Emilio put the tape recorder aside and got up with a groan and a stretch, only now realizing how tight his joints and muscles were from sitting down for so long. He had to get out and do something; maybe he could patrol the streets and see. Anything to fight this boredom; he would even accept a call from his man on the inside at this point. Opening the door to the hall outside, the door hit something with a muffled thump.

  “Fuck!” The victim to the accidental door based violence screamed, nearly falling over, but quickly catching his balance.

  Emilio casually looked over, immediately recognizing the man as Salvo, one of his neighbors! “Ah, hey, it’s you. Salvo was it?”

  Of course, the man responded much more violently than expected. “It’s Silvio! You dumbass!” He rubbed his shoulder, angrily. The man was just a few years older than Emilio, probably in his early to mid thirties. But he looked far older than he actually was; it’s tough living in The City, but it’s even more unfortunate to be living in a The City with a hairline like his. “Fucking eh, do you always swing doors open without caring about whoever is behind it?” He was dressed in a dark blue suit. Emilio knew almost nothing about him, he had even been getting his name wrong until now, but he at least recognized the suit as something he wore when on Fixer duty. As much as the guy annoyed him, he had to admit: That suit looked really nice on him.

  “Alright, Silvio, don’t get ass in a twist.” Emilio sighed, closing his apartment door, making sure it was locked. “What’s gotten you all dressed up and ready to go?”

  “Going out on a job? What are you doing going out in your Office’s jacket? Finally got work?” Silvio crossed his arms, grinning mockingly. “Every Office has been invited to this one. You didn’t get the invite? Guess only experienced Fixers get them these days.”

  “Invite to what?” Emilio asked, already pissed off at him. What was this childish playground banter? Can we please talk like adults here?

  “I’m not telling. I told you, only skilled Fixers are allowed to know.” He said, trying to walk off, only for Emilio to put his arm between Silvio and the hallway. “Uh… You wanna let me past? Emily, was it?”

  Loud mouths like this guy were all over. Normally, Emilio didn’t care about them. Nothing wrong with a bit of boasting and showing off. But, if you are going to boast and talk a big game, you need to be able to back it up. So, he decided to give the prematurely balding man a little ego check. His right arm blocking the way, which Silvio was focused on, Emilio quickly swung at the man. His index and middle fingers held out, he harshly slapped him on the cheek. Not damaging at all, but incredibly painful; even made a loud slap noise, a red mark left on Silvio’s face. It was enough so that Silvio took a few step back, more confused than in pain.

  “Ai, what the fuck?!” he protested.

  Emilio didn’t say anything, he wasn’t done with the attack. Why stop now, he hadn’t even gotten to the good part? He gripped Silvio by the collar of his shirt and jolted his head forehead, slamming his forehead against Silvio’s nose in a brutal headbutt.

  This caused Silvio to fall right on his ass, holding his bleeding nose. His confusion now was replaced with anger. After a few grunts of pain, rubbing his nose, he finally mustered up the gumption to speak. “Holy shit… What is your problem?!” He looked up defiantly at Emilio. “So I acted a little rude?! What’s gotten you pissed off?”

  Emilio stared down at the man, his eyes devoid of light; the eyes of a man who has seen all kinds of horrors in the City. “Sorry, had a bit of pent up aggression after trauma dumping to myself for the past few minutes.” Emilio said, leaning down at him. “Experienced Fixer, my ass. Can’t take a headbutt from this nobody Grade 7? Where was your earlier bravado?”

  Silvio blinked in confusion. “Wh-what…?” He knew little about Emilio, as a matter of fact this was the first time hearing that he was promoted to Grade 7. The times he saw him, Emilio was walking around in a depressed haze, barely interacting with those outside his Office. But here, he was grinning like a mad man, blood running down his forehead. Did violence excite him that much…? Silvio was a belligerent idiot, but at least he knew not to pick fights with madmen like this. “I’ll… Be going.” He got up, his ego completely deflated, he even took a handkerchief out of his pocket to stop the torrent of nose blood. He tried his best to make his way past Emilio without further conflict.

  “Hey, Silvio,” Emilio called to him. “Before you go, let me ask again: Where are you going?” Here’s hoping he would behave this time. He smirked, “Come on, we’re both Grade 7s, both lost our previous Office to a Distortion. We can relate to each other.” In a mocking tone, he continued to rub it in. “Come on, why don’t we be friends from here on?”

  But surprisingly, Silvio behaved. He even jolted at the mention of a Distortion. “The office building not far from here.” He said, without even looking at Emilio. “There’s gonna be a big meeting between a few Workshops. So they’re picking up whatever Fixers in the immediate area to help them out with defending the place.” With no more words, he walked off, heading for the stairwell leading to the bottom floor.

