Old Hate - Chapter One

Old Hate

Chapter One

by David Pidgeon

Sarah watched as the stranger entered the saloon. He came to the bar, bought his usual bottle of whiskey and took it and a glass over to his usual seat in the corner. He was a tall man, and lean but he tried to hide that under the thick coat that he wore despite the sweltering heat. He sat in the corner and, as the day wasted itself away, slowly but steadily depleted his supply of liquor. He watched everything, she saw from behind the bar, with a fierce intensity. He studied the face of each person that entered. He was looking for someone. It wasn't for the ambience or the watered down whiskey that he'd been coming here for over two weeks. He was hunting someone and he wouldn't leave until he had found them.

She busied herself with cleaning up, hoping to avoid the ire of Emmett again. Her face was still sore from the last time he'd been unhappy with her work. She tried to make herself busy enough to forget the man in the corner.

She almost had, when he spoke.

“Are you Harmon Merriweather?” he asked, in a low and quiet voice.

She looked up and saw that there was a man standing at the bar, looking at her. He wore an extremely faded grey coat, the kind Sarah knew from the war, and a military style cap. His eyes glittered as he heard the man speak and a grimace came across his face. He turned, slowly and spent a good long moment studying the man in the corner.

“I reckon I am” he said, a drawl to his voice.

“I'm Jonah Walsh and you killed my father”

Sarah sensed, not saw, the man's surprise and saw the movement as his hand reached for the gun at his belt. He had barely touched it when a gunshot rang out, deafening Sarah and leaving a loud ringing in her ears for quite some time after. Harmon Merriweather staggered backwards one step and fell heavily against the bar before falling to the ground with a thud. Her eyes flitted to the man in the corner who remained seated but now his right hand held a smoking pistol. He kept it trained on the downed figure until he was certain there was no remaining threat and then neatly holstered it again in one simple but elegant movement.

He reached across, picked up his bottle of whiskey and stood with a slight stagger to his step. He tipped his hat to Sarah, spared a glare at the body on the floor and walked out.

The decision was instantaneous and unplanned, even to her. She threw her cleaning rag down and rushed around the bar to the body of Harmon Merriweather. She pried the pistol from his rapidly cooling hand and rushed outside, hot on the heels of Jonah Walsh.

She spotted him sauntering down the side-walk as if nothing had happened. She called his name and he turned, as she closed the distance between the two.

"My name is Sarah and I want you to take me with you, please"

His eyes gazed deeply into hers and there was only a moment's hesitation. He nodded and gestured for her to follow him. She followed closely.

They rode out of town, the two of them on his roan stallion and they made camp in the ruins of an old house as the sun began to sink beyond the horizon and night crept in.

They sat in silence for a long time before he spoke.

"The man you work for, he hit you?"

"Yes. Often and hard. He wasn't happy with me working there, but he couldn't find anyone else and I had nowhere else to go so I dealt with it"

He nodded.

"How long since... your father?" she asked

He stared into the fire.

"Before I was born. He was trying to flee with my mother and they came for him and killed him. He gave up his life in order that she and I, although he did not know of me at the time, would live."

"What of your mother, where is she?"

"She passed"

"I'm sorry"

"You needn't be, it was some time ago. A few years now. Now it's just me and the horse"

She nodded and they both sat in silence again for a while.

"Who are they, the men who killed your father?"

"They were soldiers. Well, they called themselves soldiers but they were just murderers. Border ruffians outta Kansas, trouble-makers who didn't really care for following orders. My father was an officer in the Union who made trouble for them and they didn't take too kindly to it. They hunted him across a few states and eventually pinned him down when he was with ma"

"What are you going to do now?"

"There's still a slew of 'em out there for me to kill. Jameson and his whole bunch of bastards. Still at least five, by my count. Merriweather wasn't the worst of them by any account, but he was the easiest to find. I've got a trail on Kent, one of them, and I intend to follow it west come sun-up tomorrow"

She nodded

"You don't have to stay with me, if'n you don't want to. I can drop you somewhere safe, I can give you some money"

She nodded again, but he knew then that she wouldn't allow herself to be dropped off anywhere at all.

They settled down to sleep and the stars wheeled overhead, mute and ever-present witnesses to their dreams, their rotation through the heavens heralding the coming of the sun for one more day and a day that would see the continuation of Jonah Walsh's campaign of revenge.

Art of Theft - Chapter Three

Art of Theft

Chapter Three

by Murray K.

Step.

I love open plan living. It's makes it easy to navigate in the dark
when your only source of light is a red glow-stick bracelet. The
floors are wonderfully bereft of tripping hazards and there are nice
wide spaces between all the furniture. At the speed I'm moving,
detouring around a couch would add another ten minutes to this
business.

And step.

After sitting at the bottom of the pool for 6 hours, getting into the
apartment was a relative breeze. Getting down from the roof was
pretty easily achieved, even in the wetsuit. The only reason I
bothered with a rope was to make getting back up easier.

And step.

As for why I went down to the balcony, one word: Deadlocks. The
front door and the door down from the roof both had them, but the
balcony door didn't. I've played around with picking locks a bit but
I'm no expert. A good deadlock with some trap pins could take me a
lot of time. But a few seconds with a pick gun on the balcony lock
and I was in. That was the easy part.

And step.

When I was a kid I was into birdwatching for a while. I always liked
animals, but one of the challenges with birds was how close I could
get to them. Now, you can't really sneak up on a squirrel, the moment
he notices you move towards him, he's onto you. But birds don't seem
to differentiate much between people and trees. As long as they don't
see you moving when they’re looking at you, they don't care that
you're suddenly a foot closer than you were. So the key was to move
at a snails pace, slowly lift a foot, inch it forward and put it back
down again. Shift weight onto the forward foot...

And step.

And that is pretty much what I'm doing right now. In the corners of
all the rooms and the hallways, the Welshes have security sensors
which I discreetly checked out at the party. The sensors are
infra-red motion detectors, so they detect anything that's a different
temperature to ambient and moving. Basically, I'm treating them like
a flock of birds. I figure if I don't move too quickly, they won't
get startled.

And step.

I’m hoping the wetsuit helps as well, the sensors should really only
see my face and hands, but it’s best not to take any chances. One of
the hardest things is not knocking the plastic bag I’ve got hanging
from my left hand. The plastic shouldn’t set off the sensors, but as
I say, no chances. Each of the sensors has a small red light at the
top of it, and if just one of those goes off, I’m toast.

And step.

It’s slow progress, and it’s taken twenty minutes to get through the
living room, down the hall to the bedroom. Thankfully the Welshes
leave their doors open when they go on holidays. The moment I get
inside the bedroom I shuffle to the right so I’m no longer visible
from the hallway, and then I raise my right arm very slowly and turn
on my laser pointer. It takes a few moments to adjust my wrist but
then I have it pointed directly at the IR sensor.

And relax.

While ever the laser pointer hits the sensor, it’s basically snow
blind. The transition doesn’t set off the sensor, and then it can’t
see a thing. There’s only one sensor in the room so as long as I stay
out of the view of the hallway sensors I can actually move for a bit.
Vigorous stretching is still a bit difficult to do while keeping the
laser pointer focused, but I feel a lot less tense as I walk over to
the Matisse. I have to lower the bag I’m holding to the floor first,
but then I gently ease the Matisse up off the hook and...

I’ve got it!

The laser pointer trembles a little as I struggle to keep it focused
on the motion sensor. Very, very gently I lower it down to the carpet
and reach into the plastic bag. Out comes a square the same size and
shape as the Matisse. The faint light of the glow stick makes it hard
to tell but the frame looks like a perfect replica. Lord knows I
studied the real one for long enough at the party. Inside that frame
is a canvas printed copy of the Matisse, carefully touched up with
varnish to match the brushstrokes. Talk to anyone at Sotherby’s or
Christie’s and they’ll have a dozen stories that all come down to the
same thing, a tale of someone bringing in a painting that they thought
was a minor masterpiece, only to find that it’s a print covered in
varnish. A couple of coats and a hairdryer to crack the surface and
it looks just like oil paint. It’s an old trick, but it works. I
figure, as I carefully place the replica on the wall, the easiest way
to get away with a crime is if no-one knows it’s been committed.

