'G'morning Tom!' I say as I put my hands on the counter. No one in Tom's diner is actually called Tom but locals, including me, always say it. Lena greets me in a way that always makes me smile, even on the worst mornings.
'What'll it be V?'
I don't have to think too much about it, Jackie always wants 2 donuts and a black coffee.
'2 coffee, 1 black and 1 with a sugar and 2 glazed donuts and a jelly donut please.'
She grins and whispers under her breath 'Jackie and V, going on a mission.'
'Hey! How'd you know?'
'Heheh i know all' she grins even wider and laughs 'Just kidding, thats what u always order when youre going on a mish. usually you come in super late the next day and tell me about it while drinking you're coffee. After a while I noticed, It makes me pray to see you the next day.'
It annoys me that someone would be anxious for me, not because I dislike her, but because anything could go wrong in my line of work and if i dont come back the next day I know she would be heartbroken.
'Interesting, dont worry too much about me though, thanks for the coffee!'
I wink at her while making a mental note to always come in the next day after ordering 3 donuts and 2 coffee to not make Lena too worried.
I bang on the garage door 'Wakey wakey! hellooo?'
Suddenly a hand on my shoulder scares the crap out of me, I turn around and Jackie is standing with his arms folded over one another and a huge grin on his face.
'Jesus- you scared me man, am I at the wrong door or something?'
'No this is my place chica, I was just inside the bar getting the clothes.'
I frown
'And no! My mom did not wash them.'
My frown immediately clears up. 'What a good boy!' As if I'm speaking to a dog.
He rolls his eyes and I laugh.
'seriously though Jackster, I'm happy about that. poor mama Welles always cleaning our stuff, she deserves a vacation.'
'You could say that, yes.' He silently says.
'Onwards!' I point to my car.
1 hour later
'No jackie! You. Will. Not. Eat. My. Donut! Ugh I knew I should've gotten 4'
Jackie laughs at our bickering over the last donut.
'Fine!' he throws his hands up like an angry teen.
It always happens, and I'm sure I tell Lena about it too but she never reminds me when I come in to do the usual order, either she forgets or she likes hearing of our disputes.
We've been waiting in front of this building for so long now.
'I'm getting tired of waiting and these clothes are so scratchy!' 'Let me call her if she doesn't call soon n-' just as he says the last words of his complaint his phone rings and quickly picks up.
'Hi Wakako... yeah we're here... for a while now... no!... What do you mean too many donuts?.. watch my weight?..'
I quickly grab the phone. 'Hey Wakako! its V here!'
Hello dear, I was just telling Ja-'
'sorry to bother Wakako but is this really important to whatever we're going to do now? just tell us what to do.'
'Good, I need you to walk inside to office number 7, it'll be easy enough to find on your own and then call me back. Understood?'
'Do we really need to be handheld for this?' 'yes.'
I hear a click so there's no room or time for discussion, a long sigh escapes my mouth. Jackie looks in pain about the whole situation, even though I'm not sure if its because of the comment Wakako made, or about how she's going to walk us through it directly.
'Well, we gotta go now.' I mumble as we get out of the car.
The guard greets us and we nod while chipping our ID at a scanner, we walk inside with no suspicion from the guard whatsoever.
'That was easy.' I whisper to Jackie but he doesn't say anything back.
Inside we look around a little bit. Wakako didnt bother to give us directions but the building was a little more chaotic than expected. A line in front of the secretary and people in similar outfits running around us. Without exchanging a single word we understood that at first glance people wouldn't notice we didn't belong here but we couldn't stand around too long or someone was bound to notice. suddenly I see a map so I tug Jackie in the direction and we quickly pace to the map.
Jackie finds the 7th office first, pointing to the second floor and the second room out of the elevator. Once again in complete silence we move to the elevator that once it opens has 3 other people in it already, one person runs out but the 2 others stand still and eye us down. The elevator wasn't really made for 4 people, especially not if one of them is as broad as Jackie, but we can't risk getting separated so we just squish ourselves inside. there's an awkward silence until the elevator finally stops again and we get out.
suddenly we stand on a completely empty floor, we hear noises but all muffled by doors and walls.
'Geez, felt like I couldn't breathe in there.'
'same' we share a glance and then walk to the second office door we see. In big block letters it says 7th office.
