The Underground

Chapter 1: The Underground

“Eight o’ spades.”

Tony’s lips curved upwards in a devious smile, smacking loudly as he ground away at the gum between his teeth, his dark eyes glinting with childish amusement. Across the table, elbows pressed so hard into the table he was sure they’d leave a mark, Eli grunted something under his breath.

“Next card.”, he growled, the eyes behind his dark spectacles fixed on the single card that rested in the centre of the table. The green irises burned with such intensity, it seemed as if he was hoping staring at the card long enough would change the value.

“You know, I don’t quite understand why ya keep insisting on playin’ this game wit me.”, he remarked, shuffling the deck and taking the card at the top of the pile. “Every time ya say the same number, and every time it don’t come up. D’ya just like losin’ ya creds to me, or is it just my wit ’n charm that keeps you back every evening.”

“Next card.”, Eli snarled. His eyes moved to focus on Tony, deathly intent in his gaze. Were he anyone else, Tony might’ve been worried. After all, Eli had a certain aura around him that Mich accurately described as a look of ‘don’t-fuck-with-me-unless-you-wanna-be-my-dinner’ about him.

“You really ain’t no fun are ye?”, Tony groaned. He placed the card down, pausing a moment before flipping it over and pressing it down with a finger. “Seven of hearts.”

“Fuck.”, Eli snapped, pressing his elbows even deeper into the steel tabletop. “Next-”

“Tony, what the hell did the Captain tell you about playing cards with Eli?”, a voice shouted from behind him.

He gazed over his shoulder at the watch room’s door see Sara walking towards him. Over two meters tall, she towered over both him and Eli, and still would have even if they were standing up. Her long arms were crossed in front of her chest, half-covering the stylised writing on her black shirt so it just said Fuck Off in neon yellow. Her studded hot pink leather trench coat’s sleeves covered her lanky limbs up to the elbows, her forearms adorned with a dozen odd bracelets, each made from the finest fake silver and jewels ten creds could buy. Still got ripped off for them. Her shoulder length black hair, streaked with a natural shade of blonde and a not-so natural shade of blue, was tied in a pair of high buns, fully exposing her face which was halfway between anger and amusement.

“Don’t do it?”, he replied coyly, his grin widening.

“Damn right! Now pack up cards and keep your eyes on the monitors. What would the Captain do if she came in here and saw the two of you playing some stupid game instead of monitoring the gate?”, she snapped.

Her eyes, fake red contacts glowing, lingered on Tony for a few moments before she muttered something foul in Cantonese and walking across the room to the wall of screens. Pulling out a seat, she dropped down into the chair, which creaked as she leant back and slammed her feet onto the table.

Sighing, Tony collected the cards from the table, shuffling them neatly into a cleanly-cut stack and shoving them in his jacket’s inside pocket. Eli shot him a look that would’ve withered any other man’s soul. Tony merely responded with a smirk and a shrug before walking over to where Sara sat.

“Gum?”, he offered, spitting out the chewed up wad in his mouth and pulling out a pair of sticks from his pocket.

She eyed him suspiciously before snatching a stick from his grasp. He was about to feign offence at her hesitant response until he remembered the last time he had offered her gum, she’d been sick on the can for a week. Unintentional of course. It had been meant for Eli, a little bit of sweet revenge for a black eye the bastard had given him over, unsurprisingly, a game of Guess. That explanation didn’t make it any easier to get her to forgive him sadly.

Unwrapping it, she tossed the wrapped aside and threw the gum into her mouth. Smacking her lips loudly, she glanced up at the monitors and remarked with a sigh, “Oh look at that. Not a damned thing’s happening. Has it been like this for the rest of your shift?”

He nodded, pointing at a screen high up to their left, one that showed a dark, narrow alleyway awkwardly crammed between two run-down office buildings.

“Most of it yeah. Got a bit fun for a while when two office rats snuck off down there to have a lil’ bit of lovers’ time to themselves, but the rain scared them off. I gotta ask you flaca, why is the Captain so damned stern about us monitoring the entrances to the Underground anyway? It’s not as if anyone’s come close to them, not since, well, not since they did back then, and no one knows about the Underground anyway. At least, not anyone who isn’t an Outlier too.”

“You know how the Captain is Tony. She works for the General who, along with the rest of them bigwigs, works for the Bartender. And if the Bartender says we watch the exits, well, do I need to say any more?”, Sara replied. She glanced over her shoulder at Eli, whose eyes were now on the door to the watch room. The man’s hands shot up to his darkened glasses and his earpiece, his fingers scrolling their controllers up and down. “Eli, what do you see?”

