Despite the cymbal roll of rain pattering of the window, Elise Lefevre woke to the soft ping of her phone receiving a message. She lay still for a couple moments longer, the pale skin of her cheek pressing against the rough velcro of her wrist braces. Last night, in another life, the sky had been clear.

Now it poured.

To flashes of lightening, Elise carefully unwrapped the straps on her braces. First left, then right. Her phone buzzed once more as she pulled them off. First left, then right. It buzzed a third time:

"By 5:30AM, arrive at Liverpool Street station. Failure to be punctual will be met with consequences. Bring one spare change of clothes only, sanitary essentials, and the other bare necessities such as prescribed medication. Do not disappoint us.”

The number was unfamiliar, but Elise did not for a moment doubt who had sent it. In her mind, blood welled up from beneath the phone in her hands and dribbled to the floor. Drip… drip…

Elise dropped the phone to hold out her hands before her, stretching them to double check. The movements calmed her anxiety somewhat, as they usually did, so she finished the regime and hurriedly packed what she was told to, if with the small addition of her wrist braces and hand sanitizer.

In her bathroom mirror, Elise saw the same girl who had charmed thousands with music just the night before, only now her concert makeup was smeared in swatches across her skin, a farce of what she had been. Hastily, the slight woman scrubbed off the remnants of her past life and swept out of her apartment, catching one last glimpse of the instrument standing forlornly in the hall as if it too dreaded her departure.

The taxi ride was torture. Elise’s mind replayed over and over the events of the previous night, while her hands stretched every tendon in a quest for calm. And still, the minutes on her watched creaked onwards. 5:11…5:16…5:20…

At the station, Elise tried to conceal her anxiety behind a calm demeanor. The cellist wanted—no needed— to perform well before the Employer. She would do anything to go back, to wind back the clock just a few hours, to not have stepped into that taxi cab. Only now, Elise wasn’t sure what that anything was. She had arrived at the station. The time was 5:26.

30 minutes. The corners of her mouth tugged downward as Laneya calculated the time needed. She was already removing the few clothes she wore to bed, gathering what she would need in a circuit around the room. Two blouses. Two bras. A pause, and a sport bra, just in case. Pants, leggings, skirts, a pair of tougher jeans. Dresses didn’t really make sense. She tossed what she wasn’t putting on at the bed, in the general direction of her bag. Alright, clothes handled.

Shoes next, one pair for street, one pair of boots; once more, just in case. She didn’t have enough information to know what exactly she was supposed to bring, didn’t know what the right answer was. Better safe than sorry, though, it wasn’t like this many things would slow down her ride on the bus. 28 minutes. She grimaced further, her cold eyes narrowing at the clock. She slipped the tee over her head as she blindly walked toward the medicine cabinet and grabbed her little medicine holder. Thank goodness she’d taken the precaution to keep one handy after first contact. She paused, popping open a day’s worth of pills as she stared at the one thing she was unsure in bringing. Her other hand glided over the metal piece’s short barrel before she shook her head and closed the pantry door. Next time, perhaps. She swallowed the pills dry, tossed the holder onto the bed and grabbed her bag from by the door. Quickly, she slammed clothes into it, zipped it, flung the strap across her shoulders so that the backpack rested squarely against her back.

Out the door she flew, plucking sunglasses and a duck-billed hat from the peg as she passed. She issued the command from her phone for her flat to lock the door behind her, and sprinted down the stairs. One, two, three flights. Her watch said that it was 5:03. The bus would be at Grove Road just about now. She didn’t have time to wait 7 minutes for the next one. Curse the tight timing on this notification. She would have to take some of it herself.

There was not time for the proper safety procedures. She took a sharp turn to where her bike was tied, using her home automation system to unlock it as she approached. The engine revved happily to be woken so early in the morning, and in a cacophony of burning rubber and exhaust note, she woke half the neighbors and tore onto Old Ford Rd.

If they were only going to give her 30 minutes to get to the center of town, at least they were kind enough to do so early in the morning, when there would be no traffic. She ignored the word “SLOW” emblazoned on the lane as she careened down the little two-lane road at 100kmph. The rain made visibility low, and every turn was an exhilarating madness of skidding, sliding, and water spewing from a hard-driven back tire as she slopped from lane to lane, from road to road. She swerved from the obvious course, slowing to a more reasonable rate as buildings closed in on every side, desperately swiveling her head from side to side in search of parking. The station was close, but ah! That would do. Onto the curb she went, killing the engine and coasting along the sidewalk to stop at a small pole. Good enough. She tied up, and took off on foot. 5:08.

She hadn’t made it for the bus. Or, rather, there was no way the bus would make it there in time. But Bethnal Green was also a tube station. 5:11 as she charged down the stairs, racing the small waterfall that descended into the underground station. The screech of a Central line train leaving port left a dead feeling in her heart, and she paused at the bottom of the stairs to watch the last few cars pull away. The signs updated with the next train, and she read it with dead eyes before sighing in relief. Direct line to Liverpool Underground Station: Arrival time 5:22. She had made it. She spent the few minutes she had wringing out and brushing the water off of her apparel and out of her eyes.

