7th February 2019When Michael was 40 minutes te Noah gave in and tried to dial his number for the tenth time. "Fuckit, my phone's still not connecting. You have…oh, yours probably isn't on?" Charlie shook her head. Noah looked around before picking a likely looking house. She knocked and paryed her way into a quick use of a phone.

  When she came back out she looked deeply unsettled. "It's unobtainable…his number." She worried at her lip. "If they've fucking hurt my boy they will fucking pay," she spat out.

  "That's insane! Why would… they can't think… this will just make it…" Charlie stammered, incoherent, before slumping onto the ground.

  Noah paced back and forth. "I've called a fucking taxi. It should be here in a few." She drew several short angry breaths. "I'm going to get it to drive the route Michael normally takes, and then I'll call hospitals and make sure he's not there." She perched on a low wall, briefly. “Maybe he just broke down and his phone’s fucked.” She looked sceptical and picked at some moss for a moment before getting up and starting to pace back and forth again. "Look, I know I said I'd talk to Michael first, but maybe you should just tell me what the fuck is going on?"

  Charlie craned her neck back to look up at Noah, her breathing unsteady, hunting for the words. "I don't want to talk about it out here, right now, but also, I think we should wait."

  "For?"

  "We…well I'm not…they haven't hurt anyone yet. They’ve threatened me. But he’s also made clear he’s not meant to kill me. So…I don't think they’d kill anyone else. They want something from Jess, and maybe me. If they’ve hurt Michael or grabbed him? I will–" Charlie paused and scrabbled her way up to standing, pcing her hands on Noah's shoulders. "I will do anything I can to fix this.”

  Noah gazed levelly at Charlie, before crumpling into her hug. Noah's sharp intake of breath broke them apart. Charlie followed Noah's gaze and had to quickly abort an urge to run. The lone police car rounding the corner–it couldn't be… she’d been so careful. They couldn’t know where they were. Her anxiety peaked as it indicated and pulled in, one officer quickly opening the door and stepping to the back of the vehicle.

  A fsh of cropped blue hair was visible for a moment before they opened the back door. Noah shrieked “Naekkeo!” as she sprinted to the vehicle, grabbing her partner in a vigorous embrace.

  "Hey! Be gentle with him, he's had a rough afternoon," the officer in the car shouted, before the one holding the door said, "I'm guessing this is who you were pnning to meet?"

  Michael poked his head out around Noah's shoulder and nodded.

  "Alright then, sir, we'll be in touch in the next few days for a statement, and you really should go to A&E."

  Noah dropped the hug and stepped back to look at him, "What happened?" She alternated gnces between the officer, already cmbering back into the car, and Michael. The officer just nodded at Michael before shutting the door.

  As they pulled away, Michael quietly said, "Someone ran me off the road… hit and run. No witnesses. It was a white van. I didn’t see the pte. There was a woman though, in the passenger seat. I tried to call but my phone didn't work, and your phone number didn't work when the police let me use a phone. And Charlie's number didn't work either. I had to convince them to give me a ride here because the car’s a write off." He started to shiver and Noah quickly enveloped and held him.

  Noah turned her head towards Charlie, who'd already slumped back onto the wall. "Fuck," she breathed.

  —

  As they arrived at a nearby pub, Michael gnced warily at the bikers leaning against very battered bikes and staring at them. Noah, seeing Michael’s anxiety clearly spiking, tapped him gently on the shoulder, then grinned at one of the bikers and waved. “Alright Mike? You get the carb sorted?”

  “Yeah, was a complete shit to do though,” he shouted back, “An’ fuck you for spoiling our fun. We was giving your boy there a fucking scare.”

  “I saw that, I told you to py nice, you fucker,” she shouted back cheerily before turning to Michael and Charlie. “Mike’s bark’s worse than his bite. The only pce I don’t know the bikers is the Cat and Wheel - that gang’s a bit rough even for me. Surprised to see Mike’s lot here though, I’ve not been here for years and I thought the new owners were kinda anti-bike.”

  They stepped inside and found an isoted corner. Charlie waited while the hushed discussion between Michael and Noah wound through its course. Michael clearly had reservations, his slight frame tensing and the occasional gesticution indicating something significant, though Charlie didn't know what exactly. Not for the first time Charlie regretted keeping Noah–and everyone–at arm's length.

  Still, she'd chosen this. Chosen to keep herself apart.

  Right now she needed to work out how to quickly expin what she’d guessed was in Jess’ stolen files. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Noah and Michael settled on an answer. Charlie raised her eyebrows and Noah said, "Yes, but, look, I didn’t tell Michael anything about your ‘history’.” She smiled at Charlie before turning to Michael and saying, “And obviously, hon, I didn’t tell Charlie shit about you, either, so you can all get this fucking stuff out in the open and then maybe we can get on with taking down the government, or world, or whatever the fuck we’re doing now.” Michael’s return had left Noah almost effervescent.

  Charlie and Michael turned to each other and stared, before Noah butted in. “Oh, and for fuck’s sake, get it over with. You’ll both be okay with each other’s pasts, I guaran-fucking-tee.” She ughed.

