11 days until the job

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"I'm surprised you haven't gone on the hunt for the best pizzas yet," Alby tells Yuri, who is casually sipping a latte she blackmailed me into buying for her as we walk down the (fortunately) sunny streets of Chicago.

It's been three days since we first got here, that leaves eleven more days till the auction, and we still needed an escape plan. That is why Yuri and I are roaming around the streets near the auction house, looking for routes.

"I don't know, I feel pizza just tastes either excellent, or like cardboard. Nothing in between. And I don't mind both. So there's not really a 'best'," she replies to me, before tossing her Starbucks cup into the trash can near us.

One of the few times that Yuri truly made sense to me.

We reach the street right next to the auction house, and I pick out the sunglasses designed by Mon and turn the scanners on. It will scan for a quarter of a mile radius, every building around, and send the details to Mon and Blaise.

I turn to Alby who is currently standing next to us in a maintainance worker costume and hold out the ID card Blaise printed.

"Remember, you are Maria Costa, the recruit they hired a week ago," I say, to the masked grifter, then take a pair of scanner glasses and hand it to her, "Look everywhere, every room, every wall, every bathroom, every corner, okay? Don't miss out on a single air vent or fire detector or exhaust pipe or incinerator" (totally did not sit and think about Six of Crows there.)

Alby nods, "What about the actual recruit?"

"Oh we sent her a mail, delaying her first shift to next week," I smile.

"And made me anonymously put a cheque of her week's pay on her doorstep," Yuri adds.

"She needs the money. Anyway, you got everything? You worked on the Spanish accent I presume?"

"Would you mind moving out so I can get the stage, por favor?" Alby says in a thick accent, making weird eye contact with me.

I smile at her, "Perfect. Walk a little slowly," I hold up the laptop bag, "so we can stay in your range."

"Can you explain the whole scanner deal to me again?" Yuri asks, now munching on a Twinkie. How much will this girl eat?

"The scanner which you are wearing," I point to the glasses I made Yuri wear, "Will transmit directly to Mon's computer. The ones which Allie is wearing, will transmit to my computer, because the bulk of the information is too much to send all the way to Mon. It has a 3D scanner, a camera and a microphone built into it. We are still working on that issue. So we need to be at least thirty metres near the scanning glasses. So we're gonna have to walk around. You catch all the buildings around, I'll keep up with Allie. Got it?"

"Agh, so much work."

Lazy ass.

We get to work, I set up the detector on my little laptop while Yuri keeps turning her head from side to side, scanning all the buildings around for escape routes.

Suddenly we begin to lose distance.

"Oh no!" I walk towards the source of the scanner and run face first into the wall.

Yuri laughs and laughs for fifteen minutes while I walk around the walls of the building to keep up with Alby. So far she's been walking smoothly with her cleaning cart, the camera and her scanner seem to work well, and so does her microphone.

She walks through the halls, occasionally cleaning a chair, or one of those useless tables with flowers on top when she encountered anyone.

Suddenly a man in a suit stops in front of her and asks for her ID, she gives it to him and he checks it out before nodding and letting her pass.

My heart had stopped there for a solid minute. The security here is a little tight.

She slowly makes her way into the hall, where I see the stage and the auctioneers podium with the hammer resting on it.

She begins sweeping the floors, while looking in every direction, and I smile in satisfaction as I see the data building up on the computer. I connect a second hardrive for the excessive amount of information we're getting.

And that's when I walk into someone. A hard chest. Someone big. And tall. 

I don't want to look up from the screen.

"What are you doing there, walking around this building like that?" The security guards asks, looking at my computer. I hide the screen immediately. 

Don't piss yourself Alicia, not the good time. Don't piss yourself, don't die. Oh God if I piss myself my jail cell might smell like that till they get me the robes. Oh my god, sitting in a jail cell with the scent of ammonia for twenty-two years-

"Pokémon Go," Yuri replies casually, staring up at the officer through her sunglasses.

Da fuck?

The guard scrutinizes us, "Aren't you too old for all this?"

I cough a little then blow a raspberry, "You can never be old for Pokémon! Plus-" I turn to Yuri, hoping she might come up with something.

Oh my God I stuck my tongue out at a guard.

"Ah my friend told me he found a rare Pokémon around here, we're trying to find it as well. No luck till now," she makes a disappointed face.

"I know how that feels, the game is disappointing at times-" he begins.

The guard himself doesn't look too old, maybe a little older than us, but I don't think he's turned thirty yet. The accent is too thick and heavy to be British only. I sense a hint of Welsh and Irish in there. He has a sharp angular face, but these very dark circles under his blue eyes. Must be working a lot of night shifts. 

Wait.

I very subtly take one of my hands off the laptop and check my pant pockets for a microphone, camera anything.

There's a spare microphone! Success!