“Someone’s coming. One person. A woman.”, he replied, his voice tense and expression stern. Tony reached for the gun at his belt, his breath held and narrowed eyes fixed on the door. Eli’s expression was unchanging for a moment, then it relaxed and he said, “It’s just Tori.”

“Tori Inoue?”, Sara asked, spinning around in her chair and rising to her feet. “What the hell are one of the Fixers doing here?”

Tony opened his mouth to respond when the whirring of the watch room door filled the room and he turned his head to see Tori Inoue standing in the doorway. She looked the narrow opening up and down before sighing and turning to her side and shuffling the door. I guess the Underground wasn’t really built for people with wings was it?

Her beady black eyes darting across the screen of monitors, her gaze eventually settled on Tony and Sara.

“What’s the matter Tori?”, Sara asked.

“The Captain wants to see you.”, she said, a high-pitched squeak to her words. “It’s important.”

“I’d love to come with you Tori,”, Tony replied, taking his hand off his gun, “but we’ve got orders to watch the entrances.”

“She told me that you’re off duty. This is more important. Now come on, move it.”, Tori said sternly. She turned around and sighed before shimmying through the door again, disappearing down the corridor outside.

Tony shot Sara and Eli a tired look before shaking his head and walking out of the room. There was something about the watch room, about the whole building even, that unnerved Tony. There was an uneasy atmosphere about it, one that could be felt in every inch of the control centre’s steel corridors and rooms. He could feel it in the people too, though he did not want to. When he forgot, he could still hear their thoughts, their voices faint whispers in his mind. They were better than before, but without Mich’s cocktails, he still could not sleep at night. He would just lay there in his bed, looking up at the ceiling, hearing their voices for hours and hours.

Two people, dressed in the plain grey and blue of the UPF, sat behind the glass screen of the guards room next to the door. They offered Tony and Eli half-hearted greetings as they walked past, their faces twisting into disgusted frowns as Tori walked past, one of them even muttering something under her breath. The Fixer paid them no mind though, strolling right past them with a stern look on her face. They waited for a moment for the door to whir open before stepping outside.

There was something about the Sun Roof that unnerved Tony. Though he had grown up with it and had seen its light more than he had the real suns, there was something…cold about it. The glowing domed ceiling served as the sky for the Underground, having been built in its very first days. At first, it had just been a stark white, switching on and off in accordance with the sun above ground, but as time passed and the Underground grew, they improved. Blue when it was sunny on the surface, grey when it rained. Even the sunrises and sunsets had a strange beauty about them, false as they were.

The Underground had a mechanical drawl to it, the constant background whirring of gears and the crackling of electricity that never faded. It came from every street, every business and every home. Behind it, the voice of the city, an unceasing amalgamation of words and thoughts whose whispers snuck through every nook and cranny, every druggie-filled alleyway and candy-filled brothel. He had grown to that noise. He even relished in it at times. It was home to him. Rundown and barely-surviving yes, but home all the same.

They weaved in between towering metal buildings and rundown shacks, walking past street walkers, fences, cops and regular people making their way through the world. He ignored the suspicious glances shot his way as they walked by. The Crews were treated strangely in the Underground, always had been. Some people admired the work Tony and the others did. Others didn’t like the danger they felt the Crews brought. They felt as if with every run to the surface the Crews made, the closer they got to being found out. Tony didn’t care what they thought. He would be damned if he’d leave his brothers and sisters up there, sitting ducks to be caught and chipped.

The Stables had been destroyed and rebuilt over a dozen times in Tony’s life alone and looking at the building, you could tell. The steel walls that held it up seemed a hard shove away from tumbling down, and rumour had it rats had infested the basements, not that anyone ever went down there. Tony didn’t mind though. To him, it was home. Much more so than his real one was.

“Oi Antonio! That really you?”, a voice shouted out.

Tony tore his attention away from his own little, contained reality and looked down the street, oddly empty considering how early in the day it was. At first, he saw nothing, but then a figure broke through a crowd of chatting candies and his face beamed a smile.

“Jorge? Am I finally going mad or are you really still alive?”, he shouted at the figure sprinting towards him, his wide smile matching the one on the figure’s face. “I don’t believe it. I thought you were dead?”

“Nah, it’ll take more than a few Trackers to kill me, ese.”, Jorge laughed. He pulled Tony in for a tight embrace before pushing him away and slapping him on the shoulder. His blue-green eyes twinkled with humour and he remarked, pointing at a barely healed scar that ran along his almond coloured cheek, “One of them pendejos gave me this. Don’t worry, I paid him back ten times worse.”

