Telm ushers us both to the door, practically pushing Mia and I across the now barren streets.

​

The district he lives in isn't usually too crowded any time of the day, which is why we meet up there in the first place. Sure, there's the occasional Enforcer strolling by and maybe a Peacekeeper or two making their usual rounds, but as long as you keep an open eye and a good ear out, you probably won't run into any trouble. Also, don't keep the lights on at night, and keep talks real hush-hush — the walls are thin.

​

"This one's good, Crane! This one's it!" He's getting all excited, now. "I can feel it in my bones — this is the one! I'm finally gonna be able to snag that condo by the beachside, and get Amelia down there with me, and — oh, it's gonna be amazing — freakin' amazing, I tell you."

"I thought you two broke up."

​

"What? No. No, we're just. . . Takin' a break, Mia. A little break is all. Sheesh, cut a guy some slack. She's only been gone a few days."

"A few weeks."

"Huh?"

"A few weeks. She left before Volburgh, Telm."

​

"Did she, now?"

​

Mia gives a pause. "Yep. . . Sorry about that."

​

We stand aside while Telm fiddles with his lock and key, working the handle in so many different ways. The door budges only ever so slightly, then jams yet again. Telm keeps at it. "Well. . . Eh. . . It probably wouldn't have worked out anyway; plenty of fish in the sea, y'know — as they say."

​

"Plenty of fish in the sea, but how're you gonna reel another one in?"

​

"Alright, y'know what? How 'bout you just sit there, and shush it for a bit while I try to jimmy this damn thing open, okay? That'll be really, super duper helpful."

​

Mia rolls her eyes. "I'm just saying. . . Maybe. . . Time to move on?"

​

"She's right, Telm, and that's a lot coming from me," not my place and definitely not the time, but I chime in anyway. "It's been a while. If she was going to come back, she would've by now. You know it, I know it, Mia knows it — everyone knows it, Telm."

​

"Well, thanks for that you two; I'll keep that in mind."

​

Finally, he manages to jiggle the lock free, and the door ajar. It swings wide open on rusted hinges, squeaking every inch of the way, waking the neighborhood from their peaceful slumber. Someone yells from the distance, giving Telm an earful. "And, there we go! Works like a charm."

​

Mia and I wait for the whaff of week-old laundry to come rushing over us.

It did.

And it hits hard.

As always.

​

"Well, don't just stand there, mi casa, su casa. Come in! I've got some milk in the fridge if you're thirsty and all, and — oh, yikes, cockroach — some leftover pizzas by the pantry, I think."

​

There's a lot of thought that goes into a heist, you see. No one just runs in blind, guns blazing — unless that someone happens to be incredibly stupid, or incredibly ballsy. Every step of the way, you've got to plan out exactly what's going to go down, when it's going to go down, how it's going to go down, and why it's going to go down. Skimp on any one of those, and you're looking at a whole can of worms.

​

It's a delicate art — thievery.

​

Unlike most other things, the first mistake you make will most probably also be your last. So unless you're at the tippy-top of your game, you're at your absolute 100, and you're ready to go in hard, this kind of stuff isn't really for you.

​

Take it from me; I wasn't too comfortable my first time around.

​

Then Telm came along and showed me the ropes, everything from start to end, top to bottom. Fast forward a couple years, here I am — struggling father, and professional thief, barely even making ends meet. Ironic, isn't it?

​

Speaking of Telm, he's kind of our. . . What do you call them nowadays — ring leader? He gets together with some buddies of his every now and then, and plans these things out ahead of time. And once everything's ironed out — once all the detail's there and all — he tells us, at which point we start prepping, both physically and mentally.

​

And that's where we're at tonight: prepping.

​

"Your place needs a cleaning," Mia shuts the door after me. "Smells like. . ."

​

"Ass?" I say.

​

Telm tosses his duffel bag onto the corner of a disheveled couch, then, slumps down on top of it, lighting a cigarette. "Make yourselves at home: grab a chair, turn on the radio, do whatever, really — just don't go breakin' my stuff, alright? Wake me up when Maeve and Brix-man gets here, and hopefully, it's real soon. I don't wanna stay up late this time — Volburgh was a real mess. Not my proudest work, ad-mit-ted-ly."

