--XXV--

I looked away from the 7-11 sign and approached the entrance to the building. Sam followed.

"Midnight," she said.

"Yes," I responded.

"She's on the roof," said Sam.

It was always majorly awesome to me, to have Sam on any kind of team. Like, a MASSIVE asset, a huge plus. More so emotionally than anything else. Undoubtedly one of my favorite Union of Stars fighters; one of my best friends. A week ago we'd visited the Port with alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks from Pacifico (you can probably guess which ones were mine) and chocolate cake to mourn her loss of an SRA- she was beaten by an athletic female agent named Denice.

I couldn't blame Sam at all, though- Denice Lyca Zambaia had actual super strength combined with expensive formal training that neither Sam nor I ever really had. I lost to her myself, probably five thousand times more frequently than Sam did- I no longer kept count- and Zambaia was truly a powerful force in her own right. I worked with her, too, on occasion.

Like if they needed someone who could fly.

"She's such a hoe," Sam said as she sobbed on my shoulder at the beach with the sand beneath us. It shifted with the grayish Overwoods saltwater (it was grayish during the summer and tasted a lot like canned shrimp) and molded to our butts. Her alcohol breath didn't bother me as she cried some more and said, "She's such a hoe, I'll murder that hoe, I'll murder that hoe." She rapped one of her favorite verses unintelligibly even though it had N word in it. She drank more alcohol and sobbed some more. "I'll murder that hoe," she said again.

And again.

She didn't mean it literally of course (I think)- Lyca was actually very respectful and mostly nice. You just didn't want her accidentally sitting down on your unfinished paperwork or your freshly collected evidence or your facial composite sketches because if she did you would never get that stuff back, and you would probably cry.

Well, I did anyway because I learned that the hard way.

Belinda still POUNCES on me about it.

Which makes no sense- like, I AM NOT THE ONE THAT SAT ON IT.

Flash forward to the present day and no- Sam hadn't murdered Lyca (to my knowledge), so good on her. Wonderful human.

I tapped two fingers to my right temple, next to my eye, and flicked them forward. Time to move.

--

--

Nightingale

Exact night or day not yet confirmed

Subprocedure unidentified

Purpose unclear

I stared at the fractured bones of my left hand. The skin was punctured from the inside. Exposed, crushed blood vessels and soft bone marrow all grinding against each other stared back at me. The rest of my body was a red and yellow jam.

I looked up, at the seemingly endless vertical tunnel in which I had been tossed down. My right hand was bound tightly to my right ankle with rope that I couldn't break. My mouth was still bleeding; a tooth chipped and broken from trying desperately to chew it off and failing because there were too many layers of the rope, too tightly bound. My right hand was a sickly dark purple and black color combo- whatever blood inside of it had probably already rotted. I could try only to move my fingers. Awful, hair-raising weeping sounds that I heard all around me echoed off the walls of the horrible tiny pit, engulfed my body with all its insanity. It was an unearthly sound. As though a monster's spawn had been taught to cry through a hole in a broken prison stockade.

I realize, now, that all those weeping sounds were my own.

The dead body of a girl I once knew lay on the harsh rocky bottom of the pit. My body also lay there, unable to breathe, unmoving. My skin was broken in a million places; the palm of my left hand reduced to thin slices of human flesh hanging and flapping off of a bleeding human chopping board. I was cold, but burning with untreated fever at the same time. I felt like the only water I'd swallowed in the last twelve hours was my tears.

And the chemicals they forced into me.

I stared at the metal ladder to my right. It was finger-painted with hemoglobin and plasma, strands of my hair, broken bits of my fingernails. It was also covered in vomit.

A man's loud, domineering voice spoke from far, far above.

"If you'll keep quiet about us," it said, "I'll let you out of there. Just promise you won't tell anyone."

No response. The weeping noises continued unabated.

"If you just cooperate," the same man said, "I'll toss you a chicken sandwich. We just need to make sure you don't ever tell anyone what we do."

Even then, my stomach turned. What we do. They already failed to brainwash me. Twice.

