“What came to be known as ‘Project Ordos’ was without a doubt the most ambitious widespread use of Impacted powers by a centralized entity. The IHI most likely had no idea how big it would get, hence the absolutely chaotic way in which it evolved in the last two decades.”

“Alex, listen carefully,” Alison spoke in a firm voice. “I want you to come down to my new place right now. No detours, no nothing. Turn off your phone or put it in airplane mode. Don’t be late.”

“Wait, what’s—” I got cut off as she ended the call.

Panic seized me as the sudden silence left by Alison’s cryptic words made me reassess how I had ended up in this situation.

I had acted rashly—as I usually did—when Lisa had called me a few minutes ago, crying about the kidnapping of her mom and the cops’ refusal to help. I hadn’t even stopped for a second to consider whether or not calling Alison was the right call. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t. Not only would she probably refuse to do anything about it out of principle, now that I considered the whole situation, but I’m also pretty sure she wouldn’t even know where to start.

So why had she told me to come and see her after learning of Lisa’s mom’s name? I thought as I quickly donned a jacket and put on a pair of running shoes. Does she know about her? I mean, Alison has had more than a few brushes with law enforcement, as I gather, but… could it be possible that these two crossed paths at some point?

These questions would go unanswered until I got to the precinct, to my growing frustration and anxiety. To top it off, Alison’s warning that I should turn off my phone—which we had literally looted off of one of our recent kills—while going there was more than concerning.

I tried my best not to overthink anything while I took the bus… And failed miserably. My anxiety was making me think of even more questions I didn’t know the answer to.

Why did Lisa call me? Why would she go to ME? Does she know what Alison and I do? I gripped the overhead bar hard in the shaky bus as it advanced at a frustratingly lethargic pace from one stop to the other.

Perhaps Lisa just panicked and called the first person she could think of…? I thought, in a rare flash of optimism. Or maybe she was forced to call me at gunpoint? Should I have checked on her?

No. I rationalized. If that was the case, her ‘captors’ would have made demands. She had just sounded panicked and disoriented, not scared for her own life.

This was the worst. Not being scared for Lisa’s mom, not the feeling of impotence at not being able to solve the situation, but the uncertainty. That overwhelming sense of doubt which made me question everything I knew, that kind of emotional tsunami that I wasn’t equipped nor willing to face at any time.

I tried my best to get a hold of my breathing, and to my surprise, I managed not to go into a complete panic attack. I was still freaking out and with each passing second new questions filled my head, but I was still breathing relatively fine, and no one else around me seemed to be paying attention to me, not that I cared.

I stumbled out of the bus when it reached the deserted Agnolles Croix d’Or stop in the middle of the industrial zone. Instead of letting my emotions go to my head even more, I started sprinting towards the precinct. In what felt like mere instants, I was banging on the imposing metallic door that hadn’t been there last time.

“Open up. It’s me!” I bellowed at the top of my lungs.

After a few tense seconds spent banging on the door, a little metallic sound alerted me that somebody was unlocking each lock one by one.

“Well, good evening to you t—” Alison started when I interrupted her as I shoved myself inside, slamming the door shut behind me.

“I’m not in the mood for jokes!” I spat. “My friend’s mother is in danger, and she needs me!”

“Wow, calm down there, Clark Kent,” Alison said in a condescending tone. “You’re here because you requested my help. Which I have no reason to give you in the first place.”

I clamped my mouth shut. She was—frustratingly enough—right about that. Though our fates were a little bit more than just tied at the moment, I had done nothing she hadn’t repaid yet.

She doesn’t owe me anything. I thought bitterly. To her, it’s all ‘kill or be killed’.

“I—” I started, but this time, it was her that cut me off.

“…gotta work on that superhero syndrome you got going on,” Alison said in earnest. “You’ve had this power for a few weeks, and you’ve known me for just as long. You should know better than try and fix all the worlds’ woes when someone comes to you for help. That’s exactly the kind of thing that will get you killed or locked up by the IHI in no time.”

“So you made me come all the way down here just to tell me that to my face?” I retorted in anger.

“No, and please do calm down, or I’m going to make you,” Alison said casually, though I knew that the implied threat was genuine. “I’m going to explain why you’re here in a second. But first, I gotta introduce you to someone.”

