02 • Meet the misfits •
Abandoned warehouses,
outskirts of the First Zone.
33 days to Zero Hour.
"It's an unfunny joke," she muttered quietly as the guard slammed the door behind her, immersing her into yet another room.
It looked like it had been converted quickly from some warehouse; on the left were various barrels, cardboard boxes and pallets. To the right, far from this chaos, there was an unexpected sight—a row of school desks with a large interactive whiteboard.
It's a joke.
However, she wasn't alone this time. Four pairs of eyes locked onto her, and she felt like a sheep surrounded by a pack of wolves.
"And finally someone became interested in us! "The first to speak was a red boy with a snubby freckled nose. But after looking at the new specimen for a while, he reflected: "Well, you don't look like any of those pompous guys" he sighed heavily, leaning back on a wooden chair.
"Are you lost looking for a bathroom, or are you just another person they canned?" another boy interjected. If she met him in an alley in the evening, she would have started running away; even from a few meters he looked large like a double door wardrobe.
She shook her head slightly as she realized they were waiting for her answer and she looked at them like they were idiots.
"The second option," she replied, not moving from the door. She had four peasants in front of her, and she didn't think of approaching them. She had too strong an allergy to the opposite sex.
"So another sardine for the collection!" The redhead clapped his hands, then put his beard on the counter, turning towards the board and completely losing interest in Thifer. "I wonder how many more people they kidnap before they let us out" he muttered, turning a blind eye.
"In my opinion, this is the last one."
Kelly almost had a heart attack when a boy with hair so light that it was almost white appeared right next to her. She didn't hear his approach, which only confirmed her belief that she had hopeless divided attention.
"I'm sorry, I didn't want to scare you," he said quickly, seeing her twitch nervously and jumped half a meter to the right.
"Why such a conclusion, Einstein?" snorted another.
Kelly glanced at the guy, who was sitting comfortably in a chair as if he were at home. His auburn hair fell on his wrinkled forehead. He looked like one who, for any reason, would be murder, just the first impression.
The white-haired man, undeterred by the touch, pointed to the benches.
"They set up five one-man benches, hence the conclusion that they don't anticipate anyone beyond their means" he explained calmly, as if talking to a child. "So welcome on board." He smiled amicably, the smile of the hostess.
One of the group, the man referred to as the "two-door wardrobe," mumbled while stroking his beard, "I didn't expect to see girls in this cheerful circus, but it's a nice change."
Thifer looked at him, then slowly shifted her gaze to the rest and bit her cheek from the inside so as not to scream. She wanted to grab her head and then hit it hard in the wall.
"Did they also greet you with a stun gun in the neck?" asked the boy who got the nickname Einstein, although for her he prospered more on Elsa.
She nodded, looking for a possible escape route, but she couldn't even see the stupid fan that her fat butt wouldn't have been fit anyway.
"And you were talking to Mr. Pleasant too, I mean Callean?"
She nodded again, appreciating it with a mocking smile. It matched Callean. Together with the pseudonym Mr. F**ked Blackmailer.
"So we have a modus operandi for a possible murderer: a law enforcement officer locks up five criminals in one room and then makes a mass murder," said the slightly white-haired man, returning to his bench, and Kelly wondered how much they were already sitting here.
They looked like they had become accustomed to their presence, but not enough to trust each other and start to sympathize. She felt a thick atmosphere.
"Callean will probably enjoy putting us in jail and then killing us pretending to be suicide" the two-door wardrobe murmured, then shifted the gaze of dark, almost black eyes to Thifer. "Are you putting down roots there?" he asked ironically, and then pointed to the last free bench by the wall.
Kelly, after a moment of hesitation and under the watchful eyes of her fellow captives, walked across the room and took her seat. She leaned against the cool wall, curled one leg up, and wrapped her arms around it.
There was silence between them, no one wanted to talk, and there was nothing strange about it; they locked five strangers in one room and expected them to cooperate. Good joke.
