The Neo-Metropol Heist

30: Edward

Edward walked down the busy street with his coat collar pulled as high as it would go and an itchy scarf wrapped around his neck.
Among all the thoughts that swirled around his neck, the one that kept returning was the one that annoyed him most of all. His head was cold.
He curse himself again for leaving his treasured hat at Sharpe Towers, unable to grab it before the special-ops that destroyed Artem's apartment with a hail of fire and brimstone chased them from the building.
Of course it was ridiculous, it was only a hat, but it was one of the few items that he had to his name. It meant something to him, and he wasn't ashamed of that.
Edward subconsciously grabbed at the watch at his wrist and felt the engraved ornate patterns and relaxed slightly. It could have been worse, he thought.
The sun had set already, the corridors between the high towers darkening only slightly, the neon adverts on every corner given free reign, only to clash in a battle of exploding colour with competing adverts and the light given off by the ever constant traffic stream.
There was a light drizzle pouring from above, bouncing off his head and running in a stream through his thin white hair. The water had a tang to it, like old pennies. Even the rain of the future was tainted.
He shouldn't have been wandering the streets at that time, he knew, but the truth was, his new residence was constricting and claustrophobic and he couldn't spend more than a few hours at a time in the bedroom.
What was worse, he couldn't bear Harry Cain's constant stares and careful observation. The man was a fortress, both physically and mentally it seemed. He could stare into Edward's soul and all Edward could see from the outside was a man who didn't like him and could most likely break him in half.
Edward understood, of course, he'd forced his way into a world that Harry obviously kept closed and carefully monitored to protect what Edward assumed was the only thing the powerful mechanic cared about - Artem Foxe.
Artem was talented, but he was naive. Edward knew the dangers of what he was going to do, but he wasn't sure Artem could see past the allure of the challenge, and Harry could see it too.
Edward didn't take it too personally, however, he could respect a man that could live in their world and still care for something other than material things. Harry seemed to dislike the fact that anybody was entering his sacred space, but he wasn't as obvious about it with Theo or Aphelion.
Edward stopped abruptly, ahead of him, a group of young men and women loitered around a street corner. For all he knew, they were perfectly legitimate youngsters enjoying a night out in one of the numerous underground clubs dotted across the city, standing outside in the drizzle for a cigarette or to escape the pounding music for a conversation.
On the other hand, though, they could have just as easily been a gang that would see him as easy pickings.
Deciding not to take the risk, he took out his terminal and called a taxi down from the traffic stream above (one of the few useful things he'd learned to do recently) and climbed inside the warm cabin when it settled next to him.
"Hello... no identifier found," the car computer buzzed, unable to find one of those wretched palm chips in his hand, "please be aware that payment will be required at the end of this journey via personal terminal or other methods. The doors will not open unless payment is made. Please specify a destination."
Edward grumbled, before leaning forward into the screen in front of him.
"Granville Elderly Accommodation," he said, thinking of the first place that came to mind. He didn't know whether Dan would be particularly pleased to see him, but he didn't really have anywhere else to go.
The car pinged at him and lifted off, rising away from the potholed street and into the sky, locking into the traffic stream with a shudder as it was taken by the current.
Edward leaned back into the seat with a sigh. The date of the heist was getting closer and closer and they had barely managed to get the team together, let alone start any real preparations. Edward had faith that the team Artem had put together was capable and talented, but it didn't set his mind at ease.
The car banked and immediately Edward realised it was heading in the wrong direction. It couldn't have been a shortcut, even with a new skyline and a completely different mode of travel, Edward knew that the car wasn't taking him to Granville Elderly Accommodation.
He leaned forward and tapped at the screen.
"Hey," he said, "hey. I said Granville, this is the wrong way."
The car ignored him, of course.
Edward realised that all arguing with a computer would do would make him look crazy, so he peered out of the window to try and get a sense of where the car was taking him.
