Two Sides of One Coin:

"Tell me you got something," Spike said through a cigarette, and he leaned over Ed as the hacker pulled up screen after screen of high level security files, from the ISSP's mainframe to encrypted Syndicate files.

"Not yet," Ed sighed, her fingers flying across Tomato's keyboard expertly. She stared into her goggles intently, bypassing one screen and then another, moving faster than Spike would have thought possible, and after staring for another long minute Spike rose back to his full height and exhaled wearily.

"He hides himself behind everyone and everything," the snitch said from his spot handcuffed to the railing. "It's a waste of time to look for him online, you ain't gonna find-"

"Jack Spade," Ed piped up and the snitch broke off halfway. The hacker glanced at Spike as the bounty hunter leaned back down, his interest sparked. "Oooh, Black Jack person's real name is Jack McCullough."

Spike stared at the picture and the file that was flashing onscreen, quickly skimming the same stats that Jack's other file, his ISSP file, had held. "This isn't anything new, Ed-" he began in exasperation and suddenly his own face was called up, his stats spilling out on the screen. He stared, a frown furrowing his face as he read. Spike Spiegel, date of birth June 26, 2044. Currently twenty-seven years of age. Place of birth, Mars. Spike read his file as the stats loaded the screen, his lips parting, the cigarette dropping from his mouth unnoticed.

And flashing diagonally across his stats as the finished loading was the one word in big red letters. He stared at the word silently, dumbly.

Deceased.

"Spike-person is dead," Ed said as if he couldn't read. And she switched back to Jack's file, skimming it.

And that was that then. Spike straightened once more, struck dumb. That was that. The Syndicate, whatever was left of it, thought he was dead and gone. And it was fine with him. At long last, it was all fine.

"What are we looking at?" Faye entered the common room, tossing the snitch a look as the man glared at her. She paused beside Spike, examining his bandaged wound and then, looking down at Ed's screen she came to a complete stop at seeing Jack's face on the screen. She stared for a moment, Spike glancing at her, and she leaned forward, reading over Ed's shoulder. "Jack McCullough?" she asked faintly, a frown crossing her forehead.

"It's a Syndicate file," Spike said to her and he reached into his pocket, pulling out another cigarette to replace the one he had dropped.

"Syndicate?" Faye breathed.

Ed scrolled down several screens, skimming the text in interest. "The rest of the files are password-protected," the hacker said, her amber eyes widening and she immediately attacked the keyboard, punching in keys and scrolling through screens that continued to pop up.

Faye waited almost anxiously as the hacker shot down screen after screen, always returning to the same password protected window. "Come on, Ed, how long is this going to take?" she demanded impatiently.

The hacker ignored her, intent on breaking in. Faye straightened once more, her arms crossing over her chest and she glanced at Spike as he looked at her. And wordlessly they both turned and floated to wait, Spike claiming the couch and Faye plopped down on the chair.

If I tell you I'm strong, will you play along?

If I tell you I'm strong, will you play along?

If I tell you I'm strong, will you play along?

Or will you see I'm as insecure as everybody else?

Faye snapped awake, blinking at the ceiling from where she had sprawled on the couch. Spike paced quietly and he seemed to be on his millionth cigarette. They had been waiting for hours almost, shifting from seat to seat, first pacing then sleeping then waking up to wait once more. And still Ed worked at Tomato, staring intently at the screen and attacking the password-protected site with her trusty smiley faces. Faye glanced toward the hacker with a sigh before stretching on the couch once more.

Spike stopped beside the couch. "Up," he ordered.

"I'm comfortable," Faye said to him, her eyes closed, her arms crossing behind her head.

"You've hogged the couch for about an hour, my turn."

"Get your own," she mumbled.

Spike made a move to snap at her when, from in front of Tomato, Edward jumped happily. "Edward is in!" she cried.

Faye snapped to her feet as if the hacker had just offered her a money card, nearly ramming into Spike. Together they both dove toward the hacker, peeking into Tomato's screen over her shoulders from either side.

"Ok, Black Jack. Also known as The Surgeon. The Surgeon? That's…weird in a very scary way. Jack Mitchell McCullough, former residence Raleigh, Mississippi…" and she slowed as she read it, a frown marring her smooth forehead. "Mississippi…born-" Her eyes widened in disbelief. "It's not possible-"

"February 16, 1990," Spike whistled. "No wonder the file was password-protected."