Kelly decided to use the next minutes to analyze her companions. By nature, she was a good observer, able to see a lot of things at first glance invisible to others, which made up for her hopeless divisibility of attention.
The male version of Elsa sat stiffly in a chair staring at her hands. He was tall and wiry, with a light, pale complexion. He looked like a mild-mannered person who shouldn't be a problem. But who knows…
Before he could sense that she was insolently watching him, she shifted her gaze to the red-haired boy sitting next to him.
He looked like he was dozing well, his head on the counter, ignoring the world around him. His snub nose was adorned with several freckles. Like Elsa, in stature he didn't seem to be a problem. Both of them looked more like school nerds, which become dangerous only when a dose of caffeine is taken away from them.
But the other two didn't fit that mold. Mr. Two-Door Wardrobe and Mr. Wrinkled Nose looked like professional fighters, tall and muscular, with a cold, intimidating demeanor. Kelly couldn't help but wonder how many people they had to overpower before being captured. And how many volts had coursed through their necks before they succumbed.
Since they didn't know each other's names and she needed some way to refer to them, she assigned nicknames. The white-haired man became Elsa, the redhead remained Ginger Nerd, the wardrobe became Amstaff, and the Wrinkled Nose earned the name Gargamel for his constant scowling.
Satisfied with her mental categorization, she sighed quietly and rested her forehead on her knee, giving her body a moment to calm down. Mental peace, however, was far from reach.
So she wasn't the only one who ended up in this merry circus, huh. Callean recruited several other professional lawbreakers for his nefarious mission. Even after she agreed to his proposal, he had no intention of revealing his plan.
You will find out in your own time.
She wanted to throw herself down his throat, but didn't want another nap. However, since he had assembled a small team, something bigger was in the plan. But why did he assemble a team of criminals? It didn't make sense. What if they betrayed each other?
Then it hit her.
She looked at each boy one by one. The redhead and Elsa were her age, the other two maybe a few years older; they would have had a whole normal life ahead of them, but they chose a path outside the law. As a result, each of them was probably nicely blackmailed by Callean. She wonder what they had to lose, what Zack Callean was going to take away from them. Girlfriend/fiancée? Sister/brother? Favorite dog, car? Maybe something even more valuable that would explain why everyone was humbly sitting in their seats, and Callean didn't end up with a bullet in his forehead.
She immediately thought of Estheim. Callean knew where the only person in the world she cared about was. He knew exactly what to hit, what her most sensitive point was. How long had he been watching her? How much time did he spend getting all this information about her? She didn't even want to know how he found out. He must have clearly signed a pact with the devil. Or he was one.
She raised her head as the door creaked. And about fate, she called a wolf from the forest, or rather – a devil from hell. Callean unhurriedly walked the whole room, heading under the blackboard, as if he didn't feel all these murderous glances on him at all. Behind him was an Asian short black-haired girl, completely out of step with the climate. She was too optimistic, too friendly.
Callean threw the document file on a small table and, with his hands in his pants pockets, waited for everyone to take their seats. The girl stood next to him like a shadow.
"It's nice to know that you haven't killed each other," he said in a casual tone, as if he hadn't kidnapped them at all and kept them against their will; just a simple meeting of a group of alcoholics.
"We'd also appreciate it if you could explain why you've gathered us all here," Amstaff said, taking on the role of spokesperson.
"As I have told each of you, the matter is simple. We need you criminals to break up another gang of criminals" he threw this information in their faces, like a professional rugby player.
Kelly sat up straight, staring at the man in disbelief. The others shared her surprise and confusion.
Criminals might not have close relationships, but there was an unwritten rule in their industry: you didn't expose your fellow criminals. After all, everyone was in the same swamp, and betrayal was taken seriously. There were cases where someone had betrayed their own, but those informants never lasted long. Nor did they live long.
And they were forced to play just such informers.
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