Working on the Weekends

Rat and I have been way more busy since I regained use of my hands. Apparently we had fallen behind on our quota after swapping roles. Which, by the way, I didn't even know we had a quota. 

So that's basically been the last month for me. Lots of murder, lots of moving around, not a lot of rest. No rest for the wicked though, right? 

Rat hates when I say that.

Either way, Rat is off doing her own thing today. Walking to her own stereotypical stalker type beat. Which means that I have some alone time. Which in turn means you all get an update.

Not that I'm trying to hide these posts from her, because she'll end up seeing them later anyways but...

Whatever. It's just easier this way.

I know I promised to tell you all what happened the night my hands got fucked up, so I guess that's what this post is going to be. It started like every other night before it that week, searching the old mill. Walking around for hours, following a flickering wifi signal and not expecting to find anything. Except that night I did. 

I had never managed to find the "center" before, but as I walked through one of the smaller buildings, machinery that sat broken and abandoned all around me. I had a bat in one hand (what can I say? I like the classics) and my phone in the other. Every step I took echoed off infinite metal surfaces, something I had found to be an issue since I had started exploring the abandoned buildings, which was why I had all but abandoned any attempt at stealth. I wasn't stomping around, but I was no longer trying to soften my steps. I had to wonder if the acoustics were a convenient accident or if my mark had chosen this area for that specifically.

Maybe he was a good singer.

Either way, as I made my way through, a glance at my phone revealed that the wifi signal was the strongest it had been all week. In fact, it was as strong as it could get yet... there was no sign of anyone or anything around me, just a tall ceiling and clutter. I tried walking for another ten minutes or so, but as the signal dropped a bar I turned around, going back to where I had found the strong signal in the first place. It was full again, the same as it had been before. So then that left the question of where my mark was, or at the very least the router. It was a wide open area. No doors or spaces to hide away. 

Then, just as it had every night previously, the signal vanished. 

I cursed and pocketed my phone, the area brought back into darkness as the bright screen of my device was hidden away. The nights before I had called Rat when the signal vanished, seeing no point in continuing with nothing to go off of. I was hesitant to do so that night. It had been nearly a week of no results and I had watched her get more and more antsy, more irritable. If I called her again tonight with nothing, I didn't even want to think of what she might do. Best case scenario she would just refuse to talk to me for a few days. Worst case scenario...

Well, she might accidentally let me off in the middle of nowhere next time I took one of her shortcuts. 

The thought had me pacing back and forth. It was on one particular step that I noticed an odd noise. Metallic, but hollow sounding. I took my phone back out and flipped the flashlight on, shining it on the floor. Just as with most of the building, the flooring was a metallic paneling. The panels under my feet however, had some overlap with the other panels, as if it had just been laid there. I knelt down and began messing with it, surely enough, it moved. I shoved it to the side, all sense of stealth going with it as a loud scraping noise echoed through the building. A set of stairs was revealed.

I shot a quick text to Rat, letting her know I had found something, then I headed down.

The stairs weren't very long, only about ten steps down, and at the bottom was a decently sized corridor. The walls were made of the same metal as the floor and the path ahead was only a little wider than myself, definitely a bit claustrophobic. I moved forward cautiously, weapon at the ready. At the end of the hall was a solitary door. 

There was no way it wasn't a trap. In what universe did my mark not hear me with all the noise I made? In what universe was he not waiting behind that door with a weapon ready to brain me? I just want it on the record that I did stop and ask those logical questions before doing what I did next. 

I opened the door.

I know, I know. I've heard it from Rat enough. It wasn't my best move, but I had a job to do and if I turned back now it would be at least a few nights before I managed to track down whatever hiding spot he picked next.

I did, however, know it was dumb. Something that was proven correct when as soon as I turned the knob the door blasted open, sending me staggering backwards and onto my back, bat clattering on the ground forgotten. My head spun as someone quickly straddled my downed body. My head bounced off the ground as the first punch landed. Then the next, and the next, and a fourth. It was at least six punches until I blacked out. 

When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was a terrible headache, an aching jaw, and the fact that my face was pulsing. The second was that I was sitting and couldn't move my legs or my arms. I could, however, feel them. Most of them. Three of them. So I still had my limbs (at least most of them), which was more than I could have asked for given the situation.

