Of Eggs and Omelets
Written for NYC Midnight’s #FlashFictionChallenge, January 2021
by Darcie T. Kelly
I wake with only one questions left in the pop quiz:
10. Identify the point where the infinite loop begins: The chicken or the egg?
A smudge of ink on my forearm echoes the smear across the closed-circuit schematic I was designing last night. He shakes me again.
“Egg,” I croak, rubbing my eyes at a shadowed outline of Jimmy. Ugh, Jimmy. The bane of my current existence. I wish I’d never let him crash on my couch. Though ‘let’ isn’t really the right word. When a stranger traces a prank back to you, a prank that could be interpreted as breaking the law, then forces you to do things you don’t want to do, I believe the proper word is ‘blackmail’. I have no idea who he really is; probably a failed actor (he’s over-dramatic enough) or a male prostitute (he’s slimy enough). The first words I catch of his shouting whisper are, “… would you rather die, Tilly?”
“If dying is anything like sleep, I’ll take it.” I respond, pushing him away, shifting uncomfortably in the kitchen chair, and swiping at the stray hairs affixed to my cheek by sleepy sweat.
“Long, painful death is nothing like sleep.” Jimmy grabs my arm and pulls the chair out from under me. “Come on.”
As I shed the remnants of sleep, straightening my glasses with my free hand, I notice something odd. Instead of steady overhead kitchen lighting, there are irregular beams slicing the dark horizontally from windows and doorways. I open my mouth, though I’m unsure what I plan to say, and Jimmy silences me with bulging eyes and a tug on the arm. Dragging me to the ground and behind the L shaped counter, he pulls something from his … what is he wearing? Black from head to toe and lashed with belts and straps. Definitely a male prostitute, I conclude before my eyes fall on a holstered gun.
“Wh- wh-,” I start to stutter when Jimmy instructs:
“Close your eyes and cover your ears,” and tosses something over the counter. I hear metal land on porcelain before a deafening bang and blinding flash disable me. Too late, I close my eyes and cover my ears. Jimmy grabs my arm again and drags me through the apartment. I track us by instinct to the living room. When Jimmy deposits me on the carpet, I blink repeatedly. Vague shadows are returning, and faint echoes reach my ears. With rough hands, Jimmy half lifts, half pushes me out the window onto the fire escape and screams from what seems like miles away, “MOVE!”
***************************
My muscles ache from running, crouching, and squeezing through openings much too small for someone my size. After being effectively kidnapped, dragged through the night, and generally mishandled by my unwelcome houseguest, I need to rest. With a splash, I collapse in shallow sewer water.
“What the hell, Jimmy?” I find my voice between gasping breaths. “Who …”
“Keep your voice down, Tilly,” Jimmy chides. “They aren’t far behind.”
“Who aren’t far behind?” My frantic confusion is doing nothing to help control my breathing.
“Goons hired to kidnap you.”
“Isn’t that what you’ve done?”
“Listen,” Jimmy ignores me, eyes darting up and down the sewer. “Last week - that mess I helped you out of -”
“Helped?” I protest.
“Shhh,” Jimmy continues. “They want to know how you did it.” His gaze settles on me. Looks through me. “They already have your tech – sorry, I thought it was secure – and know you have backdoor access to every client account held at World Bank.”
“They want me to rob World Bank?” I lower my voice half-way through the question in response to Jimmy’s urgent shushing.
“No, just the clients,” he whispers.
“It was just a prank!”
Every year, the graduating Engineering students prove how smart they are by doing something incredibly stupid. Building a car around a streetlight, hacking into the Dean’s computer to leave a snarky message (and change a few grades), reprogramming the library’s lights so they blink a URL to an online resume in morse code. Counter-intuitively, this is how many alumni landed their first job. I thought the best way to impress the World Bank, where I hope to work, was wiring a bypass into one of their campus ATMs that would print the lyrics of “She Works Hard for the Money” on each receipt. I didn’t steal anything. I suppose I could have, but I didn’t.
That’s how Jimmy found me. Apparently, he was among the first to use the ATM that morning. He ripped the bypass out of the machine, traced it back to me, and has been holding my hardware ransom for free rent ever since.
“If you want to stay out of their hands, which won’t be nearly as gentle as mine, get moving!”
As if on cue, the slice of pursuing flashlights cut the gloom.
When I hesitate, not sure I trust him, Jimmy’s eyes sharpen. “Tilly, they can’t have you, so you have two choices. Come with me,” Jimmy fires blindly in the direction of the lights then turns the gun on me, “or don’t?”
The threat clears my indecision. I propel my aching body into motion.
***************************
“Rest,” Jimmy instructs, as he turns to leave the kitchen, pulling out his phone. “You’re going to need it.”
I pat my pockets but don’t find my phone. It’s probably in my apartment, where I should be, with my schematics and study notes. Instead of distracting myself with social feeds and cat videos (or, you know, letting someone know where I am and what is happening) I reflect on my latest crime.
At gunpoint, I had disarmed a security system I installed for this stupidly rich family last summer. They paid me half of what they’d pay a licenced electrician, all the while bragging about spending the fall in Provence and pointing me toward the safe needing the highest-level security. Of all the urban mansions I could access, this one brought the least feelings of guilt. Besides, the break-and-enter seems a mild transgression given our conversation over the subsequent two hours.
“We can’t hide for long.” Jimmy thought aloud, pacing the kitchen while I downed my third glass of water. “They need to lose interest in you. That means taking you off the grid and I can think of only one way to do that.” This sideways reminder of his gun was incentive enough for an intuitive leap.
“Or we make an omelet,” I suggested.
Jimmy, who may have forgotten I was in the room, looks at me and offers, “Be my guest,” with a gesture toward the stove.