It is tortuous creeping back to the balcony when all I want to do is
jump and run and whoop. As soon as I’m out I relock the door and
climb back onto the roof. Then it’s time for a quick change, back
into jeans and a fresh designer shirt from the toolbox. Also from the
toolbox, a Louis Vuitton roll bag. Now before you roll your eyes,
there’s a reason I’ve chosen LV. That pattern on the side is
unmistakable. After all, what’s the point of a status symbol if
no-one knows it’s a status symbol? But that means that when someone
sees a well dressed young man with an LV bag, the last things they’re
going to expect to be in that bag are diving gear, rope and a stolen
painting.

It’s a struggle to get everything in there, especially since I have to
take care of the painting. The large salt tub is staying but I figure
no-one is going to notice a tub of pool salt in a pool shed. The dive
weights also end up underneath a planter box, I’m afraid they’re a few
pounds of weight I just don’t want to carry down. But after a bit of
fighting everything else is put away and I’m ready to go.

The fire escape locks aren’t any harder than the balcony door, but
that’s expected. They make them easy just in case emergency crews
need to get past but aren’t in enough of a hurry to bust the door
down. I pick one to get in and then another a few floors down to get
out, then it’s express lift all the way to the ground. I stare at
myself in the lift mirror and thank god the wet look is in. I look
rumpled, but the kind of rumpled one might expect from someone leaving
an apartment block at 2am.

The doorman, presumably Charlie, gets up from his desk when he sees me.

“Cab, sir?”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks.”

I hoist the bag on my shoulder and follow him to the curb. I’m trying
to think of small talk but before I get the chance the cab’s there, I
had the guy a $5 bill and I’m away. Almost too easy. I keep looking
to see if anyone’s following, and when I get dropped off a block from
my apartment I spend the whole walk home with half an eye over my
shoulder. But there’s no-one. It seems I may have gotten away with
it.

So now the painting is hanging in my bedroom, directly opposite the
bed, sitting comfortably between the Monet and the Boudin. The first
touches of sun are hitting the buildings nearby and the slight glow is
giving the painting a morning feel as well. The adrenaline has worn
off but for the last 4 hours I haven’t been able to stop looking at
it. It’s beautiful, wonderful, I love it. It leaves me with only one
question.

What next?

Footsteps in the Dark - Chapter One

Footsteps in the Dark

Chapter One

by Hayden Tunnicliffe

She looked up as the guard's footsteps rang out once more. Through the iron bars of her cell she could see the glow of a lantern drawing near, the tang of burnt oil in the air making her tiny prison that much more claustrophobic. The guard held his light up to the window in the door, confirming his charge still lay in the room, the light seared her eyes as it shone through the small window.

He said something, not knowing any German, she could only assume he was tormenting her from the tone in his voice and the laugh that came from his companion. She spat at the window, a small measure of the hatred she felt for her captors. Soon enough the guards moved on, the sounds of their boots echoing off the stone walls, as if a hundred men marched through the small prison. Again she was left in the dark, not knowing if the next time they came would be the last.

She was awoken from her daze as the door creaked open. As she got to her feet, moving instinctively to the back of the room, she noticed that there was no light.

'Shh! Keep quiet' came a voice out of the darkness. 'I am here to help' Suddenly the floor in front of her leapt into vision as the stranger opened the cover on his lantern, shining but a sliver of light into the room.

'Who - who are you?' she whispered as the man beckoned for her to follow him out of the cell.

'We haven't the time for that now. We must leave before the guards return' The man said, moving along the wall and peering around the corner. 'Quickly now. I will explain everything when there is time'

Anything was better than being locked in that damned cell any longer she thought as she followed the man, being as quiet as she could possibly be. It seemed like an eternity that they stalked through that dark maze, occasionally ducking behind whatever cover they could find as the guards passed.

'We must hurry. It is only a matter of time before they begin their route again and find you gone. And if we aren't out of here by the time that happens then we are done for'

She only nodded as she struggled to keep up with him, afraid she might alert someone. A soft breeze and the shine of light told her that their flight in the dark was nearly over. They paused closer to the exit as her rescuer leaned over to extinguish their light. 'Here. Do you know how to use one of these?' the man asked as he pushed a pistol into her hand. 'Yes, but wouldn't the gunfire attract attention?' she asked as she checked the chamber.

'Only use it if there is no other choice' the man said as he readied his own weapon before moving out of the tunnel. She followed him, the light blinding her as she hastily ran from the tunnel. It took a minute for her vision to adjust to the shock, the sun beared down from above them, as she looked out across the fields that lay below them.

'It will be suicide to cross the open fields' the man said as he drew her attention to a hedge on the far left of them. 'We must use that to get across the fields and into that copse of trees, where we will wait for the extraction, keep low and follow me' he said, dashing off before she could reply.

She followed him, glancing back to make sure they weren't followed. The cool country air burned in her lungs at the same time as it invigorated her body, every nerve was set on end as she pushed forward through the brush. Finally they reached the bottom of the hillside and before them lay acres upon acres of open fields, the only cover to be found were the hedges between them and the odd hay bale. The man dashed across the small open space towards the closest hedge before pausing to survey the situation. He motioned for her to follow and she raced towards him as fast as her weakened body would allow.

'Here. Drink some, you will need your strength' he pushed a canteen into her hands. The water was almost gone before she realised they might not have any more and quickly screwed the top back on.

'I'm ready.'

They started towards the trees, she made it to be a good mile from where they were, she only hoped that they would make it before exhaustion took her.

Halfway across the field she heard an alarm sound from behind them, evidently the guards had discovered that she was missing. She cautioned a glance behind her but could not see any pursuers, all the same they doubled their pace. She hoped they would not be seen at this distance, but kept her head as low as their speed would allow just the same.

She could hear the bark of dogs and the shouts of men behind them as they came ever nearer the tree line, and safety. Another look back told her that they still hadn't found their trail. She hoped they never would, death was preferable to the rest of her life in that prison.

At last they reached the tree line, giving up stealth completely they sprinted into it, stumbling across roots and fallen branches she followed her surefooted saviour, falling twice before they reached their destination. She fell to the ground in exhaustion, her legs burning and chest heaving as she drained the last of the water in the canteen.

'I hope you have more' she almost pleaded as the man sat next to her.

'You think I would come unprepared to a rescue mission' he laughed as he put another canteen into her lap. 'Here, but don't drink it too fast, there is only one more where that came from and our transport won't be here for another 3 hours'

'Who are you?' she asked between sips of the canteen, 'And why would anybody rescue me? I'm just a civilian'

'They call me Alcott, but you can call me Robert. I was sent to extract you because HQ think you could be useful to the war effort. But mostly I am here because I couldn't leave a gorgeous lady like yourself to rot in a damned jerry jail cell'

'I don't know how much help I can be, but thanks all the same Robert. I am Carol, but I am sure you already knew that'

Old Hate - Prologue

Old Hate

Prologue
By David Pidgeon

1865

She barely heard the sound over the pouring rain, a rap against the glass of the window that caught her attention when it was repeated. She looked up from her book and could see only darkness outside. Putting the book down, she stood and walked across to the window. She hesitated before it. The noise came again and without making the decision, she unlatched it and opened it. As soon as she did, a figure entered from outside. It was a man, dripping wet. She drew in a breath to scream or shout or make some sort of noise, but he spoke.
"Jane" came his voice, hoarse but familiar.
"Hiram?"
He looked up at her, that familiar face and those same green eyes. She threw her arms around him and held him tightly to her, ignorant of his sodden clothing. He embraced her briefly before pushing her away slightly.
"Jane, I am terribly happy to see you but I am soaking wet. Do you have a something to dry myself with?"
"Hiram, what are you doing here?"
"I told you I would return, did I not?"
Tears came to her eyes and a smile to her lips, as did a scolding tone to her voice.
"Hiram, you know it isn't safe"
"I told you I would return. I gave you my word. Something dry, my love?"
"Get out of those clothes Hiram. I've still some of yours stored away in the closet"
He began to undress and in a moment of awkwardness, she turned away from him.
"I've missed you"
"You've no idea how I have missed you"
She opened the closet and moved things about in the bottom of it, pulling out the stored clothes.
"We have to leave, Jane. Tonight"
She turned to look at him, forgetting her bashfulness of a moment ago as he stood naked before her. He stared intently at her, with a look she knew.
"You know that I cannot argue with you when you look at me like that my Hiram, but why must we leave?"
"They know that I am coming here. I believe, also, that they would do you harm to get to me. I cannot have that."
He stepped forward to hold her, free of the wet clothes. He was warm, despite the rain outside and she let herself sink into him. Her lips found his, her clothes were lost and they fell onto the bed and melted together.

