Monday, September 17^th

Seoul, South Korea

Bae Joohyun, better known to her friends and co-workers as Irene, was used to drinking alone. She liked it, it gave her time to sit with her thoughts, enjoy a drink or two and engage in a little people-watching.

Like tonight. Here it was, barely half past seven and the hotel bar was already beginning to fill with people. She listened in on a few of the conversations happening around her while nursing her second drink and thinking about what to do next.

At one point she had it all: a stable well-paying career for an insurance company, a loving wife. No kids, but they had been talking about the future together before…

Irene scowled, downing the drink she was holding to chase away the memories and almost slamming the empty glass on the bar. What use was there in being happy if everything would eventually go to anyway?

The bartender walked by and picked up her glass to wipe it down. He offered her another shot of overpriced whiskey but she waved him off. Not even top-shelf alcohol could improve her mood at this point.

“Ma’am, the airport shuttle you were asking about will be here in fifteen minutes,” he said and she nodded her head in acknowledgement, taking out her wallet and putting several bills on the bar. It was more than what was on her tab but when the bartender made as if to protest about the extra money Irene shot him a dazzling smile and told him to just keep the change.

She turned around in her chair and was about to get up and leave when she heard someone call her name.

“Miss Irene?” The voice in question belonged to a handsome young man with black hair and innocent-looking brown eyes sitting at one of the private booths near the back of the bar. He looked to be a little younger than her but judging from the very expensive suit he was wearing he probably saw more money in a week than she did in an entire year. “Hello, I’m so sorry to interrupt you like this but I’ve been looking for you.”   

Irene raised one eyebrow and turned away from him. She really wasn’t in the mood to talk with anyone.

The man raked his fingers through his hair, as if debating what to say that would convince Irene to give him her attention.

“Please! I’ve read all about you.” That caused Irene to stop in her tracks and turn around, her interest piqued. She had to admit, this was the first time a man had started a conversation like that. The young man stood up, his body language betraying his feelings. He looked nervous, despite the charming smile on his face. Sensing that he had been given an opportunity he gestured for her to join him at his booth.

“Like for example I read the article about how you found that stolen Rembrandt for your company, saving them what, twelve billion won?”

“Twelve point three billion,” Irene corrected under her breath. Of course this man was talking to her about her previous job. It was what she was known for after all.

“And then you cracked that illegal horse racing ring that saved your company another few billion—”

“I’m sorry, is there a point to this? I know how much money I saved that damn insurance company.”

The man’s ears turned slightly pink and Irene would have thought it was adorable if she wasn’t in a completely foul mood at this point.

“I also know that when you needed them the most they turned their backs on you,” he said softly. “What happened to your wife was horrible.”

Yes. It was. Irene blinked back the tears that threatened to well up in her eyes. Even though it had been almost three years since her world came crashing down on her, thinking about her wife still made her want to cry.

“I am well aware that what happened was horrible. Did you actually want something or was it your sole goal to make me want to punch you in the face?” Irene’s voice had gone cold.

The man’s eyes widened and he quickly backpedaled. “Yes, right, I am so sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Actually I’m here to offer you a job.”

Now that was interesting. What could she, an ex-insurance fraud specialist, possibly have in terms of skills that had a businessman like him looking for her? Irene thought over his possible motives, glancing at the clock above the hotel bar. She still had ten minutes before the airport shuttle got back to the hotel, so she decided to hear him out. “Alright then Mr.—”

“Kim. Kim Seokjin.”

“—Kim Seokjin. You have ten minutes before my shuttle arrives. What do you have?”

With a wide smile, Kim Seokjin reached into his briefcase and pulled out a heavy manila folder, handing it over to Irene. “What do you know about airplane design?”

Irene shrugged, taking out a pair of reading glasses and beginning to flip through the files she’d been given. From what she could see, a lot of the content was highly technical, detailing the specifications of what appeared to be a next-generation aircraft. There were even economic reports and wow, was that a lot of money being invested. “I’m afraid I’m a layman Mr. Kim, but if you hand me your napkin I might be able to give it a shot.”

