‘I’m never going to get this stench out of my dress,’ Riot said, tugging at the extremes of the fabric.

They stood in the old converted sewers, the smell from their previous usage many years prior still very much present. In front of them, just in front of their faces, was a small grate that opened onto the harbour level. Through this, they’d watched the search for them progress—an increasingly irritable Target ordering Asa’s workforce around, screaming at them. That is, until Asa himself appeared and reminded the woman that his employees worked for him, not her.

‘Uck,’ Riot said again.

‘Does… does that matter, right now?’

‘It was a designer dress. Very expensive.’

Sham blinked back his befuddlement, but realised that he was slowly starting to understand. Riot was fixating on her dress because it was something that, at the end of the day, she could deal with. The loss of Kryl, however…

‘Tell you what, if I ever win the lottery, I’ll buy you a new one,’ Sham answered.

‘It’s not about the money.’

‘What, then?’ Sham retorted, and then found a particularly foul aroma creep up his nostrils. He fought the urge to gag.

‘They have a limited production run. You won’t be able to buy this one any more. Definitely not after the end of the season.’

‘The… season?’

Riot opened her mouth to speak, then apparently thought better of it, shaking her head instead. ‘No matter.’

The last sign of movement on the harbour above had been, by Sham’s count, about a half hour earlier, but they’d stayed put in their hiding spot. There was no need to risk trouble, after all, not if they could fool their attackers into thinking they’d long since fled.

The matter of the Target plagued Sham. This was twice now he’d stumbled across the woman he’d been searching for, and both times he’d been powerless to stop her barrelling towards her inevitable act of domestic terrorism. What would it take to stop her? Sham had been so fixated upon finding this woman that he hadn’t taken a moment to figure out what he’d do when they met. And with the intensity of the drive that the woman possessed, he could only think of one thing that might stop her—a bullet to the head.

But he wasn’t that kind of man. He believed in rehabilitation; it was one of those beliefs held so dearly that it had become a part of his identity, almost. To question this belief would be to question his very being. So it was a line he would not cross. He had to believe this woman could be talked down. Even if she now possessed power unmatched in all of Haven.

Knowing why she was doing this in the first place would’ve been a good start.

But for now, he had a different woman to contend with.

‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.

‘I’ll try taking it to a professional cleaner. There’s a few of them in the Sunri—’

‘No,’ Sham interrupted. ‘Not about the dress.’

A sparkle in Riot’s eyes faded somewhat. ‘Oh,’ she whispered, her voice hollow.

‘Yeah.’

‘I don’t know.’ She paused, seemed to forget the stench for a moment, and looked out upon the last of the sun’s ray dying over the sea. ‘Revenge. Somehow. There has to be justice. Perhaps you’re right. I can bring the police in or something.’

Sham gulped. ‘I didn’t actually say that. I just meant—’

Riot waved him down. ‘Still. I’ll go to them. When we get out of here. Can’t hurt.’

‘Better hurry. They’ll have bigger fish to fry in a couple of days.’ Sham only realised what he was saying after he’d said it. He blamed the brain fog.

Riot stopped for a moment, furrowed her brow, and turned to him. ‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘No, really,’ she pressed. ‘What does that mean? Is something going to happen?’

Sham sighed. Decided he saw no harm in telling Riot what he knew. After all, either he’d stop it, and he could forget about all of this, or he wouldn’t, and he’d be proved correct. ‘The Target, she…’

‘Your friend?’ She nodded to the street level.

‘I may have mischaracterised my relationship with her somewhat. But… yes. Her. She’s going to attack the Tower. Blow it up, in fact. She—’

Riot took a step back. ‘What? How could you know this? Have you told the police?’

Sham tilted his head. ‘Mistrust of our protectors is a trait we share, I think.’

‘But you’re trying to stop her? That’s why you were looking for her? And she… She knew Kryl?’

The time traveller nodded.

‘How?’

‘I don’t know. Been trying to figure that out myself.’

‘I…’ Riot took another step back, smacked her lips together as she searched for the right question. For the most urgent question. ‘How do you know this? How do you know she’s going to do such things?’

Yep. That was, indeed, the correct question.

When the time traveller didn’t immediately respond, Riot pressed, ‘...Sham?’

In for a penny, in for a pound.

‘Cos I’ve lived through it. Two days from now and seven days ago. I was there. I saw it happen. I saw the world ripped apart by the sheer power she held. I…’

Sham caught sight of Riot’s face. It was oddly neutral.

‘What?’ he asked. ‘What is it?’

She stepped forward, put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I… Sham, I know someone who might be able to help you.’

‘Oh? Who? Cos right now I need all the help I can get.’

Riot swallowed an apparent lump in her throat. ‘A doctor.’

‘A doctor?’ Sham replied. ‘I don’t see how…’

He trailed off once his mind finally caught up to what Riot was suggesting.

‘...Right. That kind of doctor.’ He paused, swallowed back an emotion he hadn’t quite known was there. ‘And I thought you might actually want to help me.’

Riot forced a smile. Despite it all, she forced a smile. ‘I do, Sham. Just not in the what you’re thinking.’

Sham nodded. ‘Was it the talking to myself?’

‘Among other things.’

‘I could explain that too, but I don’t suppose you’d believe that bit either.’

‘Probably best you don’t…’ Recollection murmured.

Riot opened her mouth to press the matter, but seemed to think better of it.

‘Look,’ Sham said. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll do it on my own. I’d always planned to do it on my own, always done bloody everything on my own, so makes sense that I do this that way too.’

‘I—’

‘I think we’re fine to leave,’ Sham interrupted, and made his move towards the exit hatch without another glance back. ‘Goodbye.’

