Fortnightly Writing Competition: What a Thief Can See - Contest Over

Started by WHAM, Tue 09/02/2021 11:01:37

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WHAM

What a Thief Can See


Being a thief is stressful work. The constant danger, the risk of being caught, falling from a window, being bitten by dogs, and yet it's all worth it for that sweet, sweet loot!
However, sometimes a thief might get more than they bargained for. Rather than merely pocketing a shiny trinket or a secret document, their nightly intrusion might have them witness... something unexpected.
A secret occult ritual? A forbidden romance? A gruesome murder? An alien abduction? A talking dog in a fancy leather jacket?

Rules: Write a story in which a person, who might be called a thief, is in a place they are not supposed to be in, and they witness something they did not expect, that might have a profound impact on them or someone else.

Once submissions are in, anyone can read the entries and vote. Each voter will have one vote to cast in each of the following categories:

  • Best technical writing quality
  • Best overall story
  • Best secret or event revealed
  • Best individual character

Stories must be submitted by the following deadline: 24th February 2021 - 23:59:59 UTC
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Utterly untrustworthy. Pending removal to memory hole.

Mandle

Tut-Tut

Greetings to you as a potential applicant,

Firstly, allow me to tell you a story:

This all began with Bill, a museum guard, and I coming up with a plan to steal one of the most valuable objects of all time... But I get a little ahead of myself... Here's the full story:

I slid to a halt behind the fake plaster Egyptian pillar just before the security camera turned back enough to have caught my sprint between this pillar and its twin on the other side of the entrance way.

I knew the pillars were fake plaster because they showed up as too warm on my night-vision headset display to be real stone.

Once the security camera had rotated back to full right I gestured to Bruce to make the run between the pillars as well. The lenses of his own night-vision headset glared bright green in my display as he made the dash across the 12 meter gap between the fake plaster Egyptian pillars leading into the museum exhibition room.

I gestured to the other three members to hang back behind the right-hand pillar. Pete held up his fingers in the universal gesture of "Okay" while the other two, Jamie and France, held position behind the wheelbarrow we had built specifically for this job: A rig we had dubbed: the "Tut-Tut".

The Tut-Tut was pretty much a hydraulically-powered re-imagining of the stretcher used to place patients into ambulances without any jarring of their bodies. Just as mobile, but with a few extra perks.

The security camera completed its next full turn to the right and I dashed out and hugged the second pillar of the row of five down the left wall of the exhibition room. This was the last hiding place from the camera before the angle would not allow any more on this side of the room.

Bruce, one pillar back behind me, was already pulling the gun from his belt.

The camera started its left turn back to cover the room and we all froze in place until it stopped again.

Bruce took aim with his glue-gun on the camera.

The camera swiveled slowly back. I glanced back over at Pete, and the other two manning the Tut-Tut, and my night-vision caught the drop of sweat that fell from Pete's nose onto the marble flooring of the museum.

Even during the cold desert night, the interior of this Egyptian museum still held the heat of the brutal day, or maybe Pete was just nervous.

Bruce fired the stream of molten glue at the camera the moment it stopped on its right-most sweep. The noise wasn't too bad. The arching stream only whispered through the air and the splattering of the glue around the camera, and the wall it was set on, was the only thing that could alert a roaming guard and bust us. Within seconds, the glue hardened, and the camera stopped turning.

I looked back at Bruce and gave the go-sign with my fist and then dashed across to the pillar under the glued security camera.

Now we were on borrowed time. Every second counted.

Bruce signaled the Tut-Tut team with the usual arm wave to "come on". The Tut-Tut team wheeled her into the center of the hall and started her hydraulic motors to bring her up into vertical position.

Bruce dashed over to the right-side pillar behind me and did the same glue-gun shot at the second camera on the left wall.

He missed.

Everyone froze in place. The camera tracked back left and paused for what seemed like forever.

We knew that the security room crew would probably be lazy if one camera got stuck. But they might not be so lazy if they saw anything weird on the second camera.

Then that second camera started tracking back to the right and, when it reached its lock position, Bruce fired the glue gun again and nailed it down.

Now we were really in end-game.

My heart was beating a mile a minute.

The security room crew would be headed down sometime soon to see why two cameras had failed.

Pete waved his crew on, and Jamie, and France grunted as they began to push Tut-Tut down the hall to the prize I had already arrived at.

I stood before the sarcophagus of King Tut, and it was every bit as glorious as the photos I had seen in books and online.

And then all our night-vision headsets suddenly shut down.

I heard a lot of confused whispering from Bruce and Pete and Jamie and France and then I could hear nothing more.

From here on in, for a while, I can only report on what I heard later of what happened next:

The Tut-Tut crew and Bruce soon regained their night-vision, which just turned back on for some reason, and pulled the Tut-Tut up behind King Tut's sarcophagus and then I came out from the darkness and gestured at them to hurry up.

They locked King Tut into the hydraulic stretcher as I looked on, frantically gesturing for them to tip the thing over into the horizontal position and wheel it the hell out of here.

We all got to the loading dock of the museum and the hospital-stretcher-inspired construction of the Tut-Tut's wheels folded up perfectly into the escape van's interior as we had planned, just as the shouts of guards were heard behind us.

I peeled out, driving the van, with Bruce riding shotgun, and Pete and Jamie and France in the back, using our ancient prize as a bench to sit on.

