Super Thieves

Andrew

How those two could comfortably sit in our quarters is beyond me. I paced in great circles around the room, checking every nook and cranny for cameras and listening devices.

"Andrew, for the last time, I'm sending out a signal to disable any cameras or bugs. Relax and sit down," Heather chuckled as she typed into her laptop, "you're making me anxious."

"And what if they find out? We'll be dead before we can step foot out of this room," I protested. Carter slid over and made room on the couch for me, I reluctantly drudged my way over and uncomfortably leaned back into the soft leather. They could have security devices built into these things to trap us! I'm not sure if it's a knot in my muscles or a robot arm but something tells me it's a robot arm.

"Can you not be paranoid for thirty minutes? We haven't even done anything to provoke them yet," Carter sighed as he handed me an opened bag of chips, "at least let Heather start hacking into their systems before you start having panic attacks."

"If they were smart enough to detect us we'd be sitting in jail cells right now," Heather unhappily snapped, "and either way they need us to secure the pieces of the battery. If you don't calm the hell down Andrew you'll blow our cover before I even have time to figure out where the hell the next artifact is."

"Just trust Heather. Has she ever let us down before?"

No, she hasn't let us down. But that doesn't mean we haven't had a few close calls. And we can't afford to have close calls on an operation like this. Heather and Carter wouldn't last two minutes against these heroes, and I can only do so much to protect them. They've never fought heroes before, not in a straight fight at least, and it's my fault for not preparing them for that. It's not what they think it is. You can't stop a raging super that has laser eyes with a handful of bullets.

Before I ever met Heather, I worked a job with a few other guys. They were damn good mercenaries and could hit any target you put in front of them, but they had no powers. I can at least say that I have a somewhat useful power. The rest of my team were just regular guys who knew how to shoot a gun. We got hired to assassinate a high profile Senator, the criminal underworld wasn't happy with some of the new policies he'd been pushing for. They tried threats and blackmail and deals. Nothing worked.

I was on a squad with four other guys. We were given access to the best tech and weaponry on the black market, it felt like the five of us could take out an army all on our own. Our dealer hooked us up with some anti-hero gadgets, things like electric nets and force fields that would buy us time to escape or kill anything in our way. The job started off great, we broke into the home undetected and silently made our way to the Senator's bedroom. I was hacking a console and trying to shut down the home security systems. I didn't even realized I had tripped a silent alarm until we reached the Senator's quarters. He'd locked himself in his panic room and the five of us came face to face with three heroes. It seemed like a fair enough fight, five professional killers armed to the teeth with anti-hero weaponry against three NSL supers.

I was the only one to make it out alive. We tried to fight back but they were too strong. Bullets did nothing against them and all of our gadgets failed when we tried to use them. Two of our guys had already been killed by the supers, so the rest of us just made a run for it. I only survived because I hid out in a trash shoot until morning. But the screams. Oh god the screams. I used to never be afraid of fighting supers, I always thought they'd throw me in a jail cell that I could escape in a day or two. No. They slaughtered four of the best damn mercenaries in the business without hesitation.

I still killed the Senator. He didn't expect arsenic to make it into his morning tea.

There's no way of knowing if heroes are still as corrupt as they once were, but Heather and Carter need to know what they're capable of. They won't always throw you in a pair of handcuffs and scold you for your life choices. Supers have the power to run the world, and if they decided to take over the government tomorrow there'd be no stopping them. Heroes and Villains are the same to me, the only difference is that heroes play God.

They sit in their headquarters and protect the world as if some divine power has commanded them to do it. As if it's in the best interest of the people. They wear a persona of selflessness and purity. Villains are the same, minus the persona. Both groups use their powers to get whatever they want. It's just a matter of how they go about it.

I hope Heather's plan goes off without a hitch. I can't lose either of these kids. My brain can't handle being the soul survivor of an attack like that again.