​

"I thought it went down good," Mia finds a chair all to herself, then plops down front, right, and center under the flickering kitchen light. "Better than our usual stuff."

​

"Good isn't clean, and like I always say—"

​

Mia and I both mouth the words; Telm says it aloud. "The messier it gets, the dirtier you'll be."

​

"Correcto, compadres. Now, shush."

***

Telm's place is a real work of art, I tell you. It's nothing crazy, by any stretch of the mile — hell, I've seen worse — but it's far from your ordinary flat. For starters, the carpet smells funny, and the air tastes all weird — like mildew. I've asked him on countless occasions, and he's totally convinced this place — this entire thing sitting just two blocks away from an active police station — was once a fully functioning meth lab. Now, if that's true — and that's a huge if, here — then I have no idea how and why he moved in, in the first place. But that's Telm, you know — as always, the complete idiot. It's a wonder he made it this far in life.

​

The living room sits on the first floor, and the kitchen's to the back. Everything's kind of normal here; nothing too shocking, nothing too Telm-y — that is, except if you stop and look closely for more than three seconds. The couch he's sleeping on? There's five sets of pistols right beneath the cushions, fully loaded. The fridge he keeps his expired milk in? Yeah, there's a live grenade in one of the cooling pipes, and I swear to god that thing ticks. The television sitting on a rickety, wooden desk? Apparently he got one of his buddies to wire that thing to every single camera in a five mile radius.

​

Like I said, he's sort of a paranoid.

​

But being paranoid pays, I guess, especially in our line of work. I mean, eight jobs in and no one even suspects us. As far as the Heimer Republic's concerned, we don't really exist, and that's just perfect. Talk about a whole lot of planning, and maybe just a teensy tiny bit of luck.

​

I look over to Mia. She's scouring through the kitchen cupboards for anything: a.) not yet expired, b.) not yet moldy, c.) uneaten, and d.) clean, and in Telm's place, you're better off buying a lottery ticket than finding anything of sorts.

​

Have I mentioned he's quite the "messy" kind?

​

Eh, you probably figured it out all on your own, didn't you? I didn't peg you for the smooth-brained type. That's good. I don't deal with idiots well; having one in my everyday life is more than enough — thanks.

​

Mia catches my glance; she gives me a quick wave and a little smile, and goes right back to scavenging. Now, here's to hoping she doesn't go and touch the burner stove. One wrong button and that thing lights up like a parade. Telm tells me it's got something to do with the valves and stuff — but that's only after I found a pound of coke stuffed in there.

​

Don't ask me where the coke went.

​

And definitely don't ask Telm.

​

That was a. . . Really weird week.

​

Apart from all that, you'll find most other things quite mundane. There's a potted plant sitting in one corner of the living room, a coffee table with all kinds of litter and clutter accompanying it, and a coat rack by the door.

​

And then there's the upstairs, which consists of two bedrooms and a single bathroom. One of the bedroom, Telm uses as some sort of storage, where he keeps all our past heist equipment; the other, he uses as an actual quarter, with a bed never made, and a nightstand for all the pill bottles, and a closet full of random clothes, and all that gist. There's also a table facing the street-view window, where he spends most of his time just staring off into the dead of space. . .

​

Contemplating life. . .

​

Waiting for the inevitable. . .

​

Or eating a bucket-load of spring rolls.

​

Honestly, whichever one.

​

Bathroom's a normal bathroom, except for the toilet, of course. There's an entire stick of dynamite in the water tank, and I'm pretty sure it's leaking gunpowder into the water lines. Why he keeps something like that in his bathroom, I have no idea.

​

But Telm's Telm, after all — no explanation needed.

​

And speaking of, he's got some pretty nice visitors — this time of night, too.

​

I can hear the knocking.

​

Or rather, banging.

