A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

[Mir]

Paris, France

A high security vault was many things. But what it wasn’t, was impregnable. At least, that’s what was being put to the test.

The late night chill in the air was nothing knew to the white haired woman clad in black as she raced across the roof tops of Paris. The buildings flew by, her feet landing without a sound. She’d practiced that for years, dating back to when she had grown up in New York. But here, in Paris, it seemed more magical. Everything did. She’d be a little sad to see it all go, but once the job was done, it was time to pack things up. You never knew who could be watching, who could be listening.

She had eyes on her target.

The vault of Jean-Luc Fournier was a prize she had been after for some time.

So imagine her surprise when someone had offered to pay her to break in.

That wasn’t something she could rightly pass up.

With an acrobatic leap, she soared through the night sky, across the street. Landing atop the roof of high rise, she looked down at the slightly smaller building next to the one she was on.

Jean-Luc Fournier was a wealthy businessman. He had various mining interests in South America as well as Asia and he also was quite involved in aquaculture around the world. Something about saving the planet they all called home. Whatever that meant.

What it meant to him was putting down competition if they got in the way of what he wanted. Which was, of course, more money.

What it meant to her was that he had way more money that he needed and sometimes no common sense with what to do with it. After all, if you got that much, sometimes you made dumb purchases. Sometimes those dumb purchases involved some rather interesting items. Sometimes those interesting items were even more interesting to other people.

Sometimes, those people would pay top dollar for a way to acquire those items, especially if they had lost a bidding war at auction to Fournier.

Which is where she came in.

She flattened herself against the roof and reached up, pressing a button on the mask she wore. The lenses in her mask flitted on for a second, before covering her eyes. A pretty penny this mask had cost, but that was a necessary expenditure. Not that she could just expense it, not in her line of work. The woman scanned the top floors of the building across from her. She watched carefully, peering through the scanner as she observed the various individuals that comprised Fournier’s staff and security. Most of them were asleep. Fournier and his wife were not in the building.

She had seen to that.

It hadn’t taken much effort to hack into his personal accounts and wire two hundred thousands euros to a charity for orphaned sea turtles. Or something. Honestly, she hadn’t paid much attention to what the charity was. She’d just known that Jean-Luc didn’t miss a chance at free publicity.

Though he had yelled at his accounting staff and IT staff to try to figure out what had happened, he had happily taken credit for the donation and the subsequent invitation to a gala the charity was hosting.

Costly for him, but a cheap way for her to get him out of the house. She’d thought about draining some of the money from the accounts to herself, but she’d stopped herself. No reason to make this more complicated than it needed to be. After all, the real score was here.

Her requirements for taking the job had been simple: She would steal the required item, but if she found something she liked along the way she was allowed to take it. An amenable employer had ensured that she would get what she wanted.

The question now was how to get onto the roof without being seen.

There were security cameras at various points of the building. A thousand euro had been enough of a bribe to get the blueprints for the building, even if it had come in multiple pieces. After all, in a city as old as Paris, the blueprints for things were rarely accurate. So much had happened, so much history. But finding out if a blindspot existed?

That had been a bit more difficult. She was a good hacker, but she didn’t trust herself to hack one of the most experienced security IT companies on the planet. One thing she could give Fournier credit for was a few wise choices here and there.

Unfortunately, for him, she had still found a way. Producing a small telescopic cylinder from her belt, the woman extended the cylinder, flipping up a small targeting reticle. She aimed and fired, a small sphere shooting through the air before connecting with one of the security cameras. When it connected, it expanded into a small black dot. Putting the cylinder away, she pulled out another, holding it in her hand as she rose and backed up.

Her eyes narrowed as she made the mental calculations in her head. Gymnastics had been a strong suit for her, giving her a bit of a pay off in this line of work. She ran and leapt off the roof of the taller building, somersaulting. As she did, she pressed a button on the cylinder, activating the miniaturized EMP. She landed on the ledge, slipping slightly and having to grab on. As she dangled for a moment, catching her breath, her mind was racing.

She couldn’t fall, that would be a drop of considerable height. She was quick on her feet, but her feet would be broken upon impact with the ground. Closing her eyes, she kept a count in her head. She knew how much time her EMP had bought her. Swinging up, she pushed off, as if she were on a pommel horse.

Terra firma.

Well, maybe not quite, but as firma as it could be this high up off the ground.

The window didn’t provide much of a challenge either. Soon, she was in.

She checked her math. And with 10 seconds to spare. She walked through the hallways of the penthouse, making sure to stay as quiet as she could. No need for anyone to wake up. The vault itself was in a specialized room. The door to the room was in Fournier’s office.

Opening the door to the office, she scanned the contents quickly. Everything looked like it did when she had been scouting the place out. Stepping over to the vault, she looked at the combination security panel. There were layers to the security here. She didn’t have the retina scan, but she did have the voice recording. The code was another thing, but she had that.

Weeks ago, on a night quite like this one, she had fixed a fake pigeon to the roof of a building nearby. A high powered camera in the pigeon had been trained on this room. Using the footage, she had recreated the sequence of numbers Fournier keyed in. But the retina scan could be a problem. Reaching into her belt, she produced the EMP remote again and held the other side up to the retina scan lens. A high powered laser shot through the lens of the scanner.

This was where her plan semi relied on hope and a prayer.

She had been reading up on the vault company for some time, doing the due diligence. They contracted with a few hardware companies and software companies out of Malaysia. There, she had continued to dig, until she’d found a potential work around.

If a high powered laser was shot into the lens for long enough, the lens itself became useless and the system had to reset itself. During the reset, where the vault had a built in secondary lens it swapped out, the vault could only be opened through a secondary voice scan and the same code. The vault company had figured this issue would be solved through the redundancy of the voice scan and the code. Little did they think that all three of the requirements would be compromised. But, here they were.

The first orb turned yellow and then started blinking, indicating the reset was under way. She twisted the cylinder, opening it to reveal a small speakerbox. She pressed a button.

A generative AI designed to turn words into voice and programmed off of Fournier’s voice spoke the phrase.

“C’est bien qu’il pleuve enfin.”

The second orb turned green.

Clawed fingers flew over the keypad as she entered the combination.

She smiled as the final orb turned green and the vault unlocked.

She was in.

Stepping inside of the vault, she pulled the door behind her, leaving it close but not fully closed. In the off chance anyone was walking by, it would appear as though the door was closed. Stepping over to the shelves, she saw boxes and boxes of things.

Her first prize was in one of these boxes.

Thankfully they were labeled, even if it was in French.

Opening the box she was looking over, she peered inside at the contents.

Jackpot.

She removed the item.

She wasn’t sure exactly what the hell this old amulet was supposed to be, but she was being paid to retrieve it. Depositing the item in her backpack, she dropped down to a crouch. There was another box and this was for her.

She opened it, pulling out a flattish lidded box. Flipping open the lid, she smiled.

A ruby and sapphire studded diamond necklace along with matching earrings. She scooped them and deposited them into her backpack, before setting everything back as she had found it.

She turned to leave before something caught her eye. There was a computer on a desk and it was on and running. Stepping over, she looked at a few of the details on the screen. Her eyes widened as she read up on the document. She had seen Fournier enter the vault shortly before he had left for the charity event with his wife. No doubt he’d forgotten to log off the computer. Or, more likely, he’d figured no one could break in.

The computer had been downloading something and after the download had finished, it had displayed the download. She smiled and looked around the desk until she found a thumbdrive.

A few seconds later, she had her copy.

A job well done, all things considered.

Now, to get back to New York and deliver the amulet.