No one's taking this seriously, Jason thought, as he listened in on the room's gossip-filled chatter. He swept his eyes across the group, feeling like the odd man out – because he was. In a room full of uniformed officers, he stood with his back against the wall, his gaudy blue overcoat blowing against the air-conditioned wind. 'Dress like a civilian', they had told him. 'It'll make the people feel like you're a more reliable guy', they had said. Being manufactured into a marketable-looking rebel feels pretty lame, to be honest.

He was even more upset that he kind of liked the clothes they told him to wear. It almost made him not want to like them out of pure spite. People’s feelings are more important than my pettiness, Jason told himself, sighing internally. I have to focus on what’s important.

Especially because it seemed like no one else was. He would've expected the lead-up to an emergency meeting regarding a series of grisly murders to have more...gravitas, honestly. After a few moments, he realized that their attitude was likely born from willful ignorance. They want this to be just a bunch of coincidental, random reports about different ‘Outsiders’. Not a concerted effort by a single enemy.

Matters would be easier if that was the case. Simpler, at least. The alternative was that a horrible monstrosity, far beyond what they'd dealt with so far, was killing citizens for some unknown reason. No one wanted to admit that was real. Unfortunately for them, Jason had been expecting something worse than usual to appear. The voices prepared for that much when they laid down the gauntlet. Whatever this thing was, it was real.

It was real, and Jason was going to fucking kill it.

The room quieted as Danse started up a projector machine, signaling a start to their meeting. “This is the first victim,” he explained, pointing at a gruesome, mangled corpse projected onto the wall. “Based on the markings on their body, they appear to have been killed by some sort of bear-like creature. The victim called an emergency line before they died, but didn't manage to explain much of their situation before things went south. Notably, they did report a strange sort of smell. Something almost like a rotten fish. Any questions?”

A soldier’s hand shot up in the air. “Did our forces not make it there in time?”

Danse shook his head. “They did.” He paused, eye lowering briefly. “We recovered some footage from their gear, but a lot of it is distorted. They also reported experiencing that weird smell over the comms. Additionally, they mentioned that bullets were even less effective than usual, like the thing could just ignore it. Didn’t get a good measure of what it looked like; their reports were all very mixed, like they were talking about different creatures almost, although our map data shows they were all fighting the same thing."

He closed his eyes. "...And then they died.”

A silence fell over the room as Danse waited for them to process the information. “Second victim—third victim—fourth victim—all the way to the seventh," he continued, cycling through images. "All reporting similar stories. Extremely different monsters attacking them, but each person reporting the same foul smell around the time of their attack. Which I imagine is making you all wonder why we're so sure it’s even the same monster every time.”

Danse clicked on a remote, and the slide changed into something else – a map, with circles and numbers around each location. “Any of you notice something funny about that?” He didn’t give them the chance to answer. “That’s right. Every attack has been within two kilometers from the same street – Baker Street.”

There were some chuckles among the soldiers. Jason didn’t blame them. That the city even had a street literally named ‘Baker Street’ sounded like a joke. It was real, though, and it had been called that for a very long time now.

He and Rob had grown up there.

“It’s not just that. Every time we've managed to catch a glimpse of the target, it appears to retreat toward the same direction. South, when victim number two was attacked, northwest, with victim number three, southeast for number four...” Danse continued to advance through the slides, the humor rapidly evaporating from the room. This was too much to be a coincidence, and it meant they all had to pay attention now, no matter how much they wanted it to be fake.

“What’s strange about this,” Danse began, in a thoughtful tone. “Is that it doesn’t kill like the others. It’s not just a mindless beast. It’s more like...” He trailed off and shook his head, unwilling to say what everyone else was thinking. More like a human serial killer. “There have been reports of strange things happening on Baker Street for a while now. More than usual, I mean. We could just be dealing with conspiracy theorists again, but it could be something else. I'm taking a small team to investigate. We don’t anticipate any fighting, but considering what we are going after...we’ll have backup stationed nearby. Helicopters, especially – if we’re hitting that thing, I want it done from a distance and I want goddamn explosives, you hear me?”

