Chemical Numbers

Chapter Two: Chemical Thief

"In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."

-Hunter S. Thompson

The world around me is completely still. Nothing dares to disturb the silence of the night, almost as if the entire world is holding its breath for what is about to happen. The moon is peeking out slightly over the edge of the building and I know if we stay here much longer the light will give us away.

Ross' dark eyes search the empty night for the perfect opportunity, watching the patterns of the Monitors and the rotation of the security cameras. He must notice a specific pattern because he waves his hand in a gesture for us to follow him. We weave a complex loop, avoiding being in the sight of the cameras or the Monitors inside until we are in a nook of the factory behind the nearest camera and away from any and all windows.

The wall of the factory, like most in Manhattan, is riddled with cracks and pock marks and will make for a decent and easy climb. These factories were built after Manhattan was evacuated for the purpose of creating an isolated prison for the Numbers sixty years ago.

Ross goes first and Mallery and Casprie follow shortly after, leaving me to climb last with my backpack of hacking gear.

The wind is strong compared to the silence of only a few moments ago. It blows leaves and trash all across the streets below. A crumpled flyer blows in the ally; its bright pink color makes it stand out in this brown and grey world. It's the flyer we see every week after the executions, the one that reads, "Justice Served: Fifty More Numbers Executed this Week," followed by the names of those executed. Every time I see one of those flyers I say to myself, "Don't look, keep your head down, and wait for your turn on the chopping." That's my rule and I guess you could say that's the only way to survive here. Keep your head down; we're all going to die soon enough anyways.

The rough stone of the wall presses into my palms and brings me back to the moment. My other rule is, 'Distraction kills.' That especially applies on a burglary such as this one. We all make it to the roof undetected. Joan pulls the cover off an air vent and climbs in with the rest of us behind her. The vent is claustrophobic and disgusting, it's clear they haven't cleaned it since Manhattan was abandoned.

Casprie periodically checks through different vents looking for the one that leads into the security room. We move as silently as we can through the vents, so we don't draw the Monitors suspicions. The dust from the vent starts to fills my nose and I have to resist the urge to sneeze. You never know what the Monitors will hear.

After what feels like an hour, Casprie stops over a grate and puts her hand up in a gesture for us to stop. She pries the grate open without a sound and lands catlike on her feet behind a Monitor behind a desk. She wraps her arm around the woman's neck and cuts off her oxygen until she passes out. The woman struggles for a moment and attempts to let out a scream, but no sound comes out. She then slumps to the floor. She won't remember this and if she does she won't know who to report.

Casprie moves her limp body into a corner of the room while rest of us jump down into the room below. It's cramped with only one basic computer system that must run all the security in the factory, opening the door that leads into the main part of the factory. I look around. It's the standard clothing factory that Numbers work at, multiple floors for everything, from manufacturing, to packaging, to shipping.

I close the door quietly and look to the others. They look back at me and I give a silent nod of my head signaling that it's safe to enter in to the factory. We move without having to communicate further.

Ross and Casprie smoothly open the door and glide into the factory without a sound, while I move to the computer behind the desk. Mallery stands behind me, watching the door with her hand on the knife at her hip. Mallery may be all bright looks on the outside, but there is something dark about her on the inside.

She is one of the best fighters I've ever seen, but she still chooses to be a thief, and then there is her deadly speed. I don't know if she's ever killed anyone, but I know she could if she wanted to.

The computer is a simple processor that controls all the security cameras and access entries, all of the doors to the factory are locked at night and can only be opened by a retinal scan of a Monitor or someone else important enough to gain access, luckily we got around it by going through the vent.

My fingers fly gracefully across the key board with ease and within a minute I have control over just about everything in the factory. This computer controls more than just the cameras and entries, it also stores the shipment logs and can override the machinery.

Before I do anything else I skim through the footage of the last hour or so to make sure we weren't caught on camera, which we weren't, but if had been all I'd have to do is delete the footage and fill in the missing time with a repeat of another section of footage. To ensure that we won't get caught on camera later I set the cameras on a continuous loop, so they'll only play the same footage over and over again.

I pull a slip of paper out from my pocket with the codes of the boxes Maura wants us to steal. When I look them up on the shipment list a several boxes of shirts, pants, shoes, and jackets come up, but then something I wasn't expecting comes. A box of Counters is on the bottom of the list. Numbers' digits are usually dropped automatically as more are executed, but the Monitors can manually drop the numbers using a Counter. What does Maura want with these Counters?

Mallery gives me an impatient look and I decide that I'll have to demand an answer from Maura later. I quickly erase the existence of the boxes from the systems and put my hacking materials back in my bag. This way they won't even know we were here or that anything is missing.

Mallery peeks her head silently out of the door to make sure no Monitors are nearby and then slides out with me behind her. The factory is quite dark which works to our advantage, but also means that the dark uniforms of the Monitors could easily blend into the shadows, making it easier for them to sneak up on us without our notice.