  A big meeting, huh… Wait? Is he talking about that meeting?! That’s tonight?! Then that meant Emilio had to hurry and get back to the Office. He left the phone there. He went into such a hurry that he rushed past Silvio and ran downstairs, completely forgetting to clean the blood off of his head; there was no way he was taking the elevator. Every time he used that thing, it felt like it was going to fall right down to the basement floor.

  Rushing past the young man at the front desk, Ivan, he gave a wave. “See ya, Ivan, going to go do Fixer stuff!”

  “Don’t die.” Ivan waved happily, his usual gregarious self. That boy was not right.

  Running outside and booking it for the Office, he instead almost ran straight into Heidi who was walking out the Office, Oliver right behind her.

  “Ah! Em! Come on, we should be getting going. I was just about to come get you.” Heidi said. She had her uniform on, katana at her hip.

  “The Workshops are coming together?” Emilio said.

  “…Bunch of Fixers are on their way to help protect the place.” Heidi confirmed, not even making note of the blood running down Emilio’s forehead. “We’re invited. I got the call and accepted the job on your behalf… If that’s alright.”

  Emilio nodded, “Yeah, don’t worry about it. You’re second in command on the documents.” He got ready to run inside and grab his cleaver, but Oliver stepped in front of him and handed it to him. “Ah, thank you.” He nodded.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Oliver gave a thumbs up in response, no need for words.

  “Sounds like an easy job. Just go there, patrol an emptybuilding, get a nice stack of Ahn. Get more jobs in the future.” Heidi grinned. For the first time in a long while, the streets around here felt a bit lively. “Oooh, can feel it in my joints, it’s gonna be a good one.”

  However, despite her excitement, Emilio was now focused on something else. The person standing right behind Oliver; it was their bug faced neighbor! This was the first time he had seen him in natural lighting; if you call the constant overcast skies of the Backstreets to be natural lighting. He wore a hoodie, that did nothing to hide his mutated visage, his head covered in a brown, chitinous carapace, with a pair of curved horns resembling insect mandibles sprouting from his head. His mouth was covered by a pair of small claws that folded in such a way that it looked like a face mask. His left eye was completely covered by the carapace, while his right was a concave socket, containing three red eyes. Mutations, as the result of being a former soldier of G Corp.

  “Hold that thought Heidi…” He said, everyone’s eyes fixed on the man in question. “Hello…?” He said to the man, the subject derailing to him.

  “Ai, hello, sir.” The man responded in a surprisingly friendly, but expectantly gutturally deep voice. “Sorry if I’m muscling in on a job of yours, sir! I’ll be right on my way in due time.”

  “Ah, no… Well, kind of,” Emilio moved closer to him, Heidi and Oliver standing aside. He was mostly confused on why he was calling him sir when he wasn’t his boss. “We were on our way to a job, but I’m wondering what you were doing here?”

  “He was looking to employ us for a job.” Heidi said.

  “I was grossed out seeing him walk through the door.” Oliver unnecessarily added.

  “Ai, correct, sir,” the bug-headed man. “I’m Conrad, by the way. I know that the Backstreets are never safe, but they’ve been feeling more dangerous lately. I feel as though I require more protection going here and there.”

  Heidi crossed her arms, the metal of both of her prosthetics clanking together. “I mean… You missed a lot of the discussion, but he is right. I think there was a turf war miles away from here and everyone allied with those allied with the loser got kicked out of the area.”

  “Better than being killed.” Emilio nodded. “Well, depending on your point of view. Really, this just means more Syndicates for us to deal with.”

  “Right, sir,” Conrad nodded, getting back on track. “I am just wondering if we, by we I mean the local block, could get more protection… I feel I speak on behalf of everyone on this block.” The guy’s lack of experience with conversation was readily apparent, with the odd repetition of his sentences, and (despite having three eyes) his lack of eye contact.

  “Protection?” Emilio asked, “I don’t think we’re cut out to be routine bodyguards. We’re more of the ‘go to the job location and do the job’ type people. Have you looked into employing someone from Zwei?”

  “I have, sir,” Conrad nodded again, “But their presence is lackluster here. No offense to them, of course! They have protected many a dweller, including myself once before! That job costed me my old badge from the Smoke War, but I didn’t need the old thing.”

