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the-original-b · 4 years ago

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Archangel: High Society

Format: Prose / Fiction, one-shot

Word Count: c. 8,400

Krueger and Khai embark on a rescue operation deep in enemy territory, where they come face to face with a dangerous foe.

Warning(s): blood, violence, brief nudity

Khai sat at the conference room desk buried in charts and reports, long after everyone else had left the office. She thought she would get better at it with time, but long after Simon’s passing her work as the Manhattan Branch’s controller hadn’t gotten any easier.

Somehow it seemed more difficult after the promotion was made formal just a few short weeks ago.

She leaned back in the old chair and sighed, resting her glasses on the stack of papers that never seemed to shrink. She shut her eyes and rubbed her eyelids with her thumb and first finger as she wondered how the Partners could ever think she was even remotely qualified to run the place.

The ringing phone was a welcome distraction. She straightened up and answered without putting her spectacles back on. “Elizabeth Khai’s office,” she answered. She still wasn’t used to saying that.

“Liz?” the man on the other end said. His age added a rasp to his voice. “Chuck Silvio. Congratulations again on your promotion.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Silvio.” She relaxed a little, leaning back in the chair again and crossing her legs. “It’s been a while, how are you these days?”

“Not bad, not bad. The Miami weather’s good for me.”

“I bet,” she said with a chuckle. In her mind’s eye she could see him leaning back in his chair at the office, mirroring her posture. She turned in her chair to watch the rain drops streak down the window overlooking Sixth Avenue. “Beats the hell out of the cold rain.”

“Oh, it gets plenty wet here too,” he commented, matching her laugh. “Trust me.”

“I’ll take your word for it… So, what can I do for you?”

“You remember my little shithead son, right?”

“CJ? Of course.” Khai reached out for her glasses and put them back on one-handed. “As I recall, Specialist Krueger and I helped him out of a mess with the Company last year.”

“And I can’t thank you two enough for that,” Silvio added. “Really… But those connections don’t wash away so easy. The Jackass is going to some kind of get-together in Williamsburg, Virginia,” he began. “A big gala on the water at the end of the week.”

“Williamsburg is Company territory,” Khai noted. “You think they’re trying him again?”

“Not a doubt in my mind,” he said, “and I need to borrow Mr. Krueger to get him out of another mess.”

“He’s cleaning up a snafu in Cape Cod,” Khai noted, consulting her desktop calendar partially obscured by a takeout container from Tillman’s in which sat a half-eaten steak sandwich and handful of fries. “He should be back tomorrow night, but I’m not certain as to what his schedule looks like afterward.”

“I talked to Isaac,” Silvio said. “He’ll be available.”

Khai offered a shrug as if he could see it. “Well, alright..! I’ll get him in the schedule and make the arrangements.”

“Perfect,” Silvio said as Khai keyed the password to her desktop computer. “One of my guys got his hands on a few tickets, we can have one overnighted to you.” She summoned Krueger’s calendar to enter his travel dates.

She paused before saving the entry and leaned back in her chair again. “Say, do you think you can send two tickets up here?”

“Thinking about attending a waterside gala, Miss Khai?” His smirk was audible.

“I did pick up this lovely gown the other day,” she jested. “I need an excuse to wear it… I can have Everett keep an eye on things while I’m away.”

“I’m sure he’d be happy to cover for you while you’re out having some fun,” Silvio chuckled. “I’ll send a pair of tickets up to the Branch. Thanks again for this, Liz.”

“You’re very welcome, Mr. Silvio. Enjoy the rest of your evening.” Khai hit the lever in the phone’s cradle to end the call with Silvio, then released it to dial his number.

He answered after a few rings. “Good evening, Miss Khai,” he said.

“Hello, there,” she charmed. “You feel like taking me someplace nice this weekend?”

~~~~

Krueger reviewed the fabric samples the tailor offered him, and after narrowing down his selection for the outer layer to a solid black and textured medium gray, revisited the options for the lining. “Do you do waistcoats as well?” he asked the tailor.

“Certainly,” he replied.

Krueger nodded. He looked over his shoulder at Khai, in the room with them with her gown folded over her arms. He picked a few fabric samples up off the table and held them out in front of him, lining them up with the portion of the gown he could see from where he stood. He shut one eye as he scrutinized each sample; each of them matched the shade of her gown almost perfectly. “What shoes will you be wearing?” he asked her.

“The black ankle strap round-toes,” she said. “With the red soles.”

Krueger knew them. That narrowed his decision down. “This one,” he said, handing it to the tailor.

“Excellent choice,” he noted. He jotted the selections down in his note pad. “What style did you want for them?”

“British.”

“And the fit?”

“Modern.”

“And that’s two buttons, yes? The same as before?”

“Two buttons, that’s right,” Krueger nodded. “I’ll need a shirt as well.”

“Of course,” the tailor said. “Give me a moment and I’ll return with the samples.” The tailor took his leave with his notes.

Shortly after he left, another person entered the room—a brown-skinned man in his early thirties with a ten day beard. “Sorry you guys,” he said. “Collision on the Belt Parkway took out the left lane.”

“No worries, Brandon. We haven’t left yet.”

Krueger arched a brow at their newcomer.

“Oh, right,” Khai noted, “you two haven’t formally met… Milo this is Brandon Desmoulins, my tech expert out of Brooklyn.”

“The one who decrypted Orham’s files?” Krueger said, offering the man a hand to shake. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“No, the honor is mine, Mr. Krueger.” Brandon shook Krueger’s hand, then reached into his jacket pocket to pull a pair of two-by-six inch slivers of card stock. Khai recognized them as the gala tickets. “They’re usually keyed to the individuals who purchased them, but our guys in the Southeast Region were able to wipe these two. Which means,” he continued as he retrieved his laptop from his backpack, “We got a pair of blank slates for you guys.” He opened the computer and took a seat at the table.

“Well,” Khai said, taking a spot beside Krueger as she looked over Brandon’s shoulder at the monitor, “I’ve never been somebody else before, so why not?”

“You can be the Queen of England if you like.”

“Sure,” Khai scoffed. “I’m the spitting image of her.”

“You know,” Krueger jested. “I think I see it. Turn your head a little…”

“Oh, like this..?” she added laughing to herself. “And you, Sebastian?”

“Not this time,” he noted. “The Company knows Sebastian Weber. They said my eyes gave me away in Miami, I’ll need a disguise as well as a new name.”

Brandon turned in his seat to look at him. “You look like a Michael to me.” He brought his hand to his lip as he considered naming him. “Michael Fff… Fuchs.”

Krueger shrugged. “That works.”

“Mike Fuchs it is,” Brandon declared. He loaded one of the tickets into a fist-sized portable printer and keyed in Krueger’s new alias. In moments, the device wrote a barcode and etched the name into the document’s face. “Hope you like it, cos it’s too late to change. As for the peepers, we should be able to get you contact lenses pretty easily.”

Krueger nodded. “The more common the color the better.”

“Can’t go wrong with brown ones… and you.” He turned over his other shoulder to look at Khai. “I’m thinking Samantha. Samantha…”

“Nguyen,” she suggested.

“Good as anything else, I guess.” He loaded Khai’s ticket into the printer and coded it to her new identity. When the printer was done he presented them their tickets. “There we go—Michael Fuchs and Samantha Nguyen. Just a pair of run-of-the-mill socialites and definitely not high ranking members of the Marlow Partners’ organization.”

Khai took the tickets and studied them before handing Krueger his. “Nice work as always.”

“For you two, nothing but the best.” He shut his laptop and returned it to his backpack. “There is one more thing—I keyed in Vizier Status to those tickets, it’ll let you carry a pistol on the premises. Probably not necessary, but if you guys are going into the lions’ den, I figured you’d prefer to be armed.”

“Good thinking,” Krueger nodded.

Khai checked the clock on the far wall. “Don’t know if we’ll have time to head to the armory today—”

“No need,” Krueger said. “I know exactly what I’ll take for this one—the Five-Seven. With hollow points.”

“Not the armor penetrators?”

“I’d like to avoid collateral damage,” he said. “Even there.”

Khai couldn’t disagree with his logic. “Fair enough. I’ll just have to swing by after hours and see what I’ll be able to conceal in this.”

The tailor returned to the room with another collection of fabrics. “Here we are,” he said. “Given what I understand about this gathering, I went ahead and narrowed down the usual selection.”

Krueger walked over to view what was offered. Immediately he was drawn to a textured sanguine red.

“Do you like that one?”

“I do,” Krueger admitted. “But that’s not what we’re here for today…” He redirected his glance to something more conservative and examined the samples. “Can you conceal the buttons?”

“I certainly can. What color do you want for them?”

“Black.”

Khai leaned against the table beside Brandon as she observed the two of them, her gown still folded over her arms. “So,” she said to him.

“So..?”

“So does he live up to your expectations?”

“Honestly?” Brandon returned with a whisper. “I thought he would be taller.”

~~~~~~

Krueger opened his door and stepped out of the limousine when the driver brought the vehicle to a stop. He offered Khai his hand and helped her out of the car as they walked up the red carpet to an elegant villa overlooking the James River, nestled in the heart of a luxurious resort and golf club. A black evening shawl rested on her shoulders beneath her hair and draped over her contours, drawing any onlookers’ eyes to her crimson long sleeve gown with a thigh-high slit up the right side. She traded her usual eyewear for contact lenses and colored her lips the same shade as the gown. Her shoes called attention to Krueger’s outfit—a black suit and tie over a crisp white shirt and crimson waistcoat with a subdued black print.

Together they approached the open front door of the venue, where they presented their invitations to the staffer there. He reviewed their tickets and asked if they were carrying; Krueger opened his jacket to expose the Five-Seven tucked in the holster under his left arm. The staffer cleared them for entry and directed them to the coat check a few yards into the foyer, where Khai deposited her shawl and looked up a grand stair case that split toward the top as it led to the second floor.

“No hassle so far,” she noted sotto voce.

“Don’t let your guard down,” Krueger whispered as they went deeper into the building and found their way to the main atrium. “We’re in the hornets’ nest now.”

Khai took a breath as she beheld the main atrium, an ornately decorated love letter to excess and decadence. Marble columns stretched from floor to ceiling in each of the room’s four corners, and a gargantuan crystal chandelier dangled from the center to illuminate the room. Bicolor marble tiles covered the entire floor space, and the walls were adorned with recreations of famous paintings watching over the tables and dance floor. Finally a huge pair of French doors opened up to a terrace overlooking the water and setting sun, where there were likely more food and drink stations to satisfy the patrons there.

“Remember,” he continued, “we’re here for Silvio.”

“Right,” she nodded. “I remember.” She scanned the room some more, noting the food stations along one wall ending in a carving table, and the well-appointed bar opposite them. “It’s just a shame we have to be here for work.”

“Well,” Krueger smirked, resting his hand on her hip to pull her closer, “maybe Michael Fuchs and Samantha Nguyen can return and spend a week on the resort grounds someday.”

“Don’t you go giving me ideas now…” She brushed her hand on the small of his back as she took a few steps deeper into the room. “We’ll cover more ground if we spit up to work the room.”

“I’ll start outside,” Krueger said, and they went their separate ways to look for CJ Silvio.

They met up at the inside bar after a futile forty minutes. Khai ordered a glass of pinot noir while Krueger ordered a gin martini. “Did you fare any better than me?” he asked her, leaning against the mahogany finish.

Khai shook her head after thanking the bartender for her wine and taking a sip. “His father said he would be here.”

“Is he usually late to gatherings like this?”

“I don’t think he’s ever been to a gathering like this,” she jested, turning around and leaning against the bar top to look at the room again. “Way too classy an audience for him—” her eyes widened and jaw gaped for a moment before springing around to turn her back to the room and mouthing “shit..!”

“What is it?”

“White tux,” she responded with an almost inaudible whisper. “Don’t look.”

Krueger discreetly scanned the room to try and spot the person or thing that so completely and immediately terrified her. “I think I see him,” he said, matching her tone. “Tall, gray, handsome fellow?”

“That’s Osiris. In the flesh.”

Krueger turned back to face Khai and accept his cocktail. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”

“Roland Preston,” she explained, maintaining her volume. “He controls Company operations across the entire Eastern Seaboard and as far west as Chicago. He’s every bad day Isaac and Charles ever had.” She paused to consider the implications of his presence. “If he’s here for the same reason we are…”

“Then we better find CJ first,” Krueger surmised.

Khai nodded. “Alright, new plan,” she said as she straightened herself up and took another sip of wine to collect herself. “We stick together.” She took Krueger’s hand and led him toward the French doors and the terrace beyond them. “We stay out of his sight, find someplace with good visibility to look for Silvio, then collect him and get out of here.”

“And if Osiris finds him before we do?”

Khai took a breath. “Then I hope you have more bullets than there are bodyguards in this place.”

The two of them stayed on the terrace overlooking the water for the remainder of cocktail hour, and when the time came for them to find their seats they quietly made their way to a table near the dance floor with a good view of the bar. As Krueger understood, they would have the best chance of spotting CJ Silvio from there.

About twenty minutes into the reception, his wager paid off. He spotted CJ Silvio, dressed in a neat black suit and tie, nearly running after a blonde woman in a short dress on his way to the bar. It was obvious to Krueger that this woman wanted nothing to do with him anymore, and it appeared Young Silvio was looking to redeem himself after some unseen slight. After a short while he gave up and turned to get the bartender’s attention.

“I think we should order a drink,” he said, subtly gesturing the bar.

Khai followed his nod to the person in question. “Good idea.”

She stood up shortly after him and followed Krueger toward their target, but they were intercepted by a tall, classically handsome green eyed man with gray swept-back hair and manicured mustache. “And here I thought I was well-dressed this evening, then you two come along and show me up so elegantly.” He addressed them with a rich, honeyed voice, wearing a white tuxedo jacket and dark slacks with a crisp black bowtie. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said, offering Khai his hand. “Roland Preston. This is my gala.”

Khai discreetly swallowed her terror and flashed him a warm smile. “I wondered whose party this was!” she extolled. “Samantha Nguyen,” she said, shaking his hand. “And this is my partner, Michael.”

Krueger followed her lead, keeping CJ in sight. “Michael Fuchs,” he introduced himself. “This is a lovely party,” he continued as he shook Osiris’s hand.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Fuchs,” he said. “So, tell me how it is I’ve never seen you here before, dressed like that.”

“Kind of a long story,” Khai said. “Mike, would you mind?” she said, gesturing the bar.

“Of course,” he said, making his way toward the indicated area. “You had the pinot noir, yes?”

“I did, thank you.” She redirected her attention to Osiris, guiding him away from CJ as she explained. “Michael and I run a small IT setup. We were stationed in Southern California until last December, but we found a better opportunity out here.”

“Is that so?” Osiris returned. “And how are you liking the East Coast so far?”

“Oh, we love it! It’s like we’ve lived here all our lives..!”

Krueger made his way to the bar as Khai distracted Osiris, and stationed himself adjacent to CJ as he ordered a pinot noir and gin martini, slipping the bartender a few bills. “No frozen margaritas here, unfortunately,” he said to him.

CJ looked over his shoulder at the other man. “Huh?”

“This isn’t a poolside party. You’ll have to order smarter if you want to blend into this crowd. You can’t go wrong with one of the classics. A martini, or an Old-Fashioned if that’s more your speed.”

CJ quickly shook his head, befuddled. “Do I know you, man?”

“You do.” He finally turned to face CJ. “Also not a great idea to chase women here. Especially not when you have a baby on the way.”

CJ shut his eyes tight and opened them again as he leaned in, squinting at Krueger as he placed where he’d seen him before. “Sebastian—?”

“Not tonight. Tonight I’m accompanying your boss while she and I do your father a favor.” He gestured to his right at Osiris and Khai as they conversed. “Before you make a fool of yourself and say something you’ll regret, yes that is her in red. And she’s stopping that man from finding out who you are, because if he did, you’ll be dead by dawn or worse.”

Speechless, CJ looked over his shoulder at Khai and Osiris, then back at Krueger.

CJ’s disbelief informed Krueger he was completely unaware of the depth of the trouble he was in. “We’re trying to help you,” Krueger continued, “so let us help you. Leave,” he ordered. “Get your coat, call a taxi, and get as far away from this city as you can as quickly as you can. And then call your father to apologize.”

CJ nodded sheepishly, then retreated from the main atrium back toward the entrance.

Krueger watched Silvio exit the room as he reclaimed his drinks from the bartender, making sure he thanked him.

“Mr. Fuchs,” Osiris got Krueger’s attention. “Samantha was just telling me you head security for your company.”

He turned to face Osiris, having to turn his gaze upward slightly to establish eye contact. “That’s right,” he said, handing Khai her beverage. “I used to be a consultant in the field, but she made me a better offer,” he said with a smirk. “She still lets me freelance every now and then.”

