It was nearing midnight when the trunk opened and I slowly climbed out. I felt especially sluggish after all the excitement had died down and the only things I had for company were the occasional bumps on the road and the dull throbbing of my right hand.

Spade just watched me with academic boredom.

"Would you like some help walking to your apartment?"

I turned to him slowly, pondering the request. On one hand, it was nice of him to even offer, considering that only hours ago, I had built up an image of a ruthless and murderous person. Heck, maybe it wouldn't be that bad.

But on the other hand, there was the matter of my wounded pride. I wasn't in a forgiving sort of mood after all the excitement of today.

"Hell no. I'll be fine on my own."

Spade shrugged and walked back to the car. In seconds, he was already speeding off to Avalice knows where.

I felt a pang of regret for the blunt dismissal, despite myself. I stumbled over to the gate of my apartment building, where there was a crude paper sign on the bars.

"Lock broken. No idea what happened. Will fix tomorrow. Sorry."

Gee, I wonder why.

I pushed the gate open and shuffled through the interior. A thirty-something woman with green eye-shadow, black leather nightclub pants, a tank top and a denim jacket walked down the stairs to my left, smiling and consciously swishing her tail left and right. That smile took all of three seconds to dissipate when she took a look at me.

"What on Avalice happened to you? You look terrible!"

I rose a hand in a half-hearted wave. "Long story."

Concern tinged her voice. "Are you sure you don't want me to call the hospital?"

I thought about it for a second. "Thank you, but I think I'll feel better in the morning."

I smiled at her. Clearly, that didn't reassure her in the slightest, because her gaze followed me while I half-walked, half-shuffled up the stairs to my own apartment. I unlocked the door to my apartment, stepped inside, locked the door and flicked the light switch. Again.

"Oh for Avalice's sake, you son of a bitch..."

Spade sure as shit wasn't kidding about trashing my apartment. The place was a mess. Chairs were upended, desk drawers were left open, clothes were strewn on the ground, and for some indiscernible reason, there were stains on the floor. The asshole even broke half of my fake tiles for the kitchen. That was just sadistic on a level that really should not have surprised me, but shocked me regardless. Any sympathy or regret I might have felt before dissipated after seeing that mess.

I shuffled over to the bathroom. Miraculously, that was left untouched. I took a look at myself in the mirror of the medicine cabinet.

It was surreal, to say the least. It was like looking at an entirely different person, but I knew on some level I was looking at myself. And it was so weird.

Half of my face was one big blue, black, green and purple bruise. I had soot all over my face, presumably from getting shot in the face with a fake gun. As predicted, there was a Kingdom Stone sized lump just above my right eye. And my teeth were blackened, presumably also from getting shot in the face. That put my interaction from two minutes ago in a new perspective.

My gaze shifted downwards. My shirt and jacket had dirt and grass stains on them, and my pants were torn and stained. Judging by the current fashion trend, I doubted anyone would be able to tell the difference between artfully torn fabric and 'manhandled by an assassin' torn fabric.

I sighed and put my hands on my face. When I withdrew my hands, they were black with soot.

Fantastic.

I shuffle-walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door to the freezer. I took out an ice rack, broke out some ice cubes, then fetched a ziplock bag, tossed the cubes into the bag and mashed the ice with the hilt of an eating utensil. After that was done, I fetched a chair that was lying sideways on the floor, then wrapped my right knuckle up with the improvised ice pack. The sudden cold drew a hiss from me, followed by painfully soothing relief. I sat there for maybe five minutes like that.

Then I tossed the ice pack in the freezer and experimentally flexed my knuckle. The dull throb had subsided noticeably. I once again went into the bathroom and tossed water on my face and hands. On some level, I knew I needed to take a shower, but seeing myself like that had wore me out mentally, and all I really wanted was to fall asleep forever.

So against my better judgment, I dried my face and hands with a towel, then walked into my bedroom (of course it was one big mess, except the bed was miraculously untouched), hung up my jacket on the doorknob, kicked off my shoes and fell backwards on my bed, not even bothering to change out of my clothes. Sleep met me somewhere between the time I hit the pillow and when I closed my eyes.

There was a loud, incessant knocking noise outside my bedroom, followed by a loud, incessant pounding of the bell. I was startled awake, and I just wanted to fall asleep, but I could hardly just sit in bed while someone wanted to talk to me.

