Athena's Court

Chapter 1

There is no such thing as stealing from rich people.

Jackal sat atop a branch, his dad's words resonating in his mind. He looked at the industrial complex towering up before him. Lights chimed through the large windows, breaking through the darkness outside.

Jackal took his binoculars, staring through one of the windows. Some people carried loaves of bread, placing them on an assembly line. Others were busy pushing rusty oven racks away from burning ovens, sweat dripping from their brows.

"Do you see anything unusual?" a voice asked from beneath him.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," Jackal replied, looking down at the slender young man. Lash.

Jackal brought the binoculars back up to his eyes, looking at the entrance of the building. Delivery vans stood lined up, ready to take in the next batch of goods and transport them to the rich folks in Antwerp. They wouldn't mind some items going missing.

He heard Lash signal something, and another man stepped out of the shadows of a nearby tree. A much larger man, built like he had a lifetime supply of all things protein, which Jackal always found odd. How did he get the nutrients to get this big?

Lash greeted the giant with a handshake. "You ready for this, Flak?"

"As always," Flak said, dropping a dark bag before Lash's feet.

Jackal tried to crawl down, losing his grip. He could barely hold on to one of the lower branches, doing his best to land as smoothly as possible, in which he failed tremendously. One loud thud later, Jackal laid back first on the grassy grounds.

Flak couldn't help but laugh, a loud and deep sound that made Jackal question if everyone inside the bakery hadn't heard it.

He extended a hand towards Jackal, helping him up.

"First-time jitters getting to you? Happens to everyone," he said, patting Jackal on the back.

Flak turned towards Lash, which gave Jackal time to stretch the now sore spot where Flak patted him.

"Do you have a plan for us?" Flak grinned slyly. "It's a rhetorical question, I know you do."

Lash took a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, stretching it out on the ground in front of them. "You'd be correct."

A half grin betrayed his pride in this plan as he started to explain. "I've asked people who work here some questions and deduced what I think is an accurate floor plan."

He pointed towards the paper, which showed the top-down view of the building. His finger rested on a small room at the front of the building.

"This is the storage room," he continued. "This is where they store all the bread produced during the day."

He looked up, pointing at the delivery vans in front of the building. "It should be approximately there. They open a gate, they drop the food into those vans, and they're off. They do this every day at 8 PM."

"So in half an hour?" Jackal asked, his heartbeat accelerating. "Isn't this a terrible time to break in then?"

This was all getting real, and Jackal began to have polarizing feelings about the situation.

"That's where you're wrong," he smiled, wiggling his finger. "In the next 30 minutes, nobody will drop off food in that room anymore. Everything for today should be baked and ready for the picking."

"Have some faith in our mastermind," Flak said, patting Jackal on the back again. A faint sorry escaped Jackal's mouth, muffled by the sudden burst of pain re-entering his shoulder.