The door was forced back after several creaking attempts, several bouts of muffled yelling and complaining. Once the entryway was clear, Yeung-Sung and Shirley rose to their feet and gave each the same stressed look of ‘He can’t know!’

Luke leaned out. He didn’t seem concerned, and idled against the door frame while he waited for the two to approach. Already the games begin. What a fuckin’ ego!

“Having fun?” he asked, chuckling at his own words.

Yeung-Sung had no answer he was willing to give. Shirley, he saw through heavy eyes, didn’t have one either.

Luke bounced up straight. “Oh, no comeback?” He pulled his collar forward and made a show of looking behind them at the damp prison cell they were in. “Huh, I should use this place more often,” he muttered, “Works wonders.”

“Anyway,” he continued, gesturing at the two to get in front of him, “We’re ready. My officers have explained to me what you’ve told them and have come up with their own strategies.”

They hobbled along, abandoned runts walking a highway. Luke skipped around, taunting them, bewildered by their newfound passiveness.

“You,” he nodded to Shirley, “-look like shit.”

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He stopped in front of Yeung-Sung, “But you’re still holding back. Tell me. Come on, you’ve had plenty of time to articulate yourself in there.”

Yeung-Sung said, “You don’t deserve to know,” and swerved around him.

Shirley instantly caught up to him and pulled back his shoulder, whispering, “Didn’t we just talk about this? Be the bigger man”.

Luke snuck in on the other shoulder and repeated the words with a serpentine flavour, “Be the bigger man, eh…Yeung-Sung, yes, why don’t you?”

Yeung-Sung shook them both off and brushed off his shoulders.

“No, Luke, why don’t you?”

As he strode further down the hall it widened and transformed from a speckled grey to the idyllic reds and blues of PM. There was nothing commanding about his walk; he kept his legs close together, pointed his feet to the inside and left his body unguarded by his arms. The rush of much work to be done and the smells of lunch crashed in waves now that they had entered the main lobby of the re-purposed mall. The thud of footsteps behind him were submerged in it, lessening the threat which they warned of.

Yeung-Sung meekly looked behind his shoulder and said to Luke, “All these people around you, all these lives on the line and you insist on keeping your status as a leader intact. Why? Is that worth more than your life? More than everyone’s life?”

Shirley diligently watched Luke’s face warp through reactions. Luke stamped to the side, a desperate attempt at dominance.

“Listen here, you little- ah, you’re right. Okay, yeah. It doesn’t make sense.” He rolled his tongue around, making bulges in his cheeks. PM members nearby came instantly to his side, and he waved them towards the general room, nodding to himself and Shirley., “Fine, I guess you know your own worth. Have it your way, just beat that damn intelligence-thing.”

Shirley turned back around to Luke as he was led, but Yeung-Sung tugged his forearm. “Don’t let him know.”

They stood, climbing up on the escalator as Luke watched them from the floor. He jerked an eyebrow towards them and spat one last warning.

“But you’re not leaving until we win. There’s no backing out of this, that I stake my life on.”