Chapter One
The Joy and the Laughter
This city never slept.
Never slept.
Never slept.
This city never slept, and so dreams came to die there.
It’s why Edward loved the place.
He was too full of nightmares to hold much stock in dreams. His mind was a graveyard that discriminated between neither. Briarcliff was a pallbearer of a city. A gentrified version of Gotham, except there were no heroes here. As a kid, Edward learned salvation wasn’t found but bought, and he was always low on funds.
On the Upper East Side, in a place of honor right across from city hall, on a plot of grass too green to be real, rested Briarcliff United. The bank had been in operation for over 100 years and was an architectural marvel. Sweeping stone steps lead to a triple set of glass doors with the bank's name embossed in white on each. The domed ceiling boasted not one, but three chandeliers on the inside, while outside, scowling stone gargoyles surveyed all who passed by. Skyscrapers destroyed the monotony of the skyline; scouring for signs of threat and finding none. The windows of the buildings across the street shone like diamonds in the sun. Blinding, but he could just make out…yes. There. A sniper’s rifle; scope trained and steady. Or was it three stories up and two over? He couldn’t place it, couldn’t decide where the shot would be coming from because any one of those rectangular pieces of glass could mean a quick death.
The wind whipped up; a churning cyclone, blowing dust and the scent of roasted lamb from a nearby food truck into his face. Tucked in an alcove against the building, was a figure swaddled in a thick, gray blanket. A shock of curly red hair was the only thing visible, and Edward wondered how long she’d been lying there. His jaw tightened as he strode past, hands shoved deep into his brown overcoat. This was the fourth homeless person he’d seen in his mad dash across the city. Patrol officers would be by soon to pick her up. It was parade day, after all, and the mayor didn’t like reminders of whom his many policies were failing. Edward fought the urge to stop, to help, but the cold weight of his watch against his wrist urged him through the doors and out of the wind.
No time. No time. No time.
As always, the opulence inside was a shock to the system after the dreary stone and aging red brick the rest of the city was known for: crystal finishes and gold inlay, marble floors, and soaring ceilings. More gargoyles had been stationed near the curved glass skylight, and a glass cleaner, strapped to a metal piece of scaffolding, hung outside, shining the surface of it until it gleamed. Inside, the air-conditioned air smelled of Lysol and whatever it was they used to mop the floors. Though early, the bank was still packed with people eager to get ahead of the morning rush. There was already a line in front of his usual teller, and he bounced on his heels. Should he go to someone new? Edward discarded the idea as soon as it occurred to him.
No.
Absolutely not.
Him? Talk to someone new? Pure lunacy.
Cut in line, came an insidious whisper . It’s the only way . Edward’s jaw tightened, it wasn’t something he was keen on, but desperate times; desperate measures. Straightening his shoulders, he strode across the room, his gaze locked on the teller – his teller – Samantha. She was counting out some cash for an older gentleman in a purple tracksuit, but must have sensed him because she glanced up and met his eyes.
Samantha grimaced before turning to Purple Tracksuit with a smile.
“Will that be all, Sir?”
Edward bumped Tracksuit out of the way before he could respond, and Samantha glowered.
“Hey!” the guy complained.
“Shut up,” Edward said, not even bothering to glance his way. Tracksuit huffed and puffed for a bit but backed down. It was one of the benefits of being larger than your average bear. Most people were smart enough to leave him alone without things ever coming to blows.
“Mr. Hayes,” Samantha said; voice tight. “We talked about this over the phone-”
“I know,” he soothed. “It’s not company policy. You said that already, and I get it. I do. But, Sammy,” Desperation had him reaching for her much smaller hand and cradling it within his own. “This is an emergency. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”
Her cheeks flushed red. She was in her mid-twenties and hadn’t been working at the bank for very long. She was too young for him, but she was pretty and he knew, based on her physical responses, that she found him at least a bit attractive. Normally, there’d be some guilt about using her attraction against her, but it was an emergency. At the sound of her name, Samantha’s blush deepened, and she sighed in resignation.
“I can’t get you all of it,” she said, keeping her voice low.
“That’s fine,” he assured her; so earnest she giggled. He couldn’t tell her it wasn’t all right at all. Or how company policy was going to get him killed. But something was better than the nothing he had. He drummed his fingers on the countertop, the rapid drumbeat soothing something indefinable in his brain as Samantha pulled up his account from memory. An eternity passed before she opened her drawer and pulled out a stack of hundreds. Edward counted along with her, the numbers swimming through his senses like a lullaby. They drowned out the irate grumbling from the people behind him in line and dulled the sharp edge of fear that had driven him since he awoke.
