Chapter 2
The Thief and the Pearl
Within a tower of polished glass enduring a heavy barrage of rain as lightning flashed and thunder clapped over it, one young man in dark blue overalls and a baseball cap slowly trudged through a dimly lit hallway, passing room after room while pushing a yellow cart that contained a bunch of cleaning supplies and a big bin filled nearly to the brim with trash. From the opposite side of the hall, came a slightly older man with a heavier build and dressed in a black suit with matching necktie, his heavy footfalls muffled by the gray carpeting. Attached to his ear was a white, plastic wire that coiled down like a spiral into his shirt.
The man in the overalls tipped his cap to the man in the suit. The man in the suit nodded back in response. No words were exchanged as they passed each other by. There was just the constant pitter-patter of rain hammering against the windows through the many doors of the hall and the squeaking from the wheels of the cart.
As quickly as the men met, they parted ways with the man in overalls going one way while the man in the suit went the other.
There was a burst of static from the man's earpiece followed by a third man's voice asking for a status report.
"All clear here," the man in the suit replied. And then he continued on with his patrol.
Once the man in the suit was gone, the man in overalls breathed a sigh of relief and continued on his way. Once he reached the end of the hallway, he pulled back his sleeve a little to check the time on his smartwatch. With a few swipes and taps, he switched out the time for another app and then stuck his hands into the trash-filled bin and yanked out a small, black backpack, scattering crumpled-up tissues and paper all over the floor.
Ignoring the mess he made, he slipped on the backpack through one loop and slipped through the door leading to the emergency stairs. He hurried up as fast as he could, unwilling to waste any time while knowing that the security guards monitoring the cameras would have surely seen his unusual behavior and raised the alarm. Even now, he could hear feet pounding up the stairs over his own.
"Blast!" he cursed. "They're faster than I thought." They sounded a lot closer than he expected.
He doubled his speed, going up one flight of stairs, and then two before reaching the door into the next floor. No surprise, his badge failed to unlock it. The black box on the wall did beep when he swiped the white plastic card over it, but the door wouldn't budge.
However, he expected this to happen and pushed the blue button in the middle of his smartwatch's screen. The black box beeped again and the door's bolt snapped.
It should be obvious at this point, but the man in overalls was actually a Thief disguised as a janitor. And he, of course, was in the building late at night to steal something.
The Thief pushed the door open and then slammed it shut. While pressing his back hard against it to keep the guards out, he swiped a finger across his smartwatch's screen and then pushed the red button that appeared. His action triggered a computer program that cut the power, shutting off what little lights remained on during after hours and plunging the whole building into complete darkness.
And not a moment too soon. Almost as soon as the lights went out, the security guards arrived and tried to get inside. The Thief could hear them hammering their fists against the door, yelling and swearing. He wasn't sure who they were yelling at. It could be him or each other. Either way, it didn't matter.
The power outage had triggered an automatic lockdown, bolting almost every door in the building shut, which meant that the guards were trapped in the staircase. They had only two options: wait for someone to get the power back on and unlock the doors, or cause a fire that'll cancel the lockdown and get every door to open. It was unlikely they'd do the latter, but it was just a matter of time before someone on their side that was good with computers took back control of the building.
Using a small flashlight from his backpack to light his way, the Thief ran passed a single elevator for the building owner's own private use and rushed over to a metal gate polished to a gold sheen. Just past the gate was a door which led into what the building's owner called home.
Unlike everything else in the building, both the gate and the door were analogue, meaning no electronic gizmos needed to open it. Just a good, old-fashioned lockpicking kit which the Thief had brought with him.
He made short work of both the gate and the door with a pair of needle-like tools chosen from a set and was soon inside a huge room full of expensive-looking vases, statues and paintings. One side of the room had a bunch of leather chairs and sofas around a giant TV set and glass coffee table. The other side had doors leading to other rooms. One door was left open to expose a marble-floor bathroom with a teched-out toilet and a black-stone shower, leaving just four left to choose from. All this just further showed that the building's owner was a very, very, VERY Wealthy Man.
Can't tell if that's unlucky or not, thought the Thief. In some Asian countries, the number four can be an unlucky number because local word for it sounds the same as the local word for death. There were four closed doors, but five doors in all.
There was also a big, black bookshelf on another side of the sitting room with some small stone statues placed in gaps between
I'll just start with the closest one and go from there, he decided as he took off his shoes before stepping into the home. His goal was the Wealthy Man's personal office where he knew a safe would be that contained a whole lot of cold, hard cash, among other things.
As the Thief hurried over to check the first room, lightning continued to light the night sky while the storm continued to rage outside. Bolt after bolt reached down from the clouds to try and touch the world below. One was successful and struck the top of the glass tower. Its energy spread throughout the building through cables like poison through veins.
Thankfully, no one was hurt or even touched by the electric shock. No one even noticed it. Not even the one person alone in the top floor, the Thief.
He was in the middle of picking the lock of the first room because, of course, it was locked. A loud creak noise startled him and he whirled around to see the bookshelf swing out like a door swings open. And that was because it WAS a door.
