Super Thieves

Heather

I could see Andrew's hands trembling on the steering wheel. The veins of his hands were contracting all weird and sweat marks were revealed every time he re-positioned his hands to turn the wheel. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel the same fear. We are about to attempt the impossible. Even with all of our planning, the likelihood of Black Ice slaughtering all of us is very high.

The base is located underneath the city of Chicago. There's a manhole behind the City Hall that acts as a direct route to the entrance. Once we get down there, we'll have to sneak in through the ventilation system and make our way to the various points in the facility where each phase of the attack will be executed. Everything's going to have to go absolutely perfect for this to work.

"You think we can pull this off?" I asked Andrew quietly.

"We have to," he answered, not breaking eye contact with the road.

"But do you think we're ready?" I whispered as I started to chew on my bottom lip. The feeling of fear was starting to boil in my stomach, boiling up into my brain and giving me a massive headache. I felt green and wanted to puke my guts out on the side of the road.

"Failure isn't an option," Andrew said simply. He sounded like me. Bland, and blunt, but still somehow reassuring.

The car went silent again but I felt like I could hear Andrew's heart pounding in his chest. Or maybe it was my own. I don't think I've ever been afraid of death before. The idea of dying isn't scary, nor is the idea of what comes next.

I'm scared of what Black Ice is going to do to me before I die.

"I'm already thinking about our next job," Andrew chuckled as he drove, "maybe we'll go somewhere sunny for a week or two and rob a few banks."

"You say that like we're going to survive this," Carter said in the back seat. His voice was shaky and you could feel the anxiety radiating out of him.

"Of course we are! And I'm finally buying you that puppy you've always wanted when we're done," Andrew said with a sarcastic smile as he looked at Carter's reflection in his mirror.

We parked alongside the City Hall, loading up all of our equipment and searching for our secret entrance. I pulled out my tablet and scanned the manhole before we attempted to open it. We can't afford to alert Black Ice before we have the chance to spring the trap on him. Everything checked out so I signaled Carter and Andrew to pry the manhole open. A few pedestrians and even some cops took notice of us but didn't seem to do anything about it. It's as if they were wishing us a silent good luck before we embarked on our mission.

I went down first, steadying my shaken hands on the rusty iron of the ladder. The sewers didn't smell as bad as I thought they would, it mostly just smelt like musty air with a slight tang of mold. Carter and Andrew stopped behind me, quietly following as I checked for any security systems along the path to the base.

"Stick to the shadows and stay close," I whispered, leading the way down the tunnel, "I'm picking up a massive energy source about a mile down this tunnel. If the city plans and schematics are right, we should be spit out right along the wall with access to the vent system."

Neither of the boys replied, they just silently followed. There was a quiet humming sound that gradually grew louder as we walked in the direction of the base. Whether it was the base itself or something else is yet to be determined. The thickness of the air and the smell of mildew made it hard to breathe as the three of us made our way through the tunnel, but everything suddenly became bearable once a vibrant green light became visible. We hid ourselves in the shadows of the tunnel and saw the base, carved into a massive cavern. Green light radiated from within as if somebody were trying to power up the nuclear reactor. The four pieces Black Ice stole must have been enough to at least activate the facility's systems but not release the nuclear weapons. The tunnel came to an abrupt end and we were met with the wall of the base. Almost three decades later and it looked like it had been put up yesterday.

"There's our entrance," I whispered, looking up at the wall and pointing to the grate positioned about four feet above us. It shouldn't be too hard to climb up, I just hope we can all fit inside.

I used my tablet to scan the grate and disable the security systems tied to it. The firewalls surrounding everything were insanely weak. Either Black Ice never anticipated anybody making it this far, or the reactor is preventing the security systems from being fully operational. Whatever it may be, it makes our job ten times easier. Weak firewalls means less people will be monitoring things, which will hopefully take them longer to notice that we're here. With the alarm disabled, Carter used a grapple gun to pull himself up to the vent. He quickly and quietly popped it out of the wall and climbed inside, tossing down the rope so Andrew and I could climb up.

Andrew followed me in and we sat together in the vent to go over the plan one last time.

"Andrew, the command center is straight ahead. Use the watch I gave you in case you get lost. Carter, take a left and just keep following the vent until your watch beeps, it'll let you know when you're above the weak wall," I whispered, "radio me if you run into any security trouble."

"Let's get some payback," Andrew quietly chuckled. The three of us silently nodded to each other one last time before going our separate ways.