The trenchcoat guy stood around, looking over the map for a bit and the little nun cosplayer—because there was just no way that could be real—took the chance to hop up onto a small bench and stretch out for a bit. Though, after about half a minute they left.
Kim looked up from her spot pretending to read a hairdresser’s magazine. It was upside down.
“Yo Ed, you know what?” She was looking very pale. “I think I’m just gonna go back and let them mindwipe me.”
Ed frowned. “What’d you see?”
“No, no.” She shook her head. “It’s more like, uh, what I can’t, err, couldn’t. That dude? Like, I can remember he was freaky and all but I couldn’t actually tell you as to why. There was a trenchcoat and a, a…” Her eyes seemed to unfocus at the bridge the pair disappeared under. “That’s it, it’s all like a blurry smudge or something. Yeah. Look, I’m out.”
She sort of backpedaled out of the storefront, bells jingling as she crossed the frame.
Well that definitely changed things. Ed watched for a couple seconds as she skipped a few steps down the escalator, hopping a bit to pull what he assumed was her phone out from one of her pockets. He looked back at the wiggs. He guessed he wouldn’t need those anymore.
Bat, button thumbtacks, fingerless gloves and duct tape. He saved the bat for last as there was a sports store across from the food court. Originally, he’d planned for Kim to hide on the sidelines with the bat, pretending to be just anther food court customer or something. But to be honest this didn’t really change that much.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
At least, that’s what he told himself as traced out his artery lines into the skinny jeans he’d decided to get. He was perched on a chair in the food court, a few pillars away from Petra’s. Phone on the table, a basic anatomy page open.
He was basically only seeing two ways this could go. He’d either find they’d been just really weird about… well, Ed didn’t really know what Mr. Garry had been trying to do by kidnapping him like that; or he’d be harvested for his internal magical organs or something, scraped for his system, or well, honestly Ed had zero clue about what else they might do but what he did know was that it could definitely get bad, and that there were also definitely things that were worse than death. Whatever the case, Ed thought to himself as he finished thumb tacking his glove up, the one thing he definitely couldn’t let happen was let something happen to Harriet.
He went over the plan in his head again. The bat was a red herring, he’d place the bag next to his foot. Keep his hand under the table to make them think that’s what he’d grab it with. Then… well, the rest was on him to read the room. If it looked bad, he’d slap his femoral and hopefully he’d bleed out before they’d even realized what’d happened. He’d cut some shreds into his jeans and traced out the vessel with a sharpie. So, well, there was no messing this up.
Of course this was all an absolute last resort, if they were just going to turn him into a slave of questionable intent or something he’d probably just go with it. Sure it was bad, but he could imagine himself eventually digging himself out.
He double checked his stuff a few more times, looked at the clock, it was a quarter to noon, then walked over to Petra’s pretzels, taking his hat and wig off in the process. He’d ended up getting both because it didn’t hurt to be careful and while he’d scanned the atrium area for a good hour or so from one of the dark corners next to a pillar. He’d seen zero trace of a setup.
Which meant they were either extremely professional, or extremely casual. Ed walked up to the booth and bought a pretzel, not really that comforting either way to be honest, then sat in the most visible spot he could find, back to a pillar. He tried to relax. It was probably going to be a while.