They lay together in the bed when he heard it, the low rumbling sound of several horses galloping.
"We must leave now" he said and stood.
She simply nodded at him.
"I'm afraid you will not have time to pack" he said, as he began to dress.
She nodded again, trying not to be afraid.
Fully clothed, he began to root through the small pack he'd carried in with him. She studied him as he did so, admiring the man she loved. He was short but had long arms and legs for his height, an unusually rangy frame. He had jet black hair and glittering green eyes, his usually neatly trimmed beard was starting to grow out. He looked tired, she thought.
He turned to look at her and could not help but smile as he saw her watching him. Then his look became hard.
"You must dress now Jane, and dress for travel."
He removed his hand from the pack, holding in it a pistol that gleamed dully under the lantern light of the room. He checked that it was loaded and, satisfied, hung it over his shoulders from the leather thong that was attached to it, leaving it swinging close to his hip on the right side.
Jane was dressed quickly and stood before him ready.
"We cannot go back out the window, we must go downstairs and hope that we can leave through the back."
She nodded.

As he opened the back door of the hotel Jane lived in, there was the crack of a gunshot from across the street and the doorframe near his head suddenly splintered. Hiram sprang backwards, keeping Jane behind him and closing the door into the street
He looked at her and she saw fear in his eyes.
"Jane, they have us surrounded."
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
A voice boomed in from the rain.
"Come out Walsh, we know you're in there" hollered one of the men outside, "come out now and we won't hurt your woman. She's free to go".
Jane shook her head. Hiram placed his hands on her shoulders and stared at her.
"We have no choice, my love. I had no choice in coming back to you and I have no choice in saving your life."
"Please, no. Please Hiram, I can't lose you again. Please" she said, weeping and grabbing tightly on to him, as if trying to hold him there.
Tenderly but firmly, he took her hands into his and pulled her to him in a crushing embrace.
His breath moved her hair as he whispered into her ear "I will always love you, in this life and the next" before releasing her.
She slumped to the floor, weeping.
Hiram opened the door.
"I'm coming out"
Through the tears she could barely see him go.

Art of Theft - Chapter Two

The Art of Theft

Chapter Two
by Murray K.

Friday afternoon has taken an eternity. Ever since the financial
crisis the markets have been working in dog years as they lurch from
one disaster to another. Japan seems to have settled down so the
crisis du jour is the middle east again with a dash of soveriegn debt
and the markets have taken another pasting. The clients always need a
bit of love in these conditions and I'm just finishing my ring around.
The last name on the list is Mr Welsh.

"So how are we looking" he asks after we go through the pleasantries.

"Not bad. The portfolio protection we put in place has worked well,
the option straddles are - "

"I don't need the detail Scott, just tell me, are we winning or losing".

"Well, today's a draw but we're a nose ahead for the week."

"Hell, in this market a draw is a win in my book. Great work Scott.
I'm going to feel a lot happier for the next month knowing you're
looking me."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence sir. When are you off, anyway?" I
ask, glad he's bought it up first.

"We fly out Saturday morning, arrive in St Petersburg Sunday morning.
By this time Monday we'll be on our riverboat cruising down the Volga
river."

"You know Henry, I was going to ask you about that. Why Russia? Was
Paris booked out?"

"Gloria and I have been to Paris a hundred times. We figured it's
time to do something a little more adventurous. It's the route the
Vikings took to get all the way to Baghdad you know?"

"Well, you can bring me back a horned hat if you like. By the way, do
you want me to call you or email you anything?"

"And ruin my holiday? I've told everyone, even my kids, the phone is
off. I might check messages once a week or so. Just let me know if
you've lost my entire fortune, I'll look for a goatherder job on the
Russian steppes."

"Oh, you don't want anything to do with goats. Nasty, foul-smelling,
mean-spirited creatures."

"Sounds like your colleagues at Goldman's, Scott."

"Not a bit of it. Folks here wear cologne. Have a good trip Henry."

"Thanks Scott, talk to you in a month."

And with that, motive becomes motive and opportunity.

Saturday morning is spent in my apartment, laying tonight's tools out
on the bed, surrounded by my art collection. Most of what I have on
my walls in prints, but there's the odd minor work that's original.
After our last bonus, when one of my colleagues bought a Masserati, I
bought a beautiful Eugene Boudin seascape of Le Havre. It cost about
the same amount as the car, but where in New York are you going to
park a Masserati?

Next to the Boudin is the product of my first foray into crime, a
small Monet. Actually, that's a bit misleading, it's a lithograph and
the only thing Monet really did was sign it. But it's based on one of
his compositions and that signature is worth something. The motive
was pity as much as desire. The lithograph was one of the many
thousands of pieces in Goldman Sachs' art collection, mostly up and
coming current artists so Goldman can claim to be modern Medicis.
I've no idea how this little piece entered the collection and clearly
neither did Goldman's curator, because he'd relegated it to a small
internal meeting room. With the hundreds of low level management
updates and strategy meetings it had seen, I'm amazed it hadn't
spontaneously combusted. My theft wasn't a particularly bold or quick
affair, first I just took it off the wall and hid it in the computer
cupboard. A month later, after it had been missed by no-one, I
spirited it out in a laptop bag one evening. Easy. Getting the
Matisse, well that would be a very different story.

By the time I leave in the late afternoon I've repacked a dozen times.
An ex of mine used to say that whenever I was stressed I went
borderline OCD, but I prefer to think of it as thoroughness. I leave
my apartment hauling all of my gear in a toolbox and a large plastic
tub that had previously contained 20kg of pool salt. I walk a block
before grabbing a cab uptown to central park and arrive a touch before
half past five. It's awkward lugging everything the three blocks to
the Welsh's apartment, but most of the foot traffic was heading with
me away from the park. I intentionally try to avoid people's eyes,
not that anyone was likely to notice me anyway. I'm dressed in jeans
and the kind of blue button-up shirt one would only wear as a uniform,
emblazoned with the logo of "Skyline Pools". The cap sitting over my
wrap-around shades has the same logo, courtesy of iron on transfers.
I look the regular Joe Tradesman, or so I hope.

Half a block away from the apartment, I get hit by a surge of
adrenaline. It's the same feeling I get standing at the top of a
cliff, about to abseil down. I savour it for a moment and then I'm at
the building, standing in front of the doorman.

"Hey bud," I call to get his attention.

"What's up?"

"I'm Dave from Skyline Pools," I say, pulling out an ID that had been
put together with a colour printer and a laminator. "We got a fault
call from the pool on the roof here. Client by the name of, uh,
Walsh's?"

"Welsh's," replies the doorman absent-mindedly while looking at the
ID. It's amazing what a laser printer and a laminator can knock up
nowadays.

"Yeah, that's them. Can you give them a call, tell them I'm coming up."

"Sorry bud, no can do. They're not in."

"Aw geez, are they gonna be long?"

"Can't say."

"Well, the systems reporting a major fault. Any way you can get me up
there to check it out?" This was the moment of truth. I reckoned I'd
figured the logistics out, but the one variable, the one human factor,
was this doorman letting me up to the roof. He was clearly in two
minds, turning my ID over in his hands. "Have you got any calls of
sudden wet floors from the apartments? Flooding, water leaking from
the light fittings, coming down the walls."

"No, nothing."

