The Asset

The van comes to a rolling stop outside the front gate of the house. My leg was bouncing up and down seemingly to the cadence of the engine rattles. This wasn’t where most people in their early 20’s expected to be on a Thursday night. Most would be out hitting up sports bars to watch Thursday Night Football. Not me, I’m in the back of a van full of dudes clad in black all armed to the teeth.

Boss turns from looking out his window to me and Badboy. “Alright, here’s the plan. Once Badboy unblocks our entrance, that will be Whiz’ cue to cut the lights. Whiz, you gettin CCTV yet?”

“Almost Boss,” Whiz says typing away while his monitors in the passenger seat flash uncontrollably.

“Good, alright from there Brutus and I clear out the remaining guards on the floor. They’ll be startled by the sudden loss of power. The power doesn’t often go out in a billion dollar mansion after all.”

“And three, two, one. We’ve got eyes,” Whiz interrupts.

“Once the floor is clear Brutus and I will head downstairs to the floor where the asset is being kept. From their Badboy will bring the drill and we’ll breach the vault. Any questions?”

Badboy raises his hand slowly.

“This look like a goddamn schoolbus to you? Use your balls and speak up!” Boss yells.

“So what exactly are we stealing? You can’t exactly pull off a heist without knowing what you’re supposed to be stealing,” Badboy says with his smart ass tone.

“The asset will be obvious once we breach the safe, jackass. And the client requested we do this job no questions asked so if you’d like me to choose one of my other contacts you are more than welcome to leave.”

This shuts Badboy up. Our organization never let us know each other’s backgrounds or real names for that matter. I sometimes wondered what Badboy could have done before turning to this life, if he did anything at all before this. I’d worked a few jobs with him before. He wasn’t necessarily dumb but he was only useful in the moment. One thing is for sure he was good at killing. Probably ex-special forces.

Boss pulls out a duffle bag, “Badboy, you remember your entrance plan?”

“Ugh, Boss do I have to do this one? Why can’t I just walk up and shoot the guards?”

“Because they’re expecting him,” Boss gestures towards the tied up pizza delivery driver stripped down to his underwear in the back corner of the van.

“Right and how did you know the guards of the house of the richest man in the state ordered pizza?”

Whiz turns around seemingly offended, “Really? I just hacked into their entire CCTV network and you don’t think I can track their web searches?”

Badboy shrugs his shoulders and then grabs the duffle bag with a sigh. He leaves the van. A good thirty seconds pass and then Whiz bursts out laughing, “Oh man, Brutus you have got to see this,” he says while coughing through his laugh and gesturing me over.

I look over his shoulder at the hacked CCTV footage and see Badboy walking up the path to the front door wearing a bright t-shirt and khaki shorts carrying a pizza bag. I can’t help but laugh as well.

“Oh man, please tell me you’re recording this,” I say through the giggles.

Whiz picks up his radio, “Hey Badboy, your mommy dress you today?”

Badboy turns around and holds his middle finger nice and high in the direction of the security camera we were watching him on. I turn to Whiz. He’s still cackling at Badby. Whiz was easier to read than most. He definitely had a background in IT. I’ve seen Whiz do things on a computer that would surprise even Edward Snowden. I once heard a story about him where he hacked into the Pentagon using the nearby McDonald’s free wifi.

The CCTV cameras follow Badboy up to the door. He gets to the front and takes the pizza box out. Badboy knocks on the door and a guard answers. Before the guard can take out his wallet a spray of muted bullets explodes out of the pizza box and fills the guard with holes. Badboy pulls his silenced submachine gun out of the pizza box and looks at the camera and gives the ok sign.

Whiz begins tapping furiously on his keyboard, “Alright, going dark in five, four, three, two, one.”

All the CCTV monitors turn to night vision as every light on the premises shuts off. Boss opens the back door of the van and puts on his balaclava. He pulls back the charging handle on his assault rifle and takes a puff from his cigar before throwing it onto the pavement.

“It’s our turn Brutus,” he says as he motions towards the door. Boss was obviously in charge of the whole operation. He didn’t have a life before this. One day people in the world just started being robbed. He was almost a supernatural force, inexplicable.

I jump out of the van behind him and we make our way up the hill along the windy driveway of the mansion. Badboy passes us with the front door guard slung over his back.

“The stage is set boys. I’ll be in with the drill in five. After i get this number off,” he says as he gestures to his outfit he borrowed from the minimum wage worker.

We reach the already breached front door. Lots of commotion can be heard from within. Guess they’re all afraid of the dark in there.

“Hey, Brutus,” Boss throws a pair of goggles at me. “Put these on. Remember only kill the ones that get in our way. We’re here to pillage not massacre.”