It was bad to have those 11 minutes of lower stress between her descent at Bethnal and her ascent at Liverpool. It gave her time to reflect on this sudden change in her employer, in what power he, or she, or they were exerting over her life. “Met with consequences. Do not displease us.” She munched on a small breakfast from one of the vending machines, and contemplated her new existence as the walls of the underground rushed past. This sort of threat was new to her, something she hadn’t dealt with before. Sure, she’d been dragged into many things in the hopes to not displease others, but it didn’t have that expectation of external punishment attached. Disappointment had been enough of a deterrent for her for those people. After all, what sort of person was unaffected when a mother said you had failed her?

The brakes screeched and she stood, left the otherwise empty car. She could take the walk at a moderate pace, without fear of arriving late. She passed into the station at 5:27, double-checking her watch to make sure. Three minutes not late. There were few others there this early, but each could have been the one. Heck, they could have all been there as part of this entrapment. She selected a place where her back was against a wall, giving her good vision of every approach, and squatted, taking off her backpack. It was heavy enough to swing at someone if needed, and though it would probably be unwise to do that, the mere possibility helped to ease her.

Vincent scowled as he read the messages on his phone. This whole situation was undesirable and though Vincent was sure he had been in worse spots, he couldn't seem to remember them now. He was out of bed by 4:30 as he had been expecting the message. Vincent had made sure to dismiss his guards the night before, allow them some time with their families. He pulled out an old looking but mint condition briefcase and begun to pack. It was 5:04. A buttoned shirt, nice slacks, underwear, change of socks, shampoo, body wash, toothbrush and toothpaste. Vincent paused in his packing and looked over at his nightstand, a switch blade he had brought from the states sitting there with a reassuring look. A dangerous look. The young man considered taking the blade. Lord only knows what would happen if they found it on him but it could be something that saved his life, if the type of work they were doing was as sketchy as he suspected.

5:10 am. Vincent grabbed the knife and tucked it into his sock, making sure his pant leg covered it without any protrusion or disturbance. Not exactly comfortable, but Vincent felt better already with it there. He scanned his room for anything else he might need. Vincent sighed and slammed his briefcase shut, taking out his phone and checking the address of the location as he left his dorms.

"By 5:30AM, arrive at Liverpool Street station. Failure to be punctual will be met with consequences. Bring one spare change of clothes only, sanitary essentials, and the other bare necessities such as prescribed medication. Do not disappoint us."

Vincent scowled again as he put his phone away. He hated being told what to do. 5:15 am. Vincent hopped in a cab and paid the driver extra saying only "Drive as fast as possible to Liverpool Street Station." The cab driver took the money and nodded, roaring towards their destination. But even with the cabbie doing 15 over the speed limit, they arrived with only two minutes to spare. Vincent paid him a tip and leaped out of the car, power walking to the station. 5:29 am. He slowed his walk to a more casual gait as he rounded the corner, seemingly unconcerned with his summons. It wouldn't do for The Employer to know how anxious and angry he was about being put in this position. "Show no weakness." Vincent said to himself as he walked into the station and saw some others standing around.

Other employees or merely innocent bystanders? Wondered Vincent, the station bell tolled and he checked his watch. 5:30 am, on the dot. It was a little closer than Vincent would care to admit but he made it on time. Now he scanned his surroundings for the mysterious Employer. It wouldn't surprise him one bit if the bastard chose to send someone in his stead. Coward.

Richard Dohammond felt his knuckles slamming against cartilage as he swooped his arm to punch the street chav in the face.

It all happened so quickly - but then again, twenty seconds was pretty fast. Richard had been walking home in the damp, dripping early-morning alleyways of London, awkwardly gripping his paper McDonald's bag. It was then he saw the gang of chavs. They were about his age, probably went to the same university as he did, and were dead-arsed drunk. One of them, a long-chinned fellow with a blue beret and mole on his cheek, stumbled on the slippery concrete and smote a lamppost with his skull, much to the raucous amusement of his fellow compatriots.

Richard averted his eyes, gripped his paper bag and kept walking, trying to hide his disgust. Idiots like them could spend the night productively like him, studying and attempting to make something out of this gutter of a life, but they were the ones who had cash funneled to them from Ma and Da. Bloody cockheads couldn't a change a tire if they could. So Richard marched ahead, his sneakers splashing against the puddles in the pavement and wetting the bottoms of his trousers, pushing the passers-by out of his life.

Suddenly, he felt two large hands shove him to the ground. Richard grimaced as his hands, which involuntarily swung in place to prevent him from hitting the ground, smashed into spiky, rough concrete. He turned and saw the gang of chavs drunkenly laughing and snorting, their reddened upturned noses shining in the streetlights.

