Four of a Kind

New Deal

It didn’t matter if he was the better fighter or not. Us three were so desperate for payback and we focused all our anger directed towards him. I initiated him with a hook but he dodged it and swerved left of the room near where Maq was. Maq ran towards my side and unsheathed his knives and were about to throw them. I rolled out the way to let hell rain on dad.

My dad, in a nick of time pulled out a blue glowing rod with a glass ball at one end. The glass ball was transparent at first but started glowing blue like the rod it was attached to. Then it flashed and started making a dragged and slow “Boing” sound like it was charging.

First thing that came to my mind was “explosive”  

“Grenade!” Kim yelled which I thought was genuine instinct from being in a battlefield before. I took his words and leaped over a old furniture. Maq already shut himself in a closet. Kim was dragging Andy behind the same furniture I leaped over for cover. But it wasn’t a bomb. More like a flash grenade. It still didn’t make sense since we covered our ears and shut our eyes but it still stunned us. I remembered that flash bangs didn’t do that much harm in games and weren’t lethal in my opinion. I tried to regain my sense of bearing, hearing and seeing back… it didn’t come to me. A moment passed. Then another. I still couldn’t open my eyes or unplug my hand from my ears. I still couldn’t move.

“Impressive right? With Synedrate I made it possible to make a flashbang reflective and penetrative so that it’d be more useful. Ironically my engineers weren’t able to perfect it and it takes some time to stop being immobilized. Not that I’m complaining or anything. But now I gotta drag you guys out. Pretty swell huh?” He said.

I couldn’t hear him properly. It was a muffled voice saying blah blah blah in my head.

Someone grabbed me. And lifted me. I was pretty embarrassed cause my body was still in the same position and posture as it was. I guess I was frozen or something. That couldn’t have been just a flashbang maybe it froze us. But I didn’t feel cold. Of all the senses that blue rod took the touch sensation was still intact.

I tried to feel with the sense of direction where whoever lifted me was taking me to. But just when I thought it was the library he turned left. Then right. Something didn’t feel right. I lived in this house for 7 years and I’ve been to every part of the building. I knew there was a basement down at my house but never bothered to check it out since I was scared. Now I’m older but I simply “don’t have the time.” To do such childish things. So either this mystery person was taking me to the pantry or I haven't been to another part of the house.

I could hear the washing machine at work. This must mean I wasn’t wrong. We were walking near the far end of the wall opposite the entrance door when the person stopped.

When I realized I could hear the washing machine I realized I regain some control over my motor functions. I put some distance between my ears and hands.

The wall was splitting open a passage way and I opened my eyes more to see a simple office. The walls opened wide like a door without making a sound and I thought it was impressive until I realized they were curtains.

That was pretty smart. Who would think a child would come into the pantry and touch the wall?

I looked at who was carrying me. It was my dad. I thought that I would’ve at least known how my dad held me of all people. Guess he wasn’t home enough for me to know.

He put me on a chair. I awkwardly adjusted myself. My dad looked at me with raised eyebrows and smirked while he sat behind the desk.

Two people followed shortly carrying Kim and Maq. Maq looked like the cat Tom did when he threw a bomb at Jerry and waited for it to blow enthusiastically.

Kim was just Kim… with both his hands covering the ears for another person. I guess he was a real hero figure. Given he was froze like a statue and it captured the moment he was trying to protect Andy.

“Bit of a hero figure your friend is.” My dad said sharing the same thoughts with me.

I didn’t reply. I wondered why I recovered first since we all got hit the same time.

Kim then recovered, then Maq. They both awkwardly shifted their position on the sofa they were placed on to make themselves more comfortable.

“Where’s Andy? I demanded.

“He’s in Heylian’s room. Receiving treatment for his decapitated arm. Now, why don’t you ask me ALL the questions you want and then I can brief you about your new first assignment I want you four to help me out with then we can finally discuss your pay. After all that you guys can rest up until Andy is better while I take off to see how your mother is doing in Dubai and that’s that.” He concluded.

“So you’re suggesting it’s best to regard what happened an hour ago as all water under the bridge?” Maq asked breaking the tense and stunned silence.

“I beg your pardon?” Dad said.

“An hour ago when Andrew went mental and broke out that confinement cell you put him in, your maids were geared up with the intention to kill not only him but the both of us too!” Maq said. “Now you wanna pretend like you didn’t hire them or that didn’t happen?”

“Oh, is that what they said?” My dad asked Maq smiling. “First of all, no one was in danger of dying. Sure, they may scare you or hurt you real bad but they won’t kill. I just told them to test you guys to see if you got what it takes to even handle a life and death situation. I can’t just send people off to do dangerous stuff without checking their credentials can I? When I heard Andrew got out, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to test all your capabilities and I must say I am very impressed for a group of youngsters you all got skill and heart.”

“So you’re saying..” Kim asked before I could.

“Other than your friend Andy, no one went in that basement floor with the “shoot to kill” will.” My dad further concluded.

“How is Andy? Can you heal him?” I asked.

“His disorder is a natural one… it isn’t Synedrate based like your big European friend here. I think with Synedrate we can kill and mesh out his tainted personality.” My dad answered.

I thought about that. Would that really be OK? To make a flawless version of Andy? Maybe if he had his normal attitude and had the fighting skills of the bad guy it wouldn’t be so bad.

“Now you three” my dad said getting up and grabbing some files from his desk.

“I want you to kill this man in a Redhood chain headquarters in Europe.” He said pointing at the father of my next door neighbor. Jude Evan’s father.  