It ducked out of the main stream of traffic and joined a new, slightly lower tier, passing through a greenlit checkpoint and descending.
Two tall buildings folded away and revealed a particularly brightly lit precinct of the town that Edward hadn't encountered before.
Brightly-lit screens advertised all kinds of strange products that Edward had never seen, all in Chinese writing.
Edward didn't doubt that there was some kind of newfangled modification available that would translate the text for him, but he didn't have it and his patchy middle-school level French and German was less than useful.
The new area seemed like a city all to itself, like somebody had surgically removed Hong Kong and transplanted it in the middle of the city for him to stumble across and find.
The car descended and found a clear patch of road below between the bustling crowds to land, settling with a gentle thud.
"Destination," it lied, "Little Wuhan. Please be advised that there is a security warning issued by the city patrol department concerning the safety of this area, please keep close watch on your belongings and person whilst within Little Wuhan."
Edward sighed and tried to open the door, only to receive a sharp buzzing noise in response. A message flashed on the screen in angry red letters: payment required, it said.
Edward wanted to laugh at the audacity of it all, that the car had brought him halfway across the city in the wrong direction and still expected payment. Again, he reluctantly thought better of arguing with it and took at his terminal, scanning it against the interface.
The car pinged and the screen turned green, the doors unlocking with a click.
"Thank you for your custom, Mr no identifier found," the car computer said.
"Yeah, and screw you too," Edward said, climbing out of the car instead of asking it to take him back home when it was obviously defective.
He stepped out into the rushing crowds outside as the car doors snapped shut, the thrusters on the underside of the car kicking into life and carrying it back into the traffic above.
Edward looked around him.
Little Wuhan seemed more densely populated than the rest of the city, incredibly. He stood in a wide square surrounding an ornate fountain that sent jets of water illuminated by deep blue lights into the sky every few seconds.
Around him, the crowds brushed past him without even a passing glance, most of them heading towards a long line of market stalls on the far side of the square.
Above him, towers surrounded him on all sides, black marble reflecting the blue light that permeated every inch of the square, each building decorated with advertisements and huge metal Chinese lettering lit with LED lights.
Edward found the traffic in the distance and raised his terminal, trying to hail a cab, only to receive an unhelpful buzz each time he tried.
"Of course," he said to himself, putting his terminal back into his pocket and tucking his cold hands into his coat.
Edward joined the crowds and headed towards the market stall, hoping that he'd find another exit out of the hustle and bustle to hail a cab.
The market itself was insane, stall-keepers shouted their wares in practiced speech, some in Mandarin and others in carefully worded English.
On some stalls, carefully stacked crates of fish and meat covered in crushed ice glistened a strange purple from the reflected blue hue. On others, different types of cheaply-copied electronics and modifications.
Half of the stalls were manned by humans, others were watched over by rusted old models of androids that even Edward could tell were ancient and obsolete, their limbs having been replaced a dozen times over.
The stream pulled Edward through the market and spat him out the other end, at the side of a long road of restaurants and bars set into the ground floors of the wall of buildings that lined the street.
Edward stepped out of the crowd and caught his breath, leaning up against a shop made of corrugated steel.
He spied a taxi rank terminal at the end of the street and began to head towards it when something caught his eye.
Across the street, striding through the crowds confidently, was Zakarias, still wearing the flowing black winter coat he had been earlier.
It couldn't have been coincidence that Edward had ended up in the same place as him, of all people, could it?
Zakarias didn't even seem to notice him as he disappeared down an alleyway, and before Edward knew it, he was following him, back towards the main square.
The alley was used for storing old, empty boxes that hadn't been collected in a long-while, damp and soggy from days or weeks of rainfall, some of it had disintegrated into a brown goop that barely gave a glimpse of a former life.
Along the high walls either side, air-conditioning fans blew out streams of stinking air that swirled and lingered.
Zakarias stepped out of the end of the alleyway, back into the crowds of people, skin tinted pale from the blue light.