Mallery elusively weaves through the empty factory like a ghost. Her footsteps don't make a sound, though; each step we take sends a flurry of dust into the air that quickly settles back onto the ground like snow. The air reeks of machine oil and rusted mechanical parts, I crinkle my nose against the harsh smell, but it invades my nostrils anyways. The sound of blood rushing through my ears blocks out all of the distractions around me, my fingers twitch at my side and my heart picks up speed in excitement for the heist.

Mallery's golden hair stands out like a beam of light in the dark factory and I now wish she would have put on her usual black winter hat to tuck it in. My own dark hair blends perfectly into the night.

I hear a bellowed laugh at the end of the hall and see two Monitors walking in the direction of us, one a burly man with a bald head and a red beard and the other is a small woman with a voice too deep for someone her size.

"Vernon paid me 2,000 Scripts not to drop the number of one of the fighters at the Ring," the man says gleefully.

"Which fighter?" the woman asks curiously in her deep voice.

"I can't remember his name, something Porter, but apparently he's a big enough deal for Vernon to pay me 2,000 Scripts! Can you believe that? Though, I would have loved to take that stupid kid in. Those Numbers think they are so much better than us," the man finishes with a huff.

"What did the kid do?" the woman probes him.

The man shrugs his broad shoulders. "Eh, got in a fight with another Number. Now, that one was thrown in with the lot that got executed today. Ain't nobody payin' off her bill."

The woman snickers to this,

"What did her face look like when you dropped her number to zero?" the woman questions.

The man begins to laugh loudly before replying,

"She started crying!"

The two go into a laughing fit and I can feel Mallery tense next to me. It's hard to listen to the Monitors talking about us Numbers in such a way. They really do hate us.

As soon as the Monitors turn the corner Mallery darts down the hall trying to make up for the lost time the slow Monitors cost us. I follow right behind her, but I hear something behind me that causes me to dive into another hallway instead of heading straight toward our target.

The woman Monitor from a moment ago comes back down the hallway with the man right behind her, but Mallery doesn't see them, she's still running.

"I think I dropped it back here," the woman tells the man, but he's not looking at her, he sees Mallery.

Mallery turns around, having heard the woman's voice and takes on a deer in the headlights look. She goes completely still as if she hopes they won't see her if she doesn't move. I see the man pull something out of his belt, a stun g*n. If he hits her with that then all he has to do is drop her number to zero and shoot her.

He aims the stun g*n at her and I know what I have to do. I can't let her die. Mallery finally seems to realize what was happening as the g*n goes off and she dives behind a stack of large shipping crates. The man swears silently under his breath and makes his way closer to the boxes with the woman behind him.

I wait patiently in the hallway as the Monitors slowly inch their way towards the boxes. Just as the two are about to move past the hall I am in I spring out of the shadows and slam into the man as hard as I can, causing him to topple to the ground. I act quickly and press my forearm to his throat to get him to pass out.

The man however is much stronger than I am and thrashes to get free from my vice grip, but I hold my ground well, until a pair of arms rip me off the man and send me toppling to the ground with the woman's arms wrapped tightly around me. The woman removes one of her arms from around me and pulls out her Counter. I know she can see the fear in my eyes because her face lights up with joy.

Mallery is inching her way out from behind the stack of boxes and for a second I think she is going to leave me here to die. My heart picks up speed and I can feel the tears spring up into my eyes. There is no way this woman will let me get out of here alive, she'll drop my number, kill me, and then file it in as self-defense. My limbs thrash wildly under the woman's weight, but she is stronger than she looks and I can't seem to break free from her.

Mallery looks like she's trying to decide between helping me and saving herself and I can't help but cry out,

"Help! Help!"

Her face scrunches up in indecision and she turns away from me. My heart sinks; she's going to leave me. I'll die because I chose to save her. She swears under breath and turns back towards me just as the man is recovering from his lack of oxygen.

The man runs at her, but she easily ducks under his arms and jumps on top of the woman pinning me down. The woman screams like a wild banshee as she's thrown to the ground. I scramble to my feet and press my hand to my neck thanking God that the woman was too distracted by Mallery's last minute rescue to drop my number.

The woman manages to get to her feet and reaches for her stun g*n, but I know Mallery can handle her; I have to knock out the man.

His face is as red as his beard now as he reaches for his stun g*n, which he seems to have forgotten is still on the floor from when I tackled him earlier. When he realizes this he wraps his hands around his Counter and grips it tightly, I can't help but think he's pretending the Counter is my neck.

He'll probably expect something sly like ducking under his arm or dropping to the ground and tripping him, so I guess I'll just have to do something completely idiotic. He waits for me to come after him and I go for it. He's waiting to see if I'll go left or right and just before I slam into him I feign left, but quickly change directions. He takes the bait and lurches left just as I correct my course and tackle him by the waist, definitely not what he was expecting of me.

His head whips back and slams into the wall behind him and he shouts out curses in pain. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Mallery struggling with the woman, but I can't worry about her now. Adrenaline pumps through my veins as I press my forearm to the Monitors throat again. His eyes are already glazed over from his head injury and it only takes a moment or two for him to pass out.

