“I’d like $10 in quarters”. The over-wrought delivery snapped my attention back from my daughter’s exhaustive listing of the Power Princesses. “Thanks for the roll of quarters”, the man at the teller window sneered, proud of some perceived cleverness. He brushed past us, as the line shuffled forward, beelining towards where the bank guard idled.
I reached down to hold Sara’s hand, shifting her towards the teller as I turned to track the clever guy. The guard didn’t seem worried about the approach. He didn’t even seem to notice Quarters posting up behind him, standing far too rigid and uncomfortably close. The guard seemed completely oblivious to Quarters, who seemed to be doing his best to flag himself as a threat. The rigid pose, rolling his lips over a dry mouth, just how tightly he had balled his fist around the roll of quarters…
As if to save the guard from the awkward realization, just then 3 armed men in animal masks burst into the bank. I pulled Sarah behind me, the guard reached for his gun, and Quarters rabbit punched the guard, a ring splitting his scalp. The guard tumbled forward and turned just in time to catch Quarters’ followup to the nose, before collapsing on the ground.
The man with the frog mask fired a prolonged burst of submachine gun fire into the ceiling. Quarters retrieved the guard’s sidearm. This wasn’t going well. The guard would be fine, but he was bleeding profusely. When crowds see blood spurting from heads, they tend to panic. And when you don’t want them to panic, you want to inspire cold, dry, fear.
Frog finally finished firing, “Hands up, this is a robbery!” with Quarters adding “Everybody on the ground!” Conflicting instructions, to people who are half-deafened after that entrance. Forcing people to think and make decisions is a mistake. You need to present one option, and only one option, and let their sense of survival guide their actions without critical thought ever being engaged.
Horse-mask stepped in front of Frog and simplified things for the confused and panicked crowd, “DOWN! NOW!” The man in the pig mask jumped up on the tellers’ counter as I, and the other customers, slowly went prone. Quarters used the guard’s gun to shoot out the 2 most prominent cameras, in just 5 shots. Scanning the people on the ground, it looked like there were two would-be heroes who had positioned their hands close to their chests, with legs coiled, ready to spring up. Scratch that… 3 heroes, if the young lady’s overtly slow and cautious reach towards something in her purse was any indication.
Sara had laid down, face to face with me, watching my eyes. She was scared, there was a tightness in her lips and a her eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them. But she wasn’t panicking. I wondered how much of the situation she really understood. Probably a bit more than Quarters.
Frog and Horse were walking the floor, brandishing their weapons, as Pig paced the teller counter. Quarters made his way to teller in window one, shouting threats and then demanding she open the vault. I couldn’t make out her response, as she had fallen to pieces before Quarters had even reached her. When you’re holding a smoking gun in someone’s face, someone else’s blood dripping off your knuckles, the threat is implicit. Tell them what to do, clearly, and it gets done. Shouting threats and spittle is overkill.
The would-be-heroes reaching for something in her purse had frozen, hand in mid-reach, as Frog strode over her. This is why only amateurs use masks that cut down on your peripheral vision. But in fairness to the mask, it was a good likeness of a frog, and it seems unlikely the person wearing it would have noticed anything, anyway.
The other two would-be-heroes had found each other, and seemed to be trying to assign targets and countdowns by eye movement and slight head nods. Judging by the two pedestrians I could see through the glass doors starting, and then hustling away, the police were taking positions outside. Quarters was getting more and more annoyed with the lack of coherence coming from the teller. This is how attempted robberies turn into hostage situations and murder.
I looked at Sara, eyes still locked on mine, and gave her a comforting smile and held up my fingers in a calming gesture, willing her to stay put. She gave a slight nod, without blinking. I waited until Frog and Horse were far enough removed from the heroes to not be tempting targets.
“Enough.” I said in a voice Sara had only heard on one or two particularly unpleasant days where she had missed her nap. Quarters paused, mid threat, and the full menagerie spun to face me as I slowly stood, and straightened my jacket. “She wouldn’t have been able to open the vault for you”. Frog and Horse looked to each other, and then at pig, and back to each other, unsure as to what to do. Quarters paused, and then, embarrassed by the delay, strode towards me, gun pointed, yelling more threats, asking who I was.
“She’s a teller. She can’t open the vault. The only person who would have been able to open the vault…” Quarters paused before entering my personal space, gun still pointed at me, he wasn’t sure how to handle this situation, and was looking for options. “…is the branch manager. Who, unless I’m very much mistaken, was the middle-aged lady who ducked into the back office when you were assaulting the guard.”
Quarters glanced towards the wooden door of the back office, and then back to me, and opened his mouth to respond, “BUT, she can’t open the vault now, either. It’s in lock-down mode, and you obviously don’t have the equipment needed to break into that with you. To get the vault out of lock-down, you’d need two separate keys that are kept offsite. And we can’t get offsite, as the police have the doors surrounded.”
All four spun towards the doors, where you could see the red and blue lights reflect off the buildings across the street. “Wait, how…” “The branch manager’s been in their office since your robbery started. And at least 2 of the tellers hit the silent alarm when the gunfire started, or is it 3?” I looked at the teller behind window 4, tilting my head inquisitively. The teller gave a bit of a sheepish nod, and then shrugged apologetically towards Pig.
“Anyway, you shot out two of the cameras. Those are monitored by the security office. Even if they missed, well, all this…”, disdainfully casting my arms about, “…and they do, more often than not, but when you take cameras offline the branch gets flagged. And there are 6 other visible cameras in this room, and I’d be willing to be there are more behind the glass above the door.” The criminals all darted their gaze around the ceiling, noticing some more out of the way cameras, before settling on the dark glass panes above the entrance.
“At this point, you’ve got no shot at the vault, or the front door. You’re going to want to clean out the currency counting room, and then head out the sewers. Not ideal, especially if you don’t have waders, but it’ll do. Follow me.” I walk toward the back office, not waiting to see if they follow, or to give them a chance to object or question. After some curious glances at each other, they all fall in line and join me at the wooden door.
I knock three times, “Please open the door, ma’am. We aren’t here to hurt anyone”. After a moment, the door partially opens. Pig shoves his shotgun over my shoulder and into the branch manager’s face, I pause my introduction and look back at Pig, shaking my head in disappointment. He slowly lowers the gun, head hung slightly in shame. “Sorry about that. Could we please have your bank keys?” After a moment’s hesitation, she hands them over. I continue down the back hallway, flipping through the keys until I see the correct company’s logo.
“This is where they keep the all the currency they’re going to need during the day, or that they’ve taken in during the day, before it’s counted, banded, and put in the vault”, I explain to the group of robbers dogging at my heels. “Do you have bags to carry this in? Most of it’s going to be in smaller denominations. A lot of volume.” We arrive at the metal door, and I use the pre-selected key to unlock it and pull it open for them, revealing a secure room filled with loose stacks of money brought in, and tightly pressed stacks of new currency ready to be put into circulation.
Quarters, followed by Pig, Horse and Frog all head towards the center table, where counting machines whir, and I shut the door behind them and lock it. Thuds and shouting are heard, followed by a blast of a shotgun, the pinging of ricochets, and the muffled squeels of pain.
I return to the lobby, and for some reason people are still where I left them, laying on the ground. Sara smiles and runs into my open arms, as the other customers cautiously look to each other for clues on if it’s okay to get up. “Daddy? How would those men get into the sewers?” “That’s a very astute question, Sara. I don’t know”.
First try at this, and I kind of cheated with the "super" part of the prompt. Don't have the time to re-read this right now, so hopefully there aren't too many errors.