With the help of Rosa’s immaculate reflexes behind the car’s steering wheel, the trio was able to arrive at St. Morlab’s Memorial Hospital in little under ten minutes. It was a small miracle she didn’t send any of them to an emergency room or even the grave with how fast and insane she drove through the narrow streets of New Chemeketa.

  Rosa found an excellent parking spot near the emergency room intake, and came to a skidding, rubber-burning stop that almost terminated in the back of an ambulance. The trio flooded out of the car and ran inside. They worked together to push past a complaining security guard, and found a receptionist. Jerry displayed his silver Triple I Division badge and breathlessly explained who they needed to see. The receptionist told them. The trio was off while the receptionist yelled something about a visitor maximum or some other nonsense. Jerry, much like Rosa and Braxton, didn’t care or stop to listen to her.

  After snaking through several long hallways and nearly bulldozing through a handful of doctors and nurses, the trio arrived at the large room where Noura, Mallory, and Howard rested in hospital beds. Anthony and Mr. Moon sat off to the side while a male nurse, who seemed shocked at the loud, sudden arrival of the trio, looked at them. The nurse approached them and asked, “Hey! How did all of you people get in here? There’s a limit of three visitors at a time!”

  Jerry had half a mind to pop the nurse in the right cheek for daring to get between him and his injured friends who needed him, but he sublimated this violent desire by shoving his Triple I Division badge in the nurse’s face as close and hard as he could without truly striking him. That took the wind out of his sails and made him back off.

  “I don’t care if you have a three visitor limit or three hundred visitor limit, I need you to get out of my way right this instant,” Jerry said. “And unless your services are needed right now, I think you should make yourself useful elsewhere by tending to some coffin dodgers, emptying bedpans, or dealing with people who learned the hard way that knives, guns, and gravity aren’t toys to screw around with.”

  The nurse huffed, but made one of the wisest choices of their life by making themselves scarce near Jerry, who glared at him until he left the room. Jerry took a few moments to observe the state of his wounded friends, and felt immediate relief. All of them were conscious, breathing, and seemed glad at seeing him, but were dealing with varying levels of damage. And for some strange, hopefully to be explained soon reason, Noura, Howard, and Mallory reeked of coffaux.

  The least wounded Ranger was Mallory. She had a few facial bruises, scraps, and cuts, but looked like she could leave within the next few hours after an in-depth checkup. The most worrying thing about her was how she reeked of blood that didn’t appear to be hers while she feverishly whispered Budayeen prayers.

  The second most injured Ranger was Noura. It hurt Jerry’s heart and enraged him to see her beautiful face so bruised and busted-up. Her bruises were much darker, larger, and intense, paired with a swollen black eye above a busted lip. But despite it all, she beamed a genuine smile at Jerry.

  The most wounded Ranger was Howard. He looked like somebody had thrown him into an enormous food processor full of fists, feet, and blunt foreign objects instead of blades, then set the device’s setting to liquefy. Massive, deep tissue bruises blanketed his neck, shoulders, and face. Both of his eyes were blackened to near-uselessness while his usually thin lips were busted and twice their usual size from swelling. Every time he inhaled or exhaled, he winced, groaned, and moaned, suggesting some level of internal damage.

  The man might look like he skips most of his meals for no good reason, Jerry thought, but he’s a secret trooper.

  Jerry approached Howard and grabbed his shoulder to comfort him, but removed it when he cried out in pain. “Sorry!”

  “You’re fine,” Howard mumbled. “You’re just trying to be a good friend in your special, too physical Jerry way.”

  “What kind of madness did you three get into to end up like this?”

  “The kind of madness one gets into when you get ordered to do plainclothes policework in a Vallency’s located in the northern suburbs of New Chemeketa,” Howard said. “It’s a rough place. Now, I know that I am in no position to criticize Anthony’s orders, but…” Howard trailed off despite how badly he wanted to finish his statement.

  Jerry looked towards Anthony. He looked at the floor in naked shame.

  “Either way,” Jerry said, “I’m glad you, your wife, and Noura survived that OIS.”

  “OIS? No,” Howard said. “Even if that would’ve been the smarter thing for any of us to do in Vallency’s, nobody fired their guns at anybody.”

  “No, Crazy Kamikan. I’m talking about the other kind of OIS,” Jerry said. “An officer-involved-shellacking.”

