Angel

I had manage to get my arm down into the wall as deep as the shoulder but I still couldn’t reach the artifact. My cheek was pushed flush against the wall. I was breathing heavily from exhaustion and dripping with sweat. Something I did coming in must have knocked the security system offline or something. I really wasn’t an electrical expert or anything like that.

With a sigh I reached up and brushed the locks of hair away from my eye, I tried again to push my arm further. Forcing my shoulder deeper into the hole, but I really couldn’t move any further.

I cursed under my breath, “Dammit.”

I tried again at the wall, this time looking around at the room to make sure that no one was coming. I had been here longer than I’d expected and the longer I stayed the more I risked exposure. Of course, when you’re thief you don’t expect to come such a long way through high tech security systems only to get stopped up because a safe just happens to be further back in the wall than your arm can go.

Overhead there was a loud clanging, thinking that someone might be coming I retracted my arm from the hole just a bit. But as the air conditioning came to life in the ceiling I realized what I had heard and continued at what I was doing.

The room I was in was at the center of a large office building. The middle room of the middle floor of a sixty story building. Normally being thirty stories off of the ground would make the escape that much harder for the thief, but not for me. The room itself was pretty vacant. The walls were a stainless steel metal, as were the floors and ceiling. The room seemed to be as sterile as an operating room.

In the middle of the whole thing were three long metal tables, but nothing was on them. Besides the safe, I really couldn’t be sure what this room was for. One good thing was the fact that there was only one way in and one way out and if someone were going to come in to get me, they’d have to do it through that door.

I yanked my arm free of the hole and turned back to the table that was at my back, my gun was right there laying flat on the table. With a dull smirk I whipped my gun up into my hand, “I really should have some tools for this kind of thing…”

Now with my gun in hand, I stuck my arm back into the safe, trying to see if I could use the gun to pull the object closer to me. I let out a few short grunts, moving and pushing my shoulder harder into the wall.

I huffed, “Oh come on…”

Suddenly something slammed into the door of the room, “Who’s that in there?”

“Shit,” I glanced around for somewhere to hide. In a room like this there was no where.

I clenched my gun tight, “Alright, I guess there’s only one way to do this.” With my gun in hand, I yanked my arm free of the hole and stepped out away from the wall. There came a second slam at the door, this one louder than the first.

My hand went out towards the hole and I concentrated really hard, I bit down lightly on my lip and closed my jade eyes tight. I could feel my mind wrapping around the object. I could feel its shape in my head. I knew to do this too long or too hard could be damaging. Cautiously I pushed on, I could feel my grasp tighten around the object now, its rough surface texture was now so apparent in my mind.

And then I ripped it free of the hole where it was bound, the object flipped from the safe and back into my hand. I grasped it for real now. I hated to have to depend on these “abilities” that I had. I saw them more of a hindrance…a reminder of my former self than anything else.

“We’re coming in,” the man at the door was muffled by the thick steel, but I could hear his voice clear enough.

I glanced down at the artifact, it was about the size of my hand and rough. Just by looking at it I could tell I would have no idea what the damn thing was, and I didn’t care as long as I got my money. I slipped the thing into my pocket.

The door to the room flew open and in an instant I dropped to one knee with my Beretta outstretched. I fired the first shot into the forehead of the first face through the door. His head snapped back with the force of the bullet and his blood sprayed out behind him. The second two bullets were into the chest of the guy right behind him. They fell almost at the same time.

I didn’t have time to get my next bullet off before the third man fired back at me. I dove over to the side landing with my chest down and then scrambled up for cover behind the table. I kept low and as I turned around the side of the table, I could hear him making his way around the other side of the table.

Instinctively I stood and jumped over the table catching him on the side and knocking him off balance. He fell back against the table in the middle of the room with a thunderous thud. I grabbed him by the side of the head and with a pop of electricity from my fingers I saw his eyes go bloodshot. It didn’t take that much heat to boil someone’s blood inside of their body.

This electric touch, another one of my little “gifts”.

Quickly I got against the wall next to the door and checked down the hallway, no one was coming from what I could see and they probably hadn’t expected to need more than one security officer for anything that happened.

If all had gone well I planned on making my way out of the building through the front. But with the way that things were looking now I had better play it safe. “Well this is where you excel, right Angel?” I muttered to myself?

The lingering smell of gunpowder in the air was still fresh. The room was calm again and the only sound was me breathing and the quiet hum of the A/C unit above. I moved back out into the hallway with my gun pressed tightly down into my lap. The security lights that ran over night in the building painted the hall a pale blue color, the color that full moon casts down on things.

I navigated the curves of the hallways trying to make sure that I went to the right side, there was no need to rush right out into the middle of the street, even if it was late at night. I needed to find a more secluded place to make my escape.

When I turned the next corner I could see at the end of the hall that the room opened up. This room too was bathed in the same bluish light and luckily for me there was a large plate glass window facing out to a street.

I sighed, “Thank…yeah…” I made my way over to the window, running between rows of cubicles that had just hours ago had workers in them. The smell of fresh printer toner was still lingering in the air.

I hit the window with my hands and glanced down at the ground from my perch. Of course it was a long way down. Humanly impossible for me to make the jump without some sort of aid…at least that would have been the case if I was a Human.

With my fist drawn back as far as it would go I punched into the glass shattering a huge section of it. The cascade of glass rained down onto the street below and clattered around my feet too.

I started back by the cubicles, building up a running star and dashing towards the shattered window. They stormed into the room as I dove free off the window. The air ripped past me, I hadn’t planned this well. I really hadn’t planned this part at all. I felt the air through my hair, strands of blonde whipped at my face.

No part of my outfit could be used for creating drag and I wouldn’t die, not even from this fall. But if I couldn’t get myself turned right side up it would hurt…like Hell.

From somewhere above, over the howl of the cold wind I could hear their desperate gunshots. I tucked my body into a ball and tried to roll so that my feet were down. I didn’t want to give myself away. It seemed like I might have to.

Time seemed elongated. As I neared the ground I decided to use that gift of mine again. I let a magnetic field erupt around me. There was a parked car right where I would land. I could only pray no one was inside.

With a thud I slammed into the top of the car, the alarm blared and the roof was compacted down into the cab. Glass exploded out around the car and the screech of the car’s anti theft device seemed to grow weaker.

My boots slid slightly and I went ahead and jumped off the top of the car. I checked my pouch I wore for the artifact. “Pay dirt.”

I gave a quick glance around to see if anyone was there to notice me. The coast was clear. I darted off down a dark alley and made my way back to my car, I’d parked it a few blocks off for safety reasons.

As I go I speak to myself, “Angel, you’ve done it again.”