Is it stressful? I don’t know. I barely remember my life before getting this power. I’m so used to it that I find it hard to think of it as something that’s not entirely a part of me. It’s like a second skin. Pun intended.

This gig sucked. The Manège had had a history of giving Serge the toughest and often crappiest jobs. On the flip side, they also paid the most. Most importantly, though, they kept his name out of the IHI list of Impacted of interest.

If he was honest with himself, Serge knew this night would suck from the moment they told him that he might have to fight, not just one, but probably TWO Impacted. But the payoff could potentially be worth the candle twice over. Plus, it’s not like he had too much of a choice when dealing with direct assignments. He rationalized that the combination of a massive carrot and twice as big a stick was enough for most people to follow the most twisted directions, himself included.

Serge had known for a fact he would work with unsavory people, so, as he had done for the last few gigs, he had made it clear that he was to be kept in the dark regarding most of the operation. He knew full well these people peddled in nasty things, but he had steered clear of the merchandise, lest he learned of something he couldn’t forget. He was little more than glorified super-powered muscle, after all.

He also knew the men surrounding him tonight would mostly be the most despicable of the underworld scum: gangs and cops. His ‘aura’ and his ties with the Manège had kept them from addressing him directly for the most part, though, which he was very thankful for.

He just needed that one last job to ditch this shit town and its fucked up underworld.

Arnaud De Sevin was the living embodiment of a rotten cop. He was of average height and build for a cop his age, sported a cliché black leather jacket, and wore a permanent tired scowl on his face. He also swore a lot, reeked of cigar smoke, and more than occasionally indulged in obscene amounts of alcohol on the clock. At least at every occasion where Serge had seen the man. How the man remained a functioning member of society during his ‘day job’ was beyond him.

Arnaud took another swig of his crappy booze. And out of the bottle too. What a nasty cunt. Serge thought, unveiled displeasure on his face.

“Look, I know you don’t want to be here either, so you just gotta do what I tell you,” Arnaud said in his trademark tired yet firm voice.

“I wish. If there was a list of places I would like to be, here would rank pretty fucking far down, way down below ‘outside roughing up some Impacted hit-men,’ Serge said with a scoff.

“You don’t think other Manège goons would help potential competitors?” Arnaud asked with a hint of contempt.

“I can’t say I know for sure. But in this case, what you told me hints at amateur work. And I doubt anybody more dangerous than me is working anywhere near here. I made sure of that,” Serge said with a pang of pride. He wasn’t particularly proud of working with the scum of the earth, but Serge had always felt a primal satisfaction at completing a job well.

“Times change, I suppose,” Arnaud said as he set down his bottle on the desk he was currently sitting on. “Fred and I always knew that our little operation would attract all kinds of attention. It was only a matter of time until someone hired super-freaks to do the job.”

Serge tsked at the derogatory term.

“Oh, don’t be busting my balls over slang, big boy. You know as well as I do that’s what everybody calls them,” Arnaud said dismissively.

Serge kept his outward cool but growled inwardly. He could break this man’s skull open with ease, all in all, but being the bigger man was more than just a moral issue right now. Serge needed this gig, so he would have to just bear it.

“Any more info on them?” Serge asked, more out of a need to get the frustration out of his system than actual curiosity about the topic.

“No, that’s what’s been railing me up since Fred died. We have very little info about them. The area surrounding Fred’s house was full of footprints. As I said, it all reeks of amateur work. But that just doesn’t feel right.”

“How did amateurs get your buddy so good, then?” Serge asked.

“That’s what doesn’t fit. They were meticulous about not leaving any traces of what they actually did. The house was burned down to a crisp —basement included— the bodies didn’t have any identifiable wounds, and the nearest neighbors said they didn’t hear anything.”

“Which is why you assume this is Impacted work,” Serge said as he nodded slightly. From what little information he had, that fit the bill. De Sevin had told him about the investigation following some of his past jobs, and most of them had turned out to be real head-scratchers for the fuzz.

“All we know is that there’s two of them, based on the footprints at Fred’s house. As a precaution, I’ve doubled the size of my usual crew.”

A somewhat wise decision, Serge reasoned, although one that hinted at Arnaud’s distrust towards him.