I groaned heavily and attempted to get out of bed, but instead fell flat on my face. The cool but rough feel of the carpet met my face, and I just wanted to stay there for all eternity, callers be damned. I forced myself off the floor before I really did stay down there for eternity and walked to the door, opening the eyehole.

It was Barry.

I unlocked the door.

Barry was not happy. He was scowling at me.

"Sam, where the hell have you been? I've been blowing up your house phone since yesterday, and I keep getting voicemail! And you didn't answer the door when I..."

Barry had just taken a good look at me.

"Holy crap, dude. You look like hammered shit! What happened?"

I worked my jaw for a few seconds.

"It's a long story, man. Come in?"

Barry walked in, taking in the ruin that was my place. He didn't even bother to hide the incredulity on his face, and let's be real. If that was someone else's place, I'd have the same look on my face.

"Dude, what the hell happened here? This is not normal, Sam. Did you get burgled or something?"

"Technically speaking, yeah."

Barry screwed up his face in confusion.

"Technically?"

I cringed at the memory. "Well. I had a meeting with Spade...or rather, it was the other way around. He had a meeting with me, inside my own house. And he was just sitting in my kitchen like he owned the place."

Barry blinked a lot. "Dude, slow down. Did Spade just show up at your door or something?"

"You're not understanding. He broke into my place just to wait for me, inside my own house."

"What the hell did you do to piss him off?" Barry's eyes trailed off in thought. "No, you know what? You can tell me in a bit. We need to clean this place up."

Barry was shaking his head at the mess. "Holy shit, Sam..."

"Just one thing. What time is it…?"

"It's like nine in the morning. Come on."

I shut the door and locked it. Then I grudgingly took to the task of cleaning up the mess. It might have taken me ages to properly clean up the mess, but with Barry helping, the place had went from doing its best impression of a war-torn ruin of lost time to a slightly dingy, minuscule and unimpressive apartment in just under two hours.

Barry made a satisfied noise as he stood back and observed the change. Then the jubilant look faded.

"Well, the carpet stains are still going to be there. And these tiles in your kitchen still need to be replaced. You probably shouldn't do any of that 'entertaining guests' thing until you get these taken care of."

I gave him a sideways look. "Barry, you know very well these things cost money. I was barely scraping by before my place got trashed. Do I look like I'm made of money?"

Barry shrugged in that kind of 'hey, don't shoot the messenger' way. Then he walked over to the living room and sat on a chair.

"I could call in a few favors later on, help you out. But right now, the thing you should be concerned about is the story of how your apartment got trashed and why you look like a homeless guy."

I collapsed on the couch.

"Sure, sure. So it happened about two days ago, right? I set out to look for that girl in your notes, Carol Tea."

"Uh huh?"

"It took me four hours of fruitless searching, and I bumped into her five minutes after I was about to pack it up and go home. One thing led to another, and suddenly, I had an interview with the ex-Scarves."

Barry raised his eyebrows. "Seriously? You landed an interview with the girls on your first day working this article? That's pretty amazing, considering it took me a while to get a whole bunch of nothing on where these girls even lived."

I allowed myself a grin. "So after the interview, I sleep over at their treehouse and..."

Barry scoffed. "You know how creepy that sounds out of context, right?"

I scowled at Barry. "Do you want to hear this story or not?"

Barry scratched his head apologetically. "Sorry, I was just running my mouth. So what happened next?"

"So I wake up and catch a ride home. Then I eat out at a diner, and I drive to the Scarves HQ."

Barry stared at me. "I'd ask you if you had gone insane, but it's a bit too late for that. And there's this funny thing about the pot calling the kettle black."

"I park outside the headquarters, and there's this literal lemonade stand thing, except it's for contracts and stuff. It was surreal. I asked the guy at the stand if I could talk to Spade, and he told me it was one million crystals just to talk to him. It was a pretty steep price. I tried to reason with him, but I couldn't get anything out before he got mad at me and shut me down super hard. I drove back to Shang Tu and spent a while at the Roaring Dragon, then I went home."

"And then?"

"When I got home, I found that the lock on the gate was broken. I was on edge up until I got to my apartment, and who do I find but Mr. Assassin Man sitting in my kitchen shuffling cards? We exchanged words, and then he says he'll talk to me at the headquarters, but not before putting me in a sleeper hold and trashing my place."

Barry winced and threw a self-conscious glance at my hallway.

"A lot of stuff happened after that. Mr. Assassin Man talked to me, Mayor Zao showed up out of nowhere, there was a gun deal, I got shot with a fake gun by Zao's bodyguard, I punched out Spade, then I got stuffed in the trunk and the rest is history. Honestly, I'm still trying to comprehend what happened last night."