Jude Evans was my next-door neighbor and son of Mark Evans who I see regularly whenever I walk to school or tuition. He was the type to keep himself to himself, always minding his own business and didn’t care about anything else as long as he was happy. It might seem the sort of thing that suns in the family. He and his dad were always laughing and smiling whenever Mr. Evans was home on the rare occasions he was home from his business trips. I guess they were house poor.

But they didn’t seem the type to be mixed up in this Synedrate-fueled whereas our family was swimming in it.

“Why?” I asked my dad. He seemed like a harmless person. I heard his wife died to allergy or food poisoning and had a accidental death caused by none other than Mr. Evans himself. Due to the wife being an orphan and that the death was purely accidental since Mrs. Evans food allergy wasn’t known until after her death, no charges were held against him. ”

I thought that was enough a burden one man has to carry. But why should we kill him?

“Because he’s killed people for Synedrate. His organization manufactures guns much like the one your friend Andy has. And well, if people from the normal world get their hands on such tech, who knows what’ll happen to the stock market. So I need you to help me kill this man. He kills people who found out about Synedrate and his fellow co-workers help clean up the and erase evidence.

“Synedrate was found in 1980, surely in over four decades people might’ve found a hint or clue to be concrete that Synedrate does exist.” Maq said.

“True, but no one believes the internet. They need a strong user base of online users who truly believe what they saw on the net and take serious action. Would you drop everything your doing in your normal routine and step outside the comfort zone to start protesting? Surely that would only only put you in danger even if you truly believe that Synedrate exists. It’s just like how teen social rings are. You voice the truth and you get excluded from society.” My dad explained.

“How much are we getting?” I asked.

“2 mill each.” Dad said. That was more than all the allowance money I got.

“So you’re saying he’s a vad man?” Kim asked looking at the picture of Mark Evans.

“Yep. Killed hundreds. Even his own wife when she had the balls to go to the police.”

“What about Jude?” I asked.

“Jude who?”

“His son. Jude Evans. He goes to the same school I do. How’s he gonna survive if he’s got no father to financially support him?”

“Well, there’s always foster care.” He said without a shred of sympathy.

I looked at him in aghast.

“Fine, I’ll donate 5 million anonymously and hire a lawyer for him. But that means an accidental death.”

“You assumed we were to eradicate this was like a common criminal?” Maq asked.

I scoffed. As if we were any better than common criminals now.

“Okay.” I said finally after looking through all the pictures of innocent people he supposedly killed. We’ll rest here a couple days while Andy heals up and we’ll talk with him. Once all this is behind us. Just give us another briefing on Mark Evan’s current status and we’ll do it.”

“Deal.” My dad said smiling. “Although I won’t be here by the time you’re ready to leave.” He said getting up and putting on his jacket. “I have to go to the middle east. Heylian might do a status update on him and fund you for the mission. Do go to the infirmary seeing that you all have injuries.”

And with that he left.

And we followed suite. Seeing that we had nowhere else to go.

My dad took a right and went to the front door without waving me goodbye. I guess what happened here was too much that a goodbye was just gonna be cherry on top.

“Vat now?” Kim asked.

We rest and sleep. Then we go visit Andy. Follow me to my room.” I told them.

“Easy for both us us to say. We both got off with mere scratches look at Kim!” Maq said.

I stepped closer to him. “I don’t know whose in Heylian’s room attending to him but do you really want to meet the ladies whom you just fought with over an hour ago?” I asked him skeptically.

He nodded acknowledging and agreeing with me. Leaving poor Kim with no choice but go to the infirmary alone to get treated.

We went up to my bedroom to sleep. We were hungry but I needed time to let process all these new changes happening to me. First I discovered a hidden society. Then I found out how knee deep the family was entangled with this society. Then I realized that we weren’t exactly the good guys, finally being told to kill my neighbor. And that thing is it wasn’t that much a exaggeration of the situation I was in.

A few hours went by and Heylian came in my room to give us dinner along with Kim. She had her bruises but was still hard at both her sides of work. I felt bad about taking her out but I guess if I didn’t do something I might not have been given the OK  to do the mission my dad assigned.

“Carrot soup with fried chicken. I didn’t have much time to make a decent meal, as your dad had to leave early and…we’re underhanded in the cooking department.” She announced choking back a cry.

“What’s up?” I asked casually getting up.

“Other than losing two friends nothing.” Heylian answered.

“What do you mean? Did we kill someone?” I asked. At that point Kim and Maq who were making themselves home playing with my game console, stopped, and tried to eavesdrop.

“Seven of us went down there, three were knocked out by those two who’re acting like they don’t hear us and two left after doing a sweep in the cell or right-hand section of the basement floor. The remaining two were critically injured at delicate spots like the neck and eyes. They were sent to the hospital thanks to Maqius’s quick thinking.”

“But that was the basement, there wasn’t any service down there.” I conjectured.

“Biotic Synedrates.” Maq said reservedly.

“I see, sorry about what he did. You know Andy’s not like that. Speaking of him, how is he?”  

“Andy’s fine now. His mental health is stable once we scanned his brain with USV Rays to and adjusted the parts that showed odd brain activity.” She told me without eye contact.

“That’s good right?” Kim asked taking a plate of hot soup and trying to make conversation with her.

She nodded but I could tell something was off from the way she spoke

“But here’s the thing.” Heylian continued. Her voice sounded like she was gonna do a big reveal. I could tell when she heaved a big sigh.

“Andy’s lost his memory. You’re gonna have to update everything from when he first started having these episodes.”