He laughed, his eyes wrinkling up into half-crescents. “I like your humor, Miss Irene.” His jovial expression quickly faded though. “Somebody stole my airplane designs.”

“And you want me to find them?”

Kim Seokjin shook his head. “No, I know exactly where they are. I want you to steal them back.”

Irene blinked.

Well this is a first.

XXX

An hour later found Irene still sitting with Kim Seokjin. She couldn’t explain it, but he seemed like a very genuine man and she’d had her fair share of experience dealing with men who weren’t. After all, it had been her job.

“You’re sure JYP stole your designs?”

He nodded his head, “It can’t be a coincidence, my top engineer goes missing, he disappears with all my files and then a week later JYP announces a completely identical project?”

She was inclined to agree with him. Designs like the ones she’d been shown would have taken months, if not years of careful development. Granted most R&D sectors were secretive but she found it hard to believe a company as big as JYP would have been able to keep a project this big under wraps.

Irene tilted her head. “I don’t know. It seems overly risky to steal them back, aren’t there other ways?”

“If I had the time I would. There’s an investor meeting at the end of this month, Miss Irene. With their funding I’ve sunk over a hundred billion won on this design. If I have nothing to show them, I’m dead.”

Kim Seokjin was playing with absurd amounts of money. It made perfect sense to Irene that if he went to that investor meeting empty-handed they might very well be fishing his body out of the Han River next week. He was desperate.

He pulled out another folder and passed it across the table to Irene. “Here, look at the people I’ve hired already. Do you recognize any of them?”

Irene went through the file, noticing not one but several familiar names. “Yes. I’ve chased all of them at one point or anoth—Yerim?” Her eyes widened almost comically. “You hired Kim Yerim?”

“Is there someone better than her?”

“No, but Yerim is insane.” Irene shuddered at the thought of working with the young master thief. Out of all the people she’d chased over the years, Kim Yerim had to be one of the best at her craft. She was also the most annoying.

“Which is why I need you,” Kim Seokjin insisted.

Irene snorted derisively, closing the folder. “I’m no thief, Mr. Kim.”

“I have plenty of thieves, Miss Irene. What I need is one honest woman to watch them. Are you in?”

Irene shook her head. “It’s not going to work, Mr. Kim. These people you’ve hired, they all have the same reputation. They work alone, no exceptions. I find it hard to believe that they would work for you.”

“They will for three hundred million won each. And for you, as the one heading the whole operation, I’ll double it. This will all be completely off the books, and I’ll even throw in a bonus.”

He leaned forward and shoved another piece of paper across the table for Irene to look at. She took it and her gaze immediately hardened. This was just too good to be true…

“You see it right? JYP is insured by SM, your old company. They’re under a seventy-five billion won intellectual rights policy. Miss Irene, how badly do you want to screw over the insurance company that let your wife die?”

That was a low blow and Irene knew it. The money was enticing enough, three hundred million won was no small chunk of change. If she took this job she could comfortably settle down in a nice apartment in Gangnam, maybe invest it to build herself a bigger nest egg down the road. But now that there was a potential promise of revenge?

Irene was caught, hook, line and sinker. She’d do this for her wife. “I’m in.”   

XXX
 

Thursday, September 20^th

JYP Aerospace—(well, across the street)

“Alright everyone, clear comms,” Irene put on her headset and fiddled with it for a minute, making sure her voice would be broadcasted loud and clear to her other three teammates.

“Ugh, is this equipment from the eighties or something it’s so old school,” a disgusted voice said. Irene rolled her eyes, choosing to ignore the woman talking in her ear.

Above her, on the roof of the unfinished office building they had “borrowed” for this operation, Son Seungwan was busy complaining to Irene about her out of date equipment.

“It’s not like you have anything better, Son,” Irene all but growled. She knew going into this that working with three of the world’s most famous criminals would be a challenge but she didn’t expect for them to be criticizing her every move.