***

Unlike her sister, you see, Maeve's sort of a. . . Bummer. She's got this resting bitch-face 24/7, and most of the time, it's either crack cocaine up her nose or morphine in her blood. Mia tries to tell her every now and then, but you know how addicts are — they don't listen. Ever.

I should know.

​

"Fuck, it's cold out there," Maeve snaps a finger; the rain jumps from her darkened coat and torn jeans and scuffed shoes, splattering all over Telm's floor. She's shivering still. "God damn, thunderstorm this time of night. I should be all curled up under a blanket, but no — here I am. Fucking hell."

​

Brixton's no better. He's drenched from head to toe, inside out, but unlike Maeve, he's got no magic to just whoosh away all the water. No, he's a big, burly man; he'll be alright. The cold will be the least of his worries tonight. "Crazy out there, aye. One minute it's all shinin' and rainbows, 'n the other, it's blacken'in to all hell. Lord almighty's givin' us a clear signin', Telm; it ain't a good night for this."

​

"Oh, boo-hoo, cry me a river," Telm's jumps from his rest. He grabs a mug from the kitchen countertop, downs the contents in a single gulp, then tosses whatever's left into the sink. "And we're all here now, with only two hours to spare, four hours of walking, and 30 minutes exactly of actual heist-y stuff. Fantastic, what a way to start the night off — late."

​

"We stopped for food."

​

"Aye, that we did do."

​

Telm swipes whatever's on the coffee table off it, then, slaps a map down. It's a huge map, with writing and scribbles and marks almost everywhere, and almost always in red. I peak over the couch and over his back; Mia slides onto the cushions, apple in hand; Brixton and Mia settle for the carpet, one dripping wet, and the other, dry as a strip of bacon. "Right then, guys and gals — and Maeve, ugh — let's get to it! Oh, you guys'll love this; been workin' on it all week and month back."

​

"I don't see Capital on the map," that's Mia. "Where. . . Is this?"

​

"Is that the. . . Vorm?" And Maeve.

​

"Telm," and me. "Where is this?"

​

He's grinning now, wider than ever — and getting a little all too excited. Telm getting fidgety like he is now isn't necessarily a bad thing, you see, but sometimes he goes way, way overboard. Last time he got like this, he suggested we raid a military storage. For obvious reasons, we talked him out of it. Eventually. "That's — that's the beauty of it, Crane! It's a goldmine sittin' way deep in the Vorm, and nobody's the wiser! It'll be like stealin' candy from a baby. No, actually, it'll be like stealin' a gun from a baby, and then turnin' around and shootin' it right dead in the face."

​

We all stare at Telm, there and then, with blank stares and disbelief.

​

"We're going into the Vorm?"

​

I can't believe this guy right now.

​

"Oh, yeah. Right into its heart, Crane! Excitin', ain't it?!"

​

I cannot believe this fucking son of a bitch.

​

First Volburgh.

​

And now the Vorm.

Holy hell.

​

We're dead.

​

That's what we are.

​

We're way, way dead.

***

You look confused, so let me explain. Sure, the Vorm might be your typical, everyday, run-of-the-mill forest, but it's not the place itself that's sending shivers down my spine. No, rather, it's what lives in it. See, there's a million different things in there that'll kill you in a matter of seconds, and others that'll scar you for life. From slithering serpents to prowling raptors to something as fucked up as apparitions of your own mother, rest assured, if it's not any nice in the slightest, the Vorm has it.

​

Going to those kind of places isn't a thought I relish, and certainly not one I'd love to actually come true — but Telm clearly has other plans in mind. Crazy as he is, the man thinks we can actually just waltz through the Vorm, pop into a government building, clean it out in 30 minutes flat, and waltz back out like nothing ever happened.

​

There are only three types of people who voluntarily jump way, way deep into the Vorm: those who are looking to die, those from government, and those in search of some serious big game. And then there's us: professional thieves with one hell of a death wish. I got to hand it to him. When he said, "it's the most brilliant, masterpiece of a plan," I didn't think — for the life of me — it'd be this bad, head over heels.

​

"Telm, that's fucking insane," Maeve gets to her feet; she's yelling now. "I know you're loco up there, but this is batshit crazy."

