Chapter Text
Deep within the safehouse, Vernon Locke sat deep in thought. He was taking a brief respite from his scheming, sipping at his coffee. As of yet, the black cat’s vault seemed impenetrable, and the folders of blueprints and schematics had so far provided little help. The yacht served as their next target, and his comprehension of Chinese was decent, but it did not include advanced engineering terminology. He sat his mug back on the coaster, turning to the blueprints of the casino floor. He restarted the video feed from their insider, body-cam footage from a guest at a gala two months prior. The fire-suppression systems seemed potentially useful, he knew the vault was climate controlled, maybe they reused the sprinklers for a cooling loop? It was unlikely, but what else did they have?
His ruminations were interrupted by his answering machine ringing. Letting it go to the answering machine, he flipped through his folder for the piping overlay. It was another disappointment, an independent closed loop feeding from the ocean. It could cause a distraction if the crew burst it, but there were better options to achieve the same result. He placed the blueprints back, and played back the receiver.
“You have *one* new message. Caller-ID: The honorable scribe.” Locke sighed, and pressed the button to play the message,
“Locke my friend! I have a rather unusual request to make of you and your crew. There’s a little something that’s occurring in Montana, that you and the crew are uniquely qualified to take care of. Call me when you get a chance.”
He pressed the handset back onto its base, dialing Vlad’s number.
As so often is the case when dealing with Vlad, the only response Locke could give was stunned silence. Unusually, his response was due to how utterly upfront the information was. The phone buzzed twice before Vlad picked up.
“My friend, it is good to hear from you so soon! How is your planning going?”
“Slow, you have a job for us?”
“Down to business then. Back in the seventies, there was a serial killer and roboticist. He was brilliant, if heavily morally misguided. He was on track to do big things, but got himself killed. There’s been a string of copycat killers, which may or may be related, nobody really knows. Either way, he left his blueprints behind, which got into the wrong hands. His magnum opus has been built. I want it stolen.”
“Okay, any further details you can give us? Is this time sensitive? What kind of facility are we looking at, security level, theoretical police response time?” Locke leaned back in the chair, holding the handset in the crick of his neck. He flipped to the back of his notebook, preparing a new heist.
“It’s not that important. They probably don't know how it works, but they are rapidly accumulating fuel, if my sources are correct. There shouldn’t be much security, police presence in the area is low, however given the nature of the facility, a much larger police response would be expected.” Vlad explained, as Locke jotted down the notes.
“Alright, the main four are going to be out for a while on business, but get another team on it.”
“Unfortunate. You know I like my Change, but given the nature of the issue, your crew are the only ones I can go to.” Flipping to another page on his playbook, Locke starts writing down the details of the contract.
“I’ll send you the address, make sure Duke is involved, the job may require some of his expertise.”
“Oh. It’s one of those jobs? I had hoped that we were done with that kind of thing. Is there anything that we should know about the object?”
“My contact has been tracing it, however he lost track a few years ago. I would rather it be taken alive, or dead in its entirety. I’m not exactly sure what we’re dealing with, but that kind of shit is your specialty”
Locke transferred the phone to the other side of his neck, muttering to himself as he continued his notes.
“I’ll send you a copy of my info on it.” Vlad announced, before hanging up the phone. Locke sighed, slotting the phone into the charging station. He stretched out, straightened his posture, and got back to work. He opened up the advanced dossier on the vault. They could try to drill it, but the inside was unknown. It was custom-built, and he couldn’t get the documentation. The door had a bio-scanner, and that would hardly be easy to… He was dummkopf. The man had a bionic dominant hand. That would work. That's a decent plan A, now how to actually get the hand. He sat back down in the chair, pulling up Xun Kang's calendar. He could deal with Vlad’s mystic bullshit later, he had a heist to plan.
Bonnie, John and Sangres sat around the meeting table, the lavishly decorated meeting room, stuffed to the brim with all manner of their achievements in their career. Bhodi was in the corner of the room, messing around with a miniature sentry. John was looking through his phone, searching through the pet section on amazon. Bonnie was tapping on the table, humming as she waited. Sangres was half-asleep. They all turned as the door opened. Locke came into the room with his laptop.
“Great to see all of you here. Vlad’s came through with a job, we're looking at a two team setup, you four will be team A, looking to secure mission supplies for team B, who will be doing the infiltration of the main compound.” Locke pulled up a slideshow, “Your job is to retrieve intel from a VIP's apartment.” He flipped to the next slide. The image displayed was a man in a tailored white suit. “This is Alex Shaw, a minor shareholder in Afton Animatronics who oversaw the construction location we want to break into. You're going to break into his New York penthouse.” He flicked to the next slide, pulling up the blueprints for the apartment.
