Friday morning, Emz awoke in a small hotel located on the corner of Xtina and Lawrence, a quiet street just east of Poyz Midton International station. He didn’t feel rested at all—an uneasy night of fitful overthinking had left him drained. The hotel room was impeccably clean, with gleaming surfaces and not a speck of dust in sight. However, the bedding lacked any sense of cosiness. The sheets felt stiff and synthetic, chosen more for durability than comfort. The duvet had a plasticky texture, and the pillows, though plump, felt more like overfilled cushions than something you'd want to rest your head on. It was a space that prioritised practicality over warmth, leaving an oddly impersonal impression.
He checked his mobile screen, resting sideways on the bedside table. The time read 08:16. It was going to be a long day of hiding out.
Emz stared up at the ceiling, wondering if his apartment had been trashed. It was definitely a place they would check when looking for him. He didn’t mind if the door was broken in—that was a small price to pay—but he hoped they hadn’t smashed up the place in a fit of rage.
He thought through his plans for the day, which amounted to not being found and sending a few key messages to set his final moves into play. The culmination of these plans, however, would come early Saturday morning, involving a task he dreaded. He spent all of Friday wracking his brain for an alternative, but nothing seemed promising.
Emz turned over and glanced at the time again. The screen now read 08:19. He had expected more time to have passed. His restless mind was trapped in a distorted perception of time, neither wanting to drag out the day nor eager to rush into the next. Each minute would be agonising.
He pulled the synthetic sheet over his head and closed his eyes, willing sleep to take him. Eventually, it did.
He woke up closer to lunchtime, he got up, showered, dressed, and ventured out to stock up on drinks and snacks from a vending machine in the hallway. Returning to his room, he devoured the protein bars and cans of cold caffeinated fizzy drinks.
By the early evening, Emz sent two carefully crafted messages from a spoofed account that Luki had set up for him. The first went to the official email address of the Drexler-Kunstgalerie. Posing as the Rare Toy & Game Expo auction team, the email inquired about the reserve price Matthias Drexler wanted to set for Money Happens artwork and whether Mr Drexler himself would be attending Saturday’s auction at 12 p.m. in person. The second message, sent from the same spoofed account, was addressed to Ciaran Tobin—the fake Drexler who had conned Emz. Luki had spent considerable time verifying the account, confident it was the correct Tobin and that it was active. This message, also claiming to be from the auction team, asked Tobin to refute rumours that he, not Drexler, was the true creator of Money Happens. They urged a response as soon as possible, citing the imminent closed auction on Saturday at 12 p.m.
With these last few big moves in play, all Emz could do now was wait. He silenced any notifications on the spoof account. He didn’t want or need to know about the replies. He felt confident that Drexler would show up at the auction—and, with any luck, Tobin too. If Tobin didn’t, Emz would find a way to track him down later.
At 4 a.m. on Saturday morning, Emz stood in the back alley of Nico Sanna’s apartment building, mentally preparing himself. He double-checked the small rucksack containing his equipment and inspected his gun, which showed a full 15 bullets on the dull red display. Moving beneath the metal fire escape framework attached to the side of the mid-rise apartment block, he fired an infrared beam at a receiver unit bolted to the first-floor level, as used by fire departments. This triggered the release mechanism, unfolding the metal emergency stairway down to the concrete ground of the alleyway.
Emz climbed up carefully, doing his best to stay silent. At the level he calculated as Sanna’s apartment, he edged along the brickwork until he reached the left-hand side of the window. He peered inside. The room was mostly dark, illuminated only by the glare of the workbench screens, where Sanna was engrossed in his work—an insomniac, right on point for an introverted, twitchy techie. Much better than dragging him out of bed.
Taking two small, heavy-duty power spreaders, Emz wedged the slim, wide metal lips into the window—between the outer frame and the large opening sash, hinged on the right-hand side. After a final glance at Sanna, obliviously typing away, Emz cycled the triggers on both spreaders to activate at the quickest interval. A second later, they popped in near-unison, breaking the lock and throwing the window open inwards. Emz rushed inside, his gun held high.
