When Zeki came back, the two men escorting the group commented on how the “reserve weapons” must have been heavy because the bag was sagging. Anson nearly jumped in panic weapon they mentioned it, thinking they had caught onto the lie, but they didn’t mention it further.

As they were being escorted out of the underside, through a different, yet equally disgusting tunnel from the one Anson came through from. Walking mostly in silence for the first ten minutes, Anson eventually approached Zeki and tried to quietly confront him about why he didn’t go back to mercenary headquarters like he was supposed to.

“The city guard had already gone down that manhole and were trying to use it to get into the building.” Zeki responded. “I could see them from the bathroom, so I went along with Cyril and Deo knowing I couldn’t fight the city guard while balancing on a beam and holding a duffel bag.”

Anson looked into Zeki’s eyes with concern. “Are those city guards still chasing us?”

“No, there was a weak spot further down the beam, so I stomped on it, and about five meters of support beam collapsed into the canal below.

“Good,” Anso responded with relief. “So, what now? Are you going to stick with us or go back into mercenary headquarters?”

“You’re asking me?” responded Zeki. “With all due respect, I am not heading back to headquarters. If the government has already put a price on your heads, I don’t feel safe walking an hour or two with this ‘merchandise’ in my bag.”

“You said you’re holding it?” Anson asked. “You got a game to go to.”

“You think I am going there knowing what will happen? Hell no. First, I will help you fix the situation before going back. In the meantime, we’ll find a place to stash this thing.”

Anson nodded at the suggestion. “Make sure you make it a good place, though.”

Shortly after, they reached the nearest manhole, with the escorts lifting the cover off and ascending first. By now, the sun had begun to rise, and the sky shined a mix of heavenly orange, pink, and purple down the little space of light that was let in through the tunnel ceiling. When Anson left the sewer, the air of a rancid and filthy city never seemed so clean as the morning seemed to wash it all away.

When they all ascended, the escorts put the manhole cover back on, and left the group without even saying goodbye, leaving Anson, Cyril, Deo, and Zeki standing there for a moment as they tried to find out where they were in the city. When they did, Cyril asked what they were going to do now. “It’s obvious,” Anson responded.

“First, we find a place to stash the shares because the dead drops are definitely not on schedule anymore, and then break Baldwyn out of the local jailhouse. Somehow.” Before anyone could respond to the plan, Anson’s stomach let out an audible growl. “Well, maybe we should buy something to eat first, do you guys have any money?”

Cyril and Deo rummaged through their clothes and found nothing, but Zeki was carrying a decent amount of zinc coins. “I thought I would need them to potentially bribe the Sovans,” he justified. “Though, this amount would probably be seen as an insult.” Anson didn’t pay much attention to what Zeki was saying afterward. He was just kind of rambling on about how stupid trying to convince the Sovans to change their fixed match was a dumb idea. All the while, Anson led the group looking for some food.

Taking a fourth of the money in his hand, Anson looked for the nearest food stand as the morning markets were beginning to open alongside the sun. Before they found any, the three other guys asked Anson about what they were going to do once the underside people found out that the shares in the dead drop was gone. “Don’t worry,” Anson responded. By the time they figure it out, we’ll be across half the city. That is if everything goes well.”

“And if it doesn’t?” asked Zeki.

“Then, we make a new plan. Now, please, save it for after the food.” They kept on walking and soon found an indoor market with a couple of fruit stand outside, so they approached the nearest one. However, it was empty, and the four of them stood in front of it confused, but before they could call out, a woman appeared from under the stand.

Flustered, she blinked a couple of times as greeted them. Anson froze as he felt the money in his hand nearly fall onto the ground. Cyril and Deo pushed passed as they ordered a variety of fruits. It seemed that Anson forgot how to speak to a person who didn’t want to kill him, as he tried to delay his turn by letting Zeki go first. Trying to get his mind to focus, he tried to decide on a fruit to buy. Apples? Bananas? No, apples are good, but bananas have more energy in them. Oh, it doesn’t matter just—

But before he could finish his thinking the woman, around the same age as him asked his order. “Uh, can I just get just a bundle of bananas, please?” Anson forced out.

By now, the three other guys had gone back to chatting with each other behind him, leaving the Anson all by himself with this woman. It seemed awkward to watch her fetch some fruit for him, so Anson tried to make a conversation. “Do you get busy often?” he asked.

“Always,” she laughed back. “It’s good for business, though. I nearly run out of stock by the end of the day. Shipments are often and consistent, though, so I can just restock the next day, so you can come back anytime you want.”