The air in the bank shifted as the doors opened once again. For a split second, he was surrounded by the smell of gyros and fries from the street corner outside. Then, an explosion, a burst of sound and heat, and a wave of air slammed him hard against the teller counter. Samantha was blown clear off her feet as a cloud of smoke filled the air. The smoke, combined with the acrid scent of sulfur, left his eyes watering and there was a sharp ringing in his ears he couldn’t shake. At some point, he’d sunken to his knees and pressed his hands against his ears, but he couldn’t remember moving. His thoughts were sluggish, but he was already making connections even as he forced his hands back to his sides. The bomb hadn’t been meant to kill or even destroy. Just to distract. This was the third robbery, just like it, in as many days so Edward had an idea of what would happen next.
They rushed inside the bank one at a time, guns raised and heels click-clacking in a violent staccato. Gunshots. Reverberations that raised the hair on your skin and left the air thick and wounded.
“Everybody shut the fuck up! This is a robbery, not a roller-coaster at Six Flags, goddamnit! Show some decorum.”
Decorum.
Decorum?
Edward’s laugh verged on hysterical, but it went unheard. He didn’t bother looking over his shoulder at the bank robbers. He’d seen plenty of security footage over the last week or so to know what he’d find. It was funny; getting held at gunpoint by the Powerpuff Girls was not on Edward’s bingo card for the day. Then again, neither were extortion and death threats, yet here it was, just nine in the morning, and he was already two for two.
Edward clambered to his knees, gathering as many of the remaining bills as he could. Behind him, chaos reigned. Blossom was to the right of the entrance bitch-slapping a security guard like he owed her money while a short, rotund, little Mayor was shaking down the wealthy bank guests with a handgun. The security cameras are out, Edward noted. There were bullet holes scattered across the walls and furniture beneath each CCTV. S omeone was a bad shot, though he wasn’t brave enough to test the waters to figure out who.
“On the ground!” Bubbles shouted, firing a bullet into the plaster above their heads to accent the command. Buttercup, giant foam head canted to one side, tsked in disapproval, and Bubbles sighed.
“What?”
Buttercup shrugged, the AK47 he held forgotten. “We talked about this. It’s ‘Show me your hands!’”
“But I see their hands just fine,” Bubbles reminded him. “You’re supposed to tell them to get on the ground so they don’t look at you. Dumbass.”
Buttercup jabbed the other robber in the head with his semi-automatic until his companion slapped the barrel away. “You’re the dumbass, Dumbass. We’re wearing masks.” He continued, unphased. “Who cares if they’re looking or not?”
He was right, of course. Usually, the giant character heads each of the robbers wore were reserved for kids' birthday parties or the mean streets of Disneyland. They were great for creating a sense of awe and wonder and, in a pinch, were useful for hiding your identity from a room full of witnesses. All Edward could think about were the logistics of fitting through the bank doors in full costume. Bubbles and her Pigtails alone would have required some special maneuvering and one hell of a pivot. As a cosplayer himself, Edward nevertheless admired the dedication. Though the men – six in total - had lost a lot of the plot by not shaving, despite the almost enthusiastic use of fishnets, g-strings, and push-up bras.
Pretty sure the P-Puff girls haven’t gone through puberty yet, so points off for historical accuracy, Edward thought.
As much as it rankled, he had bigger problems than whether the group was being true to their character design. The robbery part sucked, but he was much more concerned with the fact that if he didn’t leave this bank with a quarter of a million dollars in the next fifteen minutes, some intrepid assassin was going to put a bullet in his head.
Which would, as his niece might say, ruin his vibe.
I like my vibe, Edward thought, shoving crisp bills down the front of his pants with all the enthusiasm of an aging stripper. How much time did he have left? Ten minutes? Five? “No bitch is gonna kill my vibe.”
“Good to know.”
Something slammed into his temple, and his vision wavered. “I said on the ground,” Bubbles snarled. Edward groaned, his head ringing. Pain, white hot, speared through his skull, and his right eye was awash in red. Copper coated his tongue. All of a sudden he was a kid again with his father looming over him, face a mask of disapproval and disgust. His chest ached, and he forgot to breathe around the panic lying in wait there. He wasn’t sure how much time passed as he lay on the ground, panting, his body wracked with chills. A part of him, a large part, wanted to hide, but safety, like salvation, cost more than he would ever be able to afford.
Which was the other thing about Briarcliff. There were no heroes here, so the monsters ran rampant. Day in, day out, the various factions that struggled for control, tore at the city like hyenas at a carcass. If you had the money to pay, you might live to see old age. Everyone else was fair game unless they aligned themselves with one of the gangs. Edward had no money and no affiliation, which meant he should have kept his ass at home this morning and taken his chances with the hitman.