“Their build was harder to determine as the depth of the tracks they left was somewhat inconsistent. It could either be from some freaky ability or because they were carrying heavy stuff,” Arnaud said as he put a cigar to his lips, lighting up the other end in the process. “As I said, we’re assuming powers. Since they somehow broke into the house, I’d say we’re looking at some kind of infiltration or blunt force-related ability. Maybe several.”

“The way you speak of it… It almost feels like it wasn’t your friend that died there,” Serge remarked.

“It wasn’t. Fred and I were colleagues and business partners,” he said in a tired voice. “Nothing more. But this sets my operation back a lot. And I don’t want them messing with it any further.”

Serge didn’t voice it, as it was in his best interests not to show his emotions, but the man’s demeanor was more than creepy. He was talking about his dead colleague like it was a flat tire during holidays. Barely more than a mild annoyance. He sighed and unceremoniously sat down in a nearby rusty industrial chair.

“I don’t get why you want to force it, then. Why not get them the legit way? You have enough proof already… Instead of just hoping they’ll just show up and dealing with them, why not set up an actual trap?” Serge asked out of morbid curiosity.

“I needed to move the cargo out of here fast enough. The sooner this is dealt with, the better. And I’m not especially trying to deal with them right now, but I’d rather be overly cautious, hence your presence.” Arnaud paused as he guzzled down more of his vile drink. “Plus, I need to take the paper trail with me. We can’t afford to be careless now that they’re on our ass,” he said as he slapped the desk he was sitting on.

“Then why keep physical copies, then? Couldn’t you get a regular old external hard drive like any man living in this day and age could?” Serge asked with a skeptical frown.

“I know for a fact that some of my enemies might have access to an Impacted who could take it away from me, and I don’t want to take that risk.”

“Alright,” Serge said with a sigh. Crazy world we live in, I keep almost forgetting. He thought idly. “So now…”

“Now, we wait for the goons to load the cages and finish wiping the place clean, then we fuck off, and you get paid,” Arnaud replied with a mirthless smile.

“Works for me,” Serge said as he leaned back in his chair.

Serge woke up with a pained grunt. His entire body felt numb, and his head felt like it was about to explode. If his senses were any indication, he was currently hanging upright by his blood-covered arms. The sight was eerie to him, as Serge had seldom gotten his tough skin pierced ever since he’d had that ability. Pain, he was somewhat used to, as even though his body was hard as rocks, hits and puncture wounds still sent regular ol’ pain signals through his nerves. The latest blow he took to the head was proof enough of that.

Serge spat a glob of iron-tasting spit that had been resting in his mouth for far too long.

“He’s awake,” a voice said.

Male? Serge tried wracking his brain for clues on his current predicament under the agonizing headache.

“Who are you?” an oddly melancholic voice asked. It felt as if the person talking to him was about to cry.

“Mrghl, Serge,” he let out in a groan. He tried to clutch at his head but found both his movements restricted by heavy chains wrapped around his arms. Said chains rattled at the tentative shake Serge gave them.

“You two are in way too—” Serge started.

“Yeah, spare us the idle talk, please,” the other one cut in in an exasperated voice. That would be the girl, then. No, woman. Serge mentally corrected. She was definitely the leader here. “We’re trying to decide whether to kill you or not.”

“What—you kids aren’t—” Serge started in confusion as he cracked an eyelid open, but the sight in front of him prevented the world from forming in his throat.

Serge had been quick-tempered for as long as he could remember, but after almost two decades of working with the wrong people, Serge had developed quite the advanced expertise at knowing when to make use of that temper. Right now, Serge could tell that being angry wasn’t going to be a solution.

The vantage point given to him from the back of the truck reminded Serge that for all the incongruity the pair in front of him had elicited from him at first, they had actually massacred Arnaud’s men. The sight had infuriated him at first because for all he despised the men he worked with, being left alone with a dead crew would have meant a massive pay cut.

“Right,” he continued. He took a deep fiery breath. “What is it you want? You got me, and no need to torture me. I don’t think I’m accountable to anybody alive anymore.”

The woman wearing the bike helmet kept her angle-grinder at his throat. The sheer indignation at the fact would usually be enough to make Serge go berserk, but being faced with his mortality twice in a day had mellowed his mood somewhat.

“You don’t get to pick the rules,” she said.