There was a general murmur of agreement. For as much as humor had been their favorite coping mechanism, every soldier in the room knew what happened to the first unit that encountered the Baker Street Horror. Their bodies weren’t even recognizable at the end, Jason thought, shuddering. It’s like they were dissected. Whether it was one single creature or many, no one was particularly keen on fighting it on the ground without heavy support.

Danse knew as much, which is why he made sure to say, “I can't guarantee that we won’t come into contact with the target. But since this is mostly just an intel gathering mission, I'll only need a few volunteers.” That was the official line, but everyone in the room knew better. There was a very good chance there would be combat. “Anyone want to give it a go? This isn't a mandatory deployment. I’m talking volunteers, here. Your rank doesn’t matter – if you were invited here, ‘means you have enough experience to come along. Just say one word and you’re in.”

Silence was king, and every man in that room became one of its subjects. Some turned their gaze to the ground, like small children hoping their teacher wouldn’t pick them to answer. There were those who frowned angrily, appearing frustrated that they couldn't muster up even the bravado to answer. A few appeared outright terrified at the suggestion and had no shame in hiding it. Tyranny was how silence chose to rule, and it had decreed that a single word here could mean their lives were forfeit.

Jason was never much for authority. “I’ll do it,” he said loudly, his hand shooting up in the air. “Let me kill it. It’s mine.”

--

“You know,” Jason muttered, as the two walked into the district. “You could have just ordered some people to come over here. Gonna be kind of hard to cover this entire area with just the two of us.”

Danse shook his head. “We have six others in the other zone.” Yeah, the much safer one, statistically speaking. “Be thankful I even got the attack helicopter stationed nearby – had to kiss a lot of ass for that one,” he grumbled. “Higher ups didn’t even want to acknowledge the monster, much less make a task-force to go hunting for it. Took me cashing in a lot of favors to even get this much...and they still insisted on volunteers only. Said I couldn’t take anything from our usual unit.”

Then how the hell did you get a helicopter? “Why didn’t they want to acknowledge this?" Jason settled on asking. "Your evidence seemed pretty convincing, if you ask me. Everyone in the room figured that something is going on by the time you were done.”

Jason hadn’t expected his superior to fall silent over the query. The two continued walking for a while, and he dared not be the first one to break the silence. “Same reason no one back in that room wanted to believe it,” he muttered. “But worse. It looks much better for the higher-ups if there isn’t a somewhat intelligent, human-killing monster roaming around.”

“Well, yes, but they have to know it exists, right?”

Danse smiled sadly at him. “Kid, you’re adorable. Of course they do. It’s just better if they pretend it doesn’t, and pass the buck. Find someone else to blame for the fuckup of allowing this thing to exist for so long.” He gave a mighty shrug. “Fucking hell, that’s probably gonna be me at the end of all this. But once I figured out that it existed, and what it was doing...not like I could just let it go.”

You’re a good man, Jason thought. And I thank the goddess of luck every night that I was paired up with you when they forced me into this hero thing. But he knew saying that out loud wouldn’t make Danse feel better. “Don’t worry,” he instead told his superior. “If this falls on you, just means you’re gonna get all the praise once I kill it.”

The two shared a quick laugh. For a moment, they forgot that they were standing in the wreckage of a once-lively street, surrounded by collapsed buildings and broken dreams.

“Gotta say," Jason said, grimacing. "Not really getting a ton of warm and fuzzy childhood memories here. This place is like a goddamn ghost town.” Under normal circumstances, he actually would've liked the opportunity to explore a ghost town. That scenario sounded like the kind of dumb-but-fun crap he would drag Rob into on a lazy weekend.

