Chapter 17

Disclaimer: If you recognise it, surprise, I don't own it.

Chapter 9– Heated Environment.

Edited: 20/03/2023

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Making a giant leap from the top of the lampost, I cross across the sky and land just behind Felicia, who has crouched in front of the door so that she is at eye level with the keyhole, and she is currently busy picking it to gain access. I walk up to her, stepping around the two unconscious dudes that were knocked out in a brutal yet alluring way.

"So, uh, just remind me, Cat. What exactly is waiting for us on the other side of that door? Just so I know what to expect when we barge in and disturb a bunch of crooks, who will not be happy to see us." I ask, waiting patiently as she continues to kneel in front of the door, her rear particularly catching my eye as it is jutting out behind her.

"First of all, Spi, we are not barging in. we are slyly entering through the door. And on the other side of this door, it is very much open, with only the gun room to the left. Apart from that, many crates are stacked up around the place, but they are mainly focused on the sides and in the corners, so it is an open planned space." She speaks, not taking her eye off her work. This is taking her much longer than usual. When she was teaching me about pick locking, she could do it in around five seconds flat. These thugs must have good locks.

"So how is this slyly sneaking in then? They are going to see us as soon as we enter the room, plus there might be some more dudes guarding the door on the other side. I am all for going ham and punching some guys out, but your plan was to block them off from their weapons." The gun thing is more for her sake than mine. I would be fine even if they had guns. I do have my spider sense, after all, and can easily dodge anything they shoot at me. Her, not so much.

"Which is why I chose tonight because tonight is poker night. Every Friday, all of these scum get together and bet all of their ill-gotten cash in a game of poker. But, of course, not everyone can play. They still have to guard the place, after all. This is why the two losers from the last game who went home with the least money are the ones who have to guard the outside door, and I just took care of them. The remaining guys will be too busy playing games to see us enter." She explains. I guess she does her research before hitting a place.

"Alright, so what are we here to steal? And also, how long is it going to take you to pick that lock? I thought you were the world's best thief." I ask because I really don't know what loot we are here for or what is so valuable in this warehouse, and it really is taking her an unnatural amount of time to unlock this door.

"Well, I am here to take a few items of jewellery hidden in some crates, and you can take whatever cash is in there, take as much as you can carry and burn the rest for all I care. And for the record, I am the best thief in the world. I was done with this lock the second you touched the ground. I was just letting you get all your inane questions out before we went in. So now, let's go." She stands up and clasps the door handle. she turns her head to look at me as if asking if I am ready.

"Now, hold on a moment. Why do you get the, I am assuming, priceless jewels while I just get the cash? That doesn't seem fair. it seems like you will get the way bigger cut." I say, and of course, I know that I am just an extra pair of hands. Still, I can bet anything that those jewels will be worth a thousand times more than any cash in there will be, so I would be getting one per cent of the cut, which is way too little. My goal in all of this is to amass wealth to make my life more comfortable in the future. I want to have Donald Duck's levels of money.

"You want the jewels? You don't even have a fence. When you do, then we can talk. And you can get a bigger cut when you do all of the surveillance, when you do all the work, and you bring the job to my door, then you can get a jewel. Now, are you coming or not." She shuts me down hard, and she is correct, but that is why I am here, after all, to learn all the tricks of the trade that she knows so that I can start doing this stuff myself. I give her a nod, and she turns the handle and opens the door.

Widening the door, she sneaks in, and I follow in behind her and then slowly close the door. I looked around the inside of the warehouse and spotted around seven poker tables full of guys laughing and joking with some grumbling and shouting. None of them are paying attention to anything but their own greed. There are stacks upon stacks of crates surrounding the crooks, but there is nothing between them and us, and yet they don't see us.

Felicia signals for me to follow her. It is obvious that we are now in no speaking mode since we don't want to alert the riff-raff just yet, not until we have closed off their access to their weaponry. So I follow her to a room on the left that take up a corner of the warehouse, Felicia opens the door to it and enters, and I follow, closing the door behind me quietly.

Holy crap, this is not a gun room. This is a bloody armoury. All sorts of weaponry sit here, from pistols to machine guns, shotguns, rifles, and sniper rifles, and there is even a goddamn RPG in the corner. What kind of two-bit thugs are armed to the tooth like this?

"Jesus H Christ, there's enough weaponry here to fuel a small army. Why is there so much? And why have they left it all in here? They clearly have a whole bunch of merchandise in there, especially if you have cased the place and see it as a worthwhile target, so why have they just left all of their protection in here?" I question, and I am not being fussy or anything. I am just wary. I have just been brought to a random warehouse and asked to help rob it with no other information. For all I know, she could have some kind of ulterior motive here, and I am a gormless helping hand.

"Well, you know how guys like that are, they commit crimes over money, and some of them out there are raking it in, and the rest of them are losing it out. They have killed over cash before, and most of them are impulsive knuckleheads. in a heated environment like the one out there, well, let's say some might make a rash act in the heat of the moment, which is why it is better that they don't have any of their weapons with them. And they aren't bothered about security because they think they are untouchable, on account of their boss." She looks around at the guns and ammunition, picking up a small pocket pistol.

"Wait, their boss? And who the hell is that?" I question as she plays around with the gun, aiming it at pretend enemies and switching between them suddenly.

"Forget that. It is time to get to work. So? Go on, do your thing." She says, flippantly throwing the small pocket pistol behind her. And then she looks at me, expecting me to do something, making me wonder what the hell I am supposed to do, and with no answer, all I can do is look at her and shrug my shoulders.

"Come on, you know, do your web thing and web it all up so they can't use it. Then we can go out, and you can web up the door as well, and then we can start flattening noses." She makes the web-shooting gesture and everything, waving it at the weapons.

"Uh, yeah, cool plan and all, except I don't have my web shooters. I can't web any of this stuff up." I point out the obvious flaw in her plan, the fact that I don't have my web-shooters as she clearly expects me to for some reason.

"What the hell is a web shooter? Just use all that goo you have stored up in your wrists and web the place up."

"Goo? You mean my web fluid- Wait, is that what people think? That all that stuff is coming out of my wrists?" I say, shocked. Does no one know that I used tech to shoot the web strands?

"Yeah, which I am pretty sure gathers you all that hate because you are different like those mutants. Not many people look favourably of a guy that goes around in a spandex suit that covers everything and sprays white fluid from his wrists, but luckily for you, I am not like most people. Why, is that not how it works?"

"No, that is not how it works. I have some tech strapped to my wrists which shoot web fluid, which is a chemical concoction that I made- Which the original made. That isn't what people really think, is it?"

"Who knows? But if you can't do your job, the one reason that I brought you here, then why are you here? Find a way to keep those thugs from getting to these guns. that is your job." She says, crossing her arms and giving me an unamused look. She must really be frustrated because of all the crap I have pulled over the last few days. she is on edge, and I don't want to sink the boat.

Alright, so let's think about this. My objective here is not to render the guns unusable but to cut off the thug's access to their weaponry. This means I have to stop them from getting into this room, so I have to block the door, which is the only entrance, but if I block it from here, I won't be able to get out of the room.

I give the room another quick scan, and I spot a few small windows on the back wall, but these are just small windows to have some light let in. they don't have handles, but they are just big enough for me and Felicia to slip through. There are a bunch of metal shelves around the place on which they keep the bigger guns. I walk up to one and give it a feel. It seems to be quite tough and quite heavy, which is good.

"Hey, we are going to go out there and kick all of their asses, right? So it doesn't matter if we make a lot of noise as long they can't get in the room, right?" I ask her, to which she nods, giving me the go-ahead to go all in with my plan.