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xp_logsXF puts their plan to motion. Part 1
Doug hated being the guy in the van. It was an absolute cliche, and it made him feel oddly vulnerable to not be in a position where he could react to the threats his teammates might face. Not that he didn't trust his team - he absolutely did - but being at that remove made him the littlest bit twitchy. He'd covered that by getting himself the most phenomenally comfortable chair possible installed with all of his technology at easy reach. "I feel like I should have a longhair cat in my lap," he muttered to himself as he took in the multiple tapped feeds surrounding him.
"Transport, what's your status?" he asked as he keyed his microphone. "I'm still narrowing down your target."
"We've got the vehicle, no issues," came Amanda's reply through the comms. "Changeling and the apprentice are taking care of the delivery blokes."
Marie-Ange chimed in, voice muffled. "And uniforms, enough for all of us, we look like Ghostbusters." Her voice cleared, and the noises around her became audible. "They even have the orange safety tape."
“How does this uniform have so many zippers?” Jubilee’s voice piped up on the coms, the sound of metal on metal coming through just after. “Also, how is this petite? Feels like I’m wearing a tent.”
"I don't think they've updated their uniforms since the 90s," Doug opined as he trawled the company website. "Like, yo dawg, we heard you like pouches, so we put pouches in your pouches so you can EXTREEEEEEME while you fire an improbably sized gun." He shook his head. "Wearing a tent? Like what, you can't see your feet? Who did this designer think he was, the off-brand version of Todd McFarlane?"
He kept cycling through documents, then snickered. "It could be worse - his next magnum opus was a half-jacket over a turtleneck with mid-forearm sleeves and matching dance troupe gloves." Almost audibly dragging himself back on topic, he continued. "Facade, how we coming on the security badges?"
Artie squinted at the last badge and put it down. Over the years, they'd worked out radio signals for him to use in the field, a highly specific combination of abbreviations, Q-code and telegraph code borrowings, mixed with oldskool leet speek. As long as someone (Doug) could translate, they were good. So. di-di-dah-dit di-dah-di-dah-dit. Finished. Plus sign. All completed, successfully.
"Cool." Doug tapped a few keys and brought up some different camera feeds. "Team Fedex, sound off."
"The packages are being secured." Up to his ass in zipties, working with a teenager, all trying to stop some kind of mythical assault. Kevin had never missed the 80s as much as he did now. "Clea, get his legs."
"They won't be up for at least until tomorrow morning." Clea's voice came over the comms. It was her first real heist and she was more than a little excited about it.
"Easy there, Suzie-Q," Doug told her calmly. He remembered the adrenaline rush of being on a mission and how it was hard to manage at the beginning. Not to say he didn't still occasionally get an adrenaline charge out of the job, but he was better able to keep it under wraps to get things done. "Just keep it by the numbers." He kept scanning, looking for the object they were there to lift. "Looks like we're aiming for sublevel Delta, everyone. Hit it like you mean it."
"Don't stop 'til you drop," came the pre-arranged reply from Amanda. "Going in."
The second part of the heist, getting in, goes off without a hitch.
Amanda pulled the van into the loading dock at the rear of the auction house and tugged the baseball cap she was wearing a little lower over her eyes. "We're here. Time to look like official delivery people. Just remember not to go outside of Facade's range or your ID's fucked."
"Range is marked by the roaches." Marie-Ange had a hand-drawn card in index paper taped to the clipboard in her hand and glanced at it every so often. "The grey ones, not any brown ones, they would be real." She pushed the borrowed pair of glasses up on her nose, frowning. "I am nearly certain I can maintain several at once, since they are small." She'd practiced with mice, and butterflies and tribbles, and that had worked well enough, even if the images would not pass a detailed inspection. "Who would like to do the heavy lifting, and I call not it, I have the paperwork."
"I can do the manual labour. Especially since I don't have a range limited disguise." Kevin hoisted himself out of his seat and started walking with purpose. Half of any intel operation was looking like you knew where you're going.
"Jubes, you get to be lookout," Amanda called over her shoulder to the fourth member of their team. "Even with equal opportunity hiring, no-one's going to mistake you for a delivery bloke. Stay put and make sure nothing creeps up on us, yeah?"
“Yeah, yeah.”
Jubilee saluted them as she got back into the delivery vehicle, this time in the driver seat. If anything went wrong, she’d be ready.
