Here is a preview of what i'm working on today.
I
Tagori looked behind him. He could see a group of people behind him that he felt he should know. There were eight people, each of them looked sad, yet at the same time very happy. They were all standing on a cliff next to a waterfall. He looked below him. He was riding a large blue dragon. Tagori wasn’t sure if this beast was a true dragon, but it was the closest thing he could compare this thing to. He rode the dragon off towards the rising sun. The group slowly faded away.
Tagori awoke with a start. The dream he just had was strange. Where was he? Tagori knew of a waterfall up the Grand River, but he had never been there himself. Why did he know of the waterfall?
Tagori was a man of nineteen. He had curly brown hair, and a goatee that hid a small scar on his chin. Tagori’s eyes were a dark shade of green, almost grey. His right eye had a section of brown in it. His eyes were usually filled with sadness, though about what was unsure. His body was toned, though not muscular in any way.
Tagori’s cell phone rang on his dresser, breaking his chain of thought. He looked at the screen. Secured number? It didn’t matter; Tagori knew exactly who it was.
“What do you need this time?” Tagori said into the phone.
“As friendly as always, I see,” the man on the other side of the phone said. His voice was deep and gravely.
“Why be friendly when you have no need for friends?” Tagori asked nearly angrily.
“With an attitude like that, who can argue?” The man on the phone said.
“Mr. Roe, is there a reason you called me?” Tagori asked annoyed.
“Very well then,” Mr. Roe said, “I need you to acquire an energy core. This is basically going to be the battery for an invention of mine. You see, what it does is…”
Tagori cut him off. “I don’t need to know what it does, all I need to know is where it is and how it’s guarded.”
“That’s why I keep coming back to you,” Mr. Roe said. “The information is being uploaded to your phone right now.”
Tagori looked at the screen on his phone. A file was just finishing being downloaded.
“Now, my pay…? Tagori asked.
"I shall pay you the usual: two-hundred and ten thousand,” Mr. Roe clarified.
“I might start to raise my prices soon. I’ll have it by tomorrow night,” Tagori said.
Tagori hung up the phone. He walked over to his dresser and pulled out his unique clothing for performing jobs like this. They were dark gray and black clothes. Grays and blacks were perfect for muddling the light, blending the wearer into the darkness. Tagori grabbed his twin daggers and put the sheathed blades on his belt. He also strapped a small bag to his back that fit snuggly and had proven not to move when he jumped and moved around. Finally, he put on a mask that was fit to his face yet distorted the shape to prevent any facial recognition technology to identify him. The mask somewhat resembled a bird’s head, with a beak jutting from where his nose was. The eyes were opened allowing him greater visibility. If Tagori’s eyes were sad, Nightwind’s eyes appeared to be angry. With the addition of the mask, Tagori was put to sleep and Nightwind took over. Nightwind crawled out of his window onto his roof. He owned a small, three story white house. Sometimes he thought the house was taller than it was wider. He was exaggerating most of the time though.
Nightwind lived where the residential district and the business district blended into one. Houses, apartments, and stores were everywhere around. Geographically he lived on the southwest corner of Norico Island. Norico had grown greatly in the past century.
Nightwind pulled up his hood and climbed down the three stories to the street. He then climbed into a service hatch to the subway tunnels which he followed to a station near the facility where the energy core was. Nightwind climbed a nearby skyscraper with a small grappling hook to get a better view of the facility. Near the middle of the tower, on a small landing, Nightwind pulled out a small telescope to see inside. Nightwind first looked at his phone. 3:18 in the morning. Perfect. He pulled up the schematics of the building Mr. Roe had sent him. The schematics animated themselves on the screen, easily showing Nightwind where the core was. Fifth floor, small room three doors from the elevator. No windows in the room. Ventilation would be Nightwind’s only way into the room.
He decided that now would be as good a time as any to go for the power cell. Nightwind stood and threw his grappling hook at the roof of the facility. He tied the other end to a steady looking antenna. Nightwind thought he would need to case the facility for the night before he attempted the theft.
A thought came to Nightwind’s mind: why was Mr. Roe paying so much for such an easy task? It didn’t matter, it was more money in his pocket.
