EL CAPITULO DOS

SUBTITULO: AVENTURA

-()-

"You want me to rob a bank?" Karkat's jaw dropped open. He closed his mouth, then opened it again, and then spluttered a little. Slick ignored him. "I AM SIX," he concluded, jumping out of his chair and throwing his hands up in the air. "I am six and I have my whole future ahead of me . . . I could be a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher or a scientist or an astronaut or a detective or . . . or whatever the hell I want to be because I'm six and the possibilities are supposed to be fucking endless at this point and you're asking me to rob a fucking bank." His hands fell to his sides, and he stared at his guardian, mouth hanging open a little.

Slick looked up, eyebrow raised. "You finished?" Karkat's mouth snapped shut and he glowered. "So you wanna make some fucking money or not?"

"You . . . you'd pay me?"

Slick shrugged. "You help steal it, ain't a reason you shouldn't see some fucking returns."

The shorter troll sat back down and leaned forward onto the desk, hands clasped, eyes narrowed. Slick lit another cigarette. "How much are we talking?"

"No less than thirty percent." He shrugged and tapped the ash off the end. "You earn more, you get more."

He sniffed, and did his best to look shrewd and skeptical. Slick rolled his eye. Karkat frowned. "So is thirty percent a lot?"

"Fuckin' depends on how much we get, doesn't it? You in or not, Karkat?"

He sat back in the chair. Futures shuffled in his head. Doctor, lawyer, astronaut, the glorious futures of Karkat Vantas. He looked to his guardian. "Do I have to wear a suit?"

-()-

It was winter in Midnight City, but not a nice winter night, with snow-blanketed streets and fat flakes falling out of the sky. Just cold and bitter – the streets were deserted, since you'd have to be crazy to be out willingly in weather like this. Even the coppers were pulled over, windows rolled up, tailpipes dumping out white smoke while they idled. Karkat was driving, perched on top of a stack of books, his skinny chest brushing the steering wheel.

Slick was talking, rapid-fire, all alcohol and nicotine and adrenaline. It was the most Karkat had heard the man talk coherently about one thing he wasn't already furious about. He pointed out things that were obvious, but something you'd never notice – that there weren't people out, that the cops were all waiting, that a streetlight was out there, that there was a fire four streets over. It all changed the plan a little – the fire meant there would be distraction, and they might get some extra time. The streetlight meant less surveillance in that patch of street, which would be good for parking a car. The idling cops were bad – an idle copper is a bored copper, and they'll poke their noses around where they shouldn't. No people was good – less people meant less witnesses which meant less bodies.

"I don't have to kill anyone, do I?"

Slick started to say something before the sneer faltered and he paused. "Not if you fucking listen," he concluded.

Karkat nodded. "Is that it?" They were in a commercial district, and the marble pillars were reminiscent of the pictures Karkat had studied for the past eight hours. Slick nodded.

"So go around the back, like I said." He snorted, derisive. "Fucking parking garage owner has fake cameras installed. Ground floor, next to the elevators." The car stopped between the white lines, lights off. Karkat back and suddenly he realized his knuckles were white around the wheel and his heart was racing. His jacket – which Slick had insisted he wear, although the more formal attire seemed to be a decision handed down from Droog, since Slick had just let him wear the coat over his t-shirt – was too hot, the air in the car was oppressive.

"Karkat." He looked over, wide-eyed. "Turn the fucking car off." He killed the engine, his hand shaking the whole way. He couldn't have hidden it if he'd tried.

"Dad, I –"

"It's normal." Slick pulled his horse hitcher from the back seat and tucked the Ace into his jacket pocket. He let the glove box drop open and pulled a few more cards out. "You bring anything?"

"Yeah. My sickle."

"Fucking useless." He handed Karkat the Seven card. "Alright, kid, listen. Not to put any fucking pressure on you or anything, but we're operating on a time frame here."

"Huh?" His voice squeaked and he hastily cleared his throat.

"Reason being, Droog and his two new best fucking friends are gonna get here, probably around one."

"What?" Karkat shook his head. "Why the hell don't you just wait for them?"

Slick kicked the door open. "It's fucking complicated."

