Chapter 8 - Breaking and entering isn't a crime, it's a living

Posted on https://books.clockworkcaracal.com/dragons-heart/old-beginnings/ch8 - if you aren't there, this is a pirated copy!

The delivery driver climbed out of their truck with a sigh, scratching absently at the back of their neck as they trudged around to the back. As they reached for the lock on the back door to the enter the code, before they even touched it - click, came the unmistakeable sound of the latch unlocking.

"Open the door," Fang murmured, just loud enough to be heard from around the side of the truck. "Then get in like you're getting a package."

The driver hesitated, looking around for a moment - probably to see if anyone was around to call for help, Fang thought drily - before opening the doors Fang had conveniently unlocked for them and climbing into the truck.

Step one down. Fang sent another whisper of magic to the security cameras, just in case, and slipped around the corner and into the truck as well.

The driver, to Fang's surprise, was pointing a gun at him.

Fang raised his eyebrows and his hands in the classic unarmed gesture, rapidly shifting mental gears from light intimidation to completely harmless. "If you shoot me," he said, keeping his tone light and casual, "you'll be the one going to jail, not me."

"What... what do you want?"

Fang held back a sigh. The only driver stopping at the right building who was his size and they had to be one of the jumpy ones. "I just want to make a deal. I need to get into this building--"

"I am not gonna help a criminal." Their voice wobbled, just on the edge of cracking.

"Hey, I get it." Fang aimed for as reassuring a tone as possible, giving the poor terrified driver (who was still aiming that gun his way) a lopsided smile. "There's just something I need to see inside, okay? Nothing gets stolen, no one gets hurt, everyone gets their deliveries on time. I'll even pay you in advance."

"... Pay me?" The driver lowered their gun slightly, and Fang held back another sigh, this one of relief. "What for?"

"Borrowing your uniform. I'll give it back," Fang added, just to be on the safe side. "And some directions on where to deliver the packages, so nobody complains about the service."

"That's it?" They frowned, lowering the gun the rest of the way.

"That's it," Fang agreed. "And I'll pay you a grand for the privilege."

They were considering it, now, which Fang counted as successfully salvaging that unexpectedly rough start, but weren't sold yet. "Why's it worth so much to you?"

"Well..." Fang hedged, "you know how it is. You go out with a friend for drinks, they start talking shit, you start talking shit back - next thing you know, you realize you bet ten grand on sneaking into their job office without getting caught. I can't spare ten grand," he muttered, playing up the aggrieved regret.

"You're kidding." The driver looked incredulous - but they were smiling, and putting the gun back. Bingo. "So you're just on a dare, huh?"

"It's not a dare," he protested indignantly. "It's a bet! I have ten thousand dollars on the line!"

"Yeah, yeah." The driver chuckled. "Okay kid, I'll help you save face for a thousand dollars. I've got a spare uniform up here, you can borrow that one."

"Oh my god, you're a lifesaver. Here, hold on." Fang started digging in his pockets, pretending he didn't know exactly where his cred chips were, before fishing one out and waving it. "Your payment."

"I'll charge it while you're getting changed, seems only fair." The driver pulled some clothes out of a small duffel bag and tossed it to Fang, then shook their head, chuckling. "A bet," they muttered, quiet enough Fang suspected they thought he couldn't hear. "These rich kids are something else."

Fang pulled the shirt over his head, hiding a smile. Getting treated like a kid never stopped being amusing.

Fang resisted the urge to adjust his borrowed uniform. It was a little too broad; a little too short; a little too new, as well. But, as uncomfortable as it was, they all worked perfectly into the cover story he had on hand as back-up. With his long hair tucked up completely under the uniform's cap and enough magic folded away to look completely human, he didn't expect anyone to bother looking twice - but when it came to corporate espionage, it was always **better to have a a plan you didn't need than need one you didn't have.

He waved his borrowed key across the lock, waiting for the door to click open before pushing the loaded hand cart through. A bored security guard was seated just inside, glancing up at him with disinterest before waving him by. Fang nodded and continued past - no friendly smiles if you didn't want to get noticed. Just doing my job.

The mail room was on the fifth floor, next up was the elevator. Down the hall, turn left, and tucked around the corner was a standard service elevator, right where it was supposed to be.

