Eric leaned against the cold metal table, his arms crossed and his head dipping. His eyelids were heavy. George had wrapped his leg and given him a dose of pain meds, the foul perpetrators of his sleepiness.

Eric doubted his decision-making skills at the moment, trusting a doctor he hadn’t seen in years, old friend or not. People changed, and for all he knew, George was in Landreau Corp’s pocket as well. The thought depressed him, yet he’d still taken the pills without question, and his grip on his cane was loosening. George had been the only figure in his life he could look up to, had repeatedly patched him up when he was younger, no questions asked.

Now, here he sat, having returned to be healed by the closest thing to a father he’d ever had. Years with no explanation of where he’d been or why he’d left all melted away, and George still treated him the same.

“Do you still have that old van from your mobile business days?” Eric asked after jerking his head back out of the waters of drowsiness.

George chuckled in the darkness, where he was rummaging through drawers. “I do. It’s at an old car-storage place a friend of mine owns. He keeps it up for me, and in return, I give him a free prescription for his insomnia.” He emerged from the darkness and handed a bottle of pain pills to Eric. “Speaking of friends, how many do you have now? Last we met, you mentioned that you were starting to get some contacts together. ‘Crawling my way to the top of the food chain’ is how you worded it, if I remember correctly.”

“Yeah, I managed to build myself up pretty well,” Eric said, pocketing the bottle and hoisting himself onto the table. He crossed his legs with a wince. “I have my own little information business going. Two… well, three underbosses that own their own businesses. Two of them have their own employees, as well.” A voice spoke in Eric’s head. It whispered, Too much. You’re telling him too much. He shoved the voice down and drowned it.

“So you collect data on people and sell it?” George wore a proud smile. “Must be easier with the internet nowadays.”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t trust it.”

George rolled a desk chair over to himself and sat. “Why is that?”

“Don’t like it, don’t need it. Too easy and too accessible. Nothing in the world that useful is without a price.” He smiled. “Besides, I’ve already spun my web in the city of Arachna.”

“As paranoid as I remember you being,” George said, shaking his head. “So you don’t use the internet at all? Not even a little?”

“There’s a computer at one of my hideouts that I never use. I have some people there. I’m sure they’re eating it up right about now.”

George rubbed his chin. “What about cell phones?”

Eric ran a hand through his hair. “Even worse. Don’t have an ounce of trust for those things. For all I know, they could track me with it.”

George shrugged. “I don’t know about that, but I feel like a cell phone would be pretty useful to own, especially now.”

“Well, I did have a landline a few days ago, but it, um… short-circuited.”

Silence stood between them until Eric said, “I need a way out of the city. I have a bad feeling that Caleb is going to take a stroll through Arachna to find my operation and dismantle it. I can’t have that happen, Doc.” Eric tightened his grip on his cane at the possibility of everything he’d worked so hard to build shattering into pieces under Caleb Landreau’s heel. If that man knew the hellish wrath Eric would unleash if that happened, he would slink back to his corporate office with his tail between his legs.

“I understand,” George said. “If you give me an hour, I’ll have the van over here.”

“So we’re using the van, are we?”

George peered over his glasses at him. “I know you didn’t just ask about the van because you were curious, Eric.” And with a chuckle, George stood from his chair and promptly left.

An hour passed. Eric’s leg pain eased as the pills took effect, but the bottle in his coat pocket called to him anyway. He ignored its sweet promise. He needed to be alert if he was going to return to Arachna without being riddled with a hail of bullets.

George returned, and they left the secret clinic together. Eric was giddy as he limped out into the alley and spotted the van. Whoever the doctor’s friend was had surely taken care of it. Not a scratch was on it.

“Here we go,” George said, opening the rear doors and revealing an empty space behind the two front seats. “Watch this.” He climbed inside and braced his hands on the bare metal floor. With a pull, a patch of the floor slid back, revealing a human-sized compartment. “I used to keep extra equipment in here. It won’t be the most comfortable for your leg, but you should at least be able to fit.”

“It’ll do,” Eric said. “At least until we get out of the city.”