“It keeps him happy,” Khai jested. “He would get bored otherwise.”

“Boy do I understand that,” Osiris added, laughing. “Would you mind lending me your input for a moment? I’ve been looking for ways to tighten security and upgrade networks for a few of my operations, and I can benefit from an outside opinion.”

Krueger and Khai discreetly shot each other looks. “I wouldn’t want to impose,” he said.

“Please, it won’t take much time at all,” he charmed. “Then I’ll leave you to enjoy the rest of your evening.”

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” Khai said.

“Excellent,” Osiris extolled. “If you’d follow me to my office upstairs,” he gestured the hallway before them. “You can take your drinks with you.”

“Lead the way,” Krueger said. He put himself between Khai and Osiris as they followed him out the main atrium and toward the front lobby.

“So what did you say your industry was, Mr. Preston?” Krueger asked.

“Logistics, primarily,” Osiris answered, leading Krueger and Khai up the stairs. “Transportation of goods, and occasionally providing security services for those transported goods… the yardstick to inter-state commerce.” He turned left at the split to lead them down a hallway, and Krueger kept a mental tally of the staff they passed. “But some people don’t see it that way,” he lamented. “They would see my logistics operation crumble, and have attacked me through less-than-legal means,” he explained as he turned right and led them into an elegant office space. A mahogany desk sat before a massive window, to their left was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, and to their right a coffee table and lounge area with a few cozy-looking couches. The carpet below their feet was a rich red. “So I’ll have to do the same, if I’m going to survive,” he concluded, turning to face them.

“Uh-huh… and these less-than-legal methods,” Khai put forth as Krueger went to rest his martini on the lounge table, “how do you presume we’ll be able to help you?” She turned to look over her shoulder as two more staffers closed the office doors behind them. Once again she closed the distance between Krueger and herself.

Osiris simply smirked and stepped aside, allowing them to see a shiny piece of gold-colored metal atop the mahogany desk. “Do either of you know what this is?”

They could both see it was a gun, a large hand cannon with a long, ported slide and barrel. Neither of them recognized the exact model.

Osiris picked the firearm up off the desk and held it in his hand. “This was a gift from some associates out west,” he explained. “It’s big, heavy, impossible to conceal, and poorly designed.” He reversed the gun in his hand to show them the lack of padding on the rear of the grip. “It shoots giant bullets, and has nothing to ease the recoil from those bullets, so it hurts every single time I shoot it. I don’t have the heart to tell the guys who gave this to me how much I hate it, but,” he continued as he loaded a five-round magazine into the hand cannon, “it makes a statement. Just know that every time I pull the trigger, I really want the guy or girl on the business end of this thing to understand that statement. So… to answer your question, Miss Khai,” he added as he pulled back the slide and released to chamber a round. “I think you’re opinion on what’s less than legal is well-qualified, as that is your area of expertise.”

Khai blinked and recoiled as her stomach sank when he called her by name. She backed toward the door almost subconsciously as Krueger stepped up between them to shield her.

Osiris’s lip curled into a sinister smirk as he stepped up to close the distance between them. “Yes,” he began. “I know who you are, Elizabeth Margaret Khai. Operations Controller for the Marlow Partners up north. I knew who you were the moment I laid eyes on you. Which would make you,” he directed his gaze—and cannon—to Krueger, “the specialist she hired to make sense of the organization again… Sebastian Weber? But we both know that’s not your real name. Neither is Michael Fuchs.”

“Congratulations,” Krueger commented, “you’re clairvoyant.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourselves,” he said, “you certainly would have fooled anybody else.” He took a few more steps toward them, and had them backed against the wall. “You know, you cost me a lot in Miami, Specialist—it took years to get three of my guys close to Silvio’s son… But they succeeded posthumously; he ended up here tonight after all. So while I can’t be too angry with you, holding onto any amount of anger is unhealthy. So…” He lowered the hand cannon to abdomen-level and fired, catching Krueger in the left ribs and dropping him to the floor almost instantly.

Khai stifled a scream and jumped away from them, back toward the lounge table as Osiris freed his hand. He held onto the cannon with his left as he rhythmically flexed his right and winced, groaning. She distanced herself further from him, heading toward the mahogany desk by the window as her eyes darted from Osiris in front of her to Krueger motionless on the floor. As Osiris looked back over his shoulder to face her she wished, prayed, Krueger would start moving again.

“Now there’s the matter of what punishment best suits you,” he dictated. “Maybe Young Silvio can give us some ideas. What do you think?”

“I think you’re a little late for his opinion,” Khai said, consciously slowing her speech just enough to hide her fear from him.

“Am I?” he queried. He took a conspicuous glance at the watch on his left wrist, and CJ Silvio was brought into the office by two of the staffers mere moments later, sporting a split lip and bleeding brow. Osiris dropped his hand and approached her again, carrying his cannon, and she recoiled almost immediately, but was stopped by the desk behind her. “Did you really think I would let any of you leave this place alive?”

Motion in Khai’s periphery gave her the cue she so desperately looked for earlier, giving her the boost in confidence she needed to act. “Lapse in judgement,” she said, shrugging. “Happens to the best of us.” She immediately threw her right knee into Osiris’s groin and dove to her left, hitting the floor and reaching for a subcompact Glock 26 she had holstered on the inside of her left thigh as Krueger—still on the floor—reached for his Five-Seven.

Krueger raised his handgun and fired six times in rapid succession, landing all his shots in Osiris’s back, while Khai struck each of the staffers in the room twice with well-placed shots from her handgun.

Osiris collapsed to his hands and knees, taking a labored breath as he turned to face Krueger, Khai, and CJ. He raised his hand cannon one more time, but lacked the strength to keep it at the ready; he dropped the gun to the floor and fell onto his side, coughing blood and grabbing at his chest.

Slowly, Krueger made it to his knees and holstered his weapon, then moved his hand to his side while he doubled over in pain. He propped himself up against the doorway while he tried to catch his breath.

When she was sure he wasn’t too badly hurt, Khai sat up to re-holster her handgun then stood to look down at Osiris. She crouched down to pick up his hand cannon and raised it one-handed to hold him in the sights. “The Partners send their regards,” she said. Then she squeezed the trigger, striking Osiris in the chest.

The recoil nearly wrenched the cannon from her grip. Shocked, she looked at the weapon in her hand in disbelief. She realized Osiris wasn’t lying about the weapon’s design flaws, but ultimately agreed with him about its ability to make a statement.

She rushed over to Krueger and knelt down in front of him, placing Osiris’s hand cannon on the floor to examine his wound. To her relief, she found he wasn’t bleeding. “Are you alright?”

Krueger nodded. “Armor saved my life,” he noted between shallow breaths.

This, as well as his apparent refusal to remove his right hand from his left side, worried Khai. She looked up at CJ, who was just getting back onto his feet after the violence that unfolded around him. “We have to get him out of here now,” she declared.

CJ agreed. “Say no more,” he said. “When they scooped me up they brought me back in through a side entrance. We can use it to slip away without them noticing.” He went to stand and wipe some blood from his brow.

“Do you remember where that exit is, by any chance?”

“End of the hall to the right.” CJ went toward the front door to pull a fire alarm mounted near it. “That should buy us some more time and cover.”

“Good thinking…” She turned back to address Krueger. “I’m going to help you up, Milo,” she said, taking his hand in hers and putting his arm around her shoulders. She propped him up onto his feet and stood up with him; when she was sure he could stand on his own, she retrieved her Glock from its holster once more and eyed CJ. “Let’s go.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” CJ noted. He searched the two bodies on the floor next to him, and found a set of car keys.

Khai peered around the doorway into the hall, and popped back behind cover after spotting half a dozen armed men and women on their way up the stairs, likely to investigate the noise in Osiris’s office. “Damn it,” she hissed. “I hope you’re a good shot, CJ.”

“He won’t have to be,” Krueger said, retrieving his Five-Seven from inside his jacket and handing it to him. “Keep their heads down with this, get them to retreat to the lobby while we find our way down.”

CJ reluctantly took the handgun and took a breath to prepare himself. Then he popped out from behind the doorway and squeezed the trigger several times in the general direction of the event staff. Khai and Krueger took the opportunity to make a break further down the hallway, and CJ scrambled to follow them as he emptied the magazine down the hall.

They made it to the emergency exit stairwell at end of the hall, just where CJ said it would be, by the time the gun was dry. Khai turned around and un-holstered her Glock, bracing herself against the doorway, and took aim. She targeted not the guards but the light fixtures above them. She fired three times at the one between them and her, and succeeded in breaking the thin chain that held it to drop the chandelier and slow the guards.

In the chaos and panic among the other guests, they snuck out the side and around the back of the villa to a parking lot. CJ led them through, tapping the unlock button on the key fob he lifted to guide them to the car it belonged to. When he found the SUV, he hopped into the driver’s seat while Khai joined Krueger in the back to nurse his wound. CJ put the car into drive and took off, passing an oncoming ambulance on his way off the resort grounds.

“Easy,” Khai said from the back seat. “We don’t need to call any attention to ourselves.” She undid Krueger’s waistcoat and shirt, then carefully opened the body armor underneath. She turned the light on above them to get a better look, noting a small cut in his side where the bullet struck the armor as well as some bruising and swelling, confirming her fears. “See if you can find a pharmacy,” she said. “Or anywhere we can pick up a first aid kit. We need to treat his rib fracture.”

“Not to question you,” he said, “but is that really for the best? We should probably get out of Williamsburg, or at least as far away from the resort as possible.”

Krueger nodded. “I agree. Call your father or Isaac. See if they can arrange to get us out of here.” He winced as he straightened up in his seat. “Then we can worry about fixing me.”

Khai waited with Krueger in the parking lot of a CVS some twenty miles from the resort, and conferred with Charles Silvio over the phone while CJ went inside to pick up the first aid supplies she detailed for him. Upon his return with the equipment, Khai explained the situation for them all to hear.

“I spoke to your father,” she said, opening the rear door to step out and meet him outside the idling car. “He thinks the best thing for us right now is to lie low for the night while the dust settles, then he’ll send somebody in the morning for us.”

“So we’re spending the night here?” CJ confirmed. “Balls deep in hostile territory..?”

“I’m afraid so…”

“We’ll need lodging,” Krueger said from the car’s rear bench. “I spotted a discreet motel on the way here.”

“That’s perfect,” Khai said. “They shouldn’t ask questions.” She took the first aid supplies from CJ and stepped back into the car. “Take us to the motel,” she ordered.

“Yes ma’am,” CJ sighed.

Upon their arrival at the motel, CJ stopped the engine to let Khai out and the two of them helped Krueger onto his feet. He followed them from the car to the entrance, and together they made it to the reception area and got the host’s attention.

“Welcome and good evening,” he said. “How may I help you?”

“Hi,” Khai said, fighting to filter the adrenaline from her voice as she spoke to him. “We’ll need three rooms for one night. Next to each other, if that can be helped.”

“Of course,” the receptionist said. “Can I have a name and credit card on file for your stay?”

Krueger reached into his inside jacket pocket and retrieved a stack of neatly folded $100 bills. He placed it on the countertop and slid it toward the receptionist. “Ben Franklin,” he said.

The receptionist looked up at Krueger, then down at the cash, and then back up to Krueger. Nodding, he retrieved three sets of keys from under his desk. “Rooms 203, 204, and 205,” he said. “Enjoy your stay, Mr. Franklin.”

“Danke schön.” Krueger took the keys and turned to lead his companions to their rooms. On the way handed CJ one of the keys and $200. “Go to the Goodwill down the road,” he ordered. “Get some cheap clothes that won’t draw attention and deliver them to my room.”

“Y-you bet.” CJ looked at Khai, and back at Krueger. “Um, what’s her size?”

“Take a guess.” Krueger slid the key into his door and entered. Khai followed him inside with the first aid supplies, leaving CJ to walk to the car and fetch their disguises.

Krueger rested his jacket on the back of a chair then went to the bathroom to wash his hands and splash water on his face one-handed. He worked on his shirt while Khai washed up in the bathroom behind him, peering over her shoulder every so often to check on him.

She fished her glasses out of her evening handbag and swapped her contact lenses for them just in time to watch Krueger roll his shoulder, painfully, to get out of his shirt and waistcoat and let them fall to the floor. She saw him struggle to remove the body armor and stepped in to intervene. “Let me,” she said. Gently, she peeled it off of his torso and stepped back to let him walk forward a little. Her eyes lingered on the numerous old battle wounds that were still visible on his bare back and chest.

Krueger tightened his one fist and gingerly held his side with his other hand, covering the growing purple blotch in his side as he slowly sat at the foot of the bed. He shut his eyes and exhaled a profanity before looking back at Khai. “Far from my first broken rib,” he said. “But I never did get used to the pain.”

She bent over to pick his shirt and waistcoat up off the floor and went to the chair his jacket rested over to place them with it. “Good,” she replied, stepping out of her stilettoes on her way to the first aid supplies in their bags by the door. “I’d be worried about you if you were so accident-prone.” She retrieved a bottle of isopropyl solution and a cotton ball from the first-aid kit, opened the bottle, and tilted it onto the cotton ball a few times to absorb enough antiseptic to disinfect the cut. Then, carefully, she applied the cotton ball to the shallow cut in his side. “This doesn’t get any more fun each time,” she added playfully.

“It’s a lot less fun to endure,” he returned. “Believe me.”

“I’ll take your word for it…” She retrieved a fresh cotton ball from the kit and gingerly dabbed the wound to dry it, conscientious of what was beneath the tender skin. Then she reached into the bag for a cold compress. “You know what comes next, right?”

Krueger nodded. “I’m ready for it.”

“I’m sorry in advance,” she said. Then she gently pressed the ice pack to his side, applying just enough pressure to hold it in place.

Krueger winced a little, but didn’t protest much otherwise. “Don’t be. I’m just happy to have you here fixing me. I could have been doing this alone.”

She paused a little at his remark, realizing how different things might have gone tonight if she weren’t there. She considered how far from fine it all went, and felt responsible. She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Silvio,” he said.

He was probably right, but she couldn’t ignore other possibilities. “Hold that in place,” she said, then stood up to approach the door, reaching for her Glock resting on the inside of her thigh as she got closer to the peephole. When she confirmed Krueger’s assertion, she holstered the handgun and leaned against the wall to let CJ into the room, carrying bags from the Goodwill store, CVS and a fast food eatery.

“Disguises in here,” he said, laying the Goodwill bag down. “There was also change enough for some overnight stuff—you know toothbrushes, toothpaste, the like. And finally some cheeseburgers, since none of us ate dinner at the resort party... you guys don’t have any dietary restrictions, right?”

Khai shook her head.

Krueger shrugged. “It’s my cheat day.”

“Sure,” he continued, not sure whether he was joking. “Cheat day... One for you, Miss Khai,” he said, handing her one canary-yellow wrapper. “One for, well I would have said Sebastian, but—”

“Krueger.”

“Huh?”

“My name is Milo Krueger.”

Khai nodded, mid-chew. “I can confirm.”

“Right. One for Mr. Krueger…” He reached across Khai to hand him a cheeseburger. “And mine is in the bag… I split the clothes up to make it easier for everyone. Krueger and I are about the same size, so he was wasn’t a problem. For you, I got the smallest things I could find.”

Khai chuckled. “Thanks for trying to flatter me, but it’s for a day. I’m sure I’d be able to manage if you got my size wrong.”

“Well, I guess that’s true.” CJ stood up, taking his bags with him towards the door. “Is there anything else you guys need?”

“I’ll head back after I finish up here. Thank you, CJ.”

“You bet. I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow.” Then CJ Silvio turned and exited the room to return to his quarters for the night.

Khai waited a few moments after CJ left, then stood up from her spot to deposit her cheeseburger wrapper in the bathroom trash bin. She quickly washed and dried her hands then reached up her back to undo her gown, pulling the zipper all the way down on her own and paring it off her slender frame, leaving only a black strapless bra and panties to cover herself. She folded the gown over itself as neatly as she could and crossed the room to place it on the chair with Krueger’s clothes, then removed her garter holster and handgun to rest them there as well. “No way I’m letting you sleep alone tonight,” she said returning to the clothing bags CJ left behind and finding hers. She threw a t-shirt on and went back to the bathroom to grab a few hand towels, then returned to Krueger’s side to take the ice pack away. “You should eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” Krueger said.

“I know. But your body will need the nutrients if you want to start healing.”

If Krueger protested, he didn’t show it. He laid the cheeseburger wrapper in his lap to free its contents, then took hold of and bit into it, chewing slowly.

Khai placed the hand towels against his side and had Krueger hold them there while she went to the first-aid kit. She peeled a length of medical tape from the roll and fastened it to Krueger’s sternum, crossing the soft towels and sticking the other end to his back to hold them in place. “You know, you scared the crap out of me tonight,” she admitted.