It was then he prepared his arm to swing.

If he could turn back time, Richard would have gotten up, loudly cursed as he flipped them off, and called it a day. But his mind would not follow his body. It was the rage that overtook him again, the rage of being trampled and spat on for all of his life that took control of his every limb and directed him towards one purpose - to retaliate. It was a feeling at the front of his brain that urged - no, commanded action. And he would not be at peace if that action, whether it be to go to college or to punch someone in the face, was not completed in

These were thus his feelings as he was quickly restrained by two of the drunken youths, now suddenly half-sober.

"Bloody hell, mate."

"FUCK OFF!"

Richard roughly elbowed the pair and turned to face them. He saw the two of them more clearly - one of them had a Nike hoodie and long, shaggy hair that probably hadn't been washed in a week, and the other had tousled curly blonde hair and blue eyes that stuck out from behind a scarf.

"Right. Andrew's sorry. He's sorry. Come on, Andrew, get up. He says sorry."

Richard looked, and was still in a groaning heap on the pavement as his buddy attempted to lift him up.

Blondie was trying to fish out his cellphone. "Look, his parents are dumbarses. He'll sue. He'll bloody sue. Come on, what's your num-"

Richard did not hear the rest of his sentence as he pushed him aside and made for his apartment. He heard something drop. He hoped it was Blondie's phone.

The rest of a journey was a blur - the dingy reception with jarring fluorescent lights, the lonesome elevator ride up, and his stumbling into the room and collapsing on his bed.

He heard something buzz. He checked his phone. He wanted to hurl it out a window.

It was that piece of shite Employer.

Andrew did not know whether to love him or hate him. As he sat in his mother's house stressing out over his rejection letter, his short message was one of hope. But now, it was a message of unpredictability, of uncertainty, of possible danger. This was the last thing Richard needed, especially so close to the end of his third semester.

With a seething diligence, Richard packed his things.

He threw in his toothbrush and shaving kit in a Ziploc plastic bag, and packed an extra pair of jeans and two shirts. He would, of course, sneak in a portable charger for his phone. All of this he stuffed inside his grey sports backpack. He closed his laptop with a heavy heart, the first and only indulgence he had for the duration of his college life up to now. He dusted off his hoodie, now wet and with bits of pavement sticking to it.

The thought clicked in like a forgotten piece - his breakfast. But when Richard hurried over and tore into his prize, the old rage returned again as he saw his Big Mac box was soggy. He dug into it anyway, trying not to imagine what was in the rainwater that had (hopefully not) slightly wet his burger.

He left his keys with the receptionist. For what could be the last time of his life, Richard left his apartment for the dark streets of London. He arrived at the station at 5:27, quietly taking note of his fellow arrivals.

Archie Mercer narrowed his eyes as the first of his Employer's picks wandered into the station, sipping gingerly at a hazelnut latté from the Costa Coffee tucked away in the corner of the main floor, near the ATM block. He narrowed his eyes further as the second one entered - and more so with the third and fourth. He was, of course, looking at them through the reflection of the glass panel on one of the coffee shop's windows, just like he'd been taught. He couldn't let himself be known overtly until the last minute, as per the instructions of his Employer.

Casually, he glanced over his shoulder at the Irishman, grinning over his own coffee - flat white, just as boring as the man's politics - and the knockout beauty sitting next to him, putting up a good show of falsified comfort as the gaelic psychopath squeezed her gently. Of course they were the couple. Sometimes, Archie wondered if the employer was messing with him too.

It would hardly be out of character - although Archie usually got a turn playing lover with María before the operation had ended. His favourite part of the job, usually.

He sipped again at the coffee, turning to face the criminally conscripted properly, and striding towards them, smiling a politician's lying smile at them as he approached, his black peacoat just faintly wet with the remainder of this morning's rain, from his own trek to the station to arrive at 5:00AM, long before the Employees did.

Finally, he reached a point roughly in the centre of where the four young adults had naturally moved to about the station hall, and turned to look pointedly at each of them in turn. The Employer's next automated text would come through in a matter of seconds, as always it did, and they would be prompted to direct their attention to him - a very pleasing sort of coordination and timing that Archibald had grown to appreciate on the part of his Employer, even if it were symptomatic of yet another serious psychological condition.

Ding, each of their phones went off, or buzzed silently, in almost perfect unison.

"Direct your attention to the center of the station hall. The man you see there, dressed primarily in black and holding coffee, is now your chiefest authority. Approach him, taking note of the three others who do. Give this man your name, your age, and your choice of degree at university. Once your identification is complete, he will present you with further instruction. Under no circumstances is he to be disobeyed."

There it was. Archibald already knew what they looked like, and had been briefed thoroughly on their observed personality traits, career goals, core motivations - and most importantly, the means by which they were originally coerced into the employ of the Employer - but it was nice to hear their phones go off, and know he'd been given good information as usual.

