Sentinel-Prelude

YueFei
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Sentinel-Prelude Apr 29, 2022 18:56:37 GMT

Post by YueFei on Apr 29, 2022 18:56:37 GMT

It was dark in the city and Fractal used that darkness to her advantage. She hung upside down from the vaulted ceiling of one of the city's huge banks, body covered in a skin tight suit that concealed her heat signature. She wasn't here for the vault though, at least, not the vault everyone knew about. She shifted the cable holding her at her waist and slipped a little torch from her belt. She was here for two reasons, this of course was one of them. Someone had paid her a great deal of money to pull this job off. The other reason was to meet him. She'd left enough clues before coming here. He should be stopping by. She adjusted the settings on the torch and tried not to think about the last time she'd seen him. It had been a little while but she smiled to think of him anyway.

Amelia had already tricked the cameras into thinking everything was fine, nothing of her actions, or herself, would appear on such primitive surveillance systems. She stuck her tongue out, turned on the torch and waited. The app on her phone didn't alert her to any alarm signals leaving the bank. The little torch was hot but it was a small flame and very localized heat. The themal sensors were looking for person sized heat and movement. Still, best to be quick. She wanted to see him, not the police--though their meetings sometimes ended with her seeing the police.

That was ok, they both knew the prisons couldn't contain her for long.

Right now one of her clones was serving as the plus one for a handsome rich man at an art gallery across town, a very visible place. A good alibi. She wondered if the clone was going to let the billionaire get lucky. She shrugged, she'd find out later. She cut a tile from the marble wall and slipped it neatly from its place. Placing it on a desk chair below her she cut the wall behind the tile, slicing through solid steel that wasn't in the blue prints. She cut another tile and repeated the process, doing this several times until she revealed the door and cut its seals.

This was no lock pick job, though she certainly could have, her employer wanted his opponent to know who it was that had hired her for this job and he wasn't subtle man. Finished cutting she put the now empty torch away and slowly, painstakingly, removed the door. She bit her lip to keep from grunting and swung the door over, placing it as neatly as she could on the teller's desk. It landed a little loud and she winced, but nothing came of it. He makes you sloppy. That was---poor wording. Hilarious, but poor wording.

She'd scold herself for that later. Fractal turned her attention to the contents of the hidden safe. There were folders in here, incriminating documents that could have brought the target to his knees. She ignored them all, reached back, and pulled a purple velvet bag from within. Gotcha!

illirica
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Sentinel-Prelude Apr 29, 2022 21:57:50 GMT

Post by illirica on Apr 29, 2022 21:57:50 GMT

Hopefully, she would be here.

Oh, she would be somewhere tonight. Ember was beginning to get a feel for how the mysterious thief worked. Miss Amelia Constanti, wealthy heiress and whatever else the entertainment rags were calling her these days, was with telecom mogul billionaire Aaron Mogwai, attending the opening of Peonies At War, an art exhibition by the talented up-and-coming artist Claudette de Simone, whose real name was Claudia Simmons.

Ember knew all of this because it was his job to know things, but none of it was actually relevant in the slightest - aside from the fact that Miss Constanti was attending something very publicly, and that he had traced a series of minor felonies to those times when Miss Constanti was out and about. Minor felonies was an odd turn of phrase, he supposed, but he had always felt there was quite a difference between theft and murder, even if the theft was of some relatively large sum.

That was neither here nor there, much like Miss Constanti herself. The correlation between her and this series of burglaries should have meant nothing - and perhaps it did mean nothing - but Ember had gotten to a place in his life where a hunch was just as valuable as a recorded conversation, and something about this was meaningful. He'd known about the art exhibition for weeks, the difficulty had been in tracking down where the theft would be.

Usually, he was not in the habit of doing preemptive investigations, but he'd had a curiosity, and so here he was. The bank was closed for the night, which likely meant Ember shouldn't have been there either, but he had worked out a deal with the branch manager: clearance tonight in return for a few hours trailing the manager's daughter's evidently good-for-nothing boyfriend, ideally to collect enough evidence that the young lady would move on to greener pastures.

Likely there were a few people in corporate somewhere that would be upset about that, but Ember had never cared much for corporate, or for regulations. If he'd wanted rules, he could have had a job as a police detective, doing everything by the book even if the book was half-assed, and then filing it all into a cabinet where it would be looked at a decade too late to do anything about it, if it were ever looked at at all.

No, he had little interest in being a detective. Besides, in being his own boss, he got to choose his own tasks, more or less - and if he cared to take an evening off to indulge a question of theivery, it was his decision to do so. The place was quiet and dark.

Quiet, dark, and there was a torch atop the teller's desk.

Ember's job was to notice things like that - little things, but things that were not as they should be. He walked forward, towards the vault, where a figure in near silence held something in her hand. He did not allow himself a smile, merely touched a single fingertip to the brim of his hat, tilting it perhaps a quarter inch.

"Ma'am."