"I wanna know!" He hopped out of the car, slammed the door shut, and fell in next to his guardian, hands in his pockets to keep them from trembling. "That's your fucking Crew, why're you guys splitting up? Mnurf." Slick had clapped a black-gloved hand over his mouth and pushed his back against the freezing concrete wall of the parking garage.

"First fucking rule, Karkat, is after we get out of the car, you shut the fuck up. Got it?" Karkat nodded. Slick moved his hand away, but he didn't straighten yet, just watched Karkat's face for a second. The he stood up, hand back in his pocket. "You listen to me, you don't have to be nervous, alright? This shit's easy." He cocked his head toward the bank. "Run through there, grab everything, by the time the three stooges show up the fuzz'll be all the fuck over the place, alright?"

Karkat nodded.

"Alright, hardest part's the first." He stalked off across the parking garage, Karkat swept along in his wake. Even though the garage was open-air, the cold wind cut through him and took his breath away when they stepped out of the stairwell. The bank lay across a short expanse of cracked pavement, a singular light burning out from the viewing room's window on the ground floor. Slick stuck to the shadows as he made his way over to the window, Karkat sticking tight to his heels. Karkat felt distinctly like they should be creeping along, sidling or something, like in Egbert's stupid Mission Impossible movies, but Slick was just walking, same as he did every day. Karkat straightened his shoulders and tried to assume a posture of nonchalance.

He was so busy being nonchalant that he walked straight into Slick when he stopped by the viewing room window. The man spun around, eye narrowed, and then swore and mumbled something about 'amateur hour' before dropping into a crouch under the window. "Ready?"

Karkat's instincts screamed 'no', so naturally he nodded. Slick had wrestled a bottle of capsules from his jacket. "Five?" Karkat confirmed. Slick nodded.

"You have your damn radio?" Karkat nodded again. "Alright, you tell me as soon as you're done and then get the fuck out of there." They slid along the wall, under the window, to the staff entrance. It was locked, but Slick made short work of it. The deadbolt ground back, slowly, but Slick let the door stay shut for the moment. Karkat settled down behind the overgrown bush that hemmed the right side of the stairs.

And then Slick stalked off around the corner of the bank, and Karkat was alone. This was it. This was robbing a bank.

Through the panic and the adrenalin, Karkat reflected that he had always imagined it wouldn't be nearly as cold and there would have been significantly less bushes involved.

From the angle he was at, he could see the guard in the viewing room, leaned back in his chair, half-asleep, tired eyes fixed on the screens. Any minute now, Slick would get his attention out front, somehow – Karkat hadn't pressed him on that – and ideally the guard would leave to investigate.

Any minute now, Karkat assured himself, as his heart tried gamely to pound a hole through his chest wall.

Any minu – Oh thank God he was moving. Karkat saw the first stone glance off the front of the bank in the screen, and evidently the guard did too. By the time the second stone struck, he was out of his chair and off into the depths of the bank, flashlight beam slicing a dusty path through the dark. Karkat took a breath and moved.

The door swung open on well-oiled hinges. There was the back Wall, in the corridor leading to the bank, not the one leading to the viewing room. After all, why would there need to be one there? The money was in the vault, not the viewing room.

Karkat had been mildly amused by this obviously retarded train of thought when Slick had explained it to him earlier, but now he was too nervous to think much about anything but the task at hand. His sneakers scuffed on the linoleum, he was going to leave footprints, what if he couldn't get the pill bottle open . . .

The coffee was mostly full, abandoned on the desk. He fumbled the pill bottle out of his pocket and managed to open it with shaking hands. The capsules cracked open easily, and he emptied their contents into the styrofoam cup. He pulled on his gloves and picked the cup up, swirling it cautiously. Then he set it back down, achingly careful not to spill any, and darted back out of the room, into the night, closing the door softly. The bush rustled as he settled back behind it, and he clicked the radio on. "Okay."

There wasn't a response, and for a minute he wondered if that was supposed to happen. Had the guard called for backup or something? What if Slick had got pinched – it wouldn't have been the first time, and it's not like they'd even done anything yet, so he'd get off pretty easily, but still, how long was Karkat supposed to wait?

