EPISODE II - CHICAGO

14 days until the job

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"Big family, huh? Cousins?" the woman with the ginger hair and Southern accent asks me, still holding the keys to herself as she scrutinizes my form. I swear she has begun to test me patience, with the condescending looks towards Cassandra and me, and this judgement in her eyes as if she's contemplating how much we are going to party in her gigantic house. That's right, I rented a villa. For a very cheap price too.

She looks like a boomer with marriage issues and two children with extremely common names like Josh and Tyler, who spies on her neighbours and gossips about teenagers being stupid with her other homophobic lady friends as they drink tea at a local coffee shop, just after they stopped bitching about the barista's rude behaviour and how the cashier didn't look interested in doing her job.

Wait I need to reply to her.

"Friends," I reply through grit teeth. Even more condescending looks.

The lady is about to speak when Cassie speaks up tucking a curl behind her ear while doing the Debby Ryan, "We have driven straight from Boston for a research project on Lake Michigan."

The lady's eyes widen, "Are you from Harvard?"

Cassie's lips tug into a sideways smile, "MIT." Why is she persisting with this Debby Ryan behaviour? It's fucking weird.

"Oh! Then what are you waiting for? Come on in! Make yourselves at home. My husband is a professor at the University of Illinois, don't worry about asking for help."

I smile the fakest, sweetest smile and then look at her through my eyelashes whilst doing the Debby Ryan myself "Oh we wouldn't want to bother you lovely people. Have a wonderful day!" I gently take the keys from her.

"You think she's going to spy on us?" I whisper to Cassandra when the woman walks away to her own home next door.

"Definitely," Cassie replies curtly.

Perfect.

***

It's been twenty minutes since we entered the house, but we've already sprung to work. First of all, the Southern lady is getting a bad Airbnb review for the dustiest fucking villa in the world. If you have guests renting it, fucking dust the shelves and vacuum the floors.

Ariadne, Pandora and Elara took to cleaning the second floor, while the rest of us got started on the ground floor. I made Cassandra, Yuri and Kai incharge of cleaning the living room, sent Minji to the closest Target to get some thicker, blacker blinds to cover up the windows because the lady had already begun to peep into our house, oh she's getting the worst review I can manage. 

I sent Mon and Alby to clear out the basement for all the light sensitive equipment and the extreme top secret stuff which we absolutely need to hide from the stupid lady. Speaking of which, I put Blaise on the task of finding any hidden cameras and sketchy stuff in the house, because again, I don't trust this lady.

I myself am incharge of the kitchen and the ground floor bathrooms. 

I sigh to myself, "No wonder this place was cheap. No one wants to rent this fucking house because of the weird psychopath living next door."

I wave to her peaking head from the wall between our houses and she takes that opening to quickly head back into her own house.

***

Rey yawns as I put out some of the drinks on the dining table, "Is the psychotic weirdo still watching us?" she asks.

"No, but still, Minnie!" I call out to my trusty partner, "Can you drape all the blinds!"

"Will do!" I hear her voice from the opposite end of the living room.

I put forth the scrumptious meal I cooked, that is, threw some instant Mac and cheese and ramen in pots. But hey, I did it with love.

"Ooh I want the spicy one," Cassie says before snatching up one of the red-looking bowls of ramen. If she blows up the toilet, I'm going to give her a swirly in the same bowl.

"Okay crew! Your hangovers better be over," I demand as everyone grabs whatever they want to eat.

"I feel as active as the kid on the sports drink commercial," Yuri says with a smile, her piercing eyes twinkling under the dim lights.

"You were not even hungover. Okay! Our next job is for a painting-"

"Man, most of the paintings we've stolen are UGLY, I hope this one looks better," Rey graciously cuts me off while casually removing her purple contacts and placing the crusty ass contact lenses on the dining table. Eugh.

"Right? Some of them are just scribbles and splatters of paint. Why do people pay so much for it?" Monique is the one to speak, her longs knees bump into mine. And I'm fucking standing.

"Okay-"

"They look for symbolism, and meaning in those creations, the mood which the colors bring out, they look for patterns in the scribbles, maybe try to find meaning in them," Elara cuts me off while tying back her own hair.

"And then they find out that the artist just got stoned as hell and threw paint on a canvas?" Yuri asks and majority of the table bursts out laughing.

"Everyone shut up!" I slam my hands on the table, making the cutlery rattle a little, "Let me talk!"

"Someone hand over a pacifier," Pandora comments.

Don't murder the makeup artist you need her really bad. Don't injure your makeup artist you need her hands intact.

"Ahem, I was saying, Minnie and I are leaving tomorrow morning to scout the joint while it's in operation. Blaise, any requirements?" I ask the pale-skinned girl who is currently red as she is shoving huge mouthfuls of ramen down her mouth. She looks up at me with a full mouth of ramen, some of it hanging down the sides.

I wrinkle my nose, "Finish your bite first," I turn to Mon, "So, are the scanner and camera charged up?"

She smiles at me her grey-ish eyes crinkling around the corners, "I'll put them to it tonight, hopefully they will be done by morning."

I turn to Kai, "You're coming with Minnie, Mon and me, and so is Yuri."

Yuri looks up from shovelling mac and cheese down her gullet, "Bluut-?"

"Finish your fucking food first," I sigh exaggeratedly.

****

Kai, Yuri, Minnie, Monique and I are currently standing in front of a massive seven give or take two, story building with the sign-

"Fortuna Auctions Incorporated," Yuri reads out.

Kai just yawns, "It's too fucking early for anything to make sense to me."

Did I mention that it is currently 4 am?

Minnie just hits Kai on the arm, "Who fucking told you to watch baby turtle videos till one in the morning?"