Krueger swallowed. “How so?”

“When Osiris shot you, you… just fell.” She repeated her actions with another length of tape. “And when you didn’t get up, I thought...” She paused for a bit with a third length of tape to stop her voice from wobbling. “I thought I’d lost you.” She retrieved a pressure bandage and unraveled it, starting to wrap it around his core.

Krueger chewed some more as he put his thoughts together, then swallowed. By now he knew her well enough to know she would be blaming herself for what happened somehow. “It’s not your fault, Liz,” he confided.

“I didn’t have to come with you, but I did. You heard Osiris, he spotted me first.” She secured the bandage in place with the included fasteners and looked up to make eye contact with him, her hand falling into his lap. “If I weren’t there he would never have found us, and you wouldn’t have come that close to dying.” She shut her eyes and shook her head, cursing herself.

“You don’t know that, Liz,” Krueger said. He placed the rest of the cheeseburger into its wrapper to lay his hand on hers. “He could have spotted me anyway, or gotten to Silvio before I could if you hadn’t been there to distract him. I wouldn’t have even known who he was if not for you.” He moved his hand to her cheek and she looked back up at him. “It’s impossible to tell what could have happened if things were different,” he continued. “You can’t blame yourself for something you couldn’t have foreseen. Nobody can predict everything, what’s important is that we all made it out alive. People like us aren’t always so lucky,” he finally said. “I know this.”

Khai took his words to heart and exhaled to calm herself again. Then she stood up, took his face in her hands and placed two kisses square on his mouth. “Don’t you dare get killed out there, Milo Krueger,” she appealed.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

~~~~

Khai kept his promise to him, spending the night by his side and treating his wound as needed. They finally drifted off to sleep after several hours, and when they awoke the next morning Khai took a phone call from Charles Silvio letting her know their transport would be there within sixty minutes.

Khai dressed herself in the pullover hoodie and jeans CJ picked out for her and gathered the rest of her belongings. “Shame about Samantha and Michael,” she jested. “It doesn’t look like they’ll be back to that resort any time soon.”

“Looks that way,” Krueger said, easing a zip-up hoodie over his left shoulder to keep the pressure off his healing ribs. “That’s why I picked up a souvenir.” He walked over to where his suit was folded and reached for the holster, revealing Osiris’s gold-plated hand cannon. “It seemed a shame to leave it behind.” He held it out for her to take.

She picked it up and held it with both hands, running her left thumb over the barrel ports and her right over the slide release. The visible engraved text read AMT AUTOMAG V 50 A.E. Irwindale, CA. “I hate shooting it,” she said with a smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth. “But it makes a hell of a statement.”

“And what better statement to make than owning Osiris’s gun?”

“None better,” she said. She released the magazine and cleared the chamber before placing the gun in her hoodie’s kangaroo pocket, then reached one hand up to caress his cheek and give him a long, appreciative kiss. “Suppose I’d better go maintain the illusion,” she lamented after breaking contact. She returned to the bag that held her gown and shoes from the previous evening, picked it up, and stepped out of Krueger’s room.

“Ja,” he said. “Zurück an die arbeit.” He went back to his suit jacket to fish his belongings out of the jacket and place them into his cargo pants pockets.

~~~~

Khai woke CJ and had him get dressed to meet her and Krueger for breakfast, which they shared mostly in silence. And as promised, Charles Silvio’s driver arrived at the motel within the hour to pick them up and take them back to New York. He dropped Krueger and Khai off at his home in Rego Park for her to collect her car, and took CJ home to his apartment in Astoria.

Khai debriefed Isaac Hayden upon her return home. “Krueger can be up and working in as little as fourteen days,” she concluded, “but in a limited capacity. He should be back to full strength within six weeks.”

“I see,” Hayden said over the phone.

“Any updates from the Company?”

“My sources say Osiris was rushed to a hospital nearby. They say he’s comatose, and his prognosis isn’t good, but they weren’t able to get any other details regarding him. He ran the operation closer to the vest than we suspected, however. His generals are scrambling to keep his network at full functionality, and it’s already starting to splinter. We can expect them to back away from us on fronts across the entire Eastern Seaboard while they pull themselves together.”

“The way I see it sir, there’s no better time to push them out of the region than now.”

“You may be right,” he said. “But in so doing we may end up uniting them against us, and the advantage we’ve gained with Osiris’s removal from the field will be gone. I’ll coordinate with Charles and Dana, we’ll apply just enough pressure to keep them off-balance, and let them destroy themselves.”

“Understood, sir.” She poured fresh coffee from the stovetop pot into a mug and took it with her to her living room, setting down on the couch she got from Amelia’s barely a week ago.

“Charles asked me to thank you and Mr. Krueger again for your help with his son, and advised we keep him on a short leash.”

Khai had an idea about that. “What if we have CJ help me out at the branch? Be my assistant, the way I was to William and Simon.”

“Do you feel he’s up to the task?”

“I do. After what the three of us went through down there, I think he’s matured enough to handle the additional responsibilities. And if it doesn’t work, I’m sure his father can find something for him in Miami.” She took a sip of her coffee.

“On that we agree,” he added, almost chuckling. “I’ll have him report to the branch Monday morning for his new assignment. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, Miss Khai.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hayden,” she said. “Good night.” She ended the call and put the phone down next to her, savoring her coffee as she admired Osiris’s empty AutoMag resting on the table in front of her. She picked the phone back up and dialed another number.

An older woman answered this time. “Hello? This is Gina.”

Khai leaned back into the couch. “Hey mom.”

“Liz!” she extolled. “It’s so good to hear from you again.”

“I know, it’s been a while. Sorry it took me so long to call back I’ve just been so busy at the branch lately.”

“I bet you have been, Miss Branch Controller..! Your father and I can’t tell you how proud we are of you. Running an operation at your age? That’s unheard of.”

“I did have help,” Khai said, trying to be modest. “And a great set of teachers, so you and dad can take thirty percent of the credit.”

“Is that all you’re willing to give us?” she jested.

“Okay,” Khai conceded, laughing. “Forty, but that’s as high as I’ll go..!”

“I’ll take it,” Gina laughed. “So tell me, what else is new with you?”

“Well,” she said, sinking further into the couch and letting it cradle her. “I just hired an assistant—you know Charles Silvio’s son?”

“Of course.”

“Yeah he’ll be helping me out with all the minutiae, and clear my schedule a little.” She paused briefly before continuing. “Also I met somebody.”

“Did you now?”

“I did.”

“Well, don’t leave me hanging, how’d you two meet?”

“He did some work for the branch a few months ago,” Khai began. “Isaac was so impressed he offered him a permanent position, so he’s with us full-time now. He’s a real sweetheart, too… he treats me well, spoils me… you and dad would love him.”

___(Masterlist)

#fiction #original work #original content #original fiction #prose #creative writing #drama #thriller

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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How Dead by Daylight Gave Slasher Horror Icons The Game They Deserved

https://ift.tt/35lPcEi

If you grew up a gamer in the ‘80s and ‘90s, buying a bad licensed game was a rite of passage. Sure, even young gamers could detect a bomb like Home Improvement: Power Tool Pursuit! for the SNES from a mile away, but at a time before game reviews were easy to find online, it was natural to hope that the new X-Men game might just be good enough to take a chance on.

The situation was especially rough for horror movie fans. I owned the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th adaptations for the NES and at least tried to finish them. It’s not that I thought they were good, but at a time when licensed horror games (not to mention major console horror games) were few and far between, the opportunity to face off against my favorite movie slasher was too enticing to ignore.

The industry eventually learned to embrace horror in a meaningful way that resulted in some all-time great gaming experiences, but the slasher movie icons of the day remained tragically underutilized. While original horror series like Silent Hill and Resident Evil expanded the storytelling potential of the medium, Chucky was reduced to starring in a Temple Run knock-off.

In the minds of many horror fans, the hope for a great game starring Micheal Myers, Freddy Krueger, or Leatherface lingered even as passable adaptations of those characters eluded us for decades. Where was the disconnect?

“I think it probably extends from the fact that they are two very, very different mediums and two very, very different ways of telling stories,” says Mathieu Coté, director of Behaviour Interactive’s hit slasher multiplayer game Dead by Daylight. “The reasons why slasher movies are so successful, and why they make you feel the way that they do, are extremely difficult to translate into gameplay mechanics. I think that probably that’s the root of it.”

The earliest examples of slasher movie games certainly support that theory. In 1983, adaptations of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween were released for the Atari 2600. They offered wildly different experiences (Texas Chainsaw Massacre saw you mow down victims for points while Halloween was all about evading Michael Myers), but each was so bad that you’d sooner be caught smoking weed while having sex at Camp Crystal Lake than playing either for more than a few minutes.

Even as technology and game design advanced past what was possible on the Atari and NES, slasher icons were still being butchered in ways that would make these killers proud.

“It often felt as if [licenses] were either tacked onto an existing product that didn’t fit or it was just shovelware where the attitude is ‘make a thing and put the name on it,’” Coté says. “Oftentimes the people holding the licenses, and again it’s a matter of those two mediums being so different, but the people holding the licenses to the movies, they know about movies. They don’t know about games. That can make things difficult.”

With Dead by Daylight, Coté’s team sought to capture the essence of the slasher movie and translate that into fun gameplay that actually made sense for the genre. The asymmetrical multiplayer title sees one player assume the role of a killer tasked with eliminating four player-controlled survivors trying to escape the terrifying scenario. Since its release in 2016, Dead by Daylight has been embraced as the definitive horror multiplayer experience.

Given how difficult it has historically been to make a slasher title, much less one featuring licensed characters, perhaps it should come as no surprise that Dead by Daylight’s origins can be traced to a much simpler concept that didn’t even start out as horror.

“There was a designer working in basically a silo somewhere making little prototypes, and one prototype that he made at some point was literally hide and seek,” Coté remembers. “It was one character that’s trying to accomplish a goal and there was another character that was very powerful. If he touched you, you’re dead.”

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An equally simple tweak would reveal the prototype’s incredible horror potential.

“We put cardboard in between [split screens] and went ‘Oh, my God. This is super fun,” Coté recalls. “The idea of creating a game in which you could play the fantasy of being the villain in a horror movie, that’s a longstanding one…if we put that with the fantasy of a villain in a horror movie, we have a winner.”

The idea of pairing the basic structure of hide and seek with a horror movie villain shows team’s vital understanding of what makes the slasher genre so entertaining in the first place.

“A lot of effort is put into these [villains], so of course they’re more appealing,” says Dead by Daylight creative director Dave Richard. “I think that’s why we started rooting for them, and we have this enjoyment and guilty pleasure of rooting for the villain. I think that we all have this inside of us at different levels. We’re embracing this macabre thing.”

The team’s fascination with the macabre would slowly turn their experiment into a fully-fledged horror game.

“The original prototypes showed survivors as literally beheaded silhouettes wearing different colored t-shirts with phrases like virgin, stoner, and jock,” Coté explains. “That’s something that Cabin in the Woods did very, very well, and the early prototype was based on those tropes.”

While Coté and Richard reference meta-horror movies like Cabin in the Woods and mockumentary Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon as early inspirations that helped them contextualize the genre’s key elements, they ultimately turned to foundational films such as Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when crafting the game’s environments, characters, and other design elements. In those early days, though, few believed that Dead by Daylight would eventually host some of the stars of those films.

“There were dreams and ambitions, but I don’t think there were thoughts,” Coté says. “We barely expected it to break even after a couple of months. When it started to really explode in the first month or so, we started looking for opportunities.”

The earliest of those opportunities happened to involve arguably the most important slasher of all-time: Michael Myers.

“We were lucky enough to get in contact with some very nice people who are the owners of the original version of Michael Meyers,” Coté explains. “Being able to get the rights to bring in that character and the original Laurie Strode into Dead by Daylight was kind of a big deal. It set the stage because it legitimized us in a certain way.”

For anyone who has followed the history of licensing rights and copyright law (not to mention the aforementioned history of slashers in games), the fact that the team was able to add Michael Myers as a playable killer must conjure an image of a developer clawing their way out of licensing hell with one hand while holding on to Myers with the other. Yet, it sounds like the process wasn’t all that complicated.

“I wouldn’t call it [licensing] hell,” Coté says. “Most of it is actually super interesting, and most of the licenses that we have…we’re dealing with people who get what we’re trying to do. The people who are, as I was saying earlier, more into movies than into video games, tend to trust us to do the right thing.”

Securing Michael Myers was one thing, but now that they had him, the team was faced with the same dilemma that had ruined even noble attempts at building games around these characters in the past.

“We first had to ask ‘What is the fantasy around that character and what is so interesting and unique about these characters?’” Richard recalls. “Of course, most of them have a weapon and they kill, but what’s their special sauce?”

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As Richard explains, Freddy Krueger has a “dream world” and a “fantasy that’s easier to get.” By comparison, Michael Myers is often portrayed as a guy with a mask and a knife. How do you translate that into a game in a way that makes him feel unique?

The answer to that question came in what Coté rightfully describes as a “stroke of genius.”

“I remember that meeting where we were talking about Halloween and how to make [Michael Myers] unique,” Coté explains. “They pitched us the idea of a killer that would just watch you. We’re like, ‘What?’ They’re like, ‘Yeah, he’s just going to stand there and watch you,’ because that’s what Myers does in the movies. That’s what he does, but it’s an action game. People want to chase each other…We all thought, ‘Oh, you’re an idiot.’”

Yet, when Coté got the chance to actually play an early build of Dead By Daylight with Myers as the killer, he immediately understood what the team was aspiring to achieve.

“The very, very first version of the prototype I remember playing and repairing a generator and looking over my shoulder, and I see him standing on a hill and just watching me, and I go, ‘This is the creepiest thing I’ve ever experienced in this game,’” Coté says. “It’s super creepy, especially knowing it’s an actual other player right there. He could attack me right now, but he chooses to just watch me…that kind of thing made me realize the liberties we could take with the gameplay mechanics to really create something that would be unique and special.”

For the next few years, that’s exactly what the team did. They bent the rules of the game to incorporate other famous slashers. Freddy Krueger dragged Dead by Daylight players to dream world while Saw’s Amanda Young turned the game’s traps into a gambling proposition. Leatherface’s devastating attacks impacted a survivor’s ability to carry on and Ghost Face’s playfulness and humor distinguishes him from one of his major inspirations, Michael Myers himself. Through it all, the team’s goal was to stay true to the legacy of these characters and give them a proper home.

“I love Mortal Kombat, but whenever a character gets imported to Mortal Kombat, they all turn into martial artists,” Coté says. “When you put Jason in Mortal Kombat, he becomes a martial artist and he hacks people, and then he does a finishing move and it’s awesome, but that’s it. When you take Michael Myers and put him in Dead by Daylight, he’s Michael Myers.”

Of course, Dead by Daylight’s roster of killers doesn’t just include an array of adaptations. At launch, the game boasted three original killers: The Trapper, The Wraith, and The Hillbilly. The Trapper was, by the team’s admission, based on Jason Vorhees and The Hillbilly certainly resembled Leatherface. It was in The Wraith, a desperate figure whose pursuit of a job saw him become an unwilling executioner, that the team found their first truly great original creation.

“For us, it was important that one of the killers was inspired by more of a cultural idea, and that was The Wraith,” Richard notes. “You don’t see The Wraith archetype in movies. It really comes from horror culture and cultural monsters more than movies.”

That desire to explore every corner of horror rather than just retread film successes is a big part of the reason why Dead by Daylight’s original killers are among its most popular. In fact, the team draws inspiration from such a wide array of sources that it’s possible some players may feel the impact of these original creations more intensely than others.

“The Huntress is heavily inspired by Eastern European folklore and mythology,” Coté says. “For some of our players, especially Russian and Ukrainian players, they were immediately, completely freaked out because she’s humming a song that their mothers sang to them when they were a kid. It was really like it hit way too close for some of them, and it was great. It made them feel things, but for Japanese players or Brazilian players who had no cultural link to that, it was still an impressive and terrifying character because what scares people is visceral and universal”

While Dead by Daylight’s original killers stand tall against horror’s heavyweights, the game’s most impressive contribution to the slasher genre may just be its emphasis on the personalities and attributes of its survivors. Early builds of the premise portrayed survivors as Merrily We Roll Along rejects wearing self-identifying sweaters, but the game eventually began treating survivors with the same reverence as killers.

“Survivors have been the learning experience, to say the least,” Richard confesses. “When we created the original characters, we wanted them to have real stories and personalities, but also to be relatable. I’m going to say a word I don’t like so much, but it’s almost like they’re shells that the players can identify with and easily become.”

Dead by Daylight’s emphasis on the unique qualities of its survivors helped it outlive (pun proudly intended) other asymmetrical multiplayer games, but even Behaviour Interactive found itself having to reckon with some of the stereotypes that plague even the best slasher movies.

