Chapter 1

In New York City, the largest bank in the country was surrounded by police officers and the National Guard. Across the street, every single window of every building had a sniper rifle sticking out into the air.

“Does anybody have eyes on the suspects?”

A voice said over the radio.

One by one, the snipers replied.

“Negative.”

At the very end of the building, on the top floor, one of the snipers was able to see right into a high end corner office. Two of the four walls were windows to the outside, with the inside walls being regular wood and drywall. Inside was a woman tied to a chair while one man walked around and another was hacking into a computer.

“Negative.” The sniper replied.

Inside the office, one of the men was typing away on the computer with a large drive attached to the computer. His back was to the window facing the building full of snipers.

He had short black hair, stubble covering the lower half of his face, and was wearing a very well tailored black suit.

The other man was walking around the room, dressed similarly but with longer hair that stuck out haphazardly in every direction, and thick framed black glasses sitting on his nose. He was looking over items on the shelves along the walls as well as the bookcase on the far wall across from the desk. He leaned down and picked up a framed picture of the woman and a small child. The door was wide open, other men and women walking throughout the floor going through every computer that sat in large cubicles, downloading more information onto small thumb drives.

“Your child looks quite beautiful. They look a lot like you.”

The man walked over to the owner of the bank, tied down to a chair with more tape covering their mouth. The woman looked over with anger in her eyes as he held the picture up to her face

“Don’t get too upset,”

The man standing next to her snapped his fingers.

A red laser dot appeared on the woman’s chest.

“Any sudden movements and that spot right there is going to be pierced by a fifty caliber bullet.”

The laser suddenly disappeared as the man put the picture on the desk.

“I gotta say, I was expecting more security on this system.” The man typing away said.

“That makes it kind of sad. So much important information and we can just waltz on in here and take it all away.”

The two men continued to work as the woman kept sitting in the chair. Behind her back, she had managed to sneak her keys to her hand and began to quietly but quickly use them to cut the tape.

“How much longer?” The man wearing glasses asked.

“Should be another two minutes. As long as the police don’t enter the building…”

“The police are entering the building.”

A voice came over a walkie talkie attached to the computer man’s waist band.

“Well…shit.”

The man wearing glasses seemed to pull a handgun from thin air as he cocked back the slide.

“Alright everyone, we got two minutes till the information is downloaded. Protect Cyber at all costs!”

The other people on the floor got up from their spaces and quickly made sure their guns were ready to go.

Cyber, as his name was revealed, continued to work on the computer, thousands of files being downloaded from the computer onto the drive he brought.

The woman sitting in her chair was finally able to slice through her tape, but continued to sit still.

“We’re down to thirty seconds Capone.”

Capone smirked as he stood in the doorway. The other people with them were all ducking inside cubicles as they watched the elevator across the room. There were three elevators, and every single one was on the ground floor. The light up numbers that sat above every set of double doors began to flick through the floors one by one. They were all coming up at the same time, moving at the same pace. As the elevators got within five floors, all of the guns locked and loaded once again.

“Almost there.” Cyber said.

The elevators all dinged. The CEO could hear them all at once and jumped up from her chair, tackling Capone onto the floor. All of the other thieves turned their attention back, but the elevator doors opened. All three were packed with police wearing head to toe riot armor, the front lines all holding shields down to the ground. Gunfire rang out loudly, filling the floor with a deafening cacophony of sound. Nobody could even hear themselves think as bullets flew every direction, shredding whatever they came across.

Capone looked down at the CEO who tried to stab him with her keys, but he just laughed as she couldn’t get them into his skin, only just able to puncture his clothing.

Cyber finished downloading and held up a thumbs up symbol.

The sniper across the street fired a round, shattering the window behind Cyber while the bullet was nowhere near. Cyber unplugged the drive and pulled out a briefcase that was hidden underneath the desk. Once it was shut, another bullet flew nowhere near and hit the wall, making it look like the sniper was trying his best to hit him.

The CEO was crawling along the floor to hide from the sea of gunfire. She managed to get inside a cubicle and crawled under a desk as dust, gunfire smoke, and shrapnel from everything being shredded by bullets created a thick cloud that made it difficult to see. After nearly two minutes of pure noise and carnage, the firing suddenly stopped.

It was deathly silent.

Something rolled on the floor towards the elevators. As the officers looked down, it looked like a grenade. While all of their attention was on the grenade on the ground, more flew high in the air and managed to land inside every elevator behind the officers.

“Get out!” One officer shouted.

All three elevators exploded simultaneously, sending blood and guts everywhere as all three boxes became shredded from the inside out. All three suddenly became too damaged as they all fell straight down, the sound of every one crashing into the ground floor filling the elevator shafts.

All of the thieves got up from their spots, the only wounds coming from splinters and shrapnel creating very minor cuts.

“Well…we gotta find a new way out.”

Capone said as he got to his feet.

“We got the data?” One of the women asked.

“Sure do.” Cyber said, walking out of the office with the briefcase.

One of the other people went over to the fake grenade on the ground, picking it up and reattaching it to their waistband.

“Well the drop is only fifty feet.” The person who reattached the dummy grenade said.

“You jump first, then catch all of us, yeah?” The woman joked back.

“Will you two shut up?”

Capone rubbed his eyes.