Pete said to me "I thought we were screwed when the goggles cut out, Will!".

I replied "Yeah, that glitch could have ruined us!"

Bruce said "I almost shit my pants!"

And everyone laughed.

I pulled the van into the train-yard that Bruce was the supervisor of and he jumped out and unlocked the door of the cargo train-car we needed.

King Tut's sarcophagus was, once again, wheeled about by the Tut-Tut, just like an ambulance stretcher but with much more hydraulic hissing, and placed within the train car, with the ingenious Tut-Tut's legs folding up beneath it as it slid in.

And then I and the crew all jumped back into the van, and we roared away into the night and, over the next few days, took several different planes and trains together, and had a roaring great time of it, and then we all went to a train-yard somewhere in a contested African country, where we would retrieve our treasure and take it to our buyer.

Except... the train car we had loaded King Tut's Sarcophagus into was EMPTY!!!

Our group of thieves looked into how this could have happened and we took every avenue available to us to track down how we had been screwed over on the biggest heist of the century but eventually nothing turned up and the whole crew broke trust with me (name's Bill by the way) in the same way I'm gonna break trust with you, the reader of this story, to tell you its final chapter:

This is not my story anymore. I will pass you back over to the original teller of this tale to where he was at some point back in the past:

The rattling of the train under me pained my back, especially after having to push up every now and then, just to breathe through the brief gap, but eventually the train stopped at its mid-point and I pushed up on the lid and was finally free of the extremely uncomfortable bed-chamber of King Tut's sarcophagus.

I closed the lid of the sarcophagus, minding that my fingers didn't get jammed, and then yanked open the cargo train door and then activated the Tut-Tut, and I jumped down and drew the shining treasure of it out from the train car and the hydraulic legs I had designed on the Tut-Tut folded out just as they should and I pulled it away over the gravel of the train-yard to the truck and I loaded King Tutankhamen's Sarcophagus into the truck and then I closed the back gate and then I drove away.

All those idiots were so surprised to find their treasure has vanished, except for Bill.

Many months have passed since we sold off King Tut's box for billions to... well... you don't have to know who, and we aren't telling.

Myself, Will by birth, and my twin brother, Bill, gladly invite you to join us, as a potential future member of our organization:

Tut-Tut

WHAM

Ah, I see Mandle has stolen away with the first entry! Good, good!
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Utterly untrustworthy. Pending removal to memory hole.

KyriakosCH

Guys, I just wrote this, but it probably is off-topic (metaphorically, this can be about a thief of sorts, but probably it's not enough of a tie). Anyway, I am posting it in case you feel like reading, and while I will be happy to be allowed to take part, as said I suppose it's not very likely :)

The man of the stairways

I know of a man who is always on the move, in stairways, going up or down. They are all kinds of stairways, public and private, outdoors and indoors, they range from steep to easy to climb and while some consists only of a few short steps, others allow long hikes to the loftiest parts of town. Furthermore, he has already moved in those stairways multiple times, and by now can rarely finds a new one â€" even when he does, his interest isn’t always piqued; in fact he seems to prefer a few he already used extensively, and this has been going on since he was very young.

It is true that others would find all this quite pointless, and also strange, had they known about it. As things stand very few people are aware of his preoccupation with stairways, since obviously you can’t just assume anything by watching some passer-by: aren’t you yourself, at the moment, similarly predisposed to watch your steps and make headway on the same passageway? That said, if his obsession somehow became public knowledge, it’d make carrying on going up and down the public or private stairways more difficult, so he would never admit anything about it.

Besides, he sees nothing wrong in his attitude. It may seem dull but there were even times he actually felt a spark of joy; once, upon nearing the top of a particularly rugged stairway and being unexpectedly greeted by the full moon above the desolate lofty outskirt â€" up to then he had to focus on the dirty and treacherous stairs â€" he couldn’t help but smile! Yet mostly he’s about as tired as you’d expect someone to be after climbing so many steps, and his expression, more often than not, is a heavy frown.

Still, you wouldn’t get him to see an error in his ways, even if you alluded to the pointlessness of continuously moving in stairways â€" this is because he’s not at all of the opinion that a breakthrough of sorts is impossible for him. He imagines that somewhere, past the final rung of a possibly remarkably steep â€" or perhaps, if deception is involved, conspicuously not steep â€" stairway, he’d immediately arrive at the place he longed to be all his life, where he could feel free, and there would not be able to resist any offer by the merry people of the location, the very next moment he’d be taken to some house, find himself behind a closed door, settle on a perfectly flat floor, lie on a bed and speak, laugh, smile, get together and be in peace.

Perhaps everyone is looking for such a room. Perhaps this is the type of room which exists â€" in some variation or other â€" for everyone. This still might not allow for it to be found specifically at the end of a stairway.

But it’s not certain â€" and because it’s not certain, he continues to look for it.
This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

Sinitrena

Ben’s Rum

It was his job to grab the bottles while Peter and Alex distracted the cashier, and the girls, Rachel and Corinne, waited outside. Why him? Maybe because he was the fastest or maybe because he had lost when they drew lots, or maybe he boasted that he had stolen there before and hadn’t been caught, or maybe it was all of these things and none. Simply put, he was drunk and didn’t quite remember. But the stock from Peter’s parents was depleted and they needed fresh supplies (not to replenish the cabinet, of course, but to fill up their guts some more), so someone had to do it and Ben was just as good as any of them.

