The Forgotten Planet

The door opened into a broad entry room, with a dual circular stairwell that spread apart along either wall and then met back together at a landing on the second floor. Multiple doors on the upper-level lead to the mark’s bedroom and all the extra rooms that a rich guy that lives alone apparently needs. The brown, carved wood banisters and polished grey granite floors were admittedly high quality, if a bit stuffy. Migan’s paintings – with their signature geometric shapes and primary colors – dominated the walls of the ovoid-shaped entryway.

According to our client’s instructions, the south hallway that led to the rear of the mansion was this evening’s final destination. The staff could access the rest of the mansion, but the treasure room could only be entered under the supervision of the man of the house. That room had a separate security system that probably would have taken me half a day and all thirty qubits of my ’Seven’s computing power to crack. It was easier just to bypass it with a little proprietary hi-jinx.

Adan crossed the entry room and entered a hallway lined on either side with framed still-shots of the owner posing with Terran politicians, Vox industrialists, and even one with the Salarian Governor himself. I quickly tired of the man’s dumb smiling face and big, perfect teeth. The pictures made me glad I robbing him.

“It’s the third door on the left,” I added as he approached the entry.

“I know, Galen.” He reached for the third door on the right.

“Your other left bro.”

The actual left-hand door opened up into an entertainment room the size of a sweatshop-dining hall. There was a large wood and glass bar in one corner, and a marble-framed fireplace in the other, and multiple seating arrangements and conversation tables decorated in gold hues and brown leather set up throughout the sprawling room.

The far side of the room was made up entirely of a wall-length shelving unit with a massive collection of black-market items. Through the Rover’s® enhanced zoom I could see swords, sporting equipment, framed photos, clay pottery, gold and silver statues, and jewelry adorned with precious stones among the countless items. Ours was one of the smallest items, but – if Ash wanted it – likely one of the most valuable pieces.

Before Adan could bumble into the room, I reminded him of the one of the more difficult security features.

“Remember Adan, the floor is sensored.”

Adan frowned and sighed at my Rover®. “I know that broheim. I was at the planning session.”

“I know you were there physically,” I answered, while trying to keep my voice neutral. “But at the time you seemed much more interested in the girl across the bar.”

“Trust me, she was worth it,” Adan answered. “Did I tell you about that thing she does with her…”

I know a planning session at a bar is not ideal, but it really wasn’t my fault. I’d scheduled the run-through in our flat. I put it on his calendar and everything. But he was hungry and being difficult… Anyway, I cut him off before he could go into the sordid details.

“Honestly Adan, I don’t want to hear it,” I said. “Just activate your belt.” He likes telling me about his conquests almost as much as I hate hearing about them.

“I was about to before you distracted me,” he answered calmly.

He hit the button on his belt and started to rise slowly off the ground. Other personal “anti-gravity” units work by using thrust or magnetic repulsion – neither of which would work on the pressure-sensitive granite floors we had to navigate. My GravBuster® actually uses a pinch of stabilized moscovium to repel graviton waves, making the wearer, for all intents-and-purposes, weightless. On Palance (and other occupied worlds I assume), innovations like mine were strictly illegal – unless I wanted to build them for our Salarian overlords in one of their think-tank/prisons. As tempting as that might sound, I decided instead to be a ridiculously overqualified thief.

Adan pulled himself into the room before pausing to survey his surroundings. The problem was the room was massive, leaving a large expanse of open space to traverse. I’d planned for this, but Adan had a way of doing things that sometimes left my plans in tatters. He positioned himself in a tight squat against the near wall in the way that a swimmer would before pushing off and coasting.

“Now remember Adan,” I gently reminded, “you need 1.21 kilo-newtons of force to make it across the room.”

“Um, sure?” he answered.

I tried to make it simple. “Push off as hard as you can.”

“Couldn’t you have led with that?” he asked.

I sighed and turned up my music a little higher before snapping another piece of chocolate off the bar and popping it in my mouth. It’s hard knowing exactly what needs to be done and being forced to watch helplessly a large, mostly-hairless monkey tries to execute the plan.