Crawling into the compartment took longer than Eric’s pride would have preferred, the pain in his leg throbbing with each movement. Once he’d tucked himself uncomfortably into the compartment, his cane hugged against his chest, George slid the floor until it was nearly closed, leaving just enough room for Eric to breathe; it was hard enough already with the intoxicating reek of rubbing alcohol.

The van rumbled to a start as George cranked it, sending a vibration through Eric’s body. It eased the pain in his leg.

“Does this Caleb Landreau have his own private military?” George asked after a few turns of the van.

“Don’t tell me…”

“Guards in black uniforms and helmets. Armored from head to toe?”

Eric scoffed. “Not fair. Wish I had a private army.”

“Eric, my friend,” George started as he made a turn, a chuckle escaping him, “I think we can both agree the world would be worse off with you in charge of a military force.”

Eric chuckled along with him. “I disagree. I’d make things a lot more fun around here.”

“Hmm, nothing looks very fun about these guys.”

Eric’s attempts to respond were cut short by a curse from George. “Looks like they’re stopping cars trying to leave the city.”

The van pulled to a stop, and Eric craned to peek out of the narrow opening in the compartment door.

“How many cars are—”

George shushed him and rolled the window down. The shouts of angry drivers and honking horns blended with the rumbling of the engine. The smell of exhaust billowed into the car, and Eric resisted a cough.

He heard footsteps then a voice.

“Where are you going today, sir?” someone asked in a surprisingly friendly voice to be part of a private military.

Eric peeked through the crack in the compartment door. The officer’s voice was muffled by a dark helmet, and a visor covered his entire face. His armor was midnight black.

“I’m going to meet my brother in Arachna. His car broke down yesterday, and he needs one to get to work on Monday.”

The soldier leaned forward, his arms resting on the windowsill. “And how are you planning on getting back?”

“I’m not, right now. I’m going to stay there with him for a few weeks.”

A moment of quiet thickened the air, interrupted by another car horn.

“Can I see your driver’s license?”

“Absolutely.” George fumbled for his license and handed it to the soldier.

The soldier scanned it for a moment then gave it back. “Go on through,” the soldier said, patting his hand against the roof.

Stolen novel; please report.

George rolled the window up and whispered, “Those uniforms cover everything. Not an inch of skin was visible.”

Eric relaxed. “Definitely to hide the bad case of purple vein… That’s going to be an interesting topic of research when I get back to Arachna. I need to know what’s going on with this company. What are you going to do?”

“Once we get to Arachna? Find some new patients, make some money until things here in Agni settle down. And if business in Arachna is good? Heh heh, well, I may just stay there.”

“I could always employ you, Doc. Another source of information. The reasons why they got injured. It could really give me some juicy intel.”

George chuckled again. “I believe there are laws against that. I still took an oath, you know.”

Eric slid the door all the way open, and George looked at him in the rearview mirror.

“My dearest doctor,” Eric started, “I’m sure you could make an exception for an old friend. And if I can’t convince you, my money might.”

The doctor laughed and returned his eyes to the road. “The young boy that used to come to me all the time, now offering me a job. Funny how the world works, huh?”

“Funny, indeed,” Eric said, his hands resting behind his head. “How’s the wife?”

“Still in jail.”

“She should be getting parole soon if I’m counting the years right.”

“Unfortunately.” George went quiet after that.

Eric smiled at the memory. That was the first big scam he’d pulled, and definitely the riskiest, but seeing that lying witch thrown in a cell had been worth it.

“You acted so mad at me when you first learned about her arrest, but I knew you were thrilled. I suppose you were just trying to draw a line in the sand on your morality?” Eric asked, closing his eyes. Prodding, just a little, to know what was going through George’s mind.

“I was thrilled… but I didn’t want to be. I wanted revenge on her, to make her hurt like I did.”

“They do say cheaters never prosper.”

“But a decade in jail for a crime she didn’t commit… It was too far, Eric.”

Eric sent a crooked smile to the van’s pale ceiling. “We both know that’s not true, Doc.”

The doctor hummed. “Maybe I was just trying to draw a line in the sand… but what’s your line, Eric?”

“I haven’t found it yet.”