Peter and Alex ambled into the store, joking and pushing each other, while Ben waited in the chocolate aisle for them to start their show. They stumbled and swayed, maybe playing it up, maybe being too drunk to stay upright, but it served the purpose. Ben took the few steps in the small neighbourhood store over to the next aisle as if he just wanted to go through, knelt down to tie his shoelace (at least that was his excuse) and put the old shabby backpack on the floor. As soon as the voices of his friends became louder, he slipped three of the bottles into the backpack and separated them with some exercise books so that they didn’t cling against each other.

That was so much more planning then necessary. He was out of the store before the fake fight between Alex and Peter had reached its climax. Such a wasted performance! So much practice for the theatre club for such a poor audience!

When telling the tale of his daring robbery to his friends, a distracted cashier of course became a snooping detective, the old and overweight guy was of course able to run after him and nearly catch him… It didn’t matter that all four of his friends were there and saw it, the boys from inside the store and the girls from outside, or that it obviously couldn’t be true that the cashier grabbed the backpack from Ben and got their loot back. Why should the truth be in the way of a good story when the bottles were passed between them and the merry-go-round on the playground they had chosen as their drinking place made them more dizzy then the alcohol?

“Like stealing a lolly from a baby!” Ben boasted, contradicting his own earlier story. “I bet it’s just as easy to break into a house!”

For his friends, the theft was just a means to an end, but for Ben it was exhilarating. He still felt his pulse pounding in his throat, the intoxicating fun of the adrenaline, the fast heartbeat and the sobering sweat that made the next swig from the bottle so much better. Grinning from ear to ear, he swallowed the rum and let the burning feeling spread from his throat.

“Sure,” Alex laughed. “Just in and out, no sweat.”

“Yeah, it’s not like you have to break a window or something and then someone will come down and…” Corinne was still fairly articulate. She had only drank a few mouthful and now kicked one of the empty bottles of beer Peter’s father had donated so graciously to their party (no knowledge on his part, of course) over the gravel underneath the merry-go-round.

“And if he can’t come down?” Ben asked, a sly smile playing on his lips.

“What, get lucky and he’sh away?” Peter grabbed the half-empty bottle out of Ben’s hand with slightly less than perfect coordination and drenched the wooden planks of the roundabout with a generous spill. He had some difficulties finding his mouth to take another swig.

Ben shrugged. “What if he’s in a wheelchair?”

“Ben.” Rachel warned. Unlike the other three, she knew that this was not just a random thought that had invaded her brother’s drunken mind. It wasn’t the first time he had hinted at a bit of burglary.

“What?” Ben shrugged. “It’ll be fun!”

“Fun.” Rachel’s tone was as dry as just the disapproval of family could be.

“Ashuelly, yeah.” There was a glitter in Peter’s eyes that might have come from the alcohol or it came from the slight bit of hero worship he felt as the youngest of the group. “You have a… a… watsh the word?… plan?”

“Don’t I always?” The grin spread past his ears and into the ether. Usually, his plans involved closed fair grounds or clubs they were too young for and of course the occasional pilfering of stashes of alcohol or cigarettes. “You know the jeweller down in Fergusson Street?”

“Ben.” Rachel warned again but he ignored her.

“He lives over his shop. Strange, his shop has an alarm, but his flat…”

“And how would you know that?” Corinne’s thoughts became clearer with every word Ben spoke.

“You know my work experience last year? With the locksmith? Yeah, guy locked himself out. Neighbour called us. Separate entrance. I know the lock, and I’ve got the tools.”

“You’re inshane, Ben.” Rachel took one final mouthful from her bottle, the last of the beer they had, then she spun it on the planks of the roundabout and watched it slide to the ground and roll under the rocking horse a few metres away. She stood up, staggered a bit before her feet quite remembered how standing worked, and then she walked a couple of steps in the direction of the group home the two siblings currently lived in. “But do have fun.” She stumbled against the hedge around the playground before she remembered that gates were a rather useful tool to leave enclosed spaces and turned around. “I’m shure that’sh a great idea.”

“Shpoilshport!” Alex called after her and kicked one of the bottles lazily in her general direction. He didn’t quite hit it and so it only rolled around for a bit before it got stuck in the sand that formed most of the ground here.

“Corinne, you coming?” Rachel called when she had finally found the gate.

Corinne looked between her best friend and the boys. She got up from her place on the swings. Ben’s suggestion had sobered her up but that didn’t make his plan sound like any less fun. On the contrary, thinking about it, she actually felt pretty excited. She fell back on the swings and let her feet drag through the sand. “Sorry!” She shrugged.

With a last groan, Rachel was gone.

“You really wanna do thish?” Alex took a rather large gulp from his bottle of rum, emptying it. The burning taste made him question his question. Of course they wanted to do this! This was a great idea! At least, that is what his addled brain told him. Somehow, he ended up kneeling on the grass between the different play items, even though he was sure he had stood up and walked towards the gate. “Come on, come on, come on.” Now that he had decided to do this, they couldn’t get started soon enough.

Laughing and stumbling, arm in arm, they walked towards the shopping street. There was no other way to walk. As soon as they let go of each other, the world suddenly decided to wobble and the tarmac of the streets came far too close to their knees more than once.

