Wednesay. Several hours into the dusk.

“MFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!”

Piercings filled the room inside of the warehouse with a blood curdling scream. He sank his teeth onto a thick towel in his jaws, sweat and blood dripping down his face. His hands were chained above his head to the bed, so whenever he thrashed the chains rattled with violence and agony. His back arched with another muffled howl, eyes wide shut. One shoulder was bandaged, fresh blood staining the cloth. As for his leg...well.

Gold Neck had his hands deep in Piercing’s second wound. Fingers inside a soft hole and he cut it wider with his army knife as a scalpel to get a better look. Piercings reared his head back as Gold Neck dug around, trying to get something. The camping bed the Jones bandit laid on was coloured red over green, dripping onto the old concrete.

“You know Goldberg. He sounds like you when the drill sergeant busted your arm.” Silver Tooth walked into the room, munching on a chocolate and granola power bar. He kicked over a stool so he could sit down right next to Piercing’s wailing bed. After another bite, he held his snack to the patient. “Hungry?”

“MFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!”

“Hmm. Got it. I’ll save some for you later then, I got plenty.” Silver Tooth nodded and ate his power bar. When blood sprayed on his forearm, he just glanced at it and brushed off the excess as if a drop of rain. “Now, for your own benefit, I suggest you stop kicking and screaming like a little girl. Else my partner here can’t help you and he’s a combat surgeon. Minus the anaesthetic, buuuut you’ll be fiiiine.”

“MFFFFF! MMFFMFMFMF!”

“Hey now, don’t be using that kind of language with me.” Silver wagged his finger, and dodged when Piercing tried to kick him in the face. “You know what your big brother did when he got shot in the balls? He walked it off. Swear to god. That man had something hanging out of his pant leg and it wasn’t a grenade.”

“MFFFFFFFMFFMFMFMMFMFffffnnnnn!”

Piercing’s violent roars soon turned into weak and pained whimpers. Gold Neck eventually plucked something out from the wound, blackened and crushed, dropping it in a kidney basin. A smashed bullet, among two others. He started cleaning the wound, Silver Tooth leaning close to Piercing.

“See. All done. And you didn’t even lose that much blood. Mozel tov! Now to patch things up and you’ll be right as rain!” Silver Tooth gave Piercings a pat on the leg in consolation – the injured one.

“MFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!”

Silver Tooth chewed on his snack, slow and steady...until he stopped. Something caught his eye, through the window. With a slow roll of his jaw, he picked up his rifle and walked out of the patient’s room.

The living room was just a huge space, big enough to house cars side by side or a couple of small two man airplanes. The Piercing’s room used to be the warehouse security booth. The whole place wasn’t even 1.5 stars, but it would make do. At the very least the living space had some furniture, discarded couches with cushions missing and a couple of camping tables and stools.

One-Eye was sitting in one of the stools, hands folded over his stomach, chin tucked to his chest, a snore. The TV in front of him was playing the news, broadcasting the convention incident, droning away and making One-Eye snore deeper. Beanie Brains occupied the whole bench, his back on the first seat, butt on the middle, and legs across the third. His gaming laptop laid across his stomach and he was playing an FPS game, headphones on. Music at full blast and LED lights raving.

Silver Tooth couldn’t resist a shake of his head at the sight and approached the front door.

The mercenary held the snack bar in his teeth as he loaded a round in the chamber of his rifle. He leaned against the wall, and peeked through a corner of the window. It was dark, well into the evening after all the running around from the police. Stars started to wake up for work in spying on the world.

The darkness was enough to emphasize a blinking light, coming from the forest about half a block from the warehouse. It continued to blink, a seven-tone rhythm, cycling over and over again.

Silver Tooth pulled back his rifle with a hum. “Olly, Olly, Oxen, Freeeee~.” He stripped off his tactical light from his gun, and he flicked it on and off, repeating the same pattern. The light in the forest stopped blinking, then two figures marched their way up the path to the warehouse.

The mercenary flicked the bolt off to let the door swing open. Big Smoke and Scorpion walked in, hefting several of their loot bags. After they tossed it to the side with a thunk, Silver Tooth walked up to Scorpion and they both shared a series of playful handshakes, ending with their hands clutching each other in an arm wrestle and pointing at each other with a smirk.

“Soooo. How’d it goooo?” Silver Tooth hummed.

Scorpion scowled to the side. “No dice.”

Big Smoke walked up to kick at a metal beam column. “No one will cash our loot. Not even guys I know who would sell their kids for diamonds like these. Sh–” Big Smoke kicked at the pillar again.

Scorpion pulled up a camping chair to sit down, elbows on knees and hands folded. “The police got word out faster than we thought. All store and fencers are turning a blind eye.”

