The Neo-Metropol Heist

22: Edward

The Neo-Metropol building was even more imposing in the flesh than it was in the images Edward had seen.
It was a monolith of black glass, erupting from the earth and reaching into the clouds like it didn't belong there, the reflective glass patterned with white metal in a honeycomb pattern.
Edward leaned on his cane as the winter wind whipped his face, funnelled to high speed by the towers around him, looking up at the obelisk in front of him, a pensive look on his face.
He was lost in his thoughts for a moment, oblivious to the crowd around him, lost in the pale clouds of his head. He'd begun to feel like he was forgetting things lately, like there was more to the things his brain was registering.
It was a concerning thing, of course, but Edward had bigger things to busy himself with.
He was getting old, but as long as he wasn't pissing himself unexpectedly and could still stand up, he wasn't going to let it get in the way of his plans.
"Edward," a voice fed into his head from the earpiece in his ear sliced through his thoughts like a knife, "you there?"
He shook himself out of oblivion and touched his finger to his ear, even though he knew the action was unnecessary.
"Yeah, Aphelion, I'm here," he replied, "I'm looking at the building now. Biggest penis extension I've ever seen."
Aphelion giggled. Edward noticed she'd taken a liking to him in a way she hadn't to the others.
He couldn't tell whether it was because they were both the solitary kind and she found it reassuring, or she was doing it in the way that young people did for old people because they felt sorry about the fact that they'd be dead soon.
Whichever one it was, he wasn't complaining.
"Okay, you can get into the lobby without being stopped, there'll be a weapons and explosives check but you shouldn't have a problem getting in," Aphelion said, her voice cracking slightly thanks to the interference, "once you're in you'll need to get into the main plaza, that's where you'll plant the device. Got it?"
"I'm not senile," Edward replied, not really believing his own words, "I'll link you when I find a terminal."
"Wow, look at you picking up the lingo of the future," Aphelion chuckled, "Aphelion out."
Edward heard the click that told him that she was gone, although probably still monitoring him from somewhere.
He straightened his hat and adjusted his coat, then crossed the road to the looming maw of the building's lobby.
The CastellsTech logo sat above the huge sliding glass doors, an illuminated deep-blue semicircle tipped on its side and pointing upwards. Underneath, the company's slogan, 'for a better future', embossed into the glass beneath it.
Edward scoffed to himself and then quickly remembered what he was doing as he stepped under the canopy.
The doors hissed open to meet him, revealing the huge, high ceilings of the foyer.
The area was massive, a domed roof panelled with screens that mimicked an open sky, occasionally switching to targeted advertising materials.
In the centre of the room, a white column with words stencilled across it in the company's blue in dozens of different languages: প্রগতি, التقدم., İlerleme, 进展。. Edward scanned it until he found the word in English. Progress.
The column led from the floor to the ceiling, to a desk with a line of receptionists sat at glowing terminals.
Before all that however, there was a wall of scanners, black plastic archways guarded by men and women in black outfits with dark grey panelling protecting the vital parts of their bodies, each one wearing thin black visor glasses over their eyes.
Edward had been warned about MetSec, Castell's private security force, and had been expecting them, but these guards didn't fit the descriptions he'd heard.
He didn't doubt for a moment that they were just as dangerous if he felt like testing them, however.
He stepped forward to the scanners, into the queue of people being funnelled into the scanners by the guards.
It was a couple of minutes before the queue had been reduced by enough for him to be fed into the scanner by a female guard with broad shoulders and a severe ponytail pulled back.
She didn't speak, merely gestured to the archway.
His heart was in his chest as he stepped into it, wincing as though he could feel whatever invisible rays they were using wash over him.
As though he'd been expecting to be met the other side by a screeching siren and pointed muzzles, he stepped out with a quiet gasp, leaning on his cane.
Life went on around him, the crowd of suits and ties streaming out of the scanner behind him.
He found his senses and followed the stream out into the main section of the atrium.