'bingo.'
we scan our ID's and the door opens with a ping, inside office 7 are three desks and a little coffee machine on a mini fridge.
'Luxurious...' jackie whistles as he walks around and tries out the chairs.
I smile and walk to the minifridge to check the content, expecting an old salad or XXL burrito's. Instead I find a cannister that somehow looked incredibly suspicious, and not good for consumption. Quickly I close the door again and phone Wakako.
'What took you so long?' She sounds pissed.
'You're easy office is super crowded and maze like Wakako, but we found it and are sitting here now.' I spit back.
'Hm fine, good.'
Jackie turns to look my way with raised eyebrows, I point at my ears and roll my eyes.
'Just begin to tell me what we're doing here Wakako, I'm getting tired of knowing nothing.'
'I didn't want to say earlier because you might have refused, you are going to be actors for a day.'
My face gets extremely red.
'An Act?? You want us to do some theater? Like actors? That's what you ordered us to do here?!'
My voice gets louder and Jackie shushes me a little.
'We are mercs, Wakako!' I can't help but feel offended.
'Exactly, you two are perfect for what I had in mind, and it's still a job V, no questions.'
I get redder and redder but push the anger down, it's of no use getting angry over the phone anyways.
'Wakako, if whatever you say next, displeases me only a little bit, I delta the fuck out of here. And I don't care that I'm being payed or not.'
There's a silence.
'I understand how you feel V, but what I said in the office still stands. Our future will be greatly impacted if you refuse to do whatever I tell you to do today, and I'm not asking you to put on a monkey suit and dance around either.
I take a long breath and silently pray she knows what she's doing.
'Fine! Tell me.'
'You'll find mr. Parker in the lounge in exactly 42 minutes, enter the lounge and act natural, take a cookie if you please.'
'A cookie, okay, noted. Anything else important? Maybe what tiles to step on?'
'Calm, V. I'm getting to the important part.'
Jackie spins in the chair while reading a corpo mag.
'So, as I was saying, act natural in the lounge and wait for the other people to leave, mr. Parker wants the lounge for himself so he won't move. When he is alone let Jackie guard the door while you rob the man, but you won't rob the man of money, you're going to ask for information. I need you to ask for-'
I cut her off 'Fucksake Wakako, could've given me the script in advance.'
'You would not have learnt it anyways.'
'Eh true, carry on.'
'Ask for his plans, and the recipe for CHOO3. Good?'
'Hm, one question.'
'Go ahead.'
'May I use the word fuckface Wakako pretty please.'
she laughs silently
'No, but you may curse at him, don't overdo it V.'
'How many times is overdoing it.'
'V.'
'Okaaay.' I reply with a grin.
'Good luck you two, I know you can do it.'
A soft click and her icon disappears.
'Okay Jackers, let me walk you through it.'
After 30 more minutes of explaining, laughing about the dumb luxury items corpo's have in their office, and eating snacks we find, it's finally time to move up to the lounge. We walk to this room in a slow pace, knowing that we don't have to enter yet. Once arrived at this lounge though we can't help but stop and look at the beauty of this place, it's extremely luxurious, what had earlier seemed like a very neat and highclass office now only seemed middleclass at best. The walls are covered in black and white pictures as if to say 'we're too good for color', and in the kitchen corner they have an AI coffee machine that you can speak to. The dishes had golden details carved into them and the food was prepared by a chef in the room next door, and the chairs all seemed very uncomfortable yet cozy and snug somehow.
'Starting to feel less and less bad for those people we robbed.'
Jackie hufs and walks to the kitchen island with different kinds of food, closely inspecting all of it. I follow close behind.
We each grab a cookie and silently glare at the people standing near the seats.
I do a quick scan of the room to find out who our guy is, i find him near the biggest black and white photograph there is, talking to a woman. At first I don't think much of it but i realise this is the woman who we saw before from inside the vents. It hits me that Wakako's plan wouldn't work because whatever they're planning on doing, they do it together.
'Jackie, call Wakako, right now.'
He side eyes me with pressed lips while ringing Wakako, several seconds later he lowers his head.
'She won't pick up.'
'What? Can't be, she always picks up.'
'I tried 3 times V, she might be in a different call.'
'Fuck! We don't have much longer we gotta think of something.'
'Okay, I might have a plan, but it's risky.'
