The Neo-Metropol Heist

26: Edward

Edward sat in the living area of the apartment that Artem had given him in silence.
It had turned out that Artem owned the entire twentieth floor of Sharpe Towers without actually being aware of it.
Since that discovery, Edward had been convinced to move out of his grotty hostel in the sunken city of Atlantis to the only slightly more comfortable vacant apartment.
And vacant it most definitely was - it had never been lived in, at all. There was only a basic living and kitchen area with the general wall-screen thing Edward had seen in every place so far in some form or another.
The robot, Cad, had been out and bought the essentials, a kettle and a microwave, and helpfully installed it all without ever being asked.
Edward wasn't the only new resident, either, in fact almost everybody with a stake in the job, Aphelion and the girl with the dark hair and short temper, Theo, had all taken up residence somewhere in the building.
The whole place was shaping up to be some kind of kleptomaniac hotel.
Of course, the nature of their roles in life meant that they were very infrequently there at the same time, or at least Edward hadn't encountered Theo or Zakarias much in the time he'd been living there.
The clever one, however - Aphelion, seemed to be allergic to the outside. She stayed in her room, tapping away at her keyboard and only occasionally resurfacing for short conversations whenever he ventured outside.
It was nice to have company of course, and even nicer as he was the only one she seemed genuinely pleased to be around that wasn't made of circuits and wire.
Edward shifted in the seat and considered switching on the television screen on the wall for company, before realising he didn't have a clue how to.
On his lap lay a tattered old book that the robot had found for him.
Even back in the old days, books were outdated. The dawn of the e-reader meant that they were dying out even before he was surrounded by metal bars. Now, the tired binding of paper and card he held in his hands was more than an antique.
It was a reprinted copy of Haldeman's The Forever War, a story about war waged across space, where soldiers sent to fight would return from battle the same age, whilst everyone they had loved had grown old and even died without them.
His story wasn't dissimilar, and he'd had to put it down when the parallels started to draw themselves. He didn't give a shit if it was a classic.
He put the book down on the floor next to the chair and stood up, crossing the room to the kitchen and opening the fridge.
It lit up the dim room with a sharp white light that illuminated an empty cavern of nothingness, an egg crate with one egg left in it and an empty milk bottle.
What he'd wanted was tea, but he couldn't make tea without milk. Edward sighed and rubbed his hands through his hair.
He checked the watch at his wrist and realised his gaze was lingering on it, so much history in a single object. Old names, faces seemed to look back at him from the shiny face. Too much to think about now.
Six pm.
In prison, they'd be finishing up suppertime and about to be herded back to their cells. For a moment, Edward wondered if he still missed the order. He no longer did.
Planting the bug at the Neo-Metropol had made his heart race - it had been the closest thing to a job he'd done in over thirty years. Now, cooped back up inside and being forced to wait, his skin crawled and itched with excitement. He wanted more.
He wondered about Harry and Artem for a moment. There was every possibility that they wouldn't actually come back at all. Would he know if they were arrested? Would it be public interest or hushed up?
There were so many questions in his fevered, ancient mind, and he needed tea to make them go away.
Postulating that Artem would have milk, he decided he would cross the hall and find some.
Leaving the kitchen, he struggled with the keypad by the door momentarily, before it slid open reluctantly and let him out into the comfortably minimalist hallway.
The mellow striplights in the ceiling mixed light with the orange early-evening sky, pouring in from the huge floor to ceiling window at the end of the corridor.
Artem's apartment was only a few doors up. Edward wondered if there were other people living on the same floor besides them. He hadn't seen or heard anybody come or go, so he thought it highly unlikely.
Finding Artem's door, it hissed open automatically to let him in, recognising his face, and he stepped into the apartment.
It was much brighter than his room, the lights set much higher, and strangely, there was music playing, even though Aphelion usually preferred the silence, from what he'd seen.
Edward ignored it and went to the kitchen, opening up Artem's fridge, which was almost impressively stocked to the brim with all kinds of food, and took out the milk.
As he turned, a flash of light from the other side of the room caught his attention, behind the tinted glass screen where Artem kept his workshop.
Raising an eyebrow, Edward peered round the kitchen worktops to try and see more clearly, but the tinted wall refused to let him see. Another flash, accompanied by an electric hiss.
Edward stepped towards the light, curious as to what was causing it, and before he knew it, he was peering in through the doorway of the workshop.
Inside, Theo was stood leaning over the worktable, a pair of welder's goggles strapped to her face. At first, Edward couldn't quite make out what she was welding, but then realised with a mixture of shock and surprise.
Both of her arms were bare, in a very literal sense.
The skin had been folded back, and instead of muscles and tendons underneath, there were coils of wiring and pistons shooting back and forth, metal and plastic in place of anything organic.