“Oh, no,” Anson responded politely. “I don’t think so.”

“What? You don’t like fruit or something? You didn’t even try it yet.”

“No—it’s just that I don’t come to this part of town often.”

Nodding her head, the woman continued the conversation. “So, what are you doing here now? Starting the day early in an unfamiliar part of town? That sounds foolish.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to make my job seem more dangerous than running a fruit stand,” Anson responded as he handed the woman his money. “But you are right, I am quite busy today, so I have to start things off early.”

“But that means your day off is that much better.” The woman responded giving Anson the bananas. “Sleeping in and waking up whenever you want.”

Anson paused as he didn’t know how to respond. Hell, he didn’t even have anything to relate to. When was the last time he woke up to a completely free day with no worries? He forced a fake smile, “Yeah,” he simply responded to her remark. He thanked her before turning back around before he couldn’t hold the fake emote any longer. He looked at Cyril, Deo, and Zeki and wondered how they all got here. What were they doing? What was he doing? Why wasn’t he the one waking up at midday with nothing to do?

Before figure out these questions, Cyril walked up to Anson and pulled him aside, talking quietly. “You know, we could stash the shares here. No one would suspect it, and she would feel guilty leaving the thing alone.”

“What?! Anson responded, trying to keep his voice down. The thoughts of what that strange man said in the underside still rung in Anson’s head. “No, we can’t—what if she opens the bag?”

“We tell her that the product is sensitive to air.” Cyril said.

“Do you know how naïve that sounds? No, we don’t want to bother her. Remember? No one dies, and if either of triads stumble upon her, somehow, I don’t need to deal with a young woman being tortured about how she came across the shares.”

Cyril hesitantly agreed. “But where are we going to put it?”

Not knowing, Anson looked around for any sort of solution and stared at Zeki holding the bag as he realized a potential solution. Walking up to the only Kadon man in the group, Anson asked him if there was any possible way, he knew a person who could give him a ride back to mercenary headquarters. “What?” Zeki responded. “The sun has barely risen, and you think I just have some guy?”

Realizing Zeki was right, and it was as stupid idea, Anson pivoted. “You don’t want to be here. Trust me, I know you want to get rid of the Chairman was much as the next guy, but if I we started to bring everyone on board with that idea, we would have a mob overrunning the streets, so please, how about this? You bring it to the mercenary headquarters, and then we pick it up later. You can meet us later on, but it is not dangerous right now.”

“And why are you so protective of me and not everyone else?” Zeki asked.

“I am, but they know the plan and know what to expect. You don’t.”

“And how is that plan working out for you?”

“Not very well,” Anson admitted. “Which is the point. We’re mercenaries! You are not!”

Before Zeki could respond. Deo tapped them on the shoulder and brought their attention to the end of the street where they saw a couple of city guards nailing posters to a bulletin board. As they moved out of the way, they saw they were wanted posters, but not any wanted posters, it read that Anson Xenos Eilas, Baldwyn Alexander Gavras, Cyril Adonis Bakas, and Deo Illias Eparco were wanted for robbery of government shares and the reward would be handsome. “You, see?” Anson asked Zeki. “If they see you with us, you’re fucked.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“I’ll be hunted either way for what happened in the Sovan Local Chapter.”

“Yeah, but if you leave now, you might die without pain if we fail,” added on Deo. “Plus,” he said turning to Zeki. “You’re just a little drag at the moment.”

Relenting, Zeki finally relinquished and asked how to get to HQ from here. Giving him directions, Anson said one more thing before the man left. “If you want to see if we got close to actually doing this, hang out around the stock market. If we make it there, we have a good chance of pulling off this thing.”

Nodding, Zeki went off without saying another word. If no guard or triad member found him with the shares, everything could still be salvaged. Right now, though, they had to find a way to break out Baldwyn and avoid all the city guard members on the way. Sneaking into alley after alley, they slowly made their back to where Baldwyn was supposed to be in a holding cell a block away from where he was arrested.

#

When they got there, the three men gathered behind a building and looked upon city guard jailhouse. Gathering up, Anson tried to brainstorm how to find out if Baldwyn and his daughter were really in the building before they attacked it. However, before they could make any such attempt, he noticed Deo looking back at the jailhouse constantly. “What?” Anson asked.

“There is a man there,” he said, grabbing his hands, “who should not be.”

“Who?” Anson asked. “Zeki? More city guard than usual?”