Fang pushed the button for going up and waited, leaning on the handle of the hand truck and trying not to think about how many things he was trying not to think about.

And worst, the security cameras were making his skin itch. Not literally; he wasn't actually allergic to cameras, although Vanessa had certainly made the joke often enough. Just... he knew there were security cameras, somewhere, but with all his magic put away to pull off the "ordinary human" look, he not only didn't know where, he couldn't do anything about them either. Being caught on camera, recognized, having some pseudo-military coming after him and---

Not thinking about that, he reminded himself sternly.

The elevator doors slid open, giving him a temporary distraction as he pushed his mail in and let himself be shut into a small, locked room which inevitably had its own security camera. Which he was not going to look for.

Fang watched the floor numbers tick upwards, thinking wistfully about stairwells instead of how uncomfortable he felt. Or how much he wanted to pull the cap more securely down over his face. Or the possibility his generously paid temporary accomplice had fed him bullshit instructions. Or---

The elevator slowed, then stopped, the display showing it was only the fourth floor. Grimacing, Fang dragged his deliveries over to the side as the door slid open, making sure there was enough room for whoever was getting on.

"---rescheduled again, would you believe it?" A janitor wheeled their cart in, talking over a headset and ignoring Fang completely as they pushed the button for floor 5 as well. "I know, right? I told him the same, but he's not ready to give up, he says."

The doors slid shut again. Fang didn't drum his fingers on the hand truck.

"Yeah, I gotta let you go, I'm getting into people territory and they don't like chatty grunts. Uh huh. Later." Fang's elevator companion reached up to their headset, probably hanging up their call.

A moment later, the elevator slowed, opening up onto the fifth floor.

Fang let the janitor out first, then made his own way out into the hall. Despite the janitor's comment about people territory, there were no other employees visible.

Turn right, he noted, mentally reviewing the rest of the directions he'd gotten: continue past the first intersection, make a right at the next, the mail room was at the end.

The first intersection was only a dozen feet down the hall. The next stretch of hallway was longer, passing several doorways that he assumed were offices until, passing one that had been left open, he caught a glimpse of what looked like a storage room.

A cluttered storage room would be an ideal candidate to hide Trace's bug. He made a note of the door without pausing, then continued on down the hall, around the corner, and straight for the large glass door at the end of the hall.

Fang swiped his borrowed key across the lock again, waiting for the doors to slide open before stepping in. The drop-off area was to the left, based on the vague gestures he'd gotten, and from the explanation itself, it had sounded like an old library drop-off window... Ah, there.

Fang pushed the hand truck around to the left, heading for an unlabelled cut-out in the wall that had been fitted with a scanner bed and conveyor belt. He took a minute to fuss with the stacked packages, giving himself enough time for someone to call him out if he was somehow in the wrong spot - and when no one paid him any mind, he started scanning the packages in.

With each package - he was doing them one at a time, which he'd been told was expected - he made sure to give himself a view of a different part of the room.

A small fumble of one showed him the pick-up counter, staffed by a middle-aged woman and an eager young man. Turning another around package as if checking it had the right scan codes, he got a good view of the doorway from the inside. Lots of glass, a couple fake plants on either side, and an uncomfortable-looking set of chairs set against the wall.

Two more packages later confirmed what he'd observed so far, along with the added information that there were no windows in view, and there was another area on the far side of the room which he couldn't see from his position at all.

As he slid yet another package into the scanner (and at only halfway done, this would be incredibly tedious if it was his actual job) he weighed the available options. His current position, first. The scanner was in full view of the desk and **the door, but behind him was another sad fake plant - and the plant itself was just barely far enough into the corner that it should only be visible from the doorway.

The entire doorway area was glass, meaning that it was easy to see in, but also easy to see if anyone was coming down the hallway well before they could make out any details. If he wanted a few seconds of magic, this would be the place to do it - there would be no way to veer off out of view along the route back down without drawing unwanted suspicion.

(Not for the first time, Fang wished he had the convenient disguise abilities of a real fey's glamour.)

His route back down was limited to the mail room, the hallways back down to the elevator, and the elevator itself. Getting on the elevator going "the wrong way" was tempting, but a risky move at best. The question, then, was how much more info he needed to break in later that night, and what he coulddo to get it.

