The manager was right, we’re exactly above them. They can’t see us from our position, or at least so we hope. “Okay, let’s make the point of the situation. Roxanne, are there more terrorists besides those three and you?”
She shakes her head, “there were supposed to be eight of us, but four got arrested yesterday, so it’s just us. I went to take the bomb we hid while we were preparing for the attack, and was supposed to do the patrolling after that.”
“Perfect, we won’t have to worry about meeting anyone then.”
Mina calls for my attention. “Nuh-uh Kolten, give a better look at the situation.”
Did I miss something? Hmm… oh. “One of them is gone.”
“Yup, it’s just the woman and the one keeping the kid hostage now.”
Roxanne sighs, “maybe he went looking for me. I’ve had… some issues at the bathroom.”
Ari trembles visibly at the memory, but we’d rather not tell her that we know.
I wonder if… “is he your lover? The one that’s missing?”
She shakes her head. “No, it’s the one keeping the kid hostage. The one…” - her voice cracks - “the one who started this mess.”
I can see the sadness in her eyes. Anger, too. She deserves better than this.

Anyway, I gotta analyze the situation. “I’ll think about something. Ari, if you hear something, tell us right away.”
“Yessir!”
Let’s try to divide this big problem into smaller problems. If we do something to one of them, the other will retaliate. “How can we distract the woman so that he’ll leave the other man alone with the hostage?”
As we’re trying to think of something, I can hear the sirens of the police from outside trying to get their attention. Too bad they’re not seeking anything but bloodshed, there’s not gonna be any negotiation. Oh, sirens! “Hey, hear me out! What if we trigger one of the shops’ alarms? Maybe they’ll think that someone is hiding and will try to catch them!”
Everyone seems to like the idea, except for Ari. “What if we’re the ones getting caught, though?”
That’s a valid concern. We need a shop that is far enough, but not too far that they might not distinguish the alarm from the noise from outside, and close enough to a place where we can run away safely.
Mina raises her hand as if she were at school. It’s something she’s always done when she has something to share, it’s too damn cute. “What if we throw an anti-theft tag from the barriers on the top floor? We just need to find the right shop.”
It might just work! “That’s a great idea, let’s do it!”
Now, the next problem is… “what about the missing man?”
Roxanne can probably shoot him, but we don’t want that. Mina raises her hand again. “I have an idea, and we’re gonna need Roxanne.” - then she looks at her - “are you okay with betraying your friends?”
Roxanne’s face gets serious. “They’ve never been my friends. I’ll make them pay.”

We left the manager to keep an eye on the situation and, guided by Ari’s ears, we got a tag from a cloth shop. Sorry Lauren Tailor, we had to rip it off that skirt or the cloth might interfere. Sacrifices were necessary. We also got some tennis balls to do a proof of concept, and we can reach the entrance of the shop easily.

Taking the man out is the only thing left. We found him on the opposite side, but we need to wait for him to come closer to us because the top floor doesn’t cover that side of the mall. This is on Roxanne now.
We’re looking through the barriers, she’s waiting at a corner not too far from the bathrooms. Her back facing in his direction, the bag with the bomb close to her, looking towards a shop. He took the bait. The pace of his steps got swifter. “Roxanne! What the fu-“
She turns and looks at him and places a finger on her lips. “Shh! I got them!”
He gets close to her, they’re whispering. We go back to hiding just to be sure. “Ari, what are they saying?”
“She’s telling him she found some fugitives. Hmm… she’s asking him about his gun. An… eem twelve? I don’t know anything about guns. She wants to try holding it… because… Vincenzo never gave her the good stuff. So her man’s name is Vincenzo, huh? Aaand it’s already over.”
We don’t need him to hear for us, they’re not whispering anymore. “Oh, so now you go and try to betray us?”
She’s pointing his own gun against him, his hands raised. “You almost made me kill people in the name of God, I’m disgusted in myself for even falling for it!”
“Wow, these pagans are good at brainwashing! Go ahead, let me see how a useless, filthy mongrel like you can even hope to achieve anything!”
Ari is still hearing the situation in his own way. “Ah, she’s sniffling. Piece of shit.”
She’s furious, it’s written all over her face. “I felt more loved by them in five minutes than during all those years I spent being exploited by you all!”
The man stopped raising his hands, probably thinking that she’s just playing around. Don’t underestimate her, asshole. “Sure, as if anyone could like you! Unfaithful bitch! Bark for your new owners, woof woof!”
His barking, though, rather than by other barks, was followed by gunshots and by the sound of a shattered shop window. “Ouch!” - Ari’s sensible to loud noises. She didn’t hit him, but she fired close to his face judging by his expression, and by the fact that he’s raising his hands again. “I don’t bark, I only bite. Next time you speak a word, just one, you get an extra hole in your face. Nod if you understand.”
He nods in terror. We go downstairs and lock his hands and legs with some zip ties while she points her newly acquired gun at his head. Mina just finished sharpening her tongue for this moment. “This dude thinks he’s a smartass and then gives his gun away. ‘Bark dog’, ‘filthy mongrel’, you watch too much TV, who even talks like this? What are you, a kid? Does your mom know that you say bad words?”
While we immobilize the man by tying him to an arcade machine using an obscene amount of duct tape and shut his mouth using a pair of (hopefully) fresh briefs from a clothes shop, my phone vibrates. It’s the manager. “We all heard gunshots, down here too, is everything okay?”
“We are, how’s the situation there?”
“I don’t know, the two are talking. They’re not moving, for now. I’ll call you back if they do.”
“Thank you.”
Now that I think about it, it’s weird that they aren’t communicating in any way. “Roxanne, don’t you guys have radios or anything?”
She looks away in embarrassment. “Erm, the bomb isn’t the only thing I messed up… I got the wrong kind of jammer and threw it on the roof…”
“And what’s wrong with the bomb?”
“… I forgot the batteries for the wireless detonator.”
Now I get why the man said she’s useless. I look at him, he rolls his eyes. Then I look at Ari: somehow, I can relate.
The noise they made could actually help us out, they must be more on guard. With that in mind, we go back upstairs to discuss the rest of the plan.