The welding gun she wielded was aimed at herself, soldering a loose cord of whatever her arms were made of back into place.
The welding gun switched off and the goggles snapped up, and they both made eye contact.
"I'm sorry," Edward blurted out, averting his eyes as though he'd accidentally walked in on her in the shower.
Theo looked embarrassed, and quickly dropped the gun and closed the open hatches of skin on her arms, and for a moment Edward wondered if he'd actually seen it at all.
"I shouldn't have walked in without knocking," Edward said apologetically.
Theo shook her head.
"It's fine, don't worry," she said, flexing her fingers. Edward imagined the synthetic tendons and metal structures underneath the skin flexing back and forth.
"I didn't know you had..." Edward started, not able to find the words to finish the sentence and finding himself stranded, "I didn't know about your..."
Theo raised an eyebrow, still apparently self-conscious but not angry.
"My arms?" She said, bluntly, "nobody does."
They stood there for a moment without saying anything, but Edward had to know more.
"How did it happen?" He asked, possibly a little less tactfully than he'd intended, curiosity getting the better of him.
Theo looked awkward, swaying uncomfortably, drowning in a secret she'd obviously kept contained for a long time.
"I was in an accident," she said, "this is what the doctors did to fix me."
Edward doubted he was going to get more out of her than that, the issue was deep-seated and he'd stumbled into it like a circus clown. He needed to back out.
Thankfully, he was afforded the opportunity in the form of a wailing siren coming from the living area.
He bowed apologetically once again to Theo and then left the workshop, entering the living area about the same time Aphelion appeared from her room. Around them, the room flashed angry lights and warnings.
"That's the building proximity warning," Aphelion said, "it doesn't like something..."
She was wearing a hooded jacket with plastic plating like a strange kind of armour. Her hair was scraped back into a ponytail and behind her, the little droid they called 'Pete' affectionately followed at her heels.
She checked her terminal and her eyes went wide.
"What is it?" Edward asked.
Aphelion pointed to the television screen as Theo left the workshop to join them, exchanging an awkward glance with Edward.
On the screen, a CCTV camera of one of the lower floors showed a dim image of a hallway. Only, it wasn't empty, through it marched a squad of soldiers in full combat dress, their faces concealed. There were at least ten of them.
"Who the hell are these guys and how did they find us?" Edward asked, open mouthed, "we haven't even done anything yet."
Aphelion shook her head.
"They aren't here for us," she said, "they're here for me," Theo and Edward gave her a confused look and she waved her hands, "look, I'll explain later, but right now we need to get out of here."
They all agreed, but before they could move, a strange whirring sound filled the room.
"You hear that?" Edward asked quietly.
For a few seconds, none of them moved as the whirring grew louder and louder. The sound of an engine.
They all turned slowly to the window as though they couldn't quite believe it. From the bottom of the window, a great, sleek black gunship rose up to meet them.
It was an evil looking thing, with no visible windows, just wide, flat wings and and vicious gatling rifle hanging from its underbelly.
For a moment, time froze, then the barrel of the gun began to spin, and time caught up with them.
"Get down!" Edward yelled, tucking his cane beneath him and dropping to the floor, as the other two did, at the exact moment the gunship launched a volley of ammunition against the building.
The bullets tore through the window like it was sugar glass, ripping the apartment to shreds.
Edward kept his head low, hoping the gunships angle was too restricted to allow the tirade of shrapnel to hit him and slice him open like a mango.
Around him, the apartment exploded. The sofas in the living area were torn to pieces in seconds, the television screen smashed into tiny pieces.
He could hear the well-stocked fridge behind him scatter its contents everywhere as the door was blown off its hinges through the sheer power of the onslaught.
Then, the gatling gun stopped spinning, and for a moment Edward hoped it was over, but he knew it was a vain one.
Looking up, he saw a tiny spherical object launched from a hole just above the vicious looking main gun.
It sailed with a hollow whistle through the gaping hole in the side of the building and land in front of them with a metallic bounce against the hard floor.
Of course, Edward knew it was a grenade, but his brain simply refused to react to it. What could he do, other than die?
On top of the metal canister, a red light was flashing, urgently and increasingly fast.
He lay there, on the ground, as time dilated again. Well, he thought, at least you tried.
Then, without warning, Theo jumped up from next to him and grasped the grenade as the shrieking timer reached a crescendo. She scooped it up and in one fluid movement, threw it back out of the window, arcing it across the sky towards the gunship with incredible force.
Again, in his mind, he saw the pumping of the metal pistons and the strobing electric charges across the inorganic tendons underneath her skin. It was amazing.
The grenade bounced off of the hull of the gunship once, then detonated as it rolled away.
The explosion presented itself as a colourful ball of bright blue that threw a shockwave back into the apartment and sent the gunship barreling away, tearing the gatling gun from the underside of the ship.