  Howard, in addition to being in immense pain, now looked deeply unamused. “Jerry, you incorrigible bastard! We nearly got beat to death in a supermarket of all places, and you think a proper response is to crack jokes at our expense? Varnappa the Vengeance Eater lick my wrathful hands! If my right hand wasn’t broken right now, I'd slap you stupider.”

  “Relax and stop shouting before you collapse the last good lung you have left,” Jerry suggested. “As long as your lovely wife Mallory is within screaming distance of any of the Rangers, especially you, nothing truly dire will ever happen. And that is something I’m willing to give you my word on, which is something I rarely do with most.”

  Howard calmed down. “Yeah, you’re right, but your ability to have the inability to take anything seriously rubs me raw sometimes.”

  “I actually consider it one of my more charming traits,” Jerry said. “Anywho, are you good enough to explain what the Vullen happened in that Vallency’s or do you want to rest?”

  “I can push through. I believe crippling pain can be a powerful clarifier.”

  Jerry grinned at Howard. “That’s my Crazy Kamikan!”

  “So when we got to the supermarket…”

  With Howard leading the way while Mallory and Noura briskly walked behind him, the trio made their way into the heart of the Vallency’s where value, but more importantly, Lee Wortles was likely to be found. It had taken them two good tries to get to where they needed to be, but with only three Vallency’s with only a dozen or so employees at each location, the end of the search was inevitable.

  The conditions of the Vallency’s interior was nothing to sniff when it came to the usual retail environments. Too many bright lights. White vinyl flooring. Intercoms that intermittently blared from everywhere yet nowhere at the same time informing customers about hot, can’t miss it deals on coffaux or steaks.

  As for the conditions of himself, Howard was feeling just fine. His newest medication wasn't beating the Vullen out of his appetite, and even better, appeared to help more than usual with the curse of his touched powers where inanimate objects, up to and including his own tie “talked” to him. The “voices” of objects around him were never completely quiet, but with the help of proper sleep, medications, and others to ground him, they tended to be manageable.

  Usually.

  The trio made their way to a tall, female employee of Eurisian descent. She was dressed in the red button-up shirt and blue pants uniform of Vallency’s, and appeared to be in the process of stocking metal shelves with boxes full of sugary, hyper-processed breakfast cereal that was technically food.

  “Good afternoon and better blessings from the Twelve,” the woman said to Howard. “How many I help you three today?”

  The whisperings of the nearby cereal boxes rushed into Howard’s mind, unconsciously forcing him to verbalize their desires to the employee. “Likewise. I know I shouldn’t say this and it might offend you, but those three boxes of Calamari Crunch over there say black fingernail polish suits you better than pink. They thought the pink nail polish you wore for a few weeks made you look like a slut.”

  “Excuse me?” the employee asked. Her neutral face twisted into an expression of undisguised anger. “What the Vullen did you just say to me, you scrawny, chicken-boned bastard?”

  Noura gently grabbed Howard by the arm and manipulated him behind her like he was a lost child, babbling desperate nonsense at any adult willing to listen. “Hi there, I’m Noura! My friend has a weird sense of humor he doesn’t know how to express well. Shake my hand? You won’t regret it!”

  The employee looked skeptical and offended because of Howard’s previous nonsense, but cautiously shook Noura’s hand. The moment there was solid skin-on-skin contact, the employee’s eyes constricted and her breath hitched. Noura’s Touched power had taken hold and intensified the longer she held the employee’s hand.

  “We’re looking for a coworker you might have here called Lee Wortles.” Noura continued to smile innocently at the employee she mesmerized. “Do you know where we might find him, sweetheart?”

  “He’s actually here today,” the employee said. “I’m also the manager of the day, so I can get him exactly where you want me to have him. I can help you. Please let me help you so I can make you happy.”

  “Take it easy now,” Noura said while she stroked the top of the employee’s hand. “You don’t need to break your back to help any of us. Just be a good girl, get on the intercom, tell Lee to go to the employee breakroom so my friends and I can meet him there, and stack these shelves like the absolute queen I know you are.”

  “Of course! I’ll get right to it.”

  Once that was said, the employee ran to the nearby intercom phone posted on a metal column. She asked for Lee to go to the break room, then started to feverishly stock the shelves. Howard and the others watched her work, mildly shocked at how hard she worked.

  “When will that wear off?” Howard whispered to Noura. “She looks like she’s going to hurt herself working that hard.”

  “An hour give or take,” she said. “When all I do is touch or kiss them, the effects of my power are immediate, but short-lived. Plus, she’ll be fine. Just fine!”

