Thief's Theme: A Love Story
Chapter Nine

Ji has finally done it. He has finally transcended Earth itself in his thievery and is going where no man has gone before: outer space. And by going to outer space, he means real outer space. Not just the Moon or Mars like Neil Armstrong and little NASA drones, but other solar systems and galaxies with life to experience, cultures to learn, people to meet, and more importantly things to steal. There is a catch however, as the majority of the planets he will visit can’t be survived by humans, as in their atmosphere is toxic in some way to the human body. Sometimes it’s extreme cold, sometimes it’s poisonous gas, sometimes it’s extreme heat, and sometimes it’s simply a lack of oxygen in the air. Either way, without his special brand of thievery, he couldn’t be getting very far.

The planet he’s on now is very much like Earth in its atmosphere; it simply lacks oxygen and nitrogen and instead has primarily helium and hydrogen in its air. Besides that, it’s very similar. The people look the same, even mirroring the races and features of humans, the clothing is similar albeit a bit more fantasy-esque with more robes, scarfs, and sashes, and the food is close to the same though with a hint of…something that makes everything taste slightly off. This is likely due to the food being made with similar plants and animals as Earth, but with the chemistry change adding to it. Ji didn’t mind the differences and in fact relishes them as he explores the unknown. He knows not every planet is like this one due to the previous planet he was just one.

That planet was basically a super hot, volcanic planet, with magma coursing through the crust of the planet and the core of the planet being basically a ball of super-heated plasma around ionized gas. The temperature on that planet was insane as one can imagine. It was so hot that Ji immediately caught fire just by stepping foot on the planet. It took some quick thinking and super thievery to quell the flames and allow his body to get used to it, but if Ji knew anything about humans, or even Earth, he’d confidently say that a normal human would be vaporized by the heat and that any kind of Earthly metal would be turned to liquid, immediately melting on contact. It was crazy hot, next-level heat and nothing could survive there that wasn’t ready for it or born for the heat. Beyond the heat, the planet was covered entirely in volcanic rock, or lavarock as he called it. There were entire continents of Obsidian, and…other lavarocks he didn’t know the name of, that had countries of different sub-class of lavarocks in them. The seas and oceans of Earth were now seas and oceans of super-hot lava, and on this planet there was no day and night, just one time of day with moderate amounts of star light. Where Earth had hills and mountains, lakes, and rivers and such, this planet was all volcanos and geysers, lakes and rivers of lava. The best thing about the planet was the inhabitants.

On the planet there were still ‘people’ and ‘animals’ per say, but they weren’t exactly the same. The ‘people’ were…humanoid enough, with skin that was more like armor, to protect them from and conduct the heat, and blood more like molten metal when it came out. They were super dark in color due to the extreme heat and had glowing lava colored eyes, but no hair. The males were obvious as they were taller and bulkier by a good three feet in height and foot in width, as females were as thin as normal human males, but with curvier more voluptuous shapes. The ‘people’ also seemed to vary in shininess of their armor-like skin, and their heights and widths rather than color. The ‘animals’ of the planets were basically walking lava constructs, shaped like various things. There were deer-like constructs, and bear-like constructs, but differences made them more…alien (duh). Like a random lavabeast (as he called them) could have eight legs or two heads or five tails at any time. They difference in sizes seemed to be how they categorized and differentiated themselves, though most of the lavabeasts ran alone rather than in packs. Another big difference is that the ‘people’ and ‘animals’ had very little interaction. The ‘people’ literally consumed the everlasting lava supply from the bowels of the planet, while the ‘animals’ mostly bathed in it, absorbing more lava for their being to grow. Somehow this didn’t result in the ‘people’ hunting the ‘animals’ or lavabeast as for some reason, ‘animals’ or lavabeasts weren’t in a correct form that the ‘people’ could properly process their lava for food. It was just easier to stop by the many lakes or rivers or the giant oceans to feast, rather than to try to figure out a way to change the lavabeasts into edible food. Ultimately there wasn’t much to steal from that planet, besides a few cool lavabeast pets, so now Ji is here on this Earth-like planet, planning a heist.

A heist of what? One may ask. Well it’s simple…Ji doesn’t know yet. See Ji’s main goal at the time is to explore these other planets, taking his time to do so, and in the process find out their treasures. He wants something priceless from each one, sort of like a trophy for his outer-planet thievery. At first he contemplated ‘taking’ women from each planet, but nah, there’s only one woman for him. Plus he didn’t want space AIDS (a joke, he’d just steal it from himself).