"Well, I guess I can come back when they do..."

"Ah, come on, we'll check it out."

A quick trip up the elevator gets us to the top floor and we head into
the fire escape, up the stairs and onto the roof.

"I think the pool's over, uh, there it is," he says, pointing back to the west.

"Yeah, I know, I've been up here before," I say, the first truthful
thing I've said so far. "I'll check the equipment shed, can you have
a quick look at the pool?"

I set my gear down next to the small shed and open it up, reaching for
a couple of things from my jeans pocket as I do. I smear a couple of
the pristine pipes and a patch of floor with a tube of grease and
stick a small box of angry red blinking LEDs underneath one of the
large control boxes. Then I open up the toolbox and grab a spanner
and screwdriver from the top. By the time the guard comes back, I'm
industriously unscrewing what I think is the main filter control.

"Hey, you'd better see this," says the doorman with genuine concern,
"there's water spilling over the edge."

I follow him to the pool and it takes me a second to realise that the
guy has never seen an infinity pool before. On one side the wall is
lower and there's a steady stream of water cascading over the top, so
that anyone inside has the sensation that the pool never ends, just
goes off into the horizon. The doorman is looking at it with quiet
alarm, and I say a small prayer of thanks to whatever gods look after
thieves.

"Yeah, thought so. Problem with the pump, it's overflowing."

"Is it flooding the apartment?"

"No, don't worry, there's a secondary containment for just this sort
of thing," and I point out the small area where the water is meant to
collect. "Give me a second."

I head back to the equipment shed and spend a couple of seconds trying
to work out which machine is the pump. Then I just turn everything
off at the wall switches and the steady hum goes silent. Sure enough,
by the time I head back to the pool edge there's a lot less water
coming over, and after a minute there's just a tiny trickle.

"Good thing we got here when we did, that would have filled up
quickly," I lie to the much relieved doorman, and head back to the
pool shed with him in tow. "I can see what's wrong with the pump and
I reckon I can fix it, it'll take about half an hour."

"Oh," says the doorman, looking at his watch. "My shift ends in 15
minutes." And I was relying on that as well, 6pm on the dot. Try
getting a New York doorman to work 5 minutes more than he has to.
"I've got to get down and tell Charlie what's going on."

"That's fine," I reply. "Look, this shouldn't be a problem. You can
tell Charlie to come up or I'll just head down when I'm finished."

"Yeah, ok," he says, looking at his watch again. "Charlie'll be up in
15 or 20." And with that he walks back to the fire escape.

The moment the door clicks shut I'm up and moving. I strip off my
shirt and clean off the grease, then pull everything out of the tub.
I've got a 3 mil wetsuit top in their that I throw on, then strip off
my jeans to reveal the wetsuit bottoms. Surprisingly comfortable,
they stop chaffing, but they don't breath well, probably won't wear
them the next time I'm clubbing. I put together the rebreather tank
and fit two 5 litre oxygen canisters and my weight belt, that's half
the weight of the tub right there. I get a large piece of blue
plastic and a roll of roofing tape out of the tub and then stow the
toolkit and my clothes in it, then put it at the back of the pool
shed. It looks like it belongs there. Then it's goggles on,
mouthpiece in, and into the water.

As I hit the water I'm glad it's been sunny the last couple of days,
even so it's unpleasantly chilly. But I haven't got time to think of
that as I spread out the blue plastic on the water's surface. This
was a test of my colour sense, but the plastic is pretty close to the
colour of the pool. I bring it down to the bottom and have to
straighten it out underwater, the hardest part of the whole deal. A
series of steps come down into the pool, and I tape the plastic so
that it sticks out from the last of these. Then I tape it one side to
form a new step. The pool is about as wide as I am tall, and when I
get in under this plastic I'm able to rest my feet against the side
and tape the other end of the plastic.

So now I'm sitting, cocooned in a piece of plastic pretending to be a
pool step, trying to slow my breath in the respirator. The rebreather
puts out only a fraction of the bubbles of a normal scuba tank, and
I'm hoping that to the casual observer I'm invisible. After an hour
has passed I figure that Charlie the doorman must have come up to
check. Will they just check the roof, or will they open up the
aparment? Will they even search through the building? I've got no
idea, but since there's no sudden splashing and tearing back of my
plastic sheet, I at least know they haven't spotted me yet. I figure
6 hours more than long enough for any heat to do down, the hardest
thing now is that my hands are starting to freeze. I hope they're not
too numb to get past the locks.

Under a Steel-Grey Sky - Chapter Two

Under a Steel-Grey Sky

Chapter Two
By Michael Bennett


Seeing the woman come around the corner, the man just behind her, he realised that the guy seemed instinctively to know the best course of action to protect her. He wondered what was going to happen, or just who they were, as his deeper police instincts over-rode his hard crust of belligerence.
This time, to his amusement, was a reversal of the situation in the diner. She was the one wearing a gruff mask, the bodyguard looking more calm, almost smiling toward him. He guessed that a decision had been reached despite, or maybe because of, his behaviour inside.
As they walked up silently, he figured he might as well play his part in this act, and opened how it seemed he was supposed to. 'So, what's the game, girly? Why've you sought me out, in a cop diner of all places? If you were trying to keep a low profile for whatever this is, you kinda sucked at it.'

Taking a step closer and looking at him evenly, she put a hand out toward Fighting Man and said quickly, “I would have dropped by your ...hovel, Mr Turner, but it looked like I'm not the only one interested in you right now. So, here we are” as she was handed two envelopes, “and here you are. I'd like to hire you to investigate the matter, and the men, inside this. Call me this evening, once you've looked it over. My personal, private, number is in there. The other envelope.. Consider that a down-payment for your services.” Turning on her heel, she glanced back and said “I'll wait for your call to hear your preliminary thoughts.”

As she began to walk away, Fighting Man something in Japanese, causing her to lose colour in her face. Turning around slowly, she added with a tinge of desperation, the gruff mask cracking for a second “ - and don't let your other watcher catch you with that, or find it. I haven't the foggiest who that is, and had no desire to reveal the fact I was attempting to meet with you. There will be a rather messy undercurrent of violence here, and I don't know ...well, everything I could reveal, is in there. Goodbye for now, Mister Turner.” She turned again, letting her guard lead the way. Pauly watched silently, opening the smaller envelope, and almost yelped at the amount of bills stuffed inside. Must've been at least 2 and a half grand in $100 bills, at least. All that just to read a few pieces of paper?

Giving her a little time to get away, Pauly smoked two of his cigarettes, pacing the alley, giving the matter some thought. About halfway through the second one, his inner detective won out again, as he knew it would. He'd find a hotel and crash there for at least the night. A swanky, upscale one. She certainly gave him enough to be able to do that. He'd have to find a pawnshop that did under the counter deals, since he hadn't Old Nancy, his well worn revolver. He didn't think it'd be the smartest idea to go back for her, in case the person watching his place was still there.

Walking through the alley, Pauly spotted a taxi, and hailed it. Getting in, he told the driver where he wanted to go. Letting the city blur past silently, he again fell to thinking, wondering just what she was on about with all the talk of violence and undercurrents. And just why had she come to him? Obviously she couldn't go to the cops, so she clearly wasn't the most upstanding of citizens... And the bodyguard was most likely Yakuza.

But aside from the guard, and the fact she sought him out ('why me' floating through his brain again), brought 2 possible angles, at least that he could nut out. Either she was telling the truth, and didn't know exactly who she could trust, which meant he was holding something that could bring a massive storm down on him. Or she was feeding him a massive line, which could have the same result.

As he pulled up to the hotel, having gotten a functioning, if inelegant looking, handgun and some fresh clothes and a few other things and stuffed them into a bag, he realised grudgingly that he'd taken the bait, and would see this through to whatever end it lead to, even before getting to his room, to read what she'd wanted him to look into.

Once the concierge had shown him into the swanky hotel room, and he'd scoffed down on a room service order that cost more than any meal he'd ever eaten, he kicked off his shoes and sat down to read the file. He wasn't sure if it was a spun story, what actually happened, what she thought was fact, or some mix of the 3. But he'd taken her money, so he would at least investigate it to a surface level. After a couple of hours, more than a few beers, and almost 2 packets of cigarettes, he'd memorised it in it's entirety.