Some things are better kept secret, a voice spoke in my head.

It wasn't mine.

I looked at the body that was decomposing on the barbed, spiky granite floor right beside me. I looked at the ladder again.

I had already fallen. Nineteen times.

I looked at the body again.

I was so hungry...

--

But the only reason you sing

is for you to scream badly

and say, "Oh, I wish I was"

Until you push it all out to the end,

see what you'll never be

Not now

Not tomorrow

I'm setting fires

Sometimes, evil people put you into positions you think you can't climb out of. Sometimes, evil people put you into situations you literally can't climb out of.

Remember one thing.

Their evil will swallow them before it swallows you.

I'm setting fires, setting fires

I'm setting fires.

--

Sam locked her vibrant blue-and-green eyes on mine for just a moment. I knew she was reading my mind, and I didn't stop her.

ORBIPLOSIONS

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"What we do"

"Just cooperate"

ORBIPLOSIONS

And then Sam spoke her own words into my head, loudly, overriding all the other ugly, traumatic, horrible things that I was starting to remember. It was a blast as hard and as loud as her famous knockout blow.

"I WILL SEND THEM TO HELL FOR YOU," she said. "Just promise me you'll stick around."

Only one tear fell when I responded, telepathically.

"I don't know the future, Sam," I said.

"If you don't stick around, you won't see me beat up Zambaia."

I tapped two fingers to my right temple, next to my eye, and flicked them forward. Time to move.

Sam didn't hesitate- within a millisecond I watched the colors of her accessories zoom up the exterior emergency stairs, broken at every fifth step or less, but she was more agile than even I was.

I threw my roundoff into the hotel's veranda and blocked off the railing for a vault, spinning fast upwards and toward the top floor. A window facing north was waiting for me, its strengthened glass already broken for me, by Wyatt. With my left hand I grabbed onto a vertical steel pipe, using it to swing myself in the right direction, while taking the earpiece from my jeans pocket with my right.

I wondered why Belinda never told me the hotel was now abandoned. It wasn't in her files.

Ropeweed, set up by Kaylee, draped over both sides of the opened entryway on the sixteenth floor- her proactive contingency effort- in the event of any form of miscalculation or bad weather or me aiming for the wrong window; in the event of any explosives or flashbangs. I landed on the carpeted floor without needing to roll or flip further.

I pressed two fingers to the earpiece and listened. If anyone else was here, they were awfully quiet.

"IF YOUR TEAM COMES FOR ME

I'LL BREAK MORE THAN HIS BONES

DAVENPORT WILL DIE

-M M

PS

I LET YOU LIVE TO HAVE YOU

AGAIN"

It was just barely worth thinking about. With all of my experiences- from Nightingale to Lowdown to Union of Starts and Webwork, all assignments and back- there were too many potential suspects. Even then, it could be anyone we hadn't encountered before. Or had no files on. Not yet, anyway.

"MISSED YOU

CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU AGAIN

- M M"

How many people were there? How many had I worked for, or serviced, or apprehended?

I already knew, even as a prepubescent child, that there were psychos. Yes, I believed all people were a mixture of both bad and good- but I had seen both sides well.

Did the "M M" part even stand for Manila Maniac? This place was called that eons and centuries and ages ago. Whoever it was, maybe they had a knack for history.

It bugged me to think of the people I knew who did have some kind of this knack; for accounts, annals, or archives...

Again, I remembered Marie. I had saved Kaylee. Perhaps, I had saved Malcolm. Perhaps I saved James once.

But Marie...

Was it that I wasn't trying hard enough?

Soundlessly I took the electronically duplicated key- the one that Caleb created just for me via his technological manipulation- and held it in my right fist so hard I felt my blood might start dripping onto the floor, the way it so often did during Nightingale. And not just mine; Marie's, Kaylee's, and all those other kids. I still remember the names of the ones I had met.

Sixteenth floor, 1615.

"Arrowvine," I whispered into the piece. "Do you read me?"