I held my breath as Adan pushed off the wall with obvious half-assed effort. Adding insult to injury, he then struck a pose like a model would – lounging on his side with his head propped on one arm. He laughed but I didn’t. I knew from eyeballing his acceleration that he wouldn’t even make it halfway across the room. I didn’t immediately freak out because I’d actually planned for this contingency. When he began to slow in the middle of the room and started frog swimming to make it the rest of the way, I have to admit I actually stifled a laugh.

The seconds ticked by and neither of us spoke. Finally, Adan said, “Galen, I think we’ve got a problem.”

“No shit?” I asked. “You remember the conversation we had just a few moments ago, right?”

“That’s not helping, Galen,” Adan replied. “Why can’t you be more supportive?”

I ignored and continued, “1.21 kilo-newtons of force,” I said. “And do you remember what you said?”

“Thanks?” Adan offered.

“Yeah, that’s a good one,” I replied. “Check your left belt pouch. No, your other left. Unbelievable.” I flipped off Da Funk and put on The Stroke’s Modern Age. My mood was souring in a way that only Julian’s pipes could fix.

Adan pulled out the thin metal tube that I’d packed in his equipment belt. Yes, I pack his gear too. That’s another one of the reasons he’s still alive and living as a free man.

“This?” he asked as he held the tube between his thumb and forefinger and studied the item with his head cocked.

“Yes,” I answered, almost patiently. “It’s a compressed grapple. Fire it into the wall.” Then he started to move, and my heart almost leapt out of my chest. “Wait!”

“What are you yelling about now?” he asked.

“The opening’s at the other end,” I exclaimed. “You almost shot the harpoon into your chest.”

“Well, a label would be nice,” Adan replied. “How am I supposed to know which end is which?”

“I explained it all in detail… never mind.” I shook my head for my own benefit. We’d gone over it all the night before. I took a few deep breaths to give my ’Seven a chance to dissipate the adrenaline. “Just fire it at the opposite wall and reel yourself in.”

I didn’t have him do this from the beginning because if the grapple didn’t take hold, it would fall on the ground and set off the motion alarm. He pointed the grapple and fired, and the force sent him floating backwards about a quarter of the distance he’d already traveled. The tungsten spike stuck into the solid wood of the shelving unit and held tight. I breathed out.

“Holy harpoons, Batman!” Adan yelled, “Galen, that was awesome.”

“Yeah, well…” I replied.

Adan began to pull himself hand-over-hand into the other side of the room.

“I think one of your problems is that you make even really cool things like this sound incredibly boring.” He stepped carefully onto a flat surface on the shelving unit and unhooked the grapple. A chunk of wood came out with it, but thankfully it didn’t fall onto the ground. Adan didn’t seem to notice.

“So, it’s not that your listening skills are atrocious?” I asked.

“What was that?” he asked in return, cupping a hand to his ear.

I shook my head slowly and sighed. “Funny. Next time I’ll have the girl at the bar explain the plan to you.”

“See?” he said, pointing a finger at the Rover®. He likes it to float a few feet off his left shoulder for some reason. He probably likes that profile the best. “Now you’re using that big brain of yours.”

Adan looked along the shelves until he found the small paper card, mounted inside a twelve-centimeter rectangle of transparent aluminum. The scans from my Rover® told me what I already suspected – the case was mounted directly onto the shelf and hard-wired to the alarm. It couldn’t be removed as long as the security system was enabled.

“The case will have to stay,” I told Adan. “Use the torch to free the card.”

The torch was slim and chrome plated, and when Adan clicked the starter, the tip produced a thin blue flame that was more than hot enough to melt aluminum.

“Try not to burn off your eyebrows this time,” I added helpfully. I’d kept photographic evidence of that little mishap. It’s my favorite screensaver.

“I still contend that was an engineering issue,” he replied, as he started the cut.

“User error is not an engineering issue,” I added.

“Whatever little brother,” he said. “This thing is cutting like a knife through warm butter,” he replied, almost getting the idiom right. “I’ll have this baby out in no time,”

“Take your time,” I replied. “We haven’t tripped any alarms, and we don’t want to damage the merchandise. Williams is offering us a fortune for that little piece of cardboard.”

