(Yup. NYC. Just like it says in the CS.)<br/><br/>Half an hour after the "heist" began, the phone continued to ring every five minutes as the cops outside kept trying to re-establish contact. On the sixth redial, Artemis yanked the phone off the hook and spoke up before the lieutenant could get a word in. "Hey there, Lieutenant. Friendly neighborhood bad guy here. Where are those heroes I asked for? It's been a full half an hour since our last conversation, and I still don't see anyone out there not wearing a blue uniform. To be honest, I'm running out of patience. Maybe we need to escalate things. Think that would work?"<br/><br/>"Hold on there, son. Don't do anything rash. We can still work this..."<br/><br/>"Son?" A derisive snort could be heard over the line. "I'm not your son, officer, but I'll tell you what. I'll hang up this phone right now and just come on out there. Sound like a plan?"<br/><br/>There was a pause as the lieutenant recovered from the shock of seemingly being offered a surrender, but when he spoke again his tone implied it had been what he was expecting all along. "Good thinking. You just come on out and we can talk this through before anyone gets hurt."<br/><br/>"Sorry commander, but we're way past not getting hurt." *click*<br/><br/>After hanging up the phone, Artemis turned around and angled his head up to look at the hostages trapped on the ceiling. "Well, it was so nice meeting you all. Have a lovely day and try not to break anything on the way down. Let's never meet again." Then he strode out of the bank and into the street as if there was not a cop car in sight.<br/><br/>There were, in point of fact, no less than a dozen. And behind them, no less than half that number of vans, some belonging to news stations and others to the police or recently arrived SWAT teams. So recently arrived, in fact, that their snipers hadn't had a chance to set up yet. What excellent timing.<br/><br/>"Right. I guess it's time to rattle the cages." Holding his right hand straight out to the side, he began to sweep it across the space in from of himself, as if clearing clutter from a table, and willed his influence to extend out to the semi-circle of cop cars and the policemen behind them. The cars became the clutter being cleared as they slid sideways in the direction his hand was moving, until they were all piled in a wrecked heap to Artemis' left. The cops too, had all been swept off their feet, and now the street remained clear save for the news vans, their crews, and the civilian spectators. "Ooh, spectators. HEY YOU!"<br/><br/>His shout echoed into the crowd as he pointed, and the civilians began looking back and forth at each other trying to figure out who he meant. "No, not you." His finger flicked to the side and a short, fat man went flying. "Not you either." A flick in the other direction and this time it was a woman in a business suit. "Aha! You!" He jabbed the finger forward, then flipped his hand around to make a beckoning motion as a young girl, somewhere in her teens, was lifted free of the crowd and pulled irresistibly toward him. "How would you feel about becoming my slave? Hmm? Don't be shy now, speak up."<br/><br/>The girl was too terrified to even cry out, much less speak. "No objections then? Excellent. We should probably get going, since it doesn't look like any of those wonderful heroes of yours are going to show up. Can you drive?"