Fatal Attraction Ch. 01

"Every fuck is the fuck of the century for you Dame."

"Yeah, what's that supposed to mean." Damien's cheeks were red.

"I'm saying, chill dude, fall back, relax. You don't have to screw every guy you lay your eyes on, I mean you've practically become the town's mattress."

Damien scowled as Duke swallowed, feeling a little guilty for that sudden outburst.

"Oh Yeah, well coming from a guy like you I guess it…"

"What do you mean a guy like me?" Damien demanded a little irritated.

"Well I mean, coming from Mother Teresa, I guess it's ok to be condemned for my sinful ways, but Jesus, the local priest gets more action than you Duke!"

"Yeah?!" Duke wasn't going to give in without a fight this time.

"Yeah! I mean, when was the last time you got laid?"

Duke's face went blank as he tried to recall. The guy's name was Brian wasn't it. And it had been a long time since then. A really really long time.

Duke tried to find his way out of the corner Damien had pushed him into. "Why does it all have to be about getting laid?"

"Oh please don't give me that. Ok. When was the last time you went out on a date?"

This time Duke remembered. It had been Brian. And now he recalled that he had not slept with Brian at all. So it was Kyle he had sex with last and that was one hell of a long time back.

"Jeez honey, you're 22!" Damien continued knowing he had his prey hook line and sinker. "I mean, just look around you. All these guys, all that youth just humping away to glory in their private pea pods while you deal with the most severe case of blue balls. And all you think about is your stupid computer and that stupid bike. Are you even human anymore?"

Guilty as charged, Duke realized. He tried to come up with some sappy dialogue to counter his demanding friend, but nothing came to mind, Damien really was on his case today.

"I mean it's about time you found something organic to spend your time with. Doesn't it get a bit too much to just…"

"Am I interrupting you guys?"

Damien and Duke both looked up. A tall redheaded girl was smiling at the two of them. Damien paused his lecturing to take in her appearance. She was stunning; stunningly gorgeous. With a face that could launch a thousand ships. And she was waiting for a signal from the two of them to let her continue.

"Actually honey, you are kinda interrupting, I mean this dickhead out here hasn't exchanged bodily fluids with anyone since the last 9 months or so and he isn't even listening to what I have to say about…"

"It's not been that long!" Duke exclaimed, but feared if he really had to count it would have been even more.

"So Duke", the girl interrupted, "How long has it been since your last guy?"

Duke paused and looked the new arrival in the face. "Excuse me. Do I know you?"

Damien was now busy checking out the girl. It wasn't rare for the female species to come drifting into Crazy Mongers every now and then and he was pretty sure this was not a drag act, so what was this gorgeous chick doing here and how did she know Duke anyway?

"No, we've never met face to face…" the girl paused before she added, "BadgerKing."

Duke's jaw dropped. There was no person in real life who knew him as that.

"I'm Natasha" the girl extended her hand, "And you know me better as Fiery Babe."

Duke's eye-brows shot up in surprise and it took a few moments before what the girl said sunk in. "How the hell did you find me?"

"Sources." The redheaded female replied nonchalantly. "But that's not important, what is important is that I have a job you might be interested in."

~~~

"No fucking way!" Duke exclaimed. "That's gonna be impossible. That airport has way too much security." Duke could hardly believe what he was being made to look at.

"Look, it's not that I'm asking you to do the entire job. It's a three man job and you're gonna handle the security break through part of it."

"And what, just walk away with that statuette? You're way off your head."

Natasha hardly flinched. She would convince this guy all right, but the stinky apartment they were in was what was causing the real problems.

Duke had taken the girl back to his own apartment after their confrontation at the bar and he had had to split up with Damien. He was sure he would never hear the end of that from Damien. He would have a lot of explaining to do but Natasha had demanded that they speak in private.

"Perhaps you would reconsider if you saw this." Natasha flipped open her laptop and swung it around. There was an image of a jade coloured statue of a young woman draped in a shawl with her hands on either side staring out from the screen.

Duke squinted his eyes as he read off the screen. "Watchful lady. Is this the statue in question?"

"Yup, go on, read the whole thing."

Duke returned to reading from the screen and suddenly whirled around and exclaimed.

"A hundred and sixty three thousand dollars?!"

Natasha folder her arms across her tummy as she replied with a blank expression., "Yup that's what that thing is worth, so if you take off the costs incurred and split the remaining money three ways, we'll still have around 50 Grand per person."

"Fifty thousand dollars!" Duke repeated to himself softly. That was way more money than he had made the whole of last year.

"Yup. 50 grand."

Duke let out a low whistle. Then he thought back to what the girl had said.

"Wait a minute, split it three ways?"

"Yup, you me and Scott."

"Who the hell is Scott?"

"Our third member and our team leader. He'll be in charge of this operation. In fact I've already informed him about our whereabouts and I guess he'll be here shortly."

"Uh-huh." Duke muttered under his breath. He was not at all comfortable about the fact that more people knew about the ‘original BadgerKing'.

Just then, as if on cue, someone knocked on the apartment door. Duke made his way towards the door and swung it open to find an extended hand proffered to him for a handshake.

"Hey, I'm Scott."

Duke stood there transfixed for all of five seconds before he shook himself and extended his hand to greet the new arrival.

"Jeez BadgerKing", the handsome new man added, "Your apartment stinks!"

