I awoke on a trio of chairs that had been pushed together to form a makeshift bed. A glass of water waited for me on the table to my right. I sat up with a groan. It took me a moment to recognize the space. I was back in the Red Pineapple, in the front restaurant area. The sounds of a busy kitchen echoed through the room. Voices conversed just beyond my hearing. Some time had passed since I had fainted.
My throat was dry. I snatched the glass from the table and drained it.
Hinges creaked. I turned to see Lucky pushing through the swinging saloon doors. A bright smile lit up her face when she noticed me sitting up. She bounded over, her fox tail swishing back and forth.
"Arthur! You're awake! How are you feeling?"
"OK, I guess."
Lucky leaned close, looking intently into my eyes. "I've never seen someone faint like that. You whimpered and then just collapsed like a ton of bricks. Like someone flicked a light switch and your body shut off."
"I didn't whimper."
Lucky laughed. "Yes, you did. It was really pathetic."
I deflated into the chair. Not only had I royally screwed everything up for the Pineapple by setting the Bitter Saints on the warpath, but now I looked like a total wimp. "How long was I out?" I asked in a defeated voice.
"Oh not that long," Lucky said. "Maybe 10, 15 minutes. Carol finished up the meeting with contingency plans that would have been way over your head. Then she told us we'd all be getting permanent hazard pay, so basically we all got a raise." She grinned and drummed her fingers on the table. "Then she disconnected and sent us back to work. Red carried you over here to sleep."
"You mean I missed all the instructions on what to do now that the Saints are after us? That seems very much like something I should have been present for."
"Oh don't worry, we'll help you out. We'll just add it to your training. Besides it was good that you were unconscious when we-"
"Lucky!" Skylar cut the cook off with a harsh tone. The blonde girl had appeared in the doorway. She walked over to where I was resting.
Lucky slapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. "Oops! Never mind. I didn't say anything."
Never in my life had I been more sure that I was being intentionally kept in the dark than at that moment. And that included the time my mom had accidentally added me to and then just as quickly removed me from a group chat planning my surprise 16th birthday party.
Skylar gestured with her chin toward the kitchen. It was subtle enough, but I still noticed.
"Glad you're feeling better," Lucky said as she took the hint. She scampered off, leaving the saloon doors swinging in her wake.
Once again, it was just Skylar and I.
Her jaw was clenched and the look on her face could have sent an MMA fighter crawling back to mommy. She was still very attractive but more and more I was discovering that she was far more scary than hot. Her eyes held a storm of barely restrained fury that was very off-putting. I wanted Lucky back. She was much nicer. I'd have even rather Chin and he had threatened to beat me to a pulp like a half-hour ago.
I decided to ask a question. "So, you seem to know the Saints pretty well, huh?" Sometimes my own stupidity surprised me.
Skylar glowered at me and I was struck with a sudden urge to grovel. I didn't even know what groveling was really, but her expression made me want to. Somehow, I managed to pluck up just enough courage to not beg for forgiveness like she was a queen considering the fate of a worthless servant.
Skylar let out a long breath. Some of her anger left her body along with the air. Ignoring my question, she sat down across the table from me. "I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, Arthur, this might be the worst time to be a rookie at the Red Pineapple. This coming confrontation is going to be long and nasty. And now you're caught in the middle. We'll train you here in all sorts of skills, but for now, you should have a way to defend yourself that doesn't take any skill."
"Gee thanks." I wanted to complain that I had some skills, but I doubted being decent at dodgeball would be good enough to survive psycho bikers.
Skylar reached down and pulled a baseball bat out of thin air. "This is for you. I trust you can figure out what to do with this?"
"Uh, whack stuff?" I said.
"That's the basics, yeah."
I stared at the bat in her hand. It looked totally normal, aside from a few scuffs and marks on the barrel. The grip was blue. "How did you..."
Expecting the question, Skylar explained. "Pull it out of nowhere? The bat is part of the Pineapple's artifact collection, it can always be returned to the collection whenever or wherever. And whoever is entrusted with it can retrieve it when they want."