The ruckus didn’t get too much attention. Few people were still on the streets at that time of night. The shoppers had all left the street that was busy during the day and only some stray barristers from the cafes, who closed up late, were still walking through the city centre. The jeweller was situated between an independent clothing store and a salad bar. Above the shops, several flats filled the rest of the houses. A couple of separate entrances, located in narrow and unassuming alleys between the more flashy store fronts, also led to a dentists office and an ophthalmologist.

In front of the jeweller, the four friends stopped, swaying from side to side. It took a moment for the world to come back in full focus and for Ben to remember which door they actually wanted. Was it the one to the left or the right of the store? After a few moments and a lot of giggling, Ben pointed to one of the doors. “There.”

“You really wanna do this?” Corinne’s voice sounded meek. A bad idea that sounded awesome for a moment, had turned to awful again as the cold summer night air cleared her head and most of the alcohol stayed behind on the playground with the empty bottles. The boys had swallowed some more of the burning rum on their way here, passing the last of their bottles between them, but when they gave it to Corinne, it was already empty. She had let it slip from her hands and shatter on the hard cobblestones of the pavement.

“You don’t.” While Ben needed a certain amount of alcohol and his friends to back him up to feel brave enough for an idea he had had for a while, he was fairly understanding of Corinne. “You wanna be our lookout instead?”

Corinne shook her head but sat down on one of the decorative boulders in the middle of the pavement nonetheless. Her head sank into her hands and her eyes drooped shut.

“Come on!” Ben said to the other two and together they went into the alley. With surprisingly deft movements of his fingers, considering his general state of mind (that is, drunk out of his mind) and his supposed inexperience, Ben retrieved a little leather case from his pocket and inserted a small instrument into the door. As slick as his actions seemed, the lock would not budge at first. The little pick just wouldn’t keep steady in his shaking hands. Excitement and drunkenness let Ben, and with him his hands, shiver over and over again. Ben bit down hard on his lip and then the lock sprung open.

Behind the door, a staircase led up to the residential parts of the building.

They were completely silent, honest. They didn’t trip against the umbrella stand next to the door and they absolutely did not giggle when a vase on a cabinet tumbled to the ground. In fact, what vase? There certainly was no vase there that fell down and broke chinking on the hard wood floor. And they never did shush each other louder than their clumsy steps and their laughter. No coat was brushed to the ground and no picture frame ended up slightly askew when they stumbled past. What stumbling, they of course moved as slick and as quite through the flat as a thief in the night. Well, a good thief, that is.

They did indeed touch every little thing on their way through the flat, taking this little figurine up and putting that hat back down until they stumbled into the little workshop at the back of the house.

Somewhere on the way, they had left Peter behind. He stood, fascinated, in front of a piece of modern art that showed a face, where mirrors replaced the eyes. His own eyes were starring back at him! How was that possible? He moved his head from one side to the other, he blinked in the semi-darkness of the hallway, he brushed his fingertips over the uneven structure of the painting…

Alex and Ben looked through the tiny instruments and little boxes the jeweller had set out on his workbench but there wasn’t a lot of material. After finding little loot, Alex ambled over to one of the low cupboards, while Ben picked the locks of various drawers and then discarded his leather case on the desk.

Papers. Papers. Papers. He threw them onto the table top where they fanned out and fluttered to the floor. Already turning away from the worthless files, Ben’s eyes suddenly fell on one of them. The lines and notes on it blurred in front of his eyes and he had to steady himself on the edge of the table, so that his eyes lingered slightly longer on the paper. It was rather large, now that Ben’s haphazard treatment had opened it up.

At first the various lines and smudges looked like a labyrinth, the little circles and squares that were added here and there seemed random and without system, the cones that came from them were just useless geometric constructions. But for some reason Ben found the notes rather interesting. Like a path through a place-mat maze, one line lead through the hallways and rooms of a large building. Notes mentioned cameras and blind angles and the type of safe in the study. But this was not a building Ben was familiar with and the notes on the back of the paper talked of the dimensions of a pair of earrings and a finger ring. The calculations next to it made little sense.

With a bang, several boxes clattered to the ground and Ben’s head whipped around to Alex. “Be quiet, dammit!”

But the other boy was gone. What Ben still saw was the draw string of Alex’ jacket disappear around the corner. And then the click of a cocking gun filled the suddenly silent atmosphere of the room. Ben’s head whipped around to the other direction.

The jeweller sat in his wheelchair, comfortably reclined, and held the gun lazily pointed in Ben’s general direction.

“Where the bloody hell did you get a gun from?” Ben blurted out the first thing that came to mind â€" to a surprisingly sober mind that still wasn’t able to catch up with his mouth.

Unmoving eyes regarded the burglar for a moment. Ben blinked a couple of times as reality started to set in again and the burning sensation of the rum earlier seemed to run through his throat once more, only in the opposite direction. He looked around for his friends, but they were gone and hopefully safe. Peter had never entered the room, Alex had run off and Corinne wasn’t even in the house. It was just Ben left.

As his logical capacities slowly re-adjusted, he knew not to expect an answer.

And he did indeed receive none to his insolent question. “Be so kind as to pass me the phone, will you?” the jeweller said instead, motioning to the wireless landline phone on the desk and backing up the order with a slight flick of the gun.