  Howard nodded, but like usual, felt uneasy at seeing how easily Noura’s powers overwhelmed the minds of mundanes. It was a good thing Noura was one of the nicest people he had known compared to the previous crowd he and his wife once ran with.

  The trio then sought out the break room. When they entered it, they found a modest, windowless room full of plastic chairs, wooden tables, and a few Vallency’s employees eating snacks, resting, talking to one another, or using their catcallers to bet on a televised game of tree topper with what little money their minimum wage jobs gave them.

  Tree topper was a Hissian sport where several Hissians ascended a specially-grown tree as fast as they could over several different rounds. Whoever got to the top of the tree the fastest and most times won. Many Hissians complained that tree topping cannot be considered a real sport unless the special tree is involved; while other Hissians complained that the sport was too dangerous, which it could be, but usually isn’t.

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  Howard himself had no strong or weak opinions on the sport, but found himself amused and somewhat frightened with the speed an ordinary looking Hissian could scale not just trees, but anything climbable.

  Though Howard hated being the center of attention, he cleared throat, and announced, “Hello! Good afternoon and better blessings from the Twelve. Is there an employee by the name of Lee Wortles here?”

  For a few moments, nobody said anything to anybody while a few people looked awkwardly at each other, Howard, and most interestingly, a slight-figured, bespectacled, Eurisian man sitting alone in the corner. Judging by the expression on his face, he looked like he wanted to vanish.

  “Yeah,” one female employee eventually said. She pitched a thumb towards the mortified man sitting in the corner. “That’s Lee right there.”

  Howard, Noura, and Mallory watched as Lee rushed to his feet and attempted to speed walk through the break room’s only entrance and exit. Howard steeled himself the best he could, then got Noura and Mallory to back him up. Lee carried an open vacuum flask that whispered into Howard’s mind.

  Hot, hotter, hottest, it said. Do you like how your face feels when it’s cool? If so, avoid me, avoid me, and put those hands up to avoid me!

  “Ladies, I think he might try something stupid. Stay alert.”

  When Lee was within grabbing distance, Howard took the alleged advice of the vacuum flask only he was capable of hearing. He skipped any sort of conversation or attempt at deescalation, and attempted to get the concealed pistol within his dress shirt, but Lee was faster.

  First, he splashed the liquid content of his vacuum flask in a wide arc across Howard, Noura, and Mallory, which happened to be burning hot coffaux. The coffaux got Noura and Mallory across their faces and chests. They fell to their knees in the breakroom, screaming in pain. But since Howard preempted this, he raised his arms at just the right moment. The coffaux still burned his skin through the shirt, but failed to take his vision away at such a critical moment.

  Howard managed to get the service pistol in his hands, but had it smacked away with Lee’s vacuum flask. Lee then brought his vacuum flask as hard as he could across Howard’s right eyebrow. Metal met flesh and bounced off skull bone. Literally blinding pain exploded in Howard’s head. His legs turned to warm gelatin from the blow, and he unconsciously kissed the floor a second later.

  Once a few moments passed, Howard woke up, dazed and delirious from the concussion. He looked up to see that he was surrounded by Noura, Mallory, and several employees who were either concerned for his health or taking ghoulish footage with their catcallers. Though he was half-conscious and half-blind from the fresh gash bleeding heavily into his right eye, and felt like vomiting, he staggered to his own feet without assistance. Howard incoherently slurred something angry in Shibananese before returning to Lordish. “That piece of shit got me something fucking fierce with that vacuum flask, but we we’re going to get him.”

  “You are in no condition to run, much less catch the man who did this to you,” Mallory said. “We need to get you medical attention—not our hands on some man.”

  Howard shook his head, causing it to throb and splatter blood all over the place. “This is just a little flesh wound.”

  “Really?” Noura asked. “You know you’re not Jerry, right?”

  “Really,” Howard said. “And even if I’m not him, I will keep going. We’re getting that bastard who dared to spill hot coffaux on you and my twelvedamned wife. This is personal now.”

  Noura and Mallory sighed, but followed his lead with full trust.

  Howard rallied them and burst out of the breakroom like Vullen Himself was after all three—just in time to see Lee hauling incredible amounts of ass through the hallway that led out of the breakroom. But it wasn’t enough. Even though Lee was on the skinnier side, he wasn’t the type of skinny that was from any actual sort of athleticism. His running rhythm and form were poor, worsened by his mindless desperation to flee.

  Despite this, Lee looked back at the trio hot on his trail and gasped in shock. He pushed himself harder than he had pushed himself in what had to be years.