"Oh, that makes sense," I said, without it making any sense.
"You just have to think about it belonging in another space, like a locker that you can’t see. It might take you a bit to figure it out, so practice." Skylar held out the bat.
I gingerly took the bat, not sure what to expect. Nothing happened. It felt like a completely normal baseball bat. "Thanks?"
Skylar dipped her head. "Just don't swing it at anything you don't want to break, ok?"
"So, just like any normal bat?"
A slight smirk curled Skylar's mouth. "Yeah. I guess so." She stood, a hint of sympathy softening her features. "Go home, Arthur. You've had enough excitement for today. Tomorrow we'll start your training." And with that, she left, her long blonde hair vanishing into the kitchen.
I blinked a few times as my brain put everything together. I had upset the super mafia who ran around vapourizing things with laser guns. They had publicly vowed to murder me and all my new colleagues on sight, probably with giant death rays or chainsaw swords. I was drowning in new and strange rules and customs that I had never even heard of, but apparently breaking any of them was a death sentence.
And my boss' best idea was to send me home with a baseball bat.
I looked down at the 21st-century cudgel in my hand. "How the hell is this supposed to help me?"
No one answered.
I didn’t want to go home. My brain figured that as soon as I stepped out of the restaurant, I would be explodified by some super Saint rail gun. But Skylar was right, I’d had more than enough excitement for today. Adrenaline had burned through all my energy and my brain was fried from all of the information I had learned. I was exhausted. It was just after noon, but I was ready to pass out. Maybe going home was for the best.
After all, it wasn’t like the Bitter Saints knew where I lived.
----------------------------------------
Sometimes, I think the universe exists simply to mess with me.
I made it home no problem, even though I had been so tense on the bus that I’d nearly leapt out of my seat when the man next to me coughed. That had earned me some strange looks, but there had been no black and purple leather or motorbikes anywhere in sight.
I locked the door when I got inside and placed my new baseball bat in the corner by the shoe rack. I double-checked the lock ten seconds later.
My basement suite was just as empty and depressing as I had left it. Minimal second-hand furniture, empty chip bags and pop cans scattered across the half of the suite that passed for a living room. A pile of three dirty plates and accompanying cutlery in the kitchen half; the only dishes I owned. The only thing that counted as decor was my old electric guitar that hung on the wall. I hadn’t played since high school, but it had been a gift from my cousin and the red body gave a splash of colour to the dreary space.
I flopped down in my bagged-out recliner, letting out a huge sigh. Something hard dug into my thigh. I reached down and pulled out a black and gold fountain pen engraved with my name.
“Oh, there you are!” I had won it during a career fair in grade 11. There had been one pocket of cool amid a sea of dreary and boring booths. It had been for a college or something called the Eon Institute that focused on abnormal academic research. There had been some cool artifacts like a floating globe that mimicked the actual rotation of the earth and a little robotic arm that assembled and disassembled a foam burger. The man running the booth had talked about a bunch of stuff that had gone over my head, but he sounded really enthusiastic. Plus, he also did an awesome card trick. He had picked me at random from the crowd of six or seven students and had gifted me the pen, which he had engraved with a tool right in front of me.
“Thought I’d lost this.” I tucked the pen into my pocket as I began to scroll on my phone. I didn’t have a big social media presence, so I was surprised when one of the recommended profiles to follow was Jaz, though her user name was Cool_Jaz.
“No way.” I clicked on her profile. She had over 1000 followers and a bunch of videos, most of which seemed to be filmed in the garage at the Pineapple. Apparently working was optional during store hours. I scrolled through the videos. None of them showed any signs of the weirdness of the restaurant or the other employees. I wouldn’t have been able to tell she was doing anything other than working in a garage. She had links to other platforms. One of them caught my eye. VorteX. I’d never heard of it before. So, naturally, I clicked on it.
I was directed to a new social media platform, similar in design to others, but with a neon green colour scheme and a bar at the top of the page with several charts and graphs I couldn’t make heads or tails of. There was also a small map icon and another icon that looked like two crossed swords.