Ben followed the motion with his eyes, not moving the rest of his body. His eyes roamed over the jeweller’s tools on the desk, past the little remnants of his materials, past the strange plans, to the phone, back to the plans.

With his mind-mouth-filter reactivated, he still decided to be cocky. “So, how can you burgle if you’re in a wheelchair?” he asked.

The jeweller’s eyes followed Ben’s to the plans. He scratched his grey beard for a moment and then he raised the gun, calculating.

Suddenly, Ben’s heart beat twice as fast as the seconds on his watch. He stumbled a few steps back until he bumped against one of the cupboards. “I… I didn’t see anything?” It was not meant as a question.

With the gun pointed directly at him, the next few minutes, or just seconds, felt like hours for Ben. He didn’t move, he didn’t raise his hands, he didn’t even look away, only swallowed from time to time as the bile started to rise up again. Starring half at the plans and half at the weapon he began to shake.

“I can’t,” the jeweller finally said and un-cocked his gun. He scratched his long beard again and put the weapon aside. “Not any-more.” Wheeling himself further into the room, he looked Ben up and down. He saw trembling hands he used to stabilised himself on the sturdy table, shining eyes that betrayed a certain amount of alcohol in his blood and a nose pointed arrogantly upwards to unsuccessfully mask any fear. At the tip of his fingers he noticed the earlier so casually discarded leather case. “So,” he then asked, “’ow fast can you pick a lock?”


------------------------------------------------

You might recognize Ben from some other stories. In chronological order, this one would be the first, followed by:

Arnaud's Art
Inspector Coultry's Boat
Zacharias Stern's Last Will
Timothy Coultry's Notebook
Lady Susanna's Necklace


Baron

Ice Under Fire

   Radek was understandably skeptical to learn that the frozen planet of Siberius was in fact a tourist destination.  His idea of paradise involved hot beaches and hotter women, and he assumed other people would naturally share his opinion.  But now, looking over the perfectly smooth ice sheet of the Sea of Placidity, stretching mirror-like beneath a hauntingly alien turquoise sky, he began to reconsider.    The ice island he was on, heaved up at the edge of two ice plates in just a matter of years, had been fantastically carved into a lattice of turrets and buttresses by the wind and weather.  Similar islands studded the vista at irregular intervals, reflected perfectly in the waveless glass of the frozen sea.  If it weren't such a nice day for hijacking ice-yachts, he'd have considered bringing out a beach chair to enjoy the relative warmth of the mid-afternoon sun.

   His radio buzzed to life, shaking him out of his daydream.  “Any sighting?”, the voice on the other end asked irritably.  Radek's elder brother Radovan was not one much for chit-chat. 

   â€œNothing,” Radek responded.  He held an optical scanner up to his eyes, slowly panning over the horizon.  “This ice-cube is as dead as a frozen door knob.”

   A long stretch of silence indicated Radovan was thinking.  He was the brains behind the operation, and had been ever since they were orphaned as teenagers.  “Maybe someone tipped them off....” Radovan speculated sullenly.

   â€œMaybe they thought of something better to do than an ice cruise,” Radek shot back instantly.  He wasn't one much to weigh his words before speaking.  An action-junkie, he was in this business more for thrills and spills than actual gain.

   Another long pause.  How it used to frustrate Radek, trying to converse with his brother!  But after two stints in astro-juvie he had begun to appreciate that there might just be something to his brother's carefully calculated schemes.  Finally the radio fizzled to life again: “Maybe they changed course.  With the way the ice-crust churns out here, it's possible our charts are out of date.”

   â€œHow's our window looking?” Radek asked, putting the scanner down again.  He hated scrubbing missions once he had gotten himself all psyched-up for some action.  Radovan was a professional plug-puller, axing two-thirds of their jobs at the last minute because the circumstances were not perfect.  But credit where credit was due: in the five years since they had learned to work together, they had never come close to being caught in the act.

   â€œClosing rapidly,” his brother replied.  And that was probably all Radek would get out of him.  Radek knew the job relied on some conjunction of satellite dead-zones, local enforcement shift-change, and trillionaire whimsy.  But the details were the death of him, and always had been.  It was good that he had Radovan to obsess over the minutiae.  On the other hand, it was good Radovan had him to do the dirty work.

   â€œAny chance of me getting some time out here with a beach chair if we scrub?” Radek asked, trying the optical scanner out once more.

   â€œNo,” came the surprisingly quick reply.  Radek shook his head.  Ever since mom had died, Radovan had had an almost religious obsession with all work and no fun.  It was strange how the same traumatic event in their formative years could have such a profoundly different impact on their respective personalities.  But Radek wasn't one to dwell, and Radovan wasn't one to talk about it.  That was the way it was, and that was the way it was always going to be.

   And then an unnatural glint caught Radek's eye, and he zoomed in with the optical scanner to investigate.  It was hard to tell at this range, but the size and vector of the craft were encouraging.  “Got something,” he radioed.  “Possible mark, 26 degrees east-north-east.”

   A long pause drew out the seconds like icicles dripping off the sculpted vaults of the ice-island.  This was where the job hung in the balance, as Radovan carefully weighed all the factors. 

   â€œConfirmation?” Radovan radioed back.

   â€œIt'll be too late by the time we know for sure,” Radek shot back, squinting into the scanner.  “It's not likely to be Aunt Doris out for a Sunday drive, though.”

