Ah, it really was a lovely day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, there was hardly a cloud in sight… And America’s next most wanted were sitting in an apartment in the Bronx, a TV mutely playing that classic of heist films, Heat. The ‘most important,’ men, if you will, were currently in very different roles. One was calmly propped up against the wall, inwardly debating if now was the time to pick up a cigarette, and the other was sitting down on a couch, eyes focused on the screen, at least for the time being.

When the latter man was done appreciating the classics, he paused the film and stood up, brushing imaginary dust off of his collar and clearing his throat, earning him the attention of the rest of the men and women inside the safehouse. “Lads, lasses, gents and gentlewoman, friends, foes, and cobbers.” He brushed off the corner of his coat. “As you know, I am the man who brought us of many talents together, and now I’m going to tell you our first job.” He spoke with a heavy Australian accent, a grin playing across his face.

He indicated to an envelope on the cracked coffee table in front of them, before picking it up and pulling out the contents. Three pictures, blueprints, a set of keys and a black box with an LED light were inside of it, and the man tossed the pictures, and the blueprints, to the various crooks, before slipping the box in his breast pocket, twirling the keys around on the end of his finger.

“Now. As much as I hate doing petty crime, I’m afraid we must start on the small jobs. Being a group as large as we are however, ‘petty crime’ takes a slightly different meaning. We’re hitting this place.” He took back one of the photos and tapped it, the picture showing a jewellery store, like many in the city, rain clouds gathering over chrome signs. “As soon as this opened, I, or at least Circuit, knew that it was a good place to hit. It’s a pretty large joint. There are cameras across the entire joint, but we’ve got this.” He patted his breast pocket.

“If you’ve ever jacked a car in the past decade, you’ll know what it is. It homes in on the correct frequency to do a certain task, then does said task. This one, however, works a little more like a swipe card, which is helpful when the only way into the camera office is through the swipe card. We make sure the security guard in the office isn’t going to call the cops, then we move around the back. There’s a fire escape here.” He pointed to a door on the blueprints.

“We go up there, and that’s where the keys come in. They can silently without triggering the fire alarm, open the door, and then we can go up into the employee-only area. This looks out onto the entire office, so do not, I repeat, DO NOT go near the window unless you absolutely have to. We don’t need someone spotting masked guys and calling the cops before we’re ready to rock and roll, because that is how this little gang gets rumbled before it starts. Apart from you Fox, although when we get up there, you probably shouldn’t be in a staff only area…” He hummed a little bit.

“Right, once we have the top area secured, we then need to control the bottom floor, which is, obviously, where all of the loot is. Might be some petty cash, few thousand maybe, on the top floor, but there should be a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jewellery in the bottom floor. We make sure the civvies aren’t calling the police, and there are four guards on the premises.” He put four fingers down on the table. “One will be monitoring the camera. One’ll be upstairs, or outside if he’s on his break, and the other two will be making sure nobody with sticky fingers get their hands on a box of rings and legs it.

“Two then, will be easy. The other two… If you have no other choice, shoot them, but I’d prefer to just talk them down. We don’t need to start a gang off in blood. Really, really don’t need to start this gang off in blood. Since there are quite a few of us, the cut won’t be as big as I’d like it to be, but it is our first job, so-“

Circuit cleared his throat, before talking over the Australian. “Actually, Smokes and I won’t be taking a cut. There’s something I want in the manager’s office, bust open her safe, and there should be a brown box and an envelope. I want both of those. If there’s cash, take it, scatter it across the floor, use it to snort blow… I don’t care.”

“Alright, fine, and Smokes?”

“Well, since Smokes isn’t officially part of the group, he shouldn’t be getting any of the payout, should he?”

The Jewish-American looked angry, and started to talk, but Circuit held his hand up. “You want me to spread it.”

“Fuck you Circuit.”

“Love you too man.”

“Well, that simplifies matters.” Adrian rolled his eyes, before scribbling a few numbers down on a page and working something out in his head. “There’s six of us. If we get around 400,000 from the jewellery,” he paused to let the group settle down, a grin on his face, before tapping the page. “Maybe five thousand from cash on hand… If we nick from our guests, then that’s probably another couple of grand… Minus the amount from the fence… We could be looking at about 65K for us all in a day.”

He looked up, a wry smile on his face. “That’s half of my army service career in a day. Now, that revolves around one thing. Don’t take anything for yourself. You do, you’re stealing cash from not just them, but also every single one of us.” He picked his revolver up and pulled the hammer back, before looking at them. “I don’t like people stealing from me very much, and I doubt the rest of us will either.” He looked around seriously.