"Hey, I have an oath to God that every time I am recommended a turtle video, I shall watch it till the end."

"That's a nice oath," Yuri fist bumps Kai. God help these two.

I turn to Mon and look up at her towering frame, ugh she's way too tall for my neck muscles, "How do you feel about this building?"

"The air conditioning vents will be too high to climb, if there even are any," Monique scrutinizes the building, "I'm gonna need all the blueprints that Blaise can possibly get."

"Your scanner is charged?" I ask her. That device is absolute fucking gold. We technically have to place two scanners, one on top of the building and one on the bottom, and it is able to give us a complete 3D layout on Mon's computer. Then we make plans using the 3D model and 2D blueprints that Blaise can get her hands on.

I turn to Kai who is currently tying back her straight brown hair and hold out the backpack holding one of the scanners, "Can I trust you not to drop the scanner or yourself?"

Kai frowns at me before grabbing the backpack roughly, then looks at the surrounding buildings. The building in front of us doesn't have any handholds or footholds she can use to scale the building to the top. But the building next to our target building does, it's just two or three stories shorter.

She turns to face Minnie and me, "I'm gonna need someone to boost me from this building," she points to the neighboring building, "to the top of our joint."

"Why can't we just break into the building and put in on the ceiling of the highest floor?" Yuri asks, yawning slightly. 

"We don't know what security procedures we might trigger without having any blueprints and layouts of the building."

"So?" Kai speaks up, "Who's coming? Yuri or Alicia?"

Yuri wraps an arm around Kai's shoulders, "I got you babe, let's do this."

I turn to Minnie and then look up at Monique, "Okay, let's find us a sewer while these two get to the top."

***

We found a sewer. Four meters away from the back of the building. I am astonished by our luck.

And of course I am pushed into it because both Monique and Minnie chose to wear extremely clean white clothes while I idiotically decided to wear black joggers with a grey t-shirt.

All three of us had uncovered the lid, and Monique, god-knows-how produced a gas mask from her bag and handed it to me.

This is how you can tell that the smell here is absolutely horrid. Well at least I get to look like all those punk rock albums, I ain't complaining. 

I try to ignore the sound of running water close to me, or the faint squeaking I'm hearing in the background or the fact that it's absolutely fucking dark and I can't see a thing while Minnie is scrambling around with the flashlight.

I hear more squeaking, and I try the hardest to ignore my prickling skin.

Think happy thoughts...clear skies...sunshine...beaches...ugh VSCO girls...

And then light shines down the hole on top and I am finally able to see the grimy shithole I actually am in. It is so...dirty. There's green and black mold clinging to the walls and the rungs of the ladder which I climbed down.

I need a shower.

I can see the running water, a few meters away from me. And a rat sitting near the edge, staring at me with two really big eyes.

I can't believe I'm gonna pass by being murdered by a rat in a goddamn sewer.

And then, just when I thought it couldn't get any worse,  A FUCKING POSSUM CAME AND SAT NEXT TO THE RAT. Oh they are going to fortnite dance with their friends over my dead body. What a bunch of assholes.

And then my ringtone goes off in the distance. And my phone flies in from the hole and hits me in the collarbone.

Now here I am, in a dirty, dirty sewer, crying while holding my chest, while my phone is still ringing,  I can faintly hear Minnie apologizing from above, all the while a rat and a possum are watching me, probably feeling good about their own fucking lives.

I pick the phone up before the call stops, "Hello?"

"Leesh? I can't hear you properly?" I hear Dhara's stupid voice on the phone.

No shit I'm wearing a fucking gas mask.

"Anyways, I need to know the locker combo? I wanna order Uber Eats but I can't find any cash or my credit card," she continues.

"Use Rey's!" I argue.

"I...don't want to wake her up. I tried to wake Pandora up but she threw makeup at me and threatened to eat my firstborn child," she replies, and I can't help but think that her argument is fair enough.

"I can't deal with this I am in a sewer," I say.

"What? You have a fever? Why do you sound so weird? Do you have signal?"

"I am wearing a gas mask!" I scream.

"You are swearing to Gangnam Style?"

"Shut up!" I say and cut the call, and put my phone on DND to prevent future shit calls. 

"What happened?!" I hear Minnie shout from above.

"Transfer some fucking money to Dhara online!" I shout back.

"On it!"

Next comes Monique's unusually deep voice, "Okay, Leesh, can you try to stick the device on the ceiling of the sewer?"

"How will it stick?"

"There is a button on the left side, press it and the device will vacuum seal itself onto the ceiling."

So that means...I have to climb the moldy ladder again. Why did I drop down in the first place then?

My life is a waste.

I do as told and then quickly climb out before my gut decides it has handled too much and spills itself onto the rat and the possum.

Aw man I didn't even say goodbye to them.

Well I am not going down that hellhole ever again.

So long, rat and possum. Adieu mon amis.

As soon as I come up, Yuri and Kai land down right beside me near the sewer hole, with Yuri spitting out all of her stupid hair which flew into her mouth. I give her a million hair ties on a daily basis, and she manages to lose them every time.

"Are the signals good?" I ask Monique, who is typing away on her mini laptop.

"All good!"

I turn to Yuri, "You wanna drive around the neighborhood? Find pathways and other routes?"

"Yeah all that can be done in daylight. I want breakfast."

At least she's got her priorities straight.

Minnie smiles wide, "Anyone up for waffles?"

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Hello babies did you like our amigos the Rat and Possum? Comment a dumpling emoji or something if you want them to make another appearance.

Anyways, next chappie needs a shit ton of editing, plus we see the inner Shakespeare that resides within Yuri, Elara and Minji. Until then, bye!