Liquid Bank - Chapter 5
A Megacosm Novelette
Chapter 2 - Economically Viable
Chapter 5– The Plan
There was a sound of voices as if they were filtered through a glass bottle, growing louder and more lucid as Matthew’s eyes fluttered open. He couldn’t make out what the garbled voices were saying but heard the clamor coming through a ragged light above.
Shadows fluttered through the white light in frantic motions, the silhouettes of humans moving about through the hole he made during his escape.
Besides the light from the opening above, everything else surrounding Matthew was draped in pitched black. The air tasted warm, like his shallow breath had little room to roam. Lying on his side, Matthew groaned as he attempted to turn on his back, the movement creating a sound like an aluminum can being crunched beneath him.
“Ah!” he hissed, feeling a lightning bolt of pain fire up his leg as he turned.
The crunching sound came again as his elbow touched something hard above. There was a long, deep clicking sound as Matthew pushed against the ceiling that gave way to his elbow, hearing the opposite when he let his arm down.
There was just enough room to move his arm up his chest to click latches on either side of his chin. Gritting his teeth from the pain of each movement, Matthew was able to push off his helmet, which felt like a vice crushing his brain.
“Where is this?” He thought, shutting his eyes to clear his mind.
A hum rattled the metal beneath him, shaking metal screws that were loose in their housings from his fall. A rush of cool air tickled his neck.
“I’m in the air duct,” Matthew mumbled as the groan of the metal expanding surrounded him.
The liquid bank was a relic from the prohibition area chosen for its classical aesthetic but has since been modernized with an internal conditioning system. There were spaghetti strands of black metal leftover in the vent where Matthew had plowed through and he looked past them to the hole that had to be ten feet above.
“How did I…,” Matthew’s thought. His eyes widened as he remembered his predicament, the memory of well-armed customers returning in a flood. “The robbery! I need to get out of here.”
Leaning his head back, Matthew peered into the darkness, hoping to see a glint of the silver ducts that he knew ran along the roof of the basement. Then he remembered the monitor on his wrist.
Fingers followed the spirals that splintered along the monitor glass until he felt the top of a button. Pushing it down, the monitor flickered on. Its feed was scrambled, with Plutus still lost with its new best friend. A click at the top started the flashlight function that was dim from the shattered screen, illuminating the area around him like a small candle.
Matthew checked the time blinking in the cracked corner. “It’s only been minutes,” he mumbled.
Rolling to his stomach, Matthew crawled along the length of the duct, dragging his left leg that throbbed fire at the ankle against his boot. The metal depressed with loud clunks with each movement forward through the gloom. His dark hair stuck to his forehead and sweat stung his eyes that he wiped away as he put one arm in front of the other at a slow pace.
Ambient light from a vent ahead glinted off the silver metal, illuminating the small space that barely fit his body with the armor. Increasing his speed, the air duct expanded from his weight as he moved, the sound of the metal twisting out of place like a garbage can being hit by a sledgehammer, a blaring alarm that Matthew knew would alert the gunmen to his position.
Fingers of pale light filtered through the grate that Matthew neared when he heard boots pounding down a stairwell in the room below. Peering through the gaps in the grate, he could just make out the shadows of legs pumping down the concrete stairwell outside the propped open door.
“Dammit!” Matthew grunted as he scrambled to move.
The clanging sound of his air duct cage grew faster as he rushed forward with huffing breaths, praying to reach the section where the ventilation went through the next wall. Gunshots pinged behind him, punching Matthew’s eardrums. Circles of light perforate the aluminum, the bullets piercing the duct just as the last of his legs made it through to the next room.
Matthew’s breath huffed as he crawled faster to the next grate, using the echo of gunfire as cover. Reaching the grate, he angled his head to the side and gave the room below a cursory inspection, seeing only a mountain range of boxes lining the walls.
Unable to stand, his elbows punched down on the metal with successive bangs.
“Ah hell!” Matthew thought when he heard the gunfire cease, knowing that one of the gunmen must have heard his attempt to break through. Sweat collected at the end of his chin, falling like raindrops as his elbow fell harder and faster.