And so Ji spent the necessary time to fully explore the planet, posing as one of its natives, and going through everyday life looking for something special to steal (outside of money). Ultimately, he scouts out a potential target on a trip to a museum. Apparently they held some ancient relic in the museum that was supposed to be ‘one of a kind.’ He only caught a glimpse of it as he glossed over what the tour guide was saying, but it was clearly behind a lot of security and on constant watch. This caused Ji to wear one of his trademark grins, as that is his kind of heist.

While Ji could actually try and easily steal the relic in an instant, there was no fun in that here. He knew these priceless artifacts weren’t beyond his limits, so there was no need to go so hard. Plus She wasn’t even here to show off to, so it was useless. Instead Ji goes through the old steps, just like he did when he was younger. First, he stakes out the place, watching the museum, taking notes on shifts and types of security and times when it’s best to infiltrate and begin thieving. He then picks the perfect night to sneak in, easily infiltrating the museum as he comes upon the relic, behind tons of laser security and alarms. Apparently, this relic is a super-condensed star of some kind, a mini-frozen supernova to be exact. ‘Awesome’ is the only word he thinks as he reaches out and snatches the relic without tripping any alarm, easily bypassing the security.

Ji shakes his head and acts sheepishly as he realizes that he moved entirely on muscle memory and used some of his advanced skills despite holding back on the theft. With a sigh, Ji purposely trips several alarms on the way out to make up for it, also to make sure someone would try to follow him and apprehend him (maybe he missed Her a little too much). He also can’t wait to be introduced to the space police and see what kind of cool stuff they have. With those thoughts in mind, Ji escapes the museum and heads to the space port. There he manages to hitch a ride (without the knowledge of the driver of course) off-world on a random space ship version of an SUV (big and homely, less cool looking, less sleek).

Ji remains on the ship for a while until he notices that the driver and likely owner of the ship is planning a long-range flight and a far longer trip than Ji felt like taking. So with expert precision and grace that only Earth’s Greatest Thief could possess, Ji ejects himself from the ship and freefalls onto the next planet. On the way down, he’s forced to steal a lot of things from himself, the need to breathe, the need for any kind of heat (amongst other things to survive the vacuum of space), momentum in any direction but the one he needed, and the ability to feel pain and take any kind of damage. Otherwise Ji would just be a dead human floating in space or a burnt husk in the atmosphere or a bloody smear on the ground, depending on when he slacked off. Either way it all happens in about a second, not giving the space police much time to react.

As Ji gets to his feet, he takes the time to look around the planet and see where he is, or at least what kind of planet he’s on. His initial impression is…gaseous. Yellow gas is all he sees, touches, hears, smells, and breathes for seemingly miles upon miles around his location. The air has a gaseous haze, the ground has a gaseous haze, the star is blocked by gaseous haze, everything is gaseous haze. The haze is thick too, not allowing much for visibility (if he wasn’t the greatest thief), which makes it hard to tell if there’s much of a ground underneath. And even worse, the gas is poisonous to normal humans. Maybe with a bit more exploring, he could find something, but right now this place isn’t looking too promising.

‘I wonder how Ji is doing.’ Thinks Sharia as she becomes bored with television, especially the constant debates on the news about if the world will fall or be a better place thanks to Merc (and his thievery of all weapons and money). The debaters constantly bringing up Merc didn’t help in Sharia’s task to forget about Ji for now and focus on life, and it helped even less when she’s called in by the Keepers and the message says it’s specifically about Ji or ‘Merc’ as they call him, much like everyone else. ‘Why do they call him that?’ She wonders to herself. It’s clear they know of his real name and have used it before when identifying him, but for the most part they stick to ‘Merc’ like the rest of the public. Did…did Ji possibly do his weird thief thing and steal something impossible from them? Like the knowledge of his identity? Or did they simply choose not to use it? She couldn’t decide which made more sense and was the better answer. Regardless, she was just called in, so it was time to get ready.

Ji uses his abilities to explore the planet as fast as possible and finds nothing of worth. Just all gas as he initially thought. The planet isn’t barren of life or anything, it has people, animals, plants, civilizations, buildings, governments, weather, clouds, etc. It has everything. The problem is that everything is just gas. All of it is made of the yellow gas, albeit with different tints in some places. If he was a scientist, Ji would admit that it was fascinating to witness, a sight to behold: humanized gas with thoughts, personalities, feelings, etc. as well as some form of semi-solid gas that could hold together in shapes and such. It just…defies all common sense and logic, especially the weather where there are clouds of gas (what else is new?) but also rain made of semi-liquid gas, as well as snow, sleet, hail, etc. They have food made of gas, furniture made of gas, money made of gas, the whole works. They have so-called priceless artifacts in buildings, but all of them are made of gas. Ji CAN steal the gas in any form or shape and keep it that way, trademarks of a great thief, but it just didn’t strike him as…worth it really. The whole thing is a bust as far as he’s concerned. Time to get a ride out of here. ‘I wonder, should I steal the knowledge of which planets to explore?’ He thinks to himself. ‘Nah. That’s half of the fun!’ He decides internally.