“The fact is that a lot of those [early character designs] are stereotypes that convey, let’s say, cultural tropes that don’t need to continue to exist in today’s society,” Coté admits. “For us, it was more interesting to create characters that feel like someone you could stand behind in a coffee shop and not blink because they’re regular people. They’re people you can relate to.”

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While Dead by Daylight’s roster of survivors features a few imports (such as Halloween’s Laurie Strode and Evil Dead’s Ash), the team reveals that “licensed survivors are much harder to find than killers,” largely because they still want the game’s survivor’s to feel overwhelmed by the stalkers. Coté specifically notes that it wouldn’t make sense for someone like John Wick or Arnold Schwarzenegger to be hanging helplessly from a hook. Yet, they also don’t feel like the legacy and value of a horror hero should be defined by their ability to play offense.

“All of them are serial survivors,” Coté says of the game’s characters. “They continue to win, which is impressive, given the challenges they face.”

Besides, as millions of fans who have shouted at the screen at a horror film can attest to, the fates of Dead by Daylight’s survivors really come down to the players themselves.

“We always wanted to make it so that if you die in Dead by Daylight, it’s because you did something dumb or you panicked and didn’t stick to the plan,” Coté says. “Obviously the killers are extremely powerful, but most of the time [survivors lose] because someone panicked or was careless and got cocky and didn’t make good decisions.”

The ability to test your mettle against a slasher legend is one of Dead by Daylight’s more interesting examples of meta brilliance, but its most notable meta mechanic is the presence of The Entity, the invisible hand that pulls characters from different horror universes into the game. It’s a subtle, yet vital, story component inspired by another horror legend.

“The main inspiration for The Entity was actually The Dark Tower,” Richard recalls. “Many of us on the team are fans of the work of Stephen King, and when we deep dove into The Dark Tower, it was a favorite. The way every book in the Stephen King universe links together and is tied up with The Dark Tower was the inception of the idea of The Entity.”

The Entity is the core component of the game’s surprisingly strong lore, which not only offers compelling backstories for nearly every survivor, setting, and killer but even adds a few new chapters for licensed universes like the Scream series.

In many other multiplayer games, that lore would be little more than an easter egg debated over on Wiki pages and fan forums. But in Dead by Daylight, the commitment to meaningful storytelling is a core component of the ambition which defines Behaviour Interactive’s mission.

“Every time we create more of our lore, we solidify what Dead by Daylight is and the universe around it,” Coté explains. “It’s not just to be able to bring in anything, but to be able to create a universe into which all of these things can exist and make sense.”

While the team’s commitment to lore may help bolster their pitches to rights holders, their commitment to ensuring that Dead by Daylight’s growth adheres to an internal logic also speaks to the team’s confidence that they can give nearly any slasher a home.

“I’d say that a few [killers] still elude our grasp, and it’s mostly due to the fact that someone thinks they can make a standalone game for them, or they are working on one,” Coté says. “Anybody who’s got a little bit of experience in video games can tell you that recreating the magic of Dead by Daylight and that sort of balanced chaos is a terrifying prospect. It’s certainly not a simple thing to recreate.”

There’s a sincerity to that statement which encapsulates so many of the reasons why Dead by Daylight was not only able to secure slashers and survivors who could easily star in their own games but do justice to them within the framework of an experience that wasn’t designed to accommodate those legends in the first place.

After all, if the bad old days of slasher games and adaptations were defined by limitations and indifference, then Dead by Daylight succeeds because it takes nothing for granted. Its team carefully crafted a scenario that invoked the pure pleasure of the slasher genre and then spent years studying the ins and outs of these characters and worlds in order to better understand what makes them work beyond the superficial pleasure of their mere presence. It’s an involved process that doesn’t work for everyone.

“We’ve had a couple of cases of people on the development team that, maybe after a year or something, they go, ‘You know what? I think I’ve had enough.’” Coté admits. “Especially 3D artists who keep looking at references of grizzly things all the time, and most of them, they’re just having a blast…but I’m thinking of one or two examples of people who were like ‘You know what? I need to go and work on something with unicorns and kittens.’ That’s fair. That’s absolutely fair.”

The amount of work that goes into a game like Dead by Daylight may ultimately scare off other developers who would dare give legendary slashers their own games, but as long as we have Dead by Daylight, at least a few horror icons will always have a home.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

“It used to be that we were hoping that people who hold the licenses to these legends would allow us to bring them into our world,” Coté says. “Nowadays, the conversations oftentimes revolve around asking them if they’re big enough to make it into the hall of fame that is Dead by Daylight…It’s the place for horror to come by and live.”

The post How Dead by Daylight Gave Slasher Horror Icons The Game They Deserved appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2HnrM8R

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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transcendtouch · 5 years ago

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A Brief Introduction to Immersive Systems: History of VR (part 1)

According to Oxford Reference, “Virtual reality is a synthetic technology combining three-dimensional video, audio, and other sensory components to achieve a sense of immersion.” Merriam-Webster defines virtual reality as “an artificial environment which is experienced through sensory stimuli (such as sights and sounds) provided by a computer and in which one's actions partially determine what happens in the environment, also: the technology used to create or access a virtual reality.”

Both of the above definitions focus on the technological aspect of virtual reality, describing it as a contemporary means. However, virtual reality is more than an artificial environment. It is a simulated experience that can be completely different to our reality. The Online Etymology Dictionary defines that the term “virtual” was being used meaning “influencing by physical virtues or capabilities, effective with respect to inherent natural qualities," as early as the late 1400s. It is also stated that it has been used in the computer sense of "not physically existing but made to appear by software" since 1959. “The term "virtual reality" was first used in a science fiction context in The Judas Mandala, a 1982 novel by Damien Broderick.”

Trying to pinpoint the exact origins of virtual reality has proven to be quite a challenge, considering how difficult it has been to formulate a definition for the concept of an alternative existence. However, in this post, we too will be focusing on the technological milestones that led to today’s applications of virtual reality, making it an innovative –soon to be essential- tool.

In 1838, Sir Charles Wheatstone invents the Stereoscope, a device for viewing a stereoscopic pair of separate images, depicting left-eye and right-eye views of the same scene, as a single three-dimensional image.

A 19th century stereoscope:

In 1935, American science fiction writer Stanley Weinbaum presents a fictional model for VR in his short story Pygmalion's Spectacles. In the story, the main character meets a professor who invented a pair of goggles which enabled "a movie that gives one sight and sound [...] taste, smell, and touch. [...] You are in the story, you speak to the shadows (characters) and they reply [...] the story is all about you, and you are in it." This sound a lot like our idea of a tangible painting, doesn’t it? (image source)

In 1956, cinematographer Morton Heilig creates Sensorama, the first VR machine (patented in 1962). It is a large booth that can fit up to four people at a time. It combines multiple technologies to stimulate all of the senses: there is a combined full colour 3D video, audio, vibrations, smell and atmospheric effects, such as wind. This is done using scent producers, a vibrating chair, stereo speakers and a stereoscopic 3D screen. Heilig thinks that the Sensorama is the "cinema of the future" and he wants to fully immerse people in their films. Six short films are developed for it.

In 1960, Heilig also patents the Telesphere Mask (image source ), which is the first head-mounted display (HMD). This provides stereoscopic 3D images with wide vision and stereo sound. There is no motion tracking in the headset at this point.

In 1965, Ivan Sutherland, a computer scientist, presents his vision of the Ultimate Display. The concept is of a virtual world viewed through an HMD which replicates reality so well that the user won’t be able to differentiate from actual reality. This includes the user being able to interact with objects. This concept features computer hardware to form the virtual world and to keep it functioning in real-time. His paper is seen as the fundamental blueprint for VR. “The ultimate display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. A chair displayed in such a room would be good enough to sit in. Handcuffs displayed in such a room would be confining, and a bullet displayed in such a room would be fatal. With appropriate programming such a display could literally be the Wonderland into which Alice walked.”

In 1966, Thomas A. Furness (a.k.a “the grandfather of VR”), a military engineer, creates the first flight simulator for the Air Force. This assists in the progression of VR because the military subsequently provides a lot of funding for producing better flight simulators.

In 1968, Sutherland, with his student Bob Sproull, creates the first virtual reality HMD, named The Sword of Damocles. This head-mount connects to a computer rather than a camera and is quite primitive as it can only show simple virtual wire-frame shapes. These 3D models change perspective when the user moves their head due to the tracking system. It was never developed beyond a lab project because it was too heavy for users to comfortably wear; they had to be strapped in because it was suspended from the ceiling.

In 1969, Myron Krueger, a computer artist, develops a succession of "artificial reality" experiences using computers and video systems. He creates computer-generated environments that respond to the people in it. These projects lead to VIDEOPLACE technology which is mentioned later.

In 1972, General Electric Corporation builts a computerised flight simulator which features a 180-degree field of vision by using three screens surrounding the cockpit.

In 1975, Krueger's VIDEOPLACE, the first interactive VR platform, is displayed at the Milwaukee Art Center. It uses computer graphics, projectors, video cameras, video displays and position-sensing technology and it doesn't use goggles or gloves. VIDEOPLACE consistes of dark rooms with large video screens to surround the user in "VR". The users can see their computer-generated silhouettes imitating their own movements and actions - the users' movements are recorded on camera and transferred onto the silhouette. Also, users in different rooms can interact with other users' silhouettes in the same virtual world. This encourages the idea that people can communicate within a virtual world even if they aren't physically close.

In 1977, the Aspen Movie Map is created by MIT. This program enables users to virtually wander through Aspen city in Colorado, like with Google Street View. There are three modes: summer, winter and polygons. It is created using photographs from a car driving through the city. There are no HMDs but it is the use of first-person interactivity and it suggests that VR can transport people to other places.

In 1977, Sayre gloves are created by Daniel J. Sandin and Thomas A. DeFanti, at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory, a cross-disciplinary research lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago. These gloves are the first wired gloves. They monitore hand movements by using light emitters and photocells in the gloves' fingers. So when the user moves their fingers the amount of light hitting the photocell varies which then converts the finger movements into electrical signals. This may be the beginning of gesture recognition. Furness creates a working model of a virtual flight simulator, for the military, called the Visually Coupled Airborne Systems Simulator (VCASS). Image of a wired glove:

In 1979, McDonnell-Douglas Corporation integrates VR into its HMD, the VITAL helmet, for military use. A head tracker in the HMD follows the pilot's eye movements to match computer-generated images.

Sources:

Barnard, Dom. "History of VR - Timeline of Events and Tech Development." Virtualspeech. August 06, 2019. https://virtualspeech.com/blog/history-of-vr.

Cakmakci, Ozan, Jannick Rolland. “Head-Worn Displays: A Review.” Journal Of Display Technology 2, no. 3 (September 2006). [accessed June 17, 2020]. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3453724_Head-Worn_Displays_A_Review.

“Daniel J. Sandin”, in evl|electronic visualization laboratory. https://www.evl.uic.edu/core.php?mod=4&type=5&indi=11.

Hosch, William L. “Ivan Edward Sutherland.” In Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. May 12, 2020 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ivan-Edward-Sutherland. Access Date: June 17, 2020.

“Thomas A. Furness”, on Industrial & Systems Engineering: University Of Washington. https://ise.washington.edu/facultyfinder/thomas-a-furness.

Jack, Emily. “Artifact of the Month: Holmes Stereoscope.” NC Miscellany. Ocotber 21, 2013. https://blogs.lib.unc.edu/ncm/2013/10/21/artifact-of-the-month-holmes-stereoscope/.

Kelly, Michael. “Virtual Reality.” In Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199747108.001.0001/acref-9780199747108-e-740?fromCrossSearch=true.

Lescop, Laurent. “360° vision, from panoramas to VR.” On ResearchGate. Fig. 03.: “Morton Heilig, Telesphere Mask, 1960, Source: Wikimedia Commons.” September, 2017. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319618259_360_vision_from_panoramas_to_VR.

Lowood, Henry E. “Virtual Reality.” In Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. November 11, 2019. Access Date: June 17, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Morton-Heilig.

Media Art Net. “Ivan Sutherland «Head-Mounted-Display», 1968.” Medien Kunst Netz / Media Art Net. http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/head-mounted-display/.

Media Art Net. “Morton Heilig «Sensorama», 1962.” Medien Kunst Netz / Media Art Net. http://www.mediaartnet.org/works/sensorama/.

Media Art Net. “Myron Krueger, «Videoplace», 1974.” Medien Kunst Netz / Media Art Net. http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/videoplace/.

Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “virtual reality,” accessed June 17, 2020, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/virtual%20reality.

Musings Of A Mario Minion. “Pygmalion’s Spectacles: Using Berkeley’s Immaterialism to Understand the Potential for Telepresence in Virtual Reality.” Medium. February 05, 2018. https://medium.com/@musingsofamariominion/pygmalions-spectacles-using-berkeley-s-immaterialism-to-understand-the-potential-for-telepresence-46b9e46eba42.

Naimark, Michael. “Aspen Moviemap 1978-80.” Michael Naimark. http://www.naimark.net/projects/aspen.html.

Online Etymology Dictionary, s.v. “virtual (adk.),” accessed June 17, 2020, https://www.etymonline.com/word/virtual#etymonline_v_7821.

Sandin, Daniel J. Thomas A. DeFanti, Richard Sayre. “Sayre Glove (first wired data glove).” evl|electronic visualization laboratory. January 1, 1977. https://www.evl.uic.edu/entry.php?id=2162.

Sutherland, Ivan E. “The Ultimate Display”. Information Processing Techniques Office, ARPA, OSD. http://worrydream.com/refs/Sutherland%20-%20The%20Ultimate%20Display.pdf.

Sutherland, Ivan E. “A head-mounted three dimensional display*.” Fall Joint Computer Conference, 1968. Salt Lake City, Utah: The University of Utah. http://cacs.usc.edu/education/cs653/Sutherland-HeadmountedDisplay-AFIPS68.pdf.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “McDonnell Douglas Corporation.” In Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. June 12, 2020. Access Date: June 17, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/topic/McDonnell-Douglas-Corporation.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Sir Charles Wheatstone.” In Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. February 06, 2020. Access Date: June 17, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Wheatstone.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Stereoscope.” In Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. February 06, 2020. Access Date: June 17, 2020. https://www.tumblr.com/edit/618119398273794048.

“Thomas A. DeFanti”, in evl|electronic visualization laboratory. https://www.evl.uic.edu/core.php?mod=4&type=5&indi=10.

#history of vr #history of virtual reality #timeline #vr #virtual reality #immersion #immersive systems

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kevin-hunter · 5 years ago

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Paranormal story time to kick off October. 🎃 👻 Sometimes entities also enter my dream kind of like Freddy Krueger in Nightmare on Elm Street. . My eyes honed into one area where I sensed a dark spirit I couldn't physically see, but felt was there. It then angrily proceeded to toss large objects at me that I’d vigilantly block with my arm causing each object to shatter. This flew it into a rage prompting the throws to accelerate relentlessly without stopping and wearing me down in our unstoppable battle. 💪🏼 . Consciously aware I was stuck in this dream with it I called out to my soul bouncer (the Archangel Michael), “MICHAEL!!” . That echoed and triggered his entry with this thunderous roar and deep deafening drum sound that struck down into the center of my chest exploding everything in the entire area with this blinding white holy light. . My soul was ripped backwards, a gasp suffocating breath, eyes shot open, and I was laying in my bed. This calm wave of uplift moved over me and surrounded my body like it was released into a baptism of joy. Vacillating between the Darkness and the Light is a common occurrence. Some battles can be fought up to a point, then you’ve got to let the Light in to take over. ✨🧙‍♂️ . . . . . #psychic #kevinhunter #archangels #archangelmichael #prophecy #paranormal #medium #paranormalactivity #god #spiritworld #spiritually #poltergeist #darkness #divine #clairvoyance #clairaudience #claircognizance #clairsentience #clairvoyant #astraltravel #dreams #angels #spiritguides #channeling #prophecies https://www.instagram.com/p/B3DcYZqpqLv/?igshid=r78qsh1ok1xj

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brokehorrorfan · 7 years ago

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New Release Review: IT

Although Stephen King is among the most-adapted authors of all time, his writing's rich characters, extensive backstories, detailed prose, and frightening sequences don't often lend themselves to a visual medium. In most cases, what a reader imagines is far more effective than anything you could put on screen. With IT, however, director Andy Muschietti (Mama) joins the elite club of filmmakers who successfully capture the essence of King's work.

IT centers on group of 13-year-old social outcasts: Bill (Jaeden Lieberher, Midnight Special), a stuttering boy still reeling from the disappearance of his kid brother; Richie (Finn Wolfhard, Stranger Things), a talkative jokester in Coke-bottle glasses; Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor, Ant-Man), the overweight new kid; Stanley (Wyatt Oleff, Guardians of the Galaxy), a yarmulke-wearing son of a Rabbi; Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer, Tales of Halloween), an asthmatic mama's boy; and Mike (Chosen Jacobs, Cops and Robbers), a home-schooled black kid in the predominantly white town of Derry, Maine.