“C’mon!” he grunted, striking the grate with loud clunks.
The left side of the grate gave way with a crunch and Matthew doubled his effort, ignoring the sting from the bruise forming on his elbow until the duct fell with a clattering bang to the floor.
Matthew followed it down, falling through the opening with all the grace of a leaping trout, crunching the grate beneath him as he landed on his back. The armor again absorbed much of the impact, but it still felt like someone had stabbed him in the middle of his back.
“Shiiit,” Matthew breathed, face twisted as he lifted himself up and scrambled through an open door, looking right and expecting to see the barrel of a rifle but instead, seeing a dark brick corridor.
It took a moment to orient to his surroundings, but Matthew quickly realized that he was in the underground storage room. Right led down a corridor that turned to the room the gunmen had been in, so Matthew turned left, holding his leg that he dragged behind him as he searched for an exit. The storage area opened to a larger room teeming with more boxes nearly to the ceiling that Matthew passed as he moved forward.
“There he is!” A voice shouted a moment before the monitor sitting on a box next to Matthew was shattered by a bullet that missed him by inches.
Blaring cracks reverberated as bullets sped through the room. Ducking and holding his breath, Matthew broke out into a limping run, teeth clenched against the pain that hobbled his ankle as gun fire punched through furniture and boxes, sending glass and wood sailing into the air. Glancing back, he saw the gunmen, still dressed in their suits, spread out and ducking behind cover, making sure he could not double back and escape.
Aiming backwards, Matthew fired at shadows, hoping to find the luck that had abandoned him. Even though he fired indiscriminately, the shadows still ducked down, giving him time to reach the door.
“C’mon!” Matthew shouted.
Sweat slicked his hand as he tried to turn the knob that refused to budge. Seeing the reader next to the door, he pulled his badge that whirled from the metal string connected to a clip on his belt. The badge reader beeped, and Matthew fumbled as he entered his code. The light blinked green, then red, rejecting his first attempt.
“You’re kidding me!” Matthew raged, twisting down as a round shattered the door frame. Kneeling, he fired where he thought he heard the gunshot originate, moving the gun to cover several angles until he heard the click as the slide pushed back.
With his gun empty, Matthew holstered the weapon and stood to pound on the door with his shoulder, feeling the pain as he ripped open the gunshot wound in the meat.
“Open!” Matthew shouted. The shoulder guard on his armor shattered as he held onto the doorknob and pushed all his body weight into the door.
Gunfire buzzed by while others bit into the door, forcing Matthew to shut his eyes as he struck the door again and felt it budge. Stepping back, his arms went up as he rushed forward. As he ran, a sting bit the side of his neck, sending a splatter of blood against the door as Matthew struck the obstruction with all his might.
With a grating crunch, he heard the lock fly off as the door swung open and Matthew spilled forward, tripping over his feet. Gunshots pinged into the adjoining room as he turned and crawled back, kicking the door closed.
Risking a chance to stand, he grabbed the metal locker against the right wall and pushed it over, which crashed with a bang as it hit the floor. Stepping back, Matthew repeated the motion, sending a second locker down that clanged as its side hit the edge or the other, its door springing open and spilling out its contents of clothes.
Not satisfied with the makeshift barrier, Matthew sent a third locker down that landed with an audible scream.
“What the hell?” Matthew thought as he took out his gun and pulled back on the slide.
Reaching down, his shaking hands pushed the locking mechanism down and stepped back as the door flung open, clanging against the floor. White and colorful flowers rolled along the ground and Matthew aimed his gun at the figure.
“Who are you?!” He shouted as the shape of a woman unfurled near his foot.
The woman’s hands went up. “Please, don’t hurt me!” She shouted.
“Tell me who you are!” Matthew shouted, pulling the slide again for emphasis. “You with them?”
“No!”
“How did you get in that locker? How!”
The woman looked up at him, hazel eyes glistening with tears, “I knew a guard! I was in the bathroom, and then heard the gunshots.”
“The customer bathrooms are upstairs!” he shouted as he put the barrel on her forehead.
