Something Good

[Toaster]

The two men continued to scan the cafés and restaurants around them, searching for a trace of the individual they were after. There were plenty of waitresses about, hurrying between busy tables, balancing mountains of dishes and cutlery as they danced through the crowds of patrons. But there was no trace of the young woman with black hair.

The blond man glanced down at his neural link. Twelve past six.

“Are you sure we’re at the right café?”

His dark-haired colleague grimaced slightly at the disguised accusation. It had been his job to locate their target’s workplace and he was certain that he had found the correct one among the scores of coffee shops that littered the town.

“Of course.”

The other huffed in response.

The sun continued its slow descent towards the distant horizon, dipping towards the valley between the two mountain ranges running side by side, like a droplet of honey dripping into an earthen bowl. The shadows on the plaza gradually grew longer, jumping across the brick ground as the children continued their play around the fountain at the square’s center. The two men kept watching over the crowded cafés around them, searching intently for the young woman.

“There,” the dark-haired man spoke, nodding in the direction of a small coffeeshop across the plaza. His blond colleague followed the gesture, spotting their target moving between the occupied tables.

“About time.”

“When’s her break?”

“In one hour.”

The two relaxed back into their chairs, settling in to wait for the woman to take her usual breather behind the café. It would be then that they would move in and do their job.


* * *


Cara leaned against the café’s front entrance’s doorframe and let out an exhausted sigh. It was a particularly busy evening, and her arms were already sore from hauling dishes back and forth between the terrace and the kitchen. Her two current coworkers weren’t fairing much better, but at least their shifts would end soon. She was stuck here for another three hours. Luckily, she had her routine break to look forward to now.

She waved to one of her colleagues, signaling that she would head out back for a breather and headed through the shop and out the backdoor she had come through earlier. The air in the back alley was musty and reeked of the garbage that spilled out of the overfilled dumpsters lined up along the walls. But it was quiet – no laughing tourists, no screeching children, no customers berating her. Cara took a deep breath and sat down, leaning against the café’s façade.

She tilted her head back and let her gaze wander up, looking at the strip of sky visible between the walls of the buildings around her. The sun had set behind the horizon a few minutes ago and the first stars were blinking into existence from behind a few slivers of cloud. Cara closed her eyes and took a few more deep breaths, relaxing from the tedium of her job. She let her mind wander to her home, where her sick mother and her two younger siblings waited for her to return. If only she had a better paying job, she thought, then her mother could get proper treatment and Cara could go back to school.

There was a rustle to her right, something stirring in a pile of garbage bags. She didn’t bother looking; it was likely just a rat.


* * *


The dark-haired man made his way through the crowd along the left side of the piazza towards the Madame Hussley café. He carefully dodged and weaved around the occupied tables, careful not to bump into the busy waiters hustling back and forth between them, nor to stumble into any of the children running around, screaming. As little attention as possible was what he wanted to attract.

“Comms check, Percival. Do you read?” His colleague’s voice sounded through the earpiece set into the man’s right ear.

“Loud and clear, Galahad.”

On the opposite side of the square, the blond man was equally cautiously making his way towards the backside of their target’s workplace. The two of them would enter the back alley from opposing sides and approach her from both flanks to ensure that she could not escape.

Percival kept making his way through the throng of vacationers. Eventually, it started thinning out as he reached the edge of the plaza, and, with a quick glance around to ensure he was being neither watched nor followed, he ducked into the alleyway behind the café. In the dim evening light, he could make out rows of garbage dumpsters lined up along the walls, bags of litter spilling out over the edges. Rats scurried between them.

At the far end of the alley, he perceived the silhouette of his partner, slowly making his way down the path. Percival followed suit, quickly spotting the young woman with black hair sitting against the café’s back wall beside the door, her eyes closed. The rustling of a plastic bag broke the quiet and Percival’s eyes shot up to see Galahad freeze mid-step, gaze locked onto their target. Not taking his eyes off her, the blond man carefully adjusted his stance, stepping over the garbage bag he had just kicked. The woman did not seem to take notice.

A few yards from their mark, the men simultaneously reached into their jackets and quietly withdrew their stun guns. Percival nodded to his colleague and they both took aim.


* * *


Cara heard the faint sound of cloth moving against cloth. Her eyes shot open and she looked around her. Two men were in the alley, one standing to either side, and they both had guns drawn on her.

“What the fu-,” she blurted and jumped to her feet only to collapse again as two bolts of energy shot through her body, seizing up her muscles. The man to her left rushed forward, catching her before she hit the hard, brick floor. Gently, he propped her against a pile of garbage bags. Still conscious but unable to control her convulsing muscles, not even able to utter a sound, she watched as he and the other man pocketed their weapons.

“Got it?” She heard the man with blond hair to her right ask the one crouched over her.

“Yeah,” came the response from the dark-haired man. Cara watched him reach for something in his trousers’ back pocket. He retrieved a small syringe without a label. Popping the cap off the needle, he leaned over her locked-up body and ran his free hand over her neck.

Cara could feel panic spread throughout her as she helplessly observed the attacker pierce her skin with the needle and inject the syringe’s contents into her bloodstream. Immediately, her vision blurred, and her convulsing muscles went limp, no longer seized up. She felt groggy, as though badly hungover, the world around her starting to spin. The two men standing over her turned into vague shapes as they pulled her to her feet and held her upright between them.


* * *


“How long?” Galahad asked, rapping an arm around the young woman’s waist for support.

“About a minute,” Percival replied, tucking the now empty syringe into a nearby trash bag. It would be incinerated along with all the other garbage come the morning. “Then she’ll move just fine.”

His colleague grunted and started walking towards the end of the alley he had entered from, half guiding, half dragging their target along with him. Percival glanced around the scene one more time, ensuring that there had been no witnesses, and followed. At the end of the alley, they waited, Galahad intently watching the young woman in his arms, Percival glancing around the corners, checking for traffic.

“Clear,” he reported.

Galahad grabbed their target by the shoulder with one hand and rapped her head with the other. The woman’s eyes rolled around blindly for a second before locking onto his. They betrayed a mixture of fear and confusion.

“Stand,” Galahad commanded. The woman’s eyes went out of focus again as she straightened her back, taking a step back from him. She stood securely on her own two feet.

“The serum seems to be working,” Percival observed with an appreciative nod. The young woman would follow simple commands obediently, even against her will, allowing them to simply walk through the town’s street without arousing any suspicion at a cursory glance.

Galahad nodded towards his partner and growled, “Walk.” Their target slowly turned towards Percival and took a step towards him.

“Come on,” he spoke softly and stepped out into the open street.


* * *

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Olivia Sable