After a mostly restful night in the most comfortable bed he'd ever known to have existed, he figured out what his next move would be over a stacked breakfast. It was just smart to know all angles of a case, to have all the sides you possibly could, before moving. He was lucky that he was able to investigate, as opposed to being dumped in a sudden crisis or event, which had happened rather often while on the force, so long ago. The instincts were still there, even if he wasn't.

Which is why he knew what his next move would be, though he didn't know how it would go.
He knew it was time to face his old partner. It was the only strong link he had, the only possible source he had to get more information about the case he'd taken on, and the woman who dragged him into it.

Reluctantly walking into his old precinct, he noticed that the general buzz was greater, seemed more intense, than he once knew. He wasn't the sharpest guy in the world, but he knew when something was up. And he knew, again because of instincts, that it was tied to what he was now investigating. He'd have to play this one close to his chest. Very close.

It was then that he heard a voice shout, across the room. At him. His partner had spotted him, and was beckoning. The first thing he noticed, aside from the familiar deep rumble of his voice, was that he'd been promoted to Captain.

Dues - Chapter Two

Dues

Chapter Two
By Imogen Cassidy

"We explained our rates to you before you engaged us, Mr Bailey," Ian was busy on the phone when she got in the next day - late, necessarily so - but early enough to deal with whatever business they might have. She didn't understand why Ian was always in before her, no matter what time she decided to show. She figured he had some latent prescience that told him what time he needed to show up at work in order to impress people. It would certainly be a useful application of magical talent.

God knew there were few enough of those.

"I understand, Mr Bailey, if you feel disappointed, but the rituals were performed and your house was completely cleared, if you're still experiencing problems…"

Jade rolled her eyes and dumped her bag on her desk. Therein lay the problem. Useful applications of magic - there were too few of them. It was all very well being able to light your way without a torch or levitate something across a room, but when it got down to it, electricity was more reliable and levitating stuff got boring very quickly.

What magic was good for, and this was the basis for her entire business, was getting rid of the effects of magic. Bringing things back to normal. Making life predictable and easy and not full of unexplained manifestations or leaks through rendings and tears in the fabric of whatever people were conveniently labeling as reality these days.

Because there were always people who thought magic was more useful than it was. There were always people who wanted to use it to control other people, or make themselves rich, or control other people into making them rich, or some sort of combination of them all. And using any magic without training lead to the sort of things that she'd been called out of bed at four this morning to investigate.

"Mr Bailey, she's not here at present, but I'll be certain to get her to talk to you about this. I know you're upset, but our credentials are all legitimate and you won't find another agency…"

She sighed. Then there were people like Mr Bailey. People who were convinced that they were more important than they actually were. If magic wasn't the problem something else would be - a government conspiracy perhaps, or was a returning client - certainly crazy, but mostly harmless. He believed his house was a centre of mystical energies. He believed any house he lived in became a centre of mystical energies. That spied on him. Or stopped his toaster from working. Or tried to control him into blowing up churches or leafleting for the local Green candidate. It was certainly the mystical energies which had caused his wife to leave him (although Jade had her own theories on why that had happened). It was a cycle for him. He'd reach the top and ring her, or one of her competitors, and ask her to cleanse it, repair any rendings, make it normal and she would do it, or Ian would, and the house would be fine, after wards (usually it was fine before) but Mr Bailey would never be convinced.

Ian had dealt with him three or four times now. The first time he'd been horrified that Jade took the man's money, but Jade had patiently explained to Ian that if they didn't do the work he was asking for, the man would just go to someone else, who would charge him more and tell him the problem was more complex than he thought and they needed to do more research and it would just pander to the man's paranoid fantasies. As it was, with a certificate from their agency stating that they'd already performed the rituals, any agency who accepted work from Mr Bailey after them (and several would, she knew it) would be guilty of fraud. As long as he was asking Jade to do the work, she knew it would be the end of the line for him. Despite his arguments.

She settled into the desk next to Ian's as he continued to attempt to assure Bailey that they'd done their job, and started sorting through mail. Business was slow at the moment. The last big rend had been six months ago, and enough people had been scared by it that the usual idiots who decided to turn to magic for their personal needs were still wary of doing anything that might cause another. The honeymoon period would end soon, though, she knew. She thought of the warehouse, the small rectangle of card now in the hands of Matheson at his precinct.

…Or possibly already had.

Ian finally managed to get off the phone and heaved a dramatic sigh. "Truly, that man gets more paranoid every week. Are we allowed to suggest counseling?"

"He's already in counseling," she said, absently, opening bills and spiking them to be paid. "But they can't force him to take his meds. And if we suggest he goes back on them he accuses us of necromancy."

Ian rolled his eyes. "Never could master necromancy," he said.

"That's a very good thing, Ian," she said. "Nothing more likely to cause rendings than raising the dead."

"And the Catholics get so very irritated by it," Ian added. He turned back to his computer and started typing - a report probably, for the last job they'd done. Ian was good at reports. He had a knack for language that she lacked. "There's a phone message for you from Phillips," Ian said as he typed, "they want to know if we need to postpone our order again."

It had been a very slow month. Apart from Bailey's job, they'd only had one other call out and the supply cupboard was practically full. She fingered the message pad and picked up the phone to call them back.

"Boss?" Ian said. She blinked. What had she been doing again?

"What?"

"You've been sitting like that for five minutes. Did you not get back to sleep?"

She looked at her hand, the phone receiver still in it, and frowned, puzzled. Something wasn't quite right.

"You call Phillips," Jade said. "Tell him we'll have our regular order this month."

Ian cocked an eyebrow. "Oh ho!" he said. "Getting a hunch are we?"

She smiled at him. "No, just being sensible. If there was a rend in the area - even a small one - chances are there'll be more. It's never just one."

"You are a font of wisdom and beauty," Ian said, picking up the phone and dialing. "Also, you pay me, which makes me happy. Where are you going?" he asked her as she got to her feet, picking up her bag again. She hadn't realised where until he asked.

"Back to the warehouse," she said.

"Have fun."

She chewed her lip absently. "Sure," she said.

The police car was gone and the warehouse door was barred with scene tape. It didn't have a lock on it, though. She wondered why there were no squatters, then stopped wondering. The warehouse was too far away from everything for squatters to be attracted to it. No shops, no transport, just featureless, wide, empty streets and warehouse after empty warehouse. Like a ghost town from an old western.

She pushed her way in and made her way to the room where the rend had been, keeping her senses on alert. There was nothing out of the ordinary at all, which in itself was out of the ordinary. Rends were not simple things. Even the smallest left ripples - the kind of ripples that set off the alarms at in the Occult Rooms of the local precinct, the kind that resulted in hauntings like the ones Bailey was sure he was plagued with. Here, there was nothing.

When she reached the spot where the card had been lying she knelt, feeling the ground with her fingers and smelling the air. Still, there was nothing. She frowned, concentrating harder, slowing her breathing and centering herself the way she'd been taught by her mentor, all those years ago…

..there. A small ripple. The slightest echo of a tear in what was real…

…except that it wasn't a tear. She could see that now. It was too precise, too exact.

It was a cut.

Dominion - Chapter One

Dominion

Chapter One
by Marshall Cameron



He stepped free of the airlock with a careless charm to the soundtrack of
the space-station's artificial throb of systems and the click of his boots
on the polished floor. He dropped his rucksack with a thud onto the ground
and it echoed about the small room, the lock behind him hissing quietly
closed again. His long hair was pulled back of his face, one rogue strand
framing his features as he paused to glance about with piercing blue eyes.
Nobody was there, just bland white walls, a small metallic table and two
chairs.

He'd spent too long in that transport ship out there in the cold reaches
of space. Time was he’d loved the serenity space offered but he couldnt
wait to feel his feet on solid ground. Here he was on this space station
with only the most basic of documentation to fill in before he could catch
a shuttle, impatient for the custom’s official to arrive to he could get
planetside.