“Back away from the bench!” he barked, loud enough to be menacing but not enough to alert the neighbours. “Now!”
Sanna raised his arms in alarm, stood up from his desk, and fearfully stepped away, his wide eyes fixed on the gun.
Emz moved forward to block Sanna from getting back near his system, which was still unlocked from recent use. “Interlock your fingers behind you.”
Sanna appeared to do as he was told, though Emz couldn’t see if his fingers were actually interlocked.
“Now step over to that chair on your right.” Emz gestured to a dining chair next to a table covered in tech junk. “And sit on your hands.” Emz ordered. “Not under your thighs; put your full weight on your hands until it hurts.”
Sanna shuffled towards the chair, and after some effort to get it right, he hunched his shoulders forward, slid his hands down over his backside, and slowly sat down on them. His eyes were laced with panic.
Emz fished out a Luki-made custom dongle from his pocket and, after a quick glance at the workstation, saw an appropriate port and attached the device.
Sanna sat up, a wave of concern rippling across his face, the intrusion to his system briefly overriding his fear of the gun. “What are you doing?”
Emz jabbed the gun towards him, reminding him of its presence. “Just a little custom malware to delete any files you have on me, locally and in your cloud storage.” Emz twisted the gun sideways as if slowly twisting a knife. “Do you have a problem with that, since you set me up and have been tracking me for Drexler?” His voice had a layer of venom.
Sanna wilted back, away from Emz’s gaze. “No.” he replied meekly.
The dongle gave a series of flashes to indicate it was finished. Emz yanked it out and placed it back in his pocket. He then stepped away from the workbench and back closer to the window, keeping his focus on Sanna.
The tall, sallow techie seemed to show signs of relief that his system was still operational and that Emz seemed to be getting ready to leave.
Emz stewed on the next part before continuing. “I have some questions.”
“Okay?”
“What’s your real name?”
Sanna was a little startled by the question but eager to answer. “Umm, Nico Sanna. I thought you knew that.”
Emz nodded. “How long have you been working for Drexler?”
“Umm, three, maybe four years.”
“What does he use you for?”
Sanna became a little uncomfortable. “Lots of things.” He said vaguely.
Emz jabbed his gun forward again with renewed menace. “Answer my question.”
“I help hide the records of his taxable assets. I arrange discrete foreign transactions.” Sanna blinked heavily. “I help remove, umm, negative online information about him.”
“Like what?”
“Come on, I just do a job for people.”
Emz just stared at him until Sanna carried on.
“Okay, umm, he has complaints at times, so I help bury the stories. Or find things that he can use as leverage to shut people up, or, umm, get them compliant.”
“Like people accusing him of harassment?”
Sanna nodded. “Yeah, harassment and worse, some of it is pretty dark.” he shrugged, as if to distance himself. “I just do what he pays me to do.”
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“What else?”
“Umm, the thing with you, tracking people.” Sanna then sat up. “I make these trackers myself, I could make them for you,” he offered.
Emz nodded. “So Drexler or one of his guys asked you to track my gun?”
“Yes.”
Emz cast a brief glance to his side and sat down on the arm of a sofa by the window, relaxing his tone and body language. “How much did he pay you?”
“Umm, twenty-five thousand.”
Emz lowered his gun as he listened to the answers. “Did he pay extra to rig my gun not to fire as well, or was that included?”
“Umm, it was included.” Sanna answered. “I just did what they paid me to do.”
That was information Emz hadn’t known for certain, but it was the answer that determined what would happen next. The information about Sanna helping to cover up Drexler's dark, dirty secrets also made the decision easier.
“Okay, I’m sure we can make our own arrangement here.”
Sanna nodded vigorously. “Yes, whatever you need.”
“You can take your hands out from under your arse now.”