He refreshed his smile, having let it slide from his lips partially as their phones rang, and waited.

Patiently.

As usual.



"There he goes. Off again. Meeting people and doin' things." Dowle grinned at Archie as he moved out to the middle of the station. "Wish I got to be the front man just for once. I can be charming when I want to be."

Knowing this was most certainly not true, María kept to herself, maybe shrugging a little.

"Ah, what? Not a pretty enough face, you think?"

Again. Kept to herself. Laughed a little, to make it seem to any third party like he'd just told her a joke. To make it all seem normal - which it wasn't, couldn't be, and never would be. She missed Spain, she missed the sun. Fuck this country, and its fucking rain.

"Don't worry your little head, pet. I know why I ain't fronting for us well enough." Dowle smiled softly at her. It almost looked genuine - maybe it was, she couldn't be sure with him. Sometimes, he talked too much. Sometimes not at all. Sometimes, he would talk both sides of a conversation with himself - a conversation with himself. Not another personality, not another fragment of self, but actively holding a conversation with an entity he recognised to be himself.

"What do you think of them?" She asked quietly, never once breaking her smile as he tightened his grip on her, hugging her just slightly closer. It wasn't so bad. He wasn't so bad. She just didn't like this kind of thing in public, and it was cold.

"Well... they'd've never made it far back with my old boys in the Republic, that's for sure. But I s'pose we don't really need 'em to be all that tough, so they look alright to me. What about you?"

This was one thing she actually did like about the Irishman. He was unpredictable, dangerous, and frightening at times, but always asked for her opinion. Not everyone did, and it seemed like a redeeming quality of Dowle's that he cared.

"The men don't like being told what to do. They either think of themselves as powerful, or are so fixated on becoming powerful that this kind of thing is getting under their skin already. They're not scared, they're angry - although men sometimes show fear as anger, so I guess I don't know for sure. The women... one is scared out of her skin, the other is a depressive I think. The scared one is a musician, and takes very good care of her hands - possibly obsessive compulsively. The other seems dead inside. I can't read her like this from afar. They all seem a bit fucked up to me."

Dowle narrowed his eyes at her.

"I thought you'd not read their files?"

"I did not."

Dowle frowned for a moment, then nodded appreciatively.

"I think you're right, love. Mostly, at least. People ain't really my strength, after all."

The minutes directly after Elise Lefevre arrived at the train station were nerve-wracking, a tritone in every breath and no cadence within sight. She made her way to the center of the station hall, noticing that perhaps she wasn’t the only one commanded here in such a way. There were a few others looking about with various degrees of curiosity and concern, but the musician did not move to speak to them, instead keeping her hands stubbornly by her sides as she tried to still the anxious turning in her stomach.

To pass this time and occupy her mind, Elise examined the others, who she found were three young, attractive people that were probably near her own age, though the cellist was no particular ace at determining ages at a glance. Two men, two women, including herself. All young and healthy enough, but with little other clues to their purpose in this strange game. Elise wondered for a moment how these others had been coerced; she had little skill in determining much about them at this stage. There was still so little in the way of information, but plenty of motivation to keep her playing.

At 5:30, Elise felt her phone buzz again:

"Direct your attention to the center of the station hall. The man you see there, dressed primarily in black and holding coffee, is now your chiefest authority. Approach him, taking note of the three others who do. Give this man your name, your age, and your choice of degree at university. Once your identification is complete, he will present you with further instruction. Under no circumstances is he to be disobeyed.”

Elise kept her head turned down towards her phone while she collected herself. The woman was no stranger to fear; had she not been terrified of performing for years? She could master this, if only the images of her hands, bloody and broken did not keep returning over and over to her ringing head.

With a deep breath, Elise centered herself, imagining her feet pressing as firmly down into the earth with more force than it pushed up on her, finding balance. What was this, if not another performance? How many times had she performed flawlessly with a smile on her face and fear in her belly?

I can. I will.

She looked up from her phone and took six confident, even steps towards this dark haired man, her face serious but composed. He was tall and sharp, more in demeanor than appearance, in the way that Elise had found many of the most talented musicians were sharp; he seemed to notice every detail of his surroundings.

In her low, clear voice, Elise said almost casually, “Hello, My name is Elise Leone Lefevre. I am 21 years old and I have spent the last three years studying cello performance at London’s Royal Academy of Music.”

The street sense was kicking in: Richard was instinctively surveying the appearance, body posture, and the possible threats that his new 'companions' posed - all without actively looking in their direction. Back in Islington, you needed to know whether that chav on the other side of the street was ready to shank you, but look too long and too hard and you'd do yourself the favor.

He first noticed the only other male in the group. He was confident and well-dressed, though Richard doubted that brats like him could have survived ten minutes in this part of London.

There was a small, petite girl, who seemed to be obsessing over her fingers. Not much use in a fight.