The impromptu request made me bite back my retort. Who could she have invited? She knows that the kids have to stay safe for now.

Though still angry, I followed her silently through the now-familiar empty halls of the precinct. Since she had started working on it, the place looked unbelievably cleaner and better maintained. However, the bareness of the floors, the absence of any kind of decoration, and the still broken bits of walls that hadn’t been fixed gave it a hostile and unsettling vibe. It reminded me of those exhibits in World War II museums where they showed you broken and abandoned houses from villages that had been razed down. That kind of place you could totally imagine being the setting for an amateur ghost-themed horror movie.

When we arrived in the ‘living room’ Alison had built for the siblings, I froze in surprise at the appearance of someone I had never seen before.

“Hey Alex,” Marie-Anne greeted me with a smile. “This is Hassan. He’s one of Alison’s friends. He’s super cool!”

I simply nodded back at the girl, eyes still fixated on the forty-something-year-old man sitting mere meters from children Alison was supposed to be protecting.

“Hassan, meet my new Robin, Alex,” Alison declared with a hand gesture that reminded me of an auctioneer presenting a rare jewel to a crowd of rich people.

The stranger eyed me up and down with a critical glance before standing up and extending a hand towards me.

“Nice to meet you, kid,” he said with a pleasant voice that sounded far too nice to be genuine.

“Nice to meet you too,” I said mechanically as I shook the man’s hand.

My anger at Alison had subsided, and it was soon replaced by a heavy sense of concern and suspicion towards the newcomer. Something was unsettling about the guy. I couldn’t say whether it was the muscular frame underneath the tight green sweater, the dark piercing gaze, or the plainly visible empty holster at his side, but something set me on edge.

“Alison tells me you’ve been helping her with her… jobs lately,” Hassan said as he let go of my hand, not breaking eye contact.

How much does this guy know? I wondered internally as I shot a questioning glance towards Alison.

“Hassan knows about most of our business, Alex,” she said. “Marie-Anne, Yvan, do you mind leaving us for a little while?”

Yvan snorted. “As if we didn’t know what you guys did.”

“That’s not what privacy is about,” Alison said patiently. “I don’t want our guests to be uncomfortable.”

“She told us to leave, and you’re just trying to play smart,” Marie-Anne said as she dragged her brother out of the room with a death glare.

That little lady seems to be taking after Alison. I thought with a slight frown. I don’t know how I feel about this.

“Where are her two… pets, by the way?” I asked, voicing out loud the idle thought that had crossed my mind.

“Working,” Alison answered simply. “Turns out they don’t mind. But that’s not why we’re here.”

Working? What the hell is she having those two monsters do? I thought in bewilderment. I will need to know more… Once we’re done with the matter at hand.

“Right,” I said as I took a seat next to Alison. “I need help—”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Alison interjected. “I’m going to explain why I made you come here so that you don’t blow up from internal pressure, Robin.”

I huffed in frustration but let her continue. She just never stops pushing buttons, does she?

“So, basically,” Alison started. “You two have come to me, within a few hours of one another, regarding the exact same person. Now I’m pretty confident you two don’t know each other, and I’m almost certain you wouldn’t try to double-cross me…”

A heavy silence settled while Hassan and I tried making sense of what was happening.

“…so why are the two of you luring me into the same trap?” Alison concluded as she crossed her arms.

“Toolb—Alison, do you really think I would knowingly risk damaging the most profitable business relationship I have?” Hassan said with a heavy frown.

“I mostly trust you, Hassan. But this is not what this is about,” Alison said patiently. “And before you say anything, Alex, the same thing goes to you. I think the both of you are being played.”

I bit back my reply as I mulled over the possibility. Although I didn’t know Lisa that well, I couldn’t believe she’d willingly send me to my death. But then again, why did she come to me? That does sound somewhat suspicious, in light of what Alison just said.

“Come on, Vanessa, and I go way back. If she was trying to get to you, she would have told me by now,” Hassan retorted.

“I’m not putting the blame on her either. Your story is way too convoluted and random to have been somebody’s actual plan. But the probability that a woman linked both to you and Alex was kidnapped mere weeks after we started wrecking the local human trafficking ring is just too suspicious.”