The boys' classmate, Beverly (Sophia Lillis, 37), adds a feminine presence to the group, who proudly call themselves the Losers' Club. Although ostensibly an unlikely addition, Beverly’s bad reputation and rough home life find her fitting in just fine with the fellow misfits. As local kids continue to go missing, Bill convinces his friends to help investigate his brother's disappearance. Their explorations of Derry's history - and its sewers - lead them to discover an ancient, shape-shifting monster that often takes the form of an evil clown named Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard, Hemlock Grove).

While the novel takes place in the '50s and '80s, the film is updated to be set during the summer of 1989 (ergo, the forthcoming second film installment will take place in the present day). It's not quite as in-your-face about the period as Stranger Things; it resembles more of a realistic, lived-in time than a pastiche of nostalgic references - although there are a few of those too. The soundtrack is full of 1980s needle drops, but composer Benjamin Wallfisch (Hidden Figures) provides a modern, orchestral score rather than '80s-style synth music.

IT features impressive character development despite the ensemble cast; a cornerstone of the source material. Each of the kids, as well as the talented child actors behind them, is given the opportunity to shine. They all have individual personalities, yet their friendship seems natural. Although Beverly is mostly depicted as a tough chick, similar to her characterization in the book, the writers struggle to subvert the damsel-in-distress trope. Beyond that, it's difficult to find any complaints on a character level.

Skarsgard's portrayal of Pennywise is a far cry from Tim Curry's memorable scenery chewing in the 1990 made-for-TV adaptation - and that's a good thing. His voice may take a little getting used to, but Skarsgard makes the role his own. He’s creepy from the start, yet it's believable that he could lure a naive kid into a false sense of security. His take on the character is reminiscent of Robert Englund's iconic portrayal of Freddy Krueger in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, before he became a parody of himself in sequels. He's imposing and scary, regardless of stature, but enjoys toying with his victims for his own amusement.

There's no shortage of scares in IT, but the stakes never feel quite as high as they should. There’s little build up behind the horror set pieces, causing many of them to lack an impact. IT is likely to haunt audiences who don't regularly watch horror movies, but the recent Annabelle: Creation offered more effective suspense and jump scares. IT plays out more like a haunted house; an exciting experience with calculated scares but no real danger. Levity also works against the horror aspects. The humor provides a welcome relief early on, resulting in more than a few laugh-out-loud lines, but it sometimes comes at the expense of the tension later in the film.

Where the film really succeeds is in its portrayal of adolescence, capturing the awkward pubescent years of growing up, including friendly teasing, gawking at girls, bullying, and potty humor. In that regard, the picture often elicits an energy akin to classic 1980s coming-of-age movies. The Spielbergian, child-centric adventure nearly resembles a horror movie for kids - which is not a derogatory remark - though it earns its R rating for violence, language, and bloodshed.

The 135 minutes fly by, thanks to expert pacing by Muschietti and writers Cary Joji Fukunaga (Beasts of No Nation), Chase Palmer, and Gary Dauberman (Annabelle: Creation). It plays like a roller coaster ride; a series of exciting spikes between character moments. Certain developments come off as a tad rushed, as is often the case when condensing a novel into a feature film, but even if you disregard the source material, it feels as though some scenes were left on the cutting room floor.

The odds were stacked against Muschietti. Not only was he tackling an influential novel that already has a beloved adaptation, but he also came aboard the project when the previous filmmaker (Fukunaga) left due to creative differences. All signs pointed to failure, yet the resourceful filmmaker miraculously made it work. Muschietti’s confidence in the material translates to his visual style, working with cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung (Oldboy, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) to strike a balance between the idyllic and ominous locales.

IT is a Stephen King adaptation we deserve. It plays well as a standalone film, but, of course, it's only half the story told in King's book. The ending leaves you eager to return to Derry and catch back up with the Loser's Club. In the novel and especially the previous adaptation, the first half of the story that revolves around the kids is considerably stronger than the latter portion with the adults - but if Muschietti and company can subvert the minor missteps and tap into a scarier Pennywise, IT: Chapter 2 could be truly terrifying.

#it #pennywise #stephen king #stephen king's it #bill skarsgard #review #article

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tuttifuckinfruttifriday · 4 years ago

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Hiya! I want a Slasher Matchup, please! I pretty much like cooking, being busy, photography, yoga, traveling, music, singing, reading, long car rides, (I like blasting Sia, P!NK, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson and Johnny Cash. °♡°) politics are good, too. Of course, horror is 💖gold💖 I especially love yelling at the final girls who are major bitches. I guess I'm pretty sarcastic, witty, good-hearted, I help as much as I can to people, a bookworm, logical, I'm not afraid of what people think and I'm not afraid to tell people how it is, especially when they're being assholes, honest, I know how to let loose and have fun and act giddy, °♡°, I love to have fun and hang out with people. I have medium length, slightly wavy dark brown/almost black hair, usually up in a ponytail, deep brown eyes, fair skin, glasses, 5'4, curvy, rosey cheeks, I usually wear Earth tone clothes, mostly black jeans, fluffy sweaters, combat boots and have my fingernails painted red, and wear a lot of dark makeup. °♡° -Peace out, and thank you. ✌🏻

You’re so welcome ! 😉

I match you with:

Brahms Heelshire!

Other possibilities: Freddy Krueger, ChromeSkull, The Collector, Vincent Sinclair, Michael Myers

Cooking? Heck yes! 🙌

He’d absolutely love anything you’d cook!

You like being busy? Well, it’s not like he won’t keep you busy. If you know what I mean—

Show him your photographies*! He’d even propose himself to be your model if you want

But seriously, he’ll take you around the Heelshire’s ground and show you all the beautiful places💕

He’ll do yoga with you, just show him! At first, he’ll be absolutely clueless about how you do that, so please be patient with him.

Sadly, you won’t be travelling... but maybe when he’ll safe enough about his appearance he’ll let you!

Show him your music and he’ll absolutely go nuts. He’s starting to get a little tired of listening to the same kind, even if he loves it af.

He’ll listen to you sing. Every. Time. You won’t even know he’s there👀

You won’t need to buy books, just ask him to help you choose in the library and you’ll probably find something you like^^

But like I said, he’d go out(anywhere) with you when he’d be more positive about his face...

I personally think he’d be so happy about long car rides, especially if it’s in your company 🥺

Don’t know anything about politics.

He’d love to watch horror movies with you, even if he only have the classics (Dracula, Frankenstein, etc). Just let him hold you and hide his face in your neck.

But this will probably lead to something else, but that’s not what we’re talking about-

He’d let you leave for some time if you’d like to buy good old slasher movies. But only if you convince him enough because he’s gonna be so scared D:

Sarcastic and witty? He doesn’t mind! It kind of turns him on(hehe)

He’s a sucker for you good-hearted nature❤️

You absolutely won’t need to help him, but he’ll happily help you anytime you’d like!

Read him some books 🙏

He’s more the fantastic kind, but he don’t mind your logical mind and will absolutely listen to you if you tell him something.

He sure could learn about “how to not care about what people think “. He’ll take offence in mostly any side glance.

Tell him if he’s being a brat/praise him when he’s being good<3. He’d totally melt

If you want to do some crazy things and let yourself loose, he’ll happily join you!

He can act giddy too .3.

Can’t really hang out with people, but you still can cuddle with him✨

If you want or if you’re feeling sad, he’ll absolutely have any kind of fun with you. Even if normally, he’s more the kind to keep calm and read a book.

He loves your hair and will play with your ponytail if you’re cuddling.

What he loves the most is looking into your eyes when he faces you or stealing your glasses.

If you really need them to see, he’ll give them to you when you see that they’re gone, just to scare you a little..

Be sure to scold him if you don’t want him to do that

Any height that he can tower over you is good to him 🤷🏻‍♀️

He’s really touchy, so just know that he’d get handsy with your body, especially your curves

He likes your clothes! But he’d prefer you wearing his, especially his fluffy sweaters and cardigans. Don’t ask.

Paint his fingernails in one color 🥺 or let him paint yours❤️

He’d love to help you put your makeup and 💅 nail polish.

But beware if you wear too much makeup, he won’t hesitate to hide it.

He doesn’t want you to “hide your pretty face”!

Hope I didn’t forget anything!

#matchup #brahmsy #brahms heelshire

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barryswamsleyaz · 4 years ago

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The Best Dog Halloween Costumes by Dog Breed

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Updated August 28, 2020 | For Dog People By Elisabeth Geier

This post contains affiliate links. Read more here.

Table of Contents

It’s almost time for the best holiday of the year: Howl-o-ween! Are you looking for costume ideas for your dog? You’ve come to the right place. We’ve come up with the best dog Halloween costumes, sorted by breed.

When shopping for a Halloween costume for your dog, keep in mind that the most important consideration is size. Because dog costumes are not all manufactured in the same way, your pet could be a medium in one costume and an extra-large in another, so be sure to measure your dog and use your pet’s measurements and the product size chart as a guide to ensure their best fit.

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The Best Dog Halloween Costumes by Dog Breed

Note: If your dog isn’t on the list, don’t worry. We’re just having fun, and these dog costumes will work across breed lines (just be sure to get the size that’s right for your specific dog)! Read on for the best dog Halloween costumes by dog breed.

Chihuahua Halloween Costume: Freddy Krueger

Chihuahua’s don’t always get taken seriously because of their small size, but this Freddy Krueger Chihuahua costume makes it clear just how scary they can be (when they want to be.)

Looking for more scary dog costume ideas? See our article, 12 Super-Scary Dog Halloween Costumes for Your Spooky Pooch.

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Labrador Retriever Halloween Costume: Wonder Woman

Labs are the most popular dogs in America, and they frequently work in heroic roles like therapy or search-and-rescue. So, it only makes sense to dress them up as superheroes for Halloween! Wonder Woman was one of the biggest movie hits in recent years, but whichever superhero costume (Batman, Robin, or Superman) you choose for your dog, they’re sure to make a heroic splash this Halloween.

Need more superhero dog costume ideas? See our article, The Top 17 Superhero Costumes for Dogs.

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Dachshund Halloween Costume: Crayon

Hot dogs are, of course, the classic Dachshund costume, but their long, narrow bodies—and their colorful personalities—make them easy to turn into a vibrant crayon.

Looking for an actual hot dog dog costume? Check out the options available in our article, The Best Hot Dog Halloween Costumes for Dogs.

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German Shepherd Halloween Costume: Butterfly

German Shepherds are beautiful, loving dogs, but let’s be honest: Some people still find them intimidating. This Halloween, show the world how friendly and social your GSD can be with a whimsical German Shepherd costume. A simple pair of wings can turn your German Shepherd into a beautiful butterfly or benevolent fairy!

For more large breed dog costume ideas, see our article, 11 Adorable Large Dog Halloween Costumes.

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Golden Retriever Halloween Costume: Lion

This easy costume highlights your Golden’s beautiful coat and brave disposition. Simply brush out that gorgeous fur and slip this lion mane around their neck for a simple, comfortable, stunning Golden Retriever Halloween costume!

For more lion-inspired dog halloween costumes, see our article, The Top 8 Lion Dog Halloween Costumes.

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Bulldog Halloween Costume: Bull Dog

What can we say, we’re a little literal here at Rover HQ. We just love the joke of a Bulldog wearing bull horns!

For more large breed dog costume ideas, see our article, 11 Adorable Large Dog Halloween Costumes.

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Pug Halloween Costume: Ballerina

A lot of people dress their pugs as Yoda or similarly strange-looking characters for Halloween. But we want to celebrate the beauty of these comical little dogs with a graceful pug Halloween costume. Dress your goofy pug in a ballerina costume and watch them prance!

For more small breed dog costume ideas, see our article, Our Fourteen Favorite Small Dog Halloween Costumes.

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French Bulldog Halloween Costume: Where’s Waldo

Take advantage of how good your Frenchie looks in stripes with this officially licensed Where’s Waldo dog costume. It comes complete with a soft shirt, a headpiece that attaches to the iconic Waldo felt fabric glasses, and two elastic bands to keep it all in place.

For more funny dog Halloween costume ideas, see our article, 12 Funny Dog Costumes to Make Your Dog Look Extra Ridiculous.

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Terrier Halloween Costume: Bee

From Jack Russells to Westies, terrier breeds are busy little bees! You’ll love watching your dog buzz around in this cute striped terrier costume.

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Yorkie Halloween Costume: Chewbacca

There’s no denying the natural resemblance between Yorkies and Wookies. Highlight it for Halloween with this cute Chewbacca costume for dogs!

For more Star Wars dog costume inspiration, see our article, The Top Star Wars Costumes for Dogs.

Shop on Amazon

Border Collie Halloween Costume: Albert Einstein

Celebrate your smartypants Border Collie by dressing them as one of the smartest people to ever exist. This cute “Al-bark” Einstein costume comes complete with a wacky wig so your BC can match the famous scientist’s coif.

For more small breed dog costume ideas, see our article, Our Fourteen Favorite Small Dog Halloween Costumes.

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More Dog Halloween Costume Ideas

Preview image via flickr/rochesterplaygroup

Elisabeth Geier is a writer, teacher, and animal advocate with extensive animal handling experience and a soft spot for bully breeds and big orange tabbies.

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The Dog People Newsletter

from Lucky Dog Solutions http://www.luckydogsolutions.com/the-best-dog-halloween-costumes-by-dog-breed/ from Lucky Dog Solutions https://luckydogsolutions.tumblr.com/post/627892816587227136

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kathydsalters31 · 4 years ago

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The Best Dog Halloween Costumes by Dog Breed

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Updated August 28, 2020 | For Dog People By Elisabeth Geier

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Table of Contents

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The Best Dog Halloween Costumes by Dog Breed

Chihuahua Halloween Costume: Freddy Krueger

Chihuahua’s don’t always get taken seriously because of their small size, but this Freddy Krueger Chihuahua costume makes it clear just how scary they can be (when they want to be.)

Looking for more scary dog costume ideas? See our article, 12 Super-Scary Dog Halloween Costumes for Your Spooky Pooch.

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Labrador Retriever Halloween Costume: Wonder Woman

Need more superhero dog costume ideas? See our article, The Top 17 Superhero Costumes for Dogs.

Shop on Amazon

Dachshund Halloween Costume: Crayon

Hot dogs are, of course, the classic Dachshund costume, but their long, narrow bodies—and their colorful personalities—make them easy to turn into a vibrant crayon.

Looking for an actual hot dog dog costume? Check out the options available in our article, The Best Hot Dog Halloween Costumes for Dogs.

Shop on Amazon

German Shepherd Halloween Costume: Butterfly

For more large breed dog costume ideas, see our article, 11 Adorable Large Dog Halloween Costumes.

Shop on Amazon

Golden Retriever Halloween Costume: Lion

For more lion-inspired dog halloween costumes, see our article, The Top 8 Lion Dog Halloween Costumes.

Shop on Amazon

Bulldog Halloween Costume: Bull Dog

What can we say, we’re a little literal here at Rover HQ. We just love the joke of a Bulldog wearing bull horns!

For more large breed dog costume ideas, see our article, 11 Adorable Large Dog Halloween Costumes.

Shop on Amazon

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Pug Halloween Costume: Ballerina

For more small breed dog costume ideas, see our article, Our Fourteen Favorite Small Dog Halloween Costumes.

Shop on Amazon

French Bulldog Halloween Costume: Where’s Waldo

For more funny dog Halloween costume ideas, see our article, 12 Funny Dog Costumes to Make Your Dog Look Extra Ridiculous.

Find on Chewy

Terrier Halloween Costume: Bee

From Jack Russells to Westies, terrier breeds are busy little bees! You’ll love watching your dog buzz around in this cute striped terrier costume.

Shop on Amazon

Yorkie Halloween Costume: Chewbacca

There’s no denying the natural resemblance between Yorkies and Wookies. Highlight it for Halloween with this cute Chewbacca costume for dogs!

For more Star Wars dog costume inspiration, see our article, The Top Star Wars Costumes for Dogs.

Shop on Amazon

Border Collie Halloween Costume: Albert Einstein

For more small breed dog costume ideas, see our article, Our Fourteen Favorite Small Dog Halloween Costumes.

Shop on Amazon

More Dog Halloween Costume Ideas

Preview image via flickr/rochesterplaygroup

Elisabeth Geier is a writer, teacher, and animal advocate with extensive animal handling experience and a soft spot for bully breeds and big orange tabbies.

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The Dog People Newsletter

source http://www.luckydogsolutions.com/the-best-dog-halloween-costumes-by-dog-breed/ from Lucky Dog Solutions https://luckydogsolutions.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-best-dog-halloween-costumes-by-dog.html

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secret-diary-of-an-fa · 5 years ago

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Black Christmas Review: Do Not Open Until FUCKING NEVER

TRIGGER WARNING: Rape references. Don’t blame me- they’re in the fucking movie.