Barry had tilted his head in a confused grimace, disbelief in his voice. "Uh. You? You punched out Spade?"

"...well, honestly, I did more damage to myself than I did to him, but yeah, I punched him in the face. He deserved it."

Barry chuckled. "And uh. Zao showed up?"

"Yeah. He's a total dick."

"Don't have to tell me twice. He really hates journalists if they aren't praising him for whatever stupid thing he does. I knew he was into some shady stuff, but this is on a new level."

Barry rose from the chair. "All that being said, you sure seem to be doing decent on this article. I feel a bit bad because most of the reason you look like crap is because I foisted it off on you. So breakfast is on me today."

"No, man, it's okay, I'll deal with it myself."

Barry laughed out loud, not quite unkindly. "Sam, you don't get to play 'badass but humble everyman' with me this time. And you just told me you're strapped for cash. I'm buying you breakfast. End of story. Least I can do after all that's happened to you."

I rose off the couch with a grin. "Alright, if you insist."

"I damn well insist. Let's go."

We bro-fisted each other.

Barry took another good look at me and sniffed.

"On second thought, I'll wait up for you. You're not going out looking and smelling like that."

Breakfast was a stack of pancakes with a side of bacon and eggs, and orange juice instead of coffee. I felt more or less normal as we walked out of Archer's at two in the afternoon. It was a grey, overcast afternoon, and quite windy on top of that.

Barry stretched his arms out. "Yeah, you were right, Sam. This place is actually pretty good and doesn't murder your wallet. And the waitresses are pretty cute. You sure one of them isn't into you?"

I sighed. "We just bump into each other a lot, man. It's not like it could work out anyway."

Barry scoffed. "Typical. Wouldn't hurt you to test the waters every once in a while."

I let it go at that statement. I wasn't quite comfortable with discussing my love life, or lack thereof, and objecting might have led into a discussion I wasn't ready to have.

"So what do we do next?" I said.

"Well, judging by the fact that it took you a grand total of about one and a half days to risk your life doing stupid things, I think you need a break from this article. So we're gonna chill with a friend of mine for a bit."

Barry tossed his keys at me. I caught them.

"It's pretty windy out here. You stay in the car. I gotta make a call."

I nodded and walked over to Barry's car, unlocking the passenger door and sitting inside. It was a cool, sharp forest green Xiong Ren five-seater. It was noticeably faster than my car, which was just as well considering that it came out this year. It was also quieter, handled turns better, and had a personal music player that worked alongside the radio…

Before I could get wrapped up in jealousy, Barry knocked on the door. I jammed the keys in the ignition and unlocked the driver's door.

Barry flicked an eyebrow for a split second and started the car. The roar of the engine was swiftly followed by soft drum beats that quickly increased in tempo, followed by a guitar riff. I found myself moving my head to the beat and caught myself in time.

"Where's this friend of yours, Barry?"

"A bit uptown from here. Shouldn't take too long."

The car sped away in no time at all. With the music and Barry singing along with the lyrics, I found that the trip went by remarkably fast. We ended up in a part of town that was unfamiliar to me; it was semi-remote with legitimate houses instead of apartment buildings. Compared to the rest of Shang Tu, it was noticeably more rural, but had a modern feel to it at the same time.

Barry pulled up alongside one such house. It was a two-story house with a garage to the side. The house was painted red, but otherwise didn't stand out very much.

Barry shut off the car. "Right, then, here we are. You ready?"

"Yeah, I guess."

Barry shot me a stupid-looking grin and walked out of the car. I followed, not quite sure what to make of the situation.

We went over to the garage, where a woman wearing oil-streaked jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt was busy working under the hood of the car, a lightning purple affair with hints of azure blue on some parts. It was a model I had yet to see, but judging by the trend thus far, it stood to reason that it was one of the newest cars to come out this year. The rhythmic mechanical clanking ceased, followed by the sound of the hood closing as we approached, and I blinked as she turned and I realized who Barry's friend was.

"Yo, Judy."

"Hi, Barry." Her eyes darted from him to me, and she smiled. "Oh, hi, Sam." She took a second look at my face and frowned; I must still have looked like a walking bruise. "Are you okay? Your face doesn't look that good."

I tried my hardest to make sounds turn into words. I think I was mildly successful.

