Chapter Four: Nailing the Acting

Hazel was off to work again. She pecked James before she left. Nothing really went down last night, but she was just so happy to see him again. They spent hours talking in the night before they finally slept off. He was still sleeping when she left the house. 

 James woke up around 8:30 am. He went down to the main floor, to make a cup of coffee. On coming out of the kitchen, he saw Andrew seated on the sofa watching TV. 

 "Good morning." He said and sipped from his coffee. He walked up to the sofa and sat beside him. None of them looked at each other. Their focus remained on the TV. 

 "I said good morning. You didn't say it back." James said and sipped again, still focused on the TV. An action movie was on. 

 "Good morning." Andrew responded. No one still looked at the other. 

 James got up. "See? That wasn't so hard." He looked around. "Where is your brother?"

 Andrew raised a brow and turned to him this time. "Who?"

 "Fred." He replied, and sipped again. 

 Andrew was going to say they were not brothers, but he wasn't ready for any further questions from James. "He's getting ready." He said instead. 

 James slowly nodded. "I see you are dressed up too. Are you guys going to work?"

 Andrew had a dark-blue overall on. "Yeah."

 "What do you guys do?" James asked innocently, and puckered his lips. 

 Andrew shut his eyes tight. So many questions. "Nothing you need to know about."

 James sat on another chair and crossed his legs. "So you guys do bad things?"

 "What?"

 "You guys do bad things."

 "No we don't." Did Hazel already tell him about their line of work?

 "Well, when you say something like 'nothing I need to know about', when I ask about your job, then it appears to me or any reasonable person that you engage in evil acts to make money."

 "Or maybe we don't just want to tell you anything Mr smarty pants. "

 Fred came down the elevator. He was also dressed in a dark blue overall and had a duffel bag with him. "Good morning James." He said, walking towards them. "Andrew let's go."

 "Maybe Fred can tell me then."

 Fred took out his phone and scrolled through it. "Tell you what?"

 "What you guys do for a living."

 He stopped and looked at James. "Um—"

 "We are living, Fred." Andrew got up, grabbed one of the car keys on the key rack and left. 

 "We can talk about that another time." Fred replied and followed after Andrew. They took a pick-up truck and drove off. 

 "What was with his questions?" Fred asked as he fastened his seatbelt. 

 "I don't know." He replied, no form of emotion on his face. 

 Fred stared at him, then laughed. "You are still mad that Hazel got her boyfriend around?"

 Andrew sighed. "Look, I don't give a fuck if Hazel had ten men with her in her room."

 "That's a rough thing to say. You could always shoot him to get him out of the way." Fred suggested. 

 Andrew turned to him, wide-eyed. "Why would I do that?"

 "Cause you are obviously not happy that Hazel is happy."

 "I don't fucking care about James! Christ!"

 Fred laughed. "It was a suggestion."

 "Speaking about shooting, what's in the bag?"

 "Um, different tools you told me to come with. And why do we have to wear an overall again?"

 Andrew swerved past a car. "Because we need to pass off as employees. Light fixers or something like that."

 "You mean electricians?"

 "Yeah, that."

 "So how do we get past the guards?"

 "Just leave that to me." He replied and passed an ID card to Fred, with his information on it. 

 Fred took it and shrugged. "If you say so."

 "What kinds of guns are in there?"

 Fred turned to him, looking confused. "Guns? I didn't bring any guns."

 "What do you mean you didn't bring any guns? Where are they?"

 "Well, Hazel was worried about James finding a gun anywhere in the house so she made me take them all to the lair."

 "What the fuck Fred. We are going for a mission. We need guns."

 "No. We are going to the Marquis,Andrew. To just mess

with a few things before the mission, which is tomorrow. We don't need no guns. What? You want to start shooting at people when we get there?"

 Andrew sighed. "Alright. Alright." 

 ★. ★. ★. 

 They pulled up in front of the gate and a guard came over to Andrew's side. "Hello gentlemen. How can I help y'all?"

 Andrew passed their cards to the guard. "Electricians. We are here to check out all the connections."

 The guard looked at their cards. "We didn't get notified about any electricians coming in today."

 "Yeah. Someone called at our office. He said there was a sudden spark when he passed the Marquis."

 The guard looked at them. "What office?"

 Andrew and Fred looked at each other, then turned back to the guard. "We...we actually work at Coleman Industries, and I really don't know why he called our office. Our boss said we should just check it out."

 The guard returned their cards. "The Marquis is fine. We will check with our own electricians." He said and turned to walk away. 

 "Wait!" Andrew called out. The guard turned back and returned to them. 

 "Look. I said we would check with our own guys. What else do you want?"

 Andrew dropped his voice and it had a pleading tone to it. "Look man. We are apprentices okay? Just let us do this. And when our boss calls, you guys can tell her that we did a good job and then our position will be sealed. We won't just be apprentices anymore, but we'll have a permanent job. Please man."

 The guard looked at them as he thought about it. "There will be a guard with you guys, watching you."

 Andrew chuckled excitedly. "Sure man. Thanks for this."

 "Where are your tools?"

 Andrew pointed at the duffel bag. "Here they are. You wanna check them?"

 The guard thought about it. It was his job to check it but he really just wanted to get everything over with. No need to check it manually. He used a detector to check it and it didn't beep. He returned the bag. "Hold on, I'll get the gate."

 He went inside and opened the gate, ushering them in. A guard was appointed to them and they were led to one of the electronic panels. 

 The guard sat away from them, while they did their thing. They communicated quietly. 

 "What do we do now?" Fred asked. 

 Andrew pulled out a portable dart holder. "I need to get to the surveillance room. Hazel needs to have control of the cameras."

 "Well, this guy isn't going anywhere."

 Andrew pulled out a blowgun from the bag and gave it to Fred. "There is a dart inside. Keep your comms on. When I tell you to shoot, you shoot."

 He walked away going to find the surveillance room, when the guard stopped him. "Are you done with this panel?" 

 "I need to find the surveillance room. So that I know exactly where the spark came from."

 The guard gazed at him like he could read Andrew's mind. "Fourth floor. I'll keep an eye on your partner."

 "Sure." Andrew replied and walked away. He walked casually to avoid being suspected. He soon came upon the door, knocked and went in. 

 Two men sat behind the screens. "How can we help you?" One asked. 

 "I need to see footage from last night. To know exactly where the spark came from. So we can do specific checks then general checks."

 The men faced the screens and tapped on their keyboards. They suddenly paused and dropped their heads on the table. Andrew had stuck a dart in their necks, putting them to sleep. 

 He looked at the screens and he could see Fred. He touched his earbud. "Fred. Can you hear me?"

 "Yeah. "

 "Good. Take him out. " 

 Fred faced the guard and blew the gun. The dart stuck in his neck and he dropped down. "Done. Let's get this over with."

 In the bag were small circular devices that Fred made sure to place on all electronic panels around the building. 

 Andrew replaced a cable in the computers and placed a smaller device at the back. 

 They were soon done and they left the building. While driving, Fred dug his hand into Andrew's pocket and pulled out a wallet. 

 "Who owns this?"

 Andrew looked at Fred surprised. "Dude. Keep that back."

 "We didn't go there to steal."

 "We couldn't just knock them out and let it seem like everything was in place. So I took one of their wallets so they believe we came to steal. And the stuff in the dart is going to make them forget what happened. Then deleted the footage of us."

 Fred sighed and gave Andrew back the wallet. "What about the guard who opened the gate for us?"

 "Well, hopefully he doesn't see their unconscious bodies and

he isn't the one who is in charge of the gates tomorrow."