"We have to move, now," Theo said, helping Edward to his feet, "before they come back around for another go."
Edward agreed and the three of them began to hobble towards the door of the apartment.
"Wait, I need to get something," Aphelion said, disappearing into her room for a moment before reappearing with a rucksack slung around her shoulder and a pair of strange, metallic elbow-length gloves, "here," she said, throwing the gloves to Theo.
Theo thanked her and pulled the gloves on, the whole thing completely without context to Edward, and they left the ruined apartment.
Outside in the hall, dust fell from the ceiling and the wall from where shrapnel had torn through Artem's apartment wall like butter.
"Where now?" Theo asked, "those troops will be here any second and I don't think they want to talk," she glanced at Aphelion suspiciously for a moment and then looked around at the destruction.
Aphelion ignored her and scratched her head, a thought evolving in her mind and making itself known on her face, the gears and cogs turning.
"Any ideas?" Edward asked, realising he'd jarred his back awkwardly when he'd hit the deck to avoid becoming Swiss cheese. He rubbed his side but the pain lingered in his bones.
"There's a... service elevator, at the back of the building, I saw it on the building plans," she said, "they'll have the main exits covered but that should be clear. We can get into the sewers from there."
"Let's go then," Theo said, but the end of her words were punctuated from a yell behind them.
Edward turned to see two of the armour-clad soldiers appear. He didn't recognise it as the armour of the NMPF, from what he'd seen of them, but there were no patches or identifying features. Just sleek, black suits worn by faceless men.
Faceless men with huge, modified assault rifles.
They raised the rifles at the same moment a blur of silver appeared from the gaping hole in the apartment wall and flew straight at them with a screech.
It was the security droid, Pete. Almost comically insignificant within the gravity of the soldiers, the lionhearted little sphere rocketed towards them, stinging one of them with a taser blast.
The injured soldier almost dropped his gun from the sheer surprise, but the other simply took his gun in his arms as a club and swung it with a mighty roar, striking Pete and sending him soaring back through the air with a wounded squeak.
Aphelion caught him, it, and yelled an obscenity as the guns were raised again.
Theo grabbed a fire extinguisher, tearing it from the wall and throwing it at them at the same second the muzzle flashed.
The fire extinguisher obliterated in mid-air, throwing a cloud of white from wall to wall as thick as paint and obscuring the soldiers from view.
"Go!" Theo yelled.
Before the soldiers could follow them, they were moving through the corridor, following Aphelion and what Edward hoped was informed memory recall and not just a best-guess.
He could hear the footsteps of the soldiers behind them as he limped as fast as he could, trying to linger on his cane as little as possible.
He knew that Aphelion and Theo were slowing for him, and he wanted to tell them to stop, to keep going and get out, he was only slowing them down, but he knew now wasn't the time for empty words.
At the end of the corridor there was a manual red door, thick and made of metal and without decoration. It was sturdy and utilitarian, split down the middle and designed to slide open.
Theo pushed it open and ushered them in as the footsteps came closer and closer, following them in and pushing the door shut.
"Here!" Aphelion said, throwing Theo a hollow metal pipe she'd found scattered on the floor.
Theo took it, and suddenly the strange gloves she wore were alive with electric. She slid the pipe through the handles either side of the door and with apparently no effort at all, twisted the heated metal into a knot.
She stepped back and the door began to rattle as the soldiers tried to force the door open, without success.
"Back here," Aphelion said, pointing to the back of the bare room, where an ancient service elevator sat behind a metal grate.
Between her and Theo, they managed to force the old doors open. As they all climbed in, there came a loud series of bangs as the soldiers decided to shoot at the metal door.
The door rattled, but didn't budge, and Edward tried to catch his breath as Aphelion activated the lift and it creaked and squealed from age and shuddered into life.
"As long as they haven't figured out that we can get out through the sewers we should be able to get out through there," Aphelion said, almost to herself as she tended to the damaged security droid which lay in the corner of the elevator, still apparently active but making an odd buzzing sound.
"Who the hell are these guys?" Theo asked, flexing her hands. Edward wondered if the gloves hurt her, if she could feel with those metal arms.
"The uncle," Edward gasped, finally catching his breath, "Harry, has a garage over the bridge, I think I can remember where it is."
Theo nodded.
"Whoever these guys are, can they trace us now?" She asked Aphelion, who stood up and shook her head adamantly.
"They found me through a bug they planted in code I was parsing," Aphelion said, obviously dumbing down whatever complex process she was actually describing, "whatever it is, they can't track me now."
Almost on cue, the security droid flickered back into life and unsteadily began to hover again, a distorted beep indicating that he was still functioning.
"Right, that's where we go, then," Theo said.
Edward nodded, leaning against the metal grating of the elevator as it rumbled down and down, his bones aching and his heart beating in his chest like it was about to explode.