  Howard, being the fastest of three, had the lead on Lee, leaving Mallory and Noura far behind him. The adrenaline from Howard’s injury acted as a potent performance-enhancing drug, nullifying most of his pain.

  When Lee and Howard skidded onto the storefloor, Lee made a sharp turn to the right towards the fresh meat and seafood section. Lee shot his right arm to the right of him, and deliberately spilled massive amounts of ice on the floor behind him. Howard attempted to evade the icy obstacle with careful speed walking, but ultimately failed. He slipped around until he truly fell, smashing the back of his head, buttocks, and tailbone on the floor. Howard screamed in pain, but got up mere seconds later, wholly undeterred.

  Lee made a left, and ran into the baking aisle. Howard was right behind him. Lee grabbed a few small bags of flour and threw them at Howard, who dodged most of them until Lee got a lucky hit. The bag of flour exploded on Howard’s head, getting into his eyes and head wound. Howard screamed once again, but pushed through the pain.

  “You need to stop running,” Howard screamed at Lee’s back. “You’re just wasting our time!”

  Rather than stop, Lee ran until he was in the canned goods aisle. He repeated his initially tried-and-true Spill Things To Trip Up Howard tactic once again, but Howard saw this coming ten kilometers away. Howard nimbly avoided the cans, but picked up a can of beets. Just as Lee was about to make it into a different aisle, Noura and Mallory appeared in the path of his escape—their guns drawn. Lee stopped running and raised his hands in the air. His face twisted at the crushing revelation of being trapped in his place of work. By now, a small crowd of concerned shoppers had noticed the chase and stood by watching the situation unfold. They were wholly obvious to the danger of Noura’s and Mallory’s handguns and the potential of catching stray rounds.

  The can of beets in Howard’s hand whispered to him. Show me freedom and show me truth, it said, then introduce me into that scoundrel’s roof.

  “Great idea!”

  Howard tossed the can towards Lee’s head. It struck the back of it with the satisfying, tit-for-tat sound of metal meeting flesh. Lee remained standing, but holding the back of his battered head. Blood ran between his trembling fingers.

  Howard cautiously approached Lee while holding a pair of handcuffs. But rather than give up, Lee seemed determined to get dragged rather than walked into an interrogation room. He started to fight Howard once again.

  Lee tried to get Howard with a sloppy punch, but he dodged. Howard grabbed Lee by the shoulders and rammed his back into the metal shelf full of stacked cans. Several cans fell on the floor and the pair, pelting their heads and shoulders. Undeterred by the rain of metal cans, Lee readjusted his footing and pushed Howard's chest. Howard lost both his footing and his grip, and stumbled backwards into the parallel shelf. Lee pressed his attack. He charged Howard with a shout of rage and punched him several times about the chest, shoulders, and face. All of this violence was soundtracked by a generic, poppikari song called "More Love" by the musician Candy Clarinet. Were it not for the concussion and massive amounts of mercifully pain-numbing adrenaline buzzing through Howard’s entire system, the irony would've struck Howard as hard as Lee's fists struck him.

  Howard soon managed to block or deflect most of Lee's blows, but a particularly vicious, lucky, and well-placed blow from him landed where he had gashed him earlier with his vacuum flask.

  Howard fell to his knees with a shrill cry of pain, clutching the gash on above his right eyebrow. He groaned, stunned and feeling like he was going to blackout once again. Lee thrusted a knee towards Howard's face to finish the fight, but Howard moved his head at just the right moment. Lee smashed his knee into the horizontal bar of the metal display case. The force and angle of Lee’s misplaced blow combined to create an impromptu blade that lacerated his kneecap. Blood blossomed beneath the fabric of his work pants, staining through within seconds. Howard took advantage of Lee's pain and staggered posture by grabbing his right ankle and pulling as hard as he could.

  Lee toppled to the floor, where several cans rushed to bite into the flesh of his back and the bone of his spine. Lee screamed and attempted to get up as fast as he could, but the crippling pain of his knee and previous injuries kept him slow and grounded. Howard crawled on top of Lee and grabbed the first thing his eyes fell on: A store brand can of creamed corn.

  Howard brought the can down on Lee three times in a row. The first two blows had opened twin crescent-shaped gashes on his forehead, and the last blow exploded the thin, gelatinous contents of the can—but not before knocking several of his teeth loose. By the end of the beating, Lee was half-conscious and moaning agonized gibberish.