Nightwind grabbed the rope and slid across. He moved to the nearest air vent, opened it and jumped inside, lowering himself slowly to prevent too much sound from being made. He laid down on the floor of the duct to look at his phone. A unique program mapped out the best course for him. He took note of the route that would take him the two stories down. Nightwind began crawling in the direction his phone had told him, staying on his fingertips to stay as quite as possible. The central shaft was large and dropped down to the boiler room, two basements beneath the building, nine floors straight down. Nightwind didn’t even want to think of how much it would hurt if he fell all that way.
Nightwind grabbed onto the edge of the duct and slowly pulled his legs out. His body flipped over and his back hit the wall, nearly making him loose his grip. He put one foot on the wall behind him and pushed out, trying to reach the far wall with his other. The walls were just close enough for him to reach. He lowered himself one floor, then two. He nearly dove into the duct to get out of the central shaft. Nightwind pulled his phone out once more to look at the map. It was nearly a straight path, but he would need to turn left at the second vent. He put his phone away and began crawling again. He stopped when he could hear two men talking. The talking grew louder as he continued to crawl.
A vent was just ahead of him. Below, Nightwind could see the two men. They were armed with custom broadswords and dressed in black suits. The suits were understandable, but the swords told Nightwind that this was a wealthy company. Most guards had simple, mass-produced long swords. A company wouldn’t give their guards custom swords, especially custom broadswords, unless they needed to defend or hide something. Nightwind couldn’t think of anything the company would need to spend so much on to protect, so he figured it was the later of the two options. Would Nightwind be taking that secret tonight? He didn’t care, he had a job to do and he was going to finish it.
He carefully crawled over the vent and found the duct he needed to turn into. The first vent looked directly into the room where the power cell was. He quickly looked at what he could see. Nothing unusual. Cameras were probably hidden in the corners. Nightwind reached into his bag and pulled out a small ball. Nightwind looked at his phone to get an exact layout of the room and where the cell was. He grabbed the vent and pushed it down slightly, keeping hold of it. He stuck his other hand out and threw the ball at the floor, where it burst apart, releasing a large quantity of smoke. He let go of the vent, allowing it to swing open and he fell into the room, flipping before he hit the ground. He ran to the wall, where the cell was, quickly scanning to find it. It didn’t take long to appear before him. He pulled a lever down next to the cell, releasing it from the wall. He shoved the cell in his bag and ran back to the vent. He jumped, grabbed onto the side and pulled himself up into the duct. He pulled the vent shut behind him. He hurried away from the room, back to the central shaft and swung out again. He quickly shuffled up the shaft to the seventh floor vent. He crawled in, quickly making his way to the vent that would allow him to escape.
Nightwind crawled out of the vent onto the roof of the facility. He ran to his hook and turned a dial on the base of it. Fifteen seconds. He has fifteen seconds to travel across the line to where he started the heist. He jumped as far as he could, grabbing onto the rope. He swung his legs up and began sliding across the rope. The rope became slack just as his back was over the ledge. Nightwind began pulling the rope in. He looked at the hook at the end of the rope. The points were extended like they should be to allow the hook to come off. Nightwind had made the hook with a timer that would make the claws pop open. This had solved many of his problems with retrieving his hooks.
Nightwind wasn’t safe yet. The security would be looking for him now. He needed to get as far away as possible. Nightwind ran to the wall to his left. He saw a fire escape on the adjacent building. He took a few steps back and jumped. He fell one story. At the next landing, he grabbed the floor, swinging him onto the next landing. He grabbed hold of the railing in front of him, to keep him from falling off. Nightwind continued down the fire escape and back into the streets, finding the station that led to his abandoned subway tunnel. The tunnel led him back to his neighborhood. In the middle of the tunnel, Nightwind sat and pulled out his phone. He pressed a few buttons, put the phone up to his ear and listened to it ring. Soon the man on the other end picked up.
“Hello?” Mr. Roe said.
“I have it. Where do you want me to leave it?” Nightwind said.
“Actually, I’ll be sending one of my men out to get it from you. I’ll need you to meet him behind the Nova Rica club. Do you think you could make it?” Mr. Roe said.
“No problem. I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Nightwind said.
“The van should be waiting,” Mr. Roe said.
Nightwind hung up the phone without saying another word.