"Copying clear," said Kaylee.

As far as I knew all our telepathic channels were off; if whoever our suspect was, was telepathic- we didn't want to give them anything.

"Sightings," I said.

"Negative, Marblefox," she responded. "Hide nor hair. Stringweeds haven't been tripped."

"Team- radio silence. Two minutes."

I approached the door slowly while maintaining my situational awareness at its highest.

Caleb, Connor, Sam, Kaylee, and Wyatt- in that order- responded in almost-unison. "Roger, Marblefox."

Across from me on the sixteenth floor lobby, which was totally void of any light source, was what to me looked like a barely moving shadow. Naturally there was fear. But more powerful than the fear, was determination. There wasn't going to be another Marie.

I stayed perfectly still and allowed my eyes to adjust further.

That's when something struck me from behind.

Or, it would have, only I sensed it first.

An arm and a fist flew over my head and my right shoulder as I sidestepped, fast, both left and backwards- simultaneously going into backwards bridge to immediate kickover, effectively kicking the weapon out of this attacker's hand.

Without needing to see where it was in the empty space, I spun in the air towards my right and caught it in my left hand.

Identifier #1: A dagger. Shaped almost like a kunai.

Whoever it was was capable of throwing.

Or they held this weapon for some other reason...

"Break radio silence," I said through gritted teeth and turning ignite on. "Convene at sixteenth- anteroom."

A raspy and very Vicinity-Four-influenced voice replied.

"Alacrity to Marblefox- already at eleventh; moving to sixteenth anteroom."

Alacrity was only one of Sam Shilberg's multiple call signs- just like how Marblefox wasn't the only code name I ever had.

My first official team assignment was how I met Sam. At the time, her hair was dyed light green; it was in multiple long braids that swayed down her shoulders with glowing pink highlights. That first co-op job was about a year before our night at Il Male Nekantral- only a few weeks into my "alignment" under James. That first time, I remember how Sam walked toward me like a supermodel on a runway as she popped pink bubble gum and shoved a massive rifle into my arms, and said, "I heard you're a human painkiller. Good, 'cuz I LOVE painkillers."

I replied immediately with, "Hi, I'm literally gay. You must be Edge. I'm so super happy to meet you!" And I tried to shoot magic rainbows through my hands because I was uncomfortable with the gun and because she herself looked like a rainbow and I wanted to be like all relatable and stuff.

But there was no need.

I remember noting how strong her accent was when she popped her gum again, chewed, and replied with, "Yeah, me too. You get to call me Sam." She pulled a folded piece of paper from a jacket pocket and snorted whatever was in it, then said, "Let's do this, Morphine."

I remember how her black-and-yellow striped pants made her look like a bumblebee; a bumblebee with the most breathtakingly colored eyes.

Subconsciously maybe I basked in that memory for a second, while in the fight, and then I really had to put my focus back on to aforementioned fight at hand because that one-second worth of throwback was the one-second moment when the unidentified attacker stuck a different knife- one that I didn't previously see- five inches deep into my right shoulder.

I felt it but I didn't even look at it- and I knew what I was going to do.

"This is going to burn," I said politely.

I pulled the sharp blade out immediately and responded with a heel to the attacker's neck; I followed with a sweep, to a leg lock, and then to the quadruple-twisting forward somersault dropkick that won me my first and second SRAs.

What did I do under duress?

I set things on fire. From the inside, if it so suited me.

I pocketed the second weapon as both my feet made contact- still in midair- and then pushed back into a reverse spin to my right side before piking and then tucking for the sideways landing. The height and power of the recoil- or the "block" as I sometimes called it just because gymnast terminology- gave me enough air time that Sam was on the same floor as us before I actually landed.

Then I looked at the wound; tiny, minor. So minor compared to other stuff I went through at the three-month experiment of pure torture.

Practically negligible to me because five inches deep was nothing compared to the horrors of those three months- that was the mindset I was in while in the fight.