I'm hoping that there are no other Monitors on this floor, who could have heard the commotion. The man lays passed out on the floor and when I look over to Mallery she's dragging the woman's unconscious body towards one of the hallways.

"Coming," she says gruffly.

I don't even have to answer her as I grab the man's arm and begin dragging him. He's really heavy and all the muscles in my body strain to pull the body across the floor. I manage to get him to the edge of the hall where Mallery as deposited the woman's body in a storage closet. Mallery grabs the man's other arm and we drag him into the closet with the woman. We stack boxes in front of the door knowing that someone will find them tomorrow morning, but they won't be able to come after us tonight.

"You have to be more careful," Mallery tells me.

I can't help but laugh at this,

"I need to be careful. I wasn't the one who carelessly got caught by the Monitors."

"You didn't have to save me," she huffs.

"Yes, I did. What would you want me to do?" I insist, "Leave you?"

"Now they'll be looking for both of us and maybe even the others," she states harshly.

"Well, I wasn't going to leave you. I guess we'll just have to hope they didn't get a good look at us," I answer her without looking into her bright blue eyes.

"I guess so," she says and we stop talking as we make our way to the storage area of the factory to find Ross and Casprie.

The walk to the storage section is uneventful as we cautiously make our way through the factory, careful not to run into any more monitors. When we get their Ross and Casprie are waiting by one of the garages with the boxes we are stealing.

"What took so long?" Ross demands.

"We ran into some trouble on the way," I tell him, but he raises his eyebrows demanding a better answer.

"Monitors."

Casprie's and his faces go pale and all he says in response is,

"Let's hurry."

I once again pull off my black backpack and rip off one of the panels next to the garage. Normally I'd have to use a retinal scan to get the garage door to open, but all I have to do is twist a few wires and the garage door opens. We shouldn't have to worry about the Monitors coming to check on the noise, they'll probably think it's a late night pickup.

There are eight moderate sized boxes in total, so we each take two and slip out of the garage silently. Another retinal scanner is on the outside of the garage and after I reassemble the one on the inside, I rip the front off the other one and twist a few wires until the door closes.

Getting back to the basement will be harder when we can't move as quickly with these boxes, but we've done this plenty of times before and we'll be able to manage. Ross takes the lead and the rest of us fall in behind him.

The sun begins to come over the horizon, sending shades of scarlet and crimson over the dull, grey city. The light makes the city almost look alive like it must have been decades ago; I can almost imagine a family, a normal one, living in the apartment building across the street instead of a starving group of Numbers.

Ross pulls up the grate and begins dropping down the boxes where a pair of scarred hands pull them into the basement having heard the thud. We jump down one by one into the basement just after Maura has pulled the last box in and set it on the table.

"The other group isn't back yet," she tells us as soon as we come in.

I nod my head in understanding. The warehouse is quite a bit further than the factory, it makes sense that they would take longer than we had.

"Why don't you guys head home and we can go over the break-ins tomorrow," she tells us and the others mumble a thank you. We're all tired after that.

Mallery heads for the grate again, but I grab her arm,

"We need to tell Maura," I tell her and she bites her lip nervously.

She looks like she wants to leave, but she hops back into the basement,

"Fine."

Maura notices we haven't left yet and turns back to us with a look of confusion.

"I told you guys that you could leave."

"Um," I begin hesitantly. "Something happened at the warehouse."

Maura's confused look turns into a serious one. "What happened?"

Mallery nervously shuffles her feet and looks away leaving me to answer. "Two Monitors saw us."

I've never seen someone's face go as white as Maura's does, "What?"

I can't throw Mallery under the bus, but I also can't lie to Maura. "I..."

The look she gives me is enough to make the words stick in my throat. "You what?" She demands.

I'm not sure how to respond to her without lying or betraying Mallery.

"It was my fault," Mallery speaks up.

"Mallery, just tell me what happened," Maura says trying to sound patient.

Mallery takes a deep breath before answering. "I thought they had turned the corner, so I started running down the hall, but they came back and saw me. If Indie hadn't attacked them then they would have caught me."

Maura's face goes even paler than before and her gaze turns back to me. "You attacked them?"

"Yes," I squeak out.

"And what about you, Mallery? Did you attack them?" she questions a nervous Mallery.

Mallery can only nod her head. Maura starts pacing the room with her hand pressed hard to her head. My heart races in my chest and I can feel a layer of sweat forming on my brow as I watch Maura pace.

She looks up suddenly and grabs Mallery and I by our shoulders. "You have to stay hidden. They're going to come looking for you, no one attacks a Monitor and gets away with it."

"We'll do whatever we have to," Mallery assures her.

"Go home and don't come out for anything or anyone. If you stay out of the streets they won't find you," she says and grips our shoulders even tighter. Of course they won't find us at our homes, Numbers aren't given homes. We have to claim an apartment and try to keep other Numbers from taking it, so the Monitors don't know where we live.

"What about work?" I ask in a whisper.

Maura shakes her head. "I'll take care of that. If you don't want to be on next on the execution list just stay inside and don't come out. Do you understand me?"

Mallery and I both nod our heads. What else can we do if we want to live?