"Play the pokemon game, you can look like a bored driver." Marie-Ange offered as Jubilee rolled the window down. She followed behind Kevin, clipboard at the ready, and a pen tucked behind her ear. She gave the bored employee at the rear door an equally bored nod, and handed over a sheaf of papers. "Just gonna need initials here, and uh, on the next page, and the tracking sheet, kay?"
The man looked over the papers for a long moment before he held up his hand. "Terry didn't say anything was scheduled for my shift."
Kevin leaned over and tapped the top of the sheet which had the allotted delivery time, listed several hours from now. "We had a cancellation so we pushed you up. Once we drop this off, we've got three hours left on the clock and no deliveries. Which means early bar o'clock, man."
The man snorted and started to sign. "Heard that. Wish I had the same deal today. It's been a bitch."
"Some days it's like that." Marie-Ange said with a nod. "Yesterday, wow, we had, what, two lates because of that..." She snapped her fingers a few times. "Oh, oh, the accident, by that Starbucks dispatch likes so much." She pushed the clipboard closer and stuck a pen in the man's face. "Didn't even make the bar, and dammit, it was open mic night."
Harotu Tanaka tended to appear suddenly in front of people, the legacy of a lifetime of quietly and unobtrusively convincing very rich people to buy very small, very expensive objects. He did the same now, appearing on the loading bay before anyone particularly noticed him coming. "Is everything in order?" he asked.
The guard turned to respond, signing and passing the clipboard back to Marie-Ange. "Yes sir. Everything has checked out so far today."
Kevin motioned Marie-Ange back towards the truck to get the crate, leaving Tanaka behind like any other disinterested courier.
"Excellent," replied Harotu. "And do we have the crate from Osaka? It’s important that one is handled carefully. It’s very fragile."
“Doug, interruption please, our people need an out.”
Jubilee had been listening in on the others while seemingly fully concentrated on Wizard’s Unite.
The phone in Harotu's pocket abruptly trilled. "Tanaka-san, terribly sorry to bother you, but there's a matter that requires your attention-," a burst of rapid-fire Japanese in Doug's voice came softly from the speaker of the phone as Harotu pressed it to his ear. He frowned slightly and waved dismissively at the group as he walked off to get some privacy for the call.
Amanda, who had been slouching against the side of the van with her hands in her pockets and her head down - the image of a bored delivery person counting down the minutes until they were clocked off - glanced up as the two men disappeared inside the building. "He took the bait. Let's go find us a big box in it."
Doug hated being the guy in the van. It was an absolute cliche, and it made him feel oddly vulnerable to not be in a position where he could react to the threats his teammates might face. Not that he didn't trust his team - he absolutely did - but being at that remove made him the littlest bit twitchy. He'd covered that by getting himself the most phenomenally comfortable chair possible installed with all of his technology at easy reach. "I feel like I should have a longhair cat in my lap," he muttered to himself as he took in the multiple tapped feeds surrounding him.
"Transport, what's your status?" he asked as he keyed his microphone. "I'm still narrowing down your target."
"We've got the vehicle, no issues," came Amanda's reply through the comms. "Changeling and the apprentice are taking care of the delivery blokes."
Marie-Ange chimed in, voice muffled. "And uniforms, enough for all of us, we look like Ghostbusters." Her voice cleared, and the noises around her became audible. "They even have the orange safety tape."
“How does this uniform have so many zippers?” Jubilee’s voice piped up on the coms, the sound of metal on metal coming through just after. “Also, how is this petite? Feels like I’m wearing a tent.”
"I don't think they've updated their uniforms since the 90s," Doug opined as he trawled the company website. "Like, yo dawg, we heard you like pouches, so we put pouches in your pouches so you can EXTREEEEEEME while you fire an improbably sized gun." He shook his head. "Wearing a tent? Like what, you can't see your feet? Who did this designer think he was, the off-brand version of Todd McFarlane?"
He kept cycling through documents, then snickered. "It could be worse - his next magnum opus was a half-jacket over a turtleneck with mid-forearm sleeves and matching dance troupe gloves." Almost audibly dragging himself back on topic, he continued. "Facade, how we coming on the security badges?"
Artie squinted at the last badge and put it down. Over the years, they'd worked out radio signals for him to use in the field, a highly specific combination of abbreviations, Q-code and telegraph code borrowings, mixed with oldskool leet speek. As long as someone (Doug) could translate, they were good. So. di-di-dah-dit di-dah-di-dah-dit. Finished. Plus sign. All completed, successfully.
"Cool." Doug tapped a few keys and brought up some different camera feeds. "Team Fedex, sound off."
"The packages are being secured." Up to his ass in zipties, working with a teenager, all trying to stop some kind of mythical assault. Kevin had never missed the 80s as much as he did now. "Clea, get his legs."