The first post on the feed was from someone called Bingoblin. It was a picture of someone holding a golden ticket with the old CPR Bridge across the river in the background. There was a black and red steam train on the tracks, that had the words Gateway Express painted on the side in glowing ink. A half-dozen passenger cars trailed behind the engine, but the further back they were, the more indistinct and foggy they became, almost like they were dissolving into smoke. The caption read: First time on the Express! Wish me luck.
The next post was from EmperoarXIX. They were asking if anyone was selling something called an Arivex converter, whatever that was. The top comment was from The_NetWork: Just got my hands on one today. I’m sure we can reach an accord if you’re willing to pay.
When I tried to scroll, a window popped up, telling me to create an account. I had no idea what this VorteX was really about, but worst comes to worst, I figured I could just delete my account. The screen flashed with a message: Welcome to VorteX, the #1 social media app this side of the Other Life. Connect like never before across worlds and dimensions, completely free!
The screen prompted me for a username and password. I chose the name KingCandlestick and used the same password I’d been using since I was a teen. Super secure, but currently having my social media hacked was low on my list of things to worry about when I was being targeted for assassination. Once I entered, my account was created. There were some more optional fields to fill out, one of which was Work. Curious, I typed in The Red Pineapple. Sure enough, it appeared in the drop-down menu. I added it to my profile.
The friends tab flashed. I opened it to see suggested friends, accounts affiliated with the Red Pineapple. My coworkers, I assumed. Cool_Jaz was one of the names. The others were LuckyChef8, UnappreciatedArtist, Operative#FF0000, _cHin and Octo_Boss. It seemed like Bicoe and Skylar didn’t have accounts. Bicoe made sense, but Skylar seemed like the type to have a huge following online.
I followed the six accounts of my coworkers. My feed immediately filled with their posts and ones they had interacted with. Lucky liked cooking videos and cat videos and shared a bunch of memes, most of which I didn’t understand. Freddie didn’t post much but got into lots of arguments that seemed random and pointless. Chin kept sharing the same selfie from a very unflattering angle (not that Chin had any flattering angles) and liking videos of what appeared to be some sort of gladiatorial boxing with robots. Red too liked those videos but he also had a series of posts on Tips for Perfect Espionage, which had quite a few followers. Carol shared promotional posts from the Red Pineapple account (which I followed) and commented in dozens of threads that were locked for Members Only. Jaz’s stuff was similar to her normal social media, but this account showed all the wacky and wild bits that had become normal for Arthur over the past few days.
“She didn’t.” I moaned.
Her most recent post was the video of me being sexually harassed by the car. She had even edited it with a pink filter and hearts. Her caption read: Finally found someone who loves cars more than me lol.
It had over 2000 likes and 500+ comments.
My cheeks burned. “Oh, come on! There were too many buttons! How was I supposed to remember what did what? And you did not tell me the car had a seduction mode!” I realized I was yelling at my phone screen.
Sunlight streamed through the narrow window at the top of the wall. The beam struck my eyes and blinded me. The sun only shone through the small basement windows for a few minutes right before sunset. I hadn’t realized it was so late. Time had flown by while I was lost in the 1s and 0s.
My stomach rumbled. Pocketing my phone, I crossed the room to the kitchen half and opened the fridge. It was bare, the milk was three days past its best before and the carrots were looking floppy. I grabbed the carton of eggs, which was lighter than I remembered. Only two left. “I need to get groceries.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Taking my only pan from the cupboard, I began frying up the eggs. I sliced a few thin strips of cheese from my dwindling block and grabbed the two crust ends that were the remnants of the loaf of bread I’d been eating over the past week. Slapping it all together with a layer of mayo thin enough that I could almost taste it, I finished my sad, pathetic sandwich.
I sat down on my single kitchen chair with a glass of tap water and my sandwich on a paper towel, since my three plates were dirty. “Bon appetit.”
As I raised the sandwich to my mouth, my window exploded inward with a crash. Glass scattered across the room, a spray of glittering shards that slashed across my skin. My brain must have been too fried from the day’s activities because I didn’t even jump. I froze, sandwich halfway to my open mouth.