"He should be older than me!"

"He is," Spike murmured, scanning the stats. "Just not the way you were expecting." He pointed to the screen. "Look at this. Attended Boston University, majoring in Cryogenic Experimentation-"

"It was a new major, the newest step for human evolution, in the early years of the Millennium," Jet said and he entered the common room, lighting a cigarette. "Bigger than human cloning back then."

"I'm hungry!" Faye snapped at him. "Why aren't you in the kitchen cooking?!"

In the middle of lighting the cigarette he threw her a glare and he came closer, leaning over Ed's head to peer into the screen. "So, this our guy?"

"Jet, meet Black Jack also known as Jack McCullough," Spike said graciously and he straightened to stand beside the bigger man.

"Good-looking guy in this picture," Jet mumbled gruffly, staring at him. And he glanced at Spike thoughtfully, "looks kinda familiar…" than at Faye, "So this the guy you dated?"

Faye pointed immediately at Spike. "You are so dead."

Spike smiled impishly, looking back at the stats. "Not saying a word," he said in a sing-song tone and he motioned once more to the screen. "There's no date of death. And he's not deceased; we'd have something on the screen saying so. But he enrolled in Boston University in 2008, majoring in Cryogenic Experimentation and there's no year then for a degree completion. Actually," Spike squinted thoughtfully, "he drops below radar for years. He has nothing on him until 2053." He pointed to a date onscreen. "2053, degree in Cryogenics and Restorative Practices." He frowned at the dates.

Jet inhaled deeply, his powerful arms crossed over his chest, his cigarette sparking as he took the drag. "What do you think?" he asked Faye.

"Looks like you had a buddy sleeping with you," Spike said to her.

Faye swallowed, staring at Black Jack's face. "I don't…think I did," she murmured and she leaned close once more, her gaze trained on the man's face. "He's familiar, too. But I don't know from where…"

Ed scrolled down the stats cheerfully, petting Ein as the data dog rested on her lap. "Black Jack-person worked with Quicksilver Cryo until 2067. And then he won casinos."

"Won?" Spike asked. "I didn't know you could win casinos." He looked at Jet. "Is that like a lotto I don't know about?"

"Won," Ed confirmed and she pointed. "Casinos signed over in his name in 2067."

"So, it wasn't that he was traveling southwards," Faye murmured thoughtfully, looking toward Spike but seeing through him as he glanced at her. "He was touring his own casinos. And he told me that day, the day we brought him in, he was doing some work in the casinos. He had been running late-"

"I know how he won them," Spike said in a low tone, a frown slowly creasing his forehead as he suddenly snapped his head to look back at the screen to stare at Black Jack's face. "I remember…it was when things started going bad in the Syndicate. Someone started killing off casino owners. For a little while people stopped gambling-"

"I remember that!" Jet snapped his fingers. "And then the casinos were under new management and people started coming back."

"Right," Spike said with a nod. "They never said who started killing off the owners. We all assumed it was-" and he cut off thoughtfully.

Faye stared at him for a long moment, Ed looking at them all quizzically. "Vicious?" she asked softly.

Spike didn't bother answering, looking toward the screen once more. "A year later the shit hit the fan anyway," he shrugged and he wound his way around the group to plop back down on the couch.

"So he won the casinos?" Faye asked him, crossing her arms over her chest.

Jet leaned over Ed's shoulder as Spike shrugged once more. "It was more of a raffle, I think," he said with a squint to his eyes as he tried to remember. "A lot of money was put in and casinos were raffled off together. Looks like he won a chunk of them." He glanced at her. "Your Mr. Wrong is probably one of the richest guys on Mars."

Faye deflated. "And here I am with you losers."

"That same year he was brought up on charges of embezzlement and insurance fraud," Jet read from Tomato's screen. "And the following year, conspiracy to commit murder."

Spike went to shrug yet again and then paused as Jet stiffened and suddenly whirled on him. "Wait, conspiracy?" he echoed, frowning even more so and staring at Jet.

"In your murder," Faye whispered in disbelief, staring at the screen. "The charge came from inside the Syndicate."

"But he didn't-" Spike went on, startled. And he rose once more, this time coming in between Jet and Faye to stare at Tomato's screen. "Vicious-"

"Was probably in on it, too," Faye murmured. And she looked at him. "Did you look up your own file on this?"