"They won't be up for at least until tomorrow morning." Clea's voice came over the comms. It was her first real heist and she was more than a little excited about it.
"Easy there, Suzie-Q," Doug told her calmly. He remembered the adrenaline rush of being on a mission and how it was hard to manage at the beginning. Not to say he didn't still occasionally get an adrenaline charge out of the job, but he was better able to keep it under wraps to get things done. "Just keep it by the numbers." He kept scanning, looking for the object they were there to lift. "Looks like we're aiming for sublevel Delta, everyone. Hit it like you mean it."
"Don't stop 'til you drop," came the pre-arranged reply from Amanda. "Going in."
The second part of the heist, getting in, goes off without a hitch.
Amanda pulled the van into the loading dock at the rear of the auction house and tugged the baseball cap she was wearing a little lower over her eyes. "We're here. Time to look like official delivery people. Just remember not to go outside of Facade's range or your ID's fucked."
"Range is marked by the roaches." Marie-Ange had a hand-drawn card in index paper taped to the clipboard in her hand and glanced at it every so often. "The grey ones, not any brown ones, they would be real." She pushed the borrowed pair of glasses up on her nose, frowning. "I am nearly certain I can maintain several at once, since they are small." She'd practiced with mice, and butterflies and tribbles, and that had worked well enough, even if the images would not pass a detailed inspection. "Who would like to do the heavy lifting, and I call not it, I have the paperwork."
"I can do the manual labour. Especially since I don't have a range limited disguise." Kevin hoisted himself out of his seat and started walking with purpose. Half of any intel operation was looking like you knew where you're going.
"Jubes, you get to be lookout," Amanda called over her shoulder to the fourth member of their team. "Even with equal opportunity hiring, no-one's going to mistake you for a delivery bloke. Stay put and make sure nothing creeps up on us, yeah?"
“Yeah, yeah.”
Jubilee saluted them as she got back into the delivery vehicle, this time in the driver seat. If anything went wrong, she’d be ready.
"Play the pokemon game, you can look like a bored driver." Marie-Ange offered as Jubilee rolled the window down. She followed behind Kevin, clipboard at the ready, and a pen tucked behind her ear. She gave the bored employee at the rear door an equally bored nod, and handed over a sheaf of papers. "Just gonna need initials here, and uh, on the next page, and the tracking sheet, kay?"
The man looked over the papers for a long moment before he held up his hand. "Terry didn't say anything was scheduled for my shift."
Kevin leaned over and tapped the top of the sheet which had the allotted delivery time, listed several hours from now. "We had a cancellation so we pushed you up. Once we drop this off, we've got three hours left on the clock and no deliveries. Which means early bar o'clock, man."
The man snorted and started to sign. "Heard that. Wish I had the same deal today. It's been a bitch."
"Some days it's like that." Marie-Ange said with a nod. "Yesterday, wow, we had, what, two lates because of that..." She snapped her fingers a few times. "Oh, oh, the accident, by that Starbucks dispatch likes so much." She pushed the clipboard closer and stuck a pen in the man's face. "Didn't even make the bar, and dammit, it was open mic night."
Harotu Tanaka tended to appear suddenly in front of people, the legacy of a lifetime of quietly and unobtrusively convincing very rich people to buy very small, very expensive objects. He did the same now, appearing on the loading bay before anyone particularly noticed him coming. "Is everything in order?" he asked.
The guard turned to respond, signing and passing the clipboard back to Marie-Ange. "Yes sir. Everything has checked out so far today."
Kevin motioned Marie-Ange back towards the truck to get the crate, leaving Tanaka behind like any other disinterested courier.
"Excellent," replied Harotu. "And do we have the crate from Osaka? It’s important that one is handled carefully. It’s very fragile."
“Doug, interruption please, our people need an out.”
Jubilee had been listening in on the others while seemingly fully concentrated on Wizard’s Unite.
The phone in Harotu's pocket abruptly trilled. "Tanaka-san, terribly sorry to bother you, but there's a matter that requires your attention-," a burst of rapid-fire Japanese in Doug's voice came softly from the speaker of the phone as Harotu pressed it to his ear. He frowned slightly and waved dismissively at the group as he walked off to get some privacy for the call.
Amanda, who had been slouching against the side of the van with her hands in her pockets and her head down - the image of a bored delivery person counting down the minutes until they were clocked off - glanced up as the two men disappeared inside the building. "He took the bait. Let's go find us a big box in it."