The easy answer to that one: stairs. Fang slid another package into the scanner with a little more force than necessary. There was no way he would be taking the elevator on his own, and to get the best effect for Trace's bug he would need to drop it in, as the janitor had put it, "people territory". Which meant fifth floor and up.

A quick glance showed that no one was in sight down the hall, so he reached for the next package in the stack, "accidentally" knocking the top few across the floor and into the base of the plant. Ducking his head and projecting embarrassment, he quickly crossed the three feet of space and crouched down, feeling his ears shift as he let out just a little magic.

First step: the damn cameras. Fang reached his magic out, identifying and linking into the two cameras he was in view of - one over the entrance, one over the camera - then concentrated for a moment to convince them he still looked completely human, a much trickier task than just convincing them he wasn't there at all.

Feeling the edges of his available magic, he fought back a grimace and let out just a little more, hiding his claw tips underneath the packages he was picking back up off the floor. Still holding the cameras, he reached the extra power out through the walls, following the miniature streams of lightning through the wiring to trace out a mental map of the walls. He couldn't map out the whole floor, not without unfolding more power than he was comfortable doing, but if he could just find something like a stairwell....

There it is. He grinned, quickly smoothing out the expression as he finished stacking the fallen deliveries. A small room, external wall, nearly identical layout across vertical levels, locking door - if it wasn't the stairs, he had no business being in the corporate heist business. Laying it out in his mind, he extrapolated where the exerior exit must be - not that far away from the official door he'd come through, but tucked away around a corner with limited alley access - he folded the magic away again, resuming his facade of a perfectly ordinary human.

Getting back down was busier, but no more eventful than getting inside in the first place. No one looked twice at the delivery man going about his business, at the usual time, in the usual uniform, and the security guard at the back door barely acknowledged him at all as he left.

The delivery truck was still right where he'd left it, which was reassuring. Not that Fang had expected the driver to take off without getting their hand truck back, but after the spare uniform hand-off, he'd lost his biggest assurance. After all, it was always a safe bet on someone sticking around for you to get back when you were wearing their clothes.

He opened the back of the truck like it was his, hauling up the hand truck before climbing in after it.

"Oh." The actual delivery driver was looking at him in relief, lowering a hand that, if Fang was going to take a guess, had been reaching for that gun again. "It's you."

"Sure is." Fang grinned, pulling off the uniform cap and noting that his jacket was exactly where he'd left it. Too bad I can't use this way in more than once... Peeling the rest of the uniform off from over his regular clothes, he gave himself a quick refresher on his cover story before giving the driver a satisfied grin. "Can't wait to see their faces when we next meet up."

The driver chuckled, relaxing again and shaking their head. "You were careful with the deliveries, yeah?"

"Oh yeah, definitely," Fang reassured them. "Treated them all like breakables, just to be safe."

"Mmm, good. Well, if I get through without a write-up today and you need to win any other crazy bets, keep me in mind, I guess?"

Fang blinked in surprise and avoided raising his eyebrows. "You serious?"

"Don't go doing it on purpose, mind." They sounded amused, smiling broadly. "I won't just do it for free."

"Oh yeah, of course not," he agreed quickly. "I mean, I'll try not to make any more bets, definitely not for so much, but if, uh," Fang ducked his head sheepishly, playing up the part, "you know, it happens, I'll keep you in mind, sure."

The driver gave him a thumbs up, then climbed back out, heading for the front of the truck. "Once you're out, I'm heading off. Day's not done yet."

"Yeah, I'm just about done." Fang pulled his shoes back on, unfolding the small fraction of his magic to bring back the pointed ears, and hopped out the back of the truck - reaching out with that magic, as he did, with another whisper to the cameras of I'm not here.

Once the truck left around the corner and he confirmed that there weren't any other people around, Fang made his way around the building, slipping into a narrow alley. Based on what he'd identified inside, the emergency stairs shouldn't be too far...

A quick visual scan and touch of magic confirmed it almost immediately, and Fang grinned at the wall in satisfaction. With his plan of attack settled, he could spend the hours until dark doing whatever he wanted.

"I still don't think this counts as today."