“No such thing as coincidences in this line of work, right?” Hassan muttered pensively. “You think this is the IHI’s doing?”

“I don’t know. Mr. O seems to think the Scanner’s not good enough for that sort of stuff, but I don’t have a solid lead yet. I mean, aside from anybody else I might have pissed off recently. But all of this stinks.” Alison paused and tapped her fingers on her knee. “I think your story is true, Hassan, but the ransom thing is where things start looking suspicious. Why go through all that trouble to ask for a ransom. Why not go to her family? No, somebody was targeting you, specifically—and, by extension, me. What I’m still having trouble figuring out is whether these opportunists are actually linked to the Impacted woman disappearance or not.”

“You think somebody took the opportunity of the kidnapping to throw me off the actual lead?” Hassan said in surprise. “I’m not convinced. The mob definitely has the motive and the tools to achieve the kidnapping, and it wouldn’t be the first time they ask for a ransom after kidnapping a cop.”

“Doesn’t make the rest any less true. The mob kidnapping could be the vector for whoever is trying to mess with us. Now the question to ask is who stands to profit?” Alison said, a slight frown appearing on her face. “Aside from the IHI… I’m having trouble thinking of someone who would have the means to do all this.”

“But you’re not convinced…” Hassan pondered. “I don’t know. I think it could still be them. Sure, it’s not their usual motto, but they’ve proved to be far more crafty than we gave credit for during the past.”

I hadn’t understood everything that had been said, but so far, what Alison and Hassan had talked about had all sounded both reasonable and completely improbable at the same time. I lacked the knowledge to know exactly what was important and who the players were in this big game they were playing, but if I wanted to start having a leading role in this story, I would have to begin understanding all of it.

“Isn’t there, like, a ‘super-smart’ Impacted who could do all this?” I asked tentatively. “Like someone who could plan like a genius?”

Hassan snorted, and Alison rolled her eyes.

“What?” I asked in confusion. “Did I say something stupid?”

“The so-called ‘super-smart’ classification is an arbitrary designation that lumps in a lot of very different abilities that don’t have much to do with one another,” Hassan explained. “Basically, there hasn’t been any recorded instance of anyone becoming a genius from getting a super-power. A few Impacted did get expanded brain faculties, such as new senses, greater reflexes, or even altered brain proportions. Some of them did get smarter than they were before, but none of them ever reached Einstein-level intellect.”

“Didn’t you tell me that a large proportion of the Impacted population isn’t known by the public yet?” I said, turning my head toward Alison.

“Yes, but we have a large enough sample to conjecture,” she replied. “Anyway, the point is, it’s not a mastermind plan that we fell into. It’s just an opportunistic scheme from someone with access to way too much information about us. And aside from the Scanner—and the kids, but that’s just not possible—I don’t see who else would know about us.”

“Serge,” I wondered out loud. “The bald guy. He knows our faces. And he’s definitely got motive.”

Alison paused. I wasn’t sure, but I could have sworn that she had cursed at herself for not remembering the most obvious of all the suspects. “That—” she hesitated. “That would mean that he got away last time, which is possible. But how? I’m pretty sure he worked as muscle for De Sevin because he’s not that resourceful.”

“Maybe he just gave someone the intel, and that person put the pieces together?” Hassan hazarded and then winced. “I have to say, I know the guy, and he knows me. And although we’re not on bad terms, I don’t think he’d balk at using me to get revenge on you guys.”

We all fell into silence as we considered the possibility.

“So… that doesn’t quite rule out the IHI, then,” Hassan concluded.

“Well, now that we have two suspects, what do we do?” I asked.

“We plan accordingly,” Alison replied. “If it’s the IHI—which I’m still not sure it is—we know they just want us dead, so they’re sending us to the mob so that we get killed.”

“And I know for a fact that Serge isn’t on great terms with the mob either,” Hassan continued. “If he wants revenge on you, pitting you against each other could be a win-win scenario for him.”

“Alright. If I understand what you guys are saying correctly, we have to possible scenario. In both of them, we have to face the mob. What do we do know?” I asked.