2019 has been a year of great horror films, from the delightful evil superhero romp of Brightburn to the psychologically rich and textured Ma to the politically incendiary Us. Unfortunately, you can’t win ‘em all and Black Christmas rounds out the year by shitting itself and falling into a drooling heap on the floor. If someone put a gun to my head and told me to give them an impression of it in just one sentence, I’d call it an hour and a half of drunken virtue-signalling masquerading as a slasher film with unexplained and entirely superfluous supernatural elements. Luckily, I don’t have to sum it up in one sentence. I can take as many sentences as I like to smash this piece of cinematic garbage to pieces.

The plot (such as it is) involves four sorority girls in the last year of uni being stalked and killed by a cult of mask-wearing frat-boys. At first, it’s not supposed to be apparent that it’s a whole cult rather than just one individual, and you’re not meant to realise its frat boys until pretty late into events. In fact, the movie actually treats these facts as minor surprises. Unfortunately, the direction is so woeful and choppy that you realise what’s up long, long before the movie gets to the punchline. I mean, they literally show a scene of frat boys going through some occult-looking hazing ritual involving black cloaks and Latin muttering in the first twenty minutes, but the film’s been running for over an hour before the characters put two and two together and arrive at a plot point.

“But why are the frat boys hunting and killing sorority girls?” I hear you ask, expecting (foolishly) a Machiavellian plot twist or grand scheme. Unfortunately, the answer is just “because they’re sexist”. It‘s one of those films where the bad men are bad because they’re men and for no other reason. They main dickhead even bangs on and on about how he and his cult are motivated merely by the fact of their manhood. It’s boring, trite and insulting. Say what you like about Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and Freddie Krueger: at least they had an ethos. Well, maybe not an ethos, but interesting reasons and neuroses motivating them.

The only undeniably good male character in the film is a weak-willed, stammering berk who looks like Moss from The IT Crowd on prozac and who serves no other purpose than for the director to hold up a model of the supposed ideal for the modern man: i.e. a fucking pussy. Fuck sake, large sections of Hollywood, there is a happy medium between ‘ineffectual puppy dog’ and ‘murder-rapist’. The world isn’t divided into ultra-macho, hateful Alphas and spineless Betas without discernible character. Quite a few are just people. Well, in real life, most of them are just morons (which is presumably how this film got greenlit), but when you’re writing a movie script it’s important to favour verisimilitude over strict realism. Black Christmas ignores both an makes every bloke in it a 2D caricature of a sexist that might have been current in, say, 1954.

The female leads are good, but they feel like they belong in a completely different project. It often seems like they’ve wondered in from an above-average English-language telenovella: the kind of thing that you can watch after being defeated by Xmas Dinner while your sherry-addled brain slowly turns to cheese, but in a nice way. Then horrible things start happening to them and it’s impossible to take it seriously because they talk like a cross between Juno and Kevin Bacon doing an advert for a mobile phone network.

The script, meanwhile, contrives to be a predictable drudge and a horrible surprise at the same time. On the one hand, there’s a lecturer in an early scene who seems a big creepy and it’s really obvious that he’s going to turn out to be the head of the cult at the end, then he does. No twists, no real character development: he’s just the obvious candidate and the writer was a lazy hack. On the other hand, before the shit hits the fan, the main characters do a musical number about rape while dressed in sexy little Santa outfits. There is a reason for it (sort of) but not a justification. It’s probably the most schizophrenic thing ever committed to film. It wouldn’t be so bad, but the tune is kind of a jam. I’d listen to if they put it on a Xmas album.

Speaking of the script, the method used by the Cult of Random Sexists is to receive supernatural powers from a possessed bust of the university’s founder. When the bust is destroyed, the girls are able to mount a successful counter-attack... which is just stupid. There’s a handful of them, versus a seemingly limitless number of frat-jerks, all of whom are bigger than them and some of whom have motherfucking longbows. Which also begs the question, “why the fuck did they need the bust in the first place”? Their goal was to murder four unarmed lassies with no combat experience who didn’t know they were being hunted. I’d like to think that if I ever had to execute four people who were weaker, less well-equipped and less knowledgeable than me, I wouldn’t need to ask a magic statue for help. Especially not in America, where guns are really fucking easy to get hold of. Also, the magic statue doesn’t seem to do much other than allow those under its spell to fight with basic competence: they can still be killed by stab-wounds and blunt-force trauma. Maybe the statue didn’t do shit. Maybe the magic was inside them, all along. How fucking Xmas-y.

I think I’d find Black Christmas’s whole performatively woke tripe a little less tiring if it was remotely original. After all, a film in which the real monster is sexism is a very important cultural artifact. But Black Christmas isn’t a film singular; it’s another film: a cookie-cutter cash-in with the same basic villain-archetype as everything from Colossal to an episode of Supergirl. This shit is tired. It’s old hat. The point has been made as well as it’s ever going to be made, and since it’s not a sufficiently complex or compelling point to bear repeating. I think we’re all on board with the fact that ‘sexism is bad, m’kay?’. I just don’t feel like you can stretch that into a whole sequence of theoretically-unrelated films unless you also have something slightly more substantive to say. Or you have some idea how sexism manifests here in space year 2019 (spoiler warning: special clubs with knives and robes are a bit outdated: nowadays its all about the alt-right, an-cap web presence and books by cheesy pick-up artists).

So anyway, that’s Black Christmas: a waste of acting talent that thinks that all men are evil but doesn’t have the imagination to think of a better evil motive than sexism itself. Give it a miss, unless you’re planning on firing it out of a clay pigeon launcher and taking pot-shots.

#Secret Diary of a Fat Admirer

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peytonh450-blog · 5 years ago

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From Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (2018)

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From The Jetsons (1962)

Cartoons and animation, while framed to cater towards a young audience, prove to be skilled in transmitting more complex messages, as each author connects The Simpsons and The Boondocks to very real, very important conversations in contemporary society. While the average child may not grasp the full extent of social commentary present in the shows, more discerning viewers will understand their layered appearance. One recent piece of animation that spanned all generational gaps was the masterful Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse. Winning many awards, the Marvel character took the form of Miles Morales, an Afro-Latinx student. Not only was the animation style groundbreaking in its inspiration from the misaligned printing errors and drawing techniques of actual comic books, but the mixed-race background of its protagonist who dons the famous Spiderman suit was noteworthy. Superhero films have been predominantly white (all six original Avengers were white), yet in this scene we get a clear view of Miles’ home life with separated parents, speaking multiple languages, attending an upscale school for the first time and having to adjust to having generally white classmates. As Mitchell notes about The Simpsons, often a defining characteristic of popular animates series or films is that they, in some way, reject the idealized version of American life and family, providing a better sense of realism that divorces the piece from a traditional child’s cartoon (Mitchell, 18). Even the graffiti Miles draws and colors throughout the film speaks to a thread between communities of color and utilizing street art to express their grievances as a counterculture but also to reclaim their power and redefine their value in society. Producers of the film Phil Lord and Chris Miller, and directors Peter Ramsey, Bob Perischetti, and Rodney Rothman all noted the importance of making sure the work was based on something real, with real relationships taking place in real life. They spoke about how the medium of comic-book animation can deliver a very powerful message through an explosive, dynamic medium. The message of the piece is strong and empowering: that anyone can wear the mask [be the superhero] regardless of where you’re from, what you’ve done, or what you look like. Rex Krueger notes about The Boondocks that characters face real-life problems that are ubiquitous, as well as being subject themselves to physical harm all to be perceived as more realistic and more cinematic (Krueger, 319). It is the same in Into the Spider-verse, as Miles encounters racism, familial betrayal, self-doubt, and self-discovery. His problems as a young student and a person of color are presented truthfully and realistically even through the medium of animation. He experiences bodily harm, reversing animation’s trend of giving superheroes immortality and infallibility. It aids in shaping society’s new viewpoint towards their heroes and how they identify with who is on screen - the superhero and comic genre’s popularity makes it a prime starting point for opening the discussion about the power of animation films for all ages.

On the other hand, one of the cartoons I watched growing up was The Jetsons, which stands in contrast to Into the Spider-verse. The show first aired in the 1960′s and it’s catchy theme song saw a family - husband George and wife Judy, and children Jane and Elroy - soaring through the skies in a flying car. It presents a utopia of a future: flying cars, buildings high in the sky, and robots doing our chores - all through the lens of a middle-class suburban family. In this intro video, it gives a clear depiction of traditional gender and familial roles as George goes off to work, his wife takes his wallet to go shopping, and the children take their things and go to school. Episodes followed a formula: the family as typical, going about everyday life to resolve a single issue each airing, and to continue as a happy, ideal family to enjoy (Mitchell, 18). It fit a mold, and perpetuated the ideal white family (there are no characters of color in the show), that didn’t allow for a sense of realism, regardless of if it was set in 1960 or 2060. The show is actually set for a reboot, but with a much more dystopic, sinister feel, perhaps providing a better sense of social realism as the world is more full of trash than flying cars. The original series places a futuristic sugar coat over everything, its visual aesthetic one that lets viewers imagine a bright, wonderful world, yet it ultimately catered a narrow viewpoint of what the future family should look like. Diversity is so clearly important in modern Hollywood, and even today certain audiences struggle to identify with on-screen characters, in both live-action and animated series. While The Simpsons may present a stylized version of humanity, it is argued they promote a more humanized family, where its content and humor work to undermine the traditional un-modern family structure and life to present a more realistic world for viewers.

#old cartoons vs. new cartoons #social realism in animation #development of family structure in cartoons #idealization in animation

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the-original-b · 5 years ago

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Archangel--Chapter 2: the Everett Escalation

Format: Prose / Ficton, multi-entry

Part in Series: 3 of 9 (Previous chapter)

Word Count: c. 8,700

Summary: Specialist Krueger’s path leads him to shops and back alleys in Queens, where previously unknown players make their presence felt.

Trigger Warning(s): blood, violence

[A/N: this work of fiction is neither sponsored nor endorsed by Heckler & Koch GmbH.]

Krueger checked his overcoat and scarf at the desk just beyond the restaurant entrance. He wore a black crew neck t-shirt tucked into the slacks of a black suit with muted pinstripes and matching oxfords—certain he satisfied the dress code for such an establishment.

The Brooklynite: this elite restaurant in Williamsburg is where she told him to meet her and discuss the next steps after returning from his trip to Miami a week ago. It wasn’t particularly busy on a Wednesday night, so he didn’t have to worry too much about prying eyes and ears. He went up to the host to inform him of his arrival.

“Welcome, sir,” the host greeted him—a young man barely an adult dressed in a black collared shirt and matching slacks. He checked the reservations book in front of him. “How many are dining with you tonight?”

“I’m meeting someone,” Krueger said. “7:30 reservation.” A quick glance at his watch informed him it was 7:29.

“Ah, yes,” the host said. “I see it here, table for two. We’ll be ready for you in a moment. I suggest a visit to the bar while you wait, that’s where she’ll be.”

“I’ll do that. Thank you.”

Krueger nodded respectfully at the kid and made his way past him toward the bar area. He spotted her immediately—she wore black peep-toe stilettos and a matching deep v-neck off-the-shoulder sheath dress that came past her knees but fell naturally over the curves of her slim, feminine frame. She traded her usual glasses for contact lenses, and let her hair fall freely over her shoulders. The jewel of her necklace rested just above her cleavage.

She turned her head to look at him, a slow smile parting her deep-red-colored lips. “You clean up nicely,” Khai said, catching him admiring her.

“And you,” he returned, looking into her big, brown eyes. “You look as though you were born to wear that dress..!”

She did a quick spin, modeling for him and for everybody else in the room looking at her. “I don’t get to dress up very often, I have to make it count every chance I get.”

“It sounds like we both need a reason to get out and dress up more,” he said, smirking.

Their server approached them, a woman in a white blouse and black slacks with her dirty-blonde hair tied in a ponytail. “Excuse me sir, ma’am. Your table is ready.”

“Perfect timing,” Khai said to her. “Thank you.” Smiling, she turned to Krueger and offered her hand, her nails done the same shade as her lips. “Shall we?”

“We shall,” he said, giving her his elbow. She took it with both hands and they followed the server to their table.

~~~~

Their server had delivered a bottle of sparkling water and two wine glasses into which she poured a merlot, and returned some time later to take their dinner order, leaving a menu behind in case they wanted dessert.

“I never know if I ordered the right thing when I’m here,” Khai said, holding up the single-page menu one handed and examining it. There were only six selections for dinner.

“In my experience,” Krueger said, looking at her, “it’s easier to make a choice when there are fewer options. It prevents, decision fatigue.”

She peeled her eyes away from the menu to look at him and grin. “On that we agree.” She looked back at the menu. “But it’s all so good, I’m afraid of missing out on something.”

“That makes one of us; my ex-wife and I could never get a table here, so this is all new to me.”

This got Khai’s attention. She put the menu down and turned in her chair to face him, raising both eyebrows. “You never told me you were married..! The stone-cold Specialist is human after all!” She leaned forward and rested her chin on her interlaced fingers. “Tell me about the Ex-Mrs. Krueger, what was she like?”

“Which Ex-Mrs. Krueger?” he said.

A new, raspy voice in their conversation made it easier for Krueger to avoid the subject. “Is that my Lizzy?” the newcomer said. “You look beautiful as ever..!”

Khai looked to her left at the newcomer, a tall well-dressed broad-shouldered fair-skinned man with silver hair and inviting smile. His mass had accumulated where it naturally does with age. “Uncle Henry!” she said with an equally warm smile. She stood up to kiss the man on the cheek. “You’ve lost weight..!”

“You know what the stress does to me,” Henry said with a laugh.

“The good kind?” Khai said patting the man’s stomach. She turned to introduce Krueger. “Henry, this is—”

“Sebastian,” Krueger said as he stood up. “Pleasure to meet you, sir.” He held his hand out.

Henry shook it. “I love your suit, Sebastian. Tell me, what do you do?”

“I’m a consultant for business enterprises. I suppose you’d call somebody like me a problem solver.”

“A problem-solver? Fascinating. Is that how you met Liz?”

“Why, yes,” Krueger said. “Her employers are running maintenance on their cybersecurity suites. She called me in to have a look.”

“And you two fell for each other on the spot!” Henry laughed. “I love it.” He shook Krueger’s hand again, placing the other on his shoulder. “Any friend of Liz Khai is a friend of mine.” he said. “I won’t take any more of your time, but please enjoy the rest of your evening.” He returned to give Khai a quick hug and cheek kiss goodbye before heading back to the front desk to get his coat.

Khai watched him leave as she sat back down. “That,” she said, “is Henry Adrian Everett: the proprietor of this establishment and others. He’s been a valued member of the organization for thirty years, working with the Branch since even before Simon’s late father William was running it.”

“He’s the next suspect on Wells’ list,” Krueger concluded. He sat down as well.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Khai took up her wine glass, swishing it around a little as she mused. “I hate to think he could have betrayed us, but we can’t rule out the possibility.” She took a sip.

“Just tell me what I have to do.”

Khai set the glass down. “Everett owns numerous properties here in the Five Boroughs and beyond, but the one he’s most involved with is the Pharaohs Lounge in Bayside. It’s his most closely guarded enterprise; after the Silvio mess we can’t risk another operation in neutral territory.”

“Rules of engagement?”

“Observation and conversation. Defend yourself if you have to, but it’s best to avoid confrontation entirely if possible.”

Krueger reached for his water, taking a drink and placing the glass back down on the table. “I’ll need a list of his businesses here in New Work, if you don’t mind.”

“I’ll get you what you need by tomorrow morning.”

The server arrived with their dinner. A pair of busboys assisted her. “Here we go,” she said as the three of them laid their selections out on the table. “Medium-rare porterhouse for two, share-size fresh broccoli and baked potato. Mr. Everett says it’s on the house.”

“This is perfect,” Krueger said. “Thank you.” He turned back to Khai after the staff left, giving her a knowing look.

“What?” she asked with a not-so-innocent giggle.

“You knew he would comp your dinner, didn’t you?”

“It was fifty-fifty,” she said. “I think he was comping you.”

Krueger chuckled at the thought. “Any friend of yours is a friend of his,” he echoed. He raised his wine glass to her. “To having friends in high places.”

Khai brought her glass to his. “Hear, hear.”

~~~~

Krueger and Khai split a generous tip for the server. Then he walked with her to the front to reclaim their outerwear and made it outside. Khai felt around inside her coat pocket for her key fob and hit the button, a late-model luxury coupe responded with a chirp and a flash of its lights.

“May I walk you to your car?” he offered.

Khai looked over at him and smiled. “That’s very sweet of you,” she said, “but I can take it from here, Sebastian.”