"I. Uh. Er. Um. I'm...good, I guess. You work on cars?"

Barry snickered as he observed the effect Judith's unexpected appearance was having on me. I glared at him, and resolved to do something to make him regret it. Someday. Maybe.

Judy flashed a look at her car."Yeah. It's a hobby of mine. Dad taught me a few things when I was a girl, and I guess I've never really lost my taste for it."

"That's...pretty nice, actually. My dad is a mechanic of sorts, and he likes to work on cars, among other things. He's retired now, but..." I scratched my head and laughed sheepishly.

"That's good." Judith suddenly had a moment of self-consciousness, looking down at her clothes. "Um, guys, I have to change out of these clothes. You can come inside in the meantime. Make yourself comfortable."

She looked at both of us for a second, then smiled and jogged to her house.

I turned to Barry. "So, Barry."

"Yeah?" He was still snickering.

"You've been working with Judy for a week and a half, right."

"Uh-huh."

I blinked rapidly, my voice becoming indignant. "And in a week and a half, you already know where she lives? How did that even happen?"

Barry shrugged. "I told you, I have a way with the women. And as for the unspoken question that I'm sure you're going to pose to me, I didn't even get to first base. Mostly out of consideration for your crush, but you know me pretty well by now."

I shook my head and walked towards the house. Some days, I admired Barry, and some days, I cursed his existence. Today was pretty uncertain for me.

Judy's house was certainly nice looking. It gave me a good idea of what upwards mobility looked like.

The first thing one saw upon entry was a coat and shoe rack. Barry and I kicked off our shoes and shrugged off our jackets. Barry locked the door behind him.

The house itself had large diamond-shaped white tiles across the hallway. The hallway led straight to the kitchen, where instead of tiles, there were polished brown wood tiles. The kitchen itself was slightly impressive, more or less resembling my kitchen except for the dishwasher. And the symmetrical design. And the cool oven. Seriously, that thing was digital. And probably had a pilot so you wouldn't have to ignite the gas yourself. We pulled out some kitchen chairs and sat down.

Judy walked down the stairs to greet us. She was wearing a Ninja Hurk t-shirt and navy blue sweats this time. The shirt was depicting a scene where the aforementioned hero, a mutant ninja with super strength, was about to meet an alien spaceship with his fist, in space, while the big bad was trying to shoot him down. It looks much better than it sounds, I swear.

"Do you guys want a beer or something? There's some cans in the fridge."

I nodded, and Judy dutifully fetched cans of a brand called Lucky Cat. I broke open the can and took an experimental sip; the taste was noticeably heavy, and it tasted like a lot of things, but most notably honey. It was decent, and I felt like it could grow on me.

"So what have you guys been up to on Golden Week?"

Barry covered a belch with an arm. "Not much to say. I caught a movie called Zephyr; it was about a guy who got sick of being held down by the man and tried to punch out the entire government. It sounds better than it was, though. Movie kind of sucked and took forever to get to the point."

Judy sighed. "Good thing I didn't buy a ticket for that one, then. What about you, Sam?"

I shrugged. "Well, it's a bit of a long story, but in short, I've been running all over the place gathering information about an article I'm working on."

Judy's ears perked up in interest. "An article? About what?"

"Well, it was Barry's idea more so than anything, but I want to write an article about a person called Coral Tea. She's supposed to be this super badass Red Scarf who disappeared off the face of the earth, and no one knows what happened to her."

"Well, if you're working on your week off, it must be pretty important to you. I wonder if that has anything to do with your face, though."

I grimaced as I remembered the sequence of events once again. "In a manner of speaking, you could say that."

Judy's eyebrows raised. "Well, the premise sounds interesting, at least. I hope to read it someday, but you probably need to find a different way to get information that doesn't involve getting hurt."

I scoffed. "You're telling me."

Because I wasn't that eager to retell the events once again, I changed the subject.

"So uh, that interview with the Magister. How did that one go?"

Judy smiled. "He's quite the interesting character. I didn't know what to expect, but well..."

Barry picked up the hanging thread. "Basically, the Magister is a huge nerd. He's got a lot of cool insights and all, but man, do not get him started on computers or tim-tams. He wouldn't stop gushing about these tim-tams and how they're the best snack in the world ever and there should be a currency exchange program based on tim-tams. We had to edit out a lot of that stuff just so the article wouldn't hit seventeen pages. And he sounded like a kid when we asked about Outer Kingdom innovations. Something about how computers would literally revolutionize the world as we knew it and he couldn't wait to get his hands on one."