“Now, onto organisation. Guns, where are you… Alright, so you need to go onto the main floor first off. You’ll come in handy later, but not right now. Carbomb, Hazzy, you need to go to the fire exit. If the guard’s there, then get him to stand down. I’ll give you the key to open it up. Fox and I will head to the back door to the security room. I want that guard taken care of myself.”

“When he’s subdued and we don’t have to worry about cameras, Hazzy and Carbomb can enter the building, take control of the top floor. This place isn’t snazzy enough for each guard to have a pager, so don’t worry about that. If they do, stick a gun to the guard’s head, make him answer it.”

“When that’s done, Fox and I will move to the front. You’ll be playing good cop to my bad cop.” He pointed to the German. “Guns, take care of one of the guards. No killing. Just… Give him a haymaker or something. From there, the rest should be easy peasy, lemon fuckin’ squeezy.” He spread his arms wide. “Any questions?”

Deft and practiced fingers worked while Adrian spoke. They tapped, ground, and separated the keef from the bud proper. Once that was done, it was sprinkled with due care into a paper and tightly rolled. The joint made its way from the table to lips and was lit. The cherry of the smoke bloomed and the thin blue smoke was inhaled, held, and exhaled. A little hum of appreciation left those same lips and then green eyes flicked up from the still glowing cherry to Adrian.

"So, what? Am I supposed to just Smokes company and play with myself?" Whitney asked, a few stray puffs of smoke leaving her mouth as she asked her sarcastic question. The inked up woman reclined luxuriously in the wooden chair of the dining room and raised a brow to their leader. She swung her leg over and crossed it, gesturing in a 'well?' manner with the hand holding the joint she had just finished rolling. She was clearly a bit miffed about being mostly ignored during the entire planning phase. She was damned good at keeping people in line and acting properly spooky when she wanted to, but, seemed to relegated to guard duty, or worse, car duty.

"Rest of the plan sounds tight but I am just trying to figure out how I fit into all this. Then again, I ain't gonna say no to free money." she placed the roll back to her lips and took another long pull, still keeping her eyes locked on those of Adrian. If he didn't really have anything for her do at least she could just get her smoke on with Smokes and wait until they needed her to go carry some heavy stuff.

Donald listened to the speech, yawning. He ran a rag over his machete, looking it over and testing the edge by pressing it against his hand. It was sharp enough, though the tribal paint on the blunt edge was beginning to chip, he'd have to paint over that when he set up a workshop. For now he was just carrying all his supplies on his back. With a nod and an upturn of his lower lip, he spun the machete in his hand slowly, he hadn't practiced enough to do it quickly. Securing the sheath on his back with his left hand, he slid the blade into it with a yawn. He was pleased with what he saw so far, Adrian and... the hacker guy seemed to know what they were doing, but that wasn't important, what was important was the high-quality tail that had gathered. He found himself not-so-discreetly looking at asses. He was a pervert, yeah, but a chivalrous one.

With a tap of his tongue, Donald chimed in after one of the two damsels spoke about how she wished to be a part of the heist. He had to support her, it's what a chivalrous gentleman would do.

"Yeah! The girl don't want to just sit back and toke all day! Now yu giv ha wok mah?" He asked, accidentally lapsing into Guyanese in his righteous anger. Smiling, he approached the heavily tattooed lady and offered a hand. "Teddy Daivari, explosives and other heavy machinery, but for now I guess I'm just the keycard guy. I like your tattoos, very pretty," he offered in a hushed voice.

Still holding out his hand, he looked back at Adrian and shrugged with a sarcastic frown.

"I also wish I could blow something up but this more important, dammit!" He demanded, this time in American English, he still managed to drop a word. He really needed to work on improving his English, girls like accents, but they also like smooth-talkers, and Guyanese isn't exactly French. He could try using what Spanish he had, but a Guyanese person speaking Spanish was about as attractive as a Russian speaking German. Not fun in the slightest.

Suddenly, Whitney found herself with a person who was supporting her position. Well, he was doing so a little more dramatically then she would have done, but, it was still nice to have someone on her side. He even stood up and walked over to her. She eyed him a little wary at first, her green eyes skeptical at best. He also was packing a machete for when you needed to whack through a thicket of vines or people, but, his was decorated unlike her's. She just had a tool, he seemed to treat his more like a totem or something. Had a funny accent to. She couldn't quite place it. It almost sounded like some of the cholos she used to know, but, not quite.