“Tony, mind introducing us to your friend here?”, Sara asked, looking Jorge up and down with a look that made Tony feel somewhat jealous, which in turn, made him feel angry that she could still make him feel anything of the sort.

Tony’s tongue tied, Jorge spoke first. Flashing a charming grin, he bowed exaggeratedly and said, “Jorge Aguilar the name’s chula. Me and him, we’re old friends, known each other since we were both babies in our mothers stomachs. Well, maybe not that early.”

“We both grew up with the Diaspora.”, Tony interrupted. He got that sick feeling he always got in his stomach whenever Jorge was about to say something embarrassing. “His family fled to here from Albuquerque, mine came from San Antonio.”

“I still can’t believe your parents named you after a city.”, Sara chuckled. She glanced over at Jorge again, returning his tooth smile with her own, though hers seemed far tenser and more strained. “Well Jorge, where exactly have you been then?”

“Ah, that’s a sad story chula.” Jorge shook his head and sighed, “You know how Liz has been MIA? I had just been moved over to Jameson’s crew to take her place, made a run to the surface. Quick little trip to New Bronx to pick up an Outlier who had sent Torque a distress call. Should’ve known it was a sting. The spineless culero was chipped, and worse, he had a whole squad of Trackers waiting for us. Jameson told us to split, and so we did. Half the crew didn’t make it out of the building, and those that did…well, they say no one else from the crew has returned in the two days I’ve been back, so odds are, Jameson’s crew is just me, Macy and Eddie.”

“Damn, I’m sorry.”, Tony said. He let the silent linger over them for a few moments before asking, “Any clue what happened to Jameson?”

“I saw what happened to him with my own two eyes.”, Jorge replied, lowering his gaze, most likely to hide the pain that filled his eyes. “The Trackers got their hands on him, were about to put him under and take him away. They barely got their hands on him before he pulled the pins of half-a-dozen grenades and blew them all to bits. He always said he’d kill himself before he let the Trackers take him. I guess he was right.”

“We should get moving.”, Tori said from behind them. Tony realised he’d forgotten she was even there and looked over his shoulder to see her leaning against the doorway to the Stables. He noticed how the people walking down the street gave her a wide berth as they passed, eyeing her as they walked away. She did not seem to care though, angular black eyes cold. “Captain Nedelko is waiting, and from what I hear, she is not the type of person you want to keep waiting.”

“No, no she ain’t.”, Tony sighed. He turned to look back at Jorge and said, “Listen man, I’d love to talk more, but it looks like I’ve got work.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it ese.”, Jorge said, slapping Tony on the shoulder and smiling. Both actions were forced though, and Tony could still see the pain in his eyes. “We’ll catch up later eh? Somewhere warmer and more comfy than this too. Preferably with a bottle of mezcal or two to talk over.”

“Jose’s homemade?”, he asked, forcing himself to match Jorge’s own insincere energy.

“You know it ese.”, Jorge said, his smile so gleaming Tony almost thought it true. He patted Tony on the shoulder one last time before turning around and walking down the street, disappearing into the crowd once again.

“I like him.”, Sara remarked, a glint in her eyes that made Tony’s stomach roll over in his body. Get a grip on yourself man. She broke your heart, and you hers. It’s clear her mind ain’t exactly lingering on you, don’t let yours linger on her.

“Women often do. It infuriated me growing up.”, he said, not thinking. He only realised what he had said when Sara turned and looked at him with raised brows and he hastily added, “Only when I was growing up of course. Got used to it by now. Come on, we don’t wanna keep Nedelko waiting.”

Sara grunted a response fellowing Tony to the Stable door. Tori sighed in a way that meant finally before pushing the door open and stepping indoors.

The Stable was quiet today. Strange. There were too many Crews, and not enough jobs for them all, especially not since the Underground’s relationship with the Wall Breakers had soured. He had a mind to look around a bit, see what was going on, but he barely took a step inside the building before Tori practically shoved him towards the elevators.

“Fifth floor.”, she said, as if he didn’t know that Captain Nedelko liked to keep close to the armoury.

He slammed the button and leaned against the lift’s rackety old walls, which shook and skidded against the elevator’s rusty shaft walls. Only a few seconds passed before a ding cut through the silence and the metal door slid open. He stepped out to see a corridor filled to the brim with Crewers. They appeared and disappeared through opened doors, a sea of constantly changing colours and faces. Noise bombarded his ears, a hundred voices roaring as they shouted for weapons, armour and instructions.