Spike nodded mutely and nudged Ed. The hacker obediently pulled up Spike's file once more and flashing across the screen was the word once more. Deceased. Spike opened his mouth to speak, glancing toward Faye and she was staring at the word blindly, merely gazing at it.

"You have two dates," she said quietly.

He looked as she reluctantly pointed back to the screen and, sure enough, there were two dates listed for his demise. One in 2068, the first time he had "died". And then in 2071, the second time after the battle with Vicious. He settled into silence, merely reading his stats.

"So, he's charged, under the Syndicate, for your murder, for conspiracy to commit murder. And then the Syndicate hands the charge over to the ISSP, to be made into a bounty. He's brought in, serves…" Faye squinted as Ed jumped back to Jack's file, "less than a month before breaking out, and he vanishes again. Resurfaces as Black Jack last year, takes over his casinos once more, and is brought in by me." Faye frowned. "But it doesn't explain why he wants me."

"Your charming personality?" Spike asked innocently.

"Because you're friends with the wrong people," Jet sighed.

Spike hunched over Ed once more and the hacker glanced at him questioningly. "With Mao out of the way and the Elders also taken care of there was no one to stop him from taking his casinos back from whatever was left of the Syndicate." He paused, blinking. "Ed, see if you can find the new headquarters."

The three of them looked at him in confusion.

"Someone's taken over the Syndicate," he replied to their questioning stares. "Someone's been updating these files," he explained as if they should have understood.

Faye nodded at him, glancing back at Tomato. "True. Wow, Spike, not just a pretty face, huh?"

The bounty hunter arched a brow at her. "Only figuring that out now?" he asked her and he lifted his hand hands to entwine his fingers behind his head of wild hair. "You're getting slow in your old age, romani." But while his tone was mischievous his face was anything but. He stared at the screen, hands behind his head, his jaw clenched tightly.

Jet leaned over once more. "Ok, Ed. Let's see what you find on the guy who is updating the files and who is heading the Syndicate now. Try to find a location, too-"

"Isn't it obvious who keeps updating the files?" came a voice from behind them and the snitch glared at them. "Who do you think hired me?!"

"You said Black Jack-" Faye began but Spike suddenly whirled and strode over, taking hold of the man by the collar and yanking him up as far as he could but still be held down by the cuffs.

"Ok, now you're pissing me off," he growled into the man's face and he slammed him against the railing, causing Faye to make a small sound of surprise, Jet reaching a hand out.

"Hey, Spike-"

Wordlessly and showing no sign that he had heard Jet, Spike pulled his Jericho and shoved it into the man's mouth roughly. "Talk."

Faye quickly moved forward, Jet coming up beside the bounty hunter. "Yo, Spike-"

"He can't talk if you have your gun shoved in his mouth," Faye snapped at him. And in just as firm a tone but in a softer voice, "back up."

"I'm getting sick and tired of being played with and I sure as hell ain't going to be chased the rest of my fucking life," Spike said through gritting teeth. "So you better tell us everything you know or I will rip out everyone of your teeth and then make you eat my gun."

Faye looked from Spike to the snitch warningly, Jet lifting his hands at his sides and backing away.

The man made a muffled sound of agreement and Spike pulled his gun free, rising back to his full height. "I told you he hired me," the snitch said, sweat rolling down his temple. "I only meant that it's probably the hacker who is updating the files. It's all I meant.." He seemed apologetic enough but Faye knew that with a gun pointed at you, one never really knew. "He's trying to resurrect the Syndicate. He's started already. All those people he hired for her," he motioned to Faye with his chin.

"Go on," Spike said casually.

"So, nothing else, really," the snitch said uncomfortably. "Look, you're inside their database, you got Black Jack's files. Those aren't as up to date as what he had now. The hacker had started updating those files but then they were copied and moved to another system and he uses that one now. You're not going to get into that system and you're not going to find anything over the last few months on this system. Black Jack showed up once the coast was clear and he started recruiting from there. It's a whole new Syndicate from what you were raised on."

"What I was raised on?" he echoed quietly.

The snitch squirmed uncomfortably. "Yeah…" he mumbled. "I kinda knew who you were after awhile. People still talk about you, the few Syndicate guys who were there in your time-"

"You make me sound like a fucking grandfather!" Spike shouted at him indignantly.

"Not much fun, is it?" Faye purred with a gleeful little smile.