On either side of the reception area, divided by yards of white-tiled flooring and decorative shrubbery, ornate fountains sat side by side, each one decorated with statues of human beings in various poses, made from disused synthetic limbs.
Edward didn't know what point they were supposed to be making, but he found them creepy as hell.
Meeting pods dotted the floor between him and the reception desks, large rounded plastic arches with four chairs inside facing each other over a table. Some were full of people who looked to be deep in conversation, a visible blue field of light either side of the pod designed to keep any sound inside.
The reception desks were manned by women and men who all looked the same, neat and almost androgynous, with white hair that seemed to have had any other colour drained on purpose.
The desks they sat at were active with holographic interfaces instead of terminal screens, and some of them swept skilfully between the screens as though they were bred to do it.
The one thing that Edward couldn't help but notice was the way that they smiled. They all seemed identical, artificially warm and welcoming but unescapably eerie.
After discovering the way Zakarias had modified his body, Edward had done all the research he could on the human biosynthetic modification industry.
As it turned out, there were mods for all kinds of needs, from pheromone enhancements like Zakarias', to specialised military mods for soldiers.
As he looked upon the receptionists, Edward couldn't help but imagine the mods that must have been forced on them. Enhancements that pulled on and distorted the muscles in their face until they couldn't do anything but smile.
He wondered what they were paid to agree to that. Probably not enough.
Edward took his place at the desk, waiting behind a man in a sharp suit with unnecessary flourishes on the sleeve for a few moments. When he left, Edward stepped up to face the receptionist.
Up close, she actually looked ill. Gaunt cheeks and a sharp chin, with large eyes that almost sank into her skull with pale white pupils. Did she ever leave that desk?
"Hello sir," the woman chirped cheerily, "my name is Amriel, how can I help you?"
The words were rehearsed and tired, but the smile didn't falter.
Edward fumbled in his pocket for the disposable flexi-paper that Aphelion had given him, computerised code and details flickering in and out across it, a passport picture of his face in the corner next to the CastellsTech logo.
"I have an appointment with," his mind went blank as he handed the form over, he tried to match the receptionist's smile as he scrambled around in the dust of his mind to find the name, cursing himself every second, "with... you know, I can't seem to remember."
The woman seemed perplexed for a moment, but didn't stop smiling.
"That's not a problem, sir, give me one moment and I can find that out for you," Amriel scanned the flexi across her terminal and the holoscreens around her flashed, "your appointment is at 11.10 with James Grayson on floor 97."
"That was it," Edward smiled, recovering, "this old mind of mine."
Amriel smiled, but Edward couldn't tell if it was a new smile. She reached into a cabinet underneath her desk and removed a smaller sheet of flexi-plastic, holding it up to his face.
"Please stay still one moment, sir," she asked, holding the card still. After a few seconds it flashed, and Edward's tired, windswept image stared back at him like a tiny mirror, "all right, this is your ID card. From here you can go into the main plaza and wait until this card flashes, then follow the directional arrow displayed to the elevators if you need help. The card will give you access."
Edward took the card from her pale fingers and slipped it into his pocket.
"Just follow the queue behind the column and step through the security field, the card will allow you through," as she said it, Edward peered behind the reception desks and noticed for the first time a faint, shimmering wall of red light, like the traffic checkpoints across the city. It reached from the floor to the ceiling and there was no way around it.
Unless you had a pass, that was.
"Can I assist you with anything else, Mr. Ocean?" Amriel asked, and it took a split second for Edward for recall that that was his cover name, longer than it should have done.
"Uh, yeah," Edward said, "are there bathrooms in the waiting area?"
Amriel smiled. Again.
"The washroom facilities are located on the far left side of the plaza, you can access them using your ID card," she told him, reaching into her desk and removing another sheet of flexi-paper, "here's a map of the plaza layout, if it helps."
Edward took it and tipped his hat, a gesture that was lost on her.
"Have a good day, Mr. Ocean," she replied, her eyes disconnecting from him instantaneously to register the woman behind him.
"And you," Edward said under his breath as he stepped back into the flood of people heading towards the security field.