“We talk to the mob,” Alison and Hassan said in unison.

It turns out that what Alison and Hassan meant by “talking to the mob” was actually talking to the mob. As in face to face. Also, when they said ‘the mob’, I thought they meant it as a generic term for the local crime syndicate. Not the actual Italian Mafia.

In that odd yet scary twist of events, Alison and I found ourselves seated in a cozy yet intimidating Italian restaurant somewhere in the outskirts of town. Aside from the two guards that had searched us at the entrance, no one talked to us. The only thing I could hear were short bursts of hushed chatter in the back and the soft sound of Italian music seeping out of the discrete speakers in the far corner of the room.

Alison and I were seated at a large table in a corner, facing away from the door, to my mild displeasure. Even before starting shooting people and regrowing fingers, I had always disliked facing away from entrances. My reptilian brain simply didn’t like the prospect of not having a way out of a potentially dangerous situation, and for once, my rational brain fully agreed.

In the tense thirty lengthy minutes, Alison and I had waited in almost complete silence, and although no one was holding me at gunpoint, I felt the knot in my stomach tighten with every passing second.

I whispered something loud enough to be picked up by the earpiece I was wearing inside my full-face soldering mask.

“What’s taking them so long? Is this normal?” I asked tensely.

After Hassan had voiced his intention of not tagging along with us, he offered to manage what he called the ‘logistics’ and ‘coms’ of the operation. With this in mind, he had proposed that we all wear cordless earpieces so that the three of us could communicate covertly. I had been skeptical at first since I thought the mob wouldn’t agree with us wearing a soldering mask at our meetings, but it turns out they didn’t care much about seeing our faces so long as we didn’t have any kind of guns with us.

“I have no idea. This is my first time meeting them as well,” Alison replied casually.

“What?” I loud-whispered in shock. “And you just jumped in like that?”

“Alex, you have to understand something crucial if you’re going to stick by my side,” Alison said in a steel tone. “The parts of the jobs that aren’t about killing are about how you interact with other people. In the current instance, we’re here to demonstrate the size of our metaphorical balls.”

I cringed at the flippancy with which she had admitted that she didn’t know more than me about our current plight but chose to remain quiet as there was clearly no going back now.

We waited for another fifteen minutes in near-complete silence when finally we heard some loud voices coming from the back. Somebody laughed loudly, and another man said something in what I supposed was Italian. After a few seconds of loud chatter and sounds of pats on the back, five men entered the room.

“Good evening, Miss and Mr. A,” a white-haired wrinkled man with a heavy tan said as he took a seat in front of Alison.

“So that’s it? We’re the A&A now? Who’s stupid idea was it to call us that?” Alison whispered into her helmet, eliciting a chuckle from Hassan.

A second man, small and balding, with bulging eyes and a mean look, took the other seat in front of us and the other three men silently sat by their sides.

Where the two burly men standing by the door were obviously the muscle, I wasn’t quite sure about the purpose of the three additional men. They wore casual clothes and fancy hairstyles, and one of them wore a fragrance so smelly that I had no doubt it could have made flowers wither in a 20-meter radius. Though there was no mistake in the aura of danger surrounding them, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if one or more of them were carrying guns.

“Marin, Sabri, go take a walk,” one of them spoke, snapping his fingers arrogantly.

Though one of them frowned deeply at the disrespectful order, the two men at the door exited the room without a word.

“These are my associates, Damien, Nico, Bruno, and Jean-Claude,” the old man spoke, pointing at the four men accompanying him, starting with the bulging-eyed man.

“The first guy, Damien, definitely Impacted,” Hassan said. “I don’t know what his power is, but I think it’s bad. Do not engage needlessly.”

Hassan’s words sent a chill down my spine.

“Mister Toscano, it is nice to meet you,” Alison replied curtly as she nodded her head. I mimicked the gesture but kept my mouth shut.

In a passing thought, I remarked that the sound coming from outside of the mask was slightly dulled but could be heard fine since there was almost no sound in the rest of the room. This could have gone very differently in a more crowded place, and I resolved to talk to Alison about potential future alternatives. There had to be a better solution.

