Chapter 177

  Alexander stepped out of the hovertruck as it dove between the buildings toward street level. Metallokinesis held him aloft, the familiar sensation of power and metal responding to his Will overriding the momentary panic his body and mind screamed as his foot found nothing but air.

  At the last second, he remembered the door and flicked a finger, slamming it shut just before the truck passed through the portal. The other three followed.

  The portal collapsed.

  Alexander hung in Manhattan’s night sky, alone except for his drones. They formed up, monitoring the sky around him. Below, the city stretched, though no longer as quiet now that his traffic manipulation had run its course.

  He stretched his shoulder and felt the pull immediately.

  The wound ran along his upper arm and shoulder where the laser had cut deep into the deltoid. Blue-black nanites formed a visible line across his flesh, their metallic-ceramic surface distinct against his skin.

  Alexander reached inside with his senses. As always, the nanites returned a sense of willingness, a desire to help, something that could be directed with intent but not truly controlled.

  But he could sense what they were doing.

  They were performing the function they’d been designed for. Metal bonding, except the substrate was flesh instead of steel. The nanites stitched healthy tissue to healthy tissue at the nano-scale, providing mechanical support the way sutures would. They bridged damaged tendons, muscle, and bone with structural integrity, keeping everything in place while his body’s natural healing process could work.

  Externally, it might look like rapid healing, especially with smaller cuts where the amount of nanites involved was not quite visible to the naked eye.

  He knew better now that he’d examined the process in real time on multiple occasions. The burnt tissue at the edges of the wounds remained damaged. The nanites couldn’t repair that. They lacked the programming or the tools, so instead they treated the wound as if it were a stress fracture or break in metal. They filled the gaps, binding with each other into a complex matrix both strong and flexible, capable of holding it all together until he got it healed.

  The pain was significant though. Every movement tugged on the wound. But the nanites had stabilized the area enough that he could function.

  He acknowledged the pain. Then ignored it as best he could.

  The marina lay ahead. Alexander flew closer, descending toward the water and scanning the docks until he found what he was looking for. The yacht stretched one hundred and seventy feet along its berth, luxury incarnate even among the other expensive vessels. A ‘For Sale’ sign stood near the boarding platform.

  He landed on the flybridge roof and reached out with Technopathy. The yacht’s systems responded immediately. Deck lighting activated first, then the architectural accents that highlighted the vessel’s lines. The superstructure lit up next, illuminating the bridge and upper decks. Finally, the underwater LED strips came online, casting blue-white illumination that made the hull glow against the dark water.

  Alexander looked out across the water. His drones spread around the yacht in a wide perimeter. Droney drifted closer and beeped, reminding him of an almost forgotten part of the plan.

  “You’re right,” Alexander said. “We need some music for the final act.”

  He considered his options. There were plenty of choices for a quick victory lap. He could also go with something more political. Anti-establishment. Or scream into the void.

  Then he smiled. Frank had always had a particular fondness for what Alexander teasingly labeled ‘archaic rock,’ though the truth was that he’d always enjoyed whittling away the hours in the workshop with the old man’s obsessive collection of vintage rock keeping them company.

  “Droney,” Alexander said, making a decision, “play ‘Are you gonna go my way,’ by Lenny Kravitz.”

  The classic guitar riff kicked things off. All the drones shifted into orbit around the yacht, speakers blaring.

  Alexander lay back on the flybridge roof, hands tucked behind his head, and dialed the volume up. Metallokinesis reached across the entire yacht, all one hundred and seventy feet and hundreds of tons of luxury engineering. The vessel lifted smoothly from the water, rising into the night sky above the marina.

  With a thought, the ship accelerated, tilting slightly as it rotated, reorienting toward distant warehouses where a magical doorway waited just a few minutes from the marina.

  He could have circled the city blocks between where he was and where he wanted to go. Flown out over the sea. Avoided the towering apartment blocks. Bypassed streets full of clubs and bars packed full of unwitting witnesses.

  That didn’t suit the end game though. It was time to remind the world that Grimnir existed. That thus far nobody had proven capable of stopping them. Not Santiago Systems. Not AEGIS. Not the Throne of Scales. Not even the trillionaire with his ridiculous bounty.

  The music echoed through the city streets. Despite the late hour, people gathered on sidewalks and rooftops, drawn by the impossible sight. Or perhaps annoyed by the loud music. Cameras flashed. The yacht’s full lighting display turned the vessel into a spectacle, underwater LEDs glowing uselessly in open air while the show lights made every architectural detail visible.

  He flew toward the warehouse, moving fast despite the appearance of casual relaxation.