Not like this, Jason thought, examining a pile of brick and stone that used to be his favorite corner store. I don’t want to sift through the ruins of where I grew up. Seeing places that he remembered hanging out as a kid, now reduced to rubble....honestly, it felt crushing. “I know the government said this area was, quote unquote, 'exceptionally dangerous', but what happened to everyone here?”

“Evacuated,” Danse replied. “For whatever reason, it gets hit by Outsiders too often for our protection to be worth much. Government told everyone to get away from here a while back. There’s still some people left around, though.”

“Why is that?” Jason barely kept up with the news, much as he knew he probably should. He was never able to stomach reading news reports on all the people he'd failed to save, and was more than willing to shield himself from it with overwork. “Do they not have another place to live? Is the government not helping them?” He shook his head. “I should start accepting some of those sponsorships; then I could use the money to help people relocate to somewhere safer.”

“Please don’t," Danse groaned. "I would rather my nephew doesn’t start playing with Jason-brand action figures. I see enough of you as it is."

"Why stop there?” Jason grinned. “Could be a two-pack. You can be the knockoff sidekick figure nobody cares about that's only included to jack up the price.”

Danse turned to him with an arrogant expression on his face. “Listen here, you little shit – I’d be the collector’s item that goes for way too much money on eBay, you hear me?” They shared a quick laugh, and Danse went on, “No, don’t worry. For as much as the government is fucking up their handling of everything, they've been pretty good at relocating people. There’s basically a whole new city in Delaware made up of refugees.”

“Is that why some people decided to stay in a monster infested zone without electricity?” Jason asked, in as much of a deadpan as he could. “To avoid Delaware?”

“Even the fucking monsters are avoiding Delaware, I swear to god nothing happens there,” Danse muttered. He looked around for a second to make sure they were still safe. “You could tell me that the Outsiders have secretly been there for years and I'd believe you. No one would have ever noticed.”

It was nice to laugh like this. Almost made the pair forget about how dangerous this mission was. Even odds we leave here with absolutely nothing, bored out of our minds, or nearly dead, Jason mused. An odd coin flip to bet on, but they wouldn’t have it any other way. Out of all the boring people I could’ve been stuck with, I’m glad Danse is the one I’m working under.

“To be honest, the only people left are those too stubborn to leave,” Danse said, seriousness returning to his voice. “Them and the conspiracy theories nutjobs who think we’re hiding aliens or some bullshit.”

Jason turned to his superior. “And we just let them stay here? We should be making them get the hell out of here and go somewhere safe before they get hurt.”

“And how do you propose we get them out?" Danse countered. "Power grid has been shut down, so this is the best we can do. Military has to save its strength to protect the people who want to be protected – not to mention that getting this mission approved at all makes me feel like I’m goddamn fucking Hercules for pulling it off. You have no idea the amount of infighting that’s been going on behind the scenes ever since the Outsiders showed up.”

I have an idea. Not a good one, but he knew that people within the military had very different ideas on how to tackle what was happening. Some thought they should take a more conservative approach, perhaps even try to capture one of the creatures alive and see what they could learn from it. Some had suggested just tossing nukes at everything and hoping for the best. Then there were the numerous policies that fell somewhere in between, including those who thought that vivisecting Jason was the key to finding out how levels worked, and turning the war around.

Shitheads who think that if we all had Character Sheets, we wouldn’t have to worry about monsters anymore, Jason seethed. Probably imagining that people doing a normal nine-to-five will start going around and punching monsters in the face. Fucking idiots.

Danse drew a deep breath. “Not like this war is easy for the military either," he continued. "Some of us have trouble even shooting down those goddamn things, if you forgot.” His words were said harshly, but there was no edge to them. Jason had long since learned that when the man spoke like that, he just wanted to drive a point home. If he actually wanted your feelings hurt, well, he’d make sure you knew. “Besides, these apartment buildings...bad place for combat. Too easy to be ambushed or flanked. Bad idea to try to get people out of here. If they want to stay without heat or electricity, let them. Winter will convince them otherwise.”