“Alright. Dynamite and Silent will set up some reppel lines. Eagle across the street will make sure you don’t get found out. Me, Cyber, and Stone will keep guard. Watch and Jumpstart will continue to download files off the computers.”

The group all bumped fists before moving to their positions.

Dynamite was the guy who picked up the fake grenade. He was a short man with buzzed blonde hair with matching blonde stubble. He had multiple small scars covering his head and neck, signs of a history of violence. He was wearing camouflage pants, jacket, and bullet covered in pouches full of explosives and ammo. He was holding a military grade assault rifle with a grenade launcher attachment under the barrel.

Silent moved to the corner office. They were dressed in all black, able to blend into shadows seamlessly. They were already the slimmest of the group, but the black only made it more exaggerated. The only weapons on their body was a pistol with a large silencer as well as incredibly small yet deadly knives. She had black hair as dark as her clothing down to her shoulders, almost making it all appear as a single fabric.

Stone was by far the largest of the group, towering over everyone with bulky muscles making them look like a bodybuilder drawn by a caricature artist. He had a large and bushy brown beard along with a bald head. He wore similar clothing to Dynamite, but his vest was unable to clip together, so he took some rope and tied it around to make the vest stay wrapped around his torso. He was carrying a large machine gun that had a long trail of ammo dragging along the floor. The gun was nearly the size of Dynamite and looked unwieldy to everyone else, but he threw it around like it was made of paper.

Watch was dressed in between the extremes. They weren’t in camouflage military gear, but not a fancy suit either. He was dressed more like a casual citizen. A nice salmon colored dress shirt and khaki pants, a very expensive watch on his wrist. He was holding two golden pistols, each one having been snucked in by holsters inside of his pants.

Jumpstart was the woman bickering with Dynamite. She had black war paint under her eyes and on her forehead. Her brown hair had blonde streaks showing in the elaborate braid she had running down her spine. She was holding a large pump action shotgun and was wearing a camouflage tank top and matching yoga pants. The only thing that could be considered armor on her body was steel toe boots that were obscured by the pants.

Cyber and Capone went into the corner office, Capone sitting behind the desk while Cyber sat where the CEO had previously been tied up. Dynamite and Silent made their way over to the blasted out window, carefully securing the end of the rappel lines before dropping them down along the wall.

“We gotta wait for the police to clear out.” Cyber said while pulling out a box of cigars, handing one to Capone. Capone lit the cigar for himself before tossing the lighter to Cyber. He grabbed the walkie talkie that was hidden underneath his suit jacket and attached to his waistband around his back.

“Distraction unit ready?” He asked.

“Yes sir.” A voice responded.

“Go.”

A few seconds later, a loud thunderous boom filled the air, having enough force to make the bank building shake. They could quickly hear the police vehicles start to drive quickly, sirens filling the air. Dynamite peeked over the edge to see the only vehicles left being a few ordinary patrol cars.

“Still got a few left.”

Capone removed the cigar from his mouth and used his walkie talkie again.

“Distraction two.”

Almost immediately after, another explosion came from the opposite direction. Dynamite watched as the remaining officers all got in their vehicles and drove off.

“All clear.”

Dynamite and Silent finally let the lines go all the way down to the ground. Stone walked in, carrying a large gym bag for every person. They all wrapped them diagonally around their torsos as they began to rappel down two at a time. Cyber and Capone were the only ones remaining when Capone stopped.

“Do you know what happened to the CEO?” He asked.

Cyber shrugged.

“Probably escaped.” He responded.

“Good. She didn’t seem too bad. I mean, she’s not the one who did this.” Capone said. Cyber handed Capone his lighter back.

They repelled down as the CEO finally came out from under the desk, looking around the destroyed floor. Nothing was salvageable.

The team all made it to the ground floor, but immediately went into the alleyway right next to the building. Stone removed the manhole cover that sat in the middle of the alleyway as every person climbed in one by one. Stone was the last person to walk down, pulling the cover over.

Eagle across the building continued to stare into the corner office. He was dressed head to toe in police riot gear, a massive sniper rifle sitting on the windowsill of the evacuated apartment building. He was the youngest of the team, no facial hair at all and almost a look of innocence.

The only people left over were the snipers across the street, a sniper on every floor.

“Any updates?” The commanding officer asked over the radio.

“Negative.” Repeated over and over by all of the other snipers. Eagle spotted the CEO and quickly pulled their gun back, attaching a large silencer as quickly as they could.

“Top floor?” The officer asked over the radio.

“Nothing sir.”

Once the silencer was attached, he got back in position before firing. Over a seperate radio, he heard Capone.

“Remember…no witnesses.”

Without hesitation, Eagle fired his gun in relative silence. The bullet managed to go between two panes of glass, driving through the building material and preventing either pane from breaking. The bullet raced forward and hit the CEO right in her solar plexus, causing her to gasp as her body was thrown backwards.

Blood was pouring from both holes in her torso while more began to pour out of her mouth. She stared at the fluorescent lights inside the ceiling while dust was thrown into the air.

The cloud of dust floated around quite peacefully, creating a dream-like haze that the lights illuminated quite beautifully. The CEO kept staring as tears ran down her face.

The tears mixed with the blood and caused it to pool faster and spread out quickly onto the multicolored carpet floor.

The dream haze began to fade as the light became fainter and fainter. She closed her eyes until there was no feeling in her body.

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