Krueger knew she would understand why he used the false name. “Of course. That would have made this more than a professional gathering.” They embraced, mostly for the spectacle.

“Well, next time,” she said, looking up at him while still in his arms, “you can absolutely walk me to the car.” Her eyes moved down to his lips before darting back up to meet his again. Then they released their hold on each other, and Khai held his gaze for a little as she started for her car. Eventually she turned to look directly ahead and went for her coupe.

Krueger watched her enter the car’s driver-side door. Its LED headlamps came on as the engine roared to life and hummed for a little before she pulled out onto Broadway and drove away.

Krueger replayed the night over in his head as he walked toward his own car, parked a block and a half down around the corner on Driggs Avenue. He had his next assignment but unlike the last two, hadn’t yet received a complete list of parameters for it. He hated acting on a lead before all the parts came together but disliked the inaction of having to wait even more. He found the Pharaohs Lounge after a quick internet search on his smartphone and plugged the address into his GPS as soon as he entered his car, a subtle but classy sports sedan. He started the engine and headed south toward Division Avenue and eventually the I-278 expressway.

He made a point to park around the far corner on 40th Avenue when he finally arrived and started west, crossing Bell Boulevard to get a look at the establishment from a distance as he headed south to walk past it. It was nothing flashy—one of several units belonging to the same building, tucked between a sandwich shop and jewelry store. He noticed the office space in the upper floor that connected the three storefronts, deducing that was where he needed to go when the time to act was right.

He continued, crossing 41st Avenue diagonally to stay as far as possible from the building. Heading east a few hundred feet he noticed an alley behind an open gate that fed into an empty lot behind the building that no doubt provided rear access to it. He made a note to come back to that place, and followed the road as it turned north into 24th place. He found his way back to 40th Avenue, where he returned to his parked sedan and sat behind the wheel for a little. He replayed the evening a second time in his head, paying special attention to the way Khai looked at him before starting the engine and heading back to his home in Rego Park.

~~~~

Krueger ran four and a half miles in forty minutes Thursday morning, and checked his laptop for correspondence from Khai regarding points of interest for the task at hand upon returning. As promised, she delivered a detailed list of Everett’s businesses in the Five Boroughs, annotated to reflect the importance of each venue to Everett himself as well as the Branch. Khai’s message included times and days that Everett was most likely to be at his places of business, as a bonus.

“Hervorragend,” Krueger whispered with a nod of approval. As he already narrowed down his list to three of the fifteen entries listed, he mapped the most efficient route connecting them, and planned to surveil each of them during their busiest hours, making sure to avoid Everett for now. He went off to his shower to start his day properly.

Krueger’s breakfast consisted of oats with fruit and egg whites, followed by espresso. He took a drive out east to head to a shooting range with his personal sidearm—a .40 caliber Heckler & Koch P30L—to keep his skills sharp and marksmanship in top form. He went through two forty-round boxes and two target silhouettes before he was satisfied, and after re-packaging his weapon he washed the residue off his hands and stepped back into his car.

He spent an hour and a half at his gym alternating isolation- and compound-exercises. And after a quick shower on site he went to one of Everett’s diners alone to eat a lean grilled chicken wrap for lunch. He scanned the dining room between bites for any characters who stuck out to him; there was the man at the front behind the cash register who he thought might know a thing or two, the manager—a middle-aged woman—behind the bar who probably knew more, and the various servers who likely didn’t know anything useful. He kept a mental note of how often they left their posts to move out of his sight.

He paid for his lunch at the front and took a walk around the block, paying attention to the building itself and looking for alternate entrances or windows indicative of a back office. There were none he could see from this distance, so he circled back around the block to his car and made his way to the next point of interest, a boutique shop next door to Amelia’s, a standalone furniture store.

As before he parked around the corner and took a walk to the door, monitoring the ebb and flow of the people around him, making sure none of them were following him. The boutique shop, he found, hadn’t yet opened for business, so he wouldn’t be able to see it in broad daylight. Still he had to see if he could find another way in.

He settled for the furniture store next door, and was greeted by an attractive woman about Khai’s age with curly strawberry blonde hair and bright blue eyes as soon as he walked in. She wore a comfortable button-up shirt and dark jeans with sneakers under her apron. “Hello, there,” she said. “I’m Amelia. Welcome to my shop!”

“Your shop?” Krueger echoed.

“Yes, sir,” Amelia acknowledged with an energetic smile. “Mom always said you have to do what you love, so I decided to make money doing it!” She shrugged nonchalantly. “It helps that I’m good at it,” she added.

Krueger followed a different version of that philosophy—making money doing what he was good at and finding pleasure in it. “I’m always impressed to see young business owners doing well for themselves,” he said as he looked around the showroom, taking note of the other half-dozen people in the room with them. “Well done.”

“Thanks. We had a rough first couple of years, but we pulled through..!” She straightened her apron a little. “So,” she began, “are you looking for anything in particular, or just browsing?”

“I’m considering doing some redecoration, but I have no idea what I’m looking for,” Krueger confessed. “I was hoping to get some ideas here.”

“Why don’t I show you a few things in the showroom?” she offered.

“That would be perfect,” Krueger said with a smile. “Lead the way.”

~~~~

Amelia led Krueger on a tour of the showroom, citing her personal favorite pieces and noting the ones Krueger said he liked. While on the tour Krueger paid special attention to the wall Amelia’s shop shared with the one next door, looking for employee-only entrances or shared office space but finding none. They finished back at the center of the showroom, where she leaned against a countertop to talk to Krueger some more.

“And that’s pretty much it,” she said. “Like I said, we source as much as we can domestically, but the more exotic pieces come from all over the world.”

“It’s all beautiful, Amelia.” Krueger noted. “I’ll have to take some more measurements back home before I commit to anything, but I’ll let you know as soon as I get some definite figures.”

“Sounds wonderful,” she laughed. She jotted her cell phone number on the back of a business card and handed it to him. “Where did you say you lived again?”

“Right here in Queens,” he replied, taking the card and putting it in his inside coat pocket.

“Nice..! How long have you been here?”

“About fifteen years on and off. I traveled a great deal before that.” He wasn’t lying to her.

“That’s the dream right there, see the world while you’re young! I wish I could have done more of that before starting up here again, you know?”

“There’s still time,” Krueger said. “I believe we’re only as old as we feel.”

Amelia smirked. “I like the way you think. Sebastian, you said?”

“That’s right.” That time he was lying.

“Well, Sebastian, thank you for coming in this afternoon.” She held her hand out and Krueger shook it. “I hope to hear from you soon.”

“You will,” Krueger said with a smile. He turned to exit the shop.

Amelia watched him walk away before taking a few steps after him toward the front of the shop. “You know,” she added, “you should come back in a few days and check out the boutique shop next door.”

Krueger stopped and turned to face her. “Is that what’s going there?” Again he lied to her—Khai had informed him exactly what was next door.

“Yep. I can’t wait to see what’s there, and I’m excited to collaborate with them in the future.”

“Small business owners have to stick together these days,” he concurred. “I’ll be back to see what they offer.” At least he could be honest with her that time. Krueger waved Amelia goodbye and turned back toward the exit.

~~~~

After Krueger’s four mile run the following morning, he returned home to shower before heading to the third of Everett’s businesses—a coffee shop in Valley Stream—for breakfast. He considered it his first of three allotted cheat meals for the week: an egg and turkey sausage sandwich on a biscuit. With it he ordered his usual black espresso and took a seat opposite from the countertop where the patrons placed their orders. He was free to scan the whole room from there.

He noted the floor-to-ceiling windows at the front of the shop to his left, the counter directly in front of him, about eight other tables in the dining area to his right, the art on the walls around him that were more likely prints of old paintings than genuine replicas, and a door at the far back of the establishment beyond the dining area with a sign reading employees only beyond this point. He couldn’t identify any among the staff who would know anything useful about Everett—they were all around his daughter’s age. Still, he knew where he would have to go and with whom he’d have to inquire to find what he needed.

He opened up his laptop and logged into the Wi-Fi on site as a guest. He fired up an instant messenger and opened a new window.

The boutique shop was a dead end, he wrote her, but the diner and coffee shop seem promising. He took a sip from his espresso.

Khai took a while to respond. I’ll get you keys to the buildings, she replied, but I can’t help you get into the offices. You’re on your own there.

That won’t be a problem, he wrote back. Getting the documents might be a challenge.

He looked up from his monitor to accept his egg sandwich from the young man who brought it to him. He thanked the boy and took a bite, finding it to be a good amount saltier than expected but enjoying the flavor overall. He looked back at his monitor to read what Khai had sent him.

Most of it is written, she wrote. He doesn’t trust technology to keep secrets.

Everett, he found, was a wise man. Meet at noon for selection? Usual place.

I’ll be there. Khai signed off shortly after her message was delivered.

Krueger shut his laptop and leaned back in his chair, continuing his breakfast and looking out the window at the passers-by, keeping a mental tally of how many of them looked into the shop at him. He counted seven.

~~~~

Krueger stepped out of the coffee shop and turned to his left to start down the sidewalk before a woman’s voice stole his attention.

“Milo..?” she said.

Krueger froze. There were only two women in the country who knew him by his actual name, and one of them was miles away in an office on Sixth Avenue. What were the odds the only other woman in this hemisphere who knew the real him would be walking into the same coffee shop on the same day at the same time he was walking out of it?

He turned to find her standing behind him, a stunningly beautiful woman with deep brown eyes, caramel-colored skin, and delicate features. Her black hair was different now—a pixie cut with some lighter highlights that still framed her face perfectly.

“Emma..!” He was ready for anything but to see her again. He studied her, looking up and down all five feet and five inches of her and finding no flaws. “You look, well..!” In the eighteen years since they first met on the boardwalk that evening, she hadn’t seemed to age a day.

“You too.” Emma stood there with her hands in her coat pockets, studying the subtle wrinkles on his face that came with age, and noting a tiny U-shaped scar under his left cheekbone that she hadn’t seen before. “The beard suits you,” she finally said with an honest smile.

He reached up to run his hand over the mostly gray ten-day-old stubble. “Thought I’d finally try it,” he said, matching her expression with an almost nervous laugh.

A third voice entered their exchange. This one was a man’s. “Em?” The man approached them from behind her. “Em, is everything okay?”

Emma held her eyes shut for a second before turning to acknowledge the newcomer. “Everything’s fine Tim.”

Krueger arched an eyebrow and flattened it as soon as he made eye contact with him. Tim was a tall, classically handsome fellow with dark hair slicked back.

“Tim,” Emma introduced them. “This is Milo, my… ex-husband.”

“Milo,” Tim echoed. “Nice to finally meet the legend, I’ve heard all about you.” He reached out for Krueger’s hand.

“I certainly hope not.” Krueger shook Tim’s hand firmly.

“That’s funny,” Tim snorted. “What do you do, buddy?”

“I’m in private security,” Krueger said evenly. After all he wasn’t lying. “I dabble in consultative work as well.”

“Cool.” Tim took his hand back. “Do you have a card or something?”

“I work on a referrals-only basis.”

“Ah. Best of the best huh?”

“I’ve been told.”

Tim laughed a little to himself. “Well, he’s definitely not a boaster, I’ll give him that…” He turned to Emma. “I’ll be inside. You want your usual?”

“Yeah, thanks,” she acknowledged him. “Go ahead I’ll be right in.”

“You got it, babe.” Tim kissed her on the cheek before trotting into the coffee shop.

Krueger blinked. “He’s—”

“An acquired taste,” Emma confirmed. “But his ten-year old son gets along with Vicki so… bonus points.” She shifted a little. “And you? Vicki said one of her friends spotted you with a well-dressed woman at the Brooklynite the other day.”

The host, Krueger surmised.

Emma must have seen it on his face. “No,” she chided, crossing her arms. “Don’t have him followed.”

“If I were really worried about that do you think he would ever get close to our daughter?”

She chuckled. “Fair point.” Emma uncrossed her arms and put her hands on her hips. “What are you doing here, Milo? Really.” Her tone was appealing, like she was asking for a reason not regret asking him.

Krueger averted her eyes for the briefest moment before reclaiming them. “I’m working,” he said.

Emma shifted, disheartened.

“I’m not following you,” he added. “Or Tim.”

“But you are following someone.”

Krueger put his hands in his coat pockets. “Yeah.”

Emma shut her eyes and sighed. “Don’t forget where your boundaries are, Milo.” She opened her eyes again. “I mean that. If not for me, then do it for our daughter.” She turned to head back toward the coffee shop.

Krueger watched her walk away from him. He thought it would hurt less after all these years but he was wrong. “How is Victoria?” he finally asked.

Emma stopped, halfway through the entrance, to turn and look him in the eye. “She asks about you almost every day,” she said. “She misses you.”

~~~~

Krueger met Khai in the armory that afternoon, as agreed upon earlier that day. She sensed whatever happened to him this morning shook him in a way she hadn’t thought possible.

“Are you okay?” Her concern was genuine.

He gave her a hollow nod while he inspected the selections absentmindedly. “Ich traf einen geist,” he noted, sotto voce. He looked down the tritium sights of a Glock 21, dry-firing to get a sense of the trigger weight and freeing the slide to return it to the closed position. The sights were obscured by the suppressor, but that would hardly matter at the range of a few yards at most. “.45 ACP?”

She made a mental note to not pull that thread until he was ready to talk about it. “Yes,” she confirmed. “Same model suppressor as before too.”

Krueger knew how effective that suppressor was. “Gut,” he nodded, placing the gun aside. He perused over what she had picked out for hand-to-hand combat, passing over the karambit for a 16-inch collapsible baton with a flashlight built into its handle. “Building keys?”

Khai shot him an inquisitive look from behind her glasses.

“When we spoke this morning, you said you’d get keys to the buildings.”

“Right, right.” Khai went back to an old desk in the room and scanned it for the keys she was able to clone from the master copies kept in the archives. She moved aside a stack of order forms and found the 3 x 41/2 manila envelope that contained them.

Krueger followed her to the workstation, and paused when he recognized the crimson logo on the form he spotted at the top of the stack. “Ah,” he extolled with an earnest half-smile. “Deutches waffen..!”

“Pardon?” She followed his gaze to the invoice from Heckler & Koch, GmbH. “Oh, those..!” She turned to face him, leaning against the desk. “I had hoped to surprise you with something you’d like for the next phase of this operation.”

Krueger examined the invoice, recognizing each of the five items listed. He’d gotten very familiar with them during his time with Special Forces. “Diese sind perfekt, Fräulein Khai. Danke schön.”

She didn’t speak a lot of German, but she understood enough of what he said. She smiled warmly at him. “You’re very welcome, Herr Krüger.” Khai held the manila envelope up by her face. “The keys are labelled,” she said, handing it to him. “Burner phone’s in there as well. You have a way into the offices?”

“I do,” he confirmed, accepting the envelope. The first two buttons of her blouse were undone, and Krueger didn’t stop himself from glancing at the exposed skin. “I’ll contact you with developments.”

~~~~

Krueger waited in his car around the corner from the coffee shop for another hour and forty five minutes after it closed for business. He turned his wrist upward to glance at his watch before stepping out and quickly checked himself to ensure his .45 was in his underarm holster and spare magazines were within reach. He took to the street clad in a black turtle neck sweater and gloves, dark tactical pants and mid boots under a charcoal coat—a look he considered practical and wouldn’t rouse too many suspicions on a night like this.

He unlocked the outer door and stepped inside to unlock the inner one. Once he crossed the threshold he moved to disarm the security system he spotted on the wall that morning using a sequence of digits Khai wrote on a note she attached to the front door key. Then he went to work, heading straight through the dimly lit dining area to the employees-only door which he pushed open with ease. To his right was a storage closet, to his left a janitorial one. Further down the industrial-gray painted hall to his left was the office he was looking for.

He undid the belt of his coat to access his right inside pocket. From it he retrieved a lock pick—a souvenir from an investigation job he did for an ex-government agent some years ago—and knelt down to undo the doorknob lock. It took him all of four seconds to bypass it.

Once inside he quickly scanned the dark room, noting an old couch, a floor lamp, and a table with an old desktop computer. Behind the desk was a large safe with a rotary dial combination lock.

He could be there all night trying to brute-force that thing open, and he couldn’t afford to spend that much time on a lead he didn’t even know would pay off. He fished around in his coat pocket for the burner phone and flipped it open to dial the number stored therein.

She answered after three rings. “This is Khai,” she said.

“I’m at the coffee shop,” he replied. “There’s a safe with a rotary dial lock in the office here, any chance Everett would leave the combination somewhere?”

“Not likely,” she began. “He’s too seasoned and clever to make such a rookie mistake.” Khai thought for a little. “The partners keep a database of PINs and passwords belonging to high-ranking members as a backup plan in case they have a need to hand one or more operations off to new people. If you give me a minute to log into the servers, I can get it for you.”