There was also another girl, who looked rather... dull. Perhaps she was an addict. Richard had seen plenty of her kind stumbling through Islington at night, with glazed-over eyes and trembling hands.

In short, he wasn't very convinced.

The matter returned to himself. He suddenly noticed a bulge in the male's leg. Fuck. It was probably a knife. He should have brought one. He suddenly realized the rising pressure in his chest that he had suppressed for the last half hour. What the hell was he doing? Why was he not at home? Why hadn't he called the cops? Why hadn't he slept? Why hadn't he told mum?

Then his thoughts drifted back to his mother. The last he saw of her was a pale, bleary-eyed, frizzy-haired mess at their apartment door. Her salaries weren't cutting it, and it was either stay this way until Richard graduated or remarry. The latter was out of the question for Richard. He had seen his mum's boyfriends, all despicable good-for-nothings with leery smiles and perpetually grasping either cigarettes or bottles of beer. It was either he get himself to graduation day fast, or he let one of those cockshites earn his mother's living. But the way it was going, he wasn't going to graduate from college, let alone live in the next couple hours.

He felt his phone ring, and saw the text. One forced, stilted step at the time, he trudged his way up to the man in the center of the station. He looked confident, like the well-dressed bloke, but he also looked pretty alert - probably an ex-policeman or ex-military. He grimaced, and pushed the words out of his mouth.

"Richard Dohammond. Twenty. BS Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science."

He was the one. Laneya watched a man leave the coffee shop with a conspicuous smile pasted on his lips. It screamed of lies and deceit, but moreso, it was just too early in the morning for someone to be smiling naturally. He had to be up to something, and given her situation, he was likely up to that. But was he alone? She surveyed the rest of the people in the station: a few kids listening to headphones, a tired-looking barrista who glared death at her when their eyes met, a couple laughing about something, and three out-of-placers, winded like she but milling about as if they didn't know why they were there. Just like she was.

The smiling man was doing a circuit of the room with his head, pointedly stopping at each of these three and finally at herself. So her instincts were right. She didn't know whether to be relieved that she wasn't alone in this, or more horrified that this "Employer" had that sort of power over many people. Her phone buzzed, and she made sure to contemplate all of the implications of the message before walking over. She wasn't that great a thinker on the spot, so it was important that she know exactly what to say ahead of time. One part of the message hopped out to her, and she spent a bit of extra time forming a question of her own, determining whether it would be wise to ask. She stood, still looking at the phone, and slung her backpack across her chest once more. She adjusted the strap so that it didn't look as odd, and then glanced back up at her target. Two of the milling individuals had already gone to him.

She walked over without any particular state of confidence, no bravado, but no fear in her steps. Her face was frozen in the same impassive bored neutrality as always, and she turned her head back and forth, taking in the circumstances again before committing to them. She paused, for her eye had caught something. That couple, they were watching them very closely. And wait, she recognized one of them... that woman, from somewhere. She was beautiful, even from this distance, though in a more robust, playful way than Laneya's pale, delicate features. Where did she recognize her? A modeling contest? That... could be, but she couldn't pinpoint yet who it was. They shared a stare across the floor and glass, and the other woman smiled a bit before half turning her attention back to the man with her, half to Laneya's continued, unaffected stare. And then she remembered where she was, what she was supposed to be doing, and that staring at people like that was considered creepy; she turned away, back to the small cluster of people in the center of the room.

"I am Laneya. 18. ME in Computer Engineering." She paused after having given what she was told to, and then continued as she had decided. "I am curious about the wording of this text. If the texts tell me to do something that you disagree with, which am I to disobey?" She held up her phone, one finger pointing at the last line of the text. It was important that she know the chain of command.

Archie's eyes narrowed at the fourth candidate, and his failure to comply. No matter. He would be taken care of by other agents of the Employer. Archie had other business to attend to.

"Good morning," He began politely, maintaining the plastic smile, "My name is Archibald Mercer. You may call me Mr. Mercer, or sir. My companions, whom you shall meet presently, are Dowle Fenn, and María Buscadora del Sueño. As I'm sure is evident, none of these names can be linked to our own origins, for security's sake." He took another sip of coffee and beckoned his partners over.

"Well, looks like we're on, sweetheart." Dowle grinned wolfishly at María, as he got up to go and greet their new, unwilling team mates. "How's the form, folks? I'll bet the Brit took the liberty of introducing us for us, in true form." He held out his hand to shake, as María crept up more slowly, more anxiously.

"Hi." She nodded curtly.

"Yes, well I'm sure you can tell who is who." Archie mused briefly, before turning back to the recruits - specifically, to Laneya. "Please. Don't worry about that. There will be no such conflicts. Now, if you don't mind, follow me. We have a train to catch. I shall explain everything on board."