  Two lights rose in the distance, heading in his direction. The latecomers that Augustus had warned him about. He’d been right when he said they lit up the night sky. One of them burned a bright orange and yellow. The other matched the intensity, but in a mixture of green and blue. He was curious about what that hero’s powers might be.

  Then power washed over him. Power carrying a signature he recognized.

  Gravimax’s gravity sense.

  Alexander rebuffed it with a flex of Will, turning to look in the direction it had come from. It was too dark to see anything at this range even with his heightened senses.

  He reached into one of the drones and switched its sensors from optical to radar. The overlay materialized in his vision, showing clean readouts across Manhattan’s airspace. The two glowing heroes appeared on radar immediately, closing fast from the direction of the NYPMEX vault.

  A third ping marked Gravimax’s position, moving faster than the others.

  The radar swept wider. Found six more contacts at various distances, all converging on his position from different vectors.

  AEGIS was scrambling everyone they had.

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  Alexander ran the calculations. Gravimax would arrive in less than two minutes. The others were three to five minutes out depending on their flight speeds.

  The warehouse was forty seconds away.

  Gravimax’s radar contact showed he was accelerating, but Alexander had already lost interest.

  He smiled. “Too slow, New York. Way too slow.”

  The warehouse appeared ahead. Alexander guided the yacht toward the entrance, adjusting his angle to thread the vessel through the opening. The flybridge cleared the top of the doorway with a meter to spare.

  The yacht flew into the warehouse.

  Ahead, the doorway waited. The frame stretched the full width and height of the warehouse’s interior, large enough to swallow the yacht with room to spare. Through it, Alexander could see a mostly empty cargo hold on Astra Omnia.

  With a second doorway already open to the island.

  The Queen of Hearts had objected, mildly, to keeping the haul in her cargo hold when he’d spoken to the Doorman the second time around. But she’d been amenable to the goods passing through her space station, briefly, and being delivered to Grimnir’s lair.

  Alexander barely slowed, confidently guiding the yacht through both doorways without issue.

  The sudden change from Manhattan midnight to clinical space station white and, finally, as the yacht burst through to find the now familiar morning Mediterranean sun, hurt his eyes.

  He climbed to his feet, throwing up an arm and shielding his face while his eyes caught up with the change in scenery.

  The island’s central valley sprawled around him, packed with vehicles. Twenty armored hovertrucks. Hover cars. Racing bikes. A limousine worth more than most people’s houses. An armored SUV.

  Trees filled the hilly slopes in every direction, and a single, partially overgrown walking trail wound its way up and out of the valley, back toward the mansion. Ahead, a small natural lake rested, with a surprisingly large crowd staring up at the yacht floating in the air above them, held aloft through Will alone.

  Music still blared from the surviving drones, announcing his arrival with fanfare.

  Augustus crossed his arms, smiling. Talia had her tablet, probably already taking inventory and calculating the total value of the heist. Annie bounced on her heels, physically restraining herself from running forward. Gilly and Felix stood together. Carmen watched with the rest of the crew, some of them jostling and pointing in amusement.

  Jasmine was next to Talia, close enough that their shoulders almost touched.

  The Queen of Hearts sat in a folding lawn chair, with a drink in one hand, complete with a little umbrella. The Doorman waited at her shoulder, holding a much larger umbrella to shade her from the sun. She appeared completely at ease, smiling wide, as if watching someone fly a stolen yacht through portals onto a secret island base was perfectly normal entertainment.

  Perhaps, for someone like her, that’s exactly what it was.

  Finally, the last four were the recent rescues from The Scar, Zane, Zara, Allie, and Bill, standing off to the side in a small group of their own, somewhat shell-shocked. Whether by the flying yacht, the billions in borrowed goods, or simply everything combined, Alexander couldn’t begin to guess.

  Alexander flew the yacht over the crowd and carefully brought it down in the center of the lake.

  The song reached its final notes. The guitar riff faded. The massive doorway slid shut, vanishing. Silence fell over the valley.

  Then the Queen of Hearts began clapping.

  She applauded slowly, deliberately, the sound carrying across the sudden quiet. A smile played at the corners of her mouth. The Doorman maintained his position with the umbrella, a look of unabashed surprise on his face.

  Annie started whooping and cheering.

  Suddenly everyone was yelling and celebrating. Everyone except Talia and Jasmine, though the former gave him a single nod of respect without looking up from her tablet.

  “Well done, Machine God,” the Queen called out. “A flying yacht is quite the finale. Thank you for the entertainment.”

  Alexander offered a lazy bow from atop the roof of the flybridge. With a gentle pulse of power, he lifted into the air and flew down to where everyone else waited.