He barely felt it as he passed through the light, a faint tickle on his skin but it was much less imposing than the weapons scanners at the door. Edward couldn't help but wonder what it would do if you tried to step through it without a pass, however.
On the other side, the full imposing magnificence of the plaza hit him.
Built over two levels, the upper level seemed to float above the meeting pods below without strings, a smooth white bridge with thin, faintly tinted glass forming a flimsy guard.
On either side of the lower level, there were small offices built into the walls, underneath the huge skylights through which the barely natural light shone through, all Castells shell corporations, of course.
On the higher platform, there were food stands and information desks, and benches underneath the artificial sky, with three elevators climbing up from it and into the ceiling in glass tubes.
Edward stepped down the staircase into the lower plaza, taking more time than he would have liked. From down here, he noticed that the underside of the upper platform was covered in the same kind of screens as the ceiling, making the place feel light and airy, until the adverts snapped down again.
He passed a bank of pay terminals that look underused and a grouped area of sofas, and it seemed like it would take him forever to cross from one end of the hangar-sized plaza to the other, until he noticed the compact indoor shuttle system by the near wall.
They were less shuttles and more small pods with simple chairs inside, but he wasn't complaining. He waited for a pod to hiss up the small station and stepped inside, a group of suits nestling in the seats next to him, some quiet, others chattering away into the commlinks in their heads.
The doors slid shut and the shuttle shot forward at speed, and before he knew it they were on the other side of the room.
Edward stepped out and the shuttle moved off, continuing on its set route around the plaza.
"Aphelion?" Edward said, tapping his finger to his ear. He heard a crackle and Aphelion spoke back.
"I'm here, are you in?" She asked. He could hear the humming of her huge computer setup in the background, a dull drone behind her words.
Edward looked around the room to make sure nobody could hear him, wondering momentarily how they managed to fit the huge plaza inside the tower. Space might have been a premium in the future, but it was always there for those that could pay.
"I'm inside, in the business plaza," Edward replied, keeping his words neutral as he knew it was almost a certainty he was being monitored by the building's security.
"Okay, you need to find a vent or a grate," Aphelion said, "there will probably be one in the bathroom. Place the shunt there and it'll do the rest."
"What if there isn't a vent in the bathroom?" Edward asked.
"Improvise," Aphelion said, dropping the connection.
Edward sighed and pulled the flexi-paper map the receptionist had given him from his pocket, finding the toilets and heading towards them.
They were set into a wall between two offices, Edward slipped into the men's room, keeping his head low.
Luckily, it wasn't as busy as the plaza was outside, but the cubicles were all full and Edward couldn't see a vent outside.
He frowned and stood by the row of sinks to look less conspicuous, turning one on and pretended to wash his hands.
The sinks were white and silver, shined to perfection, and Edward tried to ignore his tired reflection as it stared out from the mirrored wall behind them.
A cubicle behind him slid open and a man with short hair and a pencil-thin moustache stepped up to the sink next to him, washing his hands in the sink.
"Hey," the man said, breaking every rule in the toilet etiquette book, "you got the time?"
Edward turned to him, trying to keep his head low underneath his hat.
"Terminal's on the jack," the guy said, he couldn't have been in his thirties yet, "time?"
Edward rolled back his sleeve and checked his watch, the man raising an eyebrow at the antiquity.
To pass the time in his hostel, Edward had taken it upon himself to fix the watch that he'd been missing for thirty years.
The tutorial he found was patchy and the cheap tools he'd bought to do it were blunt and rusted, but he'd managed to get the hands moving, even if they were a touch juddery.
"Just gone eleven," Edward replied.
"Thanks man," the man said, "stellar watch."
The man smiled, took another careful look at Edward and then left the bathroom. There was something Edward found strange about the way he'd looked at him, but he had bigger concerns.
Edward slipped into the open cubicle, cursing under his breath when he realised there wasn't a vent in there, either. Apparently air conditioning had advanced to the point where they weren't necessary any longer.
Rest in peace, vents, Edward thought.
