The four men discussed what to do next to an elevated fountain near the end of the mercenaries who were lined up, awaiting instructions. “I can’t give them more shares,” Anson said. “Who knows what they’ll do with it. They’ll probably burn them like the ones they got in front of them.”
“That’s what they want,” responded Cyril.
Sighing, Anson tried to think, but before he could conjure up anything Cyril asked how the last location went. Anson and Deo answered at the same time.
“Great,” Deo said.
“Terribly,” responded Anson.
Cyril and Vasos look at the two men, slowly nodding their heads. “What happened?” asked Vasos.
“We got the shares,” responded Deo.
“But a lot of men died.”
“There was no way around it.” Deo justified.
“There’s no justification in what we are doing,” snapped back Anson. “We lost the moral high ground a long time ago. Now we are just trying to replace the worse alternative. That Chairman. But that’s beside the point. Cyril and Vasos, you keep asking me questions, but have you guys come up with any plans to deal with the situation?”
“I proposed that you cut them in the on the deal again,” suggested Vasos.
“Which is why we are standing here, doing nothing. We should swarm them, taking out the candles at the same time, so they can’t light the shares. We can scoop it up after.” Cyril suggested.
“Those are both stupid plans,” responded Anson. “By the way, where’s the Sovan Triad? Are they going to try and reclaim their shares at any point, or are they just going to let us take it from the underside people?”
“I don’t know,” responded Cyril. “It seems a lot of them ran. From what little we can see inside the local chapter and from when we first got here, there weren’t a lot of dead bodies. Though, still a few.”
“Is the area we passed through the only place where the underside people are crowding?” Anson asked. Cyril nodded. “I should talk to them,” suggested Anson. “They’re just standing there like idiots, waiting for the candle to run out and when it nearly does, they’ll probably do something stupid.”
“You sure?” Cyril asked, but before he could question the idea, Deo encouraged Anson to go forward.
“We’ll think of something,” he said as Anson walked away. Making his way passed the rows of mercenaries, toward the men he recognized from the underside. They looked at him with delight, recognizing the man, seemingly excited to confront him about his earlier lie. “What is going on here,” Anson said as he stood a couple of meters away from the men. All the mercenaries watched from about ten meters away, leaving a gap, awaiting one of the other men to speak.
After looking at each other for a moment, one of them, a bald man, approached Anson. “You lied about the shares.”
“I lied about the location, not my promise. If you hand us the shares, we’ll hold onto them and when the rest of the operation succeeds, you shall receive what was promised to you.”
“Why can’t we hold onto it until the operation succeeds?” asked the bald man.
“Because I need it for the operation to succeed. I need it to be with people I know, so the location of it is a matter of fact while we handle the rest. You are welcome to join us and help us. If you do, we might even give you a bigger share.” Anson gestured toward the mercenaries, looking behind for a moment. While he saw his men standing at attention, in between the rows, he saw Deo and Cyril arguing about something. Probably about what to do when Anson’s conversation inevitability fails. It didn’t matter, he would find out once he went back.
Turning back to the bald man, Anson saw him smile and shake his head. “Personally,” he explained. “Everyone involved would just prefer it if we stayed out of this mess. And I would recommend that you get out as well.”
Anson was a little surprised at this remark. Why was he saying that? “What I do is my concern. I have a plan, and I am sure you have yours.”
“And you know this plan is going to succeed?” asked bald man.
“Of course,” Anson said while looking back to his men. He once again saw Deo, Cyril, and Vasos, but this time they were walking toward the crowd. “I have the adequate resources and information to help me see this through.”
“How do you know you have enough information?”
Anson didn’t respond. The man was right, he thought he had enough at the beginning of the operation, but it all turned out to be an inside job. He couldn’t tell him that of course. Anson needed to remain strong. “You don’t try to rob a country without knowing what you need to know.”
“But of course, you don’t know what you don’t know,” the bald man shot back. There was a moment of silence once more before the bald man’s expression dropped as looked passed Anson. Wondering what he saw, Anson turned and saw the crowd now in the middle of the small square, seemingly pushing past many of the mercenaries without any issues. The rows of mercenaries that were facing the underside men holding the money hostage, turned around only to be shocked when they saw hundreds of people now pushing toward them.
