Freel brought out his baton, and extended it to full length.

“So… ready to be bad guys?”

“Yeah,” Kreb said, glowering from beneath those beetle brows of his. With a face and body like that, what else was he going to be in life?

“You knooow we’re ready, chief,” Yules said. The dark, wiry man brought out his own baton and twirled it around, first just moving his wrist, then whipping the weapon about, enough to cross into overly showy, in Freel’s opinion.

“Dunton?” Freel asked the one furthest in the back in their little lineup.

The blocky man had been the first to take out his baton, but he was looking away and using it to tap the weapon on the stair handrail. It produced a rapid, tinny noise, probably matching Dunton’s heartbeat. He’d been hitting the chems again, as if the messy hair and beard weren’t giveaways enough.

Footsteps drew Freel’s attention to the stairs leading up. Their group was gathered on the third-to-last floor, so it was only seconds before a man came into view from above. The sight of them gave him a start. The sheer unease that visibly washed through him was one of the perks of the job.

The stranger averted his eyes and continued on, moving just a little bit faster than he had. Freel watched him pass by. Dunton kept up his tapping, and the outstretched arm and baton were blocking passage through the narrow landing. Ordinary people had a handful of stock reactions to these sorts of encounters, and this one opted to simply pretend he was alone in the world. The man didn’t speak, or turn his head. He just kept walking, and Dunton tapped his weapon on the man in passing.

Then the blocky, smelly bastard followed him a few steps, tapping away at the man’s back. The man continued ignoring everything, and just sped up a little as he reached the flight leading downwards. Dunton stopped at the top step and started banging on the handrail again. Then he let out a loud, bark-like yell, just about startling the stranger out of his shoes.

Still the man didn’t say anything back, or do anything other than walk away. Dunton yelled again, then a third time, before losing interest.

Yules chuckled in that shrill way of his, and Freel smiled a little.

Must suck to be typical. Must suck to be prey.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” Dunton said as he joined them again. “Ready, ready, ready.”

“Then let’s be bad guys,” Freel said.

The door looked as dull and old as any in the stairwell, made distinct only by the homemade care-knot that hung from it. The lock glowed the green of open, and it only took a quick hand-swipe to get a click. Freel then kicked the door, going for maximum volume.

It swung open and slammed into the wall. Freel strode in, followed by his team.

“Good afternoon! Boys! And! Girls!” he shouted at the startled people spread about the space within.

It had been designed as a decent-sized family apartment, but several walls had been removed, providing a good view. Lined up wherever space allowed were cheap folding beds, occupied by pale, shivering wretches. But his focus was on the people caring for them.

“We are your friendly neighbourhood memory service!”

He swung the baton upwards, shattering one of the lights dangling from the low ceiling. It got a small yelp out of a couple of people.

“Here to remind you of your dues!”

A small table that looked like it belonged in a classroom held a mixer, some drinking glasses, and packages of cheap food. Freel kicked it over.

The boys followed on his heels, adding to the atmosphere he was bringing. Yules whooped, and from the sound of it he hopped up and touched the ceiling. Freel didn’t turn, but he knew that Kreb was putting that built-to-frown face of his to use. And Dunton was now rapid-fire slapping the baton into his own palm.

“Your little club has paid the rent, but you’re not paying the safety fee!”

He continued on into the apartment. There were six people in sight who were actually upright and healthy-looking. Two of them were women, one was an old man, and the remaining three looked no more threatening than that fellow in the stairwell.

Another one of those little tables held a medical bag, and some injectors poked out of it. One of the women saw him head towards it, and started a half-hearted approach, but stopped as he reached it. Freel used the baton like a cue and shoved the bag onto the floor. He thought he heard a small break. Then he banged the weapon loudly on the table, and got a satisfying round of flinches.

“That simply will not do. By all means, take this somewhere else if you want… assuming anyone else will tolerate this waste of space. But as long as you’re staying in this part of the Crescent, you’re going to pay your safety fee.”

He stepped to the nearest bed. The occupant was either a teenager, or just barely past that, and he was sweating and fighting the shivers of shri withdrawal. He also looked a little pukey, and Freel poked him in the gut. Nothing came up, save a groan of pain, but maybe he’d recently emptied.

“Stop that!”

The speaker was the youngest of the standing men, and Freel looked his way to find him carrying out another stock reaction: Fear poorly covered up with anger.

“Yeah? Or what? Kreb.”

The big man strode over, and the cover of anger blew away like a leaf in the wind. The boy retreated back a couple of steps, but Kreb caught up with him and gave him a brutal shove. The boy fell back up against a very plain kitchen set-up, and had nowhere further to retreat as Kreb came in with a backhanded fist. The man could pack power even into showy blows, and the boy collapsed on the floor.

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“Words without backing are just wind,” Freel said, as he scanned the still-standing people. His gaze came to a stop on the one who stood the firmest. It was a dark woman with a big head of curly hair.

“That’s enough,” she said.

“Is it?” Freel said, and started towards her. “You’re in charge here, right? You’ve been told before.”

“And you types have been told: There is no money here. Look around.”

