GETTING EVERYTHING SET up without using too much time was looking to be a bit of a challenge. They’d managed to get a substantial amount of tech sent up to the penthouse, always while they were “out” and always in unmarked boxes. Jo had the majority of what she needed uploaded on a flash drive, but she still required a physical presence to be able to implement it in all the ways she needed to. Which meant she had to be stingy, and she had to make sure everything was in order before jumping in headfirst.

Wayne, in all chivalrousness, took the brunt of the time spent. Jo wanted to argue, but she didn’t. He’d reminded her that he had time left over from past wishes and Yuusuke needed them a lot more than either of them needed a few hours of play time (or work, supposedly, if she was ever brought in on a wish) in the real world.

So, Jo embarked on the forehead-desk-meeting sort of task that it was to get Wayne acquainted with her setup, and typed over his hands, showing him what he needed to do and where. She worked alongside him, and then just had him hit “go” on the scripts she was building.

The last time she’d tried to hit the Black Bank it had been about proving herself, about Yuusuke and her becoming legends in the community, making all the money she’d ever need, and then making a clean escape—all while being able to give their families the lives they deserved.

Maybe Yuusuke was still aiming for that goal, but Jo’s new mission was simpler: keep Yuu safe, help him succeed. Make sure her wish wasn’t made in vain. Make sure this equally magical and insane life she now lived had meaning.

Lucky for Yuusuke, Jo knew exactly how he hacked, had learned alongside him for years when they were kids. She knew just as much about the ins and outs of his capabilities as she did her own, and worked to string together a foundation of code for Yuu to find.

Jo wasn’t looking to break into the Black Bank herself—she was looking to give Yuusuke all the back doors he needed in all the places only he would think to look. She was hollowing out the whole thing so that it’d fall like a house of cards the moment he came tapping.

“Damn,” Jo sighed, turning her watch off the moment she hit a roadblock; no use wasting time on frustration.

“Everything all right, doll?” Wayne asked from where he was lying on the bed, staring blearily at the ceiling (his monitor tolerance was much, much lower than hers, and they’d been at it for nearly three days now). Jo groaned, then placed a hand on the keyboard in front of her, hating the way the touch felt instantly less pronounced.

“Just another setback we don’t really have time for. . . I’ll figure it out.” There had to be at least a few more ways she could obfuscate things. She needed an excellent, elegant virus that no one would even see. Yuu would trigger it, then it’d eat away at the security of the Black Bank like a parasite, and then it’d eat itself. She needed perfection on a time budget of about twenty minutes. “I can do this in ten, then I’m sure—”

She had already clicked on her watch, eyes scanning the lines and lines of code on the screen, when the lock on the door deactivated and a bellhop let himself in. She hadn’t even heard him knock. Had he knocked?

“Oh! Ms. Espinoza, my sincerest apologies!” The bellhop bowed, a little panicked. “I was informed by the desk that you were out and I was to deliver. . . I didn’t mean to. . . disturb. . . you. . .” The words trailed off as he stood from his bow, his eyes finally taking in the sight of the very elaborate-looking display of tech before him. Jo didn’t doubt they’d sent him up under some false pretense to investigate the unmarked packages; his look of confirmed suspicion told her as much. But the surprise at actually finding them in the room seemed genuine, especially with the panic of needing to find an excuse for why he’d just waltz into a hotel patron’s room unannounced.

This was the last thing they needed right now. Jo couldn’t turn off her watch with him staring directly at her, but with every moment he stood gaping at the incriminating display and stewing in his own panic, she lost precious time.

Suddenly, Wayne was in front of her, a hand finding her shoulder and giving it a squeeze. The bellhop gave Wayne simple, mostly distracted greetings. He didn’t seem to have been startled by a man suddenly appearing before him, which meant Wayne must have turned on his watch in the bedroom, just out of sight.

“Do what you do best, doll,” Wayne said in a tone low enough for only her to hear. “I’ll handle the stool pigeon.” Jo looked at the line of Wayne’s back, at the confident stretch of his posture. His other hand was already in his pocket, pulling out a familiar, silver coin. Even though Wayne wasn’t looking, she nodded, trying her best to focus on the task at hand. Time was ticking.