Watching, Anson couldn’t see Cyril, Deo, or Vasos, but they must have been somewhere in there. The group continued to push toward Anson, but it didn’t make sense. The group wasn’t spreading out, but just as dense as before. They have more space, there should be more room, he thought to himself.
However, the group kept pushing forward, turning back around to the bald man, he saw his face light up in worry. Looking left and right, the street that separated the small square with Sovan Local Chapter, and where the shares were soaked in the middle of it had mercenaries on either end. Standing still, they seemed to have no idea what was happening.
Deo eventually popped through the crowd, running toward one end of the street while Vasos, with Cyril chasing him, going the other way. Swinging his head back and forth, none of it made sense. Was this their plan? Plan? What kind of plan is this? Gesturing the bald man to stay, he ran toward Deo. Catching up to him after sprinting about thirty meters, he came within earshot of what Deo was yelling at the men. “I need all of you to march forward and not let anyone who isn’t a mercenary through. You keep on pushing forward until we tell you, understand?”
Grabbing Deo and pulling him to the side, he demanded what was happening. Deo became out of breath and took a moment before responding as the mercenaries marched toward forward into the square.
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“Can’t keep a fire going if you snuff it out with hundreds of people,” he said before taking another moment to catch his breath again and running back toward the middle. Not understanding what that meant, Anson chased after him as Deo yelled at the rows of mercenaries to let the underside people through. Not wanting to be out of the loop, Anson grabbed Deo by the shoulders. “What is happening?!”
Speaking as quietly as he could so the bald man and company couldn’t hear, but loud enough so Anson could hear, Deo responded. “We are going to force the crowd to swarm the men. They will be confused. In the frenzy we will snatch the shares, grabbing four or five individually and getting it behind the line. And with so many people, the underside men won’t be able to chase us.”
Anson immediately had two questions. “There are two hundred bundles of shares, how are we going to grab them all? And what if people get trampled as we throw them at the shares?”
“We have a lot of people grabbing shares, and we’ll get out before that happens.”
Not waiting for a response, Deo ran over to the middle of the street where Cyril and Vasos waited. “You ready?” he asked them.
“Like that matters,” responded Vasos. “You boys seem to be doing whatever you please.”
They waited for a couple more moments as the lines of mercenaries began to fold in on themselves, even then Deo waited. Anson tried to figure out a way to get out of this and get the shares or even at the very least understand why this was the plan and why it was happening so suddenly. However, any sort of understanding would come about, Deo tapped a couple of the mercenaries on their soldiers, before grabbing Anson and whispering “get ready” into his ear and motioning his head toward the shares.
A second later a gap opened up in the line and dozens of underside people poured through toward previously startled men holding candles around the soaked shares. Shadowing the crowd, Deo waited until there was enough people around the shares before pushing through, with Anson behind him. The underside people around the shares tried to force the crowd back but was unable as Deo launched himself toward the shares, grabbing as many as he could. Anson tried to help by protecting Deo, who was now receiving physical abuse from the crowd and underside people protecting the shares, but Deo forced him down, yelling at him to ignore it.
Anson obliged and grabbed about four bundles of shares himself before trying to back out. Doing so, he soon discovered that there was a line of mercenaries, trying to force their way into the crowd to grab the money. A few even shoved Anson out of the way so they could hurry along the process. The crowd seemed endless as Anson was forced back with the momentum of the crowd along with Deo. First it felt like it would only take a couple of meters to get out, then five, then ten, but no, he was still in the crowd of underside people. Anson and Deo went back so far that they hit the line of mercenaries forcing everyone to stay where they were instead of dispersing into the neighboring streets. Recognizing their uniforms, they let Anson and Deo slip by as the two dropped the shares as soon as they had some room to breathe.
“Pick it back up and stack it over here.” Deo commanded. Anson did what he said but did no further as he grabbed Deo by the neckline of his shirt and pushed him against a building on the north end of the street. “What kind of plan is this? Are they doing the same thing on the other side?”
“We couldn’t exactly look like we were hatching a plan or else they would burn the shares.” Deo responded.
“What else would we be doing? They’re not idiots!” But before the conversation continued further, more mercenaries went through the line and seeing Anson pushing Deo against the wall, correctly assumed an argument was happening, so they dropped their shares and separated the two. Anson protested, but it was no use against three mercenaries pulling him away as Deo thanked the men and asked if any had a bag. Anson watched from the south end of the street as more mercenaries went through the line, as the line itself pushed forward, further squeezing the crowd.