  He turned to Talia with a grin. “So? Did I do it?”

  She glanced up at him with an unreadable expression, the ghost of a smile playing at her lips. “Do what?”

  “Yeah, what?” Annie asked, shouldering past the others to get close enough to glare up at him. “You— you— solo-heisting jerk. I thought we were friends! I was the one that got you into stealing in the first place!”

  Alexander laughed, recalling the Lux Aero they’d taken from the parking garage. It was so long ago now that it felt like another life.

  “We are.” He reached out with Technopathy and smiled. “That’s why I picked up a brand new one for you.”

  Annie looked over his shoulder and gasped as the luxury hovercar rose out of the disorganized chaos of poorly parked vehicles.

  He patted her on the head. “And I promise to take you on my next trip. We need to pick up some serum.”

  “Alex,” Talia warned, glancing at Jasmine standing next to her, who was giving him a flat look. “Our lawyer is present. Attorney-client privilege only protects us against discussing crimes that we have already completed, such as a multi-billion credit heists.”

  Jasmine nodded. “It does not protect you if you openly discuss plans to commit any future criminal acts.”

  Alexander studied them both. He’d expected it to some extent, but the two were already perfectly in sync.

  “Understood.” He raised his voice, turning to look at everyone else. “You all heard that right? No discussing any crime plans.” He paused, then continued. “Not that anyone here plans to do any crimes, right?”

  A chorus of “no’s” rang out.

  “We don’t do that kinda stuff here,” Annie insisted with a surprisingly straight face.

  Augustus slapped Alexander on the back. “Exactly. Alex was talking about buying serum. Legitimately. From a licensed vendor, in fact.”

  Jasmine shook her head.

  Zane stepped up beside him. Zara followed a step behind.

  “Can we go on your next crime?” he whispered. Zara nodded enthusiastically behind him, eyes bright.

  Alexander leaned down, speaking quietly. “No crimes until you’re at least eighteen.”

  Talia interrupted before Zane could complain. “I’ve finished the tally.”

  “And?” Alexander demanded.

  Talia looked up from her tablet and saw it wasn’t just Alexander staring at her. Everyone else had gathered close, forming a loose semicircle around them. The celebration had gone quiet.

  She cleared her throat, fingers moving across the tablet. “To provide some context. The third largest theft in history was the Central Bank of Iraq heist in 2003. Saddam Hussein’s midnight withdrawal totaling one billion dollars.”

  A few impressed murmurs rippled through the crowd.

  “The second largest was the Bybit Exchange hack in 2025. Hackers stole one point five billion in cryptocurrency.”

  Alexander felt the weight of their attention shift. Everyone was doing the math.

  “The largest on record was the Shanghai Crypto Exchange hack in 2038. Two point eight billion. Ironically, market panic ensued after the attack, crashing the value of the targeted cryptocurrencies within hours. Then ten years later, the galactic credit made it all obsolete anyway.”

  Silence settled over the group.

  Talia’s attention returned to her tablet. “As for what you got away with. The technology part of the haul, two quantum supercomputers and four industrial fabricators, comes out to approximately two billion credits.”

  Augustus let out a low whistle.

  “The vehicles are worth roughly two hundred fifty million. That includes the yacht, twenty-four armored transports, several high-performance racing hoverbikes, a number of commercial hoverbikes, a single limousine...” She glanced up at Alexander from the tablet. “Because we really needed a limo. One armored SUV. And approximately eighteen luxury sport hover cars.”

  Alexander nodded eagerly, unable to stop grinning. Everyone had gone still, barely even breathing.

  “And the vault.” Talia paused. “I’m using some guesswork here. I don’t know the precise quantities of everything in those containers. Conservative estimate...” She looked directly at him. “At least four billion credits.”

  The silence stretched.

  “Making the grand total…” Another pause. “Somewhere around six point two five billion credits.”

  Annie broke first. She screamed so loudly it echoed off the valley walls, jumping up and pumping both fists in the air.

  Suddenly everyone was yelling and cheering again. Augustus was laughing, shaking his head in disbelief. Carmen froze, her mouth slightly open. Even Gilly and Felix had joined in the celebration.

  The Queen of Hearts raised an eyebrow and lifted her glass in salute from her lawn chair, still smiling that amused smile.

  Alexander just stood there, breathing it all in. Six point two five billion credits.

  He’d done it. Broken the record.

  Making it the greatest heist in human history.

  And mostly on a whim.

  There are three side story chapters following some of the reactions after this chapter. They're available on the Patreon for all members (free and paid).

  Continue the Dream.