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YueFei
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Sentinel-Prelude Apr 30, 2022 6:50:37 GMT

Post by YueFei on Apr 30, 2022 6:50:37 GMT

Fractal didn't immediately respond, instead eyeing what she held. After a moment she turned, casually slipping the smaller of the items, a flash drive, behind the larger, a bag of diamonds. She hung upside down, looking at the man in the Fedora. Looking at people upside down was always a weird experience and not one she felt necessary to extend. She smiled, reached up with the hand holding the diamonds, and pressed a button on the rope. The motion of her hand, smooth and expert, towards the lever didn't even pause to tuck the flash drive into her belt. Pressing the button allowed her to rotate until she was right side up.

"I like a man in a good hat," She said with a grin. She was less happy about him setting off all the thermal alarms, but they'd deal with that later. Her eyes flickered to the security cameras, all duped earlier, but likely recording audio. At least, it was possible, or something else may have been. She decided not to trust their surroundings. "You know you probably set off half the alarms in this bank walking over here." She clipped the diamond bag to her belt, tapped another release on her cable and dropped to the floor, landing in a flawless and intentionally beautiful pose.

Standing she lifted her goggles onto the top of her head. "But it is nice to see you." And it was, it was nice to see the detective in the flesh, not only because she thought he was easy on the eyes, but because she'd needed him here, and because he was the only one who'd done a halfway decent job of tracking her lately. It was nice to feel like someone could match skills with her, that she wasn't doing all this out in the cold dark alone. She reached out, took her rope and tugged at it until it came free of its anchor on the ceiling, just beside the glass window on the roof she'd cut through to enter. The rope snaked to the floor and she unlocked the harness from around her hips and let it slither down long legs like discarded clothing.

illirica
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Sentinel-Prelude May 2, 2022 17:11:09 GMT

Post by illirica on May 2, 2022 17:11:09 GMT

"Probably." A smile would have been unprofessional, so Ember kept his face straight. "But I also called the police. Do you know what the response time is?" The average for this bank was about two minutes and thirty-four seconds, but the bank's official line was that it was under two minutes. He stayed where he was, taking note of the rope, as well as the bag she'd clipped to her belt. She'd meant for him to see that. Ember took a moment to think about the contents of the safe, and what was likely to be in the bag.

"Diamonds, is it?" She wasn't here for diamonds, and his tone conveyed that he was perfectly well aware of it. Despite heavy pushes from diamond corporation advertising, ethical concerns were rising and the propensity of lab-grown stones was likely to make serious inroads in the profitability of such things. "I thought better of you."

His tone was even: unconcerned, but also unhurried. Every second they spent talking was one more second closer to the inevitable police response. Ember had no illusions that she'd still be here when they arrived, but at the same time he was quite curious to find out how close to the line she was willing to cut it.

"Diamonds might be a girl's best friend, but at some point she has to grow up and realize the whole relationship is a toxic mess." He gave a nod to the vault without taking his eyes off of the burglar. "May as well put them back. Ma'am."

The real question was what else she was here for, but getting the diamonds back would help assuage the bank's owners, as well as potentially give him some insight to whatever else she was carrying. Whatever it was, it was small. The getup she was wearing didn't leave much space for anything else.

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YueFei
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Sentinel-Prelude May 2, 2022 18:24:22 GMT

Post by YueFei on May 2, 2022 18:24:22 GMT

Fractal took her climber's rope and coiled it up, slipping it over one shoulder. She watched Ember, he was a man of few words. It wasn't really a surprise given his profession, appearance, and the way he'd greeted her when he arrived. There was nothing wrong with that. They both knew she knew the response time so she let the question go as a purely rhetorical one. She smiled. "I'm glad you think highly of my standards," She lifted the bag from her belt, where it had been mostly to get it out of the way while she secured her equipment.

She looked at the bag, as if seriously considering his suggestion she put it back. The bag, like the rest of the safe, and her job here today, bothered her. Something about the whole thing didn't sit right with her and her instincts, which she trusted emphatically, told her something was going on that was going to make life worse, not better, for people like her. That's why he was here, why she'd left a trail for him to follow in the first place. She couldn't go to the police, but she could go to him. She was putting trust in him though, something that also made her uneasy.

"Do you know where most people keep their diamonds?" In a safety deposit box or a home safe, not a hidden behind wall tiles safe at a bank, a safe that wasn't supposed to be there at all. She opened the bag and dumped a few out into her palm. They were uncut. She tried not to furrow her brow but couldn't help herself. Uncut? She held one up, examining it with the eye of an expert, then put it and the rest back into the bag. There was only so much she could do. She couldn't talk to the police, couldn't tell him what she thought with all these recording devices here, and whoever she was hitting was, she suspected, connected to the bank owner in some way. She couldn't say it, she couldn't violate the terms of her job by touching the folders and files inside the safe, because everything but the diamonds and flash drive was folders and files. She could though, allow someone else to see them. Accidentally.

