Fiction
A Band of Bogarts: Part I
Flint & Steel Two-Part Writing Challenge
The smell of blood wafted through the room and almost made him faint. Stress was already high, and anxiety? Through the roof, all of this made his blood pump faster and faster, and in no time, he had a mess on his hands.
“Will you wash that off,” Homer demanded.
Jude stopped his shaking, looked down at his finger, and saw how much it had been gushing. He was never all that great around the stuff, especially if it was coming from his own body. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a band-aid and cautiously started applying it.
“Let me do that for you, sweetie,” a soft voice came from next to him.
Jess peeled off the band-aid, pulled out his hand, and gently put it on.
She kissed it and put it back on his lap. Jude, much less lightheaded now, smiled gratefully at his girlfriend.
A laugh came from the back, and emerging from the darkened corner appeared Verity. They all turned around to stare at her, as she hadn’t made a sound in the entire hour they had been there.
“What are you laughing at,” Homer asked.
“We thought we were getting a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde, we just got ourselves Tweedledum and Tweedledee. You can decide which ones which.”
“Hey!”
“Don’t worry about it, Jess,” Jude calmed her down.
“We may not look like much, but us two are the only way you’re going to get in there at all.”
Verity waved him off, walked back to the corner, and let out another, little contemptuous laugh. The door swung open and in came the bulky frame of Cy. He plopped a backpack onto the steel table, scanned the room, and fell to his knees.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Come on, man,” Jess perked up, “he’s having a tough time.”
“Oh, us robbers now have to have a psychologist on the crew now,” Homer scoffed.
“Not a bad idea,” Jude chimed in.
“Pssh, if you only knew how we used to do things.”
“What’s wrong, Cy?”
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
An audible groan came from both Homer and Verity. Jess kneeled next to him, put her arm around him, and tried to get him to look at her.
“This is a good plan. We have all we need, but you’re the last piece of the puzzle. If we don’t have your blessing to do this then it all falls apart.”
“Blessing,” Homer interjects. “Back in my day we took what we wanted, didn’t need no blessing.”
“We get it, you’re old,” Jude quips.
“Yeah, well, at least I don’t have band-aids flowing out of my pocket.”
Jude glared back at him but decided it wasn’t worth it.
“Clearly,” Jess continued, “We all wouldn’t be here without you. What do you say?”
Cy gathered his breath, looked up at Jess, and could feel the pregnancy of his pause suck all the air out of the room. “Fine, I’m in.”
“Good, now let’s get to it,” Verity pushed through everyone, grabbed her things, and left.
Vans as transport seem like it would be the most accommodating, but with all of them squeezed into a metal box with not a square inch left to even fill up with a thought, it was a struggle. Cy, Verity, Jess, and Jude jostled for comfort as they left all their equipment between them to create the illusion of personal space.
Verity grabbed hold of the side door handle and pulled herself up to be right in Homer’s ear.
“Would you sit back,” he asked.
“I need to make sure you’re going the right way.”
“You think this is my first merry-go-round?”
“I think we all know the answer to that by now,” she shut him down. “Don’t take any left turns, they only add more time onto your commute. We have to be as fast getting there as we are leaving.”
He ignored her and slammed his foot down onto the accelerator. Jude fell onto his girlfriend’s lap, and Cy almost smacked his head into the van doors. They all wanted to verbally reprimand Homer for his recklessness, but they also knew that was the deal with him. If they wanted his experience, they were going to have to tolerate his insubordination.
The brakes let out a squeal as they approached the bank. Jude unlatched a toolbox filled with gear and gadgets and took a small, black radio-looking item out. Fiddling with it, he placed it next to a rolled-up piece of plastic. Jess undid it and the layout of the bank came alive, digitally recreating the programmed floor plan onto the plastic that now hung in front of all of them. Verity watched all of this happening, not quite a part of it, but her presence was as much a necessity as anyone else’s.
“Okay, this bank is completely drone and VR operated which means if I can hack those the rest should be a breeze.”
“Right there,” Cy got up and pointed at a corner of the virtual map, “there will be a human guard. No headset, no tech whatsoever obstructing his view or senses. Larry, he would always come say hey during my lunch breaks.”
“We’ll create a distraction for him,” Jess added.
“All of it can be done from this van. Verity will be our point person so we have a physical lock on the place as well.”
She grips a gun that secures onto her hand and bobs up in down in her crouched stance. Verity was ready to go and was tired of the patience required to work with these people. She was a woman of action and had many years of living compared to the three dweebs next to her.
“Don’t use that unless you really have to, you hear me,” Jude clarified.
She blew him off, held the gun tighter, and slipped out of the back of the van.
“You wanted black ops, you’re getting black ops,” Verity whispered to herself as she got herself in position.
“I worry about that one,” Cy says.
“Don’t worry about it, let’s just get this thing going,” Homer cuts through their jibber-jabber.
“Alright, here we go!”
A swift orchestration of fingers from Jude has them all bound to each other now. They were not criminals, they thought, they were opportunists trying to survive in a cruel world. Cy presented them with an opportunity and they all took it — the kind of ideology Homer could get behind. No matter what happened now their fates were entwined for better or worse, better being the optimal outcome here.
“Uh, guys,” Verity’s voice came crackling through all their earpieces.
“What are you doing, be quiet, this line is for emergencies only,” Jess spit out.
“Yes, I know –“
“So, shush it!”
“Guys, really –“
“Can we just mute her line,” Cy inquired.
Before anyone could answer a cacophony of worrying sounds blared out from Verity’s end of things. A pop, a crack, some screams, and then they heard her maniacal laugh shooting through all of it. All of them leaned into together, their real-time video feed had been jeopardized, and all they had were the shocking audio streaming into their ears.
“Verity, what the hell is going on,” Jude screamed down into her ear.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!”
“What is it?”
“There’s another group here!”
“What do you mean,” Jess piped up.
“There are already other robbers here,” something kept muffling her line, “come get…you dingbats…help.” Verity’s messages stopped.
Jess, Jude, and Cy looked up at one another, all of their faces contorted in varying expressions of confusion and concern. Not one of them could move a muscle, and all of them were unsure of what to do next.
“Well, come on, you yahoos,” Homer yelled. “Open the door!”
He was pointing to a figure rushing around the corner of the building, Verity was still clad in her full-face mask, seeking the salvation of a van only a few minutes ago she thought would be her grave. The three of them in the back slid the door open, she hopped in, and Homer sped off.
“Whew, that was a close one,” the person under the mask said.
All at once, they realized something was off. That voice, it was not Verity’s.
Slowly, Jude approached, gingerly grabbing the edges of the mask. He lifted it up, carefully, only to reveal a total stranger. Jess and Cy joined him in lunging backward against the cold interior of the van.
“You’re one of them,” Jess proclaimed.
They took out a bottle of water from their knapsack and poured it over themselves. “Man, it’s nice to have that thing off.”
They all jolted forward as Homer stomped the brake pedal down. He turned around to all the flabbergasted faces and simply mandated…
“We have to go get her back, or we’ll all be toast.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
