Day 157: 13 April 2026

 Short Story -- The Players

‘This is a terrible idea,’ she whispered to the backs of her companions’ heads. 

‘Not if you follow the plan I laid out,’ hissed Rune, the oldest and the leader of the trio. 

Ajax stayed quiet. Personally he was of the same opinion as Cicily, but he didn’t want to be seen to agree with her or go against Rune. 

They stopped at the giant reinforced steel vault door. It was twice as tall as Rune, who was around six foot and wide enough that at least five people their size could comfortably walk in side to side. 

‘Wow,’ Ajax whistled softly under his breath. 

Rune nodded to the door and Cicily stepped forward. From an invisible pocket she pulled out a sleeve of safe cracking tools. She took a deep breath and stepped forward. 

‘You’re going to slow,’ Rune whispered angrily. 

‘You can’t rush cracking a safe!’ Cicily whispered back fiercely. 

‘What if there are hidden cameras or sensors that we’ve tripped?’ Ajax added softly. 

Cicily had gotten past the first number in the code. She was focused now, specifically tuning out both Rune and Ajax. 

Rune shoved her and she toppled over. 

‘What the!’ she started, no longer whispering. 

‘You’re taking too long,’ Rune spat. And he started adhering something to the door. 

‘Explosives!’ Cicily said. ‘This is a terrible idea.’ 

‘It’s a fast solution,’ Rune said. 

The three of the backed up and the door popped. 

BANG! 

After that, silence. 

‘No alarm. See, they don’t think anyone can get this far. Now come on,’ Rune said, lightly stepping into the vault. 

‘Or the alarms are just silent ones,’ Ajax muttered. 

The three froze once inside. This wasn’t a vault, it was a museum hidden behind a vault’s door. 

‘Now what are we going to do?!’ Cicily asked. ‘This place is huge!’ 

And then a voice sounded, ‘Catjeet can help you. For a price.’ 

‘Catjeet?’ Ajax asked.

‘What’s a Catjeet?’ Cicily queried. 

And that’s when they saw a long, lanky cat sauntering their way. 

‘It’s a cat!’ Cicily exclaimed. 

‘And it talks!’ said Ajax dubiously. 

Rune rolled his eyes at them and turned to Catjeet skeptically, ‘Why would you help us? You don’t even know what we’re looking for.’

The cat smiled fiendishly. ‘Perhaps,’ he purred, ‘Catjeet is just bored and will find the chaos entertaining.’