~~~

Duke was having hard time concentrating on the conversation. Two professional criminals were discussing stealing a statuette worth a hundred and sixty grand in his apartment and he would be one of the accomplices, and he was having a hard time keeping track of what was going on.

Sitting on his sofa was the most striking man he'd ever laid eyes on; Scott. Scott with his aquiline face and chiseled features, his square jaw face set off with high cheekbones, the soft pink lips and dark brown hair raised at the centre and buzzed short at the sides. The strapping arms and musculature visible through the flimsy shirt he was wearing. Pink soft lips and brown eyes, everything about Scott screamed out SEX to Duke.

"So the first task that you'll be responsible for BadgerKing, is to get us valid ID accounts in the Sirono security system."

"Call me Duke." Duke's voice was barely a whisper, he was just watching Scott's lips move as he spoke. How would it feel to kiss those lips?

Damien was right; it had been far too long since he had gotten laid.

"We'll get the duplicate ID's for the security shifts but you'll have to manipulate the mainframe computers and feed in the fake ID keys and bar codes that'll verify us."

Duke nodded barely listening. His brain was screaming for him to come to his senses. What the hell was he getting himself into?

"And the second task, which is the difficult one, will be for you to hack into the mainframe locker real-time, once we have physically broken onto the plane's vault."

Duke shook himself once again as he tried to figure out what was being discussed.

"And what type of system do they have?"

"It's an MD398 series vault, the automatic timer locked type", Natasha chimed in.

Duke face turned white at that. "Wait wait wait. A timed vault? How the fuck am I to break into that?"

"Everyone knows that the only way to hack into a timed vault without physically ripping it apart is to tamper with the timer and set it to the release time."

"Is that even possible?" Duke asked exasperatedly.

"Yes it is, but all the hacking has to be done real time. I mean you can carry your sentient AI backups and programs which can assist you but all the major work has to be done in under 10 minutes."

"You're kidding right?"

"Nope." Natasha had a bored look on her face by now.

"So why don't you do it then." Duke finally added. "You're pretty good yourself. I mean I saw fiery babe's talent before."

"But she's nowhere as good as the great BadgerKing," Scott interrupted as Natasha scowled at him. "We need you to complete all the homework and finish the security hacks by Saturday evening."

"What?!" Duke exclaimed. "You're giving me like what, 4 days for the thing. I need at least a couple of weeks for it!"

"Well the watchful lady can't wait 2 weeks." Scott stated as he rested one of his hands on Duke's knee. "She's scheduled to be on board a flight to Paris that will leaves Saturday 7:15 PM and we have to make sure she does not leave on that plane!"

Duke was experiencing some trouble in the nether regions by now. The raw heat that Scott was emanating was driving him wild. He readjusted himself so his state of arousal would be less noticeable and coughed slightly. The amount of money involved and this drop dead gorgeous man intoxicating him were driving him towards the edge.

