The Neo-Metropol Heist

2: Artem

After a series of attempted break-ins, the managers of the Astoria Museum had recently implemented a boosted security system.

It was a lot of complicated terms and subsystems that ultimately meant that it made the lives of criminals looking to rob the riches from the belly of the hotel much harder.

For Artem Foxe, though, all it did was make the challenge that much more appealing.

He considered his life choices for all of a second as he found himself dangling upside down above the main show-floor of the museum, before chuckling to himself and lowering himself even further.

His target was the glass case in the middle of the room, which contained a jewel worth, at least according to the underground North States jewel trade, thirty six thousand credits.

"Cad, I'm above the case, are you in position?" Artem said to thin air.

He dangled as still as he could in the cavernous air above the floor for a few moments in silence, until eventually, a smooth voice crackled into life through the tiny earpiece he wore.

"Affirmative."

Artem grinned and shook his head.

"Cad, we've talked about this," he chuckled, "just because you're made of metal, it doesn't mean you have to talk like a service droid."

There was another bout of silence, then another carefully delivered reply.

"How would you prefer I convey confirmation, Artem?" Cad replied over the headset, his too-perfect, synthetic voice the only thing to betray his non-human status.

"Pick something, live a little," Artem told him, feeling the blood rushing to his inverted skull making his face feel tight.

It was another few quiet moments until Cad replied again.

"Aye-aye," he said, his voice deadpan. The words were innocuous but the way they were stated made Artem break into laughter, "is this not acceptable?"

Artem laughed to himself in the darkness for a couple of seconds, imagining Cad's staring, oblivious face.

"No, no, I guess there are worse ways," Artem said, still chuckling to himself, "All right, enough screwing around, hit the switch."

Several metres away, in the security office of the museum, Cad activated a string of code designed to interrupt the invisible security detainment system on the show-floor and uploaded it into the security console via a masked signal burst.

Through the specially-designed and stylish goggles that he had strapped to his face, Artem saw the grid of lines beneath him, rendered in a dark black and red, flicker and disappear.

"Detection field is down, Artem," Cad spoke, as carefully as ever, "you have sixty-six seconds to retrieve the jewel before they re-activate."

Before Cad had even finished speaking, Artem had triggered the winch that he was harnessed to remotely and began to lower himself as fast as possible.

"Roger that, good buddy - we'll work on perfecting your imitation of urgency later," Artem said as he dropped.

He fell until he was level with the jewel case, barely ten inches from the garishly tiled museum floor, at which point he tapped his palm twice, sending a signal to the winch telling it to stop, causing him to come to a jarring halt

"Fifty-five seconds until reactivation," Cad informed him.

Artem shook his head as he removed the cutting tool he needed from the pouch at his waist, reaching out towards the case.