“Please, call me Salvatore, Miss. A. I hear some people told you the most dreadful things about my family and our dealings,” the old man continued with a frown on his face.

The big-eyed man, which I decided to nickname ‘Crazy Frog’, was darting his eyes between Alison and me silently, to my growing discomfort. To avoid his disturbingly animalistic gaze, I instead chose to focus on the conversation between Alison and the old man.

“Which part? The partaking in human trafficking? Or the kidnapping of that woman for a ransom?” Alison asked idly.

The three men I pegged as mafiosos immediately reacted by straightening up and taking a menacing stance. One of them reached into his breast pocket, but before anything could go wrong, the old man silently raised his hand in an appeasing gesture and scratched his throat. Though the three men kept a frown on their faces, they relaxed their stance a little.

“Toolbox, you’re here to avoid fighting, goddammit!” Hassan yelled into his microphone.

I couldn’t help but sigh in understanding.

“I would appreciate it if you could refrain from making such accusations without provocation, Miss. A. I understand we have… different goals, but do believe me when I say I do not condone the actions you just mentioned. We are a reputable business. Not low-life criminals,” the old man said in an even tone, though he now wore a subtle frown.

“My apologies,” Alison said in a disingenuous tone. “Let me rephrase. I meant to ask whether you had worked with our common ‘friend’ Arnaud De Sevin.”

“Ah, dear old Arnaud,” the old man said in a sad tone that almost sounded genuine. “Tragically dreadful what happened to him. But that business of his was bound to bring him problems.”

“This isn’t going anywhere,” Hassan said. “We’re not here for that particular matter. You can try to take the mob down another day. Ask him if they kidnapped Vanessa. Ask him if he does really want a ransom.”

“Sorry to change topics, mister Salvatore,” I spoke up for the first time, eager not to anger the man any more than necessary. “Do you know of Vanessa Thévenet?”

The old man’s expression shifted into a mask of almost pure anger.

“What of her?” he asked as he looked at me. I could almost feel the gaze penetrating through the visor in the helmet and through my skull.

“Are you the one who kidnapped her?” Alison came to my rescue.

The old man looked genuinely taken aback by the question.

“What? No, not that I wouldn’t want to,” he said in a low voice. “That wench has been hell-bent about driving my business to the ground for the last five years.”

“Sounds somewhat genuine, as far as we can trust him,” Hassan said.

“So you were not the one to ask for a ransom,” Alison asked.

“What need would a have for a ransom?” the old man scoffed. “This is a legit business, made with legitimate funds. I have more important things to do than play cat and mouse with the likes of you. I know how much of a problem you can be to deal with—De Sevin is proof enough—so I’d rather stay on your good side. And that of mister Ulysses, whom I have no doubt is listening in right now.”

I froze at the mention of Hassan’s code name, but Alison looked unfazed, so I kept my concerns to myself.

“Well, thank you for the compliment,” Alison said, probably with a smirk. “But this raises an additional question. Who is trying to get the two of us to fight?”

“Well, there is a great many who would stand to profit in such an act,” Salvatore spoke. “But the biggest common enemy we have and the first name to come to mind is probably the IHI.”

“I don’t know, Salvatore,” Alison replied. “The only times they act so deviously is when shit is about to hit the fan. And I don’t think we’re at that point quite yet.”

“You’d be surprised,” the old man replied in a solemn tone. “But, was this all you wanted to talk about? I’m sure we both have better things to do than go over the list of people who want to kill us.”

“Well, now that you mention it,” Alison said in a confident voice. “I would like to offer you a business opportunity.”

“A deal, eh?” Salvatore said with a cocked eyebrow. “Please elaborate.”

“How would you like to cooperate into eliminating the gangs? And crushing what remains of De Sevin & Martel’s small operation?” Alison said.

“That sounds suspiciously profitable for me…” the old man said in a thoughtful voice. “What’s in it for you? I know you can’t expand, and your boss is not the kind to want us to be the only big fish in this small pond.”

“He means Mr. O, Steak,” Hassan helpfully provided. “And he’s right. He knows there’s a catch.”

“Well, it’s simple,” Alison said. “If you agree to this partnership, you drop all your operations that had and have anything to do with human trafficking.”

