Juncture 3.5

I had no idea what to do. Siegfried and I were here to recruit this guy, and he was planning on robbing this bank, not with a gun, but with freaking dynamite. He was looking at me, waiting for me to talk for him. I didn’t really have a choice in the matter, apparently, so I just swallowed and did it.

“Excuse me, can I please have your attention,” I began, “Um, so this is kind of weird. You see this guy here?” People began looking in my direction, and the guy waved the hand that he wasn’t holding behind his back.

“Yeah, so he gave me a note and told me to talk for him. He’s, um… well, he’s robbing the bank. He has dynamite behind his back.” At this, the man pulled out his hand, revealing five sticks of dynamite tied into a bundle, with the fuses attached at the top as well. His other hand reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter.

I heard a man scream from way in the front of the building. There were some gasps of terror.

The man in the scarf and hat leaned next to me and whispered in my ear. His voice was raspy, even through the scarf, and the combination of that and the fact that he was whispering made it so that I could barely understand what he was saying.

“Tell them…get on the ground. They won’t get hurt.” I gulped and nodded.

“He said, if you just get on the ground, you won’t get hurt. Please do it.” The people in the bank acquiesced, some laying down with their hands above their heads, some sitting, others simply falling and landing on their butts, wanting to do what I was saying as fast as possible. Even Siegfried got on the ground. As he was descending onto his knees, he looked at me, as if to say “you know what to do.”

The man grabbed the neck of my jacket with the hand holding the lighter and dragged me up to the desk. He whispered to me again.

“He said that he needs you to open the vault. And if you don’t, dynamite. He also said that if you call the cops, he’ll blow up everyone in here.” Repeating what he said was terrifying, but I tried my damnedest to stay calm and not let my voice waver.

The tellers looked shocked, but kept composed remarkably well. One of them walked and opened the entrance to the booth. The guy walked in, and dragged me with him.

We were led by the teller into a back room. The room seemed small and claustrophobic, since it was surrounded by enormous safes. The guy whispered in my ear again.

“He’s looking for unmarked bills,” I said. The teller nodded, and walked over to one of the large safes. He spent several tense moments unlocking it. The guy next to me was flicking the lighter on and off absentmindedly.

The teller stood back and swung open the heavy safe door, then stood behind it, as if to protect himself. Inside the room were stacks of bills on wooden pallets, reaching up to the ceiling. There was more money than I had ever seen. The guy shoved his lighter into his pocket and jogged inside, leaving me behind to gawk.

He skidded onto his knees in front of the piles of cash, and began shoving wads of bills into his now empty backpack. The dynamite laid behind him, apparently forgotten. This would probably be my best chance.

I ran into the vault, grabbed the dynamite from the ground, then turned around and ran as fast as I could. I heard a loud, raspy “Hey!” behind me from the robber, and suddenly the dynamite in my hand was gone. I slid to a stop, turned around.

What the hell?

He was standing next to his half-full bag, gripping the dynamite with both hands. He shook his head.

He could teleport things, or something like that. Probably not necessarily teleporting directly, but some variant. Something to do with time travel.

“Don’t try that again,” he rasped, “you’ll only make me angry.”

He put the dynamite down again, and began shoveling money into his bag. I could only watch in despair as he was getting away with it. He finished, stood back up, slung the bag over his shoulders and walked back toward me. He looked at me and pointed at the safe door, to where the teller was. I got it, he was telling me to get the door locked.

I walked up to the door, until I could see the teller. He was terrified.

“Is he gone?” he whispered? I shook my head.

“No, but he’s leaving. He wants you to close the door. Please just do it.” The teller nodded, and began moving the heavy steel door back into its closed position.

I walked back over to the guy. He had pulled out the little lighter again, and was holding it close to the wrapped fuses of the red dynamite. We walked back out of the bank, him leading the way.

The room was emptier. Some smarter people had taken the opportunity to run from the bank as soon as we had went into the back room of the building. Others, not so smart, had stood up again, and as they saw us slowly got back on the ground. A third category of people hadn’t gotten up since we had been in there. Major General Siegfried was in this group, still sitting on the ground with his hands above his head.

He looked at me, and I looked at him. He was mouthing something, but I couldn’t make it out. He tilted his head toward the guy in the scarf and made a quick jabbing motion with his elbow.

He wanted me to attack the man. Okay, I could do that. I just had to hope that he couldn’t teleport me as well as object.

I pounced.