Chapter 174

  Alexander gave the command.

  Eight trucks reversed into position, backing smoothly into the loading bays of the high-value vaults.

  He hovered at the midpoint, working through the numbers.

  The tech corridor had been mapped during reconnaissance. He’d located quantum supercomputers, industrial fabricators, server infrastructure, and a few other necessities.

  He’d mentally allocated nine trucks based on volume and quantity.

  Two for the quantum supercomputers and their systems because those were irreplaceable. Obtaining them through legitimate channels would take four to six months of lead time. They weren’t off-the-shelf products. Each one required custom design and construction, with background checks and security clearances that Alexander couldn’t pass and didn’t have time to fake.

  The fabricators were easier but still complicated. Purchasable with enough paperwork and a legitimately registered business entity. Three trucks would bypass weeks of bureaucratic nonsense.

  Then he’d set aside four more trucks for the servers and everything else he’d earmarked from the tech corridor. Including essential commercial-grade kitchen equipment for their Mediterranean lifestyle, such as the slushie machine and snowcone maker.

  But floating here above billions in materials, Alexander realized his priorities were wrong.

  Each truck could haul seven and a half tons. Twenty-four trucks meant a hundred and eighty tons of total capacity. The vault held thousands. Even after dismissing the hundreds of tons of copper and aluminum, nickel and cobalt, he’d be lucky to get away with maybe twenty percent of what surrounded him.

  And even then, only if he was extremely efficient about it.

  Twenty percent.

  The thought was almost offensive.

  Alexander reprioritized. The quantum computers and fabricators were essential. Everything else from the tech corridor could wait. The fantasy of riding through Manhattan with servers and equipment floating behind him, raiding data centers as he went, died under the weight of reality.

  This right here was the score. More than he’d imagined when planning the operation.

  Four trucks for the tech corridor. Two quantum computers because those couldn’t be replaced. One fabricator, maybe two if the loads worked out. The servers could be purchased later. They were standard computing infrastructure, just expensive. Patience and money would solve that problem.

  That left twenty trucks for the vault.

  Maybe he could carry additional fabricators with Metallokinesis on the way out of the city…

  Alexander dismissed the thought and refocused. Ultra-rares first.

  Alexander extended his hand toward Vault 6B.

  Metallokinesis pulsed outward, slowly at first, then building in intensity. The sealed containers stacked on the central pallet began to rise. Small boxes, deceptively innocuous looking despite holding twenty tons of the rarest metals on Earth.

  Individual containers organized themselves mid-flight, flowing in a steady stream toward the waiting truck. A thread of Technopathy connected him to the vehicle’s systems, monitoring the load sensors embedded in its suspension.

  The containers settled into the truck bed with gentle thuds. Two tons. Four. Six. The effort tugged at something deep within, a steady pull on reserves he’d fought and bled to build over months of practice and combat.

  At seven and a half tons, the truck pulled smoothly out of the loading bay, and another slid into position. Alexander maintained his attention, continuing the steady stream of materials. The containers were small but extraordinarily dense. Each shoebox-sized package massed more than it had any right to, platinum group metals compressed into volumes that left the truck bed mostly empty even at full weight capacity.

  The second truck filled. Then the third, taking the last containers from the single, stacked pallet.

  With all the ultra-rares secured, Alexander rotated in the air, shifting his attention to vault 5A.

  Rare earth elements rose from their storage positions. Sealed containers with argon atmosphere warnings printed on their sides, stacked on industrial racks that extended floor to ceiling. Neodymium first. Thirty tons of the strongest permanent magnet material available, essential for everything from drone motors to power generation.

  The containers flowed outward in organized streams. Trucks cycled through the loading bay in a steady rhythm as materials transferred from vault to vehicle. The effort built gradually, that deep tug blossoming into a subtle warmth spreading through his chest. But it remained manageable.

  Dysprosium followed neodymium. Then praseodymium, samarium, europium. The exotic elements that made advanced technology possible.

  It took eleven trucks to clear Vault 5A completely.

  Alexander shifted focus again. Vault 5B held semiconductor materials in various climate-controlled storage containers. Gallium in temperature-regulated barrels, keeping it liquid at slightly above room temperature. Indium and tellurium in sealed containers to protect them from oxidizing. Germanium, relatively stable, but stored similarly to the others anyway.

  The storage units rose and floated slowly out of the vault. The warmth in his chest remained steady as he continued hauling tons of metal, almost effortlessly at such a measured pace, his reserves steadily depleting but nowhere near concerning levels.

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  Alexander was guiding barrels into the fifteenth truck when a bioelectric signature entered the security room.

  His head snapped toward the observation window. Reinforced one-way glass blocked his view even with enhanced vision, but his senses tracked the signature as it moved across the room.

  Walking at a steady pace.

  Stopping abruptly mid-stride.

  Then the head turned toward the window.

  Toward Alexander, floating in the air above a convoy of armored trucks, surrounded by open vaults, with millions of credits worth of materials streaming out of one.

  Alexander’s first instinct was to stop the guard before he could raise an alarm. But the man wasn’t wearing any metal. No belt buckle, no jewelry, no cybernetics, nothing Alexander could grab directly with Metallokinesis.

  Which meant his only other means of stopping him was to attack using objects within the room. Consoles, tables, chairs, equipment.

  Blind.

  Because the one-way glass meant Alexander couldn’t see what he was doing. Only sense the bioelectric signature’s position. Throwing objects at someone he couldn’t properly see, hoping to incapacitate rather than kill, seemed like an excellent way to accidentally cave in the skull of someone who was just doing their job.