Behind the bookshelf was a box-shaped room, about the same size as the bathroom (which itself was pretty big) with a single white light shining down on a glass display case that sat atop a podium carved out of polished dark wood.
That room's not part of the floor plans, thought the Thief. Clearly, the room behind the bookshelf was a secret one. I wonder what could be in it. And why did the door just open on its own? Could it be because of the lightning?
That was actually a good guess. But what the Thief didn't know was that there were no electronics that kept the room locked. What did seal the room were magical enchantments and spells that had been erased by the lightning as it passed through the home.
Suddenly, the Thief's watch beeped.
"Blast!" he cursed. "Out of time."
He needed to get out now, but he had not yet gotten what he had come for.
The Thief took a look around at the doors, none he ever got open, and then at the secret room. Whatever was in the room must be really valuable if the Wealthy Man's gone to the trouble of installing a secret room for it. It may not be what the Thief came for, but it was still better than nothing.
Choice made, the Thief abandoned his search for the office he had come to raid and dove into the secret room where he discovered the display case contained a white pearl. A big, white pearl, perfectly round in shape and as big as a baseball. It laid dead center atop a purple velvet pillow and appeared to have a glow of its own pushing back against the white light.
Behind the podium, out of the Thief's sight, the last of a string of Chinese words peeled off and faded into dust like ashes in the wind.
Impressed by the pearl's shine, the Thief let out a low whistle and then dropped his bag on the floor. He dug inside for a black suction cup tool with a hand a blade, which he stuck onto the face of the glass case.
As he stabbed the blade into the glass and turned the hand, he thought to himself, Good thing I thought to bring this compass glass cutter just in case.
After setting aside the piece of glass he cut out, the Thief stuck his hand through the hole into the case and grabbed the pearl. It felt pleasantly warm in his hand and for a moment, he was captivated by its shine before a clap of thunder snapped him out of his stupor.
The Thief quickly stuffed his glass cutter and the pearl into the backpack, taking the glass piece he cut out with him with no time to get rid of it, slung the backpack over his right shoulder and then hurried out of the room. The pearl continued to glow in the darkness of the bag with something snake-like shimmering inside of it. But the Thief didn't notice and ran across the sitting room to the front door, slipped his shoes back on and closed the gate behind him.
Suddenly, all the lights flickered on, loud bells and horns rang and blared overhead, and the Thief heard a loud bang come from across the hallway, followed by a man shouting, "GO, GO, GO, GO, GO!"
The Thief didn't even have time to spit out a curse word when he saw the security guards frantically rushing towards him. He turned and yanked open the door at his left and went inside. There, he found the only escape out of the building: the trash chute.
As he pulled the stainless steel flap open, several hands flew into the room and reached out to grab him from behind. The tips of their fingers barely brushed against the Thief's backpack before he slipped headfirst into the funnel that normally swallowed a rich man's garbage and he fell down screaming.
The plan was to slide through the trash chute feet first. Then he could slow his fall with a parachute he built into the backpack. But there was no way he could use that parachute now that his head was what pointed downward. He had to pray that his landing would be a soft-enough one. It was the only thing he could do with what little seconds he had left.
While he did that, the pearl's light got brighter.
Down below, a sun-tanned middle aged man was pushing a huge, green steel dumpster that was filled to the brim with black garbage bags, most of them filled with crumpled-up pieces of paper, napkins and tissues. He was moving the trash outside to be collected by a garbage truck and happened to pass by a certain chute when something came falling down.
The man didn't see what, but he thought he heard screaming followed by a loud, "Oof!" as something landed into the dumpster. He looked up and called out, "Hello? Anyone there?"
He didn't see what fell down and the dumpster was too tall for him to see inside without climbing up. After waiting awhile and getting no answer back, he chalked the scream up to his imagination induced by a long day (and night) of work and resumed wheeling the trash outside while grumbling to himself how the power outage was making him take some overtime work.
Meanwhile, the Thief laid on his back, hands cupped over his mouth, eyes popped out in disbelief.
That was way too close for comfort. He had seen the pavement beneath him and thought he was a goner. If that dumpster had been a second late, he'd have gone splat.
Not long after the dumpster was taken outside, a garbage truck appeared. Just as the huge, gray vehicle lifted the dumpster up, the Thief leaped out and jumped into the truck's container bin. He scrambled as far back as he could to avoid getting buried alive and then sat down with a sigh while leaning his back against the grimy steel wall. Flies buzzed around his face and ears, but he was too tired to do anything about them. And no surprise, the garbage around and beneath him stunk bad.
He looked up at the sky which had finally cleared up as the storm ended and sighed again. And then he turned away, unaware of a bolt of red lightning that streaked above him and disappeared into the top floor penthouse he had just burgled.
Once done collecting trash, the garbage truck drove off. It exited the driveway and joined the flow of traffic on the road headed east, eventually making a stop near a neighborhood full of old houses and narrow alleys.