The walk to the platform was short, and the train was already there - as usual, everything was timed perfectly. None of the willingly Employed made any more communication until they were all sat down in the 1st Class carriage of a pristine Virgin train, bound for Cambridge via Whittlesford Parkway. The air was cool, but only pleasantly so, and the food being served - complementary to 1st class - was of unusually high quality for any sort of travel food.

"I do hope you didn't eat before you got here. The Virgin breakfasts are especially good when they're hot - thank Queen and Country for Richard Branson." Archie gave the crew a thin grin as he tucked a serviette into his collar, and dug into what appeared to all the senses to be a miniature full English breakfast.

"Queen and Country indeed." Dowle finally returned Archie's scowl at the mention of the Queen.

"I'm sorry. These two are always fighting like this. You must have many questions."

"Mm, yes. I imagine - so let me start with the basics. Each of you was, one way or another, forced into performance in this scheme against your will. This holds the potential for great rewards, should you fulfill your role well, as well as grave consequences should you try to abandon the mission - as the fourth conscript, Vincent Carini, has by now likely discovered. Let me reassure you, however, that you shall come to no harm as long as you take this seriously, do as you are told, and don't piss off the Employer." Archie explained briefly, whilst cutting a piece of sausage, dipping it in brown sauce, and eating it.

There was then an uncomfortable silence as the train pulled away from the station.

"I... suppose you must have questions?" María asked hesitantly.



The breeze was cool and the air clean on the balcony of the penthouse apartment you had been taken to. It was refreshing, there was no doubt about that, but no matter how calm the city was around you, and no matter how at peace the rest of Cambridge seemed, the world remained a prison to you. You now knew your first task, and you knew the face of the target - Johannes Markand, a young looking, moderately handsome, well bearded, vaguely Scandinavian immigrant working for LS3 Security, in particular on their special protections projects. It was a lucrative business - one that you were going to play a big part in robbing him of.

But you had no choice in that regard, and you knew it - whether the idea of crime had ever appealed to you anyway.

All that mattered now was formulating a plan with your unwilling co-conspirators, a task that you'd been mostly left alone to complete too, with only the rough knowledge of the capabilities of your three superiors, and what roles they could play - Archibald, the Officer and Soldier, Dowle, the Chemist and Terrorist, and María, the psychoanalyst and beauty queen. Sure enough, the first two were more than capable of violence if it was required, but that presented other problems too - ideally, the data could be obtained without tipping anyone off that it had ever been taken, so that LS3 couldn't try to adapt their plan in response. María was good for reading people, monitoring the situation and such, but she was just about well enough known that one of you had practically recognised her from the get go, and that's a risk that possibly isn't worth it. Then there's the data storage itself - intentionally bulky, not very portable, and hard to access, it's also airgapped from the internet physically, making remote hacking entirely unfeasible for the simple lack of a connection - and what physical connections there are on the data crate itself are unique to Lockheart branded hardware, so simply plugging a flash drive in was mostly out of the question, unless a new one that fits the slots could be created. Could you do that? Could one of your new unwilling team mates? You didn't know, because you barely knew each other.

And then, finally, the ultimate variable - the Employer.

No word had yet reached you on the fate of the fourth employee, who had failed to obey the text messages back in Liverpool St. Station, but it was unlikely to have been pleasant, or quick - if it had been yet at all. The Employer was unpredictable, and also the single most critical factor in influencing your lifespan from that moment forwards. Even doing your job perfectly didn't guarantee survival, much less the 'rewards' that had been promised. People lie, and there was no reason to suppose that the Employer was any different - certainly, it would be safer for the Employer to just kill you at the end of it all.

So many uncertainties, so much to go wrong.

Mr. Markand plans to host a party, as it has been mentioned that he likes to do, in just a week. That is likely to be your best window of opportunity to seize the data needed by your Employer.

The rest of the heist plan, though, is entirely up to you.

Good luck.

Richard listened to the plan with furrowed brows, a deadset frown, and an ever so slightly increasing heartbeat. As the briefing continued, he felt a slowly rising panic emanating from his diaphragm and, when the subject fell on 'infiltration', climaxed to a palpable, prickly sensation in his mouth. He inhaled and exhaled loudly, and everyone turned to look at him. He excused himself. How he wished he could also excuse himself from this bloody mess altogether.

He again took another deep breath, and allowed the information floating about him form themselves into readable mental bullet points - this was one of Richard's ways of coping with the babbledegook his professors spouted in their lectures. He made sense of three things:

• Something was to be stolen from some bloke's house in Cambridge.
• The thing to be stolen was electronically locked.
• The only possible way to unlock it was if they made an entirely new flash drive to-

Oh, fuck it.

This couldn't be the only way.

