The Neo-Metropol Heist

16: Edward

Edward checked his terminal for the fifth time in what could have only been half an hour, partly to consult the digital clock in the top right corner of the screen, but mostly to check whether he had any messages from Artem or Harry.
When he saw that there was nothing, he laid it back down onto the dresser next to the rotten old armchair in the corner of his hostel room.
With the amount of credits Dante had given him, Edward probably could have afforded to have moved somewhere where the corridors didn't smell vaguely like urine, he could maybe even have moved into Artem's huge tower apartment, but the fact was he was comfortable there.
Thirty-six years incarcerated meant that Edward had grown accustomed to seeing the same plain four walls around him. In the first few years, they had been something to fight against, a coffin that took his life and kept him in place until the day that he rotted away.
As the years had rolled by, however, he'd begun to see them as bulkheads protecting him from a world outside that had changed, beyond his ability to recognise him. Anybody he had known or even loved would have grown old and possibly even have died, all whilst he sat in his bubble. When he was there, it wasn't something that he needed to face.
When he had been released, the thing he found he struggled with most was there was so much open space.
So many people, so many new things to relearn, just too much of everything.
He'd heard about the ways that institutionalisation could affect you, but hadn't even imagined it would affect him. Back in prison, he'd seen men released and returned more times than he could count, like it was a revolving door, because they simply couldn't make it without those plain four walls.
He had no desire to go back to prison himself, but he could understand it. He had a focus: revenge, and that was enough to keep him distracted.
For now, though, the finite, enclosed space of the room was calming.
Edward licked his dry mouth and realised how much he wanted a drink. A real drink, something, anything to stop him thinking for a few hours.
He queried his terminal about where he could find the nearest bar, and it gave him a map of the local area with pins showing him where to go. He found directions to the nearest one and pulled himself out of the armchair, slipped on his thick winter coat and left his room.
The hostel was always noisy which was another thing be found comforting. It reminded him of the echoing, baritone roar that was constant between the hallways of the prison. If he was anywhere too quiet, he tended to be able to hear himself think, which wasn't an attractive prospect.
Leaving the building through the rusted old manual push door at the front, he found himself out in the damp street outside. Even when it hadn't rained, this end of the island always had a touch of moisture in the air, probably because if he went another block down he'd find himself standing in two feet of inky black seawater.
A large chunk of the island had sunk due to rising seawater in the time he'd been in prison. Of course, he'd heard all the warnings about rising sea levels when he was a kid, the punishment for mistreating Mother Earth for thousands of years, but he still found it difficult to make the connection in his head.
The sunken end of the island was still in use, but any kind of ground floor building had simply been abandoned, the people on the first floor up in skyscrapers thanking their lucky stars but knowing that it was only going to get worse from there.
He walked two blocks over, the only noise the ever constant stream of traffic fifteen metres above his head.
When he found the right street, his terminal pinged helpfully, but by then he'd already spotted the neon sign set above a door lowered into the pavement and accessed by a short staircase.
The sign was of a beer tankard, made of thousands of little LED lights, some of which had burned out leaving the picture pat he like an unfinished puzzle.
The name of the place buzzed underneath the tankard, 'O'Donoghue's', but there were a few letters missing so it was essentially half the word.
Edward stepped down the stained steps, leaning on his cane and going slowly, pushing open the door and into the warm, almost stuffy atmosphere.
Immediately, eyes were trained on him. This kind of establishment had a roster of regulars, and it wasn't the kind of place that random people wandered into. But then again, Edward wasn't one for following rules.
It wasn't a huge place, classically themed, with a huge oak bar on the far side, a few round tables scattered across the room and a series of red leather booths against the wall.
Edward tried to keep his posture relaxed in an attempt to ward off their judgmental stares, the place wasn't overly busy but the few that now watched his every move formed a wall that suffocated him.
He limped over to the bar and took a stool, a few across from a hulking man in a grey vest who leaned over a tall glass of beer.
Edward gestured for the barman and a lanky man in a grubby white shirt walked across to his end of the bar with a slow gait. He put his hands on the bar in front of Edward in a way that warned him that he wasn't welcome, but that his custom was.
"What can I get you?" The barman asked, thinning dirty blonde hair falling over his face.
"Whatever's on tap," the request might seem difficult and vague to the barman, but the truth was that Edward didn't even know if they would still have the drink he'd favoured when he was a young man.