“Assuming those things are smart enough to flank,” Jason pointed out. “They haven’t shown the ability to think, let alone coordinate tactics in a group.”

“Assuming anything about those things is what got a lot of my unit killed,” Danse whispered. His voice was unusually quiet and he said no further. “They were good men.”

There was probably someone out there who knew the right thing to say in a situation like this. Maybe there's a reason why he’s so insistent on setting up this task force. “I’m sorry, Danse.”

“That better be a general ‘sorry.’ If I catch you getting guilty over not saving my men before you even had your goddamn powers, your ass is in trouble.” He smacked Jason’s shoulder playfully and laughed. “It’s how it goes. Not gonna give you some crap about being willing to make sacrifices, because that ain’t it. But you gotta be willing to roll with the punches. And by god, those punches can hurt. Save who you can, and be happy with that. Got that? It’s an order. Stop being an egomaniac.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m not an egomaniac, you know?” Jason appreciated the thought, but he couldn't quite bring himself to accept it. I'm the only one who can gain levels. It’s not the same. Doing what I can isn’t enough – I have to do more. Everyone expected ‘more’ out of him, whether they would admit it or not. Even Danse. For all the crap he gave him when Jason did something absurd, he was usually half-smiling at the end and had come to count on Jason's superhuman prowess to save as many lives as possible. 'Don’t be too harsh on yourself', he says. Hate the undertone there. ‘Don’t worry, you always get it right in the end.’ What if I don’t?

It wasn’t an ego thing when people died if he failed to live up to his potential.

The notion that he had to get it right was weighing on him heavily these days. When he was younger, everyone used to praise him when he did something impressive, be it winning at a sporting event, getting good grades, or just generally doing something most people didn’t. But now he'd done it for so long that people had come to expect him to go above and beyond. And with the stakes being what they were now, it scared him. Be the perfect soldier. Be the perfect boyfriend. Be the perfect symbol. Do not break. He repeated those thoughts in his head, almost like a mantra. Do. Not. Break!

He couldn’t break. He wasn’t allowed to break. Not when he'd finally gotten a lead on what had happened to Rob. Just have to kill this monster and grab a couple levels, Jason thought. No big deal. After that...after that I can take a break. Of course, he'd been telling himself he would take a break for months now. The thought was nice, comforting, but he knew deep inside that it was a lie. There would be no rest until it was done. And he didn’t even know what it was. No one else can do it, so I don’t have the luxury of whining about my feelings. I have to get this right.

Just like he always did.

“That looks surprisingly intact,” Danse remarked, “don’t you think?”

“Eh?” Jason replied without thinking. “I – sorry, what?”

Danse elbowed him, then gestured to a motorcycle. “The keys are still in the ignition,” he remarked. “Some people ran away in a hurry. Surprised no one stole it. Wonder if there’s any fuel left in there.”

“You a motorcycle guy, Danse?” Jason asked. He didn’t know much about his superior’s life before the army. “Wouldn’t have figured that.”

Even through that mask, he could see the shit-eating grin on Danse’s face. “I used to be a daredevil before joining the army. Did motorcycle stunts in my off time.”

Jason’s mouth hung open. “You’re fucking kidding.” He just couldn’t picture the epitome of sternness and propriety doing flips in the air with a motorcycle. “Please tell me you have videos of that.”

Danse shook his head, laughing. “Maybe you'll get to see them when the war is over." He appeared a little embarrassed, and in a hurry to change topics, looked around the area, smiling when he found something else to focus on. “Hey, speaking of undamaged things – that looks pretty intact too, doesn’t it?”

Jason’s gaze shifted to the caged structure across the street Danse was pointing at. At first, it took him a while to recognize it, as it was sandwiched between the rubble of nearby buildings – which only made the realization hit harder. It was a tennis court. The very same one he and Rob had spent so much time playing in as kids. Even the net is still up...is someone using this?