Edward was only a few feet behind, but when he stepped out after him he was nowhere to be found. Edward stayed still in the crowds, forcing the stream to bend around him so he wasn't carried away, a feat that would have been much simpler thirty years ago.
Scratching his head, Edward looked around. Zakarias had simply disappeared.
"Following me?" Came a voice from behind him. Edward turned on his heels and came face to face with Zakarias' confident perma-smile.
"No, I had trouble with the cab I took," Edward replied.
"Oh yeah," Zakarias said, "that was me."
Edward was confused, "you?" he asked, "why?"
Zakarias turned away from him and began to walk, slowly enough for Edward to keep up but keeping his confident stride.
"I thought you could do with taking in the joys and sights of our dear city," Zakarias said, "it occurred to me that you have swapped one set of walls for another."
Edward didn't argue and followed Zakarias past the fountain in the middle of the square and through a pagoda in which a crowd of elderly women, all with uniform scraped back hair sat chatting and squawking in rushed Mandarin.
"So, you hijacked my cab?" Edward asked, "how did you even do such a thing?"
Zakarias shrugged as he walked, "it was simple enough."
Then, he stopped and turned, gesturing to the building they now stood in front of. A tall neon-lit archway in front of a bright, colourful doorway surrounded by deep, purple-tinted smoked glass. Above the door, Chinese characters said something Edward couldn't read, but which were subtitled beneath: Casino and Entertainment Parlour.
"How are you at cards?" Zakarias asked.
Edward narrowed his eyes.
"Depends what kind," which was his way of politely informing Zakarias that he was actually very, very good at many different types of card game.
"It's a game called Zhu's March," Zakarias said, "simple enough to learn, difficult to master."
Edward nodded slowly.
"I heard of it," Edward replied, "used to see it being played in prison. Had a couple of turns, too."
Zakarias grinned.
"Then we're off to a flying start."
Without further conversation, Zakarias strode over to the casino doors and smiled at them, holding it for a few moments until the doors slid open with a sound like a vacuum cleaner running backwards.
"Zakarias, wait," Edward tried to say, before he disappeared into the building. Edward clambered in after him before the doors hissed shut.
Inside, they were welcomed by a row of cashiers desks staffed by synthetically attractive young Chinese women. A queue of both gentleman and women waited to transfer their credits into the little silver and blue disks that Edward assumed were supposed to act as chips.
Zakarias skillfully stepped in between a distracted man and the counter and took his place, offering a warm smile to the cashier and offering his personal terminal. The woman held up a device and scanned it, a few moments later handing Zakarias a pile of chips that must have been worth at least ten-thousand credits.
Zakarias thanked her and returned to him, splitting the stash.
"Follow my lead," he said, heading towards double doors on the far side of the room, guarded by two large bouncers.
With a suspicious looked, they parted the doors, revealing a large, smoky room illuminated by bright orange lighting that matched ancient oriental architecture and decoration, all with a modern twist.
Edward had never been one to appreciate architecture, but there was something about the curious design, so ornate and obviously the product of much effort on the behalf of the designers and builders, only to be buried in some smoky room in the back end of town.
Dotted around the room, a couple of metres apart each time, were all kinds of game tables for all kinds of games. The classics, of course, blackjack, low-stakes poker (with the high-stakes obviously in a back room) and craps.
Among them, there were newer games, some that Edward recognised, like Fordfall, Celestial Balance, rooster-tooth and others that seemed completely strange and alien to him.
Around the walls were the simpler games, machines that offered a shiny lever and flashing lights to people who sat mindlessly in their seats, popping in chitcoin after chitcoin, their eyes glazed over like still-warm corpses.
"This place is..." Edward started.
"Unpleasant?" Zakarias finished for him, "yes, I agree, but there's no better place for the brave to thrive in this city."
Edward raised his eyebrow. Brave or cocky, he thought?