The barman grunted and a few moments later dropped a grubby glass full of amber liquid onto the bar in front of him. Edward thanked him quietly, clumsily keyed the button that paid out credits from his terminal.
The barman waited for the bar terminal to accept it, then turned and returned to his place at the other end of the bar, re-joining a conversation with two men that reminded Edward vaguely of large rodents.
He lifted the glass to his dry lips and tested the drink, it was strong and bitter, but not unpleasant, and then just sat and stared at his reflection in the copper metal plating on the wall across from him, various aspects of his tired old face distorted and mocking in the bottles that hung from it.
You old bastard, Edward thought cruelly to himself.
Rubbing his eyes, Edward scanned the room in a way that he hoped wasn't obvious. The booths were mainly empty, occupied by one women whose eyes spoke of a life filled with hardships, with wrinkled and folded, pale-white skin to match. Edward couldn't help but wonder if that was what people thought when they saw him.
The round tables in the centre of the room seemed to be reserved for those involved in deep, shady looking conversations.
Two men leaning over the smooth wood spoken in short, carefully measured bursts to each other, no humour in their faces.
Behind them, a man and a woman wearing tatty coats and hats with unkempt hair spoke too quietly for Edward to hear, their voices simply mixing in with the low buzz in the bar.
Edward was about to return to staring at his own reflection when he noticed a man sat at the back of the room that didn't match the place. His eyes were bright, his clothes neat and sharp, his blonde hair too... trendy.
Then, the man winked at him.
Edward was taken aback. He didn't think that he knew the man, he had an obvious criminal edge to him that Edward was trained to detect, but he couldn't match him to any of the new generation criminals that had passed through the prison system recently.
Edward didn't really know what to do, so he turned back.
This wasn't the kind of place where you had random men wink at you. Mug you, yes. Not offer you a friendly wink.
He didn't feel like he was being propositioned at all. Not that Edward had a problem with... that kind of thing. It wasn't his cup of tea, and he was much too old now to think about changing his ways.
So he just kept staring into his drink. He watched the reflection of the man in the dirty copper walling.
The man didn't move, but he a smug smile on his face that said he knew what was coming next. A wise, worldly face that didn't match his young skin.
Then, the next thing happened. The bar door swung open with a clatter as the brass metal struck the wood-panelled doorway. Through it stepped two hulking NMPF officers in full patrol dress, black skintight jumpsuits patterned with thick ceramic plating.
Their blank faceplates gave nothing away, no expression, which only made them more terrifying.
"Nobody move, you scumbags," the lead officer said, "nice and calm."
Their posture said that they wanted things to be anything other than calm, their shoulders raised and hands constantly near their rifles. Edward stayed still and turned back to his beer, refusing to look at them like everybody else in the bar.
Except for one person - the man sat in the far booth, his smile still smug.
The barman came to the edge of the bar to greet them reluctantly.
"How can I help you, officers?" The barman said, his voice rasping and hoarse, either from nerves or a lifetime of smoking.
The officer that had spoken slapped his hands down on the bar, the one that had followed him stood behind him, arms crossed. The officer that followed was slim and because of the almost genderless outfits, it was hard to tell if the officer was female or male.
"You can start by getting me and my partner here a drink," the male officer said.
The barman begrudgingly poured the officers a drink each, and then stood back. The lead officer held the glass to his mask and the bottom half slid up halfway, allowing him to drink. Edward caught a glimpse of day old stubble and chapped, dry lips.
"We're investigating a lead on a couple of thefts in the area, tracked the perp to your bar," the officer said, "any new customers lately you haven't seen around before?"
The barman shrugged, obviously trained to make things as difficult as possible for the NMPF, the bogeymen in blank faceplates.
"I'm a busy man," he said, "I don't keep a logbook."
The officer nodded slowly, his mask snapping down with a hydraulic hiss, gesturing to his partner. They both turned and looked around the room, the atmosphere suddenly becoming tense. Nobody spoke, still not acknowledging the officers but not continuing their conversations.
Then, Edward felt their gaze on him.
He was preparing for their rough gloved palms on his shoulder when they moved past him and headed out into the bar. They obviously thought that Edward looked like he spent a lot of his life hunched over alcohol in bars and for a moment he was thankful.
He watched in the dull reflection of the bar as they walked out into the bar, stopping at the table of the man that had winked at him.
Allowing himself a slight glance, he watched as they leaned over the man, quietly questioning him. Then, without his permanent grin fading or faltering, the man casually pointed back at the bar. Not at Edward, though, but at the hulking man sat a few stools away.