Something hard and round bounced across the floor, rolling to a stop some five feet from me. It was egg-shaped, with a top that looked vaguely like a bottle cap, but it had a small lever on the side. It was familiar, but it had a unique style, most notably a narrow translucent strip of yellow material that showed a mystery liquid within.
Oh, hey, I know what that is, I thought. That’s a grenade.
Thank god grenades have a slight delay, otherwise I would have blown up being an absolute moron.
My brain finally did something in response to the danger. Before I realized what was happening, I jumped up onto the table. It was a rough, uneven table I had bought from some old guy who handmade mediocre furniture down the street for cheap. It wasn’t pretty, but it was made of thick, solid wood. If instead the table had been a cheap plastic one, my legs would have gone bye-bye along with most of my intestines.
A flash of light and heat. A bang so loud I didn’t even hear it, just sudden, deafening silence. I didn’t feel when the table was launched upward by the explosion, nor when I slammed into the low ceiling. Everything when white. Or black, I wasn’t sure. All of my senses just went away. Except pain. Horrible, agonizing pain that swept over every thought until my existence was only suffering.
Exploded by a grenade. Not how I thought I’d go out, but at least it’s memorable.
Ringing. My ears hurt.
Light. Shapes. Fuzzy and indistinct.
Smell. Burning and blood? Yes, blood, I could taste the tang of iron in my mouth. Also egg and cheese.
Aw, my sandwich blew up. I really had my priorities straight.
Slowly, my shattered consciousness pulled itself back together into a fragile awareness.
My place was a mess. The floor was shattered into jagged shards around a blackened, smouldering hole. The ceiling was cracked and smoke clogged the air with a thick, acrid haze. Flames flickered at the edge of my vision. I could feel the heat. I was lying on the shattered remains of the table that had saved my life. One of the legs had blown off and impaled itself in the wall. My recliner was a shredded ruin, catching fire against the remains of my TV.
I moved. Everything hurt, but not as bad as I thought. All my limbs worked and I could breathe, despite my ribs screaming at me. I was covered in blood from dozens of lacerations, but as far as I could tell, none of them were life-threatening. My ears were still ringing, so I couldn’t hear the ceiling cracking until part of the tile collapse to my right. I flinched and scrambled to the left.
My chest seized as pain shot through my ribs. I grabbed my chest and stumbled, my left ankle not working quite right. I could barely see out of my right eye. It was swelling shut.
I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but I began limping toward the door. Thoughts weren’t really thinking. My brain wasn’t braining, since it had been scrambled by the explosion. But somewhere within, my instincts told me to get outside before the house burnt down. Good caveman brain. Sometimes the unga-bunga had the right idea.
I crawled up the stairs to the door. My hands fumbled with the doorknob, leaving bloody prints on the metal as I struggled to unlock it. I pushed the door open and hobbled outside.
Staggering and swaying, my legs hauled me out onto the lawn and then onto the sidewalk. It was dim outside, the sun had dipped beyond the horizon. Streetlights were turning on as dusk set in.
Someone was bound to be out on the street even though it was getting late. Cities didn’t sleep completely. Someone would see the mess and come help me.
A pair of lights down the block flashed. There! A car. Someone was coming.
A sudden logical thought managed to brute force its way through the fogginess and general stupidity. Wait. Grenades don’t just appear out of thin air. Somebody had to throw it in there. Someone tried to blow me up.
As I realized that, the two lights that I had assumed were a car drew closer and I could now see that it was two separate vehicles, each with a single headlight. Motorcycles.
I was too hurt to run. My vision swam as a headache pounded behind my eyes. I just stood there as the bikes pulled up in front of my house. I hadn’t even remembered to grab the bat Skylar had given me. Not that it would have done any good against a grenade anyway unless the Saints had decided to give me a nice greasy fastball down the middle. That would have given a new meaning to crushing a bomb.
I stood bleeding and empty-handed in front of the two motorbikes as my house went up in flames behind me.