“Al— A. Please, he’s cooperating, put the weapon down,” the boy with the soldering mask said in a tired voice.

She tsked at him.

“I pick the rules,” she continued. “And right now, the rules are: you either give us a good reason to leave you alive, or you get the same fate as your colleagues. You might be tough, but I’ve seen what continuous grinding does to your body.”

Serge breathed in profoundly and pursed his lips as he swallowed his pent-up frustration. Exploding at them while being chained to that cage would not be the wisest decision here.

“Alright, what do you want to know?” he said.

“Were you contracted by De Sevin directly?” she asked.

“Yes, he’s got—or had, I should say— some dirt on me. I had to take this job as a matter of life or death.”

“Oh, boo-hoo,” the leather-clad woman said in a mock tone. “A sob story isn’t getting you out of here, tough boy.”

Serge scowled at her but didn’t respond.

“What do you know of De Sevin and Martel’s little trafficking operation?” she asked.

“I don’t know much. I was just hired for the one job. As I said, De Sevin had dirt on me. There was no need for him to disclose anything to me. Not that I cared much for it.”

“A, check De Sevin’s files to see if they have anything supporting that,” the woman said, turning to her partner, who just nodded as he proceeded to exit the truck.

‘A’ again? They couldn’t bother picking a different alias for one another? Serge thought idly.

“In the meantime,” the woman continued. “You still haven’t given me a reason not to kill you.”

“I don’t know who you guys are, really. I did see your boyfriend’s face, but in truth, I can’t remember much. Not like I’d be likely to talk to the cops… or the IHI.”

A slippery bastard, the guy had turned to be. His infinite regeneration had made the fight last for way longer than it should have. After all, it was pretty well known that Impacted duels usually lasted less than a minute. Serge had to admit that trying so hard to knock him out and mostly ignoring the girl had been his gravest mistake, though.

“Not enough,” the woman said. “Do you have anything on De Sevin… or the IHI?”

That last name set a flare alight in his recent memory.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I—” he started as he reflexively flexed on the chains restricting his arms. He was tough as steel and definitely stronger than the average man, sure, but nowhere near strong enough to break it.

“Need I remind you of your current situation, Mr. Strongman?” the girl asked wickedly as she suddenly turned on her murder power tool.

“Alright, fine, fine, turn that off!” he yelled. “Fuck! I might know a thing or two.”

“Spill it,” she said as she switched off her buzzing weapon to Serge’s immense relief.

“Alright, so. I’ve been indirectly working for the IHI for a while, through a proxy called the Manège.” Serge paused to get a better read on the woman.

The woman tilted her head down a little. Serge couldn’t discern her facial features behind the smooth reflective visor, but he thought he could see hints of a puzzled expression. “That Impacted merc ‘agency’ or whatever? I thought they were a myth. How could they be an IHI proxy? It’d go against everything they do.”

“It’s not a myth,” Serge said with a genuine sigh. “They do get involved in a lot of nasty shit. The only rule they have is to stir shit up in town. You’d be surprised at how much stuff they’re involved in.”

“They? Didn’t you just say you were one of theirs?” the woman interjected. She had slowly retracted her tool as Serge kept talking. He sighed as he tried to shift to a more comfortable position. Alas, the chains didn’t quite allow him to sit, so he stood up a little bit straighter to face his interrogator.

“I’m as much ‘with them’ as an Uber Eats driver is with the restaurant they get the food from,” he explained. After years of working for them, I kind of understand why the IHI leaves them be, though.”

“Why?” the boy asked, apparently surprising both Serge and the woman alike. To be honest, Serge had kind of forgotten about his presence.

“I don’t know for certain,” Serge replied earnestly. “But I just don’t see how they could keep a finger in the pie otherwise. By inserting a dose of controlled chaos and only subtly influencing the underworld, they basically ensure that competition can’t unify.”

“Ah, they’re trying to prevent strikes,” the boy remarked in a detached voice.

“Yeah, those tend to happen a lot in the crime world,” the girl said drily. “But I guess your theory kinda makes sense. You’re both here to stir shit around as well as keeping an eye on the more… unpredictable elements like De Sevin.”

“Yeah,” Serge said with a groan. “Listen, is there a way we could keep having this conversation with me unhooked from these chains?”

“No,” the girl replied, tone final.