It felt like he waited an eternity. The bush scratched at his skin, the cold bit at his fingers and his breath rose in a misty cloud in front of him. His horns tingled, although he wasn't sure if that was his imagination. A frigid breeze ruffled his hair.

And then Slick came around the corner, like nothing had happened. Karkat breathed a sigh of relief, sagging into the twigs and leaves. He glanced to the window, confirming that the guard had likewise returned. In the room, the guard peered closer at the Walls, then shrugged, took a sip of coffee, and sat down. Slick leaned against the wall next to Karkat, a little more out of the wind.

The sip wouldn't have been enough to knock the guy out. It would have been enough to make him tired, which would prompt him to take a deeper drink of the coffee, and the cycle would go on. He wouldn't remember any of it when he came around.

He'd gotten another cup of coffee by the time the drugs kicked in and his system gave up the ghost. He keeled over across the desk, shoulders heaving as he snored. Slick nodded. "Move."

It shouldn't have been that easy, Karkat thought, as they walked into the bank. One guy? The Walls must be a lot harder to crack than Slick expected, otherwise why else would security be so lax? But Slick just shoved his hand into the space behind the Wall and the actual wall and fished around for a minute. Then the picture of the sleeping guard flickered and died.

"Are you fucking serious?" Karkat asked. Slick shrugged. "This is a fucking embarrassment," he hissed to the man as they made their way through the bank. "Who the fuck keeps their money here?"

"Fucking idiots and graveyard stuffers," Slick answered. "And The Dunes."

"The casino?"

"Gotta keep it somewhere kid. Now shut up." The lobby of the bank lay ahead, the giant fenestrated wall hanging from the ceiling, glaring down on the marble floor. The guard's snoring echoed through the building.

Karkat blinked up at it. "So what do we do about that?" he whispered.

Slick tapped the wall behind them and they both looked up to the vent over their heads. "Cables're up there."

It was then that both realized that the vent was seven feet in the air, and neither of them was anywhere near tall enough. Slick glared up at the vent, like it had offended him. "Get a fucking chair."

The only chair Karkat could get his hands on without stepping into the Wall's line was one of the stupid spinny chairs, the kind that rotated and had the hydraulics to boost it up. He grabbed it, dragging it behind him with a minimum of rattling, back to where Slick was waiting below the vent. He put it at its highest setting and stabilized it while his guardian clambered up and snagged the vent cover.

"Fucking unstable piece of shit."

"Sorry." He watched Slick haul himself up to the vent one-handed and then work what was left of his right arm into the space, wedging his skinny shoulders in the opening. The tip of his shoe caught the wainscoting and he braced himself against that. Karkat waited, still nervous but much less so, until there was a crackle of electricity and a whiff of smoke. The Wall blinked off.

Slick slid back down and Karkat handed the vent cover back up to him, not a trace of their incursion visible. "Embarrassing," he repeated, as he dragged the chair back to where he'd found it.

"We don't have the fucking money yet, Karkat." They ducked behind the counter and wove through the desks to the door to the vault. Karkat inhaled sharply when the black door loomed ahead, shiny and solid in the dark. Behind them, the dark expanse of the Wall buzzed.

Slick ran his hand down the face of the vault, fingers lingering on the dial. He jiggled the handle, and then frowned. "It's a fucking Feynman. God damnit."

"What's that mean?"

Slick turned on him. "Remember your fifth birthday?"

Karkat's mind scrambled, his head cocked. "The fuck . . .?" But there was that politely expectant look that suggested you were ten seconds or less away from getting your throat cut, and he coughed. "The year you gave me a fucking hotel safe and no combination?"

"Good." Karkat suddenly found his hand full of stethoscope. Slick strolled off, slouching back into one of the teller's chairs. "Fucking hurry it along."

"You are shitting me." He snapped the stethoscope into his ears and shot Slick a death glare, but the man seemed otherwise occupied with the stamps behind the counter. "This is stupid."

