Retirement Day

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"Look in locker number 2-8-8, you'll find what I've got in store for you"

After that, the man on the other end of the line hangs up on the call. Frank then puts the burner phone back in his pocket and immediately steps off the train as it arrives at the station. He gets off and heads to the locker storage area, key in hand. He finds locker number 288 and opens it. Inside it is a black velvet box, with the numbers "2-8-8" written on top. He takes the box out of the locker, revealing the note that was under it. On the note was an address to a certain storage unit on the edge of the city, and a very specific set of instructions as to which buses to take. Finally, the note also said that he should only open the box upon arriving at the storage unit. He was also obviously being instructed to cover his trails since the route he's told to take was very indirect, and almost absolutely confusing.

It takes Frank about a 20-minute bus ride to get to the storage unit complex. The place was, weirdly enough, unguarded. The front gates to the complex were wide open, and apparently, anybody with keys to the storage units could waltz in.

After a few minutes of walking around the facility, Frank finally gets to his designated storage unit -- unit 34B, which was along a line of storage units that were substantially bigger than the rest -- and he opens the "288" box, only to find another locking mechanism in inside, with a little red light on it. Frustrated, Frank drops the box and picks up his phone to dial his contact.

"Hey, buddy. What the fuck is this?! Stop fucking with me, alright."

"Are you at the unit?" the man on the phone asks back.

"Yeah, I'm at the unit. Now what?"

The man on the phone abruptly hangs up the call. "Fuck!", Frank screams out. Suddenly, he hears a "click" sound come from the box. He picks it up, opens it, and finds that the light has now turned green. He opens the box and inside it is the key to the storage unit door. He inserts the key into a keyhole on a panel beside the unit's door, twists it, and the door starts rolling up. The lights in the unit come on to reveal a car, wrapped under sheets. Upon seeing this, Frank grew more frustrated. He was expecting this to be the unit where he'd finally get to see his daughter again, but that wasn't the case.

Frank walks over to the car and pulls the sheets away to reveal a pristine, mint-condition, red Ferrari 288 GTO. "Holy shit", Frank whispers to himself. He then takes another look at the velvet box he got from the station locker. "2-8-8. Of course." All of a sudden, the phone rings again. It's his contact.

"Like what you see?" Asks the man on the phone. "Only 272 examples of this were ever made. But, of course, that's just some bullshit 'Rari came up with just to make it more valuable. They actually made 280 of these babies, with the 8 undisclosed examples having their VINs tracked in secret", says the man.

Frank looks at the back corner of the room and sees a CCTV camera trained onto him. "Oh cut the crap, asshole! Where the hell's my daughter?! I want her! Not a fucking 288!"

"Relax, Frank. We'll get there. For now, there's something I need you to do for me."

"What?!", asks Frank, annoyed.

"Get in the car and start her up. The keys are on the passenger seat."

Frank hesitates at first, but eventually does as the man says and hops into the 288. True enough, the keys were placed on the passenger seat beside him. He puts the key into the ignition, starts it up, and shuts the door. The V8 rumbles into life, sounding as if it was just built yesterday. The thing was flawless. The interior was just as mint as the rest of the car's exterior and powertrain. Sure, the black leather with red accents and red contrast-stitching seemed a bit worn from use over the years, but it still looked really well preserved, probably because of good-old quality Italian stitch-work..

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⏰ Last updated: Nov 28, 2018 ⏰

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