Arsenal was winning 7 to 3 on the telly, yet the pub Farrah, Vega, and Dan had chosen for their Thursday date was only getting emptier. Every time a player in an odd-numbered jersey crossed the centre line, another patron got up, threw their jacket over their arm, and mayhaps threw some excuse to their friends before leaving the ‘Codworth Brodewick’ pub, which everyone kept referring to as ‘Foyles’, although the soccer game had nothing to do with that specific strange phenomenon.

  “I think I left the stove on,” Daniel suddenly got up, almost dropping the lean, gray-haired woman, who'd been sitting on his knees.

  “Huh?” Vega had caught herself on the edge of the table, and slid back into Dan's spot in the booth.

  “Nah, loverboy,” His other partner reached out for his sleeve. Her black eyes were still glued to the telly about three tables ahead, and the only movement she's done in the last half hour was hastily brushing her red-dyed curls back behind her ears to allow for an undisturbed line of sight of the soccer game.

  Dan would have walked out if not for Vega grabbing his sleeve in Farrah's stead. The woman then shook Farrah's shoulder, finally making her look towards her partners for probably the second time that evening.

  She glanced around, taking in the mostly empty pub. Even the slot machines by the bar had been left unattended, their spinning fruit promising big wins for bets as small as five quid.

  By the time Farrah had put the pieces together between the game and the empty tables, Dan had snapped out of the quite literal spell that’d taken over him.

  “Well shit,” he swore, taking a seat on the bench on the opposite side of the booth from the two women. “I guess that means the Order has found us…”

  “No problem,” Vega smirked cracking her knuckles, then, she glanced at Farrah, and an apologetic smile flashed over her face.

  “Is fine,” Farrah tried to wave it off, successfully convincing the other woman that it was indeed fine, but making herself more acutely aware of her newly found disability in the process.

  It'd already been a week since she's pulled the universe back together, burning to ash all but her thumbs. The NHS did a great job at stitching up what was there, along the gunshot wound in her leg. An artefact she'd allegedly disposed of when back when allowed let her implant tiny fragments of some creature's bone into hers, regrowing her hand as a skeleton animated by forces no one should seek to comprehend. Despite the initial disgust, she'd had to get on with it pretty quickly, to stop relying on her partners for the smallest of things, if nothing else. Now, her biker gloves added an extra alt fashion touch to her outfit, and somewhere in a small pin-locked case, the rest of that bone that she'd chipped fragments from waited for her to return for more.

  Despite the fingers being physically there, and being animated by magic, Farrah still struggled with her range of motion. Unfolding or extending them was the hardest, which in reality meant she now only had one good volley shot with her Steyr AUG.

  But, even that was not going to help with what was coming.

  “If they went as far as to evacuate the Foyles, then brute force won't get us too far,” Farrah explained. “Dan, you should go. If the spell worked for you, it means you're still a civilian in their eyes.”

  “I'm not leaving you,” the blond man clicked his tongue. He readjusted his glasses, and reached out for the laptop in his backpack. “Call me stupid, but I'm team ‘if we die, we die together’. I was already gravestone shopping for the two of you when I lost contact with you in the metro, I'm not doing a repeat of that.”

  “Then you're a stupid bastard. Get the bloody hell out of here,” Vega argued, getting up from behind the table.

  She was about to drag the man outside, which would have been an easy task with their difference in height, when the main door to the pub shut closed behind the last patron.

  “Too late,” Farrah got up, gesturing for the duo to follow.

  Vega argued, and Dan opened his laptop, already typing something in, as they sat at a clean booth.

  A minute passed.

  Then two.

  Then five.

  The protests and half-muttered exchanges of potential strategies died down, and an awkward silence filled the empty pub. The telly flickered, and the soccer game turned off. Only then, did the door to the Foyles open again.

