Not For the Feint (Pax)

“What do I know? I know the gang we share is in disarray. The culprit was instability. Elements of the us expanded too fast. We failed to evade the attentions of the law. With the Vanishing, Feds have directed all their resources to mere organised crime syndicates. Syndicates like ours – the Sons of Saints.

“What do I know? I know we've been hit from Jump to Star. Border Police cut off our supply line to drugs. We turned to other suppliers. The Feds had gotten there first. Before we realised they had names, they had addresses, they had our chain of command all figured out. Lightning raids shut down our local depos. Too much evidence was confiscated. They can pin a rap sheet five miles long on any one of us.

“What do I know? I know last month they took Boss DiFronzo. Straight out of one of his warehouses. Maybe it was bad timing. Possibly a rat. He's looking at life with no parole. That's if his lawyers are as competent as he claims they are. I'm not convinced. But funnily enough he didn't ask for my legal advice. The prosecutors are pressing for a death penalty. Even offering to cut his boys some deals if he doesn't fight it. But you know the Boss. He wants his cake and to eat it too.

“What do I know? I know they're holding him at Jump Penitentiary. Not the old meta-human one. Yet maximum security all the same. But that keeps folks from breaking out. Not breaking in. He wants us to do just that. Risk our oh so invaluable gifts on an impromptu escape plan. We have to get him free. After the fact, arrangements have been made to lie low. Eventually revive the Saints from underground.”
 
Two pixelated arms crossed in a show of displeasure. Pix gave his associate a withering look from across the room (>_>), “What I didn't know was that I'd have to work with a liability like you, Haze.“

"Liability?" saying the word left a bad taste in his mouth. Was this 8-bit half-wit actually calling  him the liability? he mimicked his Pix's arm crossing to show that the displeasure was more than mutual. As much as he wanted to give Pix the hardest of evil glares, his face was nothing more than a smokey obstruction. He was Haze after all, the thief with no face. Or at least that's what some called him. And he didn't want to drop his veil just to be petty.

He didn't trust Pix, and it went beyond the bad blood the two had for each other. The Sons of Saints were in shambles. Nothing more than a small fraction of its former glory. It was exactly as Pix had explained (Even though Haze knew every detail before Pix spoke it. Sometimes Haze wondered if the kid just liked to hear himself speak.) and there was a chance Pix set the entire 'Get the boss out of the slammer' plan to get him in the slammer as part of some plea bargain he set up with the D.A. Haze was never good at understanding the legal system, mind you. But either way he was still wary of his co-worker, for lack of a better word.

The bad blood was completely Pix's fault. They had a heist together. Their first and final time working together. Pix bolted with the cash the seconds the alarms went off and left poor Haze to fend for himself against fully armed guards. He never let it go. Of course Pix might say otherwise, but Pix is a liar.

But either way he had to work with him, as much as he hated the idea. What the boss wanted, the boss got, that's just the way gangs work. And it was especially true for the leader of the Saints. But of all people, Pix? The pay had better compensate for pain and suffering.

"Whatever, Pixie. Let's just get past all the kiddie squabble and get to the why we're here." As much as he would love to trade insults, the sooner they got this over with the sooner he could stop staring at his stupid emoticon of a face.

" Between the two of us, we can get in there no problem. With your pixel stuff and my smoke, it'd be like taking candy from a baby." He paused for a moment to stroke where his chin should have been. "Getting back out, I see that being trouble. By the time we get to Boss, somebody's gonna know we're there. And I doubt their just gonna let us all waltz out of there. But I'm assuming the great Pixie has some scheme concocted to get all three of us out alive?"

As you can probably imagine; the bad blood here was completely anyone but Pix's fault. There were a whole host of reasons why their last heist went haywire; bad weather, faulty equipment, guards wandering out of routine, Haze being incompetence incarnate – take your pick. Hugh put emphasis on the latter. It wasn't coincidence those alarms triggered. He couldn't prove it but Pix knew his hapless cohort had bungled. The scheme itself was flawless, only failing to account for human error. Once compromised it made clear what they were to do – flee immediately. Somehow Haze's slow-wittedness on that aspect became Hugh's fault. Amateur.
 