Serge sighed. This was to be expected.

“Fine. So,” He continued. “My deal with the IHI was that I would do the odd gang job here and there. Flexing my power but never killing too many people. Which is one of the big reasons I agreed in the first place. I didn’t feel comfortable just roughing up random folks… Anyway, at first, that went surprisingly well, and I thought it would get me out of this life. But it turns out that working with the wrong crew brings its lot of troubles with it.” He sighed. “One day, a rival gang tried to get to me through my family. But in those days, I was careless, and I had made too many enemies. I didn’t know who the threat was from, only that they were threatening my baby woman and that once again, my tough skin wasn’t a solution. The IHI didn’t give a crap, and the cops were beyond useless, so I turned to even nastier people—the mob. And through them, Martel and De Sevin. They told me that if I wanted to get rid of them, I would have to get my hands dirty.”

“Is this leading anywhere?” the woman asked in an irritated voice. “Because I already told you a sob story wasn’t getting you out of this.”

“Alright, alright. So, spoiler alert, that turned out to be a crap decision as well. I learned while in… negotiations that De Sevin had access to a thing in the IHI. A thing they use to peddle information.”

“I know about the Scanner,” the woman cut him off. “Do you know anything relevant?”

“Wait, are you working for them too?” Serge asked.

“I’m the one who asks the questions here. And maybe him,” she said, nodding towards her brooding acolyte. “Don’t make me turn on Grindy again.

“…Right. So, you know about the Scanner, so you know how it operates, yes?” he asked.

“Sorry to interrupt, but if what I’m reading here is correct, this is indeed his first and only job for De Sevin. Nothing about Martel, though,” the boy in the soldering mask said as he re-entered the back of the truck.

“See? I told you I’m just—” Serge started, only to be cut off by the woman once again.

“The rest of the Scanner story. Now,” she commanded.

“Okay, so,” he continued. “They got pretty much all the info they wanted about me thanks to that ‘Scanner’ of theirs.”

“Wait,” she interrupted yet again. “They got info through the Scanner? The Scanner I know only blocks information. This is new.”

“I don’t know about that. We might be talking about different things.”

“No,” she said. “It can’t be a coincidence. It might be different people, but they operate in the same places. It would be stupid of the IHI not to synchronize those resources.”

The woman brought her head closer to Serge’s. So close that he could almost… Serge tentatively pulled on the chains restraining him but immediately stopped the motion as the whirring sound of the angle-grinder started again.

“Careful now, that’s strike two,” she let out with a deceptively sweet voice.

“Alright, calm down. I didn’t do anything!” Serge exclaimed.

The woman once again retracted and turned off her weapon.

“So, it gets information about people. How?” she said.

“If I tell you, will you let me go?”

“We’ll see if—” she started.

“Yes,” the boy cut her off in an unexpectedly irate tone. “Yes, we will. If you give us that information and if you promise us to disappear from this town.”

Serge could tell that the woman was shooting daggers at her partner even through the dark visor on her helmet.

“Do I have your word?” Serge tentatively asked. He wouldn’t trust those weirdos as far as he could throw them, but fostering conflict between the two seemed like the most obvious choice.

“No—Yes,” they answered in discord.

To both his surprise and the woman’s, the boy hit the side of the truck with his closed fist surprisingly hard.

“Yes,” he said again. “You have OUR word.”

Serge still couldn’t see the woman’s eyes, but he was pretty sure she was glaring hard at the boy. Surprisingly, though, she snapped her head back to him and spoke again.

“Provided you give us something worthwhile,” she said with an ominous shake of her weapon.

“Alright, so. They can place an ‘eye’ on you. If what I got from the mob is right, they basically dedicate one of their agents to recording your location, and as long as they can see you with their actual eyes, or cameras or whatever, they know about everything you say and write.”

“Wait, agents? The Scanner isn’t a single person?” the boy asked.

“What?” Serge was taken aback. He’d thought that they knew. “Of course, it’s not. How could one person operate on so much information on a global scale? I don’t know what the Scanner is exactly, but I know that it involves way more than one person.”

“So, there’s like field agents that put the equivalent of a bug on you whenever they want to know something?” the woman asked.