“I hope you do soon, my boy. You may have control over Arachna, but you need to have control over yourself. Crack open a history book, and you’ll see. The most powerful men in the world that lost themselves lost everything else shortly after.”

Eric rolled his eyes and pulled the sliding door, nearly closing it. “Whatever you say, Doc.” He reached for his hat to pull it over his face, but he found nothing but his greasy hair. He sighed, wiped his hand on his coat, and lay back, waiting for sleep to carry him off and away from any more awkward conversations with the doctor.

He was right. Admitting it hurt nearly as bad as his leg, but George was right. His own pride and desperation had cost him a deal with Landreau Corp. He should’ve been more careful. Oh well. He would find a way past it.

He always did.

* * *

Lance groaned as a hand shook him and a distant voice called his name. Disoriented, he stirred on the hard mattress, the bright white light bearing down on him. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. His arm was asleep.

“We have a plan,” Derek said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

Lance massaged the blood back into his dead arm, the tingles like a thousand tiny spiders crawling across it. His body sang for him to lie back down. Kaela was sitting across Derek’s bed, staring at the papers from the precinct. Her dress was gone, replaced with jeans and a black shirt.

“Okay,” Lance said. “What is it?”

Kaela looked up at him. “We’re going to break into Landreau Corp.”

Lance shot up, his eyelids no longer heavy.

No glint of humor shone in Kaela’s eyes.

She was serious.

“Are you crazy? You understand we’re public enemy number one right now. Every cop in the city is after us.”

Kaela rolled her eyes. “I’m fully aware of that. Which is why I have a plan.”

Lance shook his arm, the blood returning. “What plan is worth getting ourselves killed?”

“We’re waiting for Rob to get here,” Kaela muttered. “Derek paged him and told him to scout the building to confirm my suspicions.”

Lance stood, the springs of the mattress groaning. “So how exactly do we go about not dying? Or is this supposed to be some sick form of suicide?”

Kaela smirked. “Look at this.” She pointed at the dots and crosses peppered across the page. “What if these marks are where guards are stationed or are going to be stationed? Say the dots are where Landreau Corp’s guards are going to be, and the crosses are where the officers will be.”

Lance scratched the back of his neck then looked at Derek. “I guess that makes sense. So are we to assume that every officer has a page telling them where to go in Landreau Corp?”

“Or had,” Derek interjected. “They could have destroyed them by now.”

Lance rubbed at his tired eyes. They’d narrowly escaped the precinct, and now they wanted to break into Landreau Corp? Maybe he should’ve left after all. “So… about this plan?”

Kaela cleared her throat. “When Eric first asked us to get information on Malcolm Landreau, we learned that he generally stayed in an office here in Arachna. We’re going to find his office and look for clues. Malcolm was the lead chemist, after all. Surely, if they did something to the police force, there will be proof of it there.”

Lance sighed. “Do you really think that Landreau Corp managed to drug the entirety of the police force?”

Kaela glared at him. “The glowing purple veins didn’t tip you off?”

“It’s just… I’ve never seen a drug that does something like this.” He’d put enough of them up his nose and in his own veins over the years. None of them had that kind of effect. Then again, Landreau Corp had been working on a secret project. And what better way to get back at Eric than to cripple his police protection? Lance swore.

Kaela glanced at the computer. “There has to be a way to fix this. If Landreau Corp has drugged the police, then surely there’s something that can flush their system of it, like a backup plan in case it failed.” She sighed. “And if that doesn’t work, we can try to get evidence that Landreau Corp is guilty and get the FBI involved.”

“What if Landreau Corp has gotten to them too?”

Kaela shrugged. “Then we’re as good as dead anyway.”

A knock sounded on the door.

Derek tensed and snapped his head toward the entrance. “It’s Rob.”

Derek opened the door, and Rob slid into the room, his eyes tired but set with determination. He was out of breath.

“Anything of interest at Landreau Corp?” Kaela asked.

“Guards,” Rob said, leaning against the wall. “Everywhere. Practically surrounding the building. I can tell some are police because of the police cars in the parking lot. Other than that, they’re indistinguishable from Landreau Corp’s men. Employees have to go through metal detectors and show ID before they even reach the entrance. After that, it looks like they go through another round of security.” He rubbed his face. “Cameras are pretty scarce, and a handful of guards are peppered across the parking lot. To top it all off, a curfew has been put in place. The streets are nearly empty. Getting here was a bitch.”