  "I don't like inflicting horrible amounts of violence on others like another man I know," Howard said while rolling Lee over to handcuff him and prevent him from drowning to death on his own blood, "but if you're going to go around attacking my people with hot coffaux and cracking me in the head with blunt, foreign objects, I think that's a blank check for some level of violence.”

  Lee was unable to reply on account of his battered skull and broken teeth. Just as Howard finished handcuffing Lee, Noura and Mallory came barreling down the aisle, but they had company.

  Bad company.

  A small but angry crowd trailed Noura and Mallory, screaming all sorts of invectives, accusations, and other harsh, violent words. Noura and Mallory did the best they could to calm the crowd down, but group psychology took over.

  Their twinned-attempts to deescalate only seemed to make the twinned crowds sandwiching them angrier and rowdier. Some members of the crowd even picked up some of the scattered cans and threw them at Noura, Mallory, and Howard, who dodged most of them. A large can of green beans struck Noura in the chest, making her cry out in pain.

  Upon seeing this rising threat to his wife and beloved friend, Howard attempted to deescalate as well. "Hey, everybody needs to relax and not do anything crazy! Let’s try to talk things out first before throwing things. What is all of this free-flowing anger even about?”

  "You fucking animals came in here and tried to grab that guy over there for no reason," a man in the crowd yelled. "That's not right, so we’re gonna kick your asses or get him out of here!"

  Howard briefly found himself at a loss of words. “No, you people don’t get it! Lee Wortles is a menace. He started this mess by hitting me and my friends first! We’re actually the victims here. We all might not be friends, but we’re also not enemies right now.”

  “Bullshit,” A woman screamed.

  “You police pricks are always playing the victim,” a bespectacled man shouted.

  “I’m gonna beat the brakes off that skinny one,” a brawny man hollered.

  “Please, just listen to me,” Howard begged. “Listen to me and you will see that I am not bullshiting, not playing the victim, and definitely not in need of a beating that takes the brakes off of me or anybody else. If it’s not obvious by now, the man by my feet already did that to me.”

  Their anger increased.

  “You need another ass-kicking,” the woman said.

  “You’re trained to lie to us,” the bespectacled man said.

  “I’m gonna use your ballsack as a speedbag,” the brawny man said.

  Howard doubted if any words in existence could do anything to fix this degenerating situation. Long before he was even born, generational poverty, generalized corruption, and the crime resulting from both factors had made the suburbs of North New Chemeketa a rough, hostile place for most, including even law enforcement.

  It was not uncommon for gendarmes to get harassed or even ambushed when on patrol in North New Chemeketa. Howard wondered what the Vullen he and his friends were supposed to do that didn’t involve turning the Vallency’s into a shooting range? He had shot and killed only one person years ago, and realized he wasn’t a fan of that luckily elusive experience. Beatings, even of the more vicious variety, was one thing to him as Lee Wortles proved, but to make a living and breathing being into a pile of inanimate meat?

  Revolting.

  This is not a good position for any of you, Howard’s least favorite tie named Paisley suddenly said to him. Did you ever imagine being beaten to death in a discount supermarket as your end,?

  “Shut up,” Howard said under his breath. “You’re just trying to second guess me as usual, you fabric-based bastard.”

  If you say so, Paisley added. Please do not get blood on me when they beat your brains in. Red doesn’t work well with my color scheme.

  “Well,” the brawny man continued yelling, “are you gonna give that man to us or are we gonna have to take him?”

  "I know all of this looks very bad, but I can explain everything," Howard said. "Just look at this. I’m one of the good guys here!"

  Howard produced his silver Triple I Division badge to desperately prove his legitimacy without resorting to violence. It was an act that turned out to be his worst one so far.

  Somebody in one of the crowds facing him said, “Yeah, fuck this guy. He’s pulling rank on us!” They threw a can at him. The can hit his knuckles with an audible crack, breaking several of his fingers. Howard cried out and dropped the badge. His cry of agony and the sound of the badge hitting the floor was like a dinner bell for the two crowds.

  They descended on him, Mallory, and Noura like piranhas feasting on a wounded water ox. They pulled, punched, and kicked at the trio until all of them were on the ground, pleading for the beating to stop.

  Howard watched and screamed while Noura and Mallory were dragged away by several people and kicked from their heads to toes. All the while, Lee Wortles was picked off the ground and rushed away. This enraged Howard so much, he attempted to use the last of his energy reserves just to stand up, but received a booted kick in the mouth for his troubles. By some miracle, all of his teeth remained rooted in his gums, but darkness came over him like a hood pulled over his face.