Well, he was robbing a bank. Safe-cracking was probably inferred in that job description. He held the stethoscope against the vault's face and spun the dial all the way around, experimentally, waiting for the click. It wasn't that it never came – it was that it came twice. He looked to Slick, wide-eyed. "It's not like the hotel safe."

"Fucking Feynmans." Slick got back up and stood behind Karkat, ear pressed to the safe. "Spin it." Click, click. "Ah, shit. Alright. Slow." Karkat spun the dial, stethoscope pressed hard against the door, the wheel turning by millimeters. "Stop." He glanced up.

"Forty-seven. What was the difference?"

"You can feel the tumbler hit." Karkat shifted the stethoscope up, so his hand was resting next to the dial. He spun it the other way, past 47, and then slowly around the rest of the dial. "Stop," Slick said, and this time Karkat thought he felt the little tic under the dial.

"Thirty." He spun again, and this time he was looking up before Slick said anything. "Twenty-two." He stood back, pulled the stethoscope down, and hesitantly reached for the dial.

"The fuck are you worried about? Go."

He spun the combination, probably overcautious, but there was a very definite clank when he hit the twenty-two and Slick yanked the handle. The vault swung open. "Holy shit."

It was organized, not like in the movies where there were just bags of money sitting around. Slick went straight for one cash locker, picking the lock on it and hauling out bag after bag of cash. "Holy shit, Dad."

"Fucking move it, Karkat."

The troll – six and a half years old, with his whole life ahead of him – blinked. "Holy shit."

Slick let his head loll back, money over his shoulder. "That thirty percent is what you fucking make of it, kid."

Karkat jumped then, hauling money out of the locker Slick had opened, hoisting the safe deposit drawers open, stuffing wads upon wads of bills into the bags they already had out. They left the jewelry and the documents – too hard to get rid of, and stupid when there was this much loose cash sitting around – and piled everything else up in the middle of the room. Karkat grabbed a trashcan – the kind with wheels – and upended it in the vault. They filled it to the top with the money then and walked out of the vault, Karkat pushing the trashcan and Slick meandering ahead.

And just like that, Karkat Vantas was a bankrobber.

Slick helped him pull the garbage can down the stairs out back, and they pushed it across the empty space to the parking garage. His guardian popped the trunk to the car and he and Karkat slung the cash into the back. By the time Karkat finished taking the trashcan back to the corridor and shutting the back door to the bank, Slick was in the car. "Drive. Calm."

They'd gone ten blocks before Karkat's hands finally stopped shaking. Slick had the window cracked, cigarette ash dropping to the pavement. "Where . . ." he started, but his voice cracked and broke. He took a breath, swallowed and tried again. "Where are we going?"

"Home."

"Home? What about all the money? If the cops come by –"

"Kid, that robbery was fucking clean." He sniffed and leaned back in the seat. "They'll be looking, sure, but they ain't gonna get a damn warrant off that." He flicked the cigarette butt out the window. "I'm fucking astonished how smoothly shit goes when people fucking listen to me."

Karkat smiled a little. "Yeah?" He sat a little taller on the stack of books. "Fuck yeah."

"Language, kid." He rolled his eyes as the car trundled along the main drag, casino lights blaring even at this hour. He looked over when Karkat started laughed. "What?"

He shouldn't say anything, but between the giddiness left in the wake of being wound so tight all night, and the exhaustion that was rapidly creeping in at the corners of his brain, he threw caution to the wind. What the hell, he just robbed a fucking bank. "Well, this afternoon at school I was talking to Terezi about what I was doing tonight and she thought I was all lame." He snickered. "Stupid."

Slick was watching him now though, calculating, and he faltered. "Terezi as in Snowman's Terezi?"

"Uh, hng. Yes." He shrugged it off. "We sit next to each other in geology."

"Hm." Slick pulled the Ace of Spades out and flipped the card idly between his fingers, leaned back in the seat. "Terezi as in gallowsCalibrator, yeah?"

"What?" It was all Karkat could do not to slam on the brakes. "You looked at my fucking computer!"

"Technically it's my fucking computer, Karkat. And you left that stupid program open, whatever it's called." Karkat sputtered, rage building up to near-critical levels. It took a minute to register that Slick was laughing at him. "Relax, kid."