With nonchalant ease, the two leather clad Saints stepped off their bikes. The flickering firelight danced in the dark visors of their helmets as they approached. Both had pistols at their hips like the ones that I’d seen previously, but the one on the left had a grenade launcher slung over his shoulder, while his buddy had a long dagger with a glowing red and orange blade.
Woozy, I tried to talk my way out of it. My tongue, feeling thick in my mouth, decided to revolt against me. “Genelmen, fine ebening. Wu ya mind calling da fare debardment? M’ house seems t’ be burnin’ down.”
The one on the left spoke. Their voice came through the helmet modulated and distorted. “Arthur Hardwick! You have crossed the Bitter Saints and must pay the penalty, by the word of the Jarl.”
“You’re all wha?” I asked.
The speaker pulled out their vapourizer gun and pointed it at my face.
The other one hefted their glowing knife.
“You should not be here. This life is not for you.” The speaker nodded to their partner, who stepped closer. “So now, we will take it from you as penance.”
Somewhere through the fog clouding my mind, my caveman brain was freaking out. I was about to die and the only part of me that understood that was the part that got scared of loud noises. My legs moved sluggishly as I tried to back away.
The Saint didn’t even have to jog to catch me. A snail on a treadmill would have stood a better chance of escaping. The dagger in his hand glowed brighter as it neared my body. The orange and red gradient were those of a blade freshly forged and yet to be quenched. It was about to be quenched in my blood.
Suddenly, the knife-wielding Saint stopped and swore. The other one snapped up their gun and aimed it over my shoulder. Two yellow beams spat out of the elongated muzzle.
“Where’d they come from?” the knife Saint yelled.
The other one shot again, the bolt narrowly missing my shoulder. I felt an uncomfortable electric numbness as it passed by. “It was a setup!”
At this point, I had no idea what was happening. (What else is new?) I was still too stunned to take cover or run. I felt a hand on my shoulder. It shoved me down to the ground, a stiff-arm that would have made any running back proud. I ate dirt.
A figure leapt over me, flipping through the air and lashing out at the Saints with two long, purple sticks? Their form was hard to make out. It was dark and my vision was blurred, but somehow, they looked furry, at least their head did. They moved with graceful dexterity, flowing from one pose to another as they spun the purple sticks at the Saints, but there was a precise strength to their movements. Their body coiled and sprang at their enemies with the explosive strength of a striking cobra.
Lasers zapped across the dark street. Both Saints fired at the attacker, not caring what their shots hit. An SUV disintegrated. A street light crumbled into shimmering particles. The figure dodged and weaved, flipping and rolling with the skill of an Olympic gymnast.
As I struggled to my knees, the mystery figure vaulted over the bikes, tucked into a roll and came up behind the first Saint. Before they could bring their gun around, the gymnast-assassin’s leg slammed into their ribs and sent them flying into their own bike. Without missing a beat, the gymnast bounded toward Saint Two. Yellow death filled the air between them, but the gymnast leapt three feet upward, spinning their body into a horizontal corkscrew above the beams. Lunging ahead as they landed, the figure slashed diagonally at the Saint with the purple sticks that my brain finally realized were single-edged swords with a slight curve. Katanas.
In a burst of sparks and a shockwave that sent both parties stumbling backward, the attacker’s sword cleaved the Saint’s pistol in two. The leather-clad biker fumbled with their red dagger, but it was knocked from their grasp by a quick strike. Empty-handed, the Saint looked up just in time to have a spinning shin connect with the side of their helmet. They went down in a heap.
I heard the sword person grunt in pain and limp slightly as the Saint groaned on the ground. My vision had finally cleared enough to see that they were wearing a parka. They turned to look at me and in the light of the remaining street lamps, I could see bright blue eyes.
“Bicoe?”
The Red Pineapple’s mysterious security guard knelt beside me and checked my injuries. I heard them click their tongue in disapproval as they put down their swords.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, my chest spasming as I drew in a breath.
The blue eyes met mine. “My job.” The voice was soft and feminine, but her tone was one of annoyance.
“Oh. You’re a girl?” I hissed in pain as Bicoe’s hands pressed against my side, where my shirt was stained crimson.