The two meta-humans faced each other from either side of a carpenter's saw table. This building was under construction. It had only been chosen as a meeting point because of its proximity to the jail-house in question. A set of blinds lay half-closed in the room aspiring to become a kitchen. Next to those blinds was a binocular stand, angled at a guard station. A restricted perimeter surrounded the penitentiary itself where all trespassers would be warned off by security, so surveillance on any grander scale was limited.
 
Regardless, Pix had done a satisfactory job with the information available. Though it would all be undone if he could not trust the people to carry out his instructions. Kiddie squabbles were not yet over. In fact the sprite would insist on them. Pix found himself agreeing with Haze's initial analysis. The two of them had abilities and experience well suited to subverting security measures. By themselves they would find little difficulty getting inside. Only getting DiFronzo back out would prove a challenge worthy of his merit.
 
He was flattered, really, to be given a chance to prove his tactical brilliance. Though Hugh had reason to doubt the boss's own brilliance. How could the man ever expect sworn enemies to work together efficiently? It was a disaster waiting to happen. Hugh would have to maintain complete control to prevent any mishaps.
 
“Our extraction was the first thing I thought of.” Pix commented dryly, “When you're learning to drive, you're taught the brake pedal before the accelerator. So yeah, I've gotten us covered there.” Escape was the most crucial part of any plan. What use were they to the boss if neither could try again? “I won't bore you with the details – mostly because I'm not gonna let you know anything about it. Carry on.” As if to decide an end to that matter, Hugh turned to busy himself with the binoculars.

In the midst of adjusting his telescope, Hugh's hand suddenly grasped thin air. A wave of mist materialised and washed across his face (o__o), which would have produced a hacking cough out of anyone else. As a computer sprite, Pix could not inhale the irritant, allowing him to just frown with disapproval (-__-). He wafted a gout of smoke from his eyes, also spared any debilitating effects, and reluctantly returned his attention to Haze. The fellow metahuman was proving difficult to ignore.
 
Were he a fairer man, Pix would have to admit he valued a power-set like Haze's highly. The ability to sublimate from a distance had many versatile applications. In fact, he couldn't guess why the lad wasn't more notorious. Apparently it took intelligence to utilise a class-A superpower to its fullest potential. Unless there were limitations to said ability Pix wasn't privy to. He would have to figure those restrictions out himself by careful observation. Not for any untoward reason, but because Hugh merited capabilities based on a person's limitations. As of now, he judged Haze solely on his mental faculties, which he held a certain bias against.
 
The fool had derived a conclusion after their last encounter which Pix could not forgive. He erroneously held the impression that Hugh was of a treacherous nature. There were accusations of untrustworthiness, of betrayal. A quality the sprite loathed above all else. To suggest he had willingly landed a comrade in the shitter was deeply offensive. Pix could not imagine anybody who had gotten his character so wrong held any worthwhile opinions.
 
“Grief, this again. I'm sorry I wasn't there to hold your hand. We'll take Blankie with us this time, shall we? Just suck your thumb until the mean old policemen go away.” Spite came easily between the pair. It would appear they could not abide one another. Hugh especially had the failing of clinging onto past slights against his character. For that reason he wasn't going to 'play ball' so easily. After all – he was holding all the cards.
 
“If you're so concerned about my intentions then why don't you just come up with your own extraction plan? OH WAIT!” Both arms threw up theatrically. He'd have added 'duh duh' sounds to emphasise his point, but just managed to hang onto that last thread of maturity. Haze wasn't going to come up with anything half as good as him, and he fancied they both knew it, “On second thought. Let's hear yours. I think it would give us all a well deserved laugh. I'll even start it off for you: You put the lime in the coconut and – blank.”