“There was an old man! H..he was coughing and I snuck past after he gave me a nod!” Her eyes shut and head bowed. “I used the badge he gave me!” She screamed, and then flashed a badge like his own, and Matthew read the name.
“Damn, you too, Shultz?” Matthew muttered.
Despite all the high-tech security, and Martin’s stern oversight, many of the guards used the liquid bank as a mistress transport. It was harder for wives to discover any cheating when the other women appeared to be just another customer on the list.
A banging on the broken door made the first locker skid against the ground and clang against another. The gunmen had stopped firing indiscriminately into the room and were trying to push their way in.
“Come on!” Matthew said, pulling the woman up by her thin arm and dragging her behind him as he left the locker room. Her heels clicking on the floor in short steps, he turned right down a corridor, then left before stopping in a room past the showers.
“What are we doing in here?” The woman asked as she looked around. The room was closed on three sides, lit only by a dim gaslight lamp on the far wall. “You led us to a dead end!”
Limping forward, Matthew moved to the lamp and pushed it down, sending the sounds of mechanisms moving behind the wall. From the roof, a panel fell, and a small ladder sprang down still several feet from the floor.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the woman said as Matthew jumped with a wince and pulled the ladder down.
He then turned and pointed the gun at her face, forcing her to raise her hands once again. “You first,” he said. “Quickly!”
“Okay, okay,” the woman said, her feet shaky as her heeled shoes slipped on the wooden step.
Looking back, Matthew climbed behind her, using his shoulder to push the woman up faster.
“Hey, watch it!” The woman shouted over her shoulder as she pulled herself into the darkness above.
Matthew followed her, pulling up the ladder behind them. Finger to his lips, he kept the gun aimed at the woman as he listened below until he was satisfied that no one had seen them enter the hidden room.
With a click, he turned on the flashlight on his wrist monitor, and then waved the gun, “go,” he said.
Under the glare of the light beam, the woman’s face soured, flashing with anger before she complied and began crawling forward.
Matthew holstered his pistol and followed her, hobbling on one arm, and dragging his leg behind. Blood from the wound on his neck dropped in small red spots on the dusty floor as he followed.
“What is this place?” The woman asked, her knees scraping against wood.
‘The bank is from the prohibition era,” Matthew explained, watching her dress of now dirty flowers bounce against the back of her legs. “This was a storage room to hold contraband, and probably where Shultz was going to hide you.”
“Classy,” the woman muttered, then she glanced back at him, feeling his eyes. “What?” She asked, but he just shook his head then nodded forward.
The room widened, and the two were able to stand in a crouch. A dim light highlighted an old-time wooden desk in shadow to their right, and elongated the profile of the dust bunnies that littered the floor.
A mattress lay on the floor against the far wall which Matthew indicated with his gun. Clicking her teeth, the woman plopped onto the mattress, arms crossed over her chest, while Matthew eased to the ground across from her, still aiming at her head.
“What’s your name?” Matthew asked.
The woman leered at him with the side of her eyes. “Meagan.”
“You a call girl, Meagan?”
“What?” she gasped. “You don’t even know me asshole, how dare you!”
Matthew shrugged. “I took a guess. Now keep your voice down.”
“No, I will not keep my voice down!” she shouted, and Matthew leaned forward with the gun. “Ooh, if you didn’t have that gun!” She seethed, eyes narrowing.
Laying his elbow against his knee, Matthew sighed and pulled back the slide, clicking the release to drop the magazine. “It’s empty Meagan,” Matthew said, “I’m not going to –”
Before he could finish, Meagan leaped at him with a shriek, knocking Matthew to his back.
“You asshole! You scared me half to death!” she shouted while raining punching down that beat against his chest.
Matthew fended off the punches, swatting them away until an errant blow hit his wounded shoulder.
“Agh!” Matthew grimaced, pushing Meagan off, and scrambling away as he curled to his shoulder.
Meagan stared at him with wide eyes. “What did I do? Are you hurt?” She asked, moving her hair behind her ear.
Ignoring the question, Matthew winced as he slowly peeled off his broken armor that clattered to the floor piece by piece. He then unbuttoned his shirt down to a sweat-stained t-shirt streaked in red.