Sharia, finished with washing up, eating, and generally prepping herself for contact with the outside world, dons her Keeper’s robe and her Keeper technology as she leaves the house to her ‘special’ meeting they called her for. Only moments after she leaves the house, does Sharia get somewhat worried. ‘What did they call me for?’ She wonders. ‘I hope it’s nothing bad…’ Her thoughts trail off. ‘Wait, did something happen to Ji maybe? Are they delivering the bad news?’ She asks herself. She then shakes her head. ‘No, they wouldn’t call a special meeting just for that. They’d just wait until we next saw each other.’ She decides internally. ‘So what is it then? Have they maybe located Ji and need me to capture him again?’ She thinks hopefully. She knows that she longs to see him again, and being called to catch Ji would be much like old times. Sharia also knows that it’s not likely and that he was gone for a while of his own admission. It’s very unlikely he’ll return any time soon. When Ji went exploring, when he went looking for something, he went all in. That’s just the way he was. She smiles at her reminiscent thoughts of Ji as she makes it to the facility, this one looking more like the base for an evil NASA, using her Keeper-issued vehicle to make the trip short. With a deep breath, she steps inside and stares in wonder at the futuristic looking building with a beautiful design to it. The walls are shiny and the windows sparkle. The floor is shiny as well and the ceiling appears endless and infinite as it’s out of her vision. Each room on the initial floor looks more like a portal than a room, and no doubt each leads to a different place entirely, rather than just a section of the building like a normal room.

Quickly she walks past the various rooms to the transporter, the Keeper version of an elevator that takes the person through some kind of portal to the destination they need to reach. In this case, the transporter is keyed only to the floors in this building and the rooms on these floors. She quickly hits the sixth floor, and appears there instantly, a bit shaken by the jostling around of her insides. According to the other Keepers, and her Keeper’s manual, this was normal for new Keepers to experience. In time she would get tougher and more used to the feeling. She then walks into the room and sees the two Keepers who recruited her, waiting for her arrival.

“Ah, Agent Iwuhaki.” Acknowledges one of the Keepers as the other simply nods in her direction. The Keeper that speaks even gets up hurriedly and offers a handshake, something that Sharia takes him up on. “A pleasure to see you again.” He exclaims in his distorted voice as their hands detach. “Please, take a seat.” He all but commands. Sharia nods and takes a seat, speaking as she does.

“Pleasure to see you two…too.” She says awkwardly with a smile.

“Of course.” Says the second Keeper, the one who stayed seated. “Now let’s not waste time and get right to the reason why we called you here today.”

“Agent Iwuhaki.” Begins the first Keeper, the one who greeted her. “Do you know where Merc is right now?”

“Or where he went?” Chimes in the other Keeper. Sharia looks surprised that they seem to know that he’s gone already. After she recovers, she does the only thing she can do in this situation: answer truthfully. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the Find ɴøᴠel.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“I don’t, I’m sorry.” She replies. This seems to throw the Keepers through a loop.

“I see…” Says the second Keeper.

“How unexpected.” Says the first Keeper, both of them obviously deep in thought.

“Do you think he’s left the planet?” Asks the second Keeper, directing his question to the first Keeper.

“It’s a possibility, but not one we should see as concrete just yet. Our sensors are unreliable when it comes to Merc, and honestly Agent Iwuhaki is our most valuable resource when it concerns him. What do you think Sharia?” He ends his statement, inquiring her. Sharia is taken aback by the casual conversation they just had in front of her about travelling to other planets. Like…what? This was blowing her mind and she could barely even grasp the concept, even after all that she’s seen from Ji. ‘Can he even do that?’ She wonders internally. She then realizes that they’re waiting on her response and parrots her thoughts.

“…Can he even do that?” She asks in a confused tone. It told the Keepers all they needed to know. Sharia wouldn’t know if Merc was off-world. She really didn’t have the information they required.

