四
(Sì)
I smell food. Good food. Wait a minute? The last thing I was doing was a date with Sombra that went all explosive.
"Morning."
I know that Islander accent anywhere.
"Junior? What did you make?"
"Something called a Full Breakfast."
I look at the tray. Junior is a nice kid if not too overly enthusiastic. I believe he tried putting a lot of food on a small tray. It's staying on. I'm impressed.
"I think that should have been on multiple plates."
"I know. I know."
My phone goes off. Oh! I look. Four words
Where is the Spider?
Oh boy.
I get up and look around. Judging by Junior being here and me getting assaulted by Fuzebox and Upgrade.
"I'm in Styne's place, aren't I?'
"Yeah."
"Great."
I answer my text back.
Lijiang
I start eating breakfast.
"So what does the Doc want?"
"Well…"
My phone goes off again.
Where are you?
Styne's
Dining Room. Five Minutes.
"拉屎 (Lā shǐ!)"
I fully get up and head out the door.
"Hey? What about breakfast?"
I make it to the dining room to find a cowboy reading a tablet. I walk in and right into that trap. My fault. Two steps in.
"Where is the Spider?"
"Lijiang, last I saw here."
"Daingead!"
"Be happy you wasn't there, Crimson Goddess. They're would have been more issues."
"你好，老鼠 (Nǐ hǎo, lǎoshǔ.)"
"What did you do, Patcha?"
"What do you mean?"
The cowboy shows me the tablet.
"Fireworks in Lijiang…"
I read the article. Yeah there were fireworks. Hmm. I have a little program out there that scrubs mentions of me. Either my program has gotten better or someone else helped. I really have to thank her.
"Everything okay, in here?" Junior says as he walks into the dining room.
"Nothing a havok hacker couldn't fix."
I stop and stare at the cowboy.
How?
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Okay."
"What happened now?" Fuzebox just walked in.
"Besides Mickey being weird and Patch losing my target, everything is fine."
"You made the news." I hand Fuze the tablet.
"Oh cool. No flattering pictures? And all that work I did. So unfair."
"What work did you do, Fuze?"
"Blew up a neon girl, a purple girl and a guy in a trenchcoat."
"Why did you do that?"
"Why not?"
"Purple girl? She wasn't tall with a sniper rifle by any chance?"
"Don't know. Didn't care."
Red is about to hit Fuze, when Upgrade and Dr Styne walk in.
"Greetings, Friends!"
"Ah everybody's up. Sit. I have ideas."
We all look at each other.
When Dr Styne has ideas, they tend to be scary.