Relieved, Sanna looked down and pulled his numb hands out from underneath him. When he looked back up, Emz had grabbed a cushion from the sofa, and before he could react, Emz fired two slightly muffled shots through it, whump-whump, hitting Sanna in the chest.
Sanna was knocked back into the chair with the double tap. His jaw dropped open, and his shocked eyes saw the bloody mess of his own chest before his head rolled back and flopped to the side.
Emz listened for any sounds of alarm from the neighbours, but he heard nothing. He found both spent rounds and pocketed them, then put the two power spreaders back in his bag. He climbed out of the window, reversed his ascent back down to the alley, and swiftly left the area.
Over an hour later, Emz was sitting in a taxi parked at the most southeasterly point of Poyz, at the intersection of Zappa and Zola, outside the not-yet-open Poyzzz Brewery complex. He flicked his gaze north along Zappa and west along Zola, scanning for Gary, either coming or going from his big Saturday morning run, while pushing the memory of the execution from his mind. Every time it returned, he reminded himself it had been necessary for his own survival—no loose ends, and Sanna had been complicit in setting him up to be killed.
It was just past 6 a.m., and Emz figured he’d see Gary appear from the street he lived on, somewhere around this corner of the city, and then head probably along Zola towards the bay, like last Saturday. Though Emz also considered that Gary could be running up Zappa instead, reversing his route to surprise anyone trying to hunt him. He also considered that Gary could have headed out earlier or was planning to go out later to mix things up. Either way, Emz would wait until just after 9 a.m. to be sure, then he would head to the Expo, both his baited trap for Gary and the location of his showdown with Drexler.
After 7 a.m., Emz assumed that either Gary had left earlier, was shaking things up by taking a more internal street instead of Zola, or was delaying the run until later, and therefore was unlikely to see him for the moment. So, Emz used the time for his last message, the very last big move before the endgame. He was going to contact the Serbian thug working for Petrovi?, the one who had transferred the payment to him. He used that transaction notification to return a short note that simply read: !! heard talk of theft & sale of MoneyHappens @Expo today @12
Emz was so absorbed in composing and sending the note that he nearly missed the twins and two other thugs edging towards his parked taxi. A sudden crunch of snow snapped him to attention, and instinctively, he pulled his gun, looking up just in time to see the nearest thug rounding the car.
Seeing Emz pull a gun the thug panicked and raised his own and fired. Blam.
Emz ducked down as the windscreen shattered with a piercing crack, spraying small shards of glass through the interior.
Blam, blam.
Two more shots rang out—one shattered the rear windscreen with a deeper crack as the pieces blew out behind the vehicle, while the other hit a front tyre with a deep pop, followed by a sudden hiss as the tyre deflated and the car listed at an angle forward.
Emz pushed open the door on the opposite side to the nearest thug and slipped out low, skirting around the rear of the taxi, where the snow was peppered with broken glass. Great, another bloody taxi and account ruined! he lamented.
Emz hooked his arm up and over the rear of the car and fired three blind shots: Blam, blam-blam. One in the direction of the first thug to fire, and then two roughly in the direction of the twins and the other thug, before running towards the entrance of the huge brick brewery building. He snapped a shot at the door’s lock, blam, before shouldering his way into the dark cavernous inside and glancing down at his gun: 9.
The twins and thugs followed him inside, busting through the door with guns pointing in every direction. The room was a large open space, with a wide taproom area to the left, several benches, and a long bar, with a large backboard listing all the beers and ales available from the row of taps secured to the wall just below. To the right were the huge stainless steel brewery vats with metal stairs and a catwalk, so the master brewers could reach the openings to check on the process.
The four attackers spread out, with Morgan gesturing for one beefy thug with pasty skin and a blond mushroom bowl cut to check behind the bar, while the other three headed towards the labyrinth of giant vats. Morgan and Madison stayed on the ground floor, edging around a steel vat each, while the other tall thug with copperish skin tones and a plaited dark brown ponytail climbed the nearest metal stairway up to the catwalk with measured steps in his heavy boots.