“So?” She checked one of the deeper cuts on my arm.
I flinched and squeezed my eyes tight as a wave of pain washed over me. Panting, I said. “Not that it matters. Thanks for saving me.”
Bicoe’s eyes darkened. “I shouldn’t have had to. And I didn’t. You’re a mess.” She was definitely angry, but not at me.
“Well, a grenade did blow up in my kitchen.” Over her shoulder, I saw the first Saint pushing themselves up. They reached for their gun. “Look out!”
Bicoe spun around, grabbing her swords, but stayed put as the Saint raised their weapon.
“What are you doing?” I yelled.
A split-second later a gunshot echoed through the streets.
The Saint gasped, their pistol falling from unfeeling fingers. There was a dime-sized hole in their chest. A moment later, they crumpled to the ground.
Bicoe looked over her shoulder, north. There was a glint of light down the street. She growled and stood, marching over to the other Saint, the one she had kicked in the head. “Shoulda dealt with them first. Stupid.” She flipped the stirring Saint onto their stomach and zip-tied their hands together.
I was still staring at the dead Saint. It was too dark for me to make out any of the gory details, but I still couldn’t look away. Someone had just killed them, shot them through the chest. True, they had been attempting to kill me, but still, I wasn’t used to seeing people die in front of me. At least when Jaz had blown up the other guy, I hadn’t really been looking and the fireball had hidden most of it.
This was different. Person alive. Bang. Person dead.
I finally turned in the direction the shot had come from. I’d half expected to see a moonlit silhouette of a sniper perched on a roof down the street, but that wasn’t the case. All I could see were the hundreds of lights from street lamps, windows and passing cars. There weren’t even any passing pedestrians. Also, the moon was in an entirely different direction.
“Who did that?” I asked.
Bicoe ignored me as she went through the Saint’s pockets, taking everything he had. Most of the stuff was strange tech I didn’t recognize, but they also had a basic wallet, keys and phone. Normal people things.
I tried to stand up, but my busted ribs protested and my ankle didn’t want to support my weight. I slumped back down and wiped more blood from my face.
I heard a car approaching from the north. Bicoe didn’t seem at all worried, in fact, she crossed her arms, like she was waiting for it. It was one of the Red Pineapple delivery cars and behind the wheel was Skylar. She parked and stepped out into the smoke that was still billowing from my house.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
She ignored me and addressed Bicoe. “Well?”
“Just the two of them.” Bicoe sheathed her twin katanas over her back. She pointed at one Bitter Saint, then the other. “Subdued. Dead.”
Skylar raised a brow. “Mm hmm. No other parties?”
Bicoe shook her head. “I watched since he got back. No one else gave this place a second look. They only showed up ten minutes ago.”
“It took them longer than I thought,” Skylar said. “And they only sent two thralls.”
“With a grenade launcher,” Bicoe grunted. “I told you this wasn’t a good idea.”
Skylar pulled her mouth to one side. “A small variable. He survived.”
“Barely.” Bicoe bristled. The tension between the two grew.
I coughed. “Hi, yes, hello. Arthur here. Could someone please explain what the BLOODY HELL IS GOING ON!”
My ears must have still not been working right, because I heard a whirring sound, accompanied by the splashing of water. A moment later, a fish tank flew out of the car. It was hovering on some type of drone-looking thing and had two mechanical arms on either side. Lounging within the tank was the orange octopus, Carol.
I tried to say ‘Fish tank’ but I was still a bit woozy, so it came out as “Frank.”
“Well, Carol, but I can see how you’d confuse the family resemblance.” Carol’s voice emanated from a small speaker at the bottom of the tank.
“Huh?”
The hovering robot tank stopped in front of me and Carol looked me in the eye. “I am terribly sorry about all this Arthur. You weren’t meant to be hurt.”
“Meant to be… what?”
Carol rubbed two of her tentacles together in a fidgety way. “Yes, the Bitter Saints seem to have changed certain tactics recently. They don’t normally use grenade launchers.”
My head hurt. I rubbed my temples. “Wait, you knew this was going to happen?”