“Three minutes,” someone shouted.
When the memory of his father cleared, Bubbles—the joy and the laughter—was still there, and Edward gasped in relief. His situation hadn’t improved, but anything was preferable to the asshole who raised him.
“Put the money in the bag,” Bubbles ordered the teller.
“We don’t have bags,” Samantha sobbed, eyes red-rimmed as she peeked over the edge of the counter. Her hair, pulled back in a tight bun, hadn’t shifted an inch. If he survived, he’d ask her what sort of gel she used. “I’m not a cashier. This isn’t a fucking Walmart.”
Bubbles deflated but rallied almost as fast. “Okay, so where’s the safety deposit boxes with jewels and shit in ’em? Get me one of those.”
The teller’s lips parted in surprise. “Do you not know how banks work?” she queried, tone pitying. “Like, have you only seen them in movies?”
The robber grumbled, large, tattooed hands tightening around the gun.
Edward spoke without thinking. “Not to pile on or anything”—his voice squeaked, and he cleared his throat—“but you guys are all over the place. There’s no way you’ll make it out of here before the cops show up.” Bubbles' head whipped around like the exorcist, and Edward stared into a pair of blue eyes the size of pizza platters for a full ten seconds before the Powerpuff cursed beneath his breath.
“Goddamnit!” Bubbles glanced toward his comrades, who were busy tearing the rest of the bank apart. Buttercup was trying to get a terrified bank employee to unlock the vault in the back, but the man was blubbering too hard to cooperate. Meanwhile, Ms. Bellum, bright red wig obscuring most of his features—and his vision if the way he kept slamming into counters was any indication—scrambled onto the bank manager’s desk, his weapon at the ready in case any of the terrified patrons tried anything. His size fifteen feet had been shoved into a pair of red platforms, and the heels gouged the wood. Still, despite the overflow, Bellum handled the extra six inches they added to his already imposing height with ease.
Edward was sure he wasn’t the only one greeted with a handful of nuts dangling on either side of Ms. Bellum’s lace underwear as she clambered up on her perch, tight red skirt straining around hairy thighs the size of tree trunks, but he was perhaps the closest. Bellum was shouting at the other tellers to fill a nearby flowerpot with money while the Mayor collected jewelry and phones in a backpack from the people still laid out on the ground. Blossom went to stand near the front door, bouncing from one foot to the other and checking the time on his cell.
“We got one minute,” he warned.
Bubbles cursed, then barked at Edward, “Strip.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Take off your clothes,” he hissed, putting a round in the chamber to accent his point.
Shit . They must have seen him pocketing the money. Edward got to his feet, careful to keep his hands in the air as he stood. Bubbles—5’11 in combat boots—had to tilt his big head to look up at him. Petty satisfaction almost brought a smile to his face, but instead, he ducked his head. Undoing the buttons on his shirt with excruciating care even as his mind raced. He couldn’t let them take what little cash he had. It wasn’t enough to buy his life, but he could use it to get the fuck out of town. For now, it would have to be enough. What had Bubbles said? One minute? He could stall for a minute.
“Will you hurry the fuck up?”
Okay, maybe not. Trying out a smile, he said, “You know, if this is what you’re into, I do have an OnlyFans—”
“No one is subscribing to your goddamn OnlyFans!” Ms. Bellum barked with enough venom Edward was 99% sure the influx of sexy bots over on the interwebs was to blame.
“I might,” the Mayor muttered as he stalked past. “Shit, maybe he’s the hottest eighteen-year-old on the internet?” He seemed unconcerned by their timeframe. “Where do they come up with that shit anyway?” he mused, dumping an old woman’s purse out on the floor and rifling through her wallet. “I mean, they can’t all be the hottest, right? Is this like a holy grail situation? Or maybe a chosen one? Like, is the chosen one some girl on Twitter with her titties out, commenting under my nana’s pumpkin pie recipe?”
Bubbles sighed, pressing his foam head into his big black hand as if patience could be found there. “Lenny. Please shut the fuck up about that, man. No one gives a shit about her recipe now, and they didn’t give a shit about it three weeks ago.”
“Fifty-two likes, Joey,” Lenny lost some of his cool. “You ever have fifty-two likes on anything before? No? That’s what I thought.”
Edward wasn’t sure what Joey would have said because there was a pop, and the large window overlooking Main Street shattered in an explosion of glass. Outside, a woman who had been walking her dog screamed and took off, while inside the bank, patrons and robbers alike froze. Blossom fell, as if in slow motion, and Edward’s heart dropped.
Looks like my fifteen minutes are up.