'We don't have much choice.'
'Right, I'm going to need all your trust.'
'Already got that Jackie.'
Then the last person exits the room leaving just me, Jackie, this bitch who ruined everything, and Parker in the lounge.
'Now or never Jack.' I whisper, he gives me an invisible nod to confirm that we're all in.
'Mr. Parker! Pleasure to meet you!'
'The pleasure is all mine uh ...?'
'Brent, sir, Brent Anderson, I've been working here for uhh, a couple years now. What brings you to our building?'
It takes me a milisec to realise that they're both bluffing, I almost start laughing but have to hold it, just in case though I turn around and press some random buttons on the AI coffee machine.
'Well mr. Anderson, I had to check up on how everything is rolling in the smaller branches of course!'
'Right, right. So how's the check up going? Not mediocre I hope!'
He throws in a big hearty laugh that would've sounded fake on anyone else, but he made it sound real. The performance was almost BD worthy.
'Not terrible at all! Look pal, I'm really busy in here, I know it's not the most ideal space to use but I don't have an office here so-'
'Well our office is spacey enough for 4, and our office is yours, right Clove?'
Fuck. I was not expecting to be needed in this act, plus I just took a sip of this coffee that was randomly put together and apparently I put salt in here? Why was that even an option? Weirdo corpo fucks. After a second of choking I throw a thumbs up in Parkers direction. Jackie gives me a painful stare before returning to his conversation.
'We don't mind sharing, we're just in 7 over there!'
'That's a lovely offer Brent, but we're perfectly fine in here.'
'Well speaking from an experienced office worker, I suggest working inside of an actual office is much better than the break room.'
'For sure!' I pitch in to show Jackie that I caught onto his plan, we need to move these people into the office space so we can discuss the CHOO3 situation without anyone walking in.
After a little more convincing they finally agreed to go to office 7. Jackie opens the door with his keycard and we walk in, without a word I go to my desk and he goes to his, once the door closes we both pull out our guns and aim at the corpo's.
'Play time is over mr. Parker, hand over the recipe for CHOO3.'
Mr. Parker chuckles and puts his hands up. With all the bluffing Jackie was doing I really thought we came off alteast a little realistic.
'Looks like we've been caught, my dear.'
'It seems so.'
She also puts her hands up but they both have this smug look on their faces as if they know we won't shoot.
'Stop with the charismatic act asshole, hand over the files and we'll be gone.'
'If I may pitch in, who do you work for sweetheart.'
'Not any of your concern, giv-'
Jackies phone starts ringing and he answers.
'Kind of in the middle of something here, Wakako.'
'Wakako! Lovely lady, very passionate, how is she?'
I could throw a knife at Jackie.
'Why do you care so much old man, I'm getting a little tired of your shit, just hand it over and we're gone! Otherwise I'll give you a clue, these walls are pretty sound proof.'
This scared lady 'miss up in my shit' a little too much and she took a step back towards her bag.
'Fine! but know that we can remake this recipe you know, the plans we can do without and stuff.'
'Sure! It's none of my business what the hell you do after this. Only you can't make this recipe as a corpse!'
Wakako precisely asked me for the papers, she has her ways, probably has 300 tygers waiting for these two outside their penthouse.
'You just want the papers? That's all?'
'Yup, then we delta, simple as that.'
'Alright, well take care then.'
Parker reaches into the bag but then decides to just hand me the whole thing, he slowly grabs it and throws it my way. When I grab the bag I sign Jackie to open the door and we walk out of there as quick as possible while Jackie calls Wakako back.
'Hello Jackie, are you going to hang up on me again?'
'Sorry Wakako, we just found ourselves in a bit of a pickle.'
'Sure, tell me everything later, now, do you have the papers? And are they still alive?'
'Yes and yes.'
'Good, good job. Talk more later, I am as you call it, also in a bit of a pickle.'
A click from the phone and a sigh from Jackie.
'I could absolutely use a drink after all of that, and maybe we burn these uniforms too, they're so fucking itchy.'
'You are absolutely right, I need a drink right now.'
A couple hours later we sit in front of a fire with 2 bottles of whisky and the ID's in front of us.
'To Clove and Brent!'
'To Clove and Brent.'
I lean my head on Jackie's shoulder while sipping the bottle.