“No,” responded firmly responded Deo. “An old friend.”

“So?” Anson followed up.

Deo turned to Anson and stared him squarely in the eyes with his teeth clenching hard enough that Deo’s jaw sharpened. “I got a plan. Since this is the nearest jailhouse to the previous location, there is no way that he would be anywhere else. A former associate seemed to find himself in a leading city guard position based on his attire. Cyril, you also want to take a look at who else is there?”

Cyril, confused, shuffled over to the edge of the building and looked. Shooting his head back nearly instantly after looking, he said: “My dad is there. On the street, in that same carriage.”

“I got an idea,” continued Deo.

“Does your idea involve violence?” asked Anson. “Because I have—”

“I know,” responded Deo. “I’m a simple man, but I am not deaf or dumb. My plan has no death involved. Do you want to hear it?”

Ten minutes later, Anson and Cyril found themselves one block away from the jailhouse, same as before, but this time on the opposite side behind a garbage bin. “No masks are a bold idea.” Anson said.

“At this point, it is better than wearing black masks in the sunlight,” responded Cyril while grabbing a rag from the bin. “I just hope that Baldwyn’s here. What if they moved him further anticipating this?”

“No,” said Anson as he readied himself. “If Baldwyn wasn’t here, there wouldn’t be this many guards outside. Well, unless that is part of the ploy too.”

As Anson finished that sentence, yelling appeared in the direction of the jailhouse, and a second later, Deo’s voice rang out crisp and clear for all in the area to hear. “Stand back! If you do not, this man dies!”

Launching from behind the dumpster, Anson and Cyril approached the jailhouse while everyone was distracted. The passageway wasn’t quite an alley, but it was thin enough where the rising sun hadn’t eliminated from the top, but barely lit up the side from the sides. Speed crouching through the shadows, they reached a backdoor of the jailhouse with a guard on edge at what was happening at the front. As they reached to knock out the guard, another man spoke. “Deo! Is that you?” His voice was raspy yet gentlemanly. “What could possibly bring you here at this time in the morning?”

“I could ask you the same thing?” Deo spitefully responded.

By now, Anson grabbed the guard and dragged him to the ground with the help of Cyril. Together, they stuffed the rag down the man throat’s and choked him for about ten seconds until he fell unconscious. Checking if he had a heartbeat, Anson listened as the conversation continued. “Let the man go,” Deo’s former associate said. “I would like to have a productive catching up session with you, and what you have been up to in the last year. There is no need for these men to overhear our sensitive topics.”

“Here’s a sensitive topic for you, how the fuck does a bandit become a high-ranking city guard. Sure, I believe the colluding with the triads part, but it’s the extra ribbons on your shoulder I don’t understand.”

By now, Cyril had grabbed the keys, and they went to the door as they slowly entered. It was strange to Anson that Deo would consider a bandit an associate, but it certainly wouldn’t be out of character. As they entered and closed the door behind them, they could still hear the conversation clearly from outside. “Deo,” the Bandit continued. “Before we begin, I have something to say. Or more, something to thank you for.” Anson smirked to himself as he thought about what the man could possibly thank Deo for. “Thank you,” he said with a pause. “For letting me live.”

Anson and Cyril paused in their tracks and looked at each other in confusion for a long moment before the needs of the operation shot back into their mind. Another thing that seemed to snap back into place was the ticking in his Anson’s head. The time sensitivity of the mission made him sweat as he tried to get a read on the room.

They were behind a wall with an opening a couple of meters away, presumably where the holding cells and the rest of the jailhouse was. “Yes!” Deo yelled from outside. “I did let you live!”

“And you have an opportunity to let this man live too,” the Bandit said. “You have no quarrel with this man. Now, you have dozens of city guards and Sovan Triad members waiting to kill you with arrows at a moment’s notice.”

“I don’t think you understand what a hostage is,” responded Deo. “You think I would show my face with no protection whatsoever?”

Anson tip-toped to the end of the hall and found two men inside the jailhouse fixated on what was happening outside, and as Anson looked around the room, on the other side of the room as the guards, he saw a door with the sign reading “Holding Cells,” written in Sovan and Kadon.

“You showed up without protection last time we met.” The Bandit remembered.

“That’s because your gang killed everyone else in my group. We had a job to do, and you were preventing it. You were getting good men killed, and I had to return with something in return, so I continued on the job I was hired to do.”

Turning back to Cyril, Anson wondered what they were going to do. He tried gesturing to his comrade for any ideas, but Cyril shrugged, so the two waited for a moment as either an opportunity arose, or they thought of something. Though, this did not please Anson. This thinking should have been done beforehand.