Next thing on the list of initial realizations was the smell of blood, which was shortly followed by the taste of blood. Given the beatdown, this wasn't all that surprising. Though it was unpleasant. 

A quick glance around confirmed that I was in the same factory warehouse I had been exploring, just back up in the area I had started in. Either that or I was in one of the other countless ones I had explored that week that looked the exact same, but given the still removed sheet of metal near the staircase going down, I thought it was safe to assume that I was in the same building. 

The last realization I had, as I sat there in the dark taking stock of the situation, was the real doozie. 

"Huh." Several seconds passed by silently as I pondered my stunning epiphany. "I'm not dead."

"You aren't." The voice echoed through the large chamber and was followed by several slow footsteps from in front of me. I presume this was for dramatic effect. "Don't get your hopes up though. I'm not sure how long that'll be true." 

One final step into a ray of moonlight, revealed my mark, who now that I think about it I will just refer to as Mark, in all of his glory. He had my bat in one hand, and my mask in the other. The sight of him combined with the situation didn't spell out a great picture for me, but it didn't send me writhing in my bonds either, not that it would have made a difference. Guy tied a tight knot.

My mask clattered at my feet as he tossed it, showing off the cracks that riddled its surface, likely having formed as he laid waste to my face. It didn't look totally irreparable though. At least not until he brought the bat down on it, shattering it completely.

That was probably going to come out of my non-existent paycheck.

"I am going to kill you." He let the bat rest on his shoulder in a way I'm sure was supposed to be menacing.

"Okay." 

Props to him, he continued on strong despite my lackluster response.

"The real question will be if it's going to be quick..." Lifting the bat off his shoulder, he held it in front of himself, bringing the tip down to rest in his free hand. "...or painful." 

"Okay." 

"If you answer my questions, I'll make it quick and easy." 

He was trying. He really was, I could tell, and no disrespect because from what I can remember he was pretty intimidating, but my head was pounding. I could hear my heart pumping in my ears. My teeth were itching. It was really hard to focus on the things he was saying. Honestly, it was the most I could do to just keep saying...

"Okay."

"The first thing you're going to tell me," He snarled, "Is who your partner is."

I rolled my neck around to more directly face him.

"Why do you think I have a partner?" I was less trying to hide it and more genuinely curious. There was no way he had actually seen Rat, but if he had I definitely wanted to know. She wouldn't be hearing the end of it for a while if he had.

He snorted. "No way your loud stompy ass is the one that's been following me these past few weeks. I haven't seen hide or hair of the sneaky fucker. Don't really think you would have been that hard to pick out." 

So he probably hadn't seen her then. Shame. But he had said weeks. That meant he knew before I had gone ‘stomping’, as he had put it, through the old mills. Which didn't make a whole lot of sense. If he didn't see her or hear her, how had this guy known Rat was following him?

"Doesn't matter." He leveled the bat in my direction. "Who is it?" 

It was an odd question, but I'm a helpful guy.

"Rat." 

He growled, "I don't want some stupid codename!" 

Did he want her real name? If so, that was going to be a problem. I'm pretty sure that I didn't know her real name. 

Still don't. Which seems a little unfair considering she knows mine.

"A description." He forced out through grit teeth. He seemed pretty stressed.

I would've felt bad for him if he didn't have me tied to a chair.

"Short." I furrowed my brow as I pictured Rat. "Blonde?" 

"Short and blonde." He repeated, as if for clarification.

I nodded. "Sometimes." 

His own brow furrowed. "The fuck does that mean?" 

"Well, sometimes Rat is blonde." I leaned back in my chair, trying to find some semblance of comfort. "Other times it's black hair, brown hair, red..." 

Red weeks were my favorite.

"You think this is a joke?!" I could practically hear steam coming from Mark's ears. "Maybe you need a reminder of the situation you're in."

With that, he lifted the bat and swung. As the wood impacted with my left leg it gave slightly and a metallic clank could be heard. He stared at me, anger seemingly forgotten in favor of confusion. I stared back.

"What the fuck?" He muttered. 

"Yeah..." I sighed. "I get that a lot."

I really do.