   Another long pause.  “Aunt Doris doesn't take Sundays off.  She's the hooker working just outside that religious compound on Galleum, remember?”

   â€œWell then it sure as hell isn't her.  Thirty-two degrees east-north-east.  Range fifteen kilometres and closing.  I'd say 75% likelihood this is our mark.  Make the call!”  The radio sat silently as Radek counted down the klicks: fourteen, thirteen, twelve....  It would be too late by the time Radovan made up his mind, so Radek jumped on his ice-board and recklessly slid down the complicated topography of the ice island towards the old rocket-sled they had souped-up for this job.

   â€œI have them on the lidar,” Radovan droned cooly over the radio.  “Current vector takes them past the island across the channel, range 10 km.  I don't think we can catch them with that kind of differential.”

   â€œNot unless we leave now, now, NOW!” Radek shouted, hopping on top of the rocket-sled's roof and banging on the aluminium for emphasis as he hooked on to the sled's tether system. “We can always abort if they out-range us!”

   â€œWe've got six minutes, thirty five seconds,” Radovan responded icily as the engines roared to life.  “Hang on up there.”  The rocket-sled lurched into motion, skidding sideways on its blades as it tried to change direction on the ice.

   â€œPunch it!” Radek shouted, wishing he was in the driver's seat as well as surfing cavalierly up on top.  The rocket-sled finally swung around and Radovan dropped the hammer.  The force of acceleration felt like it was going to tear Radek's arms off, but somehow he managed to hold on.  “Woo!” he shouted happily, just to let his brother know he was still on-board.

   â€œEight kilometres,” Radovan droned over the radio.  “Seven â€" they've seen us.  Changing course....  Wait.”

   â€œWhat is it?” Radek shouted over the rushing wind.  He squinted into the distance.  He should be able to see the ice-yacht with his naked eye at this range.

   â€œThe ice-yacht is now heading in our direction,” Radovan muttered.  “I don't like it.”

   There!  Radek could see the star-like shine of sunlight reflecting off the ice-yacht on the horizon.  But confusingly there were suddenly other, smaller stars emerging from beyond a distant ice-island.  “I think we've got company!” he called out over the radio.

   â€œConfirmed.  Three bogies, sled-class.  I'm aborting.”

   â€œIt can't be the cops-” Radek began before he was flung sideways as his brother cranked the wheel.

   â€œHang on,” Radovan radioed belatedly as the rocket-sled skidded in a wide circle.  Radek made sure his grip was secure before risking a glance over his shoulder.  Was that laser fire?

   â€œTwo kilometres,” Radovan narrated.  “One kilometre...”  The blades bit into the ice and the rocket-sled surged forward, the ice-yacht closing just behind, with laser blasts shooting past from the bogies beyond.

   â€œThey're trying to jack our mark!” Radek shouted in confusion as a laser blast shot by his right shoulder.

   â€œYou're causing too much drag up there,” Radovan muttered.  “That ice-yacht is faster than we predicted.  Get in here!”

   Radek moved to unclip the tether, then paused, looking back at the ice-yacht on their tail.  “Wait.  I've got an idea,” he said.  “Keep it steady!” In one practised motion he jumped up and strapped the ice-board back on to his feet, pulling the tether taught so that he landed like a water-skier on the ice behind the rocket-sled.

   â€œRadek, you crazy idiot!  Get back here!”

   â€œJust a little closer!” Radek called back, slicing his board to the side to avoid a freak ice-spike.  He let out the tether to its maximum length, but he still dangled about 30 metres in front of the ice-yacht.

   â€œWe scrub!” his brother called back over the radio.  “We don't know who these guys are!  And we're outnumbered!”  The rocket-sled began to drift off to the side, until a sudden laser blast exploded near their flank and Radovan veered back on course.

   â€œThey're shooting wide,” Radek commented.  “They just want to keep them straight.  Probably got a team getting ready to board.  We can beat them to it.  Just get me underneath!”

   No, we scrub!” Radovan shouted back, a hint of fear in his voice. 

   Radek hated to put his brother through the anguish of potentially losing another family member, but to his discredit he hated wimping out even more.  “Pick me up in two minutes,” he called back, and then disconnected from the tether.  He surfed back on his ice-board until he was under the ice-yacht, and then flipped up to grab at a strut that attached the craft to one of its giant blades.  A lateral laser blast caught him off-guard, narrowly missing him.  He turned to notice another thief perched precariously on the supporting struts of the other runner.  Not having brought a weapon, Radek improvised by throwing his optical scanner towards his attacker, miraculously hitting the laser weapon out of his hand.

   Now it was a race along the lattice of the craft's under-frame to get to the ice-yacht's engine hatch first.  Radek beat his rival, but was promptly kicked out of the way, nearly falling onto the ice racing by underneath.  Radek managed to swing himself back up, kicking at his assailant with the ice-board that was still attached to his feet.  Unfortunately the other thief dodged the blow, then used the opening to get in a good shot at his kidney.  Radek shouted in pain, but swung back with an elbow to the other thief's helmet, knocking him backwards off the lattice.  The helmet bounced off the ice and disappeared behind the craft, but miraculously the thief's leg had caught between the angle of two struts, leaving him dangling precariously upside down just barely over the rushing ice.  Only the pained scream and the billowing hair in the wind revealed him to actually be a her.