“We know that there is a wall safe and a panic room inside the apartment. He allegedly took some of his equipment home with him as a souvenir, which you need to retrieve.” He switched to the next slide, if it can be done without triggering the alarm, plant some coke in the wall safe, and exfiltrate.” He placed a small bag of cocaine on the table, and flicked to the next slide. “We’ve got multiple methods of entry, two of the window washers, the elevator, or firing a zip-line from another building. I’m still working on additional loot drop-off points, but using our entry point should be viable.” He circled multiple points on the schematics, I would rather it not go loud, as that would provide substantial suspicion on crew B. However, if it goes that way, we can either have Bile pick you up from the helipad, or go down the elevator and escape via the streets.
He slid a folder to each of the gathered crew. That’s the dossier on the target and the apartment. Study them, and be ready to ship out by Friday. Any questions?”
Bodhi raised his hand: “In the case that this job goes loud, what should we do with Alex Shaw? Kidnapping, or just murder?”
Locke thought for a minute, before responding: “Kidnapping could work. It would certainly help to bring heat off of the B-team if a loud approach appears to just be an attempt at extracting a ransom. I’ll get back to you on that. As for now, treat them like a civvie unless he’s armed . In that case, take him out as you see fit.” Locke typed a note on his laptop, before looking to the other members of the crew. “Any further questions?” Nobody responded. “Then you’re free to go. Send in Ethan and Hila.” The crew vacated the room, Bodhi taking the model turret with him. Locke settled into the chair at the far end of the table, dimming the lights and placing two folders in front of him on the table.
The two youtubers pushed open the door slowly, the creaking hinges echoing through the dark room.
“You wanted to see us?” Ethan's gravelly voice echoed through the room. He sat down slowly, his eyes darting around the room. Hila creeped in behind him, no less timidly, and sat down beside him.
“Yes. You dwankies are being sent on a recon mission. Get yourself wired up with cameras and microphones and explore as much of a location as is safely possible. You two are not my first choice, but you have the background that would allow you to extract more information out of the environment. Enjoy it, think of it as a vacation. Get enough footage to help us with the job, and then get out and enjoy yourselves. After you get out, use your experience in the matter to sue the hell out of them. Think of it as catharsis, for once you will be the one with control of your legal situation.” Locke slid the packets slowly across the table, and threw them a small bag of bills. “Consider this a business expense. More will be wired to your account after the footage is transmitted. Have fun.” Hila opened up the folder,
“What is this? We’ve already got cameras.” she complained.
“Hidden cameras. Because you are aiding in committing a crime. The other thing in the folder is a copy of stakeout for dummies, study it. It’s annotated.” Hila attempted to speak up, but Lock shushed her. “Send in Houston, Sokol, Clover, and Joy.”
The two quickly vacated the room, and the four came in soon after. They sat down, and started looking through the folders Locke supplied them.
“How would you liberate the magnum opus of a serial killer? Someone got in contact, and wants it out of their hands in a reasonable timeframe. It’s looking like an easy payday, some corporate espionage, a potential use case for disguises. How would you all like to be a wolf amongst robotic sheep?” He let them study the documents, and Sokol raised his hand.
“I’m looking at the dossier, why send us to steal from what amounts to a mechatronics engineer with a food service minor?”
“A large quantity of manslaughter charges, poor financial decisions, the doomsday cult connections, multiple exploded laboratories, and large advances in robotic sentience and multiple failed attempts at immortality.”
“Hold the phone Lockie, is this Fazbear entertainment?” Joy interrupted.
“Yes... It is. I was going to get to that if you gave me the chance. How did you know?” Locke replied slowly.
“You're just re-phrasing the character synopsis of W. Afton from Fazbear Frights: Help Wanted by Silver Parasol.” She replied, whilst thumbing through the folder. “I played it. It was a very nauseating experience, I would not recommend it.”
“Getting back on track. Once the A-team has retrieved mission critical equipment, you four will go into the facility disguised as new hires. Find the machine, disable and bag it. Then just walk out at the end of your shift. It’s a relatively simple heist, the vast majority of difficulty comes from deducing the actual target.” Locke explained, pulling up the street view of the main facility.
“Corporate espionage seems like a nice change of pace, doesn’t it?”
All it took was one look at Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex for Houston’s face to droop.
“This is from Vlad isn’t it?
Houston asked. All Locke had to do was give a small nod before Houston sat his his head on the table, groaned loudly and announced: “I’m in. Let’s see what we’re not told about this time.” He grumbled.
“If what was in the game has any truth to it, then this is going to be interesting experience. Does Vlad if any extra info gets mysteriously leaked?” Joy asked, malicious fascination spreading across her face.
“I will ask him, but it is unlikely he will care.” Locke responded.
“Good. I'm in.” Joy smugly replied.
“You had me doomsday cultist mechatronics engineer. I'm ready to go.” Sokol announced.
“Why the fuck not. However, if I am going to play a role. I want a position of authority with a heavily abusable power. Get me that, and I’m in.” Bonne responded, barely looking up from the folder.”
“Good. Any name suggestions go on the whiteboard in the hallway. You all are dismissed.”