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“It’s pretty plain looking.” Bryce stared down at the metal cube. “I would expect something important to the Trans to be quite garish.”
“I could put stencils of bunnies on it,” Lulu suggested.
“So what is it?” Charlene nudged it with her foot.
“It’s the bunny cube… or at least it will be when I’m done with it.”
“I just hope who were selling the arms to will know what it is and pay us accordingly,” Bryce said. “She’s a disciple of Dammon… quite important.”
“And when you play dice with it, you always win… because you always roll bunnies!”
“So we’re just going to waltz in, hold up the cube, and say, ‘Do you know what this is and want to pay us for it?’?” Charlene asked.
Bryce chuckled. “We’re not going to do that, Charlene. For one thing, I’m not holding it up because that thing is weird and I’m not touching it.”
“Everyone wins with the bunny cube!”
“It has a key in it.” Doug finally pulled himself off the floor on which he was sleeping of the small, abandoned apartment.
Charlene gave him a dirty look. “Great job keeping guard last night, by the way.”
“I was sleepy! Anyway, I saw the Devil again and he said there’s a key in there.”
Charlene looked confused. “You saw who?”
“Apparently Doug is being visited in his sleep by the personification of evil from biblical mythology,” Bryce explained.
Charlene turned to Doug. “You haven’t been reading that crap, have you?”
“What crap?” Doug realized he could have just said, “No,” since he couldn’t even remember the last time he read anything.
“Religious mythology, because you’re just the kind of idiot that would fall for that sort of thing.”
That stung a bit, but Doug felt there was some truth to it. “I didn’t read anything. I just had some stupid dreams. Forget it.”
Charlene sat on the room’s one bed. She had taken off her uniform’s jacket, but still looked quite military in the pants and tank top. “So are there any plans to get at least a change of clothes, or is a truck full of weaponry hidden in the desert pretty much all we have right now?”
“I keep telling you not to worry.” Bryce checked his tie in the room’s one dingy mirror. “Hey, what ever happened to my suit jacket?”
“I’m afraid I misplaced during one of the gunfights.” Charlene checked the chamber of a pistol. “So what are we doing now?”
“I have some funds tucked away.” Bryce tried to fix his hair with a comb. “I’ll need a new suit, and Lulu can get you some new clothes while we’re out.”
Lulu was busy working at something on the ground. “Children sizes are hard to find these days.”
“Lulu, if you get me something idiotic, i.e., something you would wear, I will hurt you. Do you understand that?”
Lulu didn’t look up from her work. “Blah blah blah.”
“This will all be sorted out soon,” Bryce said. “As soon as we’re ready, we’ll be meeting up with a friend of mine who should be able to get us in to see Colette, Dammon’s head honcho here. We’ll sell the arms to her and have plenty of money until we get our next job. We have a new life; be happy.”
Charlene did not look ready to be happy. “You understand that if people hire us as mercenaries, they’ll actually be expecting us to do those jobs. You’re not going to be able to BS your way through everything.”
Bryce chuckled. “You put too much weight on your weapons skills, dear. This isn’t going to be all about combat, and we all bring valuable skills to the table. I’m good dealing with people. Lulu has tech experience.”
“And Doug?”
“Well, Doug…” Bryce thought for a moment. “…is good at carrying stuff. In fact, had I entrusted him to carry my expensive suit jacket, I’m quite sure I’d still have it. Also, he can throw a good punch when needed. He knocked out some guy for me just last week.”
Doug knuckles were still swollen from that. “What was that all about, anyway?”
Bryce gave Doug a sharp look. “As I said then, it’s none of your business.”
Doug turned to Charlene. “And if you remember, I got an ‘Adequate’ score on my swordsmanship in my military training.”
“And exactly what use is that?”
Doug knew the answer to that one as he had thought about it many times. “Guns aren’t very effective against the Hallowed, but you can defeat them by cutting them apart.”
Charlene laughed. “Except that one of the Hallowed could probably just tear you apart with his mind.”
“See, Doug is useful. Since Colette is one of the Hollow, if something goes wrong it can be Doug’s job to run up and give her a good punch and then cut her to pieces… if she doesn’t kill him with her mind.”
Doug shook his head. “I don’t like the idea of hitting a woman.”
Bryce shrugged. “Fine. Doug is completely useless. But we need four people for our mercenary group, but I’m sure just three of us being skilled is enough for any job. You ready to go, Tri-Lu?”
“Yeah.” She got up from her hidden work and looked to Charlene and Doug. “You two be sweet while we’re gone and guard the mysterious bunny cube.”
“We’re not calling it that!” Charlene shouted.
“Yes we are!” Lulu screamed back. She stormed out with Bryce giving a final wave before following.
There was a moment’s quiet, and Doug decided to sit down on the bed next to Charlene. “You know, it’s been a while since it’s just been us two–”
Charlene sighed. “How many times do I have to tell you that I absolutely no interest in you, Doug? You’re a pathetic loser, and if you ever had the will to stand up to Bryce, maybe he and Lulu wouldn’t feel so empowered to drag me into this crap.”
“You’d rather have been left back in Stride? We’re supposed to stick together, Charlene.”
“Says who?”
Doug just thought that was the understanding they had since they were kids. “What else do we have than each other? The world hates us. They slaughtered our parents for stuff I don’t even understand, and somehow we’re the bad guys.”
“And the answer to that is to be petty criminals?”
The answer, Doug thought, was to fight back. He just wished Stan’s words were true that that was even possible — that there was some power greater than the Trans. He looked towards the cube, now back in its cloth sack and lying on the ground.
“If that thing is actually something the governments want,” Charlene said, “then we better get rid of it quick one way or another. If Elza’s people we fought at the armory survived, they’re probably right now trying to find out who and where we are. Who knows who else is trying to track it down.”
It was a scary thought, but if the Transcendents really did fear the contents of the cube, then Doug wanted to know what was in there.
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