Anson ran over to the line and told them to stop advancing. They refused. He told them again, but they responded that they weren’t violating direct orders. He couldn’t believe it. Anson asked himself how he suddenly became outranked by Deo. He’s the one who was in charge of the operation up until this point. I was the one who kept going when he wanted to quit! But Anson dropped the thought. The mercenaries didn’t know that. They would probably just listen to whoever promised the most money and yelled the loudest. All he could do was wait and watch, so Anson stepped back and watched what he went through only moment before. People gasping for air as their bodies smushed, and nails clawed other peoples’ backs. The flow of people became fluid like, and Anson forced himself to watch. If they had to go through the pain the least, he could do was to have the decency to look at them as crushed themselves.
However, the itch to do something became too strong and Anson bounced up and down the line trying to look through. All the while he appealed to Deo to call of the attack. “How do you expect the mercenaries to walk out if they are smushed between two people.” It seemed like he wasn’t listening until about thirty seconds later as he walked up to the line and told the mercenaries to slowly walk backward.
“You have no trust in me, do you?” Deo asked, sounding tired of Anson’s complaining.
“I would if you weren’t a common mercenary grunt that I met a few days ago that has no qualms killing people.”
“If I didn’t have any qualms killing people, that Bandit would have been dead a long time ago.”
Anson said nothing in response as the line backed up to let the crowd breathe a little and for a few mercenaries to walk out with the couple of bundles of shares they had in their hands. Every time they passed the line they would dump it at Deo’s feet who put it in his newly acquired satchel until that filled up. This went on until no more mercenaries came and Deo could see the other end of the crowd. It was then that he ordered the line to disband and let people go, also yelling it across the street so that the ones on the other side could hear.
However, as they began to leave from they were before with the fountain, they noticed just beginning to enter it. Though, they weren’t underside people, but mercenaries who got stuck behind the crowd before Anson and Deo surfed across it. The stagecoach with the driver trying to gingerly control his horses was barely visible at the back at the crowd. There must have been thousands of mercenaries and civilians trying to enter and leave the same street. Probably more than this street had or ever will see at one time.
It took quite a while for the civilians to get dispersed enough to comfortably navigate it. All the while Anson watched to see if he recognized any of the underside people who held the candles over the shares. None passed, and Anson couldn’t believe they were still in there as they would become more obvious as time passed, but a new task arose. Getting the shares back to the stagecoach. Following Deo, the two slowly pushed their way through the crowd before reaching the driver.
“Long time no see,” he sarcastically said.
Throwing the bag of shares in the back, Deo gave further instructions. “Once you get the other bag, make your way to where the stock market is and look for Baldwyn. You know his face, right? Doesn’t matter, he will be in a dormant stagecoach with a girl. Just call out his name, say who sent you and do whatever he tells you.”
“I know his face,” told the driver. “But don’t worry, I’ll get it to him.”
Patting the man on the back, Deo left the stagecoach and began to back his way to the other side of the street, but he immediately ran into Vasos and Cyril, which the latter held a smaller bag full of shares and also threw it into the stagecoach. Vasos scrunched his nose and stared at Deo with fury, while Cyril looked more like what he was like in the bathroom after talking to Vasos the first time today.
After the shares were in a safe place, Vasos began to berate Deo for what just happened. “What kind of plan was that?! Do you know how bad this is going to make me look?!”
“It won’t matter,” tried to assure Deo, “Your business will be safe once the operation is complete.”
It seemed that Vasos held back the urge to punch Deo in the face, but instead he redirected his anger. “And you!” he yelled at Anson. “I thought you were in charge here.”
“I did too,” responded Anson. “Then Deo came here with a genius plan.”
“Well, it worked,” he defended himself. Anson and Vasos opened their mouths to continue to the conversation, but Deo ignored them, walking back toward where the bald man was standing moments earlier. Anson and Vasos followed while Cyril sat on footrest of the stagecoach which had no hope of moving until the crowd completely dispersed.
Pushing through the crowd, Vasos tried to continue the conversation, but Deo just told him to shut it and to look for bald people and men who looked like they recently carried candles. Sighing, the two obliged and the three of them looked for about ten minutes. For most of it, they could barely move as they looked for the people, but by the end, it was fruitless. The mercenaries began to organize again, and the underside people had almost completely gone by now, being forced out by men carrying spears and knives.