Krueger could hear some light shuffling on the other end of the line. “You’re not at the office now?” he inquired, half-joking.

“It’s Friday night, and I’m just getting off a double date with Netflix and wine.” In his mind’s eye he could see her lips curl upward into a grin. “I’m in,” she continued. “Give me a moment… here we are: Everett, Henry Adrian.” Her volume dropped as she read the entries aloud, more to herself than to him. “Date of birth, blood type, height, weight, eye color, hair color… aha! Enterprises.” She scrolled down the list of businesses he oversaw, both legitimate and otherwise. Her volume returned to normal. “There’s an adorable coffee shop in Valley Stream, is that where you are?”

“That’s right.” Krueger retrieved the baton from his pocket, turning the flashlight on and scanning the desk for anything of importance. He held the phone against his ear with his shoulder to free his hand and pick up a framed photo of a much younger-looking Everett and… it must have been Khai. They held a tight embrace looking into the camera with beaming smiles, he was in a dark suit and tie and she wore a navy blue graduation gown with silver and gold regalia.

“Here’s something,” her voice crackled in his ear, bringing him back to the present. “Make and model for the safe, manufacture date and warranty… as for the combination, it just says ‘graduation date.’”

Krueger did the math. “When did you graduate college?” He held the flashlight between his teeth to carefully remove the photo from the frame with both hands. Handwritten on the reverse of the photo was a note to Everett dated May 24th.

“2006,” she said.

“Uh-huh.” He laid the photo face-down onto the glass of the open frame and reclaimed the flashlight to free his mouth again. “Stand by.”

He knelt in front of the safe and turned the dial a few times to the right with his free hand, ensuring he passed zero twice and stopping at the number five. He turned it to the left, passing five and stopping at twenty-four. Then he turned the dial to the right once, stopping at six. Then he pulled a latch downward and disengaged the lock, swinging the heavy door open. “Got it.”

“How—?”

“Oh-five, twenty-four, oh-six. Your graduation date.” He took a stack of documents from off the top shelf of the open safe. “He keeps a picture of you at his desk here.”

It was quiet on the other end of the line for a few seconds while Krueger examined the documents he pulled. Then Khai said, “I think I know the one you’re talking about..!” He could envision the smile on her face as she said it. “He shared his secrets with the Partners while keeping them to himself, leaving just enough in the open that somebody close to him can figure it out.”

“Admirable…” Krueger noted. His inspection of the documents stopped when he noted a printed email chain between Everett and five other members. “Was ist das..?” He scrutinized the dialogue further.

“Did you find something?”

“Maybe…” He read the chain some more. “A printed group discussion over an email chain, talking about the bug I found in Wells’ phone. Interesting they don’t mention me.”

“Wells thought it best we didn’t make your presence known to the branch until after this whole mess was resolved,” she disclosed.

“Smart of him…” Krueger read the discussion some more. “Apparently Everett knows who placed the bug in the first place. In a separate chain he reaches out to somebody named Caruso to discuss what he found.”

“Does he say who it was?”

“Not in this chain,” Krueger said. He opened the desk drawer to retrieve a manila folder and placed the printed email chain inside, then returned the rest of the documents to the safe and shut it. “I’ll ask him at Pharaohs.” He shut the phone to end the call and placed the phone back inside his coat pocket. He placed the photo of Khai and Everett back into its frame and on top of the desk before walking out the office door, locking it behind him, and shutting off the flashlight in his baton. He headed for the front door of the coffee shop, arming the security system again, and locking the door on his way out.

~~~~

Everett walked into his office on the second floor of the building that held the Pharaohs Lounge, the bass tones of the music in the space below him quietly reverberating through the walls. He spotted the cracked-open window, then scanned the still-dark space before hitting the light switch on the wall to his left. A floor lamp illuminated most of the room, enough that he could plainly see the desk on the opposite end of the office directly ahead of him, the storage closets on the left wall, and the open window on the right.

Everett hung his overcoat and brimmed hat on the coat rack beside the door, shut it behind him, and headed for the window to close it. He felt the metal pressed against the back of his head as soon as the window latched shut.

“Don’t turn around,” the intruder ordered.

Everett nodded, recognizing the intruder’s dulcet tones; he understood now. He raised his hands slowly up beside his head and looked straight ahead out the window. “You’re Liz’s friend,” he correctly surmised. “The problem-solver. What did you say your name was?”

“Names are for friends.”

Everett’s shoulders heaved with a quiet chuckle. “I like that,” he said. “Am I the problem?”

“That remains to be seen. Now,” he said, pulling the gun away, “slowly take a seat behind your desk, and place your palms on the table top.”

“I understand,” Everett complied. He turned to his desk and sat in the swiveling chair, placing his palms down on top while Krueger walked around the other side. He kept his handgun trained on Everett as he moved.

“May I sit as well?” he entreated.

“Please, do.”

Krueger took a seat, resting the bottom of the pistol’s grip on his right knee. “As you correctly stated,” he began, “I’ve been hired to patch some holes in Simon Wells’ organization.”

“Then you’ll have work for years,” Everett added. “There are cracks in the Branch’s foundation. The Partners even spoke about gutting it—tearing it all down and rebuilding from scratch.”

“Then I hope I can fill the cracks before that happens.” Krueger slid a manila envelope across the desk toward Everett. “I pulled those from your safe at the coffee shop. I have some questions to ask you about them.”

“It would help if I could see what you want me to read.” He gestured his inside pocket with a head tilt. “My glasses.”

“Go ahead.”

Slowly, deliberately, Everett opened up the medium gray jacket of his suit with his left hand, and reached into the chest pocket of his stark white shirt to pull out a pair of reading glasses. He slipped them on over his eyes and placed his palms back on the desktop.

Krueger reached over, keeping the Glock pointed at Everett, and turned the folder open. “Recognize that email chain?”

Everett leaned forward and looked at the documents. “I do. I was building a case to take to Simon. I knew there were only three of us who could have put the bug in his office phone. Naturally, the others maintain their innocence, but I have my suspicions about them.”

“I’ve been given a similar report,” Krueger concurred. “The list was narrowed down to the three people Simon trusted the most with his conference room.”

“Charlie Silvio, Danny Caruso, and myself.” Everett laughed to himself. “It’s funny he didn’t put Liz on that list.”

“I thought that a bit odd as well.”

“It isn’t her. She practically rebuilt the Branch with William Wells; she’s had plenty of opportunities to turn it inside out sooner than now. She doesn’t have enough to gain and too much to lose in sabotage.”

“Silvio’s clean as well. He may be an arrogant imbecile with too much money and free time, but I’ve checked him. He’s no traitor.” Krueger leaned back in his chair a little, adjusting the pitch and angle of the gun in his hand. “How do I know it isn’t you?”

“Because it would crush Liz and her parents if I did anything to betray the Partners. Besides,” Everett added with a little honest levity, “I think a man with your experience would know if I had something to hide from you.”

He wasn’t wrong. Krueger had questioned dozens of men and women before, and Everett was giving him none of the telltale signs. It didn’t matter how tough or seasoned somebody was, body language betrayed the guilty. He re-engaged the safety on the Glock and returned it to the holster under his left arm. “Valid point.” He stood up, looking down at Everett. “My apologies for breaking in.”

“Don’t be sorry for doing your job well,” Everett advised. He removed his glasses and folded them back into his inside pocket, bringing his hands together over the printed documents afterward. “Let her know it was Caruso.”

“I’ll do that.” Krueger took a few steps toward the office door before turning back to address something he said earlier. “My name isn’t Sebastian, as I said before. It’s Milo.”

“Milo,” he echoed. “Liz is herself around you,” he began. “As somebody who watched her grow up I can say that’s a rare thing.” He reached into his desk drawer for a half-empty bottle of bourbon and two tumblers. He gestured Krueger to come back and have a seat again.

“Is that so?” Krueger walked back over but didn’t sit. “I was wondering how it was you two were so close.”

Everett poured a finger’s depth into each glass and handed one to Krueger. He took a sip from his own. “Her father and I are like brothers. I never had siblings or children of my own, so she’s about the closest thing I’ll have to a niece or daughter.”

Krueger sampled the contents of his glass, making a note to pick up a bottle of whatever this was he was drinking.

“When she relocated here from California,” Everett continued, “I had almost hoped she and I would do business together. I guess you can’t force children into the roles you set aside for them.”

“As a father of two, trust me when I say that has to come from within them.”

“Two kids?” Everett inquired with a smirk.

“I have a daughter here in the States and a son in Düsseldorf. Besides, it seems to me that, in a way, you and Elizabeth ended up working together after all.”

“I suppose you’re right about that, Milo.” Everett finished his drink. “Do you keep in touch with your son?”

“Less than I should.” Krueger finished his drink as well.

Everett acknowledged him with an understanding sigh. “I meant what I said to you at the restaurant, you know.” He stood up to shake Krueger’s hand. “You’ve got a friend in me, Milo. Anything you need, just let me know.”

“I appreciate that, Henry.”

~~~~

Krueger exited the Pharaohs Lounge out the front door and turned at the corner of 41st avenue. He wasn’t even halfway up the block when he spotted them, two men and a woman walking toward him with their hands in the pockets of their long coats and locking eyes with him. Casually, nonchalantly, he turned into the alley behind the Lounge and disappeared from their line of sight.

They followed into the alley shortly after, but had lost sight of him. They were joined by another man and woman and began to signal and whisper among themselves as they drew suppressed handguns from their coats.

They dropped to the ground one after the other before they could even react to the incoming bullets from Krueger’s Glock. He squeezed the trigger six times putting rounds into the five of them, and emerged from behind a stack of trash bags piled up at the back door of the Pharaohs Lounge. From where he stood, he could identify one survivor who wasn’t long from this world, and recognized their faces as he had seen them in various locations over the last few days.

He lowered the gun and let it hang at his side in his hand as he made his way toward the surviving hitman. Peripherally to his right, he spotted movement from another one of them; he hardly broke step to shoot her again and put her down for good as he continued toward his target.

Once there he slid the gun away from the dying hitman and turned him onto his back with the same foot. He placed it on the man’s neck, applying pressure but keeping most of his weight on the other foot.

“The Partners didn’t send you,” Krueger said to the man beneath him, “and neither did the Company. So are you going to tell me who did? Or am I going to have to crush your windpipe and find out on my own?”

The hitman’s cell phone in his inside coat pocket made the decision for both of them before the struggling hitman could say anything. Krueger bent over to rifle through the man’s pockets, still keeping the boot on his throat, and found the candy bar phone. He answered the call and held it to his left ear.

The voice on the other line was distorted behind one or more filters. It spoke with an accent Krueger could tell was not local. “Status report,” the voice said. “Four of the others went dark just now, what happened?”

Krueger had a solid guess who called the man dying under his foot in a Bayside back alley. The same one who sent them here and tried to persuade C.J. Silvio to betray Simon Wells. “Heimdallr?”

The voice ended the call, confirming his suspicions.

Krueger looked at the phone’s monochromatic display. He could have a trace run on the number that called the device, but it probably wouldn’t matter—if Heimdallr was half as good as Krueger suspected, the source number was hidden behind on or more spoofs.

Krueger looked ahead, pressing all his weight down on the man’s neck until he heard a crunch and the man stopped struggling. He made a point to step over the growing puddle of blood beneath him as he cut through the alley toward his car.

He was about halfway there when he felt another man’s arm begin to wrap around his neck.

Immediately, he shot his hands up by his face to grab the man’s arm and stop him from locking in the chokehold. He sunk his weight down and turned his head and body into the assailant, freeing one hand to throw an elbow backward into the other man’s upper belly to stun him. He stepped back and threw the man’s arm past his head to free himself and grabbed hold of the attacker’s head, pivoting at the waist and throwing him into the wall beside them; the man left a blood spatter on the brick façade as he fell to one knee, struggling to catch his breath after Krueger’s elbow.

Then Krueger retrieved his baton and cracked it open, coming down onto the attacker’s jaw with a diagonal forehand strike that took him to the floor. He pounced onto his downed victim, sinking his weight down onto the man’s back and snaking the baton under his chin. He took hold of its other end to lock the man’s neck in a triangle formed by the baton and his crossed forearms, and twisted at the waist to break his neck and kill him.

It was all over in about five seconds. Krueger took a breath to level himself again and scanned the alley for other threats before closing the baton and standing back up.

Heimdallr was getting bold, sending assassins to take him out in the literal shadow of established Partners territory; that meant he was panicking. He had Heimdallr in a corner and was closing in.

He looked back down at the man he just killed, shaking his head in disapproval. “This is what they sent me?” he said to himself. He surveyed the alley once more for additional threats, finding none before turning on his heel to head back to his car.

~~~~

He waited at the Coney Island boardwalk the following afternoon, leaning against the handrail and looking out past the bay from behind a pair of dark aviator sunglasses wearing jeans and a collared shirt under his coat with classy casual shoes. It was a Saturday, and while it was getting colder the area was still packed full of tourists taking photos and couples holding hands. It was as public a place as he could think of.

She arrived not long after him, but looked on from a distance for a few minutes before she was certain it was him. She re-tied her hair in a ponytail before disposing of her coffee cup in a nearby trash bin as she strode up to him, her un-gloved hands in the pockets of her thigh-length pea coat, wearing pale jeans and a sweater underneath it.

He turned his head to face her when he heard the tock-tock of her boot heels on the planks, and turned back to face the water again when she took a spot on the handrail immediately to his left. She didn’t say anything at first, she just leaned against the banister and looked out to the sea from behind her own wide-rimmed sunglasses with him.

“In a way,” Khai said, “this beats the Hell out of a Michelin Star restaurant in Williamsburg.”

Krueger nodded. “I met her here,” he said.

Khai turned to face him, arching her brow inquisitively.

“You asked about my ex-wife,” he explained. “Emma. I met here right here, maybe this exact spot. I had just left Kommando Spezialkräfte, and made it here to the States to meet with my first private contractor. She and I got together, we had fun, and I spent the night with her before shipping out to my destination. I traveled the world for a year after that, taking any dirty job from anybody willing to hire an independent mercenary.” He interlaced his fingers. “Then she finds me again, sends me a picture of a baby with a note. ‘This is our daughter,’ it said. That’s when I came back to her. Even after we married I couldn’t tell her everything, not until I came home from a job once with a bullet lodged in my shoulder blade.”

“Then what happened?”

“She got it out, stitched me up. And I told her the truth. Who I was, the true nature of my work, everything.”

“What did she do..?”

Krueger looked up, recalling the events of that day. “After finishing my shoulder,” he said, looking forward again, “she took me by the chin, looked me in the eye and said, ‘don’t ever lie to me again.’ And I didn’t.” Krueger shrugged. “But after years of wondering if her husband will ever come back home alive from a job in some corner of the world, she couldn’t take it anymore. She left. I can’t say I blame her—she loved her family, and acted to protect our daughter from the life I was leading.”

Khai blinked behind her sunglasses. “She sounds wonderful,” she finally said, seeing the man before her as a vulnerable human being for the first time since meeting him.

Krueger allowed himself a melancholy half-smile. “Ja,” he admitted softly. “Ist sie.” He straightened his posture before continuing. “Everett didn’t plant the bug. He pointed to Danny Caruso.”

She shuddered at the mention of his name. “That makes sense, Caruso would do anything to get ahead. We may all be criminals but his lowlifedness is unique among our ranks.”

“Sounds like he’s next on the list then.”

“Right as always, Krueger. I’ll compile a dossier and forward it to you when I’m back in front of a computer screen.”

“There’s one more thing,” Krueger said. He fished around in his coat pocket for an old candy bar cell phone. “I was attacked behind Pharaohs.” He held the phone up to hand it to her. “Six of them. One of them got a call on this.”

She took her sunglasses off and placed them on her forehead, holding his gaze before taking the phone to inspect it. “Let me guess,” she sighed.

“The voice was filtered, and I couldn’t place the accent, but it was him. Our Watchman is getting bolder.”

“Or desperate.”

“Do you think you can reverse-lookup a phone number? Maybe get a lead from whatever line he spoofed to call this one?”

“Me?” she said putting the phone into her pocket and putting her sunglasses back on. “That’s outside my skill set, but I have an associate in Marine Park who specializes in that kind of thing. I’ll drop the phone off to him and see what he can pull, and get back to you in a few days’ time.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Krueger watched her take a few steps back in the direction from which she came. “Would you like to get lunch afterward?”

Khai paused, turned and looked over her shoulder at him, her lip curling into a grin. “Another professional gathering?”

He trotted to catch up to her. “We’ve already done that,” he said. “I would rather have a social one this time.”

Khai giggled, holding her smile for a little longer. “Milo Krueger, I would love to share a social gathering with you this afternoon.” She walked with him off the boardwalk, in the direction of their parked cars.

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