   â€œTake it easy, Sweetheart!” Radek laughed over the wind.  “I'm sure they'll scrape you off the undercarriage the next time they run this thing through the yacht-wash!”  He turned to fiddle with the engine hatch latch, but froze when the woman spat a familiar but thickly accented curse at him.  Slowly he turned back around.

   â€œMom?”

Ponch


WHAM

The deadline is over and it is time to read, and also to vote.

Our stories this time around are:
Tut-Tut by Mandle
The man of the stairways by KyriakosCH
Ben’s Rum by Sinitrena
Ice Under Fire by Baron

Anyone can read the entries and vote. Each voter will have one vote to cast in each of the following categories:

  • Best technical writing quality
  • Best overall story
  • Best secret or event revealed
  • Best individual character

Votes must be submitted by the following deadline: 5th March 2021 - 23:59:59 UTC
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Utterly untrustworthy. Pending removal to memory hole.

Sinitrena

@Mandle: Let's start with the most generic thing I have to say about this story: The writing is good, not exceptional and not bad either. I didn't notice anything that stands out, neither good nor bad. What I missed a bit was the connection with the stated topic: There's a thief, sure, but I can't point my finger on anything specific he witnesses.
At fist, I thought the story was a pretty clever idea (that is, the plan seemed clever) but I had to parse the text carefully to know who speaks when which made me think about it a bit too much. I might be mistaken, but what I ended up with is: Will, until the museum gets dark, Bill until they discover the sarcophagus gone, Will for the rest. Some lines could be both, like the very beginning (first two paragraphs), but that's the general structure if I'm not mistaken. Unfortunately, the fact that this structure is not clear right away made me take a far closer look at this story than I usually do - and that made me realize how flawed the logic is.
The plan, as described is: Will hires crew, Will and Crew enter museum, Will gets into sarcophagus, Bill and crew wheel sarcophagus out, Will steals sarcophagus again en route, Bill and crew discover it gone, Will and Bill live happily ever after.  ;) Now, I find this plan rather questionable. There are two reasons I can think of for the need for Will to get into the sarcophagus: the ability to steal it en route while the crew things Will is with them, additional security while en route. Both are not convincing.
Let me suggest an alternative plan: Will hires crew, Will and crew enter museum, steal sarcophagus, load it on train. Bill intercepts train and steals sarcophagus again.
Now, why would this plan be better: Will and Bill never change place, so less risk that the crew notices anything. The crew never ever meets Bill, so one of the twins is completely secure. The theft in the museum takes less time (opening the sarcophgus, climbing into it, closing it again - this all takes time.) The sarcophagus is not so heavy, so easier to transport.
In short, I thought too much about the plan and realized that it was fairly stupid.
On a more general note: Ostensibly, judging by the first and last line, this is an ad for new members for Will and Bill's crew. Do you see any problem with hiering people by telling them you screwed over their predessesor? I do. This makes no sense in universe.
Unfortunately, you broke my logic filter, which took a lot of enjoyment out of this story.

@KyriakosCH: That's an interesting - I can't quite call it a story, so maybe - character study. We get an interesting portrait of an unusual man, who is not exactly a thief (to get to the connection to the topic). A traspasser, probably, and it's certainly possible he steals too, but first and foremost, he is someone with an unusual fetish.
Plotwise, there's not a whole lot. It feels very much like the introduction of a character that should then be followed by the actual story where certain characteristics we learn about here come into play. To get back to the topic, what I could easily imagine is this person engaging in his strange hobby and then witnessing something and this something be the catalyst for either some action or some self-discovery.
I like the character, I like the concept, I like the idea, but I do miss a plot where the idea comes to its full fruition. In short, more, just give us more.

@Baron: Action packed and funny. The characters are noticable different from each other and there's this one line about how the same event lead to such different chracters, which I really liked. I think this aspect could have been embellished some more, but this was probably not the right story for that. The focus is just too much on the action here.
And the action is good, though not outstanding. In written action scenes, it's so easy to lose track of who's who and what's what, which did happen here, but not to a particular large amount.
I like the world, even though we get to see little of it, the ice is described, so we get to see the world on a small scale, but only hints at the larger scale - a sci-fi world, but other than that?
I think the reveal in the end was not carried out as good as possible. Suddenly seeing your mom, who you thought was dead, would certainly have a large impact on you, so we can assume a whole lot of shock from Radek. But we, as readers, don't really feel it, because we know too little. We don't get any inclination of what meaning she would have, of why she might have faked her death, of how she allegedly died. There's just not enough information on the mother. On a character level, the focus is clearly on the relationship between the brothers, but we don't even get to see the different impact the reveal might have on one or the other. This, obviously, is not helped by the cut-off point of the story.
All in all, I liked the action aspect of the story, but think there was a lot of unused potential character-wise.



Votes:

Best technical writing quality: Baron - I liked the action.
Best overall story: Baron - Mandle's made no sense when thinking too much about it and Kyriakos has no plot.
Best secret or event revealed: Mandle - with a lot of good-will. The secret or event was not somthing the thieves witnessed, but it was the most interesting, even though it's not exactly logical.
Best individual character: KyriakosCH - The character really stands out for his uniqueness.