I saw the accessory colors zoom directly toward us- toward the unidentified attacker and I- in pink and light green and yellow, all shining and reflecting the scarce luminescence from outside as Kaylee spoke to the team again via telepathic web.

"Marblefox!" She was panting. "Multiple stringweeds tripped-" she was gulping air fast. And I knew she wasn't the fastest. "Pursuing approximate location of unidentified potential suspect."

A very short and very one-sided exchange of hands, feet, fists, knees, and elbows ensued between Sam and the attacker while I responded to Kaylee and stitched the spurting wound on my shoulder myself- standing on two feet.

Because the cut was deep.

And, you know, because I didn't want too much blood on my GYMNAST with the capital G T-shirt.

Capital YMNAST, too.

"Approximate location, Arrowvine." I watched Sam, a grin on her face, an expression that reached her emerald-and-turquoise colored eyes- eyes just like the color of the snow here in the Overwoods sometimes- halt in a perfectly poised body position, ready to put this attacker into an arm or neck lock.

"Northeast, Marblefox." Kaylee responded, between audibly wheezing for air, out of breath, inhaling sharply. The color of her connection and binding- the colors visible only to stronger telepaths- was alternating between ice blue and pure black.

Sam threw her right fist into the attacker's rib cage twice in succession and then followed with the swing of her left arm; the swing into the uppercut that launched our man or woman (or other gender identity attacker) into the air.

I bent my knees, touched my fingers to the ground, calculated line and distance, and then let myself go like a coil spring- I pushed myself off the ground.

Kaylee continued.

"I'm... not sure I can..." Another wheeze. "Catch them, Marblefox."

She sounded almost a bit like me, during Nightingale...

In the air I spun a half-turn to my left, threw my head back and swung my right leg straight and full over the axis in which I was rotating, both backward and in a slight diagonal. Upon completion of the first backward rotation I performed another half-turn into my left but this time with my right fist extended for the punch.

The punch that hit probably harder than it should have, because I was still shaking out not just my left but also my right hand out after Sam finished the combo with her push kick to hard overhand right. I'd seen it before, because she'd used it in plenty of SRAs.

She once told me she was half-trained in Muay Thai, and half-trained in "DA STREETS." I said, "Oh, me too!" and then she knocked me out. It was during an SRA. You know- one of the many that I lost.

She and I had both been hungry and homeless at at least one time or other; it made us friends; we had a lot in common though on the surface level we seemed like two total opposites. It was nice to relate with someone about life on the streets before being politely knocked out by your friend.

I'd seen her use that maneuver on the streets, too. I saved her with spinning burn-on-impact flips; she saved me with nasty kicks and punches.

And sometimes drugs.

"Northeast, possibly toward drug warehouse," I said. Possibly. I had no way to know for sure at the time. I moved toward the unidentified moving shadow I saw earlier, knowing Sam was more than capable of handling a now unarmed- or at least less armed- attacker. I'd get more information or additional possible identifiers later. "Cognito- assist Arrowvine." I walkovered in combination forward toward my target. "Powergrip." I took a pen light from Caleb's jacket. "Remain with previous directive- I need you here."

"Roger that, Marblefox." I heard his heavy steps- Wyatt was on the way up. "It'll only take a moment."

UGH.

I DO NOT LIKE THAT GUY.

Like seriously I GET that we needed him to break the thingy but he was USELESS on this HE COULD HAVE GONE HOME-

But whatever.

POWERGRIP IS LITERALLY LIKE THE *DUMBEST* POSSIBLE CODE NAME THAT HAS JUST LIKE *EVER EVEN EXISTED* Uggggggggggggh

Ugh

UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!

But WHATEVER.

When you're so miserable you act like a high school bully at THIRTY.

#NoRelates

"Tango Mike, Powergrip." I flipped on the switch.

And then almost, just almost, wished I hadn't.

On the floor, in front of me, was a barely moving, barely breathing body. Tied up.

Her blond hair disheveled and her blood running from her scalp down into her mouth, and then down again onto her blue laboratory attire now mixed with her saliva and maybe even more blood from her mouth-

Elyza.