"Riot." he replied simply to his associate after the word 'and' left his mouth. or what he assumed what his mouth was.He made his way slowly back to his seat while he forced his brain to go into overdrive to concoct some sort of plan that didn't make him look like an idiot. Pix was correct that Haze couldn't come up with a plan better than 'get in, get Boss, get out', but he needed something to put a pin in Pix's ego and deflate it. Improvisation was more Haze's forte and what has kept him out of the clinker. By the time his bottom touched his chair he had drummed up something in his mind he hoped would impress Pix. It wasn't like he wouldn't be able to tell. The boy had a miserable poker face.

"Getting in isn't the problem like I said before. It's getting out with Boss that's the problem. So here's my plan. with a whisk of his hand the binoculars were a puff of smoke once more, and returned to their original position. "Next guard change, I lay down some nice thick smoke to cover him and the cameras. That's when you knock the guy out, take his access card  and run in with me behind you. These guys are equipped for normals not metas, so we should be able to get to the security room easy. Once we get there we take out the guards in the room as you do your techie stuff to open the cells and disable any overrides they have. Boss is expecting us and he's been in long enough to have at least a dozen goons working for him to keep him safe until we get there. We use the goons as meat shields and drop them before we leave the front gate. I put up another fog and take our happy asses back home."

It was an admittedly craptastic plan with more holes than Swiss cheese. But that was the best he had. And he was also sure he took most of it from a prison break movie he saw a few years back. He decided to ignore Pix's comments about the blankie. Bickering back and forth with him was going to get the two of them nowhere. And as much as he hated to admit it, Pix was good at what he did and he needed him, at least for now. Plus he heard a rumor he could and a bullet to the face and that would be handy.

“It would be quicker for all involved if we broke in with a game of Russian Roulette.”
 
To take it seriously: This alternate scheme was unacceptably reckless. It was fine putting themselves in harms way (especially Haze) but when there was a chance the Boss could catch a bullet, that became one risk too many. Only once did Pix's face change, briefly flashing surprise at the mention of accomplices on the inside. Oh yeah. Guess he hadn't thought of that. It would help smooth things along.
 
“I prefer a static shield to one of meat. People tend to duck and weave and basically leave gaps for a stray bullet. We are not sending the Boss into a fire-fight. Too much can go wrong. Making a plan is suppose to eliminate these coin tosses.” And Hugh wasn't going to even mention the doubts he held over his own technical capabilities. Manipulating a terminal he'd never seen before? He wouldn't put money on such a thing, “No. The best way to stop guards gunning us down is to employ their help in breaking everyone out.” The sprite let that sentiment hang as he debated elaborating on it.
 
“I'm not suggesting a massive bribe campaign, but prisons have certain obligations to prisoners. Namely - not letting them choke to death in the event of a fire alarm.” In an attempt to validate his superiority, Pix was suddenly very willing to divulge his plot. It would accentuate the gulf of competency between him and this narc, “The most common cause of fire is electrical fault. This joint has electric doors. Therefore giving a valid excuse to create a lock-down in any area of the building we want. After us two have control of the surveillance terminals, that is. Guards provide the keys, you provide the smoke, I'll hinder the investigation crews. Like rats in a maze we can send those prisoners wherever we need. Then we unlock a door, inform the boss to slip away, and seal it behind him.”
 
Upon the carpenter's table lay some sawdust Pix now traced through with his finger. A crude perimeter was made surrounding three dots, meant to represent them, as well as a decidedly larger pile of sawdust, “Accounting for delays we cause, the other prisoners will eventually gather in an assembly area. Only after the roll-call will they realise someone is missing. Before that, the lion's share of security is observing the main populous. If we trash surveillance before we leave, they will have no idea where we went. After all that, a cloud of smoke across the perimeter won't seem laughably suspicious any more and we can use such a device to escape.”
 
“It's safe with a lot of tolerance for setbacks.” (>_>) “The Boss already arranged an open communication channel between us. He'll be prepared to take advantage of the confusion we instigate. Yes, with his goons likely providing extra backbone.” Pix summarised his point neatly as he clasped hands behind his back, “Or, I don't know, what was your thing again?”