"You are old, Faye," he reminded her with a quick glare. And he exhaled wearily. "But still, he does have the resources for starting up an entirely new Syndicate. He's rich, he's expanding, and he seems to have been pretty close with Vicious." He paused, lifting a hand to his forehead. "I don't like it."

Ed turned in her seat in top of the table. "Look what Ed found!" she called to them.

Faye floated back, Jet giving Spike a warning look. Glancing over Ed's shoulder she suddenly pointed. "She found him!" she exclaimed in surprise.

Spike quickly rejoined her, Jet frowning as he crowded in.

"The Hacker," Faye read from the file. "Also known as BlueFrag."

There was a picture of an Asian boy there in his mid-teens, grinning widely for the camera that had taken his image. And the thing that struck them most as they stared at his picture were his blue eyes.

"He's just a kid," Faye said. "He's fifteen years old and his real name is Matsuda Kazuo. Looks like Ed has some competition." She nudged the hacker teasingly. And a moment later, staring intently at the girl, she suddenly asked, "Ed, are you blushing?"

Ed looked up quickly to see all three of them lean in to observe her with wide eyes. Letting loose a bloodcurdling "Eeeeeh!" she jumped up and ran from the room, her hands clamped down over her burning cheeks.

The three of them watched her run off, Faye blinking innocently. "You all saw that, right? It wasn't a trick of my imagination?"

Jet's face was already hanging. "Great. Now who's going to keep looking this up?"

"I'll do it," Spike offered with a cheerfully happy smile.

"Back away, Destructo-Boy," Faye said warningly, shoving him back a step even as he raised a leg to sling it over the table. "I'll do it."

Plopping down on the table in front of Tomato, she leaned in. "Ok, so we now know that their hacker is a genius kid. There's Mr. Surgeon, AKA Black Jack, the brains of this little operation. Let's see what else we find-"

"The RepairMan," the snitch said from behind them and Faye glanced backward with a small frown. "The RepairMan. That's what they call him. There's Black Jack. The Hacker. And the RepairMan."

Faye looked back toward the database. "Ok, so…how do I perform a search?"

"Search Database." Spike pointed to a corner of the screen,

Inching closer, Faye typed in the RepairMan. And sure enough a file opened up in a new screen. It was a picture of a man in his early fifties, gruff-looking. There was a cigar clamped between his lips, his face bored, and his name was in capital letters along the top of the file. "Scat Robinson," Faye read with a twist of her lips.

"This is very familiar," Jet said then and Spike found himself nodding in agreement.

"Geez, it's us," Faye said with a frown. "The Hacker is Ed. The RepairMan is Jet. And Black Jack is Spike." She blinked as if it were too strange to imagine.

"So, they're missing the babe?" Jet said, glancing at Spike.

"The babe?" Faye questioned with an arch to her brow.

"He wasn't talking about you, dear," Spike said with a reassuring pat to her wounded shoulder.

"Was there anything about a woman?" Jet asked, turning to the snitch quickly.

The snitch nodded solemnly. "Her." And he motioned to Faye with cuffed hands as the three of them looked at him.

Faye recoiled, worry crossing her face. "So, what the hell? He's trying to bite off our group?" she demanded, glaring at him. "Why can't he get some other chick? I can't be the only bitch on Mars!"

"We wonder about that, actually…"

"But he's familiar to you, you said, right?" Jet asked her, bringing her attention to him. "So maybe you knew each other? A guy you swindled? Someone from your past?"

"We're not going to get these questions answered like this," Spike said mutely. "There's too much that has to be asked to this guy's face." And he leaned forward toward Faye, looking at Tomato over her shoulder. "So let's do that, shall we?"

Faye blinked at him from a few inches away.

"See if you can find any moving charges, people hired to transport things from the former Syndicate headquarters. And also, see if any place has had any weapons or arsenals delivered over the last few months-"

"I'm not Ed!" she cried and she rose. "If I leave this site I'm not going to be able to get back inside without a password!"

"So go get her! You're the one who scared her off!"

"I'll get her," Jet cut in and he wandered off in the direction Ed had taken, shaking his head wearily.

Faye turned back to the computer, sitting back down. "I didn't know we were such a cool group," she said with an impressed curl to her lips.

"Of course we're cool," Spike said in an offhand tone. "We're just…always broke."

"Doesn't that take away from our coolness factor?" she asked him with a look. "Every woman's first rule. Always go after the guy with the money." And she looked him up and down. "Which might explain why you're still single, Spike."

