"How does that look?" Jon asked. His sketch of the hospital was more professional and accurate than anything Gavin or Chris could scribble on napkins.

"How the hell do you remember these things?" Gav asked.

"I spent my childhood in those hallways. We both did."

The brothers pinned the map to the table with their fists. The security cameras were represented by open triangles. The emergency exit was outlined in red ink. The KOC refrigerator—their ultimate target—was marked with "XXX."

"This has to be simple, Jonny. We can't bust in there like Die Hard. If we get caught—"

"It's grand theft. I know."

"That's twenty years or more."

"Yeah."

"If you want to back out—"

"I understand the stakes."

Gavin nodded. It was too late to talk Jon out of this. "We have a week to plan. That's plenty of time to get it right."

"What do we have so far?"

He pointed to the lobby. "We can't come in through the front without passing David and ten nurses, so we're gonna use the emergency exit. It only opens from the inside, and I have no reason to open it."

"Then how do I get in?"

"Chris."

"Won't the cameras see him?"

"He's been visiting a woman named Gloria Hamilton for the last week. Gloria has Alzheimer's and no family, and she's been living in Evanston for twenty-five years. It didn't take long to convince her that Chris used to mow her lawn when he was a boy."

"Why the hell—"

"Chris's visits have established a believable routine. The nurses recognize him. Gloria's room is less than a hundred paces from the emergency exit. He'll visit her again on the night of the robbery, pretend to go out for a smoke—"

"And I run in and grab the vials."

"Exactly."

Jon's eyes flicked across his drawing. "If this is gonna work... Chris needs to get caught."

"Nobody at the hospital knows about our friendship. They'll question him for a few hours. He'll give a statement. They'll let him go."

"I think I should punch him when I run in. You know... to make it look believable."

Gavin smirked. "Sure. You can punch him."

Jon traced his finger from the emergency exit to the dispensary. "So I run in, find the refrigerator, grab a few vials—"

"You're going to grab thirty vials."

"Thirty?" Jon exclaimed. "We only need—"

"We need as many as you can carry."

"For who?"

"For people who can't afford The Vaccine."

Jon slumped into the folds of the couch and dropped his heels on the blueprints. "It's not right."

"Since when do you care about what's right? You haven't been to church in months."

"You go every week and you're still gonna rob a hospital!"

"I'm going to rob a faceless corporation worth billions."

"That makes it right?"

"We'll be giving life to people who can't afford it. Sam would be proud."

"Yeah? You're going to tell Sam about this?"

Gavin looked away.

"And how the hell are you going to find somebody to buy a stolen vial of T4? Craigslist?"

"Chris has connections. We can push thirty vials in less than a week."

"'Push?' You're a drug dealer now?"

"That's thirty people who get to live because of us. We'll be helping them."

"And making a profit."

"We'll split it three ways. Even if we sell at a fraction of the price, we'll still make a quarter-million apiece. I don't see anything wrong with that, and I don't think God would either."

"Isn't immortality enough?"

"Not when you're poor and hate your job."

Lumbering footsteps broke the silence... then Chris barged inside with messy hair and pink eyes, looking more like a giant than the night before. He pulled a blocky white object from his bag and slammed it on the coffee table. "If we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it right."

Gav inspected the device. It looked like a cross between a game controller and a sex toy.

"What the hell is it?" Jon asked.

"It's a gun."

Gavin turned it over in his hands. The barrel was short and fat, and the chamber was essentially a giant cube. The only part that looked normal was the grip. "It's too light to be real."

"It was printed," Chris said.

"How?"

"It was designed on a computer then built on a 3D printer a layer at a time. The accuracy is bad and it only fires one shot... but it's untraceable, easy to replicate, and costs pennies after the price of the printer."

"That's a miserable use of technology," Jon said. "I know a hundred design students who would kill for a 3D printer."

"Good," Chris said. "Now they can."

"Is it loaded?" Gav asked.

Chris plucked a bullet from his pocket and tossed it on the table. "One shot," he said.

"This..." Gavin held the gun away from his body as if it was a dead rat. "This is stupid." He carried it to the bathroom, wrapped it in a towel, and hid it under the sink.