I put the goggles over my face and click the button on the back. The world lights up in a bright green hue. Boss lowers his own and nods towards the door, requesting I take point. I enter and lift my rifle scanning the entrance. The staircase to the lower level was across the house at the back of the mansion, at least according to the blueprints we had. We hear two guards passing by in the hallway next to us, the exact hallway we need. Boss taps my shoulder. We jump against the wall on opposite sides of the door jam for the hallway. He lifts his hand with three fingers. He lowers one. Then the other. And finally the last. We peak around our respective sides and take out both guards.

We begin walking down the hallway. My feet peeling off the ground with every step to assure as little noise as possible. I sometimes think about the people I have no choice to kill. But when you are in this game it is kill or be killed. Sure I may have a little more remorse if they were legit cops or military but these are private guards. They’re not here for the greater good. They’re here to protect the pockets of the rich fuck that owns this place. The man who I’m stealing from will never know my face or name. The same way I’ll never know. Boss never tells us who we steal from. He says it makes it too easy for us to get into our heads. All I know is, big mansion and enough money to afford private armed security, therefore rich fuck.

I never imagined myself killing anyone. Growing up in a small town where it seemed like the whole town knew if you got a papercut the thought of hurting anyone when you knew everyone just felt wrong. How would Coach feel if he knew what I was doing? Probably just yell at me to go faster and to hit harder. Most star football players end up going to college and working under bright stadium lights, not lurking around in the shadows.

We’ve got a corner to turn. Boss holds me back before I turn. He shows me a small cylinder and I quickly back up. He tosses it around the corner and I see a white flash highlight the entrance to the next hall. The flash is followed by a group of groans. We turn the corner and full auto the 5 guards standing in front of the door to the staircase. I see the five green tinted bodies hit the ground and lower my weapon. There’s a keypad next to the door. Boss takes a blacklight off his belt and holds it to the keys. On the pad there’s four fingerprints on the numbers 3, 5, 6, and 8. 24 different possibilities of combinations. Boss tries one combo and a red LED glows over the keypad. There’s two other unlit LEDs next to it. I’ve seen a system like this before on a job in Berlin. Boss has two more chances before an alarm blares throughout the entire premises. He tries a second combination. The second LED lights up red. One more shot. If he gets this one wrong it’s no longer a covert operation. Boss thinks for a second and then slowly enters his final guess. All three LEDs flash green. The door slides up. We approach the stairs and look down. There’s somehow still a light flickering down there.

“I thought Whiz cut all the lights, Boss?”

“He cut all the lights that were in the blueprints. So clearly there’s something being hidden.”

At that moment I feel two arms wrap around me and a body lunge at me. I begin rolling down, hitting every step. When I land the guard is sitting on top of me. Once he gains his bearings he unsheathes his knife and attempts to plunge it into my chest. I grab his wrist centimeters before the blade can puncture my sternum. I push back as hard as I can. I’m transported now to my days playing offensive line. Pushing with all my might against the opposing team’s line. He’s strong. His blade gets closer and closer. I can feel the tip begin to scrape the padding between the kevlar plates in my vest. With a light flash and few muted bangs the force becomes dead weight as the guard falls on me. I throw him off and see Boss behind where he was holding his smoking sidearm.

“Two last minute saves in less than five minutes? I’m starting to think luck is on our side for this job,” Boss says while lighting up a second cigar. He proceeds to help me up.

“You sure it’s wise to be lighting up a cigar in the middle of a job?”

“Trust me, the guy we’re stealing from would never trust his guards down here with his prized possession.,” he reaches for his radio, “Badboy you’re clear to come down with the drill. All guards on this side of the house are down.”

“On my way, Boss,” a muffled voice replies.

Upon surveying my surroundings I saw that it wasn’t just one light that was flickering. I take off my goggles. This basement was a whole ass laboratory. It was all just one big hall with individual rooms on both sides and the giant 10 foot safe at the end of the hallway. Every room had a lab table equipped with high tech instruments I had never seen before.

“Well this is not your average high school chemistry lab,” I say to break the cadence of the buzzing from the overhead lights that are still flickering.

“Yeah this guy does not mess around with his R&D,” Boos says.

There were organisms in test tubes that looked like sludge. I tapped on one and the organism reacted making me jump a little. If you looked really close the sludge almost looked like a moving clump of hair. Disgusting.

“Boss,why would he keep his most valuable possession in a safe by a laboratory?”

“We don’t ask questions, Brutus. We just get the job done. We’re going to get the asset and get the hell out of here.”

Badboy comes jogging down with a duffle bag. He doesn’t seem phased at all by the environment around the safe. He’s just got his eyes on the prize. He crouches down in front of the vault door and unzips the bag. Badboy begins to assemble the drill. Badboy is normally the drill man so he’s pretty much mastered building this up and tearing it down. This drill is the best in the biz, it’s nearly silent but still able to pierce the thickest of vault doors. The sparks begin to fly from the metal sheet.

“Badboy, Brutus and I will grab the asset, you begin cleanup.”

