“Everything in place?” *Static.*<br/><br/>Arget checked his watch.  Cheap, digital, synched.  Twenty seconds to four o' clock and thirty-seven minutes, the arbitrary time Stephan had set.  “Copy that, Rock.  Proceeding in fifteen... ten.”<br/><br/>*PLAK!* The plastic had worked.  Rock was a bitchin' chem-major dropout, and this was what they had for a take; the shaped charges as well really did muffle the explosion, biding them precious time.  The eight of them dove into the vault.<br/><br/>“Really should have capped those two guards...” Stephan groans.<br/><br/>“Fuck you San, they didn't see a thing.  I'm not getting twenty cc's of K-C-L or twenty inches of slack if this fails.” Arget whispers, stuffing a briefcase.  “Now lets hop this taco stand.  This take's enough to set us for twenty years if we're careful.<br/><br/>And enough it was... twelve shares, two each for Arget, who'd taken care of security, Rock, the chemist, college dropout, Stephan “San”, a human, who planned the whole thing, and Kyla, Stephan's honey, a fullblooded vixen who was also driving the car, and seven months pregnant to boot.  A share each for the other guys, still a duke's ransom, all for some muscle work and scoping the place.  Arget hoisted more than enough, a sixty-pound sack of hundred notes, and darted for the open-exit into the back of the van.   The dirt-poor halfbreed had finally done it.  He was finally a winner.<br/><br/>***<br/><br/>The sun hadn't even peeked as they pulled off over the backroad, Arget already rifling through the bags again, counting out the wads, dividing them.  And still he could only think small.  He was a simple man.  A walkman, an actual piece of luxury!  Lacuna's Coils and Depeche Toad and Lemming von Motorhead tapes.  Fatty-spicy tuna sushi every night for dinner for the next ten years!<br/><br/>“Halfie, bag those and come see me out here.  Bring the bag so I can verify...” Stephan steps out into the  pre-dawn with his honey and sits at a table a ways off from the van.  It was, after all, some time before Arget had been given his name.  He takes the bag and steps out, moving for the two, taking a seat at the table next to San, across from Kyla.  “We're fucking rich, guy, we're made!” He smacks a bundle of hundreds upside San's head.  “But I don't think we should stay here long.”<br/><br/>“We won't.” Kyla smiles, that pearly smile with those big, rather unsightly gums she had.  Arget found that smile always rather disconcerting.  “Our ride should be here any minute.”<br/><br/>“Our ride?  You mean the va-?” Arget leapt from where he sat as the van ripped apart in a display a hundred thousand times what they pulled off back at the bank.  “What the fuck?  The FUCK!  ROCK!  What the fuck just – FUCK!  SAN!  San, what happened?” He turns around, the duffel at his feet.  Kyla had her .22 trained on him.  San would just edge to her and hug her hip.  “Oh, oh!” He moans.  “Oh<br/>fuck you, San!  Fuck you, Kyla, this is it?  This was worth their lives?” He throws a hand back.  “That was ROCK!”<br/><br/>“You knew him for a week, Halfie, simmer down.  You're certainly mouthy for someone who should be trying to talk their way out of this.” Stephan shook his head.<br/><br/>“You're not going to do that, San.  You just killed Rock, you clearly only wanted me to bring the bag so it didn't look suspicious, you and your girl with it.” He picks up the bag.  “I mean, I'm a bit assumptive, or maybe just sharp there, but that's what it looks like.  You know what, fuck you, you greedy fuck.  Have it all.”<br/><br/>“That was the idea.” San nods with his eyes.  “Now put it on the table and turn around.  You toss it, she shoots.”<br/><br/>“You're gonna shoot me anyway, San.  Hey Kyla, catch.” Arget thrusts the bag like a basketball pass from the chest, and Kyla fires – but with a twenty two, just puts an entry wound into the canvas.  “There.  There's your fucking money, you prick.” He throws his hands up, the Nagant in one of them, trained on Stephan.<br/><br/>“Don't you do it, don't you shoot him!” Kyla suddenly becomes shrill.  Stephan gives Arget a long look.<br/><br/>Finally, Arget speaks.  “Kyla.  Two-point four million in twelve even shares.  You kill off five shareholders.  How many shares now to the survivors, and how much total apiece?”<br/><br/>“I don't fucking know, why?”<br/><br/>“Just mean to put it that I never went to school out of lack.  You're just a dumb theiving bimbo.”<br/><br/>“FUCK YOU, HALFIE!” She fires, and Stephan simultaneously dives over the park bench and starts in for Arget's gun – a moment of struggling – Arget loses the gun, and reaches in and pinches Stephan's arm on the underside as though to disarm him this time; a trigger finger spasms...<br/><br/>Stephan pauses.  His eyes wander over to the vixen he'd been sleeping with all these months, clutching an open wound over her heart, and choking on red, staring at him.  At them both.<br/><br/>“No... no no, Kyla, no, please God no, our baby, no...” He kneels beside her.  Arget, his gun back, stands behind them, looking down at her, shaking his head.  San glares back, hateful, spite, rage, anything to kill Arget, who just keeps his gun trained.<br/><br/>“It's your fault, San.”<br/><br/>“FUCK YOU!  FUCK YOU, MY KID'S GONNA DIE!  MY WIFE'S GONNA DIE!  THAT'S MY SON!”  Before he can even get up, however, he takes one through the eye.  Arget plants one more in the back of his head.<br/><br/>Sirens wail far off.  Not police sirens – not yet.  Fire.  Arget kneels beside her.  “I'm not taking the fall honey.” He puts the gun to her head.  “I'm sorry your kid had to suffer because you're a greedy cunt like your boyfriend.” He pauses, and withdraws the weapon.  “As far as know, I'm just a concerned nobody responding to shots fired, got jumped by some gun bunny and her Clyde.”<br/><br/>“I'm sorry he's going to have to grow up without a mother.” He holds his gloved hands up.  Kyla, however, wore none.  He wants to let the bitch bleed out.  To regret in her last few minutes, but seeing her bulging midsection, someone he didn't even know or really care about, someone who by half the world's political standards wasn't even a person yet, for no reason he can pin down, it become the most important thing in the world that this bitch makes it.  Maybe the kid would grow up to kill him.  Maybe he would grow up to save the world.  Maybe he would grow up to be and die just like his dad.  Whatever the case, Arget ungloves one hand, finding a rip in the pulsing muscle wall and sealing it with his thumb.  There was a good chance the kid wouldn't make it anyway, but still much more than if she'd only been a month or two pregnant.  His thumb in the dike, the heart trying its best to pump its way to destruction, shattered ribs gouging into his hand... he waits until the firemen pull up.  One guy gets ready to throw up seeing this.  “DON'T!” Arget points.  “Just don't.  You throw up and you're fucking useless.  Now get over here and do your fucking job.”<br/><br/>***<br/><br/>Arget looks to the secretary, sighing.  The clock, as always, was ticking.  Times like these always got him thinking about the good ol' days...