“Actually I do,” the other woman replied and Irene could her hear opening the rooftop door and walking back down the stairs to their little operations den. “Stand by, I’ll set us up with something nice.”

“I don’t want any surprises, Seungwan.”

“How many times have I told you to call me Wendy? Relax Irene, I’ve been doing this since high school. I’m damn good at my job.”

(Flashback, NYC, Five Years Ago)

The Ritz hotel was known for its five star service and strict policies regarding the safety and privacy of its many celebrity guests. Certainly something for its manager to be proud of. All of that was ruined one night when he was approached at his desk by the security team, the three burly men flanked by several uniformed police officers.

And now he was rushing up to the penthouse suite, fielding questions left and right from the police about how he let something like this happen.

“They came straight from the airport and went up to their room, officers.”

“So you never actually saw any of them,” the officer replied. Next to him his partner rolled his eyes. How stupid can someone get?

“No, but the card numbers checked out.”

The hotel manager fumbled with his master key and pushed by the security guards to unlock the door. It swung open to reveal a young Asian woman sitting on an expensive calf leather couch, sipping on some bubble tea. Three beautiful blonde women dressed as Princess Leia staged a mock lightsaber duel while club music thumped in the background and what looked like several different LED lights bathed the room in a kaleidoscope of color. The woman’s eyes widened as she noticed the intruders.

The police officers whirled around to face the now completely panicked hotel manager. There was no way he’d be keeping his job after this fiasco. “Does this look like Katy Perry to you?”

Son Seungwan cleared and waved her hands around like she was pretending to use the Force. “This is not the room you’re looking for.”

Present Day

“Check this out, Irene. It’s a brand-new top of the line in-ear mic. It works off the vibrations in your jaw to send sound waves into your ear.”

Irene sighed inwardly. She was getting impatient with Seungwan—no, Wendy’s—apparent abhorrence for any kind of older technology but she had to admit that the other women knew what she was doing. Wendy was one of the world’s top hackers, catapulting herself to the top of Korea’s Most Wanted list for committing identity theft, fraud, and hacking into secure government databases. On three separate occasions.

Wendy probably could have used her borderline-genius skills to do some real good in the world but instead she spent her time defrauding rich old white men that came to Korea. Which, now that Irene thought about it, wasn’t the worst thing she could be doing. Irene became introduced to Wendy while working for SM when the other woman managed to hack into the company’s secure servers and steal confidential user data. She successfully blackmailed them for almost a billion won.

Wendy was the literal embodiment of an evil genius.

“Well, what do you know, you’re not as useless as you look,” came an irritated voice through the comms.

“Bro I don’t even know what you do,” was Wendy’s reply.

Irene could feel the beginnings of a headache form behind her temples. Wendy may be an evil genius but Kang Seulgi was the one person on their little ragtag team of criminals that would be glad to kill them all.

(Flashback, Serbia, 3 Years Ago)

Kang Seulgi, wearing a pair of thin wire-rimmed glasses and drinking from her coffee cup, entered through the front doors of the café, seeming completely oblivious to the group of mafia men that were sitting around a table playing cards.

They turned to look at her, and she paused for a moment to set her mug down on one of the nearby tables. “I’m here to collect the merchandise.”

As if a switch had been flipped the men all stood up, drawing their guns and pointing them at Seulgi. She merely sighed, picking at an invisible piece of dirt underneath her fingernails. “Very well, let’s get this over with.”

Three minutes later Seulgi retrieved her unfinished cup of coffee and took a long drink. Good, it was still warm.

One man remained sitting at the table, staring in horror at the bodies that littered the floor around him. With shaking hands he reached into his jacket and pulled out a signed photocard of a popular Korean girl group called Red Velvet, placing it on the table and scooting away with his hands raised in surrender.

Kang Seulgi smiled.

Present Day

Of course Wendy didn’t think it was at all dangerous to start an argument with a former black-ops turned hitter-for-hire. Before Kang Seulgi graced Korea’s Most Wanted list for assault, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, weapons trafficking and murder she was a decorated soldier with the Korean army. Before the age of twenty-one she had managed to not only get into the White Skull division but also graduate sniper school and receive four separate commendations for her skills in hand-to-hand combat.

