Coinslot wanted one perfect heist. He wanted the kind of score that street kids would whisper about for years. He had the purple mask and the suit stitched with coins, so he looked like a legend. But his pockets were empty, and a legend with empty pockets gets laughed at. The big vault he dreamed of cracking needed real gear. The right tools cost more coins than he had ever held at once. He stood in the underground exchange hub and counted his savings again. Eleven coins. The counters around him gleamed with stacked trays, and every clerk looked straight through him. A boy swept the floor near the door and smirked at Coinslot's fancy suit. "Nice coins," the boy said. "Too bad they're sewn on." The jab stung because it was true. Then the old bank robber walked in. Coinslot knew him by the sack. The man always carried a fat bag with a red dollar sign, and dollar bills poked out the top. He had robbed more banks than anyone in Hellmouth, and he never shared a secret for free. His striped shirt hung loose, and his grin showed under a black mask. The clerks went quiet. Even the sweeping boy backed away. Coinslot blocked his path. "I need gear for a vault job. The real kind. I can't buy it." The robber laughed. "Then you're not a thief. You're a costume." He shook his sack so the coins inside rattled. "Give me one job," Coinslot said. "Front me the tools. I pay you back double from the vault." The old man studied him. His eyes moved over the coin suit, the purple mask, the eleven coins in Coinslot's palm. "Double," he repeated. "And if you fail, I take the suit. Coins and all." Coinslot's stomach dropped. The suit was the only thing that made him feel like somebody. Losing it meant losing his name. But the gear was the only road to the legend he wanted. He held out his hand. "Deal." The robber dug into his sack. He pulled out a slim lockpick shaped from a coin, with a sharp point and a cutout center. Then he set down a strange metal gun with a barrel full of coins. "These crack the coin-slot vault," he said. "Lose them, and you owe me your skin." Coinslot wrapped his fingers around the tools. They felt heavier than money. The boy by the door stared now, no longer smirking. For the first time, nobody laughed. The robber hauled his sack to the exit. He paused. "The vault you want has a guard who never sleeps. Men who touched it lost more than coins." He stepped into the dark and was gone. Coinslot stood alone with borrowed gear and a debt that could strip him bare. He had the tools now. He also had a clock ticking, and a vault that had buried better thieves than him.