“On it, Boss”

We weren’t just gonna leave the bodies laying around. Our organization has a special way of disposing those unfortunate enough to get in between us and our targets. Let’s just say junkyard workers don’t often check the back of vans before they’re demolished in the compactors. Grim, I know but it’s the best way to leave no evidence.

The drill halts. That means it’s done. Now it’s only a matter of spinning the wheel to open the vault and then grabbing the loot and getting the hell out of there. Boss twirls the wheel once and a loud click is heard. The vault swings open. It’s empty, except for a woman tied up and gagged in a chair.

“The asset is a person?” I say out loud on accident.

“Remember Brutus, no questions asked.”

The woman’s eyes open as she starts to squirm and muffled screams come from behind her gag. This is wrong. I’ve stolen so many different things before, even living things like a pet Tiger, but a person? I can’t do that. Boss begins to walk towards her. I grab him by his upper arm.

“Boss, are you sure this is a good idea? I mean this is dangerously close to trafficking.”

“The Client wants the asset turned into him unharmed. What he does with it from there is not our concern.”

“See, that’s your problem you called her an it! This is a person! No longer an asset.”

“Are we going to have a problem here? Huh, Joshua?” he says with a smile. How did he know that name? I’ve never slipped up. I’ve kept all personal files and records as far from this work as possible.I instinctively pin him up against the vault wall. He laughs.

“You really think I’d work with people like you, Badboy, and Whiz and not have leverage over you guys. I go by ‘Boss’. You don’t get to keep that name without working for it. Listen Joshua once you get this job done you’ll be rolling in cash and this one morally questionable act won’t even matter. But if you’re gonna be a little bitch about it I suggest you run along”

Just then all the lights go out.

“Did you tell Whiz to cut the lights?”

“No I did not,” he pulls up his radio, “Whiz I need the lights back in the basement.”

Whiz’ muffled voice comes over the radio, “Uh, I’d love to but I don’t have control of those lights Boss.”

“Damnit, alright Brutus, goggles back down.”

I lower my goggles and activate them and turn around expecting to see the woman tied up. She’s gone. I survey the vault and in the corner I see her crouched down with her face in her palms. Boss snuffs out his cigar and barrels towards her. He grabs her arm.

“Alright, come on. Make this easy on all of us,” he says trying to yank her arm up.

What happened next I have no explanation for. The moment he tugged on her arm a growl came from her. Her feminine body slowly transformed into a black mass of a figure. A figure that almost reached the height of the vault ceiling. The figure roared and gripped his arm and with one tug ripped his arm clean off.

Boss backs up with blood spurting out like a fountain from his shoulder, too shocked to even scream. The figure cocks back its arm and slams him into the side of the wall. His body leaves a giant stain of blood against the vault wall. I keep my rifle aimed at the ready at the figure as it strust past slowly, every step coming down with a thud. It walks right past me and the thuds get quieter and quieter. I run to Boss’ body to see if there was any chance of getting him out of here. I kneel by his side and check his pulse. His one remaining arm grabs me and he pulls me close.

“What have we done?” he asks in an almost whisper. His body goes limp. He takes his final breath and I can’t help but ask myself the same thing.

I run up the stairs and see a sludge left behind by every step from the figure. At the entrance of the steps by the keypad I hear a scream. That’s Whiz. I run outside and I see the figure holding the van up in the air, Whiz still in the driver’s seat. Whiz screams while trying to shoot at the monster. The figure slams the van into the ground and crushes it like a Coke can under a boot. I try to gasp but a hand covers my mouth. Badboy pulls me behind a bush.

“What the HELL is that Brutus?!”

“It’s the asset”

“No but what IS it?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Well in my experience there’s nothing that gunpowder and lead can’t take down so here’s the plan-”

“No! For once, no plan, just run!”

“If that thing is the asset then it is clearly worth a lot and I’m assuming that applies dead or alive,” he says as he steals my rifle and sprints out of the bushes.

“Badboy no!”

He runs out from the bushes screaming and shooting in the air trying to lure out the figure. He stops shooting and looks around. Had it left? Would the figure only claim two victims? That would not be the case. What looked like the branches of the tree above him slowly revealed themselves to be the lengthy arms of the figure. It snatched him up into the tree. A spray of gunfire comes from the tree and then Badboy’s headless body crumples to the Earth. The figure descends from the tree and begins to walk away towards the street. But not before it turns and stares at me almost like it was acknowledging my unwillingness to enforce it’s captivity. It gives me a wave and then slowly walks beyond the hills. My bed sounds really nice right about now. But I know what sounds even better.

***

“Long night?” the barkeep says as he pours me a glass of scotch.

“You have no idea. Better make it a double,” I say and he begins to pour.

What was that? Why did it spare me? All I know is that whoever or whatever it was, I was content with my choice.

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