"What are you going to do?" the snitch asked fearfully from behind them.

"Concerning you?" Spike glanced at him. "Well, I've decided not to kill you but…"

"I mean about the Syndicate," the snitch said and he frowned and Faye suddenly glared at him, her face darkening.

"How about you tell us where you report to?" she suggested and there was an evil gleam in her eyes. The snitch was almost positive he had even seen her twitch what with the way she was studying him. "That way you can save us all the trouble."

"I don't report to anything," he replied, tugging at his handcuffs in a bit of a panic. "I meet the guy in an alley and from there we're all assigned a job. We get it done, I get paid, I go home. Then I wait for my phone call and-"

"You think he knows we have him?" Faye asked Spike, glancing at him quickly. "Maybe he thinks we killed him and dumped his body."

Spike was nodding mischievously. "They might find it strange if he shows up on radar again."

"If I…what?"

"It's a plan," Faye said with a surprised twist to her lips. "Have him show up, meet up to do another job. We can tail whoever is heading the whole job."

"Straight back to headquarters."

"Do we really have to find out where he operates from?" she questioned uncomfortably then, her expression shifting.

"Yeah, we do. Come on, we can take down the Syndicate and get a bounty on the side. Black Jack's bounty skyrocketed to twenty million woolongs."

"Twenty million?" she gasped.

"Twenty million," Spike nodded with a knowing grin, throwing a leg across the expanse of the table and straddling it to sit behind her.

Faye turned in her seat a bit more to face him. "That's a hefty bounty," she murmured, eyes shifting sideways thoughtfully. "But the last time you went to take care of business with the Syndicate, you died." She shook her head. "I'm not dying for this."

Spike stared at her for a moment, silently. She lifted her eyes back to him and she slowly frowned at him, uncertain as to what the stare meant. "What?"

"You gave up for a second," he said to her, gauging her reaction to his words.

"I didn't give up," she said to him darkly. "I just…think we should really think about this, what our next move is-"

"No," he shook his head at her, trying to make her understand. "You gave up for a second. You were willing to die. You gave up."

She stared at him for a moment, stunned into silence. "What? When? No, I didn't." And at his face as he raised his eyes back to hers, "I did? When Jet was stitching me up? The ride back to the Bebop on the Swordfish II? When!?"

He paused, observing her intently. "When the guy held the gun to your head in the alley. I saw your face. You wanted it. You wanted it all to be over."

Her eyes slowly settled into a frown. "No, I didn't."

His expression shifted into one of indifference and he shrugged wordlessly, moving to rise once more.

"I didn't," she stressed, taking hold of his arm and stopping him midway through lifting his leg back over to the other side. "You're confusing me with yourself. I actually have a problem with dying-"

"Now who's the liar, Faye?" he asked her quietly and he leaned toward her, into her. His eyes held hers firmly, and she saw by the look in those eyes, he was relishing the fact that he could start the argument with her. He tilted his head slowly, his tone soft. "You had a taste of it, romani. Your gypsy ways were coming to an end, you had it in your hand. All you had to do was close your eyes and bite that bullet."

She gazed at him silently. Because she knew the moment he spoke of. That one tiny eternity, the cold barrel placed to her forehead in the alleyway. And he was right. She had wanted it almost desperately. She had wanted it to take her away from the chase, the misery. The agony of seeing his face and knowing he didn't care.

She had wanted an end in that moment.

"What are we even doing this for?" he asked her quietly, staring into her blank gaze. "What are we searching for? If you want it so badly, I'll do it for you. All it takes is one clean bullet. Just one." And he waited for her, waited for her outburst, her anger.

She stared at him for a long time and he glanced down with a small frown as he realized that her hand trembled, her grip tight on his wrist. "Would you do it for me?" she asked him softly. And for a moment he thought he saw tears in her eyes but the next instant they were gone and it was just her green eyes gazing at him. His lips parted questioningly and she had not removed her grip from his wrist. "If I asked you to, would you do it? It's like you said. One clean bullet. Would you do it for me?"

Spike took a long moment in answering, merely staring at her. And then his expression slowly closed over, his lips meeting into a sullen line. "No," he replied with a shake of his head. "For one, you have to pull the trigger yourself to be ready for it. You walk into it, eyes wide open. If you can do that, you're ready."