Silver Tooth hummed as he ate his snack bar and spoke with his mouth full. “Now, I’m all for robbing a bank to get some petty cash but, we don’t have enough det charges to bust a vault. Grenades to breach 12 inch steel? Eeeeh...” He waves his hand in a 50/50.

“No.” Big Smoke rubbed at his jaw, stroking his handlebar moustache back into place. “By now the cops would have the entire city cameras at their finger tips. Maybe even a squadron of drones spying on us!” He took a peek through the windows, dropping one blind down to block out the night sky. “As if they’ll fall for the same trick Beanie pulled over their heads...By the way, how is my son Peter?”

“Piercings? Uno momento.” Silver Tooth finished up his snack bar with a dry gulp and slung his rifle to the side to clap his hands together. “So I got good news and bad news. Good news: He’ll live. Heeeey, congrats! Bad news: we realized too late our bag of meds are still back in the hotel – probably raided by SWAT already. The guy I tipped didn’t check the bedside drawer, my fault for not clarifying soooo...You’re son is gonna be in a lot of pain, and possibly have an infection.”

Scorpion covered his mouth. “We can’t sent him to the hospital, they’ll catch us instantly.”

Big Smoke closed his eyes and reared his head back. “...My son will never squeal on us, but I am not gonna take that chance. Can he move?”

“One second. Yo Goldberg! On a scale of 1 to 10, how fast can the goober move?”

Gold Neck just stared, then went off to clean his bloodied hands.

Silver Tooth sucked in air and said. “That be a zero.”

Big Smoke face palmed, roaring into his sealed lips. That was when he turned around, towards Beanie Brains. The teen was still playing his video game, laying across the couch and laptop on his stomach. Headphones on.

“Beanie, I need your help.”

         Video game noises.

“Beanie...Hey...Beanie!”

         More video game noises.

“...BENJAMIN JONES!”

         EVEN MORE VIDEO GAME NOIS––

Big Smoke yanked the headphones off his son’s ears and smashed them to the ground. Plastic and RGB light tubes flung everywhere. A battery smacked One-Eye’s eye patch and startles him awake. Big Smoke clenched a fist, lips twisted and his handlebar bent with rage...but he exhaled, loosened his grip and knelt down to the teen on the couch.

“Son.” Big Smoke spoke with one hand on Beanie Brain’s shoulder. “Go and get some medicine for your brother. Antibiotics, painkillers, things like that. Also some food and see if you can use your magic to get us some cash. That little trick you do with the ATMs.”

“...Why me?”

Big Smoke flinched from Beanie’s question. The confusion was so strong, the mob boss found himself stuttering. “D-didn’t you see the news? Everyone in town saw our mug shots. The cops are looking for us and they probably got some fancy A.I. super computer to detect our faces if we so much as jaywalk.” Big Smoke placed his second hand on his son’s shoulder. “Beanie, you’re our only hope. We need you.”

Beanie Brain brushed his father’s hand off. He clapped his laptop and stood up with it under his arms and held it tight. He cleared his throat and cocked his head up to stare into his father’s eyes. “You need me? Me, the brains of the family? Hmm? Let me ask: where were you when I was born?”

“I-I uuh.” Big Smoke looked around, hoping to find his answer written on the ground.

“Robbing a bank? Guess so. Where were you when kids made fun of me and dunked my head into toilets?”

“...Uh..I...”

“Extorting some druggie who owed you money. Ye? And where were you when mom died? Shagging someone’s wife?”

SLAP!

Scorpion and One-Eye bolted to their feet. Silver Tooth made an ‘o’ with his mouth and stepped back, slapping a hand on Gold Neck’s chest to stop him when he heard a loud noise. Big Smoke had veins bulging up and down his neck. Jaws grinding squeezed against the skin of his face. Red, red, red. Eyes blood shot.

“...O-oh sh––B-Benjamin I’m sorry I didn’t mean to!”

Big Smoke’s steam fell out. His hands shook from anger to another emotion. He clenched his fingers, nails digging into his skin, a look of shame on his face. The mob boss swallowed hard when he saw his own hand print on his son’s cheek. “Th-that’s all in the past now. I’m a free man, a-and we’re rich! We can start over, father son! Yeah! W-we can go fishing, baseball or football o-or even both! A-and have barbecues with your friends! Heck, we can live like kings with these diamonds!”

         Beanie Brain stared.

“...Video games! Of course! You love that stuff right!? Uuuh, how’s this. Name any video game or console you want, I’ll get it for you!”

         Silence.

“...Here’s a 20. It’s all I got. B-buy yourself some pizza while you’re out there.”

“Whatever.” Beanie Brain swiped the $20 dollars from his father and stuffed his laptop in his bag. Adjusting his rainbow toque, he slung his backpack onto his shoulder – smacking One-Eye in the groin with it.

Silver Tooth immediately jumped to the side, opening the door for Beanie Brains like a butler. Fortunately, all he got was a flip of the bird and the teen walked out into the night.