Henry Morgan strode into the large room meant to entertain guests until he or one of the others could properly address them. One of several spacious settings available for such use, the room bore several pieces of furniture with accompanying entertainment systems and other similar distractions to occupy idle hands. Though, as this particular room was generally reserved for the less refined of guests, said content was focused more towards durability and replaceability than the quality meant to impress that he would have normally preferred.

Instead of the ornate furniture that would have been the norm, there were several cloned-leather couches with a number of carbon fibre stools in front of the mock-bar in the left corner, where the torso of an automaton would serve whatever was asked for, the strange setup another form of distraction meant to incite gossip.

The liquor at said bar, much like the other forms of available entertainment, was also of a more…common appeal rather than anything Henry would ever have let pass his lips, but for what it lacked in quality, it made up for in its ability to distract whoever stayed here, despite it also proving itself, more often than not, to be the cause of the frequent damages that often occurred to the rest of this room’s contents.

He waited for Mr. Brown, his bodyguard, to step aside and give him the all-clear before facing the occupants of the room.

The man known as John had worked for him for several years now, but Henry was not one to trust people, even allies, hence the wall of meat that preceded him everywhere, the six-foot-two chiselled frame of Mr. Brown more than adequate enough to cover his perfectly average and, more importantly, very vulnerable five-foot-seven body.

Mr. Brown stepped aside, giving a small nod of his head as he did so, where he then stalked over to the corner of the room so that the man could keep an eye on everything and everyone within it.

For all his physical charm, he was a man of few words. Something Henry had always thought was somewhat of a pity, as the man not only possessed a voice that could make any woman swoon, but his ability to sing could make even the coldest of hearts weep upon hearing him.

Pushing such thoughts aside as he walked to the centre of the room, Henry took note of its two occupants. To his left, bound in several strands of carbon-wire, sat a young, red-haired woman, the apparent target of the Scarlattis, though Henry was still in the dark as to specifically why.

Well, no, the answer was always money; it was their client’s interest in the matter where the mystery lay.

But that could come later.

Henry detested having to display any form of humanity in front of people, strangers or not, preferring practicality over social niceties. Unfortunately, his occupation—any occupation, really—required it from time to time.

He moved over to the person whom he knew only as John. Not his real name, of course; Henry had had a multitude of ‘John’s’ work for him over the years, with only one of them genuinely possessing the name in truth. They still had to refer to that John as such as doing otherwise would have been a dead giveaway as to the man’s real name.

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The John in front of him was half-slumped over in exhaustion from what was no doubt a hard night’s work. A common enough sight and expected one considering tonight’s foul up.

Henry put on his best ‘I share in your pain’ face and called out in a soft voice, “John?”

Receiving no response from the man, he knelt before the sleeping man and repeated himself a little louder.

“John…she didn’t make it.”

‘She,’ he thought. In all the time that they had worked for him, Henry had never even suspected that the two were not who they appeared to be. Sure, they lied about their identities, obscured their faces and other identifying markers, but that was just a matter of course in this line of work—people who did not do so tended to not last very long…but to the extent the man’s partner had gone to?

The cost of the disguise alone must have taken the majority of both their pay combined just to maintain, the woman’s biological modifications of such an extent that medication and painkillers would have been a daily necessity for her. His sister, one of the best surgeons in the world, only discovered the subterfuge by chance even with the woman now looking as if someone had taken a cheese grater to her body, her disguise literally having been stripped away. Skin, bones, everything that could reveal even her gender modified to the extreme, all to hide herself. Again, he was left in the dark as to why. It might not have been important—to him—or any of his business, but Henry hated mysteries.

Yet, all those measures were also temporary ones, a measure that only increased said costs. Why go to such an extent yet still leave a way for yourself to be found?

A question for another time. They now had her D.N.A. and actual face on file—something easily reformed by the computers after Heather had reconstructed the woman’s bone structure, so they could always go looking for that information later on.

Which they would; These people had been one of the best teams that they had ever worked with, but only fools had faith in people. Especially when these people presumably had other people looking for them.

“John? Did you hear me? Your…friend didn’t make it. …John?”

Henry stiffened, then rose and stood back as Mr. Brown raced forward to check the unresponsive man on the couch. The man checked for John’s pulse as he called out his name as Henry had just done, raising two fingers to the side of the man’s neck. After calling out once more, Brown looked back to his employer and shook his head, then returned his attention to the late John, lowering his fingers to the side to part the man’s jacket, revealing a lone pistol as he did so, a ‘Holiday Special 440’.

A standard enough weapon with their crowd, with the exception that this one had been modified with the addition of a silencer and an extended magazine.

Brown then moved his fingers to the other side of the man, his eyes shifting to something near the late man’s waist.

“Good thing you paid for waterproofing the leather,” Brown said sardonically.

“Jesus,” Henry replied, only now noticing the small trail of liquid running down the piece of said furniture, the colour obscured by the dark brown of the synthetic leather beneath it.

‘Too small,’ Henry noted as he assessed the stain. The rest of it was probably back in the man’s truck.

“He wasn’t the macho sort,” Brown commented, “probably didn’t even know he’d been hit—poor bastard.”

“Hm,” Henry agreed. It had happened before; adrenaline coursing through their system, with a bit of shock in the mix…and maybe some chemical help on top of all that? These types of people experienced hardships on a daily basis, a certain tolerance to pain usually forming thanks to that experience. A tolerance that could prove itself to be a double-edged sword at times.

‘The extreme chill of the sea air probably didn’t help either,’ he added to himself.

Henry walked over to an intercom on the wall and called for Dr. Watson, though he did not forget to replace the surname with Johnson. He had long ago learned that there could always be people listening in, even when he was alone, so such paranoia was mandatory. The device he used to make the call, a simple button and speaker connected to physical cables running throughout his centre of operations, was a primitive form of communication, true, but he insisted on its use to ensure that his people’s ability to reach each other not be compromised by external infiltration, his entire base of operations now a near-perfect faraday cage with only a few systems capable of accessing external services. And even then, only when absolutely necessary.

After explaining the situation to the doctor and ensuring the matter would soon be dealt with, he returned his attention back to the other people in the room.

Mr. Brown had returned to his position in the corner, where the man could once again keep an eye on everyone, alive or dead, the late John still lay half-slumped over where he sat, and the young woman still lay bound opposite him, restrained and helpless, watching everything in silence.

Taking a seat opposite her, Henry then said to the bound and gagged girl, “Well then, what shall we do with you?”