​

"No, it's just. . . Perfect, Maeve. Sit, I'll explain why — no seriously, sit — this is just absolutely genius. It's brilliant! I thought of it all night, and last week, and the two months before; everything's just so freakin' perfect! My fuckin' god!" Telm slaps a glass plate off the kitchen countertop, shattering it against a nearby wall. The wall was not amused. "Hah! I can hardly hold myself, fuck — this shit's got me actin' up!"

​

He rushes back to the coffee table and sits everyone down, Mia and I by his side, Brixton and Maeve on the carpets. "Look, look — Maeve, you too, come look. Seriously. This plan's a zinger! I've thought of everythin'. Every angle, every roadblock, every single thing that can go wrong — zip, nada, nothing, zero chance of us fuckin' this up. You've gotta believe me; this is one hell of an opportunity, and I'll show it to you."

​

Telm sticks his hand beneath the couch cushions, ruffling about, and comes up — not with a pistol or dynamite or pound of crack or anything — but with a red marker. A single red marker that's been our guiding hand for the past eight jobs, soon to be nine.

​

And so he starts.

​

"Let's start real simple: it's the perfect environment, you see. Small paths, smaller roads, which means no vehicle access in or out, and y'know what that means."

​

"Backup has to go on foot," Mia chimes in. "Slow response time."

​

"Bingo. If we set off an alarm — slash — alert, they'll have to call it in and hold out for QRF. I did the math; the closest outpost is right about here" — Telm circles a blue square on the map — "three miles west and off the Vorm."

​

"They'll never make it in time," that's me, with my two cents.

​

"Correcto. It'll take them hours to trudge through all the muck and grime, and by then, we'll be long, long gone. They're not gonna be able to find us, which means they're not gonna be able to track us, which means — what, Brix-man?"

​

"As the lord is my shepherd, they ain't catchin' us."

​

"And there we have it — but, oh, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Look here."

​

Telm directs our attention to the map once again. "The whole thing's. . . Abandoned."

​

"Which means no guards," he flips open a blueprint; pencil markings cover everything from top to bottom. "No Sentrymen. No Enforcers. No security. Nada — squat, all."

​

"Then what's in it?" Mia tosses the core of her apple over Telm's stink-ass of a couch and into an open trash can. "It's abandoned, there's zero guards in, the whole place's out in the middle of nowhere — what's the catch?"

​

All eyes turn on Telm himself. "That's what I thought too. For the longest time, I couldn't wrap my head around it; there has to be somethin' I missed, somethin' right there waitin' for me to see it. But. . . Compadres, I checked, and double checked, and checked again — and just now, one more time. It's clean."

​

There's a moment of silence. Everyone's deciding for themselves whether or not this truly is that easy of a heist.

See, there's a bit of democracy in the way this works: either we all go, or none of us goes — that's the rule. We've skipped out on a few jobs because someone flunked out at the last minute, and several others because of more. . . Personal reasons. But today was different; we all felt like skipping, that's for sure.

We all felt like ditching the plan.

And after all, there is such a thing as 'too good to be true.'

​

Everyone in the room damn sure knows it.

​

"This is crazy."

​

"No fucking way."

​

"Telm, no way is this that simple."

​

"Sky's real blacken'in now, son; best we keep home tonight."

​

But Telm's not done. "What's with the matter with all of you, huh? Seriously, what is it? I find the cleanest, easiest, most perfect job in the whole wide world, and all of a sudden, everyone's feelin' like ditchin'? What's that about? Don't you all see that this — this kinda opportunity, and ka-ching — only ever comes once? Lady Luck blesses us today, and we're gonna just skip out on her? Really?!"

​

"Hey, you said it yourself," I stand to match Telm's gaze. "If it doesn't seem right, we don't go."

​

"Yeah, bu—"

​

"And this is so many things not right. Why's it all the way out there? Why's it abandoned? Why didn't they just knock the place down? Come on, Telm. There's too much we don't know to risk it all right here, right now, tonight."