“No, no.” I shake my head and push my water glass aside. “What I mean is, if they want to use the bypass, we just need to upgrade the bank’s systems to plug the hole. Right?”
“You can do that?”
“Of course I can. Any electrician can install a bypass, but it takes an electrical engineer to design a bypass. And any electrical engineer smart enough to design a bypass doesn’t build until she knows how to make her own tech obsolete. Well, any engineer who wants to impress potential employers, anyway.”
Now, watching the sun crest the horizon through the kitchen window, my mind swims with the keystrokes to upgrade the bank systems, the professional goons pursuing me, and the felony Jimmy and I will commit in a few hours. Yeah, the break-and-enter was barely a blip.
***************************
Wearing clothes and jewelry stolen from Mrs. Mansion’s wardrobe and carrying a designer purse full of cash from her highly secured safe, I sit before Mr. Mooney, esteemed bank manager, opening a new account. As I sip a cup of complimentary tea, Mr. Mooney taps away at his computer trying to engage me in small talk, but I’m distracted.
I didn’t see the goons last night which makes everyone a potential enemy. We should have waited until tonight, as Jimmy suggested. We would have found a way through the locked and barred doors and past the night-watch guards. Clearly a security system wouldn’t stop me. I thought it would be easier in the day when the doors are open, and no one is expecting it. Why didn’t I consider all the people? Granted, there are blessedly few clients at this ungodly hour – I can’t remember the last time I saw seven a.m. from this side – but each set of eyes stabs me with new fear. I try to breath deeply. To maintain control. To play my role.
“… a triple agent! Can you believe it? It hooked me right to the end.” I catch the tail end of Mr. Mooney’s babble about the latest blockbuster and force a light-hearted laugh. My teacup rattles in its saucer and I quickly set it down, sneaking a glance at the diamond studded watch on my wrist and folding my hands in my lap. Come on, Jimmy, I silently plea. Where the hell are you?
I pause for a moment of unexpected clarity.
Since Jimmy woke me – was it only four hours ago? – I’ve been fed a constant stream of adrenaline. Other than my momentary hesitation in the sewer, I haven’t questioned a thing. More worrying still, I’ve misidentified where this crazy loop began. If my bypass is the chicken, what is the egg?
Jimmy. This all started with Jimmy. I haven’t seen the goons he says are chasing me, just some flashing lights that could have been rigged. I was blinded by his flash-bang. He could have led me out of my completely safe home. No one has threatened me – except Jimmy. Why do I trust this guy? I wonder. Am I about to help Jimmy rob this bank?
Mr. Mooney catches my eye, his smile too shiny. A woman wearing too much make-up walks past, watching me from the corner of her eye. A teller across the lobby looks in my direction and turns away too fast. The man reading outside Mr. Mooney’s office hasn’t turned a page since I got here. Who the hell do I trust?!
Gunfire vibrates through the cavernous bank lobby. “Everybody be cool, this a robbery,” a voice booms. “Any of you fucking pricks move and I’ll execute every mother fucking last one of ya.” Jimmy, the would-be-robber, laughs manically, one arm casually wrapped around a silver-haired security guard, the other drawing threatening circles around the room before nestling his gun against the guard’s ample belly. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”
***************************
As I cuff the guard to the handles of the double entry doors, creating a human barricade, and secure the staff and customers, my shaking hands, quivering lip, and tear-stained face aren’t an act. As Jimmy wraps an arm around my shoulders and ushers me through the staff only entrance his gun presses my back hard enough to bruise and I whimper.
“Damn, Tilly, you’re good at this,” he hisses conspiratorially in my ear as we enter the security offices, but he doesn’t redirect the weapon. “I might have a job for you if we pull this off.”
Landing roughly in the chair before the security computers, I turn to Jimmy. “It’s just us now. Can you point that thing somewhere else?”
With a slight tip of his head, Jimmy draws my attention to a camera in a high corner of the room. “You want them to know you’re in on this?”
“Why not?” I challenge, calming with each key stroke. “They’ll know soon enough that we aren’t stealing anything.” I’m already accessing the systems. I can see their cyber security team’s weak attempts to lock me out. Wow, they really need to hire me if this is the best they can do. “They’ll see the patch as soon as I install it.” I sidestep security and begin tapping in the code for the patch. Suddenly, this entire scheme seems incredibly stupid. Why didn’t I just call World Bank in the first place? I’m trying to help them. I didn’t create the hole, just took advantage of it. And I always wanted them to know what I’d done with the bypass. Wanted them to be impressed by my skill. Wanted them to hire me!
“So, about that …” Jimmy starts.
My mind flits through the details of our little ‘heist’. The bank manager whose smile was too shiny, the teller who kept looking at me, the man reading without turning pages, the security guard who, let’s be honest, couldn’t guard a box of Cracker Jacks.
“World Bank is the egg!” I realize. “They answered my prank-application with a prank-interview!” I turn to Jimmy who waves his gun in my face in a vain attempt to regain control of the situation. “I’m right, aren’t I? I got the job?” I’m practically bouncing in the chair. “And you are an actor, aren’t you? Damn, Jimmy,” I shake my head at him, “you really need to invest in some lessons. Learn to take it down a few notches.”
“Yeah,” Jimmy concedes, “you figured it out.” Jimmy lowers the gun, relaxes into a natural slump, and shrugs. “This has been an elaborate hoax to get you to upgrade their systems for free before hiring you.” I am elated. “They knew as soon as you breached the ATM. Hired me and put me in place while they planned this little interview.” I jump up and wrap my arms around Jimmy. “But here’s the thing –” I pull away. Jimmy fumbles in a pocket and passes me a scrap of paper. “I’m going to need you to transfer some funds to this account before you finish installing that patch.”
Jimmy raises the gun to the security camera, his eyes, now steady and cold, locked on mine, and fires.