Bad Beat - Chapter 10 - Shadow (Patreon)

By Saturday afternoon, he had put together a pretty good set of items for the heist. The Shadow Stalker Hoodie, the All-Purpose Multi-Tool, the burner phones, and the headsets. He even got a pair of shoes with very distinctive soles and a bag of disposable gloves.

Gazing at the collection of gear, Gabriel felt a little satisfied.

“Unless something goes seriously sideways, I think we’re probably set…” he said proudly to his empty apartment.

The biggest hurdle in most heists was moving the loot or hiding it from authorities. He didn’t have that problem with his deck, so he could focus on gaining entry, finding the paletts they were after, and skedaddling once he was done.

All without being shot, stabbed, or otherwise horribly mutilated.

“Should be a piece of cake!” he declared happily.

He then picked up one of the phones and headsets and set them aside before absorbing all of the other items into his cards.

One message later, an anxious Mia was standing in his kitchen, staring down at the table that held the aforementioned items.

“Are those?”

“Yup,” he replied cheerfully, nudging the items toward her. “Never been turned on or used. Completely off the grid.”

“How the hell did you do that?” she whispered as she began to inspect the phone after picking it up.

“Trade secret.”

“Of course it is,” Mia replied sarcastically.

She spent another minute going over them before placing the items in question back on the table. She looked up at Gabriel and frowned.

“Are you ready with the other things?”

“Indeed. Got my super awesome stealth suit ready. And you?”

Mia nodded. “I found a nearby building without security cameras. I’m going to use their roof as a base.”

“Smart,” Gabriel said with a nod. “Which day do you want to do it?”

Mia tapped her chin thoughtfully before shrugging.

“They do deliveries on Tuesdays. It’ll probably take a day or two before anyone realizes something is missing. So, if I were you, I would go late Tuesday or early Wednesday.”

Gabriel smiled when he heard that.

“Then it’s a good thing I’ve been scheduled for an early morning shift on Wednesday. I can swing by the warehouse, pick up our order, and still make it to my shift,” he said with a proud grin.

Mia grimaced.

“That means I have to get up super early, right?”

“Don’t think about it that way!” Gabriel said, trying to console her. “Instead, think of it this way: you are going to help me rob a gang! Think of the excitement! The blood pumping in your ears!”

His speech didn’t really affect Mia.

“I’m going to sit on the cold roof of an apartment building,” she deadpanned. “Not exactly adrenaline central…”

“What a ray of sunshine you are…”

She sent him a condescending look, glancing down at her all-black attire with a pointed look.

Gabriel decided to change the subject.

“Come on. Let’s go over the details once more, then you can go back to your goth cave and do witchy stuff.”

“I was feeding my sourdough.”

“Of course you make your own sourdough…”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

Sunday was mostly spent doing nothing. Gabriel browsed the internet, watched some shows, tried to do some exercises, but his willpower gave out halfway through. Instead, he just looked up exercise plans, pretending he would definitely start them soon.

Monday was also an average day.

He went to work, suffered the idiocy and general ineptness of his boss, ate a cheap grocery store meal for lunch – mourning the missed opportunity to eat his favorite rice – and otherwise chatted with Mia, who seemed to be getting more and more anxious as the time of the heist drew closer.

She kept talking about the worst cases – like a sudden gang war breaking out or Bombshell personally attacking her for being on the roof – so Gabriel had to spend a not insignificant amount of time refuting her worries.

He himself was completely calm.

Right until Tuesday afternoon.

After arriving home and taking his customary shower to wash off the lingering smells of his workplace, he sat on his couch, ready to watch his current TV show – a superhero parody series sponsored by Helix – when it hit him.

He was about to rob a gang.

Not some store.

Not some faceless corporation

A gang.

A gang that had no compunctions about killing people.

He was about to sneak out before the sun was up and illegally enter a warehouse to steal things they would need in the future.

Just to help a woman he had only recently met.

A cold sweat broke across his skin.

His chest tightened like someone had cinched a belt around his ribs.

Air went in—but it didn’t feel like enough.

This was so not him.

He was a safe guy.

He didn’t do illegal stuff.