  An unfamiliar man of east asian decent walked through. He was of east asian descent, tall, and in his late 60s. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses that seemed just as inappropriate Indoors as they'd been in the cloudy London streets. He wore a tailored two piece suit: dark green trousers with a white shirt with yellow embroidery on the cuffs and necktie. A matching green jacket was thrown over his right arm.

  He did not look like he'd come to talk to the man in an oversized hoodie and rainbow tie-dyed jeans, the woman in ripped jeans and several layers of torn band t-shirts, or the woman in the white body armour poorly concealed under a flowery summer dress.

  Yet, there was no one else but the trio he could have come to meet.

  “Three little runaways in one place,” Nathanael Gay pulled out a chair, imposing himself at the head of the table. “I was only expecting two.”

  “How'd you find us?” Vega asked, careful of her wording so as to not expose their reptile ally. She doubted he'd broken his word.

  “Small world, big inconsistencies,” Gay shrugged.

  “You're him, aren't you?” Daniel suddenly asked. Gay raised an eyebrow, the Gesture mostly hidden by the metal rim of his sunglasses. “The admin, the one who password-locked -”

  A kick under the table shut Dan up.

  “No, no, please continue,” Gay said, an expression between surprise and annoyance. “Do tell what else,” he nodded towards Farrah's hands, “you stole on your way out.”

  “The paperwork was clean,” Farrah replied. She wasn't lying, they'd tied all ends before leaving. And the misplaced artefact and well hidden data breach only happened in their last few months. They needed a safety net, although the trio was now coming to realise that any illusion of safety they might have had was just that. “I don't know by who or where the paperwork got approved, but it did. We're clean.”

  “And formally not associated with the Disposal Unit anymore,” Vega added.

  “Which still doesn't answer my question,” Dan added, earning himself two kicks under the table.

  “Oh what?” Gay raised an eyebrow. “No, I'm not the man in the chair. I guess an introduction is overdue. I am Nathanaell Gay, a Disciplinarian of the Order of Diplomatics. I've come to talk to Vega Strugatski and Farrah Deveraux about an incident 6 days ago on the Northern Line. But since you are here too, mux Mercer, the offer I am about to present extends to you as well.”

  Vega clenched her fists, Dan gulped, lifting his fingers off the keyboard, and Farrah simply tilted her head in quiet acceptance. There wasn't going to be much of an offer as much as an ultimatum, and if they refused, the trio held no doubts a bio-bomb was one button press away from being dropped onto them.

  “So go on then,” Vega eventually spoke.

  To Gay, that statement was as close to an admission of guilt as one could get. And he took it as such, not that he needed any proof to fill a two-Agent shaped hole in Jackson's report. Yet, he didn't say anything. He wanted to let the trio ruminate, to let the memories of each of their missteps and breaches of protocol to flash over their faces. He knew about most of it, if not all; the unicorn bone, the admin files copied of a long-defunct server, the claprofilm suit. Just watching the trio try and think of something they thought he wasn't aware of, and then silently communicate it to each other was entertaining enough, but soon came the worried looks of silent accusations and worried speculations. The human mind was a wonderful place when left unattended. It tended to imagine the worst of the worst, and having seen parts of that during their time in the Order, the trio before Gay was doing an excellent job at just that. He didn't have to tap into Vega's mind to see her imagining herself strapped to a medical chair, her organs exposed, and regeneration halted just enough with chemicals to use said organs to grow a new species of parasitic mites.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “You're right,” Gay conceded, about 4 minutes later. “Your departure from the Order was clean and approved, and formally we have nothing to link you to the reality breach in the Tube. But, it's painfully obvious that the situation was beyond what Jackson could have handled, if for no other reason than the fact that he couldn't be in two places at once.”