“Yes. But it also applies to writing. I don’t know how that works exactly, but—” Serge started, only to be cut off by the crazy woman. This was obviously done on purpose, but it got on Serge’s nerves.

“Circulating information. That’s their ‘domain’. They can only deal with—whatever it is that treats it—what you could define as ‘information’.”

“Right, that makes sense. Anyway, it’s what makes this ‘Scanner’ so dangerous. They can already block information or whatever, but also, they can grab it if you’re not looking. So, if you want my advice, don’t use public spaces to trade information.”

“Alright. Anything else?” she said.

“No. That’s all of it.” Serge said.

She lifted up her angle grinder once again but didn’t turn it on this time.

“I guess it’ll have to do for now. We’ll let you live. Provided you fuck right off this crappy town, as my acolyte said,” the woman spoke in a carefree tone that didn’t match the seriousness of her words in the least.

The two masked strangers then both proceeded to exit from the back of the truck.

Panic seized Serge as they started walking away from him.“Hey,” he yelled out. “You promised you’d let me go!”

The woman let out a cackle. An honest, genuine villain mad cackle.

“We promised no such thing. We promised to let you live, nothing more.”

“So, you’re leaving me chained to this cage I can’t get away from, in a deserted warehouse in the middle of nowhere? I should have known you’d be a lying sack of shit,” Serge bellowed out. “You fucking whore!”

“One more comment like that, and I’m going to be forced to go back on my word,” the woman said. “And I truly loathe doing that. So please zip it while we finish our cleanup.”

“We’ll unlock you,” the boy cut her off. “We just gotta make sure we’re done here before we do that.”

“Okay,” Serge breathed out. “Please don’t take a daddy away from his little girl.”

“Err, after seeing what I have seen today, that line is not going to work with me either,” the boy said in a harsh tone.

If only I had had more time to pit them against one another. Serge thought. They don’t get along, and the boy is definitely the weaker element.

Serge was no mastermind, his life was proof enough of that, but if there is one thing that his repeated blunders in life had given him, it was more insight into people. And right now, that experience was going to waste.

“Hey, regenerating guy. I trust you. You’ll not let me die, right?” he said in what he hoped sounded like a friendly voice.

“Right…” the boy slightly nodded as he exited Serge’s field of view.

In a sad yet somewhat expected way, they ended up setting the building aflame. As the fumes started reaching him, Serge had a moment of panic, but it was quickly settled when the boy came back.

The scrawny boy lifted a large metal pipe Serge hadn’t noticed at first.

“I’m sorry, this is going to hurt,” the boy said quietly.

“Wait, what—” he let out right before the boy brought down the makeshift weapon on his exposed forehead.

Bonk.

“Ow, FUCK!” Serge howled, but the boy wasn’t finished.

BONK.

And then, blackness. Agonizing and numbing blackness.

A ringing sound dulled Serge’s other senses. The numbness had spread to his entire body, but he could feel that his cheek was currently painfully rubbing against the cold asphalt. Asphalt? He thought, I’m not inside of the hangar anymore.

Serge tentatively cracked an eye open to look at his surroundings.

Fire. Roaring fire.

Serge started as he took notice of the blazing inferno in front of him. These two lunatics had managed to set a concrete building aflame. He also noticed he wasn’t chained to a cage anymore, merely lying on the floor. At least the boy kept his promise. He thought in contempt.

After a few seconds of staring at the flames, the ringing in his ears receded enough that Serge could hear a siren sound and a truck honking. He turned around in a jerky motion to end up gazing at the beam of a massive spotlight.

Besides the eye-searing light, Serge could see a few flickering blue and red flashes coming from the background. He reflexively put an arm in front of his retinas to protect himself against the assault on his corneas.

“What the—MOTHER FUCKERS,” Serge swore, his own words sounding distant behind the still present ringing.

“Sir,” a distant voice called. “Sir, I’m going to need you to put your hands up.” The sounds were somewhat muffled by the ringing in his ears, but a quick scan of his close vicinity informed Serge that a police officer stood right in front of him. “Sir, I’m going to need you to put your hands up. Are you in possession of a weapon or an Impacted ability?”

“I am Impacted, IHI identification number 17555,” Serge let out mechanically while slowly lifting his hands above his head. Those fuckers had called the cops on him. Here’s to hope he could get out of it without involving the IHI. He thought.