  They looked at each other and both said bluntly, “I’m trans.” Then ughed and simultaneously managed, “I fucking knew it.”

  “Fucking hell,” Noah muttered. “This would have been way easier if you both could’ve just said it in the first fucking pce.” She paused. “Although, in your case, Charlie, I understand there’s some other complexities. And I won’t get on your case, Michael, because you’re good in bed.” She lent over and kissed him quickly before his sputtering could become actual words. “Now that’s done, Charlie, do you mind Michael getting an abbreviated history of your fucking mess? And then we can get on? And, Michael, I know between you two this will now become a gender dissertation, but for the sake of speed your concern is that the government of this country is fucking transphobic, and you’d rather not be arrested or imprisoned because it’ll be fucking horrific, so anything we do we need to do fucking right, so we don’t end up with you being…yeah, in prison. Oh and, ideally, you’d like to keep your job. That cover it, hon?”

  Michael lent his head and looked at Noah, before turning to Charlie and affirming, “Yeah, that about covers it.”

  Charlie, in hushed tones, gave a much abbreviated history of her identity. Michael looked around and finally said, “Okay, so. Forgive me for being a bit cking here, but what’s going on that means we need to have this conversation here? I know that there’s been something bad–because Noah got me using the keywords we set up back when–” He gnced at Noah. “You used to help some friends with–stuff,” he ended rather cryptically.

  Charlie stole a surreptitious gnce around the pub. No one seemed to be paying them more attention than anyone else. The raucous group of bikers had followed them in and was loudly telling the kind of exaggerated stories she was fond of sharing, which she hoped would provide enough noise to cover for everything. She turned into the group again and finally whispered, “Look, Jess got me some files. I don’t know exactly what’s in them yet because our friend has been following me a bit too closely.”

  Noah squinted at her. “You met up with Jess?”

  “No, we had a dead drop, I guess you’d call it. I just grabbed the card and left. It’s… being processed on a new ptop I’ve hidden. Hopefully it’ll give us a clue as to who the fuck is after Jess – and us.”

  Michael looked confused. “But didn’t you…?” He broke off and tried again. “I thought you ID’d someone? I thought that was the whole thing that set you off again on one of your ‘I can do everything alone’ benders.”

  “I don’t say I can do everything alone!” Charlie looked put out.

  “Yeah, yeah you fucking do,” Noah gently rebuffed. “Although, for once I think it’s because you were worried about us and not your usual ‘I’m the Duchess of fucking independenceshire’ nonsense. And normally I’m all for saving number one, and especially for saving number one’s cute boy.” She grinned at Michael. “But not at the expense of losing my best - albeit fucking stupid - friend.”

  “Yeah? Well. I. Uh, apparently don’t have a good comeback for that. Sorry? I s’pose?” Charlie tried experimentally. “Look, anyhow–” She turned back towards Michael. “Turns out they have trackers. At least, we think they’re trackers - certainly on my bike, definitely some shady stuff on my computer, probably on all our phones and computers. I’m assuming - and this is an assumption - that they also have cameras and microphones in many pces. I know they had something in my ft.”

  Noah interjected, “I bet if we dig around the fleet we’ll find them on everything. I bet that’s how they found you tonight, because I sure as fucking shit don’t think that was a coincidence.”

  “What I do know, from the little bit I saw, is there’s some link to senior police, politicians, and a bunch of organisations.”

  “Shit.” Michael gnced between Charlie and Noah. He winced. Moving his arm up obviously hurt, but the urge to massage his temples clearly overrode that.

  “Look, we need some kind of fucking pn if we’re going to get out of this alive.” Noah leant in. “Although this kind of level is a bit above my paygrade, so we might want to ask for help.” She paused, lost in thought for a moment. “I know a few folks who might help, but it’d really be useful–and I know this is stating the bleeding obvious–but it’d really be fucking useful to know what it is Jess found.”

  “I’m working on it. I’m hoping I’ll have a basic idea when I pick up the ptop tomorrow.”

  “Okay, well. Do we go back to somewhere they can track us, and cim to have just had a night out feeling sorry for ourselves? Or do we hide?” Noah scanned across both Michael and Charlie. “The advantage of somewhere hidden is, obviously, that we’re out of their way.” She held up a hand. “But, if we do that, they’re going to know we’re all up to something so we’ll have to stay hidden. If we make tomorrow seem like a normal day–albeit one where Michael here sticks with me–if we go and file a police report, if you come in to work, Charlie, and we feign getting on with the world, maybe they’ll think we’re just fucking them around for shits and giggles, which Charlie’s been doing for days.”

  “Although then they know where we are, again.” Michael looked sceptical.

  “Then do we want to take the advantage and run now?” Noah looked around the table.

  “I dunno, I think they probably already know where we are? I’m assuming they know where, I’m just assuming they can’t bug every fucking building,” Charlie growled darkly.

  After a few more rounds of discussion they settled on a hotel for the night – Noah argued that she needed to go back to work in the morning to get people set up to cover for her absence. Eventually, they settled on ciming Michael’s incident had left them too tired to make it back home that night if they ended up being questioned about it.

  “Assuming we’re still alive in the morning,” Michael added with a wry look.