Chris shouted after him, "You better not lose that!"

* * *

9:29 PM.

Jon covered a yawn and buried his face in his brother's couch.

Gavin's phone buzzed with a text.

"Hannah?" Jon asked.

"Katrina..."

Chris scoffed. "She's still talkin' to you?"

"She asked if we're watching the news." He grabbed the remote, turned on the TV, and changed the channel from HBO to CNN.

"Breaking News," was stamped along the bottom of the screen. To the left, a graphic pulsated and twirled and spelled out, "Halloween Heist" with the "o" in the shape of a sniper's crosshair.

The boys watched the footage unfold; a live, arial shot of George Washington University Hospital in Washington DC, lights out and surrounded by the spastic whirl of red and blue lights.

The anchor spoke rapidly and grasped for composure. "Twitter is reporting multiple injuries inside the hospital, but we're still waiting for confirmation from DC authorities. Our only description of the suspects is that they're dressed in black, they're armed, and they're wearing masks."

The footage cut to the backs of a dozen officers in a standoff with the building.

"If you're just joining us, we're bringing you breaking news of a series of break-ins at T4 dispensaries across the nation including DC, Detroit, Georgetown, Seattle, and Jacksonville—" The anchor paused. "And now—just this moment—we're receiving reports of two additional situations at Texas Health Presbyterian in Dallas, as well as Boston Medical Center in Massachusetts."

"Saint Timothy?" Jon asked.

Gavin shook his head. "Katrina says they're fine."

Chris scoffed. "So far."

"Officials are calling this a coordinated attack on an unprecedented scale—" Another awkward pause. "We're handing you off to our correspondent in Detroit, where Chief of Police Frank Capshaw is addressing the situation."

Flashes strobed the man's face as he addressed an army of microphones. "...to stay inside and let the police do their jobs. From what we've pieced together, key members of the HLA have been planning the attack for weeks, most likely discussing their plans in code on secret internet forums. We know there were meetings yesterday to relay vital information to other members of the organization. Then, at precisely 9:11 this evening, they attacked."

Chris shook his head. "That's some dark shit."

Jon texted Hannah, hoping the madness would finally spark a reply.

"Seriously," Chris continued. "They're like comic book vigilantes. This stuff only happens under the sickest conditions. I wonder if we'll see Batman."

"We're interrupting Capshaw's speech for more breaking news out of Birmingham, Alabama where police are receiving desperate calls from inside UAB saying they've been taken hostage by men in masks."

"Shit," Gavin said, his eyes still on his phone. "They're at Cook County."

"Unbelievable," said Jon.

"Switch to local."

Again, the image of stationary police officers filled the TV. In the bottom corner, a smaller feed displayed arial footage of the familiar hospital.

"...presumably a SWAT team, based on their uniforms," said the male anchor. "The situation seems calm right now, but it makes you wonder what exactly is going on inside Cook County."

"This is a terrifying night for everyone involved," said the woman. "The amount of coordination involved is staggering. We're being told that upwards of thirteen robberies have been confirmed throughout the nation in the last twenty-five—"

A burst of organized pandaemonium interrupted the anchor as the SWAT team descended on the hospital.

* * *

"It's an eerie feeling on the lawn outside Cook County as police and bystanders wait helplessly for the SWAT team inside. We're still not certain what information they received that made them engage, but we do know that T4 dispensaries throughout the nation are going on lockdown. Our prayers are with the men, women, and children who—"

Chris hit the mute button and the correspondent fell silent. "We're fucked," he said. "Saint Timothy will be crawling with security by morning."

"He's right," Jon said, quietly lamenting Grandpa Dan's immanent death. "It could be months until—"

"We do it tomorrow." Gavin was sitting on the floor, but his mind was pacing.

Jon and Chris looked at him. "Are you—"

"Same plan, just a week early."

No one spoke. No one moved.

On TV, the drama erupted silently as the SWAT team escorted members of the HLA—cuffed and unmasked—out of the hospital lobby. Last in line—thrashing in his cuffs and shouting wildly through the muted TV—was Harley.