"Both," Zakarias winked to Edward's surprise. The man had a talent for reading faces, which to many people would seem to be the ability to read minds. Still, it was impressive, "the high-stakes are at the back," he held up his cache of chitcoins, "I think we qualify."
Edward followed Zakarias through the smoky casino, past a bar over which suited businessmen hunched over and knocked back all kinds of sickly looking drinks. A barman that resembled a cricket waited on their needs, called every few moments by a raised hand or a grunt.
They stepped through an ornate archway and into a corridor that branched off into private rooms, each manned by men and women dressed in theatrical gowns and colourful make up.
Zakarias found a door, deep-black with gold lining, decorated with a print of a golden dragon.
"Wǎnshàng hǎo," he said to the man in makeup that stood by the door, bowing. The man bowed back and gestured for them to enter.
Inside, the room was like a smaller version of the main casino floor, decorative and almost impressive, if not for the grime and smoke that lingered and seemed to settle on Edward's skin and made him feel dirty.
It was all for the sake of a huge, real-oak wood table in the centre of the room, surrounded by six chairs with high-backs and comfortable but simple red cushions.
"The game will start in four minutes," the doorman said politely, "please, be seated. May I bring sirs a drink?"
Edward shook his head, but Zakarias nodded and asked for a drink that Edward had never heard of. The doorman bowed and left the room, immediately replaced by a similarly dressed woman at the door.
Zakarias took a seat at the head of the table and Edward went to sat next to him, only for Zakarias to stop him and point to the other end of the table.
"You should definitely sit the other side," Zakarias said calmly. For the first time, Edward noticed a surveillance camera in the roof above them, "better aesthetic."
Edward was bemused, but didn't argue, taking the place at the end of the table. Zakarias was up to something, and he was too intrigued to argue.
Over the next few minutes, a steady stream of guests entered the room. A tall man in sunglasses and a floral pattern suit, a very short, old woman with jet-black hair in a bun and a gaudy, flowery dress.
All of the guests stank of money, like they didn't belong in this part of the city but came here anyway because they could benefit more here.
A few moments after everybody had settled, without conversation or discussion, the doorman pressed a key on his terminal and the room dimmed, the table immediately replacing the lost light with a blue light projected from the stripl-lights set into it.
Then, from in front of each player, a curved screen projected itself in front of them, opaque from behind but showing a display to each player. The doorman, who now also served as the dealer, pressed another key and a hand of cards appeared on Edward's screen.
From what Edward could remember of Zhu's March, it was a pretty simple game, mostly consisting of bluffing like in poker. Your aim was to convince your competitors that you had a good hand by pledging a certain amount of cash, raising the pool until somebody broke ranks by showing their hand. The person with the best hand in truth took the pool.
Whatever Zakarias was planning, Edward hadn't figured it out by the time the game came to him. The first five, including Zakarias, had pledged relatively little amounts of cash and Edward still had no clue.
Edward pledged five thousand, he had a weak hand but it wasn't his money so there was a sense of detachment. The only other person on the table that seemed as cool as him was Zakarias, the others already seemed tense.
The little fat lady had a single bead of sweat roll from her taut hairline to the bridge of her nose. Edward thought that if he could see that, he couldn't imagine the plethora of information that Zakarias was currently registering with his highly trained senses.
The pool grew larger and larger for several more turns until finally, Zakarias grinned and swiped at his screen, breaking the March and showing his hand.
Automatically, the screens of everybody else on the table locked in and placed their virtual cards in the centre of the table.
There was a count of three seconds, then a beep, as all the cards flipped, including Edward's.
Unsurprisingly, Zakarias's hand was the best, and his screen and cards turned green. He reaped his chitcoins with a cheerful grin, to the chagrin of the others at the table.
Then, Edward realised that Zakarias had used his talent for seeing through the bluffs of others and used Edward as a tool to ramp up the pool, resulting in an even more impressive haul.
The confident trickster had doubled their outlay in the first attempt, and Edward was impressed. So he ordered a drink and stayed at the table for the next round.