Chapter Text
“Matt, I swear to FUCKING GOD if you blueshell me one more time I’m going to shift and sit on you until you suffocate.”
“Stop being in first then!”
Smitty laughed as he shot into first place, sliding past a stunned Grizzy. “Matt, I’ll rob whichever rich person you want if you wait until I’m in second again to shoot another blue shell.”
Grizzy glared at him and started to say something when Matt interrupted. “I want one of the steering wheels from Gordon Woos’ car collection.”
Smitty raised an eyebrow as his character did a flip and snarked, “Seriously?” heedless to Grizzy’s angry spluttering.
“Do you want me to throw the game, or do you want to bitch about my prices?”
Smitty sighed. “Alright, alright, I’ll stop by and grab one on the way back from tonight's job. I gotta leave after dinner anyway,” he said, swinging into the final lap, much to Grizzy’s annoyance.
“Matt, you better fucking not,” he growled, chucking a red shell at Smitty, who yelped when his character got smacked. Nearly instantly, Matt let another blue shell fly.
Grizzy responded by screeching as loud as he could while his housemates laughed at his expense. Smitty slowed down, keeping out of the radius of the explosion as Grizzys’ kart spun, and swiftly passed him again.
Several minutes later, Puffer nudged open the front door, several pizzas in hand, to find a very large grizzly bear sitting on two giggling 23-year-olds. He rolled his eyes, and sighed out, "Grizzy, get off of them."
The bear huffed at him and refused to move.
"Grizzy."
Another huff, and the bear rolled off of Smitty and Matt and shifted back into a(still pouting) Grizzy. "What happened," deadpanned Puffer.
"Smitty bribed me into throwing a Mario Kart match and Grizzy got pissed about it," said Matt, still lying flat on the floor as Smitty giggled silently next to him.
"Stop antagonizing the bear, dipshits. He's going to actually eat you one of these times," the tallest snapped, walking into their kitchen and dropping the pizzas on the island. The others scampered after him, shoving each other in a mad dash towards their dinner.
The four stood around the island, asking about each others' days, bantering, and eating pizza. Everyone made fun of Puffer for buying Hawaiian pizza, who flipped them off while eating one of his slices, Smitty and Matt gave Grizzy shit for loosing at Mario Kart, and Puffer complained about the costs of running the BBG, reminding Grizzy and Matt they had shifts the next day.
Smitty started boxing up his pizza after two slices of chicken, bacon, and red onion pizza. It was immensely difficult to stop himself from eating more, but he knew that if he stuffed himself before a job he would have a hell of a time outrunning Kryoz and his ice paths.
"You leaving?" Puffer asked, stuffing another piece of Hawaiian into his mouth.
Smitty nodded, "Yup. Gotta stop at Löckelle, then I got a date with a metric fuckton of jewels and a steering wheel from an Audi Spyder. Might suck down a blue-raspberry ICE-E if I get the chance."
Grizzy choked on his pizza while Puffer rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time that night. "Just make sure you re-stock before you leave, aight? I left some new equipment on your bed."
He nodded to Puffer in thanks, running out of the kitchen, up the steps, and into his bedroom. True to Puffers' word, there was a bag of new equipment sitting on his bed. His harness and mask were sitting on his desk, his backpack leaning against the wall, and the rest of his uniform was in the closet. He grabbed his duffel bag, throwing his uniform in, making sure to wrap his clothes around the mask so the lenses wouldn't shatter(don't wanna look sloppy in front of the pickets). He emptied the equipment bag into his backpack, noticing some new toys and upgraded equipment he would have to look at before he started his job tonight. He grabbed a beanie and shoved onto his head, tucking his hair under before he took off again, yelling a goodbye to the guys as he left the house and started his trek.
The Löckelle Building was an abandoned warehouse in the southwest district, now known as Teardown Alley. It was a thirty minute trek there and back, but it was worth it to throw the pickets, cops, and PIs' off of his trail. Teardown Alley wasn't the worst place in Frustrum(that title belonged to The Warzone), but it was still a pretty rough part of the city. A majority of the cities poor and homeless lived here, and it was a breeding ground for wannabe thugs. He had been mugged a couple of times on his way to the warehouse that served as Seekers' base, but he had gotten away each time without a scratch.
He had found the building one of his first nights on his night job. He had been careless and lacked his current gear, and had been followed by a very angry Head of Security who worked for one of the rich bastards he had robbed. He had noticed a basement window that was kicked in and had crawled in as fast as he could, and the Head of Security had walked right past. He still counted himself lucky for finding Löckelle that night.