“Did you take any pictures at Landreau Corp?”

Rob reached into his tight-fitting leather jacket and pulled out a handful of photos. “It’s not much, but it’s at least enough to make some semblance of a plan.”

Kaela looked through photo after photo as Lance peeked over her shoulder. The photos were filled with the grim faces of employees showing their IDs, the guards armored from head to toe.

“Can’t see their skin,” Derek said. “They’re hiding their veins.”

Kaela braced her hands on the desk, biting her lip and staring off into space. “We could use that,” she said. “If we can get at least one of their uniforms, we’ll have the advantage.”

Derek scratched his bald head. “Maybe. But it’s hard to tell what their behavior is outside of guarding the place. How do these people act when they’re alone? Do they go back to normal, or are they still affected by whatever the drug does to them?”

“I don’t know,” Rob said. “All I could see was them doing their jobs.”

Lance zoned out, the others’ voices phasing into white noise. They would be breaking into Landreau Corp itself. And after the news of what had happened in Agni, the thought of getting caught, of getting his brains blown out by a crazed officer, chilled him to the bone. Whatever fighting instinct stirred inside him didn’t give him any more confidence in this suicide mission.

His palms were sweaty when he returned to the real world, and he wiped them on his pants.

Kaela grabbed the photos and placed them beside the pages. “Since you’ve seen the place up close, any chance that this is how the interior is laid out?”

Rob nodded. “It looks to be. Derek can enter through here, dressed in a uniform. I’ll be on the rooftop with the rifle I gave you if anything goes wrong. There’s a back door leading to another parking lot, where they throw out trash. You need to get to that door once you’re inside and let Kaela and Lance in. Derek’s told me that you’re something of a formidable fighter?” He looked up at Lance.

Lance flinched under the sudden attention. He cleared his throat. “Yeah… yeah, I can fight.”

“You wouldn’t think, huh?” Kaela smiled, but her eyes held the same shadow they had the night he killed that man. “But he can, as crazy as it sounds. Maybe he’s like that dude in the Bible. The one whose hair makes him all strong.”

Derek grinned for the first time in a while. “You mean Samson?”

“Yeah.”

Derek laughed. “You know, it was a pretty lady that cut Samson’s hair and made him weak. Delilah, I think her name was.”

Kaela’s smile grew wicked. “Hear that, Lance? Your weakness is me with a pair of scissors.”

“Looks like there are a couple of guards at the door,” Rob interjected, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Lance, Kaela, you take them out and disguise yourselves. Once you’re all in, you need to find Malcolm’s office, which should be somewhere on the top floor.” He pointed at two small lines at the same point in both papers. “You should come to a hallway when you enter the back door. These marks in the hallway look like a set of stairs and two elevators. It seems that there aren’t many guards near them on the main floor. As for the top floor, for all I know, there could be an army up there, so be prepared.”

Kaela idly scratched the back of her head as she said, “While we’re at it, we need to be asking around. Casual conversation with the guards, if they’re even capable of it anymore. We can probably get some good intel just from what they say.” When Lance and Derek looked at each other, Kaela sighed. “You know what, how about I just do the talking? I can get some info without attracting too much attention, but you two need to be looking through the offices for something. Just remember that Malcolm’s office is the target.”

Lance relaxed. Talking with strangers was hard enough, but strangers that would kill him if they knew who he was? He scoffed.

Rob scanned the photos and plans. “Should anything go wrong, I’ll take out as many guards as I can. If not, I’ll go down personally and help you escape. But once you’re inside that building, my hands are tied. If you get caught in there, you’ll have to get yourselves out, or it’s over.”

A spike of fear struck Lance’s heart like a syringe penetrating skin. Derek nodded grimly, and Kaela crossed her arms. If she had doubts, she hid them well. I wish I could share the same confidence.

“It’s already dark outside, so we need to get going now.”

Kaela straightened and breathed deeply, closing her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, they held a new intensity. “Let’s go.”