“No, I just explained that the grenade was unexpected.”
I frowned. “No, I mean, you knew the Bitter Saints were going to ambush me?”
“Well, yes, we figured that was their likely course of action.”
“And you let it happen?”
Skylar spoke up. “We were here the whole time, watching and ready to intervene. It was all under control.”
“Yeah, except the part where you let them blow up my goddamn house with me in it!” I yelled.
“An unfortunate miscalculation,” Skylar said. She gestured to the dead Saint. “It all worked out in the end.”
I suddenly realized what had just happened. I stared up at the pizza employees. “You used me as bait?”
Bicoe nodded. “I voted against it.”
Carol tut-tutted. “But, there are no votes at the Red Pineapple. We were faced with an unfortunate situation and needed to make the best of it. So, we used the means we had at our disposal.”
“Me.” I couldn’t believe they had thrown me to the wolves like that.
Skylar scoffed. “Don’t think we plotted this. The Bitter Saints had already seen your face. They were going to track you down no matter what. We just decided to spring a trap of our own, since we knew where they were going to be.”
If she had meant that to make me feel better, she had failed horribly. I still felt as appreciated as a worm on a hook.
“So you wanted to catch some Saints, is that it?” I looked over my shoulder at the one with the hole in his chest. “Well, good job. 50% of two is really good work.”
Bicoe snorted, a hint of amusement amid the dark aftermath.
Skylar rolled her eyes. “We weren’t after the Saints.”
Motors whirring, Carol’s fish tank drone flew over to the bound Saint and the pile of trinkets Bicoe had liberated from his pockets. “Although we won’t waste this opportunity for a hostage.” One of the thin robot arms reached down and pulled something out of the pile. It was a small cylindrical canister the size of a D battery, maybe a bit larger, with some kind of interface on the side. A strange glowing aura slowly pulsed outward from the canister, each time a different shade of blue. “Now this is what we were after.” Coral moved over to the dead Saint and rooted through their clothes until she retrieved a second one, identical save for an orange aura, rather than blue.
“Well, I’m so glad I got blown up so you could power a flashlight,” I grumbled.
“These are no batteries, Arthur,” Carol said.
“So, what are they?”
“Unclear. And that is why we had to get our hands on one.” Carol floated back over to the car.
“Why?”
Skylar answered. “Because the Bitter Saints were always a minor inconvenience to the Other Life until they started carrying those around. After, they took over the city, a big part of it, at least. And every time someone has tried to figure out what they are, they end up dead or on the moon.”
“So, since we’re already in conflict with the Saints, we might as well get to the bottom of this mystery that led to their power,” Carol said.
Bicoe finally interrupted. “Save the explanations. Arthur looks like he was run over by a bus. He needs a doctor.”
Skylar finally agreed with Bicoe. “Yeah, let’s get him patched up.”
Carol flew closer, her big eyes roaming over my body like she was just now taking in the severity of my injuries. “Oh. Right, of course. We should have your body repaired before we debrief. Yes, good plan.”
Skylar helped me to my feet. There was much yelling and pain. Eventually, she got me in the passenger seat of the car. It hurt to breathe and my brain was pounding, but I stared dubiously at the array of controls on the car’s dash. If this thing tried to use its seduction mode again, I wouldn’t be strong enough to turn it off. The thought of the car getting freaky with me again was somehow scarier than what had just happened. Likely because of shock.
Carol’s robot hand struggled to open the car door, but she managed and climbed in the back seat.
As Skylar got in the driver’s seat, she called out to Bicoe, who was still standing in front of my house, which was now burning properly. Flames curled out the windows and smoke billowed into the sky until it was lost in the darkness. “Bicoe…”
The parka ninja nodded. “I’ll deal with the prisoner and the body. And I’ll see what I can save.” She gestured toward the burning house.
Skylar dipped her head in acknowledgement and started up the car. We pulled out onto the street and drove off. I stared into the mirror, watching the flames licking up the walls of my house until we turned and it disappeared from view. “Welp, I am not getting my security deposit back.”