His vision slid through one of the long portholes that ran alongside the
docking bay, allowing his gloved right hand to rest up against its glazed
surface as he stared through his owned reflection. The purple mists of
Obsidian IV were clear stretching out below him and it stood out like some
vivid gem here amidst the endless void that was space, almost violet in
intensity.

His vision shifted to consider the various trade vessels that plied their
way through the blackness towards the commercial docking bays. This was a
colony zone, or at least it had been about a century before when the
Terran Confederacy had begun its long retreat backwards towards its home
systems. What had once been a key outpost at the fringes of the burgeoning
human empire had been left behind, too far to effectively control and too
expensive to man with soldiers or a strong fleet. As the resources they
needed dried up so did the political will to defend them, a tiny isolated
bubble of humankind in the ocean of stars.

It hadn’t been long before other powers stepped into that void and brought
their collective will’s to bear, bringing with them their own people and
customs. The Lavidian Republic. It had been year's since he'd even heard
of a full blooded human, let alone seen one and they where all classed as
Lavidian even if the so called resistance banged on about defending terran
heritage. The Lavidian High Command had embarked on a ruthless campaign of
crossbreeding, military incursion and cultural repression. He brushed a
hand against his solid jaw, before pushing it into the top pocket of his
jacket to fish out his cigarette packet. He tapped a single smoke free
before he reached up to tuck it behind his ear easily.

And then there was him. He straightened and rolled his broad shoulders,
taller then the average man and built like an armoured personnel carrier
he carried about him the look of a man of violence. When he shifted to
move it was with a careful, patient confidence that bespoke his sheer
effectiveness. His hair was shock white, long and often pulled back
harshly off his face to expose what could only be called predatory
features as he rolled his head lightly until he heard it click a little.
Piercing blue eyes, a thin mouth with a jagged scar that carried over the
left hand side of his lips and rugged features that hadn’t shaved in the
last week while had been in transit.

"You know.. I'd kill for a beer about now. Or a cigarette. " His gravely
voice grunted as he slowly eased his way through the room with a patient
step to nudge the light metallic chair out from the table, grimacing to
himself as he settled down into it. He'd have to wait until he got down
onto the planet before he could spark up.

Beep. The door locked flashed green and popped open with a rush of air as
almost on demand to his impatience and there was a rustle of long robes as
the lavidian official eased her way into the room. Her hair was trimmed
short and her features fine, almost feline in nature as she clutched a
small tablet in her elegant four figured hand. With a certain aloof
arrogance paused to glance him over with dark iris free eyes before
nodding a brief greeting. “ Ashanvor, greetings to you traveller. Name?”

“ Ashanvor to you as well, my name is.. Slade 9P3451891. “ He replied
briefly and offered his hand to the administrator after having tugged off
the supple leather glove. The female simply held out the tablet over his
hand and light flashed over the back of his fist before it beeped as it
scanned his implanted chip.

“ Welcome to Obsidian IV Slade. You are listed here as (9) meaning you are
having fifty percent human heritage, be aware as you already know that it
is illegal for you to be in contact with or in reproduction with any
person of human or at least part human heritage. You can identify these
people because like you.. they retain the human feature of an iris or a
five fingered hand. They also are required by law to identify themselves
as members of the human subgroup. YOU are required to identify yourself.
Failure is punishable by execution. You are listed here as (P) for penal
on your records as a discharged criminal, bounty hunter and mercenary. Has
your status or employment changed? ” She spoke with a lilting accent, a
certain sharpness to the end of each sentence.

He had quietly studied the table as the woman spoke, bristling under the
burden of the stigma his parents had genetically passed onto him. He was a
rarity. One full blooded lavidian parent and one full blooded human
parent. The offspring of a Lavidian male Subjugator and a human woman
caught in the dark one night, raised in a world that wished he would
simply disappear. He played lightly with the soft shell packet of
cigarettes, spinning it between his fingers before he tired of it.

His hand delved back into the warmth of the vest and he tucked the
cigarettes away, his attention returning to the woman as he spoke.

“ No. I'm still a business man. I hunt individuals if the credits look
good.” He spoke the words with slow venom. " Is that all?"

The Dead Man of Space - Chapter One

The Dead Man of Space

Chapter One
By David Pidgeon

Corman Antrus awoke on a metal slab in a sterile room. The room was white in colour but glowing with a faint blue luminescence from a source he couldn't identify. He couldn't remember how he got there, what had happened before. He barely remembered that his name was Corman Antrus. He tried to lift his right arm, but couldn't. He couldn't move at all. This instilled a faint quiver of panic in him which then caused him to notice something else. Normally when panicked, despite his hardy mental makeup, his pulse rose and his respiration sped up. But there was nothing. He was not breathing, his heart was not beating, there was no blood pumping through his veins.
"I'm dead!" he thought, struggling to beat down the wave of existential terror that came with such a thought.
Desperately, he threw every effort he had into moving the fingers on his right hand.
Nothing.
It remained still, there wasn't even any perception of effort. He tried again, aiming to do nothing more than wiggle the furthest extremity of the little finger of that hand.
Still nothing.
He heard a sound, all of a sudden, the whoosh of an automatic door opening and footsteps entering the room. He sensed more than saw movement above his head and then a figure walked into view.
Gaunt, skeletal and pale was the man. He was dressed in white laboratory clothing with a lab coat to complete the image. His eyes were sunken and hollow, more like black recesses in his skull than a human eye. His lips were thin and cold and blue, curved up into what Corman would later discover to be a permanent sneer.

"Hello, Mr Antrus" he said. His voice carried the effect of the sneer, it was high and reedy and sounded excruciatingly arrogant and pompous.
"No, no, don't get up" he added and snickered to himself, all the while staring down at the man on the table.
He pulled a small remote out of his pocket and said "this should make the conversation more interesting" as he pushed a button.
Sensation, or at least a faint whisper of sensation, flooded back into Corman's body. Instantly, responding as he had been preparing himself to do, he launched up off the table and threw himself at the interloper, intending on tackling him and getting a few answers out of him.

Before he laid a single hand on the man, there was a tremendous flash of light and a distant sensation of pain. He felt himself smash back against the metal slab on which he had been lying, before tumbling to the floor.
"I expected as much Mr Antrus. After all, you are a 'man of action' as it were. However my personal shield is more than adequate to keep me from harm, particularly at the brutish hands of one such as yourself.
Regaining his composure, Corman finally asked the man "what am I doing here?".
"Well Mr Antrus, there's quite an interesting answer to your rather simple question. To put it quite simply, I have returned you to life and imbued with you with increased and enhanced capabilities, for the purposes of you working for me."
"You? I don't even know who you are, how do you know I will work for you?" returned Corman, beginning to find himself angry.
"Oh you will, believe me. You'll quite simply have no choice in the matter. My name is Gardos, Mr Antrus. I am the creator and owner of the Gardos Agency which is, to put it bluntly, the last group keeping order in the universe".