Part of him wanted to run.

To leave Mia and her crusade behind.

The other part—the stupid, reckless part—wanted to see what would happen if he didn’t.

Gabriel felt as if he were on the edge of a precipice, staring down at something enormous.

All he had to do was take a step.

Then fall…

His breath began to come faster and faster, as if something heavy had settled on his chest.

The enormity of the situation was finally hitting him.

His hands twitched uselessly.

He wanted to throw off the weight crushing his chest, but there was nothing to grab onto. He wanted to reach for his phone and call for help, but the phone was just out of reach.

Gabriel didn’t know how long he stayed there, grasping for air and relief, until his blindly moving hands found something.

They closed around something solid.

He held onto it like a drowning man to a rope.

With surprising speed, he brought it in front of him, his arms surprisingly listening to the commands coming from his rattled brain.

Sluggishly moving his eyes downward, he saw that one of his hands managed to grab the Deck of Infinity.

His fingers ran along the edge of the deck, brushing across every card one by one.

As his fingers moved, he felt himself slowly calm down. The deck provided a physical anchor, while the incredible capabilities it had already demonstrated helped steady his racing mind.

Gabriel knew he had prepared well.

Was it perfect?

No.

Would it be enough?

Hopefully.

Was there anything he could do that would increase his chances?

More than likely – but nothing came to mind.

Gabriel closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath before reaching up with one hand to massage his chest, the sensation of phantom weight still vivid in his mind.

“Maybe meditation would help?” he wondered aloud before shaking his head. “No. Packing. Sleep. Tomorrow is going to suck enough already.”

He sat there for another minute, breathing slowly, waiting for his heart to stop trying to escape his chest.

Then, with slow, tired movement, he got up from the couch – only to feel something syrupy sticking to his skin and his shirt wet enough to rival any wet T-shirt contest.

“After another shower…” he muttered tiredly before pulling off the offending clothing and heading back to the bathroom.

Half an hour later, once again clean, he grabbed his phone, sent a good night message to Mia, and headed for his bed.

A glance at the clock told him he had around six hours to sleep before he needed to get up around midnight.

Sleep didn’t come easily this time.

His mind was full of things that could happen – imagining himself surrounded by dozens of bloodthirsty gangbangers or watching as some up-and-coming superhero decided to raid the warehouse before he could get there.

But in the end, somewhere between fighting off a T-rex that showed up and a mud monster trying to sell him insurance, he drifted off to dreamland.

RING RING RING

Gabriel’s hand slapped down, silencing the offending phone.

With a groan, he sat up, momentarily confused why the apartment was still dark when it was morning – until everything he had planned came rushing back.

The realization sent a strong spike of adrenaline through him, waking him up fully.

“Fuck,” he cursed as he extricated himself from his blanket nest. “Bathroom first, then crime…”

Ten minutes later, bladder relieved, he stood in front of his door in his usual get-up, waiting for Mia’s signal on his phone.

BZZT

The phone vibrated, signaling that he received a message.

Holding his breath, he practically jumped to open it – only to let out a groan.

It was a notification from work reminding him that he had an upcoming shift at five in the morning.

Gabriel spent the next minute quietly cursing until he finally received the actual message from Mia.

Knowing that she was awake and ready to go, he nodded to himself, pulled his jacket tighter as the weather was still a bit chilly around midnight, and quietly opened the door before heading for the stairs.

It was the seventh floor, but climbing the stairs was better than accidentally waking someone up with the grinding sound of the ancient elevator – someone who might later remember that on this particular night, someone used it.

‘Let’s keep the witnesses to a minimum…’

Outside, he looked up, seeing the half-moon shining down while the few still-working street lamps cast the road in a dim orange glow.

Shivering slightly – whether from the cold breeze or what was ahead wasn’t entirely clear – he began heading toward the store he worked at, making sure to take his usual route in case there were watchers.

Knowing that from the ninth floor up the building was home to a gang, he was sure there were at least half a dozen watchers at all times, keeping an eye on the streets and the surrounding blocks.