"C'mon BadgerKing. We know you can do it."

~~~

Duke could hardly believe what he had gotten himself into. It had been 2 days of relentless planning and programming and it was driving him nuts. The ‘deadly duo' as Duke had started referring to Scott and Natasha, mostly stayed over at his apartment and sketched out plans, blue prints, sentry timings and Program codes.

Duke had been more than impressed over the professional expertise of the duo. Scott was clearly the brains of the operation. He had planned every single detail of their loot to the minutest instant with all possibilities taken care of. Scott and Natasha would be doing the actually field work of ‘collecting' the artifact from the flight before it took off. Duke would be monitoring the two of them, keeping a watch over security guards and hacking real time when required.

Duke had no idea a job like this involved so much preparation and hard work. But Scott and Natasha had thought of every damn thing. They had blueprints of the airport, security guard shift timings, layouts of the plane and where the vault could be accessed and even relevant information of the server modules and the computer system on board the plane that Duke would have to hack.

And duke was going nuts trying to complete his share of the work.

It had been two days of unmitigated hard work. Duke had hardly slept a wink since then. The security part of his work that involved putting fake ID's into the airport security's database had been more or less an easy task and that was done on the first day itself. But hacking into the artifact safe real time was posing to be far more problematic than he had initially thought. It involved massive amounts of programming data and his full attentiveness while coding. And to top it all of, whenever he was not in front of the computer screen working away at algorithms, the deadly duo would be on his case, trying to make him learn the entire schedule of the operation and getting him to know the functioning of the cameras and comm. systems.

And to top it all off, Scott's proximity was driving him even crazier.

"So once the comm. systems are active you have to be careful not to…" Duke was hardly listening as Scott spoke. He was just watching him speak. The man was too damn gorgeous. Duke's long t-shirts partially hid his arousal but he was sure Scott was aware of how Duke's mouth always watered near him.

"For Christ's sake, go jerk off!"

Duke suddenly snapped out of his reverie. "Uh?"

"You've been staring at me like you want to hump me into the sofa. And you can't even pay attention cause of your horniness."

Duke was taken aback. Ok, so Scott knew of his ogling over him. The cat was out of the bag, and it had been e really crude exit.

"I, err…" Duke stammered.

Just then the bell rang, momentarily saving Duke from the embarrassing position he had been put in.

Duke rushed over to the door.

It was Damien; a very annoyed Damien.

"So where you been sweety? Still screwing your girlfriend?"

Duke was hardly in the mood to face Damien right now.

"I've been a bit busy Damien", Duke gritted through his teeth, stressing on the word ‘busy'.

"What? One minute you find this fantastic babe and now you're not even gay anymore? And what the fuck? You don't even have time for me anymore. I mean I've been calling you since…"

Damien stopped talking as Scott appeared, hovering above Duke. His eyes grew wide and then he tilted his head and squinted before speaking.

"And who's the man candy?"

Duke let out an exasperated sigh.

"Well who is he?"

"You know what?" Duke voiced with irritation thick in his voice. "I really don't have to face all this so Damien you can just leave for now…" Duke pushed the door but Damien shoved in a leg before the door could slam on his face.

"No no no!" Cried Damien from the other side, his voice muffled by the wooden door. "No way are you throwing me out like this."

"Yes I am!" Duke yelled back trying to push the door shut which resulted in a scream from the other side.

"My foot! You asshole! You mother…"

"Then withdraw your foot!" Duke yelled back as Scott watched in amusement.

"Ok ok I'm going!" yelled Damien as Duke stopped pressing against the door. "At least let me see that hunky beefcake once more!"

Duke sighed and opened the door as Damien's eyes fell on Scott. Damien stopped wincing in pain immediately and a smile appeared on his face as he asked in a husky voice "So sexy mama. Wuz-ur-name?"

"Bye Damien." Duke stated as he suddenly swung the door shut giving his guest no time to protest.

A series of expletives were heard from the other side as Duke retreated back into his room.

"Later Damien!" he called out as Scott followed him into the room. Duke started rummaging through stuff in his cup board.

"Interesting friend you have there." Scott stated as Duke Uh-huh'd in response.

"So can we get back to discussing the comm. systems now?" Scott asked in a forcibly calmed tone. Duke did not reply. Instead he dug deeper into the closet as he fished out his black leather Ducati jacket and slid it on. Scott's eyebrows shot up as he realized Duke fished out a gun holster from the cupboard drawer and secured it into his jacket's inner pocket.

"Where you going with that?" Scott asked against his better judgment.

"Shooting Range", Duke replied not looking at Scott at all.

"Man, we've work to finish here. You can go later once we've…" Duke was not listening though. He squatted as he removed his shoes from under the bed.

"Listen asshole!" Scott's face was red with rage. "We have tonnes to do here and the big day is just 2 days away. There's a schedule to keep and we have to perfect every routine."

"Fuck you!" Duke stated flatly. "I'm going no matter what you say. I don't give a damn about…"

Duke was cut short as Scott suddenly closed the distance between them in one long stride and caught hold of the former by his leather collar.

"You better fucking give a damn. It's our lives on the line here." Scott clenched his teeth as Duke tugged at the iron grip against his throat.

Then as suddenly as he had grabbed him, Scott let go and stepped back, the sudden anger vanishing from his face.

"Just go, but come back quick." He ordered looking at the floor. His voice was shaking.

Duke smoothed the creases on his jacket as he left the room.