Irene was curious as to why she decided to leave the military life behind and turn to crime but she wasn’t about to pry. Seulgi looked nice enough, sure. When she smiled her eyes turned up into these cute half-crescents that reminded her a bit of her wife. She could also disarm a fully-grown armed assailant in 4.3 seconds. Irene thought the only redeeming factor of Seulgi was that she had a strict code and wouldn’t harm women and children.

“Ooh, can I have one of those ear thingies, Unnie?”

Irene startled, jumping in her chair and instinctively putting a hand on her chest to calm her suddenly beating heart.

Hanging upside-down outside the window of their operations den, the fourth and final member of their team slid down from the scaffolding and made grabby hands for one of Wendy’s in-ear comms.

Wendy leaned out the window and handed one to the young blonde woman, watching with an indulgent smile on her face as she pulled herself back up. “You can have the whole box if you want.”

Seulgi watched the interaction and scoffed. “What are you gonna do once she finds out you still live with your parents?”

Wendy shrugged, a confident smirk still plastered on her face. “It’s the age of the geek, Seul. We run the world.”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.”

Twenty feet above them, Kim Yerim smiled and put the comm in her ear.

(Flashback, South Korea, 11 years ago)

Ten-year-old Kim Yerim stood barefoot in her living room, watching her newest set of foster parents fight. It wasn’t the first time she’d witnessed this and she knew it wouldn’t be the last. She’d been bounced around from foster home to foster home ever since she was a toddler and no matter who she would get placed with they’d give up on her within a few months’ time.

Honestly, Yeri had long since become numb to it all. The only thing she found solace in these days was her stuffed rabbit. Her birth parents had given it to her before they died and though her precious Mr. Fuzzles had certainly seen better days she wouldn’t let it out of her sight.

And right now her sights were set firmly on her stuffed rabbit as it dangled carelessly from the fingers of her foster father.

“You thought I wouldn’t find this? You don’t get your bunny back until you do what I say. So be a good girl Yeri, or at the very least be a better thief.” Her foster father stormed out of the room, leaving his wife sobbing on the couch.

Yeri knew this set of foster parents wouldn’t work out the second she moved in with them. They never took the time to understand her or talk to her. She wondered how long it would be before she was returned to the group home like an unwanted puppy.

“I’m going to go outside for some fresh air,” she said to her foster mother, who merely nodded her head and shooed Yeri away, already taking drags on her cigarette and looking more than done with the entire situation.

Forgoing her shoes, Yeri stepped outside and began walking down the street, counting each and every one of her steps.

Behind her the house exploded.

Yeri hugged Mr. Fuzzles tightly and smiled.

Present Day

Now that everyone had their new comms set up, Wendy Seulgi and Yeri had managed to get to the roof of the JYP Aerospace building undetected and were waiting to execute Irene’s plan.

Yeri adjusted her rappelling gear, running her hands softly over the material as if it was her lover. “The last time I used this rig was in Paris four years ago…”

Seulgi examined the earpiece Wendy had given her with a slight scowl on her face. “Is this thing safe?”

“Yerim are you talking about the Monet?” Irene cut in, unable to help herself. She’d always wondered who was responsible for the theft that rocked the Parisian art world. She really should have known, Yeri was one of the world’s most renowned shadow thieves in history. Whatever you wanted stolen, Kim Yerim could get it for you. “You stole that?”

Yeri’s noncommittal grunt confirmed her suspicions.

“It’s completely safe, Seulgi. It’s still experimental tech though so let me know if you experience anything like nausea, weakness in your right side, ,” Wendy paused for a moment to catch her breath. “General iness…”

Seulgi put in her earpiece with a growl, “You’re precisely why I work alone.”

“Alright ladies, that’s enough!” Irene was getting tired of the chaos and they hadn’t even begun executing the plan yet. “We’re going on my count, not a second sooner. I know you’re all used to being lone wolves, but not this time.”

