If you're just joining the story, you may want to start with Part 1
< Part 2
Here is the conclusion of Chapter 1. When we left off, Higgs had robbed the bank despite the carelessness of his safe cracker. He left all the money in the car with his team and told them to meet him at the rendezvous point.
Chapter 1: A Monday (cont.)
< Part 2
Here is the conclusion of Chapter 1. When we left off, Higgs had robbed the bank despite the carelessness of his safe cracker. He left all the money in the car with his team and told them to meet him at the rendezvous point.
Chapter 1: A Monday (cont.)
Higgs ran the other way down the
alley. The night was cold and dark. The sky was still overcast after an earlier
rainstorm. The road glistened with the slick mix of rainwater and pollution,
giving this alley the characteristic smell of the city’s underside. He spotted
a manhole cover and popped it off, lowering himself into the underground rail
tunnel below
He clicked his flashlight on and
started running down the track. He knew these tunnels well. Some of them were
modified from the original pre-war subway system. Most of the tunnels were now
abandoned, but he feared that this may be one of the few modified to carry
steamers. His fears were confirmed as he ran underneath one of the huge steam
vents. How far was he from a station? He kept running.
He saw a light ahead and kept
running toward it. After a few steps, he realized it was a headlight, not a
station. He felt the low rumble in the ground as the massive train lumbered
down the track toward him. He spun on his heels and ran back the way he’d come.
He could hear the grinding of the steel wheels on the rails, the clicking of
the behemoth rolling over the welded rail sections, getting closer and closer
to him. He could never outrun this train.
He reached the steam vent again
and grabbed onto the maintenance ladder. He started frantically climbing the
shaft. He could hear the train moving closer to the shaft. He kept climbing while
the pressure built up in the shaft as the mixture of smoke and steam began to
push its way out of the tunnel into the vent. The sound was deafening.
The vent extended two stories
above the street level behind the facade of a building so the city’s residents
could pretend it wasn’t there. He felt the steam and smoke licking at his heels
as he got close to the top. He reached a platform with a door. He threw a
shoulder into the door and felt the latch give way as he stumbled into a
maintenance closet. He slammed the door shut behind him and leaned against it
as he felt the force of the scalding exhaust try to work its way into his
sanctuary. A minute later, the steam and pressure was gone as fast as it had
come.
Higgs found his way out of the
maintenance building into the street. Was he in the clear? He hoped so. He was
probably a mile from the bank now. He kept walking, the increasing distance
providing more and more comfort with every step. He looked up and saw the half-moon
just starting to shine through the thinning cloud cover. The remaining low
clouds drifted between the corpses of skyscrapers abandoned decades ago with
the rise of the Traditionalists. He wondered if they would all be torn down
eventually. For now, they provided housing for those whom society had forgotten
and others who hoped to be forgotten.
Suddenly, as he was passing an
alley, he heard a voice from the shadows. “Thurmond Higgs.”
A shiver ran down Higgs’s spine.
This was it. He was caught. He turned slowly to see who it was that called his
name. He saw a figure in a dark hooded cape. He wore a mask over his face. It
was the kind of mask the rich Vickies wore to keep them from having to breathe
the smog of the filth-ridden inner city. The cape was made from rich black
velvet, with a hood that sat low, hiding his face from view.
Higgs faced him, his heart racing,
brow furrowed. “How do you know my name? Who are you?”
“I know a great many things about
you, Thurmond Higgs. My identity is not important.”
“Great. Well, I’ll be on my way.
Nice meeting you.”
Higgs turned to walk away when he
heard the stranger’s voice again. “Why didn’t you get in the car with the
others?”
He turned back to the stranger,
“Look, buddy, I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what you’re talking
about.”
“I don’t care what you’ve done, Thurmond.
Your secret is safe with me. I only ask because I wonder whether you actually
trust your team so much.”
Higgs walked into the dark alley
to get out of the view of the road. He got close enough to the stranger that he
could smell his musky cologne wafting out from under the cape, no doubt
intended to cover up the stench of the city. “No. I don’t trust them, which is
precisely the reason I left the bag with them. They’ll never get away. And when
they’re caught, if the police don’t find every last missing coin, they’ll keep
looking for me.”
“Aren’t you worried they’ll give
you away?”
“The police won’t care, as long as
they get all the money back. Besides, those sods don’t know who I am. Which
begs the question, how do you know my name anyway?”
“I have great interest in your
career.”
Higgs laughed. “Ha! Some career,
slinking around alleyways after a fruitless bank job.”
“I would like to ask you to do
something for me.”
Higgs crossed his arms and stared
at the stranger.
“There is a train.” The stranger
continued. “I’d like you to rob it. Can you do that?”
“Maybe. Trains are hard,
considering that they’re moving. I’d need quite a team, and the kind of people
I’d need don’t come cheap.”
“You can hire any team you like. I
will finance it all, money is not an object.”
“Ok... Let’s say I do this job.
What’s on the train, and what’s in it for me?”
The stranger reached a gloved hand
out from under the cape and handed Higgs a small pad of paper. “This is the
freight manifest and timetable. There will be an armored car on this train
carrying a great number of things of value. The value on this train will make
your little bank job look like a pittance.”
Higgs leafed through the pamphlet
in the moonlight: jewels, gold, and a lot of pre-war items that were hard to
come by since the abolition of electricity. It was a huge take, if they could
manage to get all this stuff off the train. It wouldn’t be easy. But surely,
his share of the take would be worth it.
“You know, I never thought
Vickies--sorry Traditionalists--like yourself would need to steal. But I’m not
one to ask questions. So how much of this will I keep?”
“All of it.”
Higgs looked at the stranger with
disbelief. “You’ve gotta be kidding, right?”
“Not at all. You are free to
divide the valuables between your team however you like. I ask only that you
bring me a certain book that is on the train.”
“Sounds too good to be true. What
are you, a cop or something? Am I being set up?”
“This is not a setup, Thurmond.
The information in that book is more valuable to me than all the money in the
world. If you bring me that book, and don’t ask questions, you will have
anything else you choose to take from the train. You can take or leave this
offer; I will not force you to do it. But I assure you that the offer is
genuine.”
“How do I get in contact with you?
I’ll need some things, money mostly.”
The stranger handed him a bag of
gold coins. “That will be enough to get you started. If you want to meet with
me, put a red flag in your apartment window. I will find you in due time. You
will not regret this, Higgs.”
The stranger turned and walked
quickly down the alley, disappearing around a corner. A police whistle could be
heard in the general direction of the bank. Higgs grinned and put the pouch in
his pocket. During the long walk home, he couldn’t stop thinking about the
perfect team he could put together. That stranger was right about one thing, this
would be life changing.
Go to Part 4 >
Go to Part 4 >
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