Fang ignored Trace's grumbling as he slipped through the shadows up to the door, feeling with his magic through the wall for the lock. It was electronic, like he'd expected, and all keyed from the inside, like he'd also expected, and as his luck held, he located a small security camera set just across from the door. Also inside.

Smiling to himself and closing his eyes, his magic whispered to the camera - show me - and the inside of the exit sparked into view in his mind.

"No guard," he confirmed aloud.

"Good, hurry it up."

Fang rolled his eyes, tempted for the third time that night to zap the earpiece to get away from Trace's crankiness, and instead put a hand on the door and concentrated on the lock. It was fairly advanced, as locks go, but it was still built on electronics - and the lightning was his domain. Another whisper to the camera, this time to keep the same image, and a twist of magic in the lock, and the door clicked open.

"I'm in," he murmured, silently closing the door behind himself. "Let me know when you get a read."

"That's why I'm here. At one o'clock." Trace's sigh rattled the microphone, sending a vaguely unpleasant static through Fang's earpiece. "Which, yeah, I know, I'd be awake anyway, but when you promised me tomorrow I was expecting it to be done, I don't know, at least by midnight, on the technicality. It's after midnight! There's no way this counts as tomorrow anymore."

Fang jogged silently up the stairs, making himself invisible to the cameras and letting Trace monologue. Replying out loud risked being overheard - even if it was incredibly unlikely that anyone was in hearing range, it'd happened once before, and he wasn't feeling like a hit and run operation.

Sneak in, sneak out, hope it's the right one and go home. With that not-exactly-cheerful thought, Fang passed the door labelled for the third floor, picking up the pace as Trace's complaints faded into background noise. Fourth floor, fifth... That was as far as he'd gotten before. Sixth floor. Seventh.

"Got it." Trace's tone shifted to triumphant, grabbing Fang's attention as he turned the corner between the seventh and eighth floors. "I'm hooked in."

Fang paused, glanced around the barren stairwell, and immediately dismissed the idea of leaving the bug there. Climbing the last steps to the eighth floor exit, he leaned against the door and felt the other side with his magic. No cameras facing this one, or anywhere along the hallway it opened onto, so with a grimace, he opened the door and slipped through.

Another uninteresting office hallway met him on the other side, barely lit by the dim emergency lighting over the door. Fang couldn't see more than a handful of feet in any given direction before the shadows were too thick to make out anything.

If only a flashlight wouldn't give me away. Sighing soundlessly, Fang reached a hand out to the wall next to him and started making his way carefully down the hall, mentally laying out the floorplan from the fifth floor and hoping this one was similar.

"Any time, now...." Trace had gone from pleased to impatient in record time. Fang could practically hear them drumming their fingers on the desk.

...No, he could actually hear them, through the microphone. In a mix of annoyance and playfulness, Fang reached up to his own microphone and rapidly tapped his fingers across it.

"Ow! What the--- okay, okay. I got it. Geez."

Grinning, he kept going, stretching out his other arm so he could feel for doors on both sides. It was another ten feet before he found one, glancing down to make sure there was no light coming from underneath before finding the knob and stepping inside.

No cameras, he confirmed immediately, closing the door quietly again behind himself before flipping on the light switch.

Even better than a supply room, he was in a small janitorial closet. Crammed full with spare cleaning equipment, old rags, and at least half a dozen shelves, there were plenty of places a small beetle-shaped bug could hide.

"Found a spot," he murmured, just loud enough for the microphone to pick up. "Still good?"

"Still good," Trace confirmed. "Signal's loud and clear."

Fang rummaged carefully at the back of the shelves, reaching up to the top ones in particular, and was rewarded by a small crack in the back of one shelf, right in the join at the corner. Pulling the beetle-bug device out of his pocket, he reached back in, tucking it into the crack with a gentle tap.

"All set."

"Finally! Now I can get some work done."

"You're welcome," Fang answered drily, flicking the light back off before slipping out, just as quietly as he'd entered. The red glow from the emergency exit sign led him straight back to the stairwell - still unlocked, still empty - and with another whisper of magic to the cameras, he decided to skip the stairs entirely and vaulted over the railing, leaping and swinging from one railing to another before landing on the ground with a soft thud.

There was still no one guarding the exit. With the satisfaction of a job well done, Fang let himself out, locking the door behind him, and strolled down the alley back to the streets.