This time the men didn’t stop at putting their hands in their pockets and directly pulled their guns out, though they didn’t point it at us quite yet.

“Miss A, please,” the old man spoke in an irritated voice. “I told you once that I had nothing to do with those operations, and no matter how patient I am, my men have a thing against undeserved slander.”

“Toolbox…” Hassan started.

“Salvatore, I don’t know what De Sevin told you, but the ‘cargo’ you’ve been peddling for a while isn’t just guns. A lot of it was people. And even with all the good faith in the world, I have trouble believing you guys never noticed.”

The three armed men seemed to be unsure how to proceed as they looked at the old man. Salvatore didn’t reply and looked like he had sucked on a lemon.

“I know that son of a bitch was double-crossing me in some way, but I never, for one second, thought it would be like that,” he spat. “If what you tell me is true, it is good that you got rid of him. I cannot, in good conscience, do the very things the people my late father fought against sixty years ago.”

“Salvatore’s father was an Italian resistance fighter who hid Jews during WWII. I would tend to think he’s not lying about that,” Hassan whispered into our earpieces.

“Alright, I’ll believe you for now. Though I loathe to admit it, De Sevin managed to fool Ulysses and me for a long time as well,” Alison finally conceded.

“Now, I want to know one thing. Did you, or did you not, kidnap that woman?” Alison asked.

“This—” Salvatore started but got interrupted by the sound of glass breaking.

A small cylinder dropped in the middle of the room and started ejecting smoke as we all stood up and looked at it and each other in turn. The three men next to Salvatore took out their guns and aimed them at us. Crazy Frog took a weird stance and raised his arms in front of him as if he were about to play the piano.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Salvatore asked as he put a towel in front of his mouth. “Is this your doing?”

“Of course not, you stupid old fart!” Alison shouted back as she quickly stood up and away from the window. “Why would I sabotage my own—never mind. Is there a way out of here in the back? Whoever they are, they’re probably waiting outside to catch us as we exit.”

“Yes, in the back, where we came from,” Salvatore said after a split-second of hesitation.

The five men hurried towards the back of the restaurant as the room filled with noxious blinding fumes.

“Fuck, this is bad, Steak, put this on!” Alison said as she started coughing. She threw me a full-face asbestos-removal mask that I didn’t see her conjure.

Thankfully, the room was already cloudy enough that the mobsters couldn’t see our full faces. I fastened the mask quickly and adjusted it. My eyes were burning, and my lungs were threatening to explode, but the burning sensation started fading as I began to breathe into the mask.

As Alison and I darted away from the smoke-filled room through the small corridor in the back, I caught a glimpse of a blurry figure bursting through the door. Though I couldn’t quite see through the already thick noxious fumes permeating the room, I could guess that whoever had entered was heavily armed.

A few seconds later came the confirmation of my suspicion, as I distinctly heard gunshot sounds coming from behind us. We all sprinted the last few meters through the narrow corridor to spill out into an unlit back alley.

The second Alison and I set foot outside, we were greeted with the immobile figures of the men we were tailing. It took my brain a couple of seconds to process why none of them was currently moving. The alley was too narrow for me to see anything past the five mafiosos standing to my right, but I understood exactly what the issue was from their current stance. I quickly scanned our surroundings to try and find an exit, but the alley ended in a dead-end a few meters away to our left. I finally glanced at Alison worriedly as we both raised our hands above our heads.

This can’t be happening… I thought as my mind desperately tried to come up with a scenario where things weren’t going to go to shit in the next few seconds.

“This is the Impacted Humanity Initiative Special Intervention Brigade. You’re surrounded. I want to see all of your hands above your heads. Start walking towards us slowly. If I see any of you make any kind of suspicious move, you’re all fucking dead!” came a loud voice from one end of the street.

“Steak, I need you to listen to me carefully,” Alison said in a low voice.

“I told you it could be them!” Hassan almost screamed.

“Shut the fuck up, Ulysses. This is not the time! Try to fucking tap into their coms instead of being a pain in the ass,” Alison spat back. “We need to know how much they know before we act.”

“What do you mean, ‘we act’?” I asked in a panic.

“We’re going to fight our way out,” Alison said in a resolute voice.