  A brief silence fell on the group, the Fixers unsure of where to continue the conversation from there and Conrad expecting a response. The silence was halted when Emilio spoke up. “Alright. So I’ll add that to the list. We could either contact someone from the Zwei and get more protection on this block. Alternatively, we could get the other local Office’s together and…” His speech slowed down, he rubbed his chin in thought. Then, Emilio grinned as he slowly came to the realization. Fuck having to curry favor from one of the Associations! He looked over to his katana wielding ally, “Heidi, reminded me to get in touch with a few of the other Office’s. Just the ones in the immediate area.”

  “Are you sure we’re not the only one?” She asked.

  “I’m sure of it. Besides, we’re going to be meeting a lot of them at this meeting, aren’t we? That’s why it’s called a meeting.”

  “You’re deductive as always, Em,” Heidi sighed happily. It was hard to tell if she was being sarcastic or not. It was then that she realized: Oliver was already blocks ahead of them. “Ah crap, looks like she got impatient!” She ran off, leaving Conrad and Emilio alone. “Let’s continue this conversation later, okay! You know where to find us!”

  Once she was a good way, Emilio smiled and shook his head. “Those two…” Emilio exhaled through his nose, amused. He then looked to Conrad, “You’ll survive until we figure this whole protection thing out, eh?”

  “Ai, sir,” Conrad said, “I’m a veteran. Lived here since the war. I am, how you put it, hard to kill, yes.”

  “Good, stay alive. I’d hate to have a future customer die.” He said, catching up with the other two. Looks like he had to add that to the laundry list of things he had to do; he didn’t really notice the local area being any more dangerous than it normally was, it didn’t really need any more protection. That being said, he did need to do some networking with other Offices. More connections meant more jobs and more allies. Would he let more people join after Ezekiel? Ezekiel hadn’t joined yet, but Emilio fully planned for him to be the next member.

  Maybe, he decided to workshop it in his head later.

  So, finally, he caught up with the other two. The three of them all lined up. The setting sun making the black of the jackets even darker, and the redness of the letters even more vibrant. The bright letters on the back of their jackets displaying the name of their Office. Their first big job up ahead, it was time for Runaway Office to finally make a job for themselves.

  “It’s gonna be uneventful.” Heidi said, doing some tune up on her sword arm. She didn’t want it to fail in the middle of a fight. “I mean, that’s what I’m expecting. But I hope to have a good fight if it presents itself.” She looked to Emilio, “Ah… You have some blood on your forehead. Try to look professional, just this once.”

  “The job will be easy, but still, it’s good pay.” Emilio said, rubbing the now dried blood from his forehead. He held his cleaver in front of him. It might look blunt, but the thing could slice through flesh and bone like scissors through paper. “If anything, it’ll put our Office on the map. I can finally tell him ‘I told you so.’”

  “Can I collect ingredients while I’m at it?” Oliver said, adjusting her mask. She planned to go all out tonight, even if it meant others witnessing her taste for human flesh. She walked with a youthful skip and hop.

  “Go for it.” Emilio grinned, pointing to the sky. “Let’s go Runaway Office!”

  Yet, they weren’t the only people excited for this event. Blocks away, in the underground, camped out in front of the closed L Corp Branch, the Ghillie Dhu made their preparations. Fionnlagh put his hand to the barricade separating him from the one he needed. “Soon…” He said, pressing his forehead against the door, “Soon I will see you again. My City’s savior…”

  The twins, Titania and Oberon, approached him, all prepared for the assault. Standing behind them were the various members of Ghillie Dhu in their black and green suits; the junior members were referred to as Saplings, while Titania and Oberon held the title of Tree, and Fionnlagh was regarded by the title of Fae King.

  “Aaaah… Right… Time to go…” Fionnlagh said, turning around. “Hm… Fixers on the move… They, ah… How many did you say there would be?”

  “1 large Office and at least 2 small ones. There will possibly be independent Fixers.” Titania explained, before looking to her brother.

  “And yes… Emilio will be there. If that is what you’re wondering.” Oberon confirmed. “Time for a reunion?”

  “Hahah…” Fionnlagh nodded. “Yes… A reunion… Hm hm… I’m… Really happy that he’ll be there… Hahah…”

  “Do you want us to kill him on sight?” Oberon asked.

  “No… no… Please,” Fionnlagh shook his head. “Hm… Leave him alive, if you can… But, hm… If you kill him I’ll be upset… But if you must, do so… I still want to extend my offer from all those years ago.”

  “Yes sir,” Oberon and Titania saluted simultaneously.

  “Kill no one unless threatened.” Fionnlagh said, speaking clearer than usual. “If they attack you, attack back. We are saving this City, let’s spill what little blood we can.” The Ghillie Dhu began making their way out, Fionnlagh and the twins in the lead. “Plant out roots in the Backstreets. Breath deep, this gathering gloom…”