The conversation outside continued as the Bandit spoke. “Good men?” the man laughed. “Your mercenaries? There are no good men in the mercenaries. Why do you think there are posters of you and your friends’ faces all over town by now. Now, hand over Bakas!”

“I killed every single one of you,” Deo said. The sound was seething as it sounded like there was foam at his mouth, his eyes popping out of the sockets, and a knife pressing up against Cyril Bakas’ father. “I cut that slobbering, unorganized, and degenerate gang of yours. But there had to be one. One begging piece of shit who thought they could convince some old sucker that he could stop his vengeance with a plea of mercy. A plea that he could become a better man.”

Anson peered form behind the wall and caught a glimpse of Deo through the glass windows. He saw a man staring into the soul of a bandit, and had nothing else in his mind, seemingly have forgotten there was a hostage in his hands as he gripped onto the man’s shirt like he was gripping onto the neck of a man he was choking.

There was never a plan, was there? This thought shocked Anson into action as he looked back at Cyril and simply nodded. Sneaking behind one of the desks with Cyril behind him. As Deo took a breath before he continued, Anson readied himself. “And what did you do?!” Deo yelled. There was no response from the man. “Answer me!”

In this moment, Anson launched from behind a desk and grabbed onto one of the guards while Cyril took a knife and threw it at one of the other men. Anon’s man fell to the ground, while Cyril’s was thrown into a wall as a knife pierced his leg. As the two men were getting control of the jailhouse, the Bandit answered. “I did what was only natural of a man who lost his employment. I made sure that the cause of it, wouldn’t do it again.”

“They did nothing wrong!” yelled back Deo. “An entire bloodline wiped out!”

Anson had gotten off the ground at this point with another guard losing consciousness. He also helped Cyril tied up and silence the other guard as they told the bleeding man to keep pressure on the wound until they could get some help. Taking a deep breath, afterward, Anson collected himself along with Cyril grabbing his knife again, the two reached the holding cells. As the threw the doors opened, they hoped to see a man and his daughter, and by all graces, that is what they saw huddled up in the corner.

Though, they were in terrible shape as it seemed they had been beaten and tortured for information. Telling Cyril to get a key for their shackles, Anson tried talking to them. “Baldwyn? Baldwyn?” The man barely responded as he gave out a grown and a glance. Coming back with the key, Cyril opened the holding cell door, and unlatched the shackles from their bodies. Anson took Baldwyn in his arms, while Cyril took Baldwyn’s daughter, who seemed to be eight years old.

Leaving the holding cells, the voices outside became audible again, and Anson and Cyril paused for a moment as Cyril’s father began to talk. “He’s with you, isn’t he?” the father asked. “Where is he? Give me my son back.”

“He doesn’t seem to be interested in having a reunion.”

“Too bad, he shall get it.” The man responded.

“Again, I don’t think you people realize what a hostage situation is.” Deo said. “You are going to answer for your crimes—”

“The good sir brings up a good point.” The Bandit said. “Where is Cyril and Anson?”

“How do you know Anson’s name?” Deo demanded.

The man laughed as he looked at the city guard and Sovan Triad members. “Don’t worry I have my sources. Besides, my sources wouldn’t be able to assist in making posters without names to put on them.”

“And that’s another thing, how are they’re already posters?” Deo responded.

“Do you know how long it takes for a printing press to produce enough posters to put around the city?” The Bandit asked. There was no response from Deo. Anson listened from the jailhouse as his jaw fell and he began to put the pieces together. “Seven hours,” the Bandit responded. “The Sovans don’t just move shares around their local chapters and place troops in front of them for no reason. We knew you were coming before you even started.”

“We got unlucky, and someone tipped them off. Don’t be a smartass and think you are a mastermind.”

“No,” the Bandit said. “Not me, Deo, but before I tell you, I think you are a smarter man than you realize, so you can figure it out on your own. Where is Mercenary Commander Eros?”

“What are you talking about? How the hell should I know?”

“Well, I do.” The Bandit looked down before snapping his head up again. “He is on an all-expense paid vacation to the Expert’s Commonwealth.”

Everything fell apart in front of Anson as the weight of Baldwyn on his shoulders became almost unbearable. They were set up. The operation was never meant to succeed, and the man who made them do it, was either a corrupt coward, a foolish dead man, or both. There was nothing to do now but escape and locate the shares in Zeki’s hands.