“Oh my God, you’re shot!” Meagan shrieked before she crawled off the bed and searched around, tossing loose clothing and empty beer cans away before putting a bottle in the dim light. Her eye thinned, reading the label. “What is this? Lube?” She said, her voice dripping with disgust as she held the bottle with the tip of her fingers.
Pouring a palm full of liquid in her hand, Meagan turned and jammed the substance into Matthews’ wound, twisting to push the contents inside.
“Ah! What are you doing?” Matthew shouted, swiping her hands away with a slap.
Meagan gasped, sitting on her calves as the bottle rolled along the wood. “I’m trying to help you, you dick!” She replied.
“By putting that sex crap in me?” Matthew said, touching his burning wound and pulling back blood. “Who knows what kind of infection you just gave me.”
Meagan huffed before scrambling for the bottle and holding it up. “It has Yarrow in it. It’s an anti-inflammatory and aids healing,” she looked about, “I have no idea what you guys were doing up here.”
“Take a guess,” Matthew sighed as he leaned his back against the wall. “And them, not me.”
“Boy scout, huh?” Meagan asked, eyebrows twitching up.
“Far from it,” he replied, looking away.
Meagan’s eyes thinned. “Well, it looks like the bullet went through,” she said with a low voice, then ripped a portion of fabric from the bottom of her dress.
She crawled towards him then slowly raised her hands that Matthew eyed as she slipped the bandage under his armpit.
Matthew’s eyes went to Meagan’s, “You a doctor?”
She grinned while pulling the bandage over his shoulder. “I was pre-med. For a while. Till it got too expensive.”
Matthew looked up at her. “Why didn’t you get a loan?” He asked.
With a snuff of her nose, Meagan smoothed the bandage and replied, “I tried. They said I was too much of a risk. They can saddle some snot-nosed high school graduate with crushing debt for a degree in gender studies, but somehow, I wasn’t good enough for them.”
“So you found more money in being a call girl?” Matthew asked, a grin sprinting on his lips.
Meagan glared at him then tied the bandage tight enough to make him double over.
“Done,” she sang before walking back to the mattress, looking at the well-used furniture before deciding that the floor was cleaner.
“So, you’re not one of them,” she said, and Matthew looked up at her, “and you know I’m not one of them. So, what are we going to do? What is even your name?”
“Matthew,” he replied, getting back to his knees to twist his arm to test the bandage. It was crude, but his arm already felt better. “And I have no idea, Meagan. I’m just reacting to the situation. I haven’t had time to think.”
Arms folded over her chest, Meagan rubbed her shoulders to stop shaking from a cold breeze. “Well, you have time now. I mean, it’s obviously this place is being robbed, so that means your buddies are coming right? We should just stay here and wait to be rescued, right?”
Shaking his head, Matthew looked at his empty gun that sat on the floor. “No one’s coming,” he replied in a low voice.
“What?” Meagan gasped, “How do you know?”
Matthew glanced at his wrist monitor, seeing the error screen. “They were organized. I think they got to the AI in time.”
Meagan looked around, “Well, aren’t there backups? A fail-safe? Aren’t there any humans watching this thing?”
Matthew looked up.
“What?” Meagan asked, seeing something in his eyes.
“This storeroom leads to a lot of different secret entrances that I bet they don’t know about,” Matthew checked the time on his monitor. “C’mon, I have an idea,” he said, slipping his work uniform shirt back on but left unbuttoned.
“Where are we going?” Meagan asked, following Matthew as he limped further into the storeroom.
“The communication room,” Matthew replied.
Novelette
“Writing a novelette allows the writer to create all that supporting information to back up a short story. Whether a short story is meant as a scene in a larger story, or simply as a story by itself, it will always be taking part in a larger world.” -ThisIsWriting
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Plot:
"A chance encounter introduces Linda Mark to Henry Collins, a recently discharged Green Beret. Used to dealing with war veterans because of her husband Shawn, a former Army Ranger, they quickly strike up a friendship."
"Yet, events spiral out of control, and Linda and Shawn struggle to survive as Henry’s affection for Linda turns into a deadly obsession."
You can find The Mark at these online stories: