Alex winced as the box thudded onto the roof. The “cracker box”1 was meant to take a beating as part of the job, but it still hurt to watch a piece of tech slam to the ground after an overhand toss, especially with how hard he’d had to throw it to clear the gap. Still, if he wanted to do this job without immediately alerting everyone in the general area, he really couldn’t gently place it down on the roof without flying across the street himself and he didn’t want to risk that until the device had a chance to do some of its magic.
The box itself resembled a thin brick made out of steel with a few slightly raised pylons on it, which would be sending out a lot of false negative signals to the museum’s security system, mostly to the motion sensors and pressure plates. When he actually got closer, he could tap those diodes against a camera or something hooked into the closed network of the security system to have better access, but the device would also be messing with the more “open” wireless networks and radio waves to help slow any other responses without immediately alerting everyone inside that someone was here. They might notice if he just left it there but he was planning on working quickly soon enough.
These boxes were part and parcel for almost any thief in the business, though Alex’s was quite a few years out of date. He’d kept it updated as best as he could and managed to track down the codes he needed for this job with some of the profits from the Iota Isotopes. While it would absolutely do nothing for him if he was raiding a government facility or a high tech lab, it should be more than enough for this job. The biggest concern right now would be the security staff on site noticing anything amiss, not to mention the hero contracted for the job.
Alex knew he was under-equipped to try and grab anything more than what he was here for, a few relics from one of the College of Justice’s old foes. Fencer always paid top deck for anything from a well known villain, but loved the classics, and even if he only walked away with one or two things from the displays, this job would probably pay almost eight times what the Iota Isotopes job had.
Alex should’ve waited for Starsilk to have his next order ready, but Celestial Scientist’s pressuring him to signing a contract admittedly spooked him into doing this job before he could handle that. He’d actually tried her tech out a couple times before the truck job and after that went flawlessly, he trusted what the lab could put out. Hell, the fact that she was wanting a contract knowing his plans meant that she probably had some killer ideas to get started on for the next job, so it wasn’t a matter of trust in her labs’ abilities. This was more of a matter of trust in general.
The League of Domination had been dead silent for almost a week now. Not a peep. Worse, not even the telltale signs that they were asking questions covertly. Alex could trust the heroes to keep quiet while they investigated but the League was big and it survived by throwing its weight around. For them to show no signs of hunting him down meant something, and Alex wasn’t sure what that was. That meant he was hesitant about working with others without some form of leverage.
Which is why this job was too important to let pass by. While all of this had started out as just something to protect him, the more Alex indulged in plotting, the more he realized he really had been holding back on his dreams of world domination for his whole life. Deep down inside, there was still that rambunctious kid in there who doodled himself fighting Mr. Wonder and having a space station with a laser on it floating over the Nations Union headquarters. He truly wanted this.
And that meant making sure his new allies knew that they worked for him alone and had no illusions of betraying him when the League went on the warpath. Since he didn’t have the power to wave his hands and do something scary enough to make them fear him, that meant being too important for anyone to dare think of crossing him, lest they lose out on more than it meant to turn their nose up at the League.
Despite his trepidation, he’d dumped his entire emergency nest egg from… the previous big job into this, and while it had gotten Starsilk invested enough to want him to sign the lab on exclusively, Alex knew that they still saw him as some no name villain who knocked over trucks, not exactly an up and coming ruler of the world. Dumping almost everything from this job into their laps would make them see the benefits of staying on his good side, as well as proving that he didn’t need their best tech in order to pull off difficult jobs, just that it would elevate the profits. Let them groan about how they could’ve helped him make off with an entire wing of the museum had they only had more faith.
As for why it had to be the museum, there was another time limit on this job: the museum’s contract with the Knuckledusters was expiring soon and the rumor was that they were bringing in a new hero team to help out with security. That effectively wiped out all the intel he had on the place as heroes would typically want a completely new system in place.
The Knuckledusters were a known quantity, and one he had actually planned around. Tonight’s shift was split between Gold Armor and Anachronist, the latter swinging by after finishing her patrol in about 4 hours. Gold Armor was getting up there in years and apparently would spend a lot of time in the College of Justice section before getting so melancholic that he’d spend the rest of his shift on the other side of the museum. From the rumors, he was probably going to end up retiring after this contract expired. Alex would probably feel sorry for his last job being ruined by his own rise to glory if he wasn’t also depending on Armor being a slower hero who lacked any movement powers to help him along once the alarms were tripped, letting him get out before the hero could make it to him.
Alex took one last look at his burner phone, knowing it was pointless now of all times to do anything if Starsilk got back to him, but he still hoped to have at least one more trick up his sleeve beforehand. With a sigh, he disassembled it and stowed it away, the components that could betray his location all inert and quiet. He went through some toggles on his helmet to see if he could find which radio band they were broadcasting on down there but got nothing, so he swapped it over to the general hero band for now and checked one last time. A hero or two were nearby but all of them happened to be far enough away at the moment for him to make his approach.
Looking down, he took in Reddins History Museum, a large, multistory building that only appeared squat due to the skyscrapers nearby, one of which he was hiding along the edge of. The buildings around here were done in a classical style of carved stone and brickwork, with “modern” additions like fire escapes, ventilation work, and billboards bolted onto them like barnacles stuck to the hull of a ship. That mishmash of styles created a lot of shadows which the array of powerful lights covering the massive rooftop of the museum below sought to smother, fighting a strong battle to minimize the patches of darkness cast by large air conditioning units and other machinery. Some gaps remained and obviously they couldn’t light this place up to resemble daytime without the neighbors complaining, but it didn’t leave a lot of room to hide.
No guards patrolled there tonight, an unseasonable cold front making tonight hell for anyone not wearing an advanced suit that could recycle heat back to the wearer. Alex wondered if there was a chance some ice villain was fighting a district away or something.2 Instead the eyes of dozens of cameras which he’d already mapped out a few nights before watched over the roof. Currently, they should be lagging thanks to the cracker box. Not quite out of commission enough that he could land in the middle of the roof and stride on in, but enough that he could approach quickly and get into a blindspot, especially without the floor sensors giving him away.
Alex carefully leapt from his hiding spot on the ledge above and navigated the shadows towards the museum’s roof, barely activating his jet boots to adjust his descent to land precariously on the edge of the roof facing away from the street below, scooting as far away from the lights below as he could without entering into a camera’s line of sight. He glanced over to see his box a short distance away and quickly retrieved it with his gravitor gauntlets.
He opened it up and quickly went through the control panel to set up what he needed to. He was aware he was on a time limit now with the box removed from the floor. The false signals would last for maybe a few minutes more and then the security office would get a ping that something odd was up here if he stood in the wrong spot too long. Thankfully he didn’t need to linger.
He quickly slipped behind a nearby mess of metal that was almost half his height, probably something hooked up to the climate control of the building. From there, he used his boots to propel himself towards a nearby camera, just inside of its blindspot on approach. Then, carefully, Alex aimed the box up at it and, using his gauntlets again, pinned the device against the wall just underneath the camera. With a flick of his wrist, he scooted it up to have the diodes touch the underside of the security cam.
The settings he preprogrammed kicked in and he counted down from fifteen. Ten to get into the system, five for the intrusion software to set all the monitors to loop a thirty minute interval. Five more seconds of waiting just to be sure and he dashed forward to grab the box and shot towards the roof access door as he furiously input new commands.
Those directions he input let him disable the security on the door and he simply used his lasers to cut the lock. He wasn’t aiming to be a shadow thief who was in and out with no one noticing a sign of his intrusion, and wasting time trying would make him more likely to be caught. He quickly brought out a paper map from a pouch and found the security office. With a grin, he made his way there, pleased that there was no alarm as he entered.
That meant the cracker box was performing as expected and he could use it to reach the office before anyone knew what hit them.
---------------------------------
The last of the unpowered security guards hit the ground with a thump as Alex raced over to the console to check the rest of the museum. He wouldn’t have long before a patrol checked in and got nothing but silence back, so he still had to act fast.
First thing was to shut down outside communication. Obviously he didn’t bring a signal jammer to toss on the roof, but he could at least repurpose some of the equipment up here to mess with anyone’s personal devices’ outgoing calls. As he ran through the routine, he watched the monitors and noticed there were only about two other guards pacing around where he could see.