  Alexander wasn’t willing to risk it. Killing wasn’t new to him, hadn’t been for a while now, but he wouldn’t stoop to murder, accidental or otherwise, for the sake of convenience.

  Besides, he couldn’t drop the materials he was currently holding. The gallium barrels would break, erupt, spread liquid metal across the loading bay floor before hardening in the cooler air. It would be such a pain to scrape it up afterwards.

  So Alexander smiled and waved. There was nothing else he could do.

  The guard froze for a heartbeat. Then exploded into motion, sprinting toward the console. The pattern shifted to frantic activity as he reached the controls and began hammering at something.

  Probably the alarm system.

  Which didn’t activate.

  Alexander had disabled those earlier. The status indicators would show normal operations to anyone checking, but the actual alerts wouldn’t trigger.

  The guard’s movements grew more frantic. Hammering harder. Then he shifted direction, moving fast toward the door.

  Alexander split off a thread of focus. Metallokinesis reached into the security station, finding the door’s metal frame and locking mechanism.

  He seized it. Held it closed.

  The guard’s bioelectric signature showed an elevated heart rate, likely because of adrenaline spiking as he realized he was trapped. Then erratic motion as the man began slamming his fist against the door.

  Alexander continued loading. Semiconductor containers flowing from vault to truck in steady streams. The guard would attract attention. There was nothing he could do about it. Someone would investigate. Find him trapped. Raise the alarm verbally.

  The only question now was when.

  The fifteenth truck reached capacity and pulled away, immediately replaced by another. Alexander maintained his focus on Vault 5B as the sixteenth truck slid into position, aiming to finish what he could while the opportunity lasted.

  He wasn’t even disappointed, really. Deep down, he’d been looking forward to a confrontation with the two technopaths.

  Before he could begin loading the next transport, Alexander got his wish as three new signatures entered the range of his senses.

  He frowned, turning toward the door at the far end of the vaults and cycling Electrokinesis faster.

  All three signatures were superhuman. Two Tier 2 superheroes, and one heavily augmented cybernetic. Forged, as the news was calling them. Tier 1, if he had to guess.

  Alexander cracked his neck and lifted a little higher. Droney floated into position behind and slightly above him, coordinating the other nine drones. Shield-blades slipped out as their formation tightened ahead of him.

  A brief pass over his cybernetic arm and remaining gauntlet confirmed what he already knew.

  He was as ready as he could be.

  “What’s going on, Alex?” Augustus asked across their open System communications channel. It was the first time he’d spoken since the heist started.

  “About to have company,” Alexander replied, releasing his hold over the security door just before one superhero shoved it open, freeing the guard.

  “According to plan?”

  He shook his head. “No, but stay back anyway. I’ve got this.”

  “Alex…”

  Alexander reached out with both hands, seizing the 8A and 8B vault doors. Fingers closed into fists as he pulled, grunting with the effort. Metal screamed, buckled, and tore as the doors were ripped loose.

  “It’s fine, Auggy,” Alexander said with a grin. “I’m not planning to hold back.”

  Augustus was silent for a few heartbeats. “Alright. Have fun, but it better be a dominant performance or I’m portaling in.”

  The door at the far end burst open. Three superhumans charged through immediately, though Alexander’s senses, unleashed fully now that there was no reason to hold back, picked up almost a dozen more. Normal humans. Arming themselves deeper within the facility. Rushing to assist.

  Alexander recognized the first one immediately from the intelligence report. Green hair, average build, full costume in black and silver.

  Watchdog.

  One of the technopaths he’d been expecting.

  Behind him, four mechanical hounds bounded through the doorway. Sleek, predatory frames somewhere between dog and cat, bristling with weapon mounts jutting from their backs and sides. Sharp claws scraped against the floor. Teeth that looked designed to tear through armor.

  Alexander wasn’t impressed.

  The second figure drew more attention. Almost seven feet tall, so heavily augmented he barely looked human anymore, ducking and twisting sideways to pass through the door. Arms and legs twice the thickness of a normal man’s, long enough to belong in a horror holo. Even his torso was wrapped in plating, with a pair of shoulder-mounted barrels tracking independently.

  The man’s head looked disproportionately small against all that mass. Balding, fighting the inevitable with what looked like an aggressive combover. And covering one eye socket, a mean-looking ocular rig that Alexander recognized immediately, despite never having seen one in person.

  MALOS. Military Adaptive Laser Ocular System. Highly illegal for civilian use. Reserved for military special operations.

  Probably supplied by AEGIS.

  Alexander decided then and there that he wasn’t leaving without the man’s eye. Then he reached out with Technopathy, trying to get a feel for the scope of the rest of the cybernetics.

  And was immediately rebuffed. The man might feel like a Tier 1 to his Electrokinesis, but his Will felt like a Tier 2.

  The third superhuman burst in last. Short, maybe five feet even, but built like someone who wrestled bears for fun. Long unkempt brown hair, dressed in shorts and a plain shirt.

  Either too surprised to pull on his gear… or he didn’t use any.

  He slid to a stop between the other two and pointed up at Alexander.

  “Hoooly shit! That’s the Machine God!”

  The mechanical hounds and the Forged’s shoulder weapons snapped toward him in perfect synchronization. Alexander’s drones repositioned instantly, shield-blades extending to form an overlapping barrier that almost completely blocked his view.

  Alexander realized his error. He’d been expecting two technopaths. Watchdog was here with his mechanical hounds. But the second one piloted a ten foot tall mech.

  And there was no armored suit in the vault.

  The short man shouted again, grinning wide. “We’re gonna be fucking famous!”

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