“What the hell is going on here?”, Tony asked, putting his hand on the person nearest to him and pulling them so they turned to looked at him.

“Didn’t you hear?”, the woman said, her words a shout, not out of anger, but a mere adaptation to the sheer volume of the ruckus that filled the floor. “Torque’s caught word of a massive operation by the Agency. They’ve got dozens of squads in the field right now about to pounce. Every target is a first or second level threat, all seventeen of them.”

“Seventeen?”, Tony gasped. “We barely get that many in half-a-year! What the hell is happening?”

“I guess someone in the Agency’s trying to impress their boss with a nice little present.”, the woman quipped. She turned in response to a shout and said, “Gotta go. My crew’s just about to head up to the surface.”

Tony watched her push her way into the crowd of Crewers before sighing and saying, “Come on, let’s get a move on. If we’re any later than we already are, Nedelko’s going to shoot us all the moment we walk through the door.”

Pushing their way through the dense sea of Crewers was an arduous affair, one that reeked of sweat and dirty clothes, the stench so strong it stung at his eyes. He could barely hear his own thoughts amongst the chaos of sound, and he found what little space he had growing smaller and smaller. He gasped for breath, every breath desperate and deep. Come on Tony, you ain’t a kid anymore. Don’t lose your shit just because things are getting tight. Literally.

Towards the end of the corridor, they found the door they were looking for. Captain Ivana Nedelko, a holographic plaque read, the pixelated letters blinking between light and dark. He could hear shouting from behind a door. A female voice, that was normal, and a male one. That wasn’t. With a nervous sigh he pushed the door open and stepped into the room.

“How many times must I tell you Captain, we are not an army!”, a man shouted, his squarish face scrunched up in a frown, stark blue eyes narrowed in anger. He looked, more than anyone Tony had ever know, like a soldier, his grey hair shaved bald and clean-shaved aside from a thick handlebar moustache. He was in all black aside from the stiff white shirt-collar that stuck out over the top his jacket. “We cannot afford to fight the Trackers toe-to-toe in open battle!”

“Do you think me a fool?”, the woman behind the desk said. Her silvery-blonde hair had been cut short into a bob that curved along her long face, her features almost as sharp as her light blue eyes. She was dressed the same as the man, only with the colours reversed. “I am not looking for war, merely for vengeance. We do to them what they did to us. We trick them, and when they have fallen for our trap, we gun them down like hunters would wounded game.”

“You really think you have a chance against them like that, playing their game?”, the General scoffed. He shook his head and said, almost laughing, “Don’t you understand? We may live in the shadows but they, they were born in it. They know nothing else. You cannot defeat the dishonourable by lowering yourself to their level. Only through honour, through fighting in the light, can we win.”

“Look around yourself.”, the Captain said, shooting to her feet and gesturing outwards. “This is not Ukraine! What does honour mean when those you fight alongside are murdered? When your brothers and sisters are hunted and kidnapped by the thousands? Honour only matters when survival is assured, when lives are not at risk.”

“That is the only time honour matters Ivana!”, he shouted. They both paused with shock for a moment before he regained his composure and continued, “Honour matters only when upholding it comes at a sacrifice, when surrendering it is the easier option. Otherwise it is not honour, merely self-indulgence in dreams of one’s righteousness, a stroking of ego that harms more than it helps. And on my honour I say this. As long as I am General, you will not act unprovoked against the Trackers. You shall not go searching for a fight. You will not draw more eyes to us than there already are, which is already too many.”

He met her angered gaze for a few seconds before turning on his heel and walking towards the door. When he was a foot away, the Captain called out, “You think yourself a wise man, a master of war and of life. You forget back in Ukraine, you bore an insignia of lower rank that the one I display now.”

“Perhaps.”, he said, looking over his shoulder at her. “But as you said yourself, this is not Ukraine.”

He walked out of the room, Tony and the others making way for him as he passed them. The Captain glanced at them for a moment before turning look out her window at the Underground. The subterranean city glowed outside, both with the light of the Sun Roof and the light shining through thousands of windows.

“I’m sorry you had to see that.”, she said, her words so soft she almost sounded sincere. She turned to look at them and slid down into her chair.“My father can be…stubborn. Him and I do not always see eye to eye on what must be done to protect our kind. But that’s business beyond your payroll. I’m sure you’ve heard about Torque’s little present to us all.”

“Of course we’ve heard.”, Tony said, walking up to the desk and pushing away a stack of papers so that she could sit down on the edge. She shot him a harsh look, but only for a short moment. “Seems like the Agency’s stepping things up.”