Thankfully, halfway to Freshway, there was a small alley that was always dark, with giant dumpsters to hide behind. It wasn’t the most sanitary place in the world, but it was better than nothing.

Reaching the alleyway – the sky still thankfully dark – Gabriel ducked between two dumpsters, relieved to see that somebody had cleaned up recently.

Well… cleaned up might be generous.

More like someone had removed the bigger pieces of trash, but it still meant the stench wasn’t quite as bad as he had expected.

First came the shoes and pants. Then he switched the shirt, absorbing the original clothes into a card. Next, he pulled on two disposable gloves – knowing they were easy to tear if he rushed. Finally, he pulled out the burner phone and headset.

The devices were blank, but they had discussed during the planning meeting what account name they would be using on a P2P encrypted messaging app. The headset slipped into his ear, fitting snugly, while the phone booted up. His other phone disappeared into another card.

A bit of tapping later, he had the app installed – the phone automatically connecting to the network – and another few seconds after that, his friend request was accepted.

Gabriel didn’t even have to wait another moment before the app began to ring.

He accepted the call.

“This is Agent Shadow. Over,” he stated calmly, a giant grin spreading across his face.

It was a dream come true to say it like that in a serious situation.

From the other side – coming through in perfectly clear audio – he heard a tired sigh.

“Copy that, Agent Shadow. This is Overwatch. I still think using codenames is stupid. Over.”

“Come now, Overwatch. Where is your adventurous spirit?” he asked as he pocketed the phone and pulled out the Shadow Stalker Hoodie.

He began putting it on when Mia spoke again from the other side.

“Did anyone see you, Shadow?”

Gabriel paused briefly, then continued moving. A second later, he could practically hear the eye roll through the headset.

“…Over.”

“Negative, Overwatch.”

He pulled down the mask, his vision shifting from the darkness of the alley to the slightly grainy green sight he had become familiar with.

Another benefit was that the faint smell of rotting food – and other things he didn’t want to think about – also vanished.

Pulling the hood deeper over his head, casting the mask in another layer of shadow, he looked around, pushed his hands into the hoodie’s front pocket, and began walking at a slightly faster pace toward the warehouse.

“I’m heading for the objective. Over.”

“Copy that. Tracking you clearly. No movement in the warehouse. We own the cameras. Over,” Mia replied.

Gabriel smiled slightly and hunched his shoulders over a bit more.

In case somebody was looking at body postures.

Time to play the part of a professional criminal.­

Gabriel arrived at the designated alleyway half an hour later, slightly panting from the exertion but still in high spirits.

‘I really need to start exercising…’

The lamps around the warehouse were conveniently not working. All of them had been clearly broken in one way or another sometime in the past, allowing him to blend into the shadows much more easily.

Step by step, he moved closer to the dirty, squat building until he stopped a dozen feet from the side door. As he walked, he tried to make sure to stick ot the walls, while watching his feet not to kick into something loud.

It was an old door.

It may have been red once, but age had faded it into a dull industrial gray – while his lenses rendered it as a faintly green-tinted gray.

“This is Shadow. Any movement? Over.”

“No movement, Shadow,” Mia reported in a professional voice as Gabriel could hear the rapid clacking of a keyboard. “The guard is asleep in his booth. You are free to engage, Shadow. Over.”

Taking a slow, steady breath, Gabriel kept one hand in his hoodie pocket, selected the card that held the All-Purpose Multi-Tool, and summoned it to his hand.

Then, after giving the alley one last careful look, he approached the door and aimed it at the ancient security pad.

All the numbers had been worn off long ago, but based on the blinking red light, it was still functioning.

He pressed the button on the tool.

There was a quiet bzzt, followed by a faint crack from inside the device and a soft click as the lock disengaged.

“Success. I’m in. Over.”

“Congrats. That door really put up a fight. Over,” Mia replied dryly.

Gabriel ignored Mia and her sass, carefully opening the door just wide enough to slip inside before easing it closed again so that no one would notice it wasn’t actually locked.

The interior of the warehouse was dark, just as expected – filled with towering stacks of pallets, shelves, and crates stretching all the way up to the ceiling.

Gabriel rubbed his gloved hands together in anticipation.