should be very exhilarating." Tom says this out loud as if giving a brief presentation about the progress of this operation to himself, he then complimented this feeling of excitement with a mischievous smile.
Considering how careful the client wanted to tbe with this job,Tom was sure that the men hired to carry it out would be the best of the bests. This was going to be the toughest job he had ever done yet, if he could come up with a perfect plan then the men the client must have hand picked himself would do the finishing.
It was going to be a job which required stealth mode because any little mistake would alarm the guards and it might compromise the operation.
…
He sat with his laptop on his study desk as he kept pondering on exit ways and camera rotation angles and time between each switch. It was a very novel experience being able to comprehend things he knew for a fact that he didn't have any knowledge about. It felt as if the theoretical and mathematical aspects of what he was looking at came surprisingly easy for him, a feat he attributed to heightened intelligence which kept developing on a regular basis.
"Finally."
These words echo in the study of Tom's house, with him having a satisfying look on his face.
He finally covered every inch of the blueprint he was given and even went a step ahead and tried calculating how the guard shifts would affect the speed of movement of any party undergoing the mission. If he was to be honest, he didn't think he could do half of what he just did if he was in his past, regardless of the fact that he graduated with first class honors.
With the completion of this crucial step, the remaining pieces will fall into place. 'According to plan.'
He picks up his phone in an attempt to make a call, the name Leo appeared on his phone screen.
"Time to Tom Cruise this shit."