She put the bag of diamonds on the top folder, which had slid out over the rest a ways. The weight toppled the folder onto the floor and spilled some of its contents. They were images of people, actual physical photographs. She glanced at it, but didn't prolong her gaze.

"Oh no." She dead panned.

She had a little time left before the police arrived, though not a great deal.

"I grew up stealing diamonds actually. I found them in shoe boxes, little silk bags in drawers, ceiling tiles, home safes, gun safes, and safety deposit boxes. You have to appreciate the time and effort that goes into cutting a diamond to make it valuable." The emphasis she put on the word cutting was so slight as to be nearly unnoticeable. Nearly. She had to trust his skill, skill that had led him to her, and to trust that he wasn't one of them, wasn't the sort who would let his own kind suffer to save his skin or profit.

Amelia was all about profit, but not like that. Something kept telling her this was important even if she didn't know why. She didn't know how else to ask for help, or even who to turn to, so here they were. She just needed him to see, and listen, and do what he did best. Then she'd go back to stealing, pretend she never had a role to play in something bigger, and enjoy life.

illirica
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Sentinel-Prelude May 6, 2022 0:19:14 GMT

Post by illirica on May 6, 2022 0:19:14 GMT

The woman's hand moved to her waist, and Ember tensed, at the ready. He knew that just because someone didn't look armed didn't mean they weren't carrying something concealed. Of course, again, there was the question of where she would put it - but he also knew that there were unconventional weapons out there that didn't even look like weapons at all. For that matter, it was entirely possible that someone with enough training in the right methods could make a weapon of something like that coil of rope she held - or out of nothing at all.

No weapon materialized, though, just the small bag, which his information had told him held diamonds, and she'd confirmed as much. It was good to know it matched up - one never knew with information, after all. Much of Ember's job was in sorting out what was accurate and meaningful from everything else. Of course, his information hadn't said anything about the state of the diamonds, and when she opened the bag and poured a few rough gems into her palm, he felt his eyebrows raise. It was only a slight change of expression, and likely the brim of his hat would hide most of it before he schooled his features back into studied neutrality.

Still, uncut diamonds were not at all what he'd expected to be in the bag. The woman was giving one of them a looking over - he didn't doubt she knew more about diamond quality than he did, especially if, as she'd said, she'd been... in the market... for some time. She'd placed the bag down though, the move of it destabilizing a set of folders and toppling them to the ground. It was not an accident, of course - anyone with the skill to get into a bank vault on a climbing rope had enough control over their own body and motions that they wouldn't make a clumsy error. The folder spilled, photographs tiling the floor.

Ember didn't move to touch them. He did slip a hand into the pocket of his suit, moving his phone up just enough that the camera lens peeped above the pocket, grabbing a quick couple shots of the spilled photographs. His memory was good, but a picture was even better, especially if he could look through them later and match them up with... Ember wasn't sure what the answer to that question was, but he was sure he'd find it. That was what he did, after all.

And she stole diamonds. "Doesn't sound like much of a way to grow up." Of course, that was just another story, and there were a thousand of them out there. Some better, some worse, but everyone had one. There was a story here, too, one she was trying to tell, even if she hadn't realized that was what she was doing. Ember wondered what it meant to her, if anything.

Perhaps some day, he'd ask. Not today, though. She wouldn't answer, and he didn't like asking questions that went unanswered.

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YueFei
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Sentinel-Prelude May 9, 2022 18:14:24 GMT

Post by YueFei on May 9, 2022 18:14:24 GMT

Fractcal caught sight of his move to take pictures and let a little smile pluck at the corners of her mouth. That was the kind of skill she'd been hoping to see. He would do the right thing, and he'd be able to find out what was going on because he was good enough to do it. People like him were needed in these parts, perhaps more than they were aware. Someone needed to look out for people like them, now more than ever. She wasn't the one to do it, that wasn't in her skillet set, and besides, she didn't exactly have a clean ledger herself. Good people went to Ember for help. Bad people went to her.

That was the difference.

Of course she'd gone to him for help, so she wasn't sure what that said about her, but she wouldn't have put herself in the good people camp. Maybe she existed in some imagined in between space. Maybe she just made her own little space between two worlds, or three really, that would inevitably collide. A small part of her wanted to pull out the flash drive she'd concealed from him and hand it over, but she quashed it. That kind of thinking could get her killed. A little accident of folders was one thing, handing over this flash drive was quite another.

She shrugged a little at his comment. "People like you weren't around back then," she said. It was all she'd say on the topic right now. Trusting him to do the right thing didn't mean she trusted him, and she didn't let people in that she didn't trust. The fact she'd never let anyone see the real her was damning of her, or perhaps just the circles she traveled in. A little beep echoed in her ear.

"The camera spoof is going to collapse soon," she smiled. "Maybe I'll be seeing you around." Telling him she would like that would be the wrong thing to do. Instead she touched her fingers to her ear, gave him a smile, and vanished as she was recalled.