Edward went to tap his ear, but realised that talking to himself might make him seem a little strange to the men in the cubicles next to him, so he slipped his terminal from his pocket. 'No vents, any ideas?'
Aphelion's reply came a few seconds later. 'Toilet?'
Edward raised his eyebrow and for a moment assumed she wanted him to drop the tiny device into the toilet, then made the connection.
He examined the backing of the toilet, it was hard plastic with no clear joints - the toilet itself merely grew from the wall behind it.
He followed the toilet joins behind the seat, finding what he'd been hoping for. A small trigger, barely noticeable if you weren't a maintenance droid, or Edward Helten.
He flicked it and the plastic panelling came loose, sliding up from the seat with a hydraulic hiss, revealing the plumbing works behind it.
There were two pipes leading away from the toilet into the wall, the network of pipes and tanks built into the gap between the bathroom and the room next door, barely wide enough for Edward to fit his hand into.
The space was lined with insulation and wiring for the lighting, not useful in anyway to a thief usually but great if you were maintenance repair.
Edward took the tiny sphere from his pocket and placed it in the space between the wall.
For a moment, it sat there lifelessly, a useless piece of plastic. Then, a small light flickered into life, and it snapped open into segments, long, spider-like legs folding out of almost nowhere with a quiet buzz.
Before he could even comprehend that it was alive, the small robot buzzed once again and disappeared into the gap, scurrying away, the movement of its legs making Edward feel slightly uncomfortable.
His terminal vibrated in his pocket and he read the message. 'Online, job done,' it said.
Edward slid the wall back down, closing off the space like it no longer even existed and stepped out of the cubicle,washing his hands out of habit.
Back out in the plaza, the crowds hadn't died out. Edward checked his ID card, which was still a plain white.
Edward didn't know if James Grayson was even real or not, but either way, they wouldn't be having their appointment.
Climbing into the shuttle back to the reception area, Edward pulled his hat low as he walked past Amriel and the other pale white drones, back through the weapons scanners and into the relatively fresh air, gulping it down.
He'd done it, whether the rest of the plan worked was a different issue entirely, but he was back in the game. It felt good.
Edward was preparing to leave when he noticed a crowd converging on the front of the building, loosely grouped together and moving under a cloud of unrest.
Some of them had placards, animated signs with political messages that Edward didn't fully comprehend. Something about mega-corporations that controlled the world being evil - Edward wondered for a moment why that was a thing that had to be said in protest.
There were more people than Edward had first thought, and before he knew it the guards from the security scanners had formed a wall behind him, making a chain from the front door to the road.
As he watched, it became clear what the protesters were there for, and Edward's heart lurched into his mouth when he realised what it was.
As the security guards pushed the crowd back, a car appeared from round the corner and settled onto the street. A luxury model with tinted windows and chrome thrusters.
The doors slid open and a man in a suit stepped out, opening the rear door, through which Sergei Castells appeared, stepping out into the morning drizzle.
He looked older than he did in his PR pictures, but he still looked healthy, or at least healthy in the way millions of credits of surgery made you look. He walked with a slight limp, but no cane.
For a moment, Edward felt a ridiculous bitterness at how he didn't look as old as he should.
Pulling his hat down onto his face so hard he felt as though it was going to become a necklace, Edward stepped into the observing crowd.
Sergei stayed the right side of his security, the man that had let him out of the car holding an umbrella over his neat greying hair.
As he walked, he waved at the side of the crowd that wasn't protesting - the reason he was using the front door, of course. It was a photo-op.
He wore an expensive suit under a thick winter coat, leather gloves and snakeskin brown shoes. Edward could smell the money on him. Edward's money.
He was gone as quickly as he had appeared, disappearing into the glass doors with one final wave at the crowds, the line of security guards began dispersing the protesters.
Pushing the strange sickness and fear that had suddenly come over him deep into the pit of his stomach, Edward pulled the collar of his jacket up to his chin and walked away, not stopping until he was as far away from the Neo-Metropol building as possible.