“What about the dog?” he asked, not looking up from his torch work. Most of the lid had been sliced clean through, and the card still looked pristine.

“What about him?” I replied. “Are you afraid he’ll call someone?”

Adan turned to face the Rover®, and the dead-eyed look he gave me was priceless. After a brief headshake, he got back to the work and finished slicing through the top off the container. He extinguished the torch and gently removed the card from the remains of the box. Then he put the card into a flask-sized clamshell container and stowed it in his jacket. That’s when lights on my HUD started flashing red.

“We’ve got another problem, Adan.”

“I told you Galen, I don’t like problems.” He threw his hands over his head in a wild gesture. “What’s with all the problems?”

“You’ve got to move – now!” I yelled. There must have been a shielded motion sensor inside the container. Now that is security conscious. No way to counter something like that without cloak-scanning tech – which went to the top of my wish list as of that moment. “We’re going to have company in about five minutes.” That’s how long I figured it would take the authorities to arrive.

If a break-in occurred in my neighborhood, and if the cops even bothered to respond, it certainly wouldn’t be the same day – let alone within minutes. But this guy was the president of a shipping franchise that was officially sanctioned by the Vox. That’s one of the reasons I was happy to accept this assignment. It’s always a pleasure to stick it to the man, but such choices don’t come without potential problems.

Adan started looking along the shelves, and I knew what he was thinking. Luckily for us, I was a step ahead.

“The egg and knife,” I said. “Can you safely smash-”

His hands were full, and he was running headline out the door before I could even finish the sentence. As he made his way back to me, I slipped on a spare set of HotMits®. An untested pair. Well, they passed the field test, but I was drowning in sweat when Adan finally reached me. The fact that the massive guard dog was hot on his heels didn’t help my anxiety level. They both made it through before I could get the shield closed.

I turned around, expecting to see Adan and the dog fighting, but instead the dog was curled up like an oversized puppy in my brother’s arms. I found myself frozen and at a loss for words. Part of the reason was that the dog was too big to be comfortably held, and the scene was ridiculous.

But the two of them also reminded me of happier times on the ranch with a gangly teenaged brother and his yellow pup. I shook the thought away as my HUD flashed a warning. I looked south to see blue flashing lights on a beeline towards the estate.

Luckily Adan was thinking clearly for once. He grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me in. “Group hug, little brother,” he said, wrapping his arms around me and the dog and activating the ’Wrapper®. My head barely reached Adan’s and the dog’s necks, and I had to draw oxygen through the horrid combination thick dog fur, smelly paws and cheap cologne for room to breathe.

We all waited quietly as the cruiser made a slow path along the perimeter of the house. Our getaway vehicle – a dinged up but functional 2316 Hanson Gazelle – was parked nearby and disguised as a clump of Manse trees. It was a flimsy bit of over-the-counter holographic camouflage that worked fine in the dark, but wouldn’t have held up to close inspection. The cruiser began a slower second pass just as the dog began to lick Adan’s face. Adan crinkled his nose, but otherwise stood there and took the dog’s salival onslaught stoically.

At least the mutt wasn’t barking, but the power it took to conceal his moving tongue burned through the ’Wrapper’s® internal battery quickly. My heart began to beat so hard I was sure the po-po would hear it, but just as the cloak’s battery was reaching its last bar, the cruiser finally rose back up and flew back towards Oasis.

“You can let go of me now,” I said, while attempting to wiggle free. “They probably assumed it was a false alarm.”

Adan let go, and I backed up and spit loose dog hairs out of my mouth. When I looked back at Adan, he was smiling

“I’m gonna keep him, bro,” he said.

“What, the dog?” I replied. “Absolutely not.”

“I think I’ll name him Poochy,” he said, completely ignoring my objection.

This led to more face licking from the newly named Poochy, and renewed ear scratching by Adan. I honestly thought about leaving them at the side of the road as I powered down the camouflage and remote-started the engine.