Ji is now on another world, this one a stark contrast to the volcanic planet from before. This planet is super, super cold, and seems more like the planet he left with the museum in that the people are very human-like, though they’re pale white with glowing blue eyes this time. Back to the cold though. This planet is so cold that if he wasn’t who he is, every drop of liquid inside of his body would freeze upon entry. It’s so cold that it could freeze fire—no lava in an instant. He’s almost convinced it can freeze the sun, but he knows better due to science and all that jazz. Speaking of suns, it seemed that this planet lacked one as in addition to the super cold, there is no light on this planet, it’s covered in complete darkness. Again if he wasn’t who he is, he wouldn’t be able to see even a centimeter out in front of him. From that alone he concludes that the people, the natives on this planet have some form of night vision.

As he explores the planet, he notices that much of it is like Earth and the planet he just left. It seems that buildings, civilizations, transportation, etc. is a common thing on planets with life. Though also like that other planet, he notices that it’s more technologically advanced, being privy to space travel and other technology that belonged in a sci-fi or future-world type show or cartoon. From hovering and flying vehicles to using things like nanites and other medical advances so seamlessly, as well as the abundance of lasers, it’s easy to tell that the planet is beyond Earth at the time. As he’s on the planet he also notices a huge issue, not unlike any other world he’s bound to be on he assumes, that the natives speak alien tongue (or their own tongue since he’s the alien to them) and he couldn’t understand a word of it. Somehow the last planet (not counting the gaseous planet) seemed to have something where he could inherently understand the people and the words they said and wrote. Was it advanced translator technology, or his brain and stealing ability working subconsciously for him to counter his stupidity? He honestly couldn’t tell at the moment. Either way he’s forced to steal basic knowledge from random people’s heads so he can speak and read the language.

Once that’s acquired, Ji uses his abilities to blend in and wander the area, the planet as he did all others. Besides trying exquisite frozen cuisine and going sight-seeing, Ji does manage to locate exactly what he’ll steal next: the treasure of their planet, a small sliver of the star that used to warm the cold, dark planet before it went out and presumably nova or something (he’s iffy on the details). He wonders briefly if all the relics will be pieces of stars or of that nature. ’Maybe I should just skip right to stealing those then…” He thinks, his thoughts trailing off. ‘Nah.’ He shakes off the feeling. It was best to work his way up to stealing actual and literal stars. One didn’t want to run before walking after all. Not even a thief who can steal everything.

Again, like the museum on the other planet, Ji takes the steps to do this the old-fashioned way, staking out the sacred temple where they held their treasure and checking for any traps and/or security. Nothing there is too concerning for him, so he plans the heist for later that day. He takes the time to admire some of the natives of the planet, and notices that the women are very beautiful in their own way. They aren’t his type exactly, but still they’re nice on the eyes and a good distraction until it’s go time. When it is finally go time, Ji almost doesn’t want to go, clearly enjoying the view more than he should. Reluctantly and with a sigh he leaves his spot and makes his way to the temple. With super agility he weaves his way through traps, avoiding any guards and surveillance technology as he does and easily reaches the treasure he came here for. With the traps sprung, he calmly walks out of the temple and makes sure to take his time setting off every alarm he can as he does. He takes a final look at the planet, admiring the view one last time before leaving. ‘Oh well, time to take off.’ He thinks to himself. ‘I wonder…I set off all of those alarms and I don’t—’ his thoughts are interrupted by several white shiny, sleek space ships descending upon his location. ‘Yes! Space police! Awesome.’ He thinks with a grin.

“Stop where you are and hand over the treasures. If you don’t we will be forced to apprehend you to the best of our ability and to the fullest extent of the law!” Comes the PA-like announcement from the space police cars. Just like the former planet, the space police seem to have translator technology so that everyone can understand them. ‘Make sense given what they do.’ Thinks Ji with a shrug. He then thinks on the best way to respond to the space police. Should he go flashy and put on a show for them? Or should he simply escape without saying a word? Or maybe he should stick around and antagonize them with taunts and such?

“Nah.” He says, shaking his head both at his own thoughts and at the space police. Immediately he’s forced to run as he dodges shots from their laser guns on instinct. ‘I see they’re all kill and no talk here.’ He thinks as he dodges his twentieth laser beam. ‘Time to bounce for real.’ He thinks as he steals the ammo for all of their guns, and even steals a gun from one of them for…future use. ‘Why stop there?’ He wonders to himself. He goes the full mile and steals one of their ships to take off world to his next stop, the irony not lost on him as he thinks his final on-world thoughts.

‘This is the life.’

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