Several minutes later Corman was dressed, having been directed to an appropriate suit of clothes by Gardos. They were seated in Gardos' office, facing one another across the desk which was a massive dense slab of some marvellously black and polished substance.
"We found your escape capsule, Mr Antrus, drifting through space some three centuries after you had launched from the doomed spaceship Achilles. You yourself were dead, having succumbed to the radiation of deep space after the capsule drifted through a particularly energetic cloud of particles. Due to conditions in the capsule, which we honestly know little about, your body was preserved perfectly. It was entirely intact. In the time since your death, there has been quite some research and development going on in the field of psychic energies, to the point where many of our citizens are possessed of psychic abilities far beyond those even thought possible in your time."
Corman slumped into his chair as Gardos continued talking. Three centuries, it was too long a time to fathom. And the fact that he had been dead. Sure, Corman has come close to death on more than one occasion, but to consider the fact that he had finally succumb was almost too much for him to grasp. Almost. But there was no choice other than to accept it and confront it.
"How is then, Mr Gardos, that I have come to be sitting here? And am I truly alive? My heart does not beat, my lungs do not breathe."
"It was an amazing process Mr Antrus, the first of its kind. First of all, we had to capture and restore your 'psychic imprint' as we call it, the thing that makes you unique. What used to be thought of as a soul. Once we had done that, we were able to transform your body into a vessel for said imprint. As you were dead, you no longer had any need for your internal organs. We removed them-"
"You removed my organs?!" shouted the dead man, leaping to his feet.
Gardos calmly regarded him, not reacting. "Of course we did, there was no need to keep them, you didn't need them and wouldn't be relying on them for function. It was quite simply necessary. Now, sit down and let me continue"
Corman sat, still glaring angrily.
"We removed your internal organs and replaced them with a variety of devices. In your cranial cavity, where your brain was, we placed a Psychic Field Generator. This device had several purposes. It would contain your psychic imprint and it would give that imprint control over your body. It would also give your formidable pyschic abilities. But, more importantly than that, it can generate a null-field. Within a null-field, no psychic abilities can take place.
You see, there are people who naturally generate a null-field, but they have no control over it and can never acquire psychic abilities. You on the other hand, can turn the null-field on and off and are already able to perform many psychic feats."
Corman's look had softened into one of astonishment.
"I'm psychic now?" he asked.
"Did I not just finish explaining that Mr Antrus? We have several capable trainers and psycho-scientists here who will be able to help you understand and make use of your newfound abilities. But that will come later.
Now, the next thing we did was install a small radio-nucleic generator into your chest, which powers all of your other abilities. This generator has enough power to run a spaceship and will last you for many years. It is as compact, powerful and rugged as we could possibly make it and given the scientific abilities of me and my organisation, that's saying quite a bit.
We also installed various weapons and sensory systems into your body. You can now emit offensive beams from your hands, you can hear and see with the greatest sensitivity, you can hear radio and see magnetic fields. You have a projectile weapon in your mouth. You are quite thoroughly armoured and armed, Mr Antrus. None of this has been activated yet, for your own safety and my own."
"I'm a walking weapon" said Corman, looking down at his own hands as if they weren't his own."
"There's one more thing" added Gardos. "You aren't just a walking weapon. The radio-nucleic generator in your chest has certain safety features that can, in extreme circumstances, be overidden manually. You are more than a walking weapon Mr Antrus.
You are a walking bomb, the destructive power of which has rarely been seen".

The Art of Theft - Chapter One

Art of Theft

Chapter One

by Murray K.

Kleptomania: A compulsion to steal but, and here's the interesting thing, without any economic benefit.

Monomania: A pathological obsession with a single item, thought or emotion.

Hypomania: A condition of continual heightened emotions, including euphoria, hyperactivity and sometimes, I should admit, feelings of grandeur.

What they all have in common apart the suffix "mania" is that just about every psychiatrist in this town would diagnose me with all three in a heartbeat. Which could be handy if the authorities find me at the bottom of this pool.

It's a mostly pleasant feeling lying here in the dark, listening the steady rhythm of my breath going through the regulator. Limbs weightless, the rebreather tank resting lightly on my back, 8 pounds of lead on my dive belt keeping me stationary. After the initial adrenaline has worn off, my greatest worry is falling asleep. I spend the time running through the plan in my head, trying to visualize it, especially my route. It's only my second visit to this penthouse, although a fortnight ago I had a bit more company. The cocktail party was held to show off the renovations and although it was a little dull at times it was a very thorough tour.

"All the cabinets, here and the study, they're all custom made from mahogany and macassar ebony. Cost well into the six figures but they did it, flawlessly mind you, in just three months. You can say what you like about the global financial crisis but when Lehman's went bust it got a lot easier to hire a carpenter in Manhattan. Come and see the kitchen."

As we follow the house proud host I notice a few people grimace at that last comment and I know why. A lot of people in this room lost a packet on the Lehman's crash, on top of Bear Stearns before it. Yet our host made a small fortune, because she and her husband were short the stock to the gunnels. How do I know? I sold it for them.

"It's a joy to cook in, so much space. These benchtops come from the same Tuscan marble quarry as Michelangelo's David. I told Henry that if he wants inspired cooking..."

You see, I look after a reasonable sized fortune on behalf of Mr and Mrs... in the interest of client confidentiality, lets call them Mr and Mrs Welsh. Early 60's, he made his first millions in property, now they've renovated their dream pad for retirement. My advice is at least partly to thank for that. In markets, timing is everything. For the past 4 years mine has been perfect. Skill, luck, the will of the Gods? Really, it doesn't matter.
"And these ovens are, surprisingly enough, Swiss. Turns out they don't just make watches. And then we get to the living room."

Short Lehmans in August 2008. Loaded up on Citigroup at a dollar. Rode 10 year treasuries down to 2.5%. Big holdings in Caterpillar and Apple. An allocation in physical gold throughout.

"We got that wall knocked out and put the glass in the whole length of the balcony. It's got a great view of central park."

If you look between the canyon of buildings and squint a bit you can definitely see a couple of trees. That's a little harsh I guess. It's a good enough view that a real estate agent wouldn't need to resort to "park glimpses" to keep a straight face.

"And it looks even better from the roof."

As we move to the stairs I realize I'm probably the youngest person in the room. Forget 'probably', I'm the only one under 40. But as I hang back to let the others up the stairs first it's not just out of deference for my elders. Nearly half of these people are clients, and most of the rest are definite prospects. I wait at the bottom of the stairs as they file past and shake a few hands, ask about children and holidays, the usual chit-chat.

Sorry, I haven't introduced myself. Scott Redford. Goldman Sachs, account manager for high net worth clients. I'd give you a business card but I left them in my other wetsuit. The reason I was invited to this shindig is because, without me, instead of celebrating the beautiful renovation of this two storey brownstone penthouse on the upper east side they'd be trying to fit all these guests into a one bedroom apartment in SoHo the size of, well, mine.

"Isn't this deck gorgeous? We raised it so it looks over the infinity pool towards the park."

"Do you share the roof with the rest of the building?"

"No Neville, that's the best thing about this place. The roof went with the penthouse title. We just put in these stairs and shut off the fire stair, and now we've got it all to ourselves."

I wonder how they got that one past the building board, but the view is definitely worth it. When you're down at ground level in New York everywhere feels like a closed room, 4 walls around you and the sky is an eternity away. But once you're on the roof, staring at the buildings at their eye level... Standing here in the twilight, the roofs undulate like low hills and give way to sky scrapers that look like the fading mountains of a Chinese silk painting. Block out the traffic noise below and it's almost possible to forget you're in Manhattan.

"So Henry," I ask as I sidle up to Mr Welsh standing next to the small pool, "can you do laps in that thing?"

"Ha. You think you're kidding Scott, but I do you know. I got one of those jets put in so I can swim against the current."

"Really? How well does that work?"

"For a fit young thing like yourself it might not be any use but let me tell you, 15 minutes swimming against it and I need a lie down."

"Well sir, it's a very impressive setup. Where did you hide all the equipment?"

"It's all just over here. Actually, you've got to see this."

He opens a little cupboard next to the stairs to show a surgically white space full of pipes and blinking LEDs.

"So that's the pool filter and the like?"

"Pool filter, heater, jets, the whole kit and kaboodle. Looks like the engine of a space ship, doesn't it? All automated, the pool guys can monitor everything from the shop, I don't have to do a thing. Shame really, it looks like the kind of thing I'd like to have a tinker with."

"No fear, sir. I don't think Gloria would take kindly to the pool blowing up and flooding her beautiful renovations."

"Oh yeah, ain't that the truth. Speaking of which, we'd better catch her up. I think she's going to show everyone the bathrooms."

Let me get something straight right at the outset. I don't hate these people or begrudge them their money. None of this is about class warfare or righteous anger or even envy. I work for Goldman Sachs for chris'sake, I didn't join them because of their extensive charity work. I'm here to make money and these people have money. By my measures they're successful, they're my role models even. And despite odd pretensions none of them are particularly nasty or annoying. The Welshes are lovely people, even if Gloria is a little too keen to make sure people notice the very expensive pearl handled Italian taps. A little status conscious, sure, but you try living in this town for more than a month and avoiding that. They're not even in the same league as the fashion industry types I know, and don't get me started on the art dealers. No, on the whole these are decent people who, through hard work, good luck and good management, partly my management, happen to have an extremely large amount of cash. It's the way the world works. If you don't like it, go into politics.