Judy laughed. "I couldn't believe my ears when he went on these long tangents about the biscuits! You forgot the part where his favorite TV show was that sappy romantic soap opera that's playing right now."

I snickered."Probably because Barry is also watching that soap opera. He wouldn't shut up about it when he started watching it. It was kind of embarassing."

Barry choked on his beer. "Hey, Sam! We talked about this before. You don't diss my tastes, and I don't diss yours."

Judy gave an incredulous stare at Barry. "You too, Barry? I didn't know you were into these kinds of shows."

Barry had the grace to look embarrassed. "It's just a guilty pleasure, okay?"

Judy laughed. "If you say so. But when he isn't going on these rants, he's actually quite insightful. He said that peace between all nations was his ultimate goal, and that could be best achieved by uniting the kingdoms instead of leaving them separate, no matter how long it took."

Barry nodded. "Yeah. He's a real down to earth nerd. Wouldn't trade him for anyone else."

Hearing about the Magister made me feel bitter overall. He might have been playing the good guy, and indeed, there was hardly any reason to truly hate the Magister, as every decision he made since he took office had only bettered Shang Tu as a whole, and indirectly benefited Shang Mu and Shuigang as well. I distinctly remembered how happy my parents were when he took office. I had thought that he was better than the average politician.

But in the end, the Magister wasn't that different from an average politician. The only difference was that he was exceptionally good at public relations. But as down to earth as he supposedly was, I had to wonder at the motivations of a person who had commissioned a literal weapon of mass destruction. Quite honestly, it scared me.

But I didn't want to shatter the image of the Magister on a whim. Perhaps I still wanted to believe that the Magister was a good guy, deep down.

So instead of dropping the bombshell, I went along with the flow. We talked about bad movies, bacon ale, vacation spots, Ninja Hurk, Eagle Eye (the detective comic about an eagle who used to work as a police officer, then was disgraced and became a private investigator), tabloid journalism (please do not ask), alien life on other planets, whether Eagle Eye could beat Ninja Hurk in a fight (for the record, Eagle Eye would totally beat up Ninja Hurk), what to do for the rest of Golden Week…

Perhaps two and a half hours passed before the doorbell rang.

Judy blinked, having been in the middle of a conversation.

"Uh, I'll get the door, guys."

Judy walked over to the door and opened it. A pangolin decked out in the magistrate uniform walked in. He had a blaster in a pocket holster and a nightstick looped through his belt. He was in his late thirties, as it happened.

"Evening to you kids." His voice was an odd mix of musical and gravelly.

Barry raised his empty can of beer to him. "Yo, Officer Ken. Here for business or pleasure?"

Apparently, Barry knew this particular magistrate officer well.

The pangolin smiled sadly. "Unfortunately, Barry Dean Allen, it's business this time around. I'm looking for a chap called Samuel Swift."

I rose from my chair and extended my hand. "That's me, Officer. What do you need?"

The pangolin—Ken, was it?-looked at my hand and lightly shook his head.

"Before I do this, I just wanted to say that my son works at the Avalice Times, and he said that you were a pretty nice guy, never caused trouble for anyone. I guess you don't judge a book by its cover, especially not these days."

I was confused. "Um, what are you talking about?"

The pangolin sighed and fished out a flyer from his back pocket, showing it to me.

"You've been marked as a person of interest by the Royal Magister. You are under arrest for the crimes of illegal weapon sales in the kingdom of Shang Tu, bribery and slandering a government official."

Words could not express how utterly shocked I was.

"….What?! That has to be a mistake!"

Judy and Barry were shocked. The pangolin took in these reactions and dispassionately fished out his handcuffs, binding my hands together. I wish I could say that sensation wasn't familiar to me.

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?"

Barry rose from his chair in a storm. "Dude, this has to be a mistake! Sam is one of the coolest guys I know, and he'd never get involved in that crap to start with!"

Judy crossed her arms, frowning fiercely. "Do you have proof of these allegations, officer?"

The pangolin shrugged. "Can't divulge too many details. Magister says he has a reliable witness, and it's his orders."

I was dragged away while Judy and Barry were uncomfortably staring at me.

Barry yelled out. "Hey, Sam! Whatever you do, don't talk to anyone without a laywer! We'll figure this thing out!"

Unfortunately, I had already figured this thing out.

I did not like my odds when politics were involved.

Especially when the frigging Mayor Zao had just screwed me.