He introduced himself to her quickly and offered her his hand as well as a compliment on her tats. She had seen him eyeing her a bit, of course, he wasn't looking at her sleeves or what you could see on her back through the white Bladerunner tank top she was wearing. His eyes were lower. Hell, she wasn't going to knock him for that. She knew her lower body was a real draw, but, still. He could have been a little more discreet. She glanced down at her right arm sleeve for a second, taking a look at the geometric patterns that were on her upper arm that faded into the biomechanical piece that finished the sleeve out. Her eyes flicked back to his hand and she gave him a half smile and popped her joint in her lips before reaching out with her right hand and shaking Teddy's hand. "Thanks, blood." she said through her mostly closed mouth. "Name's Whitney, or Ink," she introduced herself gesturing to her right arm with her left hand as if to lend credence to her nickname, "I'm your girl when you need someone tuned up, feel?" she said before leaning around her supporter and taking another long pull off her smoke. She popped the thing out of her mouth, handed it to 'Teddy' casually, and returning her attention to Sharp. "So, the fuck am I going to be doing?" she repeated, smoke filtering out of her mouth as she spoke wreathing her head in a halo of weed smoke.

Two fingers slowly ran in circles across a temple trying their best to appease the demons of disrupted circadian rhythms. The backlash of decisions from a night before as a mistake's worth of drinking finally came to a head, currently winning a decisive combat against the stalwart defenders of morning, a shitty sludge-like substance that could be considered coffee in some rare circumstances. Yet despite any internal anguish like always Gwen presented herself with a level of composure and general put togetherness that betrayed little of her current state.

She was dressed simply enough in the inconspicuous stylings of the nouveau riche inhabitants of SoHo - jeans, small black men’s t shirt and some sort of black bomber jacket of indiscernible origin. All in such a way that she could've easily been confused as a marketing manager or some other upper middle class bullshit. Hair was pulled back into a short ponytail a few loose strands having fallen away and landing across eyes, the indiscernible lovechild between grey and a pale blue casually looking outward from her position with her shoulder propped against a nearby wall.

There was a small nod and something reminiscent of a smile at the corner of her mouth when her ‘name’ was mentioned nothing overt but done with enough care to show that she was actually paying attention. Yet juxtaposed against the current tableau that her cohorts had cast the woman looked decidedly out of place. Her posture emulated little of the swagger of the Australian, the ill-conceived bravado of the man with the machete, or the don’t fuck with me attitude of the other woman in the room, it was much more causal and there was something to be said there. Gwen wasn’t in the business of making statements, Gwen was in the business of being forgotten about, you lived longer that way.

She watched as the other woman questioned her role with something of a mild curiosity. She held her tongue, she didn’t know anybody here really, friend of a friend that used to work with SASR had put her into contact with the Australian when she had run aground in the States, and she found that if had the capacity to just shutup and listen you could learn a lot about people.

Almost as quickly as she had spoken the one playing with his machete had jumped up to defend her. Lecherous sort with wandering eyes that Gwen rather didn’t appreciate and an accent that she couldn't quite discern like some debris from the caribbean had washed ashore of several different continents, judging from posture alone he looked like he thought he was hotshit, in short a loser.

Such arguments early on did little in the way of reassuring her of the longevity of this gang of thieves but it was an interesting thought experiment itself seeing how their leader would react to it all. The small ghost of a smile flickered across her features once more as she followed the conversations gaze as it moved back towards Sharp giving him a sympathetic shrug of the shoulders but still choosing not to engage directly. This wasn’t her fight and she wasn’t about to make it hers either.

"Ink, you're the resident psycho here. As much as you'd be great for most jobs, this is one where a little tact is required. After we've taken control of the store, then you can come in and do your thing." Adrian sighed. He knew he had forgotten someone, and of course it was the nutcase. The fact that the guyanese backed her up was probably more to do with him being a sleaze and wanting to get into her pants more than anything else, but Gwen just nodding? Ah well.

"There'll be heists when we only really need you to carry bags, like this one, and then there will be heists when having an unstable American waving an assault rifle around will be very beneficial. In the same way that Carbomb won't get to handle explosives all the time... Actually, do see if you can take a little something to bust open a safe. Thermite, C4, I don't care."

He was a little sketchy about Ink. Sure, the gal listened to her, which was nice, but he didn't know how much of that was so she could earn more money and not a bullet in the back of the head, and how much of it was legitimate respect. He knew people, and people like Ink didn't seem to be the kind of person who had respect for anyone.

Oh, and she was a murderer, but it would be a little hypocritical for him to get angry over her being a murderer.