"Guess I just gotta try again." His grip on the bat tightened as he lifted the weapon again. 

"Actually, what if-?" 

He didn't let me finish.

I let out a startled yell as he brought the bat down on my hands, starting with the right, then the left a few moments later after I finally stopped.

He asked me a few more questions, just basic questions about Rat that I won't bore you with, but when I didn't answer them to his satisfaction, he hit me. Always in the hands. Always in the fucking hands. Finally, before he could ask me another, an unfamiliar voice chimed in from the darkness.

"Can we just be done with this?" A young woman, who couldn't have been older than mid twenties, walked in from the left. "This isn't getting us anywhere, and the longer we stick around, the better chance that he might show up." 

Mark's face, which up this point had only shown confusion or anger, softened. Was she why he left? Was she what had kept him here in the first place? I decided at that moment that it didn't really matter. 

"If we don't get them both..." Mark started. 

"Yeah." I chimed in, both of them turning to face me as they did. "Hate to burst that bubble of yours, but even if you did get us both, the Boss will just send more." 

They probably wouldn't be as proficient as Rat or I, but they would come. This was not what either of them wanted to hear, apparently.

"Why can't you fuckers just leave us alone?" Mark growled.

"He's done with you all." The girl spoke, stepping in front of him. "He's not working for that thing anymore."

I rolled my eyes. "We don't want him to. This isn't a path you get to just walk away from when you feel like it. Once you're in, you're in for life. You." I nodded at Mark, whose jaw tightened in response. "You can't honestly believe that you get to just walk away after what you did." 

The girl's eyebrows scrunched in confusion and she looked to Mark in askance, whose focus was wholly on me. Even in the dark I could see his expression screaming danger for me if I didn't stop talking.

"You didn't tell her?" I laughed. "Does she think you're innocent? A misguided stalker that she swayed away from the clutches of a monster?" 

"You better shut your mouth right now or..."

"Or you'll what? Kill me? I mean, honestly..." I grinned. "What's one more death on your hands?"

"Shut the fuck up!" He stalked forward, sending the stunned girl stumbling to the side. He lifted the bat high. My eyes narrowed as the smallest bit of black leaked from the edge of his mouth, going unnoticed by Mark in his anger.

A deafening click echoed throughout the room.

Mark froze and looked behind him. My gaze followed his seeing the young woman also frozen, held at gunpoint by Rat.

I waggled my eyebrows at my partner. "Did I make enough noise?" 

She snorted. "That is an ability I have never put into question."

"Molly-!" Mark stepped towards them. 

I winced at the mistake and at the sound of a shot being fired off. 

His corpse hit the floor a second later, a bullet buried in his head. 

The girl Rat had held hostage scrambled for Mark's body, Rat doing nothing to stop her. Instead walking over to begin cutting my binds. Sobs filled the room as she worked. As Rat got to my hands she stopped, staring down at them for far longer than I was comfortable.

"It's fine." 

"It is clearly not." 

She finished freeing me and once I proved I could stand, albeit shakily, Rat turned back to the girl and raised her gun. I placed a hand gingerly on her shoulder, ignoring the lance of pain that shot up my arm as I did, and her head turned ever so slightly, just enough to let me know she was listening.

"C'mon." 

"There is no point to leave her alive."

"There's also no point in killing her. She isn't our target. She's someone else's." 

The small sigh that I heard let me know that I had won. Rat knew better than to steal from the Boss. 

We left the girl crying in the steel mill, only stopping to pilfer the hideout that Mark had been making use of, not managing to salvage much we could actually use, aside from a laptop. That night, after she had finished doing what she could for my hands, Rat spent her time going through it. Looking through search history, downloads, etc. Looking for anything that might explain Mark's sudden departure.

It had become a trend lately, proxies leaving the Boss' service. There had always been a few here and there, and the urge was present in many, but most of them knew better than to think they could actually get away with it. Something had changed, however. In the recent months, the number of proxies who ran had nearly tripled. Something was giving them hope, and while we're still not absolutely sure what that is, as Rat showed me a site Mark had visited a lot shortly before and after he abandoned, I think we found what had made at least him think he could leave. I couldn't help but laugh.

The path Mark had chosen was clearly one of needles.