"That is a flagrant invasion of my privacy!"

"I'm your fucking guardian; I'm allowed." He shrugged. "You like her?"

"This is also a flagrant invasion of my privacy!" Slick was snickering. "So what if I do? Just because you hate her mom doesn't mean you can tell me what to do and read all my fucking conversations!"

Slick trailed off into silence, still smirking, hand over his eyes. "She's the one with the fucking terrible dragon shirts?"

"She likes them."

"Hng." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "They are pretty fucking terrible."

"Yeah. Her mom buys them for her."

That got his attention. "Yeah? Huh." He flicked the Ace into the glove box. "Fucking bitch."

Karkat sagged. "Can we not talk about this right now?" Slick shrugged again. They'd left the lights of the casinos behind now, and Karkat was steering through the outlying residential streets, weaving his way home. "So what do we do with all this money when we get home?" He looked to Slick, who was busy lighting another cigarette. "Do we get to count it? That would be so cool."

Spades shook the match out and dropped it out the window. "How else d'you think we're gonna figure out your forty percent?"

Karkat turned the car and shifted it into reverse, hitting the accelerator so it could make the bump up onto the sidewalk. He backed it up to the front door, shifted back to neutral, pulled the brake and killed the engine, flat-toothed grin gleaming in the streetlights. "Awesome."

-()-

Around two that night, the Midnight Crew's auxiliary black van rounded the corner by the bank and was immediately bathed in blue and red flashing lights. Clubs hit the brakes, expression more confused than usual. "Huh?"

"Someone tipped the cops off," Hearts snarled. "Drive, Clubs." Just as he barked the order, a detective in a long brown coat strolled up to the car and knocked on the driver's window. Droog, in the back with the supplies, leaned up between the front seats.

"A minute of your time, gentlemen." The cop snapped his gum and gestured to the bank with his flashlight. "Street's closed. You all know anything about what's going on here?"

Droog raised his eyebrows, expression mild. "No, officer."

The cop looked skeptical. "Yeah, okay. So you all were just driving around, don't know anything about the robbery here earlier?"

Even Droog looked surprised at that. "You mean someone already robbed it?" Boxcars stuttered.

The detective rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Hearts, someone already got to it tonight. Hate to get in the way of your plans." He peered into the van. "Where's Slick got to?"

Clubs grinned broadly. "He took the night off." Boxcars thumped him.

"Alright, whatever." The detective pushed his hat back and ran his fingers through his hair. "So you all weren't in on this?"

"Of course not, officer," Droog said, and the way he managed to be so affronted by the question would have made one think he was angling for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. "We were trying to drive over to Nero's."

But the detective was already walking away, back to his black and white car. "Have a good night, gentlemen." Clubs rolled the window up and put the van in reverse.

"So what now?" Boxcars ventured, cautiously, because as soon as the detective had left Droog's expression had gone distant, cold, and very angry.

"Get me to a phone, Deuce. Now."

In the townhouse, half a city away, Slick answered on the third ring. Karkat, cross-legged on the floor in the middle of a money fort, looked up curiously. "What?" There was shouting on the other end of the phone, too loud to be intelligible. "Sorry Droog, you're gonna have to slow the fuck down."

"Someone already robbed the joint!"

"Hm?" Slick leaned back in his chair and pulled his hat off, tossing it on top of the piano. "Which joint?"

"Goddammit, Slick!"

"Oh, you mean that bank you all were gonna rob? Huh. Damn shame, considering all the work you – well, me, really – put into that." There was something else, and Slick just shook his head. "No, no idea who it might have been."

"You're a fucking liar, Jack!"

"Droog?" Slick clamped the phone between his jaw and his shoulder, and riffled through a wad of bills, right by the receiver. "Sorry, Droog, I have to hang the fuck up; I can't hear you over the enormous sum of money I'm counting." Karkat could hear Droog shouting through the phone, even as Slick dropped the receiver back into the holster.

"He mad?"

Spades smiled serenely – it was the happiest Karkat had seen him look since his run-in with Snowman a few months ago. "Fucking furious."

-()-

THE END LOL.