Donald grinned with lowered eyebrows as Whitney offered him the blunt, he had succeeded in making a good first impression, not that there was ever any doubt in his mind. He took a puff and leaned back as he blew. He hadn't given her his real name, he wasn't sure if he could trust any of them yet, he wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of giving a load of hardened criminals his information. Though, he thought to himself as he looked around, he could take most of them. Not in a flat out fight of course, but he had enough types of bomb to make a fight turn into a "fight".

The weed was good, not the best he'd ever had but good, course it was pretty mild compared to some of the more extreme shit he'd partaken in back in Mexico. Some of the stuff that you could only take once or risk losing a limb or some shit like that. He'd not been the smartest back in those days for sure, but he was born in South America, best you could do was try to get famous and end up somewhere else. Not only South America, but Guyana, where the Wikipedia page for interesting people was around a quarter of a page long. Hell, even the place names in Guyana sucked, Georgetown? Because there aren't fifty cities called the exact same fucking thing. New Amsterdam? Way to rip off one of the biggest cities in the western hemisphere. Perhaps he was just a little bitter, maybe he wanted something better than what he had.

He was snapped out of this by the mention of thermite. He growled in recognition, dropping the blunt and letting out a small chuckle as he dropped his backpack and pulled it open. He hummed as he rummaged through the multitude of explosives held within, careful not to disturb the largest one that took up at least half the bag, probably more. Pulling out a small bag and a bit of string, he held them both over his head.

"I've got thermite, it'll take longer to burn through but it'll be much less likely to damage any merchandise. Unless you'd rather have it right away no matter the damage, in which case..." he place the objects gently on the ground, he didn't want it going off prematurely... ha, and rummaged for another moment, pulling out a chunk of C4. "This'll do just nicely... I love this shit, it's like play-doh, if play-doh was a high-grade explosive."

It was a haphazard construction, wires sticking out every-which way, a hand-written label in permanent marker that read "Explos ve" as the i had somehow been rubbed off. He was much less careful with this one, tossing it against the ground with a smack. He held up a finger before anyone could complain.

"C4 don't explode from being dropped, you need exteme heat and a shockwave, hell, we could play catch with this shit and nothing would happen," he looked around at the others with a smirk. "Unless you're scared. Don't worry ladies, I'm open for all your cuddling needs," he finished, giving a quick dance of his eyebrows.

To prove his point, he took out his pistol and waved it about.

"I could shoot it right now and nothing would happen. Seriously," he finished his raving. It had been far too many times that some chollo had seen him toss the C4 around and react by diving in the closest trash-can, so he was careful to explain every part to ensure no-one had a mini freak-out. Putting the gun away, he began squishing and playing with a little bit of the C4 in his hands. Tearing off another piece and offering it around the room to anyone who was wanting something to fidget with.

Psycho? Fucking unstable? FUCKING PSYCHO? Green eyes locked on Sharp as he spoke, widening and seeming to glint with a sudden rush of anger. I'll fucking show you psycho you little fuck! I'll peel off your fucking face with a fucking butcher knife you motherfucker! her mind filled with a thousand little ways to just tear his body to shreds. Some detailed, others just feelings and emotions. Those fevered eyes closed for a second and she took a deep breath. A very long, very deep breath. As she exhaled she locked her gaze back on Sharp, now smirking a little and half closed in an almost euphoric cast.

Ink chuckled and pointed at him with her right hand in the recognizable shape of a 'finger-gun'. She let her thumb-hammer fall and cocked her wrist up from the phantom recoil. "Lucky I'm in a indica mood, Sharp." she said with a little giggle. "I dig it though, blood. I'll wait this one out like a good girl and just sit in the car until you need some help keeping the floor tight. Then I'll help with bags." she lowered her hand and rested it on her leg as Teddy started to pull stuff out of his bag.

He had what you might expect any self-respecting boom-boy to have. He had some gizmos and gadgets and loved to boast about the little chemicals he had with him. She wouldn't fault him for that. This motherfucker had C4. Shit, that was new. She had been around some guys with semtex, or other knock offs, but, never the real deal. Whitney took the little piece of offered putty and squished it between her fingers. She giggled a little at the feeling and started to roll it around in her hands. "Prolly not a good idea to just break the shit in the metal box, boom-boy, we need to get something from it for Gizmo here." She looked up at the hacker and gave him an honest look of apology, "Oh, sorry, blood. I meant Circuit. Sorry." she shrugged, "I always think of you as Gizmo for some reason."