Getting to his feet, Edward launched himself over the counter, dragging Samantha to the ground with him as another bullet tore through the gaping hole where the window should have been. Someone cried out, and he flinched as a second body hit the ground with a dull thud. Breathe. He had to remember how to breathe.
In.
Out.
In.
In.
In.
Someone cursed, their gruff voice a fitting accompaniment to the violence. Wrapping his arms over his head and pressing his back against the wall near Sammy, Edward buried his face against his knees. He needed to keep himself under control, but as the remaining Puffs and their companions returned fire, all he could do was rock back and forth where he sat. Stimming helped a bit, but the roar of gunshots was deafening, and his nails dug into his palms.
“Hello,” a chipper, strategically casual voice cut through the din. “Are you in need of assistance?”
Edward gasped in relief. Breathing exercises didn’t help his anxiety, but the MARCO security bot waiting just a few feet away worked wonders. He scrambled over toward it, leaving the teller curled up on the floor beneath the counter. “Yes,” he hissed, grateful for all the noise. Thank God this bank had opted for the upgrade. The police force was so outnumbered and outgunned they were just decoration for the Mayor at this point. MARCO was designed to even the playing field between law enforcement and the criminal organizations who ran Briarcliff. Once it was fully operational, of course. There were still a few kinks left to work out, namely its assessment capabilities, which slowed it down considerably. A disappointment since the bot had run similar simulations based on footage from previous heists. Heists committed by these same intrepid morons, in fact.
“There’s a robbery in progress,” he whispered.
“Yes,” the bot replied succinctly. Could robots get snippy? “I am aware. Authorities should be arriving in ten minutes.” A countdown replaced MARCO’s digital eyes and mouth on the screen. Ten minutes might as well have been an eternity. Before Edward could give the bot a command, a shotgun blast knocked it on its back and sent it sailing against the back wall, sparks flying.
Edward glanced up as Ms. Bellum launched himself over the counter like an Olympic gymnast, gun over one shoulder and red wig flying in the wind. He crouched next to the bot in his heels, nuts swinging a happy dance below the edge of his red skirt. Edward stared, mystified, as he pulled out a knife and pried open the door hiding the bot’s hard drive from prying eyes. Once open, Bellum reached in and removed the small flash drive that was the source of MARCO’s code, then pressed the drive against his lips in a kiss.
A surge of overprotectiveness had Edward’s eyes narrowing to slits. “What are you doing?”
Ms. Bellum tensed, dropping his knife and turning on Edward with his gun raised, the motion so smooth and practiced Edward was sure he’d done it before. Military? Law enforcement? A lot of cops ended up working for the factions, so it wasn’t impossible. There was a confidence in his violence the others lacked; a calculated focus that raised Edward’s hackles. Samantha screamed, and the barrel of the shotgun shifted once again. For the second time that day, Edward moved without thinking, hurling himself across the distance separating him from Bellum. He shoved the gun up, and the shot went wild. The chandelier, already hanging on by a thread, spun wildly. A rustle, a crack, like bones breaking, was all that heralded its fall to the marble floor below, taking some of the glass dome along with it. Edward wondered, for the first time, about the glass cleaner as shards cascaded through the air. The crash from the chandelier was so deafening it drowned out the screams from those caught beneath the onslaught.
There was silence.
Then-
“Who the fuck!?” Bubbles roared.
“Sorry!” Came Bellum’s insincere reply .
Edward couldn’t see his face beneath the hair, but he’d annoyed plenty of people in his life to know when someone was glaring at him. Loose wires near the ceiling sparked a warning that set off the sprinkler system, plunging the bank into darkness before Bellum could act on his rage.
It didn’t, however, stop the sniper. Another gunshot, and the Mayor cried out.
“Let’s go!” Bubbles yelled over the noise.
Bellum rose to his feet, and, heart racing, Edward reached out and grabbed for the drive in his hand. They struggled over possession until Ms. Bellum’s heels slipped on the wet marble, knocking his feet out from under him. His head struck the corner of the MARCO bot with so much force Edward cringed, pressing a hand against his mouth in horror even as heavy footsteps sounded on the other side of the counter.
“New guy!” Buttercup pounded an urgent drumbeat above his head. “Let’s fucking go. The cops will be here any second.”
The room was spinning, and Edward was shaking. Several things occurred to him at once.
One: Someone had just done their best to steal the tech he’d spent his entire life developing. Tech only available to select investors.
Two: There was still a sniper outside, and all he had to show for his excursion to the bank was a few thousand dollars leaving paper cuts all along the Bering Strait that was his taint.
Three: He and Ms. Bellum wore the same size shoe.