Faye stared at him, her jaw clenching at his words. "And two?" she bit out coldly, her tone faint.

Spike smiled at her darkly, mirthlessly, and the smile did not reach his eyes. His smiles never reached his eyes. "Two is my reason alone," he murmured, his different colored eyes narrowed intently. "But you've only really been running for about a week, Faye. Give it a few years then try to reason with me about the thoughtless motives I have to kill myself." And he wrenched his arm free, finally rising away from her.

She bowed her head as he strode over toward the snitch and then passed him. "You should have lived your life, Spike," she whispered faintly and her words slowed him a bit. "You should have stayed gone."

He came to a stop, hands shoved into his pockets and as she lifted her gaze to his she found his eyes hooded and weary.

"I know," he said then and his face settled into a blank mask.

"Why didn't you?" she asked him and he had had that same look on his face the day she had confronted him with her gun, the day she had tried to stop him from leaving. He had come out of the corridor and she had lifted her gun to his head and he had merely turned his head to look at her, his face expressionless yet somber.

He shrugged as if he really hadn't wanted to answer the question, didn't care for the answer. "Because sometimes you just get tired of it all. You get tired of starting over and you get tired of staying the same."

Faye shook her head at him, grimacing. "What do you do when you feel like that?" she asked him.

He smirked, looking ahead once more and squinting down the hallway. "You die." And as she went to ask him more, noises came from the hallway, piercing shrieks and Jet's gruff voice.

"We were only foolin' with ya, Ed! C'mon, we need you to-" and he let out a roar of pain. "Ow! You bit me!"

Faye looked over blindly, Spike bowing his head and backing up once more to allow Jet to sweep in angrily, clutching Ed by the back of the shirt and dragging the hacker.

"Ed doesn't want to look anymore!"

"We're not giving you a choice, Ed!" Jet growled and he firmly sat her on the table, Ein barking and wagging his tail as if it were all a game. Straightening once more he exhaled wearily and crossed his arms over his wide chest, his eyes closing. "She can run when she wants to!" he said to Faye as if he couldn't have believed it.

Faye glanced toward Spike. "We can all run when we want to," she said quietly. And she rose from the table, dragging Ed forward by the ankles even as the hacker fought her.

Jet glanced toward Spike as well. "Did I miss something?"

Faye plopped down on the couch tiredly, crossing her long legs. "It doesn't matter. Let's finish this, once and for all."

Jet stared at Spike for a long moment, wordless, and then he faced forward once more, patting Ed on the shoulder. "All right, Ed. We're done with the games. We'll be serious now." And he spoke toward Spike without actually looking at him. "What are we having her look up?"

Spike turned back to face them, his eyes coming to rest on Faye and she shifted her gaze toward him, wordless. He arched an eyebrow at her silently and as she merely stared at him he came forward once more, hovering over Jet and Ed. "We're looking to see if anything has been moved from the Syndicate's former headquarters anywhere. We're looking for a place, a date, and if that comes up we're looking to see if any weapons have been put on order. Use this system, they have to have some kind of receipts or order placements."

Ed reluctantly turned back to the screen, typing once more. On the couch Faye closed her eyes and dropped her head back onto the couch, merely sighing. "So what are we going to do if we actually stumble across this place? Are we just going to storm in and-"

"You'll get caught in a second," the snitch said from behind them. "You won't get in and you won't be able to get to the guy."

"You have such faith in us," Spike said to him.

The snitch chuckled at that one. "It's one thing you learn on the job," he said almost sadly. "You don't have faith in nobody and nobody ever has faith in you."

Spike nodded to that.

The screen flickered and Ed motioned. "Big building on Mars," she chirped.

The group of them stared at the images of the skyscraper in silence. And then, looking over his shoulder, Spike slowly turned the screen for the snitch to see where he sat against the railing. "Familiar?" he asked the snitch.

And the snitch took one look at it before settling wearily. "Damn it."

Faye's eyes widened. "You knew what it looked like? Where it is?" she demanded. "I thought you'd never seen-"

"I don't think you should be going," the snitch said to them. "No, really. It's armed to the teeth, and if you're thinking of using your hacker to help you get in, it's not going to work. You need to be in the building to hack into its systems. I'm telling you, you guys ain't going to make it."

"You knew this whole time?" Jet asked him with a frown.

Spike looked at the screen once more, thoughtfully. "We can do it," he said with a shrug. And he smiled. "We just take Ed along."