~~~

Natasha was on surveillance at the Suda airport. She had been assigned to give the look-over to the area to make sure that everything was the same as it had been in their plans, the security shifts, the exits, the wirings and every little detail. She checked her watch. It was 7:14 PM. 24 hours later, at this time, the plane carrying ‘Watchful Lady' would be taking off. And hopefully without the priceless artifact.

Natasha knew that there was hardly any chance of their burglary being foiled. Scott was a master planner. And he had a knack for precision and a predilection for the unforeseen. His acrobatic and combat skills were far more superior than her own. Not to mention his stealth related abilities. And they had a good hacker by their side.

Natasha had been sensing some tension between Scott and the ‘Nerd' as she referred to Duke. The two always looked like they wanted to slit each others throats. And Duke was a bit moody sometimes. She hoped that his quirkiness would not dampen the operation. But given Scotts foresight, she was pretty confident that everything would go according to plan.

~~~

"Get some good shut-eye", Scott stated calmly. "Tomorrow's going to be the big day and we don't want you dozing off in the middle of the deed."

"Yes mother." Duke replied nonchalantly as Scott opened a suitcase and starting taking out equipment that would be used for the ‘deed'. Duke cringed when he saw the all too familiar gear as he thought about how Scott would once again start explaining to him about the comm. links and the various cameras. Frankly, he had had enough of that.

Suddenly Duke's attention shifted to a metallic object in Scott's hand. Scott had just pulled out a gun from under one of the suitcase covers.

A smile slowly spread across Duke's face as he looked at the gun. "Hmm, should've known you were a Beretta kinda guy."

"Huh?" Scott turned as he faced Duke with the silvery black pistol in his hand.

"The gun", Scott repeated, "The Beretta 92. The same used by the United States arms service. I shoulda guessed you would be the Beretta type of guy."

"Yeah?" Scott had a questioning look on his face.

"But seriously though, are you both gonna carry guns along. I mean you've explained the whole damn skit to me about a gazillion times and you didn't mention any guns till now."

Scott lifted the gun to his lips blowing imaginary smoke from it. "It's in case we are in some precarious position." Scott slid back the gun and resumed checking the other accoutrements. One by one he pulled a miscellany of objects ranging from pulleys to ropes and gloves.

"But seriously," Duke continued. "That gun should have never replaced the Colt. I mean double action where the hammer needs to be recocked in each firing cycle; that really messes your first shot man. And the first shot is way too important for reflexes."

"Yeah." Scott droned continuing his check up. Duke caught the drift and let the topic slide. It was rare to find a gun lover like himself.

"So I'm guessing you two are like some kinda acrobats or something." Duke stated. He suddenly was in the mood to talk to the muscular ‘teammate of his'. He had barely spoken to him over the last couple of days, busy trying to finish all his programming codes, but seeing a gun in Scott's hand made him want to know the person. Scott did not even pause to look up at him.

"I mean, there are quite a few place where you guys won't be using the ropes and all, and I don't think any ordinary guy would be able to swing and jump across those distances you know, especially the landing gear cubicle jump. Were you guys some sorta gymnasts or something?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"So you people from up North or something?" Duke persisted again, trying to dig up a little more info on Scott.

"Sorta."

"What kind of music do you listen to?" Duke asked in a last attempt to make some conversation. He knew very few people had taste in music as close to the death metal sounds he listened to but everyone had some taste or the other didn't they? "I mean , you do listen to some form or the other of music don't you?"