Looking back on the eight bodies sprawled on the floor, moaning and groaning, it finally hit him that this many guys in one spot had been somewhat excessive for actual security work. He’d just thought that a place this size had meant a large security detail. Turns out, he might’ve gotten lucky, and most of the guards had apparently been slacking off together. Having a hero so close on hand often led to such mistakes. He mentally wondered if he could hunt down these last two.
Checking the monitors, he immediately wrote that plan off. While he could tie up the ones in here, and knew exactly where those other two were at the moment from the exhibits onscreen, with how long he’d spend running across the museum, he’d run the risk of one of countless things going wrong or Gold Armor stumbling up here.
Speaking of the hero, Alex couldn’t see him on the monitors, even as he waited a few moments to see if the hero would wander into view. Slightly concerning considering of all people, he should be standing out, that namesake being rather visible normally.
A crackle of the radio interrupted his thoughts. He had less time than he thought.
It took a moment for the voice to come over, the cracker box still messing with signals here.
“Hey assholes, nothing to report other than Jack hasn’t fixed the signal yet,” the belligerent guard on one of the lower left monitors called in.
Looking back at the pile of guards and seeing a nametag that looked like a “Jack” on one of them that he remembered had been playing some game with another two when he’d entered the room, Alex began to understand the group dynamic here and decided to test his luck one last time. Carefully he picked up the receiver and simply barked a laugh before hanging up.
The man on the monitor instantly looked enraged and about ready to throw his radio before he took a breath and flipped to a different channel. Alex couldn’t hear him, but he saw the other guard on camera react and start talking back. The two of them were deeply engaged in conversation as they clearly decided to continue their patrols and cut out the security office for the time being.
Pleased that his act of subterfuge had worked, Alex smiled and quickly began to tie up the eight unconscious security officers on the opposite side of the room from the console before quickly consulting his map once again as he searched the screens for Gold Armor one more time. Nothing.
That didn’t sit right with him, but at least the mundane guards were mostly taken care of for the time being. The two he saw were near the solar system and Amera Union exhibits, far enough away from his prize that he should be able to avoid them. Hopefully Armor was chilling in the bathroom, lamenting the lost years or something and he could grab everything and get out before anyone managed to catch up to him.
He looked at the cameras and debated switching them off. No… better leave evidence. Most places tended to up their security protocols when you bypass everything, and Alex didn’t need a bunch of other villains pissed at him for ruining a good thing. Sure, it wasn’t like the museum would leave the doors unlocked after this one, but pulling a perfect job was a surefire way to get three high tech labs jockeying to be the ones to install the next security system put in place here while they were more likely to just hire a few more guards if they caught him on camera and let a hero track down what he stole.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Plus he also needed to build a brand on these jobs even if that didn’t involve shouting “Tech Crash was here! Tremble cowards!” from the rooftops. The armored car was one thing but the news loved running heist footage, so getting his new costume on camera was basically free advertising. Hell if he pulled this off without actually dropping his name, he could probably milk the speculation online to make that eventual reveal have more of an impact. Gods, this job sometimes felt like it was only about a third actually stealing things and the rest just marketing if you really wanted to get ahead, which was probably why Alex had been content to languish for so long. Self-promotion sucked.
Anyways, he did decide to jam the door shut on his way out at the very least. It wasn’t like a locked door would tip off anyone who came by to check up on here more than finding the bushel of formerly armed guards in the corner, and he doubted he’d need to come back in here even if someone nosy managed to throw the alarm. If this place had heavy duty shutters that he needed to worry about clamping down over the escape routes which could only be opened from a security office, they would’ve deployed them every night in the first place.
Just gotta keep an eye out for that missing hero.
Alex once again wished he’d gotten a helmet upgrade so he could patch the cameras into his visor as he crept along half lit corridors reserved for employees. The scenery of these hallways was sparse to the point of feeling hostile to him, with chipping paint that was at least forty years old and the occasional exposed pipe or wire that suddenly narrowed the passageway. Not knowing where the primary threat in this building was really bothered him and he couldn’t help feeling like something had already gone horribly wrong even with how lucky he’d gotten so far.
Luck always runs out.
That left preparation and execution. So Alex had done his homework on the Knuckledusters.
While ostensibly a team, they mostly operated alone, meaning that each of them were a big enough threat to throw down with your average villain or two. Gold Armor in particular was basically just there to tank almost anything thrown at him and wail on you when you got tired. The man had an ancient suit of armor from Junea that had somehow sailed between the planets long ago, passed from one wielder to the next. Originally thought to be magic, the armor was just weird alien tech that had soaked up too many cosmic rays and now it could absorb and fire back kinetic energy and form some basic weapons in the wearer’s hands.
Despite being from space however, it wasn’t actually airtight,3 so Alex had prepped a couple gas canisters to make sure old Armor would struggle, especially if he could force the fight into one of the narrower corridors or exhibits around here. The sleep gas would only payoff if he could get it in the air without Armor noticing it. The stuff would lose any battle with adrenaline. He’d thought he could maybe slip it in the vents but after taking a look at them he questioned if that would even work.
Regardless, his greatest advantage would almost certainly be speed, assuming he could nab his prize before Gold Armor knew he was even here. The armor was great in the kind of knock down brawl that the Knuckledusters favored, but a liability for a chase scene.
So with preparation out of the way, that left execution, which is why he was moving as silently as possible through the hallways. Internally he recognized the genius Celestial Scientist displayed by making sure the soles of the jet boots weren’t the same composite alloy as the rest of the design as he moved across the tiles, leaving his own footsteps relatively light and allowing him to listen for any heavy footfalls. Minutes passed in almost complete silence, the light sounds of his steps still feeling like drums to his ears whenever he wasn’t stepping on flattened carpet, as he weaved out of the staff corridors and out into the actual museum.
The place showed its age, having been built almost a century ago and receiving a large makeover in the 80’s with another, less extensive one about ten years ago. There were four large halls running off from the main entrance that stretched from the ground floor straight through all four floors of the place. Crammed between them were a bunch of smaller exhibits on each level in rooms where the ceilings felt too low to the ground and the paint colors seemed to only have the rule that they must be as dark as they were saturated.
Having navigated around the back edge of the museum opposite the main entrance for the most part – and thankfully having dodged the ground level with its polished stone floors which would have echoed any footfalls he made – Alex quickly slipped through the upper level of one of the grand halls. He passed by suspended models of dinosaurs hung in the air without strings or a single anti-grav platform keeping them there in sight. In a confusing turn to him, the next exhibit he moved through was one on early space flight. Then past a small section on the contemporary intranet which was either housed in a repurposed hallway or an oddly shaped room of its own. And then he cut through a seemingly forgotten display that detailed the temporary governing body of the northern Amera Union of the 1890’s.4
His journey through each room in the small maze was interrupted every few moments so he could unlock his way to the next room using the keys he’d lifted from the guardroom. Finally, after all that, he exited the stroll through history to wind up standing before the doors of the College of Justice exhibit.
The entrance yawned before him, a placard nearby the only clue that this wing was his target, as it looked like most of the rest of the thick wooden doorways around here. Like the other doors, this one was locked up tight for the night, which probably meant Gold Armor was poking around elsewhere. Probably. The hero could’ve always gone inside and locked it up behind him while having a sad nostalgia walk through it.
Pushing that thought away, Alex bent down towards the lock, only to freeze as he swore he heard a noise from behind him like the thump of something knocking into a wall. Glancing over his shoulder, he couldn’t see anything, but he retreated to the shadows of a nearby column that jutted out from the wall on his left. Scanning the hall behind him, he readied his gauntlet, fingers poised to activate either the gravitor generator or the gas canisters depending on what emerged.
Seconds passed and nothing happened. Carefully, Alex – no, Tech Crash – flicked his helmet radio on to parse the broadcasts to hear if there was any activity. More nothing. The villain peeled off from the column and slowly returned to the door, silent as possible as he pushed the key into the lock.
The lock clicked open and he smoothly opened the door, the silence of the corridor not as comforting as he’d hoped it would be. Tech Crash risked a glance inside, carefully reaching up and flicking the button on his visor to cycle through visor options. Thermal and night vision cleared it, as well as the hallway behind him. As far as he could tell there was nothing here.
But it really didn’t feel that way.