She steadily stared him down, and Freel found it equal parts amusing and aggravating.

“I am looking,” Freel told her. “And don’t see what anyone here is going to do other than pay up.”

“No money,” she insisted. “It all goes into the rent, and a fraction of what these people actually need. The food is donated, as are the cleaning supplies.”

“So get more donations,” Freel told her, and came to a stop well inside of her personal space. “From suckers who’ll waste them on shit like this. Sell furniture. Sell people. It’s what these losers usually end up doing anyway.”

“Oh, I know,” the woman told him, with cold, calm hatred.

That was all the lip Freel was going to put up with, and he started pushing her backwards.

“Well, let me have it, if you’ve got such an issue with me,” he said. “Go on. That’s a big ring you’re wearing. I’m sure it could make for half-decent knuckle dusters.”

He gave her a shove, and before she could recover he gave her a harder one, and sent her out onto the balcony. It faced the north, and its majestic mountains.

Freel took hold of her sweater collar and pushed her lower back against the rail.

“These blocks really should be priced higher, with a view like this,” he commented. He pushed harder, bending her a bit over the rail. She gripped it with both hands, but she was kidding herself.

“I mean, look at that.”

Down below was the Great Gorge. The gargantuan cut in the landscape that almost went from horizon to horizon. Its curved shape gave the Crescent neighbourhood its name, built on the very edge as it was.

“Look at it, I said!” he insisted, and pushed a bit more, until his grip was probably actually stopping her from falling.

“I’ve seen it,” the woman bit out.

She was hiding fear, and doing a decent job of it. But he had plenty of experience in spotting it.

“From these upper floors…” Freel said, smiling at her intense expression. “It takes about ten seconds to reach the bottom of the gorge. Ten seconds is forever when you’re in danger. It must be an eternity when you know you’re going to die.”

She didn’t say anything. She just kept staring at him. It took a bit of the fun out of all this, but Freel supposed his point was made. He turned, and roughly pulled her around, throwing her away.

The woman didn’t land on the floor, but in the arms of one of the volunteers. Freel hadn’t heard him approach, but the guy didn’t do anything. What could he possibly do, anyway, other than give a disrespectful look.

Freel tipped over a bowl of snacks in passing.

“Clean that up,” he said to the guy, then just ignored the two, on his way back into the centre of the apartment.

“You have three days!” he announced. “In three days you either pay your dues, or all of you are out of here. One direction or another.”

He let out a sharp whistle, a signal for the boys to follow him, and he walked back to the door.

“Three days,” he repeated. “Three days, and then we get mean.”

They exited, and Kreb slammed the door shut behind them. Freel collapsed his baton and slid it back into his belt.

“That’s that!” Yules said, and started hopping down several steps at a time. Why did he have to be such a damn kid all the time?

“That’s where you’re heading, Dunton,” Kreb stated darkly.

“Pff!” their messy compatriot exhaled. “No. It’s just pills for me, man. I work for a living. I buy the good stuff. The good stuff!”

“Put your damn baton away, Dunton,” Freel said, as the handrail performance picked back up. Dunton obeyed, but switched to tapping with his bare hand. It was at least a marginal improvement.

One would have expected an elevator in a high-rise apartment building, or at least a landing area for hoverers halfway up the side of it, or at the VERY least one on the roof. But this was a cheap area for a reason, and they damn well had to trudge down thirty flights as nature had intended.

By the time they exited the dusty, unpainted lobby Freel was very ready to climb into the car and open the drink cooler.

“That was the last one,” he reminded everyone, and sipped with one hand as he steered with the other. He’d been really tempted to save up for a luxury vehicle, but the work he did had called for something that could support subtle armour plating. Regular visits to the machine shop had brought the Dragon close to that smoothness he wanted so much, and they slid away from the high-rise like a fish in water.

“Ahh!” he groaned as he reached the bottle’s halfway point. Then he put it in a holder. “Just gonna let the boss man know.”

He activated the car’s comm system, and made sure the outgoing call was marked as “Work”. It got him a relatively quick connection.

“Yes?” said the voice on the other end.

“Just finished that reminder tour, boss,” Freel said. “Six stops. It all went smoothly. No incidents.”

“No real beatings,” Yules mused, and Freel gestured at him sharply. The guy kept forgetting the point of subtle language when on comms.

“We agreed on another meeting in three days, at the latest,” Freel continued. “Everyone seemed fine with it.”

“Good. I want everything running smoothly over the next few days. And on that topic, I want you to stop by the Little Nest before you finish your day.”

“Is there an issue?” Freel asked.

“Not that I know. I just want eyes on the operation. And a reminder. You understand.”

Freel understood just fine, and the people he was about to visit understood as well.

“Sure thing, boss,” Freel said.

The one on the other end cut the call without preamble. It was only a minor annoyance, but one that Freel found built up over time.

Oh, whatever.

He had a big swig from the bottle, and opened the map to check the air-lanes. Then, as he reached a designated switching point, he activated the car’s thrusters and lifted it off the road. Sunset was a little under an hour away. If they just got this done quickly they could hit the nightlife just as it was starting.