Mina makes the point of the situation. “So, we took one out, and we have a plan to distract the other. What now?”
Ah, I should’ve thought about it before we made our move. We got too excited when we thought of a plan to take the remaining man out. “Alright, so we need to save the hostage and disarm the man.”
“Maybe I should go and stomp on his ingrown toenails.”
Roxanne said that with audible sadism in her voice. By freeing her from her shackles we might have corrupted her even further. “Plural? No, never mind that, it’s better if you don’t see each other for now” - it’s better for both of them.
We go back to thinking, but we can’t find any good idea. Ari kept mumbling by himself. “Is everything okay?”
He’s pensive. “It’s just… the voice of the kid sounds so familiar. He’s been mumbling about wanting to die for a while now.”
“That’s way too dark for such a young kid.”
Mina looks down through the barrier, trying to get a better look at the kid. Then she raises both her brows in disbelief. “Wait. I know that face.”
She grabs her phone and tries to get his face into the frame, then snaps a photo using the zoom lens. “Oh no. You guys won’t believe this shit.”
We get around her and see the kid’s face. Ari is suffocating his laughter. I can’t believe my eyes neither, I would think it was some kind of joke if I didn’t see her take the picture in front of me. “That’s Emil from class C.”
Despite still having a gun pointed at his head he doesn’t even look scared, he’s just clearly dead inside. “The poor dude will be left psychologically scarred for the rest of his entire life. Imagine being so short that even terrorists think you’re a small kid and take you hostage.”
I’m also trying not to laugh, but every time my eyes meet Ari’s we risk letting it all out and blowing everything up. When I manage to stop, though, I realize that we can use this to our advantage. “I want to try something. I know he likes tech, maybe there’s a way to talk to him. Mina, zoom on his hands.”
She shows me the phone. I knew it. “He’s wearing his smartwatch. I should have his number. Alright, I might have a plan. I don’t know if it’s doable, but we gotta try. You guys wait here. Ari, let’s go to the supermarket. We’ll be back in a moment.”