“Fancy a game, Jason?” Danse laughed. He paused, noticing the haunted expression on Jason’s face. “Hey, are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Jason answered, his eyes fixated on the court. “Just...remembering a few things. That’s all.”

For a moment he forgot all about everything. About the monsters, about having to fight, about Rob being gone, about who he needed to be. He looked at the court, and saw the past. Two small children, maybe twelve years old, setting up canisters across the court and competing to see who could hit the most without moving their feet. Rob hadn't been very enthusiastic about the idea, but went along with it in the end. After some prodding. And he didn't even complain.

That is, until they had hit the four hour mark.

“Dead on,” Jason had shouted, pumping his fist when he hit a target. “Another one for me.”

“I swear to every god you can think of...” Rob was mostly speaking through heavy breaths that day. "...That if you say that one more time, I fucking quit.”

Jason exhaled in disbelief. “What’s wrong with what I’m saying?” he asked, as if he didn’t already know.

The way he reacted, you would think Rob had been waiting for that question for a while. “It’s not just today. Every goddamn time you hit a good shot you do the same fucking thing – you nod twice, smile, then go ‘dead on’ like a jackass. It was okay the first few times but, c’mon. Please. Stop.”

Jason smiled at the memory. Wait, is that actually why he quit? Because I said that too much? He hesitated, considering the notion, and then shook his head. Nah, that’s silly. Rob was being honest when he said that he just didn’t love the sport like I do. Maybe he was annoyed at how often Jason said that line, but even back then the signs had been there. Was just easier to ignore it.

“Come on, we have to get our first serve percentage higher somehow!” The young Jason was running around the court, jumping up and down and demanding Rob to energize himself too. “Hey, hey – did you hear? Rob, I heard that pro tennis dude at the club saying that he expects us to beat the older kids in the tournament. Can you believe that? The guy is an actual professional and he sees something in us. That’s—so—cool! We gotta win now, can’t let him down.” Jason shook his head. “Like, I've been hitting that kick serve pretty good, but it’s bad form to use that as a first serve – old guy told me so. I should work on that. Gotta practice more.”

Rob always had the same look on his face when Jason started acting like this. That look of resigned exasperation he showed when he didn’t have the energy or desire to keep up with his friend, but also knew that explaining it would have taken even more energy. Took me a few years to figure it out, Jason reminisced. Guy would never say it aloud, so I had to learn when he really wasn’t into something and was mostly letting me drag him into things. Plus, Rob got better at letting him know about it over the years. But even back then the signs were there.

“I don’t really care if we win or not,” Rob had muttered. “Who cares if the old guy has a high opinion of us? I didn’t ask him for that. And why do you care what he thinks of your serve?”

“Always stressing over the details, eh?” Jason laughed. “You gotta loosen up sometimes, Robbie.”

Rob pointed a finger at him. “I swear, Jason, we talked about this—don’t call me—”

“—I won that bet fair and square.”

“—The dog was not part of—”

“—A leg is a leg—”

At the end, Rob held up his hand to stop the argument short, rubbing his temples as if he had a headache. Even as a child, he had some habits like a grumpy old man at times. “Maybe I do have to loosen up, Jay. But you do too. In a different way.”

Scratching his chin, Jason sighed. I wonder what he meant by that, he wondered. Will have to ask him when I see him again.

“Jason!” Danse cried out loudly, slapping his back somewhat harshly. “You in there?”

Holy shit that had hurt. It took a lot not to fall over and hit his head. Would be a sick joke to kill a ton of monsters and die from cracking my skull on a rock. Jason shook his head and straightened himself up before turning to face Danse. “Yeah, I’m good. Sorry, was just thinking about something.”

“Zone out later. We have a few people to interview about the Baker Street Horror.” Danse’s voice was harsh at first, but it softened by the end. “You gonna be okay? This is where you grew up.”

“Yeah,” Jason muttered, hands clenching. “I’ll be fine.”

For a brief instant, his bracelet itched.