“Certainly seems like it.”, the Captain said. “Seventeen high-priority targets, all in a single day. The Jameson incident must’ve given them confidence in their ability to handle the best we’ve got to offer them. But we’re here to prove that confidence is misplaced. I want the three of your in Armoury A the moment I’m done talking, the rest of the Crew’ll be waiting for you there. We’ve been assigned the highest priority target. Level 1-A. Now I don’t know how powerful the target’ll be, but I doubt they got that ranking because they’ve got an inhumanly good voice, which means that the assault team will be big. Bigger than what you can handle alone as a crew. That’s why I’m sending Tori with you.”

“Tori?”, Sara said. Tony coughed and she looked over the shoulder to see the Fixer leaning against one of the Captain’s filing cabinets. She paused to think for a second before adding, “Are you sure she’ll be able to handle it? Fixers don’t have the best records in the field with Crewers, especially not when Trackers are involved.”

“She’s not coming along with you so she can help you in a firefight. She’s coming along to make sure you never get into one.”, the Captain said. As if in anticipation of protest she hurriedly added in a low growl, “I don’t care what your self-belief is telling you, if you get into open battle with three, maybe four squads of Trackers, you’re not making it out of there alive unless their bosses want you alive. Now move out. I’ll meet you downstairs shortly.”

Tony nodded and rose to his feet, marching out of the room. Much to his relief, the corridor had grown mostly empty in the time they spent in the Captain’s office. He walked down the hallway to the elevator, a soft tune on his lips as they travelled down to the basement.

Dank and damp, the basement reeked of gun oil and steel. Clanging and the whirring of gears hummed through the air in a quiet mechanical chorus, accompanied by muffled voices and rhythmic thuds. Tony and the others walked down the empty corridor, their footsteps echoing through the steel and stone passageway. They stopped in front of a set of opened double doors, each one inches of thick steel. Above the doors a sign hung, the fading white paint saying Armoury A.

Glowing white bars shined dim light onto the armoury floor, minute particles of hovering dust polluting the air by the millions. Steel lockers lined the left wall, pixelated signs showing their owner’s names, though a good half said nothing at all. Those belonged to Jameson and his crew. I wonder if the General’s already had them cleared out, for all the good it’ll do. We’ve got too many guns and lockers, and not enough Crewers to use them.

Two other people were in room. One sat on a bench in front of the lockers, head lowered and swallowed by the shadows from where the light did not shine. The other leant against a table covered with gears, guns, valves and a mess of Tony didn’t even begin to recognise, let alone understand.

The man in the darkness raised his head to look at them, eyes two black circles amongst the shadows. His accent thick, he said, “Antonio. Sara. Eli. You have arrived. Good. Me and Michelle have been waiting for you.”

“It’s good to see you too Tafon.”, Tony replied, walking past him to his locker. The steel door creaked open, the scent of corn leaves, chilis and rotting cheese wafted up to attack his nose and sting at his eyes. With a wince he grabbed a bag hanging from a door hook with pinched fingers and sighed. Mama’s tamales. Must’ve forgotten them here after the last job. She always made them for him when he went on a job. When he had more than an hours notice at least.

He opened the locker next to him, smiled when he noticed it was nameless and empty, and threw the tamales inside before slamming the door. He heard a soft chuckle from behind him and turned around to see Sara smiling. “Now now, what would your mother think if she saw you throwing away her homemade tamales?”

“She’s not going to think a damned thing, because you’re not telling her.”, he snapped, reaching into his own locker and pulling out a long black trench coat that hung from a hanger. He threw it over his shoulder and ran his hands along the pockets shown into the inner lining, smiling when he felt that they were still full. “Not unless you want me to end up in that next patch of tamales.”

She chuckled again before muttering something under her breath. An arm rose and shot out, growing to a dozen feet in length. It pulled open the door to her locker and her hand reached into it, coming out moments later holding a thick leather belt. She wrapped it around her waist, taking out and checking the pistols that rested on either side, smiling contently before putting them back in their holsters. She threw off her coat and tossed it back into the locker. She grabbed and put on a kevlar-enhanced jacket, courtesy of Mich, and walked over to the table where she stood.

He followed her over to the table, eyes scanning the unruly mess of tech strewn all over the clean steel surface. Mich always made sure to keep her work surface clean. Couldn’t risk dust interfering with one of the parts, she said. She wouldn’t lose lives to a speck of easily cleaned dirt.

A hand reached out to touch a hissing bundle of bundles wrapping around a power core, held in place only by what seemed to be a hastily applied wrap of duct tape. Mich’s hand shot out to slap it away and she snapped, “Do you want all of us to be blown to bits? No? Then stop touching my goddamned stuff.”

A moment later, she looked up from the mess of tech, picking up the long cylinder that rested right in front of her and raising it to admire it in the light that shone down from above. Her soot-covered face scrunched up in a frown before relaxing into a smile.

“Here.”, she said, handing the tube to Eli. “Give it a try.”

The device was no thicker than his forearm, and about as long. The surface was smooth, though a maze of lines had been carved into the shining steel. He looked it over, his brows furrowed in confusion, and looked at Mich questioningly. Sighing, she reached over the table and jabbed at a button on the side of the tube.

There was a sudden whirring and the two ends of the tube receded back into the cylinder. A long pipe shot out from one end, a square block emerging from the other, unfolding itself until it resembled a rife’s stock. A hole opened up in the top of the tube through which a rifle scope emerged. A similar gap appeared on the opposite side, and a grip slid down. A rare smile came to Eli’s face and he nodded in appreciation.

“Been working that baby for a while now.”, Mich said, returning Eli’s smile with one of her own, brownish black eyes twinkly with pride. She wiped her hands clean with an oily rag before running her fingers through her greasy short brown hair so that it no longer hung in front of her eyes. “It fires fifteen millimetre heavy duty rounds, not to mention it’s got a rapid fire laser functionality if you’ve got a power core to charge it with. Got a custom belt of explosive rounds for you too.”

“I thought the Captain’s orders were to avoid a firefight, not get ourselves into one.”, Tony said. He pointed at the rifle and added, “Because that…thing, doesn’t exactly look like it was designed for a stealth mission.”

“It’s not.”, Mich replied. “But knowing how this group operates, odds are we will be getting into a firefight, even with Tori keeping us in check. If-when we do, we’ll need some heavy duty weaponry to keep us in the fight, and get us out of it.”

Eli nodded in thanks once more before clicking the button again, watching in awe as the various parts retracted back into the tube. He shoved it into one of the inside pockets of his coat and said, “Does anyone know where we’re going?”

Tori reached into a pocket and pulled out a long, thin hard drive with a circle of glass at the end of it. She pressed a button and a hologram shot up from the circle. At first a formless cloud, it soon condensed into what seemed to be the outline of a building.

Her finger running along the lines that showed walls, Tori said, “Our target is located in an orphanage in the western part of New Bronx, near the border to Ciudad de Santiago.”

“Wait a minute, an orphanage?”, Mich exclaimed. “Our target is a child?”

“They are.” Tori replied, her tone cold and monotone. “Which is why we cannot risk the Agency getting their hands on them. If they do, they will be lucky to see the end of their so-called ‘registration phase.’ We do not know their name, their appearance, nor where exactly in the orphanage they are staying.”

“Well that’s useful isn’t it?”, Sara sighed. Tori shot her a sharp glare and she asked, “What exactly do we know then?”

“That there’ll be at least six squads of Trackers after this child, which means they’re dangerous.”, Tori warned. “The Captain wants us on our guard, even after we’ve found the target. We can’t be certain if they’ll be hostile to us or not, but the Captain says if they are, treat them as any other hostile.”

“What does that mean?”, Tony asked.

“What Tori means,”, Tafon interjected, “is that if we must, we kill the target.”

———————————————————————————————————————————

Tony hated being in the New Bronx. It wasn’t the constant stares he always got when he went there, the hungry looks that told him he was one bad step, one bad turn away from being jumped by a gang of Eight Avenue recruits-to-be or Black Crown wannabes. That was danger, and he could handle that. Hell, he was more familiar with danger than safety. It wasn’t the rundown buildings, the starving children, the men and women who had tired husks for eyes. He had known poverty as a child, and though the worst New Bronx was worse than what he had known, it was not by much. No, it was that the place felt…wrong.

As a whole, the city of Haven had an off scent about it. To Eli, he knew that scent was literal, but to him, it was a scent picked up by the mind not the nose. The city had been born as an experiment, a place where his kind could live in peace, without fear of persecution or judgement. That had been the plan, the motto that hung on the tongues of the city’s first proponents. For a time, Tony did not doubt it was true, but that was a long time ago. Now, to say that would be a lie so heinous that not even the biggest, most power-hungry corps dared to repeat it.