I’m sending him a message. “If you can read this, tap thrice with the tip of your shoe.”
We look in his direction. He glances at his arm, the watch lightened up. Aaand… that’s it, he tapped three times!
“Start calling for your mommy like a kid. Trust me. Please. Tap thrice if read.”
He let out a very visible sigh before tapping thrice. I can see him moving his mouth, Ari is about to burst out laughing. Sorry, Emil, trust the plan.
He’s got the man’s attention, good. He’s saying something. “Ari, stop laughing and tell me what’s going on’.”
“Oh man, I can’t handle this… alright, Vincenzo is mumbling something about Roxanne and wanting to bomb everyone. Now he told Emil to shut up-pff!”
Good, I’ll give the okay to Mina. She read it. Shortly after, we hear the alarm: the trick worked.
Immediately, the woman moves to speak with the man. “Ari, what are they saying?”
“She asked if she should go check what’s happening, and… oh no, he said to stay where she is.”
Damn it, the plan won’t work if she stays there.
“She said something about Roxanne and… Levi? Guess that’s the other man. He says that it could be a trap.”
I let Mina know about the situation, since Roxanne is still waiting for the woman to arrive. “The woman went back to her place.”
My phone buzzes. “Bring me one of the pipes.”
Huh? What does she even need it for? “Alright.”
I walk in her direction, to the very end of the top floor, bringing her a pipe. “What do you need it for?”
“It was a suggestion from Roxanne”, then with no warning, she drops it from the barrier, towards the back. The sound of a loud metal pipe falling and hitting the floor filled the entirety of the mall, followed by a loud scream from Roxanne, who then lied on the floor close to the pipe, her bag close to her.
My phone buzzes, it’s the manager. “She’s coming, and your brother is in pain.”
“Holy shit Mina, it worked!”
We keep an eye on the lower floor. We can see the woman walk towards the pipe, looking around, holding her gun. As soon as she sees Roxanne, she runs in her direction. “Roxanne! Wake up, Roxanne!”
She puts her gun in her holster and keeps calling her name while shaking her. Roxanne might actually be a great actress. After a bit she replies and sits up, we can see them talk. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but the tone of the woman’s voice is pissing me off. Roxanne is faking pain in her head, but they both get up. The woman gets her gun, and they start walking toward the entrance. Roxanne grabs the pipe as the woman walks in front of her, don’t tell me… Ah, she did it. It wasn’t nearly as loud, but I heard the pipe hitting her head. Ow, I got secondhand pain. “Damn, what if she killed her?”
“Nah, she’s gonna be okay. I think.”
I raise my brow, “I don’t like the idea of having witnessed a murder.”
She ruffs my hair with a smile, “it’ll be fiiine! Probably!”
Meanwhile, Roxanne tied her arms and feet with zip locks and her mouth with duct tape. She’s got an insane amount of stuff like that in her bag, like at least four or five rolls of tape, to the point that I’m not so sure that most of its weight comes from the gas tank attached to the bomb (and trust me, it weights a ton).
In the span of a minute, while I was googling how lethal a hit on your head can be, the woman came back to her senses and started shaking. Roxanne dragged her by her feet where the top floor nor our eyes can reach, and came back from the stairs with a satisfied look on her face. “… Do you have some beef with them all?”
She nods with a large, sadistic grin on her face. “She’s my sister-in-law, she always treated me like shit. Don’t know if I’m glad or pissed that it didn’t kill her.”

We grouped back together, the manager is massaging the ears of an aching Ari. I pat his shoulder while looking right under us: Vincenzo is alone. We can do this. “What has he been saying during this time?”
Ari’s sniffling, “sniff, he said stuff like just shooting everyone and wanting to strangle Roxanne.”
Time to get this done. Roxanne is ready to play her part, and probably to beat the shit out of her husband too.
I grab my phone to text Emil. “When you see the signal, stomp hard on his toes. Tap thrice.”
He checks his wrist and glances at it. He tapped thrice.
Next message. “For now, call mommy louder. After a bit, pretend to cry on his chest. Sorry. Tap thrice.”
He looks again at his watch. Then pretends he didn’t see anything.
“Please. Tap thrice.”
He checks again. Ari heard him talk, “Emil is asking for someone to kill him.”
I text him again. “Please.”
This time he doesn’t even check his wrist, and just taps thrice with the tip of his shoe. Ari is about to die trying to keep his laughter inside, which should mean that Emil is doing his part.
Roxanne is in position. Me, Mina, and the manager are holding a packet of flour each, waiting for Emil to start acting like a baby. Here he goes, he’s talking to the man. Ari is rolling on the floor. Now he’s crying on his chest, Vincenzo is so pissed that he just dropped his arms and isn’t even pointing the gun anymore. It’s time. “Guys, let’s do this!”
At the same time, we all drop the packets of flour around him, blinding and distracting him. “What the fuck is this!” - then Emil stomps on his toes. We didn’t see it, but we heard a horrifying scream, one of those that horror movies struggle to recreate. He drops his gun, and Roxanne runs in his direction, punches his face, and grabs his gun on the floor, pointing it at him.
“We did it, we won!”
We look down from the barriers towards the crowd and scream, “quick, take the cardboard off! The police are right outside the mall!”

Licensed under Yozakura BY-NC-SA-NoAI 1.0