She still couldn’t help listening to their conversation, however.

“How about a little bet, hmm?” Wayne asked, his tone suave. Jo heard the sound of his nickel flipping off the edge of his thumbnail, followed by the bellhop’s confused stuttering.

“Really, s-sir, I should probably be—”

“Just a little bet. Heads says you tell your bosses you saw nothing unusual up here, tails says you get my nickel and do whatever your conscience deems fit. Whatcha say?”

The bellhop lingered in his own uncertainty. Discomfort radiated off of him, and was no doubt making the man eager to leave. Inwardly cursing, Jo pulled up a new tab on one of her screens to research.

“You really should take him up on it,” Jo chimed in before the bellhop could scurry away and rat them out. She looked over her shoulder, fingers still typing away as if she could care less about the situation. As though she wasn’t embroiled in something highly illegal on every other monitor than the one showing a large picture of Wayne’s nickel. She thought the coin looked odd from the start. “That’s a liberty head nickel.” Both men stared at her dumbly, and Jo had to force herself not to laugh. “They don’t mint nickels anymore. At all. It’s practically ancient now, clear back to the days of the United States of America. And the liberty head was pretty rare to begin with, so it’s got to be worth at least a couple thousand.”

Jo finally stopped typing, looking the bellhop in the eye. She could see his resolve wavering at the mention of the nickel’s worth. A bellhop surely didn’t make that much money, even in a five-star hotel; she figured it might peak his interest. What she didn’t expect was the look of pure shock on Wayne’s face.

“Just a quick bet?” The bellhop eventually cracked, probably finally realizing he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Wayne cleared his throat and continued flipping his nickel, confident smirk falling back into place. “Okay.”

Wayne gave the coin one final flip before slapping it into the back of his hand. It was, expectedly, heads. “Them’s the breaks, kid,” he winked, and Jo watched as the bellhop straightened, a look of confusion flitting across his face. When he opened his mouth to speak, he seemed at a loss for words, and eventually just shut his mouth and shook his head. Wayne just put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and ushered him back towards the door. “Better luck next time.”

The moment the bellhop was past the threshold, Wayne closed the door and turned off his watch, Jo doing the same after a few more minutes at the computer. She glanced at her watch and winced. She’d used way more time than she’d intended. But as long as she only took one shot at this—which was all she was gearing up to need—she should be fine.

When Jo turned to look at Wayne, he was leaning heavily against the door, lost in thought. The silence felt heavy, so Jo broke it as carefully as she could. “You’re sure he won’t tell anybody?”

Wayne shook his head. “He can’t. He lost the bet.”

“So that’s your magic then?”

“Superficially, yes,” Wayne replied, but he still wasn’t looking at her. “I have to say something that I’m betting on and money has to be involved.”

“Your nickel?”

“Any money.”

Jo thought about this for a second. “So that’s what you used on me.”

At that, Wayne finally glanced in her direction. He arched his eyebrows, noting her calm tone and demeanor. “I thought you’d be more upset.”

Jo just shrugged. “What would that get me now?”

The odd thoughtfulness finally seemed to bleed out of Wayne’s features, his shoulders shaking with a quiet laugh. “You’ve really got your head on straight, doll.” He paused, mulling something over, and then added, “Is it really worth that much cabbage?”

Jo frowned, caught off guard by the question. “What?”

“My nickel.”

“I don’t know of any currency called cabbage.”

“Cash, dame,” Wayne sighed, but he was smiling.

“It is a few hundred years old.” Jo shrugged. She leaned back on her hands. “My mother was obsessed with old America, the way it was before the war. She kept an old coin collection, so when you said nickel, it jarred my memory.”

“I see.” Wayne didn’t press further, and Jo found herself relieved he didn’t. She wasn’t sure why she’d offered the personal anecdote, but it hurt a lot more than expected.

And that hurt was exactly what she needed to get back on track; no better distraction than a good coding session.

“I’ve done everything I can here,” she said, getting to her feet with a stretch.

Wayne looked down at the computer set up and raised an eyebrow. “So, what next?

“Now we actually break into a bank.”