But in the New Bronx, you saw the worst of it. It wasn’t ever meant to be a part of the city. It wasn’t ever even meant to exist. At first, it had merely been a refugee camp, a temporary sanctuary for those fleeing New York after its destruction. But as time went on, few people left the camp and more arrived. The New Bronx had been built around that camp, with corps coming in over the years to try and capitalise on what they saw as an opportunity. And as always, that all blew up in their faces didn’t it.

The one thing he liked about the New Bronx was that no one questioned six strange looking people in long trench coats. They stared at them, exchanged nervous whispers. A few even ran away when they approached. But no one dared do anything. Growing up in the slums, Tony knew, you learnt not to question strangers who looked dangerous.

“We should be arriving at the orphanage soon.”, Mich said, rolling up the sleeve of her jacket to read her watch’s display screen. Her watch buzzed loudly and she chuckled softly before jabbing out a response.

“Tell your lover that you’re busy.”, Tafon scolded. “I’ll not have us get dragged into a firefight because your watch is buzzing louder than a swarm of bees.”

“Oh you won’t have it? Since when did the Captain make you leader of this squad? Because I sure as hell wasn’t there for it.”, Mich snapped back. She muttered something foul under her breath and added softly, “Besides, she’s more than just my lover.”

“What is she then? ‘Cause she certainly ain’t your girl is she?”, Tony asked. Mich shot him an angry glare, and he was unsure whether it was for butting into their conversation, or because he had struck a cord with his words. “Don’t get mad at me Mich, you’ve said as much.”

“Could the three of you talk about this later?”, Tori demanded. They all turned to look at the Fixer, who was covered almost entirely by an oversized trench coat and a hooded jacket. She pointed ahead of them and said, “We’ve arrived.”

Tony looked up to see a grey, square building looming over them, a patchy construction of dull steel and crumbling concrete. No light shined through the windows, even though it was now night. A neon sign hung above the doorframe, the blinking lights spelling out Saint Mary’s Home for Forgotten Youths.

“Eli what do you see?”, Tony asked under his breath, eyes darting around the street to see if anyone was listening or watching.

He turned the control on the side of his sunglasses until they were tinted a pure black. A few moments passed in silence as he looked the building up and down, adjusting the volume control on his hearing aids as he did so. Eventually, he broke the silence and said, “I see a few dozen children, along with a dozen odd adults in close proximity, all unarmed.”

“The orphans and their carers, mostly like.”, Sara said. “What about Trackers? Do you see any of them?”

His brow furrowed and he focused his gaze on the building once again. His mouth dropped in shock and he said, “Fuck. Six squads of them, six to a squad. Two are approaching from the back, two from the east and two from the west. But something’s off about them. Their heat signatures, they’re weaker than they should be. Much, much weaker.”

“Their exoskeletons might just be blocking their heat signatures. I’ve heard similar things from many people.”, Tori said dismissively.

“Perhaps.”, Eli said, muttering it under his breath so that it almost sounded like a thought that slipped through his filter. “But something feels wrong about this.”

“Something always feels wrong Eli, because something always is wrong.”, Sara remarked with a cheerful smile. He shot her a perplexed look and she added, “What? If everything went right, what would be fun about our job?”

“Surviving.”, Tafon muttered under his breath.

They stopped across the street from the orphanage. A mere exchange of glances was all they needed to say before everyone went to work. They had done this dozens of times before, and no time had to be wasted explaining how things would go. They simply happened.

Eli disappeared down the nearest alleyway, his figure barely visible in the moonlight as he climbed up the building’s walls. Tony’s gaze followed his shadowy silhouette for but a second before turning around to see Mich standing in that same building’s shadow, throwing down her backpack and reaching into it.

“What is that?”, Sara asked, pointing at the smooth black box Mich pulled out of her bag. There was a soft hiss as she flicked the locks and slowly opened it. A squarish block, the surface made entirely from what seemed to be deactivated screens, rested in soft sponge, a thin strip of metal also enveloped by the black mesh.

“Our ace up our sleeve.”, Mich said. Treating the cube with care, she lifted it out of the box and grabbed the strip of metal. Hooking the strip onto her ear, she pressed the end of it and said, “Prowler, activate.”

The cube of box was still. Mich’s face twisted in a frown and she moved to touch it when suddenly, four legs shot out from the sides of the cube. One side shot out, smoothing out to form a cone-like shape that reminded Tony of a raccoon’s head, two red circles acting as its eyes. Two cylinders emerged from its back, extending to form two guns.

“Active.”, the machine whirred, and Mich smiled.