The guys had helped him clean it up a bit, put up some Home Alone-esque booby traps and a few lo-tech alarms(thank God for Puffer, the guy was a genius with mechanics). If someone got passed those, they would find a typical hideaway: graffiti, food wrappers, a small fire pit, a nest of blankets and sleeping bags, just evidence of homeless people and teens looking for a place away from their parents. However, the highest floor of Löckelle was home to Seekers base: his equipment, extra uniforms, plans, and loot they hadn't redistributed yet was all kept there. the only way to get up there was to go through the air ducts, because the stairs had crumpled years before.
Smitty shuffled through the plastic covered window and landed on the dusty floor, coughing as he hit the ground. No matter how many times he did that, his lungs would never get used to the dust that permeated most of the building. He stepped over the carefully placed litter and walked over to an air duct, removing the vent cover and climbing inside before replacing the cover. He crawled through, navigating through the maze of metal to pop out into Home Base. The area had been meticulously cleaned, with several copies of his uniform hanging in an alcove on the north side of the wall. On the East side of the room, there was a massive window with dying sunlight filtering through. He stared at it for a moment before shrugging off his backpack and setting down the duffel bag, sliding into a sitting position in the square of light. Smitty relished the feeling of warmth on his skin. Once that warmth was gone, Smitty would be no more until that nights' job was done.
The sun sank, disappearing millimeter by millimeter, until the city was bathed in twilight. Smitty inhaled, held it for five seconds, then let it out, jumping up to get started. He hung up the recently washed uniform he had brought and grabbed the next one in the cycle. He threw off his clothes and put on the uniform. Thermal leggings(sue him, it got cold at night), red long-sleeve shirt, white cargo pants, white hoodie with the arms ripped off, white gloves, blue high-top Converse, and the gear harness. Now for the last part. He picked up the mask from where he set it and looked at it for a moment.
It wasn't that complicated. A white gas mask with a built-in voice changer, a pair of goggles welded to the top, the left lens blue and the other red, and two leather straps to keep it in place. Smitty did this every time before a job. Ponder the mask. Let himself slip away. Put on the mask and become Seeker, the thief no one could ever catch because he always seemed to know what would happen next. Little do they know, Seeker thought as he tightened the strap on the top of his neck, then pulling the one over his ears tight.
He turned around to the backpack full of gear and strode over, Converse scuffing against the floors. He grabbed the strap and hauled it over to the worktable his normal gear was set on. Laser drill, dart guns, smoke bombs, on-brand white grappling hooks, several bottles of high-strength ibuprofen, sticky bombs, a shotgun. He pulled the stuff out of the bag Puffer had packed for him, noticing each had been placed with a note saying exactly what they did. New smoke bombs with a bigger smoke cloud, more smoke bombs that had been supplemented with chloroform to make a sleeping gas(Jesus Christ, Puffer), and a USB. He frowned at it as he picked it up, noticing that Puffer had painted it with Seekers' typical red and blue, and read the card.
Seeker, this will allow you to completely destroy the contents of any computer. It has 17 types of malware, 9 viruses, and when it's done thoroughly fucking everything up, it'll leave a little surprise. DON'T USE IT IF YOU NEED INFO FROM THE COM.
Seeker whistled and pocketed the USB in one of the zipper pockets on his cargo pants. He slowly put everything else in place, the shotgun going across his back, the grappling hooks going in two holsters on his harness against his hips, the dart guns going above those, and the smaller gear was placed in various pockets and baggies. Alright, he thought, time to get going.
He scurried back down the air ducts, much faster now that he was emboldened by the uniform. He skittered out of Löckelle, checking out the window and focusing on what was to come to make sure nobody saw him before taking off, weaving in between the decrepit buildings before he grabbed his grappling hooks, pulling himself to the top of an abandoned apartment buildings. As he pulled himself up, Seeker caught a glimpse of himself in the glass. Gotta be honest, he thought as he pulled himself onto the roof, I look cool as fuck like this.
He steadied himself, then ran towards the edge of the building, leaping off of the roof with a loud whoop. Once again, he raised his grappling hooks, firing both. one caught a rusty sign, the other grasped the corner of a nearby building. Seeker yanked himself forward, spinning in the air as he called back the hooks and laughing in delight, smiling like a maniac under the mask. He'd been doing this job for a year and a half, but it would never get boring. Depressing? Occasionally, but blowing up one of Clayton Barnes' servorooms usually helped that feeling away. Dangerous? It already was dangerous. But it would never, never, be boring.