Richard peered over the balcony. The sun was beginning to heave itself over the horizon, as evidenced by the faint mantle of blue to the east. The walls of the apartment building, could, perhaps, be able to be held onto. Richard desperately looked around for bedsheets, or some sort of long cloth to fashion a rope out of. On the other hand, if he ran fast enough, he could barge out the door, make it to the fire escape at the other end of the hall, and disappear into the urban labryinth below. For a brief moment, he briskly strode across the apartment, momentarily putting his hand on the door's brass handle, hoping to god there wasn't a CCTV (though he knew in his heart of hearts there was). He remembered the other male employee that refused to cooperate. He pushed it out of his mind. He was faster. Stronger. He wasn't going to end up like him. He would get out of here.

Then, he noticed the two girls.

Should he leave them?

One side of Richard, long suppressed, yet was just now getting louder, yelling, screaming his situation to him. He could die. He would die. They'd find his body in a bloody ditch, his face plastered all over the bloody Sun or Telegraph or whatever, his legacy merely to be the face of a shock-value frontline news story. He would be the subject of tabloid gossip, the sort of thing that made people hate the evening news. His mark on the world would be that - just that. If he remained here any longer, that is.

Yet another voice told him to stay.

Stay for the others.

Stay because it's the right thing to do.

Richard sat in the tower of his own thoughts for a long time.

Then he sighed, and turned away from the door.

He definitely wasn't going to go anywhere with the plan. Perhaps make conversation, gain a little trust before they made it out of here.

"Fucking hell, I'm a bloody politics student. What do they want me for?"

The ride was quiet after the bustle and rush of getting to it in the first place. Their captors asked if they had any questions, but Laneya was not keen on being chummy with them, and it seemed neither were the other two. Besides, she was focused on what Maria’s real name was, and that took half the trip before she remembered. It had been a modeling competition, as she’d thought. Somewhere in Spain, it didn’t matter, but she could remember the contestant list now, and only one name on it started with “Maria.”

Of course they would use aliases. It would be hard to find out anything about the other two, then. Laneya spent the rest of the trip staring at the tunnels flashing by her window, sometimes picking at the tray of food she’d been given. Stress made it hard to eat. And though she did not externally appear flustered by the situation, it did rank in the top five most stressful she’d been in. Not enough to make her wish to contact her parents, but she had considered it, and that was saying a lot.

The briefing raised more questions than it answered, but as she cynically expected, their three guides left them now that there was really something to ask them. Chief among her concerns was “why these two?” What she’d heard of the other two did not slot them into the plan as well as her own skillset did in her mind. Obviously they needed someone for the technical side of the operation. But a government student, and cellist without her instrument? Even the former, Richard, expressed his own low opinion of his selection.

And Laneya didn’t have an answer for his question. It was plain that he did not have anything to contribute. At least the other girl could be part of entertainment, or something, but Richard seemed to offer nothing. And so Laneya stayed quiet, focusing her facilities on the question at hand. Yes, it would have perhaps made more sense to ask him if he had any other significant traits than just the career he was pursuing, but he and their new superiors had posed a question, and she did not intend to open her mouth until she had an answer.

To her, it seemed that the situation was simple, and the pieces of the plan would need to be, as well. Their difficulties lay in attending the party, approaching the data, collecting the data, and leaving without (or, less desirably, with) incident. Collection obviously fell to her. She would need information and tools, but it wasn’t anything that she couldn’t do in a week, if their employer would be flexible in budget and she could return home for some things. If their associates had as many connections as they seemed, it shouldn’t be hard to get them invited to the party as part of an entourage, right? The rest, she didn’t know about. The information they had to go on seemed so sparse.

"I'll tell you what we need you for, Mr. Dohammond," Archie began, almost appearing from nowhere as he reentered the flat with a Costa Coffee coffee carrier, containing three tall cups of something hot and coffee smelling - which, naturally, was almost certainly coffee. "You're the primary distraction, believe it or not. We've been instructed to come up with a rough plan, and leave it to you three for finishing, but I don't doubt that most of this will be down to the three of us with real experience in the field."

"I second that - and we don't agree frequently." Dowle said without looking up from his phone.

"Yes. Our plan is not a complicated one, as far as these sorts of affairs usually go - Ms. Kinney will be in charge of producing the intelligence we need, once she has access to the secure console in Johannes Markand's private chambers. We have some information regarding the LS3 OS and port specifications for you, in relation to that point. You will gain access to his quarters when Ms. Lefevre begins playing her solo, and our host starts trying to appear cultured by knowing everything about the piece - speaking of which, you'll be playing Bach's Cello Suite number 1 in G Major, after which you'll join the quartet Mr Markand has already hired after their cellist suddenly falls ill." Archie set the coffee down on the kitchen table, and smiled at the crew broadly.

"And you, my good sir, will be going as a guest, with our lovely María. She shall be posing as the Spanish envoy to the United Kingdom, and you as our own diplomat. The pair of you are to engage the host in lively, cultured conversation, both whilst Ms. Lefevre plays and for as long as possible thereafter, to give Ms. Kinney the time she needs to spoof the console's hard drive or... whatever it is she needs to do."

