The Neo-Metropol Heist

3: Edward

Through a clinical and sterile lobby and up an equally cold staircase, Edward found himself at the door of room 334.
A passing medic-droid strode past him pushing a trolley of bedpans and other equipment. It was the kind of robot that looked like a robot - a black faceplate and white ceramic limbs connected by flexible membrane wrapped joints.
Edward didn't particularly like robots, but he could make exceptions for the ones with uses that were at least honest about the fact that they were made of metal and circuits. It was the ones that hid the fact under synthetic skin and emotions that he had trouble with.
He waited for the robot to disappear round the corner before knocking on the door. It was a few moments before it slid open, revealing Dante Gomorrah, hunched and dressed in a loose vest and lounge-pants, wrapped in a patterned dressing gown.
"You look like crap," Dan grunted, turning away and shuffling back into his room, leaving Edward to invite himself in.
He didn't disagree with the old man's observation, but he couldn't help thinking the same thing. Thirty-six years in prison had left Edward tired and timeworn, but the prison life had forced him to remain prepared and on his toes, to stay strong and constantly aware.
Thirty-six years of comfort and indolence had left Dan... well, old. He hunched worse than Edward, shuffling like every step was a struggle. His bones were slow and could no longer take the strain of doing anything more active than moving between his sofa and his bed.
For the first time in a very long time, Edward found something that he could almost consider a positive.
"Yeah, my mirror keeps telling me that but I won't believe it," Edward said, trying to remember how to do pleasantries, "you look... good."
Dan erupted with laughter.
"Don't bullshit me, Helten, you never could. You've got a tell, that's why I always kicked your ass at San Robar."
Edward shrugged.
Dan hobbled to a cupboard in the corner and opened a white plastic panel, removing a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.
"Drink?" He asked, holding up the bottle, "this is the special crap I keep for when my son visits, haven't touched it in years."
Edward didn't refuse so Dan took it as permission to pour him a glass of the deep brown liquid. He stuck the bottle back into the cupboard and scooped the glasses up, hobbling back into the centre of the room.
Edward took the glass and Dan gestured to two grubby looking armchairs set around a coffee table, Edward chose one and sat down.
On the far wall, there was a flat screen set into the wall looping some news footage of a war in some far off country. That was one thing that never changed.
"So, your release was big news. You got a whole fifteen minute segment between details about the war in Crapanistan and the war in the People's Republic of Crap on channel sixteen," Dan said, taking a larger-than-necessary swig of his whiskey.
Edward took his first gulp of alcohol that wasn't brewed in a toilet for more than three decades, immediately remembering that even before he was put in prison, he never liked whiskey. He choked it back and forced a smile.
"Lucky me, eh?"
Dan nodded.
"What have you been up to since," Edward struggled to think of the right term to reference the days they'd known each other, "back then?"
"The good old days?" Dan replied sarcastically, "not much. Had some kids, wore a suit for twenty-five years after, worked for some jumped up prick in a stuffy office up on third. Retired out in the sticks with the woman I loved for the next ten. She got caught up in that whole Next Republic thing over in the Washington Zone, you hear about that?"
Edward doubted there was a person in the whole of North America that hadn't heard about the Next Republic attack in Washington, there wasn't a person he knew in the penitentiary that didn't know somebody that had died.
"She wasn't in any of the blasts but the crap they used got into her blood, she didn't last long. I had a stroke and my beautiful little boy stuck me here," Dan finished, taking another gulp of his drink.
"I'm sorry to hear about your wife," Edward said with as much real emotion as he could muster.
Dan shook his head, the memories obviously still raw in his mind.
"Not your fault, I'd rather she was dead than in one of these places, anyway."
The words were spoken in a cold and matter-of-fact way, making them more severe. Edward couldn't imagine what could make the place so awful that death was preferable. He didn't really want to think about it. He changed the subject.
"You ever hear from the other guys?" He asked, placing the whiskey down on the coffee table hoping Dan wouldn't notice that he hadn't touched it until after he was gone.
Dan laughed.
"The other guys?" He sneered, "what other guys? Half of them are dead, half of them are in prison. Two of them disappeared to Europe or some shit. You heard about Castells, though, right?"
Edward shook his head, remembering the tall, smooth-talking man in the perma-suit and tie that they had all followed for some unknown reason all those years ago.
"Ran for office!" Dan cackled, a throaty, broken cackle, "he's the goddamn Governor."
Even Edward was aware of how high his eyebrows were.
"They let Castells into city office?" He asked, disbelievingly, "Sergei Castells? What about all his previous?"
Dan smiled.
"The job that they threw you under the train for?" Dan said, "set him up for life, bought his way into politics. He ratted the rest of them out later, last man standing. The only free man left with a claim to that money."
"Not anymore," Edward said sharply. Dan just chuckled.
"You really want to take him on? He's got the whole city patrol at his beck and call, they're his own damn personal hit-squad, you're just one old man. Once you accept that, it gets easier, trust me."
Edward didn't reply, he just looked out into space for a few quiet moments.
"Half of that money is mine by right, Dan," Edward said, "am I just supposed to let that go?"
Dan just tipped his head.
"I'm not your damn therapist," he said sharply, before his face softened, "I'm not saying that money isn't yours, I'm just saying that there's a damn good chance you'll die trying to get it."
"I'm not really living for much else right now," Edward replied, matter-of-factly.
Dan nodded slowly, drained the rest of his drink and dropped the glass a little too heavily onto the glass of the coffee table.
"And how would you do it?" Dan asked.
"There's really only one thing I'm very good at, in all honesty," Edward said. He didn't have to specify what that one thing was.
"Fair enough," Dan said, "Castells owns a private gallery on the Upper East Side, the Neo-Metropol. He buys anything that takes his fancy and puts it on show there so nobody forgets that he's rich. If you're looking to steal from him, that's the place you want to look."
Edward looked Dan in the eye and gave him a rusty look of sincerity.
"Much appreciated," he said.
Dan picked up his glass and struggled back into the kitchen area.
"If I may be so bold, old pal, you ain't exactly in the best shape to take on a job right now. No offence," he said.
Edward felt himself laughing, it was a strange but not unwelcome feeling.
"That's a very good point."
It was then that the TV on the wall switched to a long-shot of a building that Edward vaguely recognised from somewhere.
A subtitle beneath the image named it as the Astoria Museum, in sector nine.
According to the reporter in the too-neat suit and tie, somebody had managed to break through the bleeding-edge security system and steal almost a hundred thousand credits' worth of jewels.
Edward found himself smiling again.
"Thanks for the drink, Dan," he said, picking his hat up from the coffee table and standing up.
Dan came back into the lounge area carrying a credit chit.
"Take this," Dan said.
"Dan, you can't give me this," Edward protested.
"Bullshit, you smell awful and we've already covered the fact that you look like crap," Dan told him firmly, "it's not much, but I managed to save something in all those years that I worked for that jumped up prick."
Dan placed it in Edward's hands resolutely, and eventually Edward took it.
"One more thing," Dan smirked, "when you see that pompous asshole Sergei, tell him I said 'fuck you'."
Edward nodded, pocketing the credits and shaking Dan's hand.
"I'll make sure of it," Edward told him.
Edward left the home with a renewed sense of purpose, something he hadn't expected to get when he'd woken up in the grotty hostel that morning still dressed in the clothes he'd been wearing when he'd been released.
He didn't know how he was going to do it, but he was going to take back from Sergei Castells money that was rightfully his.
But Dan had been right, he was just one old man, he couldn't do it alone. He was going to need to find some help, and he had an idea of where to start.