Broken People (Serial)

Forty

"Oh, not them again!" Spinner cupped the side of his face in a half-annoyed, half-puzzled gesture as he stared at the two unconscious men propped against the wall of the train car. "I thought we got rid of them..."

Beside him, Rake shrugged.

The lights flickered, casting shadows over everyone and giving Fei Lin's robo-suit a reddish hue. She squatted in a corner, occupying a good part of it, and waited. Spinner didn't know for what.

"So did I." Nicholas climbed into the car. "What happened here, gentlemen?" He closed the door behind him.

Spinner snorted at being called a gentleman. For as long as he could remember, he'd never been called that, and his memory went back a long way. "You can stop performing. There's no audience here."

Rake crossed his arms but didn't say anything.

"What happened here?" Nicholas asked. "Why are they back?"

Spinner didn't like the demanding tone, but Rake said, "It didn't take. Not fully..."

"Not fully?" Nicholas frowned at them. "How could you screw this up? You know how important this is."

"Hey, it's not like we do this every day!" Spinner gestured at the intruders. "In fact, we never do. We only handle the mechanics. Big Dino deals with the brain."

"Why didn't you wake him then?" Nicholas's frown grew deeper.

"You have no idea how grumpy he gets when woken up without a serious enough reason." Spinner raised his shoulders. It was so not worth the hassle. These were only two small-time thieves who no one would miss if anything happened to them. The police might even thank them if they found out.

"Why didn't you wait for me?" Nicholas's dark eyes pierced through him, and he looked like a leader for a moment. Then he looked lost.

"Because you wouldn't get your hands dirty," Rake said. He turned to Fei Lin. "You okay?"

She gave him the thumbs up. Her helmet only turned to the left and right so she was unable to nod.

"Who caught them?" Nicholas asked.

"She did." Spinner pointed at Fei Lin with a wide grin. "All by herself. Before they entered the train."

"I see ..." Nicholas ran a hand through his hair. "Then I take it we don't know what they came for?"

"We reckon the same as before," Spinner said. "We probably didn't go far enough with erasing their memories. They forgot about the encounter and how it turned out, but the idea to break in had to still be lingering to bring them back."

"If they had come for revenge, they would have been better armed," Rake said. "Plus, they came alone, so we can assume no one else is in on the plan."

"It better stay that way," Nicholas said.

"We'll do it again," Spinner said with a grim voice. "We'll go deeper this time. It will either work or they're dead."

"It's a win either way." Rake smirked.

"No." Nicholas raised one hand. "I'll do it. Wake them up. I need them conscious for this."

Spinner hesitated. "Are you sure you're up for this? Unless you practiced in your spare time ... I don't know—" He shook his head. "This is more than rocket science."

"I know exactly what it is." Nicholas's lips flattened into a thin, straight line. "Wake them up."

Rake pulled a syringe from his coat pocket, a little too fast in Spinner's opinion. He wrinkled his nose. Aside from Big Dino, Rake rarely took orders from anyone.

The leg of the man on the left twitched and his collaborator groaned seconds after Rake had plunged the needle into their necks.

Nicholas took off his tailcoat, folded it, and placed it on a crate. "Now get out."

"We haven't restrained them," Spinner said. "We can't leave you alone with them. What if they attack you? This is not a good time to be left without a boss."

"You seem to forget who I am," Nicholas said. Not their boss and a strong telecharger. "Out."

"Fine. But she stays." Spinner pointed at Fei Lin and gestured at her to stay put.

Rake opened the door, and they both jumped out onto the frozen ground. The crowd was thinning at the fair, a sign it was getting late.

Spinner tilted his head while Rake slid the door shut. "Did you screw up that procedure on purpose? Do you want him to get a more hands-on approach?"

A hazy cloud covering the moon hid Rake's smirk. "We need a leader," he murmured.