"And finally, through here, the master bedroom. Believe it or not, this was is the most expensive room in the house. But as Henry says, we do spend a third of our lives here."

The rest of the guests file in dutifully but this time I have to hide impatience. Here, in this room, is reason I was eager to attend this evening, besides glad handing present and future clients. It's not the spa-bath in the ensuite or the ambient colour changing LED lighting setup. No, my attention is fixed on a small rectangle about a foot a side on the wall opposite the bed.

"And of course, here's where we keep the Matisse. Scott seems to have found it."

Belle Ile en Mer, Beautiful island in the sea. It's a landscape painting but the orientation is portrait, the better to capture the movement of the cliffs falling into the sea. The whole is achieved with short, obvious brushstrokes in a hand full of colours, violets and aquamarine for the ocean, teal green, khaki and burnt umber for the cliffs and islands. Deep shadows in the water and the distant cliffs are the only solid colour. Focus on any one stroke or detail and it looks, well, almost childish. And yet, looking at the whole, it is alive, full of the movement of the waves, the windswept grasses, and the magnificent volume of space to the far cliffs. Signed and dated 1897, the year Matisse discovered impressionism, the works of Van Gogh and colour theory. This is the work of young man whose eyes have just been opened to the vibrancy of the world around him and how he may capture that in paint on canvas.

"Pretty, isn't it."
The room is empty apart from myself and Mrs Welsh, and I realise I've been staring at the painting for five minutes while the others have all filed back out and onto the deck for champagne and nibblies.

"It is quite magnificent."

"Scott, you are a flatterer. It's lovely and all, but it's barely a study. Still, it is a Matisse. We could have bought something more expensive but, you know, Henry and I aren't the biggest art buffs. Come on dear."

Besides, I think as I file out of the room, more expensive art would have meant fewer of those 'six figures' to spend on the cabinetry. But hey, that sounds bitter. Like I said, this isn't about their wealth, nor is it that these people are somehow too uncultured to truly appreciate art. There's no highbrow snobbery or Robin Hood argument here. There's no justification at all. I just have to have that painting.

That's why I'm sitting at the bottom of the swimming pool at five to midnight. I'm going to steal the Matisse.

Under a Steel-Grey Sky - Chapter One

Under a Steel-Grey Sky

Chapter One

by Michael Bennett

As he woke to the jarring rumble of the train passing by the tiny room he rented, he wondered just how he had arrived in such a low, desperate, position compared to the life he used to lead.

Lighting his wake-up cigarette, he dragged his way to the bathroom, trying to ignore the haggard reflection staring back at him from the grimy mirror, as he ran his hand over his 3-day stubble.
Sighing as he completed his usual morning's ritual, he headed slowly for the door, pulling his boots on, and grabbing his overcoat. He never bothered locking the door, because who would want to try breaking into such a hovel, and what would they want to take, even if they did?

As he was heading out of the dank building, he saw someone who looked vaguely familiar, sitting on a bench directly across from the door, though he couldn't say exactly why. The person was wearing a dark grey coat, sunglasses and a hat, the effect of which caused their features to be hard to distinguish, especially in the pre-dawn gloom.

He lingered momentarily on the doorstep, pausing to light another cigarette. The mechanical clicks of his lighter sounded thunderous in the empty morning silence, its sparking flame a fleeting beacon of warmth. Slowly he exhaled the dense smoke and gazed towards the shrouded figure. The figure stared fixedly back.
He stood there for a moment, vaguely aware of a creeping feeling of deja vu stealing over him. In a previous lifetime, he mightn’t have made an attempt to identify the individual, perhaps even speak to them. But his curiosity had long ago settled into a determined indifference. He wasn't interested in remembering events, or people, of his past.

He flicked his cigarette to the ground, an addition to the mosaic of grime covering the street, and walked on into the bleary morning.

As per his usual late morning habit, he walked the 3 blocks to his usual diner, which he'd been going to daily since he was introduced to it while a rookie beat cop. He may have been off the force for a fair while, but he still carried the habits and felt like a cop, though he'd never admit it to himself.

And if whoever was watching him felt pressed to follow him here, while he was surrounded by people that, while maybe not respecting him, at least knew him and recognised him as a once good, hard-working, cop. He knew that though they may glare, and grumble, because of what happened, or seemed to happen... They'd stand with him against an outsider. He was a brother after all.

Walking up and parking himself on a barstool at the far end of the diner, where he could see the door and take in the vibe and chatter, he ordered a coffee, and waited to see what the day (or what was left of it) would bring.

A thin layer of grime coated the coffee mug. He stared into it's murky depths, the black liquid sending wisps of steam into his face. He inhaled the bitter scent deeply, willing the caffeine to take effect. After a moment of quiet consideration, he took a sip. The coffee seared his tongue as he washed it down, splashing a stale taste down his throat.

He set the mug down and began stacking a handful of miniature creamers given to him by the waitress. For years he had been frequenting this spot, always ordering the same black coffee. And for years his request had always been met with an offering of sugar packets and creamers. The idea of black coffee was apparently unfathomable to the wait staff, who regularly served rich cappuccinos and syrup-laden breakfasts to their sugar coma customers. Couldn't anything be left unharmed, he thought, taking another sip of the pungent liquid.

Lighting his 5th smoke of the day, he paid for a second coffee, and it was as he received it that the door opened, causing him to look up. Whoever it was, they seemed to scan the diner rather more thoroughly than Joe Public would. 'A pretty strange thing to do in a room full of cops..', he thought, as he sensed everyone else react, and focus on the man, and change from standard cop chatter to a quieter, lower, watchful murmur. Pauly noticed that he was a little shorter, held himself differently, to whomever was hanging out near his place earlier.

He noticed that the guy was trained, or at least had experience of a violent nature, or defending themselves, in the way they walked and carried themselves. He was Japanese, and moved with a deadly grace that didn't seem to match the obviously very expensive suit. It was like he was trying to pass himself off, badly, as a corporate power player or high ranking official. He got that far in his reading of the man, when his gaze was drawn to a woman that must have entered behind him, hidden, her gaze falling on him a moment later.

The 'fighting man', as he thought of him, obviously sensed the woman pause, and their look, as he also locked on to Pauly, and turned, whispering, though the woman ignored it, and brushed past him, walking close, as the man frowned, walking to an empty booth.

'Good dog', Pauly lipped to the man, hoping to get a little jab in, wondering what sort of mess she was going to end up dragging him into.

'It's always the lookers...' He whispered into his cup, before draining it in one gulp, motioning to the waitress for attention, as she sat on the empty stool to his right.

Before she could say anything, he waved for a refill and a second cup for her, and once the waitress had done so, said with a gruff voice 'Out the back, 10 minutes. We'll talk there.' before sipping his coffee and pointedly ignoring her look at his rudeness. He wasn't the one that had a bodyguard that screamed 'danger here' to anyone who knew the signs.

He wrote the words 'room full of cops' on the back of the receipt, before burning it with his lighter, looking at her as he dropped the burning paper in her cup, with a slightly evil grin, before it could burn his fingers. She got the point, and left in a showy huff. He didn't much care if the bodyguard took it badly, because it was clear she had him on a tight leash.. Not that he cared over much about getting hurt anyway. He was past caring either way.

Settling in to drink his coffee in peace again, he felt the other people slowly return to their normal behaviour, though with an undercurrent of confusion, though he felt sure that it was mostly focused on the lady and her bodyguard, and only slightly on him.

After 15 minutes and 2 more cups of coffee while he enjoyed the 2 strangers' growing anxiety, he walked to the bathroom to release the large amount of coffee that was trying to escape, and pushed out the back door to wait, lighting one of the few cigarettes left in his pack, noting to buy another few packs if he had time after whatever this was.