I picked "I am an invisible man," from Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Apologies. To Billy Joel, as well.
“What’re you singing?” Dale asked, tracking Chance on infrared.
“‘Invisible Man,’ by Billy Joel.”
“Dude, it’s ‘Innocent Man.’ Hang on, scanner passing in 3, 2, 1.”
Chance froze, untrackable by visual scanners. “Well, I ain’t that. How much further?”
Dale double-checked the Dressen Museum’s blueprints. “End of the hall, right, right.”
No one had successfully robbed the Dressen before, but then, no one had had Chance Strike’s stealth suit.
“Hold up, Steve, scanner in the hall ahead.”
“OK. But call me Chance. Steve Strike sounds lame.”
“Uh-huh, that’s what’s lame. Get that diamond, and you can change your name to Peg-leg McGee and no one’ll call you lame again.”
The Dressen prided itself for its patrolling drones, hovering securitybots that randomly scanned the halls after-hours. So proud, they eliminated human vidscreen monitors. That left the cameras open for Dale to hack, switch to infrared, and be the only one watching the unfolding burglary.
“You’re there,” Dale said. “See the diamond?”
Embedded in forehead of the eight-foot-tall statue of Mishpatet, it was unmissable.
“Simple,” Chance said, climbing onto a sarcophagus prop.
“Scanner coming.”
Chance froze, embracing the goddess’s torso as the scanner roamed the room for three, four, five minutes. At last, it left.
“So, you two going steady, now?” Dale joked.
“Nah, I’m just using her for her assets.” And with that, the diamond vanished, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment