Two grey figures emerge from the top of the concrete building and zip down the shadowed face in relative darkness. They reach the ground with sure feet in quick succession and the more petite of them retrieves the tool used to scale the wall. It is done with familiarity, as though she has done this a thousand times, or more. Once the tool is secured to her body, she sprints to the taller figure who is now sitting atop a slim machine of steel. A flick of the wrist kick-starts the machine and it rises from the ground, hovering above it. Another flick and the machine bursts forward, propelling the two figures into the swirling fog that envelops them in no time at all.

—

“This little box had better be worth the trouble,” Yuri says, flipping the rectangular metallic block around on her palm.

A corner of Taeyeon’s lips lifts. She nods and the tips of her soft ash-brown hair brush against her shoulders as she says, “It is.”

“What’s in it?”

“A ring,” Taeyeon answers as she powers up her computer.

Yuri raises an eyebrow. “A ring? What kind of ring?”

“Lord Liveyrev received it as a gift recently.” Taeyeon makes out quotation marks with her fingers. “A gift.”

“No . Don’t tell me it’s—”

“The Blue Sapphire.”

“Damn. I wanna have a look.”

“Be my guest,” Taeyeon replies as she keys a series of commands into the computer program.

“How do you open it?”

“Good question.”

Yuri pushes the floor with her feet and her chair rolls towards Taeyeon. “You’re telling me you don’t know how to open?”

“You left out an essential word.”

“What?”

“Yet.”

“Oh great.” Yuri slumps on her chair and rolls her eyes in dramatic fashion. “Here we are, awake in the wee hours of the new day instead of sleeping in our thousand-dollar beds and you’re telling me we just did all that physical exercise for a box we can’t open?”

“Yet.”

Yuri dumps the box on the table beside Taeyeon’s hand. “I’m going to bed,” she announces as she stands.

“Good night.”

“Good morning.”

—

 A couple hours later, Taeyeon locks the little metal box in the vault, leaves the basement and retires to her bedroom upstairs. Shedding the muddy-green shirt of hers as she walks across the room, she sinks into her bed in her plain white tee and safari-green shorts. Exhaustion weighs in as she lies there so she resorts to tugging her shorts off by lifting just her bum from the bed. It is ironic that lying on her bed makes her feel more tired than rested. Even more illogical is how long it takes her to fall asleep, considering how her bed seems to sap energy from her mind and body instead of recharge them. But she wants to wake up earlier to enjoy the fruits of her labour so she shuts her eyes and tries her best to fall asleep.

—

What do you mean ‘you don’t know’! I want an answer right now!

We’re very sorry, sir. The cameras showed nothing. No one entered. No one left.

Useless piece of ! Are you telling me a ghost stole from me?

No, sir.

Then find the ing thief! Find him! And don’t come back until you have him in cuffs. And find the box he stole!

Taeyeon chuckles at the choice of pronoun. Him? If Lord Liveyrev is looking for a ‘him’, he’s not going find one.

“He thinks a man did it.”

Turning at the voice of her friend, Yuri, Taeyeon chuckles again. “I know, right. Stupid old man.”

“The Blue Sapphire will not be easy to get rid of,” says Yoona.

Taeyeon fixes her eyes on the big, round ones of Yoona’s and nods. “It’s not gonna be easy. But there’s no hurry to sell it. It’s gonna take some time to crack the code on the box anyway.”

“But are there any sellers who dare to take on a ring of this value?”

“Sunny knows a seller who can help us to sell it.”

All eyes shift to Sunny. She is lounging on the sofa, her jeans-cladded legs crossed and elbow on the arm with her eyes closed. If they did not know better, they would think she is asleep but they know better than to think that for Sunny can sleep with her eyes open and be wide awake with her eyes closed—in short, unpredictable.

“Yeah, I know someone,” Sunny affirms and the other women relax in their chairs, assured of the future.

“Great. I’ll get started on the code then,” says Summer. Heads lift as she stands, her towering figure forcing her friends to look up at her. “Let me have a look at the box.”

Taeyeon rises to her feet. “I’ll take it out.”

Yoona stands too, drawing close to Summer’s height. “What will we do with the money this time?”

Sunny opens her eyes but does not move from the sofa. “Don’t count your ducks before they hatch.”

“It’s chickens, Sunny,” says Yoona.

Sunny yawns and closes her eyes again, leaning her head against the sofa. “How do you know if they’re gonna be ducks or chickens?”

Summer laughs. “Duck and chicken eggs aren’t the same colour, Sunny.”

“Oh. Well then. The point is, you don’t know if they’re gonna hatch or not.”

“We get your point,” Taeyeon says with a grin. “What you need is sleep. If you weren’t sleeping last night, why didn’t you come with Yuri and I? Your flexibility would have made the job so much easier.”

Sunny yawns again. “Can’t. I was in the middle of a book. It was too exciting to put down.”

“Your parents would have been so happy if you read this much when you were a student,” says Taeyeon.

“If they ever came home, you mean.”

“As your roommate, I would have been happy too,” Taeyeon adds.

“Enough bull, Taeyeon. Take out the box and let us look at it.”

Taeyeon opens the vault and steps in to retrieve the box they took from Lord Liveyrev’s vault last night. What a challenge it had been. But not impossible. Nothing is impossible. It’s always the question of what means you have at your disposal. And since money is no object, the means at her disposal are in abundance.

“Here.”

“Are you sure this is the box?” Sunny asks.

“I’m sure.”

“It doesn’t look like much.”

Summer takes the box from Taeyeon and shakes it at Sunny. “Don’t judge a box by its cover. This box is made of the toughest metal and is almost impossible to saw, hack or melt without destroying its contents. The only way in is by cracking the encryption that keeps it locked.”

“That’s your job,” says Sunny with yet another yawn. “Wake me up when it’s open.”

Summer plugs the cable into the jack, connecting it to her little tablet computer. “Wish me luck, girls.”

Yoona pats her shoulder. “Nah, you don’t need it.”

—

Summer is still working on the encryption and Sunny is still sleeping on the sofa (for real, this time, evidenced by her gaping mouth and a trail of drool flowing down the side) when Taeyeon receives a strange message on her phone.

37.5179909,127.0510357

“What’s this?” she asks, holding her phone out for the others to see.

“Numbers,” says Summer.

Taeyeon rolls her eyes. “Thanks a lot, friend.”

“Who sent it?” asks Yoona.

“Sender unknown. Isn’t that weird? And the numbers. What the heck do these numbers mean?”

“Search it up,” Yuri replies, whipping out her phone to do exactly that. A moment later, her eyebrows rise and she sits up straight, back stiffened. “Girls. This is weird.”

“What’s weird?” Sunny asks suddenly, giving them a little shock.

“Damn, Sunny, I thought you were sleeping.”

“Don’t assume too much,” Sunny banters as she opens her eyes and wipes her drool with the back of her hand. “Anyway, what’s weird?”

Yuri shows them the results of her search. “The numbers are a location.”

“What location?” Taeyeon asks, moving closer to look.

“It’s smack in the middle of the city. The SM building. Look.”

“The SM building? What the ?”

Another message comes in as Taeyeon is talking.

Need the next 1700 sours. Thanks. She lost 500.

“Girls, I got another one.”

Yoona reads it and frowns. “Sours? Like the sweet? Or fruit?”

“This doesn’t make any sense.”

Yuri takes one look and says, “It has to be code for something.”

Taeyeon looks at it again. “If it’s a code, 1700 might be the time. 1700 hours. Meet the next 1700 hours?” She looks at the time on her phone. “That’s six hours from now.”

“But it says she lost 500.”

“If you lose 500, you’re looking at 1200 instead. An hour from now.”

“What if this message is legit crap?” asks Sunny from the sofa.

Bring in box. Deal.

Taeyeon frowns at the third new message. “.” This gets the attention of all the girls—even Sunny sits up. “Are we in trouble?”

Sunny stands to look at the message. “Somebody knows.”

By this time, all the other girls are peering over Taeyeon’s shoulder at her phone too. “,” they exclaim in unison.

Taeyeon looks at them. “What should we do now?”

“It doesn’t look like we have much choice,” Yoona replies. “We’ll have to meet this mysterious person at the SM building in an hour.”

“But we’re not bringing the box,” says Sunny and the girls nod in agreement.

“I’ll put it back in the vault then we’ll go,” says Taeyeon. And the rest of the girls move quickly to get ready to leave. The air between them is tenser than usual and there is none of the usual chatter. Clearly, everyone is a little nervous about this. “We’ll have some time to scout the area before entering. “Bring the zoomers.”

Yoona grabs three and stuffs them into her bag. “Got them. Let’s go.” And the girls troop out of Taeyeon’s house to the garage where their silver passenger machines are parked. “I’ll drive.”

“Summer and Sunny will go with you. Yuri, come with me,” says Taeyeon.

The girls pile into the two gleaming steel machines and they lift off, hovering above the ground for a brief moment before blasting off towards the city, fate unknown.

—