KyriakosCH

Thank you for the comments. I just wish we could actually only have "voting" by people not taking part in the contest :D
This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

Sinitrena

Okay, I'm incredibly tired, so maybe I'm just stupid, but I can't for the life of me figure out what you are trying to say. Is it:

1. More people not in the contest should vote? (Agreed, a problem we always have.)
2. Only people who are not participants in the contest should vote? (I hope not, then we would have no votes at all.)
3. People who are not in the contest should vote without commenting? (As long as they vote, I don't care. They are certainly allowed to already.)
4. Something else?

Sorry, really tired. I'll probably read this again tomorrow and wonder what I was thinking.  :-[

KyriakosCH

Quote from: Sinitrena on Thu 25/02/2021 18:44:44
Okay, I'm incredibly tired, so maybe I'm just stupid, but I can't for the life of me figure out what you are trying to say. Is it:

1. More people not in the contest should vote? (Agreed, a problem we always have.)
2. Only people who are not participants in the contest should vote? (I hope not, then we would have no votes at all.)
3. People who are not in the contest should vote without commenting? (As long as they vote, I don't care. They are certainly allowed to already.)
4. Something else?

Sorry, really tired. I'll probably read this again tomorrow and wonder what I was thinking.  :-[

I mean 2 :) Yes, I know it is impossible as things stand. It was only a wish.
This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

Sinitrena

Wait, why?  ???
I mean, when it's only two people participating and they vote for each other that's always a bit pointless, but with four entrants (like we have it here) there's enough choice for the participants as well. I really see no reason why participants shouldn't vote. As a matter of fact, as soon as it comes to commenting, people who participated might actually have the more interesting or relevant comments, as they have thought about the topic more.
No, I do not agree. Of course writers should also vote (and comment, if they feel like it).  (nod) Especially when other entrants have already voted, just out of fairness *wink wink nudge nudge

WHAM

I think it's perfectly fine for participants to vote, as long as they make a conscious effort to:
A) Not divert their votes for personal gain
B) Don't vote for themselves

The best way to do this is to read the entries, not look at how other people have voted, and then just vote how you feel is fairest.
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Utterly untrustworthy. Pending removal to memory hole.

KyriakosCH

Quote from: Sinitrena on Thu 25/02/2021 18:59:30
Of course writers should also vote (and comment, if they feel like it).  (nod) Especially when other entrants have already voted, just out of fairness *wink wink nudge nudge


I will try :)
You guys always write a lot of words, and I - always - am lazy.
This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

Sinitrena

Tip: Print it out. It only seems like a lot. The texts look a lot shorter on paper.  (nod)

KyriakosCH

Quote from: Sinitrena on Mon 01/03/2021 05:08:36
Tip: Print it out. It only seems like a lot. The texts look a lot shorter on paper.  (nod)

;-D

I will read it. I actually have to read a lot of flash fiction for my online work (literary seminar). It just may take some time, but I will.
This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

Baron

Nice reads, peeps!  Here are my votes:

Best technical writing quality: I found all three pieces to be fairly strong from a technical perspective.  I vote KyriakosCH because he has struggled a bit in this department in the past, but I personally believe this to be his strongest submission yet.

Best overall story: I vote for Sinitrena for sticking to the theme by having a genuinely surprising sight for the thieving protagonist to see.  In this category I found KyriakosCH's story a bit short and lacking in plot arc (and thieving, for that matter....).  Mandle's story had a strong beginning but I found it fell apart a bit as it the action advanced.  The blackout, in particular, was unexplained and - in light of what I can infer of its source - baffling in terms of risk and logistical complexity.  Also.... how did the inside twin get out of the sealed rail car???  Wouldn't it have made more sense to have the inside twin... outside?   

Best secret or event revealed:  I vote Mandle for this category, due more to the convoluted audacity of the secret itself rather than it's quality.  KyriakoshCH's story revealed little, except perhaps further philosophical mysteries.  Sinitrena's secret was the most authentic, but I admit I had to do more than a little research of her previous stories to really arrive at that aha! moment.   :-[

Best individual character: I vote KyriakoshCH for an intriguing glimpse into the mind and manner of quite a bizarre character.

Sinitrena

Quote from: Baron on Thu 04/03/2021 03:10:36
Sinitrena's secret was the most authentic, but I admit I had to do more than a little research of her previous stories to really arrive at that aha! moment.   :-[

I'm curious what kind of aha! moment you had that required further information than provided in this story. The fact that the juweller is (was) a burglar is the secret that's supposed to be there and that is something Ben figures out rather quickly (and maybe a little too easily, considering he's plastered) and the reader might figure out. Yes, there are connections to the other stories, mainly that the juweller has shown up before (chronologically later) and what his name is, but other than that just some tiny things you could have known before, like the fact that Rachel and Ben are siblings, which is obviously not a secret or anything.
I mean, one might not get it immediately what the plans are that Ben finds, but once he asks the juweller if he's a thief and he admits it, there's really nothing left to figure out.
I'm confused.  ???

Do other people also have this problem: You think you give all the information and then someone reads your writing and just doesn't get it - or the other way around, you think you're clever in slowly goving information until the reader is supposed to figure it out and then someone tells you they knew from the very beginning what was going on?
I'm never sure I get the right mixture of this. I guess that's a pretty good reason not to write too many murder mysteries  ;).

KyriakosCH

When is the deadline for voting? :)

(I do feel that I should at least return the favor!)
This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

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