Delany: Discount

I met Corbin when we were fifteen. He was stealing candy from a pharmacy. I was selling Hero Cards at the same pharmacy. That was nine years ago.

We have been friends together ever since.

Tonight we are driving a white box truck with a magnetic logo on the door. The logo says H.I.B. Heroic Infrastructure Bureau. Corbin made the logo. I made up the name. The truck belongs to a landscaping company. We borrowed it. They do not know we borrowed it.

Corbin is at the wheel. I am in the passenger seat with a tablet. The tablet shows a map of Queen's Valley. A gated community forty eight miles west of Delany. Heroes live there. Heroes train there. A hero named Glint founded a university there. His old equipment is stored in a basement under Training Building B.

Kleros told us that.

Kleros is a hero. Beloved. Famous. He does car insurance commercials. He also gives us information on other heroes because we have photos of his kids and photos of him in a musical from 2004. The costume was tight. He looked embarrassed.

He knows we are robbing Glint. He gave us the guard rotations anyway. He does not care.

The drive to Queen's Valley took an hour. Corbin drove the whole way without saying much. I watched the city lights fade behind us. The highway turned dark. Trees on both sides. No streetlights. Just the headlights and the white line.

I thought about the first time we tried something like this. Not a hero. A pawn shop. We were eighteen. Corbin got caught because he tried to steal a stereo. I ran. He did not tell the police my name. That was the year I decided he was my best friend.

The gate to Queen's Valley appeared ahead. Two lanes. A guard shack with a light on. A red and white striped arm across the road.

Corbin slowed the truck. He pulled a work order from the dashboard. Fake. I printed it on thick paper. It looked official if you did not look too close.

The guard came out of the shack. Older guy. Gray hair. A uniform that fit badly. He held a flashlight but did not turn it on.

CORBIN

H.I.B. Security check. West side.

The guard looked at the work order. He looked at the logo on the door. He looked at us.

GUARD

You're late.

CORBIN

Traffic.

GUARD

At two in the morning.

CORBIN

People drive at two in the morning.

The guard stared at him. Corbin stared back. I held my breath.

The guard waved us through.

The arm went up. Corbin drove.

We did not speak until the gate was out of sight.

The campus spread out around us. Dark buildings. Well lit paths. A clock tower in the center. Student housing on the east side. Faculty housing to the north. Training Building B sat in the middle. Low roof. No windows. A loading dock on the west side.

Corbin parked near the dock. He killed the engine.

I checked the time on the tablet. 2:03 AM. Kleros said the night guard did his rounds at 2:00. We had a window.

We walked to the loading dock. A steel door. A keypad. Corbin punched in the code Kleros gave him. The lock clicked.

Inside was dark. Corbin turned on his headlamp. The light swept across a hallway. Concrete floor. Gray walls. Pipes along the ceiling.

We followed the hallway to a stairwell. Down two flights. The air got colder. The lights were off. Kleros said the basement security system shut down for maintenance every night from 2:05 to 2:10. He did not say why. He did not ask why we needed to know.

We reached the basement door. Another keypad. Another code.

Corbin typed. The door opened.

The room was large. Metal shelves. Wooden crates. Cardboard boxes. Old equipment everywhere. A suit of armor on a mannequin. A pair of boots with rocket nozzles on the heels. A helmet with a cracked visor.

I grabbed a hard drive from a shelf. It was small. Metal. No label. I put it in my bag.

Corbin picked up two gauntlets. Metal. Wires. A button on each palm. He pressed one. Nothing happened. He put them in his bag anyway.

I saw a notebook on a crate. Handwritten. The cover said "Training Protocols. Do Not Remove." I took it.

We had three minutes left.

I spotted a crate labeled "Prototype Blasters." Heavy. Too heavy. I left it.

Corbin found a box of power cells. Small. Glowing blue. He took four.

The lights flickered.

CORBIN

Time.

We ran.

Back up the stairs. Through the hallway. Out the steel door. Into the truck. Corbin started the engine as I closed my passenger door.

We drove toward the gate. The guard waved us through. He did not look at the work order again. He was watching something on his phone.

We hit the highway. Delany was forty eight miles east. The sky was dark. The road was empty.

Corbin asked what we got.

I showed him the hard drive and the notebook.

He showed me the gauntlets and the power cells.

I asked if the gauntlets worked.

He said he did not know.

I asked why he took them.

He said they looked shiny.

That was the whole plan. That was the whole job. We drove back to Delany with a truck full of stolen equipment we did not understand.

I asked Corbin what we do now.

He said we find a buyer.

I asked who.

He said he knows a guy.

I did not ask which guy. Corbin knows a lot of guys. Some of them exist. Some of them do not.

The sun started coming up behind us. The highway turned into city streets. The city turned into the neighborhood where we park the van.

We pulled into the alley behind our spot. The truck still had the magnetic logos. I peeled them off. Stuck them to the inside of the glove box.

Corbin killed the engine.

We sat in silence.

I thought about Kleros. About his kids. About the musical. About the way he waved when we left his house after the cookout. He hates us. He also does not want us dead. Those two things should not fit together. They do.

Corbin opened his door.

CORBIN

I need coffee.

He walked toward the diner on the corner. I followed.

The diner was nearly empty. A few old men at the counter. A cook visible through a window. The waitress had tired eyes. She brought coffee. Black. Hot. We did not order food.

I looked at the notebook. Handwritten notes. Diagrams. Security protocols for hero facilities across the country. Glint was careless. He wrote everything down. He left everything in a basement with a lock that took three seconds to open.

Corbin sipped his coffee.

CORBIN

How much you think the gauntlets are worth.

ME

No idea.

CORBIN

They look expensive.

ME

Lots of things look expensive.

He nodded. He did not argue.

The waitress came back. She asked if we wanted anything else.

Corbin said a million dollars.

She did not laugh.

I thought about selling Hero Cards in that pharmacy nine years ago. Some kid came in with a rare Glint card. First edition. Mint condition. I offered him five dollars. He took it. I sold it three days later for a hundred.

That was my first score. Not a heist. Not a robbery. Just a kid who did not know what he had.

That is still the job. Finding people who do not know what they have.

Corbin finished his coffee. He looked at the gauntlets again. Pressed the button on the left one. Nothing happened.

CORBIN

Maybe they need power cells.

ME

You took four power cells.

CORBIN

I know.

ME

So try them.

CORBIN

Not here.

He put the gauntlets back in his bag.

We sat for a while longer. The waitress did not come back. The old men at the counter did not look at us.

Corbin said we should go. I agreed.

We walked back to the truck. We drove to the van. We transferred the stolen equipment. The hard drive. The notebook. The gauntlets. The power cells.

Corbin hid the gauntlets under a blanket in the back. I put the hard drive in a lockbox. The notebook went on the dashboard.

Tomorrow we find a buyer.

Tonight we sleep.

I closed my eyes. I did not dream. I never dream about the jobs. I dream about the van. The same dream every time. The van is parked somewhere I do not recognize. The doors are locked. I cannot find the keys.

That is probably not a good sign.

I do not think about it.

I sleep.