“Relax, Irene we know what we’re doing,” Seulgi assured her.

“That means no freelancing, Yeri,” Irene warned. She could already picture the youngest member of their crew deviating from her carefully concocted plan. “On the count of five.”

“Oh, you’re all business, aren’t you Irene?” Wendy sulked. “What a no-jam.”

Irene wanted to scream. “GUYS! We’re on count. Five. Four…”

Up on the roof, Yeri ran behind Seulgi and Wendy and careened towards the edge of the roof.

“Three…”

“She’s gone,” Seulgi said as Yeri dived off the roof. She and Wendy ran to the edge of the roof to watch Yeri freefall towards the ground. “That girl is twenty pounds of crazy in a five-pound bag.”

Across the street, Irene tore out her in-ear comm for a few precious seconds so she could swear without them hearing her.

“Son of a , this ing job is going to be the death of me…”     

 XXX

Thirty seconds later Kim Yerim dangled upside down outside the JYP building, completely at home in her harness and oblivious to the fact that she was working two hundred feet off the ground. She tilted her head, peering through the windows to gauge the kind of security the building had.

“Vibration detectors are on,” she relayed the information to Irene who marked off the locations of the detectors on her whiteboard. Because she was stuck across the street Irene would have to rely on information from the other three girls in order to “see” what they were doing. If things got out of hand she would need all the information she could get in order to get them out safely.

“That means no cutting, Yeri. Use the binary. Wendy, Seulgi what’s your status?”

“Entering the building now,” came Wendy’s reply. She tossed a bag of supplies to Seulgi and together they opened a rooftop hatch to slowly descend into the building via an old service ladder.

Yeri pointed her modified white-hot cutting tool and began melting a circular portion of the window. This would allow her to remove the window without triggering the building’s security system. With an appropriate Yeri-sized hole now prepared, she attached a suction cup to the glass and pulled it away, letting them both drop carelessly to the ground below.

Yeri slunk through the opening and disengaged her rope with a single press of a remote, landing on a desk and dismounting with a confident smirk, looking up at the vibration detectors. Completely soundless.

Irene exhaled loudly. That was step one complete. But they had only just begun.

Now that she had managed to successfully infiltrate the JYP building, Yeri moved carefully down the hall and toward a room marked with “Danger: High Voltage”. Pushing open the door she saw a room full of electrical equipment.

Meanwhile, Seulgi and Wendy had finished descending the service ladder and were sitting on top of one of the elevators, waiting for Yeri’s next move.

Now even though Wendy was the tech genius out of the three of them, Yeri wasn’t half-bad with computers. The youngest reached into her backpack and pulled out a laptop, setting it up next to the electrical equipment and patching herself into the building’s security cameras just like Wendy had shown her. With that done, she searched around for the wires she needed and crossed them, bypassing the elevator’s emergency protocol and giving her control.  

“You know maknae, anytime you wanna get—” The rest of Seulgi’s sentence was cut off abruptly as the elevator jerked into motion, descending rapidly.

Wendy almost lost her balance at the sudden movement and had to brace herself on Seulgi’s shoulder. “Whoa.”

“The unnies are on their way!” Yeri chirped, her eyes raking over the security feeds to make sure their intrusion was still undetected.

“Good girl,” Irene praised, marking Yeri’s current position on her whiteboard. “What are you getting from the security feeds, have they realized anything yet?”

Yeri shook her head, “They don’t see a thing. Wendy-unnie, Seulgi-unnie I’m opening the elevator doors for you right…now.”

There was a soft ding! and the elevator doors slid open to reveal the hitter/hacker duo. They joined Yeri in the electrical room and notified Irene of their successful infiltration.

“Good job everyone, that’s step one done,” Irene sat down in her chair with a small sigh. Things could have gone better but considering she was working with a bunch of people who worked as lone wolves she’d take the win. Mr. Kim was right, money really could buy you anything. “All right, that was the easy part, it’s showtime, ladies. We have plans to steal.”