Tech Crash could swear whatever that noise had been was too close, maybe a couple dozen feet away. He felt exposed. The hairs on his neck bristled as he swore he was being watched. Well, he knew he was, given the camera at the end of the hall. Dammit, if he stood here too long the footage would look bad. He strolled into the exhibit with an air of confidence he truly didn’t feel and closed the door behind him, flicking back to night vision to look around.
Despite the fact that most of the exhibits he’d passed through on the way here had been rather dry, looking more like some ancient history nerd’s stuffy collection rather than the tastefully arranged displays more modern museums tended to favor, the College of Justice section was actually really well done. Tons of creative, albeit somewhat kitsch decorations that often had descriptions plastered all around them with a whole story being told about the old superhero team’s rise to fame. Unlike a lot of other teams which tended to be rising heroes of similar origins joining together, this one had been made up of established heroes from across the globe, from Azania to Uropa to Atlanthea, the group of seven heroes had come together to fight off the threats to the world that began to arise in the then unfolding age of superheroes and villains, recruiting other like-minded heroes as the organization expanded.
The team had battled against all sorts of threats and villain groups back when the League wasn’t the biggest name in the room when it came to costumed ne’er-do-wells intent on conquering the world, and plenty of relics from those battles were scattered throughout this hall. Some were devices they’d put together to save the day, like an extremely out of date ice ray – which nonetheless made Alex miss the one he’d owned from back in his minion days – or a shield generator they’d used to save a town from a flood. What Tech Crash was really here for wasn’t the old gadgets used to save the day though.
No, it was the trophies from the villains that were hung around the room to complete each little story. Past legends which had all threatened the world in their own ways. Part of the containment field of a miniature sun from Molten Master, the turbine of a weather machine from King Nimbus, one of the rings from the first Dark Sorcerer – missing the power gem of course, but with all the runes still etched into it in glorious detail.
All of these had been villains he’d grown up admiring. In a paradoxical way, he was as grateful as any kid that the College of Justice had put a stop to their nefarious schemes, but while other kids his age probably were happy because it meant their heroes won, Ale- er, Tech Crash had always been grateful that meant there was a world to conquer, and even dreamed of being congratulated by these villains for doing so.
It felt right to stand here and bask in these legends now that he was finally doing this. He took a deep breath and mentally calculated which ones to grab as he unclasped a bag from his belt and unfurled it in one motion. Rolling his shoulders, he readied himself and moved to the center of the room, or at least a spot where he had a good line of sight to everything he wanted to pilfer, knowing he’d once more have to act as swiftly as possible. With a quick command from his gauntlets, he spooled up the lasers, adjusting their output to cut the glass surrounding the artifacts and hoping the light wouldn’t scatter too much and harm anything else.
While he was about to cause some damage, he didn’t really relish the thought of ruining any of the other artifacts in here. He might not love heroes, but their toys were neat and it felt wasteful to ruin them, especially when they had such a nice price tag for a job later down the line.
He counted down from five, the lone figure at the center of the room, one hand getting his gravitor gauntlet ready. Four. He glanced around to make sure everything was clear. Three. He quickly remembered to swap over to infrared so the laser didn’t blind him with the night vision still on. Two. The CPU of the first giant Endbot ever made, the Scrolls of Silence, the mask of Captain Inevitable, the hilt of the Sword of Morgash, the control panel from the volcano base of Steel Serpent, and a few more. One. A deep breath and he tensed his body ready to jump into motion.
Zero.
The lasers swiped out, their emitters whipping around from the harness on his chest, blazing circles into the displays around him, causing glass panes to plummet to the ground in small explosions. The emitters stopped firing in seconds, and Tech Crash was already moving, lashing his hand out to yank the trophies towards him and throwing them into the bag as fast as possible. His heart was hammering, the blood flow to his head so loud it cut off his hearing. He was deafened to the shattering of the exhibit around him. Deaf to the sound of the lasers searing out from him and the sounds of them scoring new holes for him to pilfer through. Deaf to the sounds of the alarm blaring through the-
...Where was the alarm?