Sham should, really, have gone home next. The illness had made his body ached and pained in ways he hadn’t previously thought possible, and besides that, he absolutely stank. But the clock was ticking. Less than forty eight hours remained now until the Tower was destroyed, and still he was the only one with any apparent interest in stopping it.

He peered up at the Tower, looming large over the rest of the city from its position at its very heart. The full moon protruded from its side, a clipped third shining its brilliant white reflected light over the rooftops. Sham pressed towards it, towards the centre of town, and most importantly of all, towards one of the few places of refuge still open at this late hour—a cafe.

The cafe he finally found himself in was positioned across the road from an old, run-down church. He sat in a rickety, uncomfortable chair out the front of the establishment and stared on at the house of worship as he waited for a server to appear. Peeling gold foil on a sign out front labelled the building as the HARBOUR TEMPLE of ZEUS, the impression of a lightning bolt icon just about discernible underneath. And by the sign, indeed, was the Great Architect himself. The statue of Zeus was formed of a stone covered in a gentle dusting of lichen, the god immortalised with his brawny physique, his telltale spectacles—and looking just the same as about every other statue of him Sham had seen in his many years in Haven.

‘Many years, yes, yes… Decades, in fact. Yet here you are, in a moment of—how shall we say?—a moment of crisis. And you have not a single friend to call on. How does that happen, hmm?’

Sham said nothing. Tried to ignore Recollection. But couldn’t ignore the fact that it was right. There’d been one person, once, who would’ve helped him. But She was gone. Long gone. And She’d made it damn clear She didn’t want to hear from him again. The Statue of Zeus in front of him seemed to grow blurry the more Sham stared at it.

‘What can I get for ya?’ a high-pitched voice piped up at Sham’s side.

He turned to see a young server standing there, feigning attentiveness, notepad and pen in hand. A polite smile faltered as she caught sight of Sham’s face, something about it apparently unnerving her, or perhaps worse, making her pity him.

‘Just a tea,’ he said. ‘Milk, no sugar.’

‘Pot?’ the woman asked, after a brief moment of hesitation.

‘A cup is fine.’

The young server nodded, stood on the spot for a few seconds longer, and then disappeared again without another word.

When the tea arrived, it was… disappointing.

It’d been brewed for too short a time before the milk had been added. It was typical of these cafes, really. Most their customers ordered to go, and so they had to prepare the tea—milk and all—in their flimsy paper cups as quickly as possible. Which meant, inevitably, that the tea was cooled by the milk before the best of the flavour had seeped out from the leaves. It shouldn’t have been a problem for a tea ordered to drink in, but there it was. Sham suspected—judging from the young server and the pimply face he’d spotted behind the counter—that the night shift were the inexperienced lot. A Harbour District cafe should’ve known better, of course—this was about all the Harbour District was actually good for—but he wouldn’t hold it against them. Or would try not to, at least.

Sham sipped on his painfully weak tea—not entirely dissimilar to cabbage water—as he looked on at the church across the street, and reviewed everything he knew so far. After all, if he was going to stop the Tower’s destruction, he’d need a plan of action.

The Target—name still unknown—would destroy the Tower in…

He checked his pocketwatch.

...A little over forty hours. She would do it by unleashing a devastation, the source of which was also unknown. And she’d carry with her the strength of dozens of legendary skill vials. At least Sham knew where they had come from.

Asa and his shadowy organisation had seemed to be in league with her. Kryl had known this all along, of course, judging by the map that Sham had retrieved from his underwear drawer. But why would these people want the Tower destroyed? They didn’t seem like anarchists; more like career criminals. And career criminals, in Sham’s experience, enjoyed the status quo, especially if they were established as whoever the End Street lawbreakers were.

It didn’t matter, Sham supposed. That might shine a light on the Target’s motives, but would do little to actually stop her. What might have been handy was some of those skill vials, give Sham a chance to overpower her. But he suspected Asa would have the place locked down now, the vials protected, if indeed they were still on End Street at all.

If overpowering the Target was out of the question, then what option did that leave? Either he’d have to leverage some other form of power, or… he’d have to talk her down. A common grade Command skill was something, sure, but he thought it rather likely that such a quest would require a little more from him.

And more caffeine to limber up his aching systems, too. Sham turned, raised his hand, gestured for the server.

‘Top up?’ she called back to him.

Sham shook his head. ‘Coffee. Strong.’

The young woman received the order with a nod and a smile, then turned away, and… back again. ‘Are you OK, mister?’

Sham allowed a short breath to escape his nostrils, felt the burden of his task weigh heavy in his gut. ‘You ever feel like your whole existence is hopeless?’

The server looked him up and down. ‘No, mister.’

A sad smile crept across Sham’s face. ‘No. I suppose you’re too young for that, still.’

The young woman looked him up and down once more, but apparently had no idea how to respond to the strange, rambling, older man. She hurried off back into the interior of the cafe.

Sham stared into the stoney eyes of Zeus, across the way. What would the gods have done in such a situation as his? The legends were never as specific as Sham had needed them to be.

The server returned shortly, ceramic cup teetering on a chipped saucer as she rushed it back out to him. She placed it down delicately on Sham’s table. ‘Put something a little special in there for you,’ she said, a kind smile on her face. ‘Sounded like you needed it. Hope that’s alright?’

‘Oh, I…’ Sham started, and then the aroma of whisky floated up his nostrils. ‘Yeah. Very alright. Thank you.’

The woman nodded, began walking away.

‘Stop me if I ask for another, though, eh?’

She smiled. ‘Will do.’

[HARDENED LIVER] JUST THE ONE: FAIL

Gods, you’ve missed this.