I secure the laptop firmly in my grasp, as Yuri and the guard talk about Pokemon, then stumble directly into him. He catches me, and I'm in a very awkward position, with my head on his chest. His heart rate picks up drastically, I can hear it way too clearly. The firm linen shirt wrinkles slightly under my fingertips before I straighten up a push myself away ever so lightly.

"Leesh! You okay?!" Yuri asks. I pat his chest pocket, where there is a dark embroidered logo of the auction house. I'll kill her later for taking my actual name in front of a guard.

"Thank you," I say, staring directly into his eyes. His pupils are dilated as he clears his throat and nods, "Are you feeling ill?"

I dramatically put a hand on my forehead, "I have been feeling under the weather. Maybe I should get back. We will get out of your hair, officer-"

"McNeil," he completes.

"Officer McNeil," I say with a bright smile.

We begin to turn away when he says, "Take care!"

What a kind man.

And then Yuri pushes my elbow really hard, "Way to be subtle, weirdo."

"What?"

"I get you totally want to mother his children but you have to be more discreet," she whispers.

"No! What's wrong with you?!"

"Oh you're totally into him! Screw that, he's totally into you!" Yuri says loudly. And...that's when we hear a faint laugh behind us. Oh dear God he heard us.

I take a deep breath. And thrust the laptop towards Yuri, "Take it to the top of the building, hopefully Allie has gone to the second floor. You'll have twenty meters in between each other. I'll take the scanning glasses and sneak around. Do NOT get caught and start making Pokemon excuses again."

"Say what you want to, they work every time."

She doesn't know that she's given me enough reasons to mutilate her once we get back home.

****

"And then they were staring into each other's eyes," Yuri says excitedly to Elara, Cassandra and Minji as I bustle around in the kitchen, making some potato leek soup for their gossiping souls.

I roll my eyes at her, "I was just placing a microphone."

"Was he cute?" Rey asked, pouring herself some coffee from the pot.

"Extremely," Yuri says. Maybe she's the one crushing on him, bitch.

A collection of 'oohs' and 'aww's are heard through the living room. There was someone saying 'Men are stupid' and I have a good suspicion it was Pandora.

Blaise stops typing on her computer, "Well, the microphone is connected. Should I turn it on?"

I turn smugly towards the group at the dining table, "See? I told you!"

She turns it on and we immediately hear the Irish-Welsh accent come through, "-No don't set me up man, not yet-"

He's talking to someone. We need to respect his privacy.

I nudge Blaise's elbow, "Turn it off."

Yuri's face lights up, "He's turning down people for you!"

Ariadne hits her upside the head, "He's clearly getting out of a relationship, idiot."

I clear my throat, "Okay, enough of this," I turn to Monique, "You have all the details, how do you think Kai can escape with the painting?"

Mon stands up, "Air vents are too thin for the painting, we can't use them this time."

Rey raises her hand unnecessarily, "Why not just take the canvas cloth thing and fold it instead?"

Elara shakes her head, "Stretching and folding will disturb the paint and very greatly devalue the painting."

"-Plus, Kai can't fit in the vents either."

"Wait, why only me?" Kai asks, "What about Alicia, or Alby or Cassandra or anyone?"

"All three of us have invites. You need to get out and about with Yuri and Dhara," Cassandra says, sipping her own coffee.

"Can we get back to the matter at hand? Mon, what alternative do we have?" I say frustratedly, I hate being interrupted.

"We will have to construct a tunnel to the sewer where we put the scanner. It is connected to a  large network of sewers, so if we supply a vehicle of sorts, Kai can get out faster than anyone."

Oh hell no. Not that fucking sewer again. That farewell to the rat and possum was a final one.

"How much time do you think it will take?" I ask nervously. This is a little different from the escape plans we have made before.

"How much ever we can get."

Minnie speaks up, "The auction is at the end of next week, that gives us a maximum of ten days."

Monique frowns, "The most convenient way would be to make it directly from the room of the auction to the closest sewer entrance, and for that, we need to dig up twenty three meters of a tunnel. The painting is a two by three feet, right?"

I nod nervously.

"So we will have to dig at least a two feet radius tunnel to get Kai and the painting to fit. And to make the sewer undiscoverable, we will have to cover the entrance to make it look like a part of the road. And we can't make a lot of sound, so we will have to be slow and disguise our construction under road traffic."

"How many devices do you have to dig?" I ask.

"I can get four drills made, plus we can get a load of shovels."

Minnie sighs, "Get prepared to start digging everyone."

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Hello! I hope you liked this chapter, and I need a favour. I need a ship, for Minji (anyone except my character) and I need another ship in our cast, so please, help irenesagw jimmyandthebadge4eva etchedstars neptune-does-arson EvangelicaMisanami Rowannelimyingwei Musique_Me lilyinmyheart DemigodLegends FloatingMagpie 4DarvelFan4 !!!!!!