As Tech Crash threw the last object into his bag, the Scrolls of Silence which he had quickly rolled up, he realized there wasn’t a single sound other than the final remains of his quick bout of violence in the air. That was wrong. Without even talking about the amount of displays he’d wrecked, any of which should’ve triggered immediate sirens throughout the museum, the fact that he’d burned his way through so many of them probably should’ve caused the fire alarms to go off, even if the sprinklers didn’t come on with them. What in the hell-
“And that’s what he was after,” a voice split the silence and Tech Crash wheeled around to face it, confronting empty air… and the open door to this room. As he raised his hand to aim his gravitor gauntlet up, a sudden force yanked the spoils in his other hand out away from him. Instinctively he tried to pursue it before a bright light and a flash of heat cut between him and his prize, blinding his infrared sight. Barely catching his balance, he leapt backwards and immediately tapped his visor back to night vision. He almost immediately regretted that as it flared white before he shut it down, his eyes adjusting to take in ball of fire somehow hovering in the air a few feet from him.
“Do be careful,” a tired masculine voice chastised, and a hovering figure wearing a cloak materialized out of the air a short distance away from the bag full of his loot. “We don’t want to prove Reddins right about your powers this early into the contract.”
“I knew you’d catch it,” a woman chimed in as she appeared between Tech Crash and the open door in a flash of light. “Besides…”
She waved a hand and the fireball popped away. A fading amount of residual light kept the room from immediately plunging into shadow. Or perhaps the pyro was doing something. Regardless it made him feel like he was dancing in the palm of their hands.
“I’ve got it under control.”
Tech Crash glanced between the two of them, “You’re not with the Knuckledusters.”
The woman clapped, sparks flying between her fingers as she did so, “Yep! You did your homework! Shame it was out of date.”
Her partner levitated down, his cloak billowing as his feet touched the floor. The man gave one of those grins that isn’t quite smug enough to feel cocky or arrogant but definitely telling enough that Tech Crash knew he fully believed this fight was stacked against the villain.
The cloaked figure informed him, “The Knuckledusters opted to swap with us earlier in order to help Amberheart out with something. Old man Armor said this place was getting a little too depressing for him and he wanted to get back to the action before he calls it quits. So you get to deal with us.”
The woman stepped forward and her short, somewhat spiky hair ignited as the other hero spread his arms and glowing intricate sigils appeared in the air behind him. Tech Crash was glad he’d deactivated his night vision as it would’ve been immediately overwhelmed by the display. The light they were putting out was now more than enough to make out all the details of their outfits.
The woman had a sandy skin tone and was clad in a formfitting white and orange costume with a chunky pair of gauntlets that covered her whole forearms and looked like they were made of molten metal, every recess on them glowing orange. Her partner meanwhile was covered by his bright green cloak which faded into violet at the edges, parting to reveal a dark costume that Tech Crash struggled to make out any details on besides an ornate belt holding up several over-sized pouches and a domino mask over his face. The sigils dancing around his hands revealed a scattered assortment of charms wrapped around his arms and rings on his fingers that the villain had no idea if they were magical or just decorations, it was impossible to tell with these types.
“We’re Blazeshot and Spelljam!” the woman announced, her shoulders igniting to form a halo around her face with her hair ablaze. “And you’re messing with the Elemental Aegis now!”
Tech Crash stared at the two, still aiming a gauntlet full of several very flammable gas canisters in his suit of armor that had no defense against high temperatures or magic in general.
Shit.
1. Cracker Boxes are an “antisecurity device” of unknown origin that are distributed by various criminal organizations, most commonly the League. Multiple models hit the underground markets each year in response to new security measures, though models can be upgraded with some technical know-how or access to firmware patches. Confiscated devices haven’t shed much light on who might be constructing them, and their proliferation has been a constant headache for security around the world.
2. It was actually a confrontation involving Engine Ear who was unleashing an unstable weather control device in Middletown Park, quite a distance away from Reddins. Multiple districts were reporting extremely low temperatures that night on account of this battle.
3. It’s unknown how Gold Armor’s titular armor managed to cross the void to end up on our planet, but experts generally agree that the armor was not intended as a space suit. Which only makes the mystery of how it got here more odd.
4. The Amera Union’s formation and general expansion over the centuries experienced an odd complication during this era when the northern half was cut off by an odd storm caused by an Atlanthean incursion during a short conflict after the leadership of the latter nation opted for its own form of expansionism. This led to the northern region temporarily forming its own independent alliance complete with its own governance.