“Boys, girls, meet Prowler. He’s been my pet project for a few months now.”, Mich said. She rose to her feet and added, tapping away at her watch as she talked, “He’s covered in state of the art cloaking tech. Aside from Eli, I don’t know a thing in the world that could notice him. Bullet and laser proof, he’s got shields to deflect any emps, his guns are powerful enough to pierce a thick inch of solid concrete, and he can transform shape and structure as it suits him. Equipped with an EMP too if things get dirty, though I’d rather not use it. Oh, and he can climb too.”

“If it can do all that, why don’t you just make a hundred of him and let him fight the Trackers while we lie back and have a drink eh?”, Tony said, only half-joking.

“Prowler may have his own artificial intelligence, but its rudimentary at best. He’s no smarter than a dog, and like any dog, he needs instructions to function.” Mich tapped the piece of metal in her ear and said, “That’s what this is for. A neuro-link between me and Prowler. Everything he sees, he hears, he thinks, I do as well.”

The machine rose from the ground, red eyes scanning the environment. Mich closed her eyes and Prowler whirred, a mechanical purr, before scurrying off into the shadows. Tony chuckled and turned around to see that they were one short.

“Where’s Tori gone?”, he exclaimed.

“Above you.”, a voice said in his ear. He flinched with shock and glanced upwards to see Tori flying above him, a winged silhouette against the dark night sky. “Get moving. We don’t have time to spare.”

Tony shook his head and looked at the other four members of the Crew. This is why we don’t work with Fixers. They don’t know how to work in a team.

They left the alleyway and walked across the street to the orphanage. The few eyes that had followed them since their arrival in the New Bronx had found other prey to stalk. The street around them was empty, the sounds of civilisation but a distant echo that took the forms of whirs and screams. Then he heard voices. Fuck. Not right now. He tried to block them out but the voices grew louder…and louder…and louder…

Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to-

What the fuck is this? Why the hell does she-

A bag of vacuum frozen corn, check. Half a pound of vegetarian mince meat-

To the Militia. Long may we-

A thousand voices filled his head. Millions of thoughts bombarded his mind, every neural pathway overwhelmed with a dozen more ideas than they could handle. At first, he tried to block them out, tried to drown them out with his own voice, but it just wasn’t enough. His vision blurry, he dropped to his knees, his hands barely shooting out in time to catch him from falling.

“Tony!”, Sara yelped. He opened his eyes to his reflection in Sara’s silvery aviators. Do I really look like that much of an idiot? “You okay?”

“Yeah yeah, I’m fine.”, he replied, rolling out of her arms and pushing himself to his feet. “Just…had a little mental slip that’s all. It’s over now.”

He flashed Sara a weak smile, which she responded to with a hesitant stare, but she did not probe him any further. In the corner of his vision though, he saw Mich looking at him with a nervous gaze. He returned her gaze with a look that said don’t worry about me, we’ll talk about this later, before walking up to the door of the orphanage.

“Stop.”, Eli’s voice said in Tony’s ear. “Something’s wrong.”

“I mean, we are in the middle of the New Bronx racing against thirty-six Trackers to get our hands on an orphan who’s apparently one of the most dangerous Outliers we’ve ever dealt with.”, Mich quipped with a nervous chuckle. “You’ll have to be a tad more specific buddy.”

“The people inside the orphanage…they aren’t moving.”, Eli said, a mechanical tang to his voice. “They’re frozen.”

“Are they alive?”

“Barely. Their bodies are barely putting out any heat signatures, but they’re surrounded by this strange energy.”, Eli said. “I don’t know what it is, and it’s frequency… I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“Eli’s right. They’re all still.”, Tori added. “ Be careful. We don’t know what this Outlier’s powers are, or how much control they have over them.”

“You heard them.”, Tony said. He reached for the gun at his waist and added, “Be on your guard.”

He tapped the flickering white button embedded into the steel doorframe, the two thin doors sliding open with a soft groan. For a moment, all he saw was darkness, but then he stepped inwards and a bright white light flashed on, its harsh glare almost blinding. He was greeted by an empty waiting room, at the end of which was a desk. A woman sat behind the desk, her face hidden by an over-sized computer that was likely older than he was. He called out to her, but she did not reply. She did not even move.

“I think Eli was right. Prowler’s panicking too. Something’s wrong here.”, Mich remarked, looking around the place. Tony followed her gaze, his gaze widening with shock. Flies floated frozen in the air, their wings paralysed mid-beat. He ran his hand through a particle-thin sheet of dust that hovered before his eyes, and only the ones his fingertips grazed moved at all.

“Dios mio.”, he exclaimed. “This place…it’s frozen in time.”