  “What I'm hearing is that the Order can't have us back, but you want us back?” Farrah asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

  If it were up to her, she'd prefer it didn't get to the blackmail and the threats, which Gay no doubts had prepared a long list of. Losing their families, Friends was the equivalent of a slap on the wrist. The Order still had on file their psychological Evaluations, and if Farrah recalled correctly, Gay could use any of those notes to slip into their minds and pull out their worst nightmares. In her case, it involved the dark bottomless eternity that came after death. In Vega's, a complete loss of personal and bodily agency. A forced onset of dementia or schizophrenia was not impossible for the Order to orchestrate. As for Dan, his greatest fear was the aphelion of Farrah's. The only thing he feared more than clowns was the possibility of eternal life and witnessing everyone he's ever loved die in front of him.

  All those things were on file. All those things were not hard to orchestrate for someone dedicated enough to send a representative of the Order of Diplomatics to deal with them. So really, it was a question of out-playing Gay at his little waiting game.

  Dan was the only person truly put on edge by the long silences in between each exchange. Unlike the other two, he did not have the combat experience to deal with the anxiety this whole exchange was creating, nor was he enough of a realist to see that there was no way out.

  “There's been sightings of a child-snatching gorilla-turtle chimera in central Bolivia, near Cochamaba. It would be good if someone with, let's say, a modded Steyr AUG and inhuman strength were to pass by and have a look.”

  “That’s a bit out of its natural biome,” Dan sarcastically said.

  “You don't say,” Gay replied with an almost genuine chuckle. “That and the fact that it took out sixteen members of the local militia.”

  “Fine, we'll take care of your bloody gorilla monster," Vega huffed. “But your tone makes it sound like that's not going to be the end of it.”

  “All you heard from me was that there's a cryptid problem in South America,” Gay shrugged. He reached out into his pocket, pulling out 2000￡ in 5 perfectly folded stacks of four 100￡ bills. From his other pocket, he took out a leaflet advertising one of those tourist trap souvenir shops. “I heard this place sells nice post cards, you should check it out while you're in Cochamaba,” He added.

  The translation of that was very clear. They were back on the payroll, albeit unofficially. They'd meet a contact at that shop, and from there, they'd be sent to another continent to kill yet another monstrosity that mildly threatens humanity, as in, not enough to risk any of the actual agents. Then again, priorities needed to be addicted when dealing with the aftermath of the Casade.

  The idea of bargaining to get in first class did cross Vega's mind. They had the added leverage of being sent into a forested area where it would be very easy to go missing for a few months and get new identities. But Earth was a small place, and sooner of later the Order would find them again. If that time Were to come, Vega held no doubts the conversation would be less polite, if there'd be a conversation at all. So, she spoke for the group:

  “Fine, mate. I guess we can take a holiday there.”

  “Good. It's a lovely place. Tie up the loose ends here in London, and be underway.”

  Gay was about to get up when Farrah asked:

  “What loose ends? Everything that didn't happen in the Tube has been resolved. What are you on about?”

  “There's been an incident at the Fulham public mortuary,” Gay replied, getting up. He threw his coat back over his arm nonchalantly. “Something about a dead woman giving birth. It hasn't hit the news yet, and it would be nice if it didn't.”

  “A de-” Dan got kicked under the table again before he could officially implicate them into the Heird incident. It was easier to pretend things didn't happen when no spoken records of them existed.

  “Farewell, Daniel Maximilian Mercer, Vega Strugatski, Farrah Deveraux” Gay nodded to each of the three in turn.The smile of satisfaction pf a job well done flashed over his face.

  His footsteps awkwardly filled the space of the pub as he walked towards the door. A few moments later, the telly turned back on.

  “Why the putin de merde did you two have to get involved?” Dan whispered, as if that was going to do anything now.

  “A woman got killed, we weren't just going to sit on our arses!” Vega argued.

  “The Order had it under control, evidentially," Dan exclaimed, as much as someone trying to be discreet could exclaim.

  “What's done is done,” Farrah got up gesturing for the other two to follow. “Let's get some sun screen on the way back from the morgue.”