"Sí. The idea is that men like Johannes Markand are basically attention whores for the upper class. When he finds out that somebody brought a pair of ambassadors to his party as plus 1s, he won't leave us alone until we're leaving ourselves." María confirmed, entering the room from the bathroom, her hair still wet, snaking darkly over her shoulders.

"Not that the dog would've left you alone if you weren't a Communist Princess, sweet pea." Dowle looked her up and down briefly and discreetly.

"You, stop that," Archie scowled at Dowle. "and you... keep doing what you're doing." He nodded to María, who huffed slightly, grabbed her coffee, and headed back to her room.

"Well? What do you all think?"

Elise spent the train ride trying to have as little to do with the others as possible. The captors were pretty low on her list of people she'd enjoy interacting with, and the others coerced into this grand farce were unlikely to have any helpful information on the situation.

The cellist felt her pulse spike with anxiety when she heard about the plan. She had known that whatever these people wanted from her wasn't going to be strictly legal, but hearing them talk about the theft still made her hands clammy. She was a musician, for Christ's sake, not some cat burglar. For a bizarre moment, Elise had a vision of the three employees knocking on the door to her cozy hole and manipulating her into burglarizing Smaug's treasure. Too bad they lacked the brightly colored cloaks, but then it wasn't like she had a large coat rack at hand.

And there was no telling who the wizard was, to mark her front door with a strange symbol to draw these suave criminals in.

Then, the first one-- Archie-- outlined her part in this scheme and the sleight woman was stunned.

"All you want me to do is play?"

To be entirely honest, Elise had not expected that her captors would ask her to do the one thing she was made to do. In fact, she was a bit floored. Maybe memorizing top secret info like she'd been trained to memorize concertos, or maybe using her quick thinking and impressive learning abilities in some other way.

But Bach?

"But I didn't bring my cello," she blurted. "Not to mention, its Bach. Anyone could do it. Why not just let the poor "suddenly ill" cellist do his job?"

There had to be some catch in her part of the plan, but Elise couldn't see it. Was it really that important to infiltrate the entertainment?

"Well, because you're prettier than he is, for one thing, and we're really just piling the distraction on as much as possible here to be honest - but you'll also be given an earpiece designed to look like a discreet hearing aid, and a throat mounted microphone patch so that you can report on the movements of our target and his guards - the band will be positioned in such a way that they can be seen easily, thus allowing you to see easily in return. That's why you're only playing Bach, so youre not too absorbed by it." Archie said, smiling as usual.

"That won't be a problem, Right love?" Dowle grinned too, more maliciously, giving Elise a glare over the top of his phone.

"Ah, I'm sure it won't be, Dowle. And we have another cello for you to use, Elise. I'm sure you will like it." María added, appearing briefly from her room, a line of milk foam from her coffee still on her upper lip.

The primary distraction. Laneya’s brows drew together and down slightly, an uncharacteristically-vivid emotion for her. What seemed like a simple mission became more convoluted and dangerous as she listened. Pretending to be diplomats? Making another cellist fall sick suddenly? It seemed sloppy, there were too many weak points in the plan. What if the cellist becoming sick created a pause in the entertainment, during which the target decided to check on his precious cargo? What if someone knew their diplomat to Spain? Wouldn’t posing as such high-profile individuals expose them to extra risk?

“I do not like it. Especially Maria and Mr. Dohammond’s part. Anyone with the relevant trivia will be able to spot them as imposters. I do not wish to work under the fear that the plan will fall apart around us: I will be at the greatest risk, after all, since I will be the one doing the dirty work.” Her face had returned to normal, but her gaze was disapproving all the same. These goons had such power over her? She’d be dead in a month’s time if she did things their way; she was surprised that they were still alive, themselves.

Of course, she had no better plan to suggest. After all, her ability to find flaws in a plan before implementing it had come from many years of making many terrible plans of her own. She resumed running through whatever came to mind, throwing out scheme after scheme. Guards would see her there. The target might walk in on her there. They might run into unexpected technical difficulties in that one… but what if…

Her expression shifted again slightly. The specific idea had problems, but the basics seemed solid. “You said the cache is within his personal chambers? What if one of us stays with him overnight?” She looked at Maria, weighing the pros and cons of suggesting that woman instead of herself. “If Maria were to seduce him, perhaps with the assistance of liberal tainted drinks supplied by a planted servant, and put him soundly to sleep, she would have his private chambers to herself until morning. I could rig a device that she could place in the ports on the cache, granting me remote access to it. When we finish, Maria destroys the device and waits for morning. She convinces Johannes that they had a great night and he needs to drink less, and leaves.” It seemed safer, certainly. More time, less chance of being interrupted, and failure would be squarely on Maria’s shoulders should she fail in the seduction part of the plan. If they didn’t succeed, no harm nor foul, no one would know what they had been attempting to do. There would be no evidence until after the target was asleep.