​

It's all quiet, now — absolutely nothing but the sound of raindrops on the rooftiles above; the radiator whirring restlessly, all day, everyday; the television static, switching from program to program every couple seconds; and the occasional ruffling of plastic bags on kitchen counters. Telm sits back down on the couch, scratching his head; Mia goes back to picking the pantry clean; Maeve goes outside for a quick smoke; Brixton and I each lay down, catching our breaths.

​

Yeah, I know.

​

What a night, huh?

​

Guess this one's a bust t—

​

"It's a Blacksite."

​

Brixton and I sit back up, quick. "What?"

​

"There, I said it. I didn't really wanna tell you guys but, y'know, there it is — I said it, alright? It's an abandoned Blacksite."

​

Well, this changes everything.

This changes literally everything. All of my questions before now have their answers, and I'm not sure I like them.

Again, you look confused, so let me explain. There are basically three classifications to a military site in the Heimer Republic. You have the staple 'Restricted Areas,' which basically means your typical army bases and weapons manufactory and whatever else. Then, there's the 'Red Zone,' which is where they generally develop, test, and perfect new, way more terrifying weapons of mass destruction.

And finally, there's the 'Blacksites.'

​

This is where things get real ugly, real fast.

No one really knows what exactly it is goes on inside a Blacksite, which I guess — bravo — the Heimer Republic and its Enforcers have done an amazing job at keeping secret. Some people say they test bioweapons in there — you know, seriously deadly, invisible shit that can wipe out entire cities overnight; others say it's a place for all the fucked up, illegal science-y experimentation the government can think of.

​

And to be honest with you, I don't know which one's worse.

​

There's been only four known Blacksites in the entirety of Heimer Republic history — which is exactly 785 years, just today — and all four of them were either: a.) blown to smithereens, b.) burned to ash, c.) literally removed from all of existence by Imperium magic, or d.) compromised, quarantined, then demolished.

​

And as I'm hearing now, this is the fifth.

​

Which makes everything Telm just said, so much more bad.

​

He switches the television off.

​

"Look, I can't change your minds for you, so I'll just say this one thing once, and if you still decide to ditch the plan, I'm completely cool with that, alright?"

​

We all wait and listen, even Maeve, who just returned from her smoke break outside.

​

He sucks in a deep breath, then starts.

​

"My buddy scouted the place a week or two earlier, ran background checks and activity listings and all that borin' gist. He said it's a Blacksite, alright, but not an active one — at least, not for the last 15 years. Whatever they did in there — whatever fucked up shit went down — it's all in the past, it's all history. And when they moved on, when they decided to just pack up and leave, they cleaned out almost everythin', spare for all the paperwork and whatnot."

​

Telm rolls the map and blueprint up into one tidy bundle, then slaps a thick rubber band over both. "Now, these paperwork go way, way back — 15 years — and most of them are junk, but. . ."

​

"But, what?" Mia bites into a day-old springroll.

​

"They left so quickly, they forgot some of the important stuff."

​

"Important stuff?" I'm real interested now, not going to lie to you, and hey, I have every right to be. Just because a job sounds off doesn't mean I can't ponder on it for a little while. What can I say? This is way, way, way bigger than everything we've done in the past couple years combined.

​

"Details. Lots and lots and lots of details: what they were workin' on, prototypes of weapons, journals and entries and dates — the whole nine yards. Now, considerin' how sensitive some of this stuff is, I probably won't be surprised what they'll do to us if they found out."

​

"But when do they ever?" Telm smiles at us. "When do they ever find out?"

​

"How much, son? How much're you reckon'in these things go for?"

​

"Brix-man, my man. . ."

​

There's a pause from him.

​

"If we do get them. . ."

​

The room's realizing quick; I catch on just a few moments later. This sick son of a bitch really wants to dive into this big of a job? 'Crazy' seems to be the world's greatest understatement right about now.

​

Telm's got balls; I got to hand it to him. After all, the harder the game, the bigger the score.

​

And I guess you can say, we're big game hunters now.

​

"We can retire by tomorrow."