Mushroom gingerly approached the bar, gun ready, and was about to take a sudden step around the end when a loud pop exploded far behind him, somewhere to the side of the entrance door. He turned to face the sound, along with the three in the brewing area, but there was only a small power spreader device bouncing to a stop on the concrete floor, having just activated with the longest interval setting and flipped itself into the air from the force of the explosive opening of the wide slim spreader ends.
As the four thugs frantically scanned the vicinity for Emz, thinking that he had somehow hidden away and gotten behind them as they came in, Mushroom heard movement from the bar and turned just in time to see the fixer leap at him. With his left hand, Emz thrust the second spreader deep into Mushroom’s open mouth and held it there as the thug tried to yank his head away. The device went off with a loud pop and awful crack, as the slim metal ends exploded up and down, shattering teeth and dislocating his jaw, causing Mushroom to shriek and fall backward over a bench, his face engulfed in agony. Emz fired two shots, blam-blam, 7, at Ponytail as Emz ran for the entrance door, with another double, blam-blam, 5, immediately after in the direction of the twins, creating two metallic pings as the bullets ricocheted off the curved steel vats. Ponytail’s dead body collapsed down the metal stairs, with a series of dull thuds.
Each twin returned wild shots as they ducked away—Blam, blam—hitting the brick wall with harsh thwacks.
Emz was almost out the door when he saw Mushroom screaming and crying on the floor, trying to bring his gun to bear. Before he could, Emz put a bullet in his forehead, blam, 4, and put the facially broken thug out of his misery.
As soon as Emz disappeared through the door and back outside, the twins chased after him. “You, motherfucker!” Madison cried out as they reached the entrance.
Emz dashed across the street, onto the opposite kerb, keeping his head down and angling his path in a way to keep the shot-up taxi between them for some cover, though the twins fired anyway in frustration, trying to hit him through the interior of the car as they chased after him, but only shattering more car windows in the process.
As the fixer headed west along Zola, Gary was jogging east along the same street, having set out earlier in the opposite direction to throw off anyone hunting him. Now, he found himself directly in Emz’s path. Hearing the firefight over his music, Gary finally noticed the threat and quickly turned at the first corner, heading north onto Valli street.
Emz was equally shocked to see Gary, and found himself also turning onto Valli too, mostly to avoid the twins. One of the twins put a bullet into the corner house just as Emz turned and vanished from their line of sight. Emz crossed onto the left-hand pavement and followed Gary, not quite sure what to do in this situation. Should he shoot the old man up ahead and speedily search him for the trading card before the twins could catch up, or ignore Gary and disappear down a side street to make for a Metro stop? Emz also realised that if he carried on up Valli, he would arrive at the Midton Convention Centre with the Expo that he needed to get to anyway. So he just ran on.
At the intersection with Yeats, he chanced a quick turn and fired a shot at the twins just as they barreled around the corner onto Valli: blam, 3. He missed both but forced them to take cover, buying himself a little more distance.
Up ahead, Gary was bounding on, not as fast as his best, but considering he had just completed a circuit of Poyz, he was still incredibly fast.
Emz willed Gary to slip and fall on the snow-covered streets, but the old man was a machine on the gritted pavement.
As he crossed the intersection with Xu, Emz remembered the time spent driving around trying to find Gary’s home and realised that was how the twins must have found him. Other than his loft apartment, this quarter of Poyz on a Saturday around this time in the morning was the only other reference they had for his likely location. They probably did a sweep of the streets and saw him sitting in a parked taxi, much like last week. Emz chided himself for forgetting that.
As Gary crossed the intersection with Wilde, Emz heard a whistle as a bullet passed his ear, his buds mics exaggerating the sound. Angrily, he turned and fired, blam, 2, making the twins duck apart, but it didn’t slow down the chase.
Fuck my life!