  —

  The argument about who to blame, how much the Order sucked, and some mild packing discussions, died down as the trio disembarked at Imperial Wharf.

  Gay had likely taken some measures to redirect the sparse flow of hearses to the other morgues in town, leading the trio to enter an eerily empty building in the late evening.

  Night lights automatically flicked on, detecting their moments. The place had been rebuilt after the war, as testified by two different textures of paint-covered brick. It had maintained functionality first and foremost though, with narrow hallways barely wide enough for a stretcher, and enough refrigerated rooms for all the daily corpses of Western Europe's largest Megapole.

  Right as Vega was about to ask if they should be checking the wings and rooms for their target, she noticed a trail of blood leading to room 107. The light was too dim for either of her companions to pick up on it, so she gestured for them to stay quiet, and led the way.

  Farrah readied the Steyr she'd concealed in her bag, and Dan prepared a 9mm pistol, loaded with 3 of the bullets they'd gotten from the reptile. He wasn't much of a fighter, which is to say he was liability in any sort of medium to short range confrontation, but it wasn't as if he could just go home by himself and hope that his partners would return safely. This was the best way he could show how much he cared for the two women.

  On the count of 3, Vega kicked the door inwards.

  Before them, a small creature froze mid-gesture. It was hare-sized, and exactly what one would imagine the offspring of the Heird to look like. Chubby and covered in brown fur, it had two front-facing Doe eyes In the middle of a slightly elongated human face. Two horn buds grew on either side of its forehead. Its fur was covered in blood and placenta residue in uneven patches, as if It hadn't bothered to wipe itself clean.

  A fresh, and much darker, patch of dry blood surrounded the centrepoint of its forehead.

  It stood inside the hollowed-out chest cavity of a person in a lab coat. Their blood was the one that'd led the trio to this room. It was hard to tell if the small demon had fed on the doctor's insides, or simply scattered them around the room in a fit of rage.

  The corpse of the woman it'd emerged from laid on a stretcher, half pulled-out of the morgue wall of refrigerated cells. It was covered in blood and tiny hoof prints. The demon had been born in the dark, and by the looks of it had had to wait for someone to let it out.

  In one of its little hands, it held a small antler. Without breaking eye contact with Vega, it trusted the antler into the doctor's forehead. The antler anchored itself in, and a faint hum filled the room. It grew louder and louder, crescending into the sound of nails on glass, dog whistles, and popping bones. The antler grew, shedding some of its pertrusions, and splitting into two to form a V-shape. Just as small circles started appearing on the flute, Vega rushed forward and brought down her heel onto the creature with a crescent kick.

  The sound that'd overshadowed even that of the demons’ shattering bone suddenly stopped.

  Farrah and Dan held their breath, both ready to shoot at it to finish yhe job, but surprisingly enough the demon did not get up.

  “It must have been too young,” Farrah suggested, taking the muzzle silencer off her Steyr and putting it back into her bag.

  Vega knelt down, ignoring that she was half-standing in a corpse, and broke off the bone flute at its base.

  She brought it to her lips, and tried to blow into it. No sound came, to her greatest disappointment.

  “That is absolutely disgusting!” Dan exclaimed. “I'm never kissing those lips again.”

  “Fine with me,” Farrah smirked, patting him on the shoulder. “So, Bolivia then?”

  “Don't think the bastard gave us a choice,” Vega shrugged.

  “Right, right,” Dan holstered his pistol. “I'll do this thing you keep nagging me about doing and try and see the positives. Maybe we'll meet new friends.”

  “Maybe,” Farrah nodded, not wanting to bring the man down. Unless new people had joined the Disposal Unit, she doubted they'd be making any friends. “Let's get out of here before the BBC shows up though.”

  “Yep, geromino!” Vega quoted a TV show she never quite got into, joining the two by the door. She slid the unfinished Anter flute into her pocket when neither of her partners were watching. “I was getting bloody bored of London anyway!”