The officers gave each other a passing glance, probably saying something the each other on a frequency nobody else in the bar could hear, then turned and crossed the room back towards the bar, the man in the booth watching them leave, still smiling.
It was when the lead officer moved to place his hand on the shoulder of the heavy set man sat a few places away from him the Edward finally understood what was about to happen.
The second the officer's hand settled on the man's dirty vest, he turned on the stool, quick as lightning but clumsy as a drunk who spent too much time inebriated and struck out with a meaty palm.
It connected with the officer's faceplate and dropped him to the floor with a sickening thud, the man stepping over his stunned body and still charging towards the female officer like an enraged bull as she scrambled at her waist for her gun.
She managed to yank it out of its holster but didn't have time to switch if from its electro-bolt feature. She triggered it and the dark black, electrified spike darted into the man's chest. He stumbled but didn't slow, shaking off the volts like they were nothing, existing momentum throwing him violently into the panicking officer.
They both flew backwards, smashing into the table being used by the two people in tatty coats, splintering the wood and taking them all down in a heap.
The man and woman scrambled away as the female officer kicked out with a steel-capped boot, shattering the man's nose into a plume of blood, serving only to enrage him further.
He roared like an animal as the officer that had been knocked out first scrambled to his feet, his faceplate shattered from the sheer force that had struck it.
The officer stumbled forward and Edward stepped back as he ran to help his incapacitated colleague, only to be intercepted by the two men who had been deep in shady conversation, one of them surprising him with a friendly chair to the back.
In the chaos, Edward watched as the grinning man in the corner laughed, climbed to his feet slowly and carefully, and headed towards the fire exit at the back of the room.
He slipped out of the door, disappearing with no trace he'd ever been there, other than the huge bar brawl he'd created.
The male officer dragged himself to his feet and yelled something profane, before pulling an electrified baton from his waist and striking the kneecap of the man that had hit him with the chair, only for the man's friend to quickly pull him away with a clumsy tackle.
On the floor, the female officer pulled herself out of the scrum, her gun nowhere to be seen. Before she could get far, the angry hulk that had started the violence picked up the table that they had half destroyed and threw it at her, dropping her to the ground again.
Edward glanced at the front door as the man and the woman that had been wearing scruffy clothes and hats disappeared through it to escape the chaos.
He was about to follow them when he looked back to the fire door that the blonde man that had left through. Suddenly unable to do anything else, he stepped around the violence and followed him.
Leaving the shouts and screams behind, Edward found himself in an alleyway behind the bar, the cold damp night air replacing the stuffy air of the bar.
"I thought you might follow me," came a voice from the darkness. It was smooth and confident, with a classic Texas drawl to it.
Edward turned away from the mouth of the alleyway to the other end which was blocked off by a rusted old chain link fence. Stood in front of it was the blonde man, cast in a milky white light from a streetlight somewhere behind him, still smiling.
Edward stopped in his tracks.
"I saw what you did in there," Edward said, "that was impressive."
From behind him, Edward heard a smash and a bang that was loud enough to penetrate the thick brick wall of the bar.
"What did I do, exactly?" The man asked, his gaze confident and practiced.
"You talked your way out of all hell, that's what you did," Edward said, saying nothing the man didn't already know, "you're a confidence man?"
The man listened and then nodded slowly, stepping forward so he wasn't so obscured by the darkness.
"Zakarias Maythorn," the man said, "and you're Edward Helten."
Edward realised he still wasn't used to his reputation proceeding him, he stepped forward and held out his right hand, leaning his weight into his cane in his left side awkwardly.
Zakarias seemed to consider things for a moment, like he was analysing every aspect of the situation, like an owl or even a robot, then he took Edward's hand with a firm grasp.
"Good to meet you, Zakarias Maythorn," Edward said.
Zakarias nodded, offering a smile laced with charm. Even then, Edward could sense his ability. Very few people could actually exude confidence like they secreted it as a pheromone.
In the bar, Zakarias had talked his way out of a corner and designed and entire bar brawl with a flick of his palm, that was something which could only be done if somebody had raw talent.
"I get the feeling you want to ask me something," Zakarias said, "and I'm definitely open to listening, but..."
There was another loud crash and then silence - either the two officers giving up or finally taking down the regulars and calling for back up. Edward didn't want to wait around to find out which.
"Maybe we should talk about this somewhere a little bit safer?" Edward finished his sentenced.
"I like the sound of that," Zakarias grinned.