Raisa was the first to speak. “So what,” she said simply, “on earth was that?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Desmond, no small amount of frustration in his voice. Now that he was out of immediate danger, his mind was beginning to pick at all the little details again. Just how had his enemies pulled that off?
“I might never go on a SkyLine again,” declared Victor into open air, shrugging. “Just to be safe.”
“Yeah, you and me both. Feels like everything that could’ve gone wrong, did,” agreed Raisa, shaking her head. “But they did get one thing right, at least.”
“Hmm?” asked Desmond.
“There was, in fact, the ‘occasional discomfort’ on that ride.”
Somehow, that rang a bell in the back of Desmond’s head. He frowned, looking over at Raisa. “Where did you hear that?”
Frowning back, Raisa answered, “From the beginning of the ride? When we got on the SkyLine?”
“Yeah, they made that whole announcement. Like, hey, look out, we have some technical issues, things might get a little bumpy,” Victor recalled. “And then they did. They got real bumpy.”
“You know, Dez,” wondered Raisa, “did you ever figure out who it was that was out to get us?”
Desmond hesitated. Five minutes ago he would have tried to turn it around, accuse her of selling him out, figuring he had even odds of getting it right. But the lightness of Raisa’s words, the casual, innocent way in which she posed the question, convinced him at once he’d be wrong.
He’d known Raisa since he was nine. He knew the way her voice became stiff when she was lying or putting on an act. But this? This was just her making conversation out of genuine curiosity. He could not help but frown deeply. Part of him was inclined to hide behind a cryptic, vague statement, but he could not bring himself to come up with one.
“No,” he admitted. “I have no clue.”
“Huh. Well, how did you know it was sabotage in the first place?”
She asked this with no hint of menace or doubt, but Desmond still grimaced. Sure, Raisa and Victor had almost died, too, so of course they wanted answers. But he didn’t like where this was going one bit.
“I mean, after what we did, suddenly the train starts having problems, the control panel is blown, and the engineers fall unconscious?” Desmond stated, shaking his head. “What else could it possibly be?”
“I don’t know, maybe technical difficulties?” supposed Victor innocuously. “Some kind of serious malfunction?”
“Impossible,” Desmond scoffed.
Even as he said it, stuffing his hands in his pockets and continuing down the brightly lit sidewalk, he thought back to when he’d gotten on the train. He’d been so convinced that someone — anyone — was out to get him. Why? Because he’d seen something to tip him off, something to raise his suspicions? No, he’d seen nothing of the kind. But perhaps because every time he thought he had something precious, something he could be proud of, it had all fallen apart somehow? Now that sounded more likely.
His family, for one, could hardly be called that. He’d loved his parents, would have done anything for them. When they’d figured out how clever he was, they’d told him he’d do big things and go so far, and they’d be so proud of him. But no matter what he did, it wasn’t enough for them. And if it wasn’t enough for them, it wasn’t anything at all. So he wasn’t anything at all. Just a failure.
At the university, he’d planned a bunch of projects which he’d been so excited about. Experimental computer programs, modernized adventuring gear, whatever new idea popped into his head. And every time, every single time, some small error — less often his than not, though it didn’t really matter — would mess the whole thing up.
He thought he’d learned quite a bit through those failures, but his professors had learned something even more important: namely, that he was not to be trusted with anything expensive, unconventional, and especially explosive. And, before long, that he was not fit to be a student any longer. After all, failure was a distinctly Human trait. He was supposed to be one of the brightest among Thyrians. But what did he have to show for it? Nothing they liked, anyways.
He’d walked away, took his only two friends in the world with him, and tried to make it out in the world. It hadn’t exactly gone the way any of them would have liked. And even in the pseudo-mafia they’d ended up in, anytime they’d done anything vaguely successful, someone else always ended up getting the credit. It had been a small miracle they’d been handed this job as it was. Desmond really had been surprised they’d been trusted to pull it off.
So of course, he’d been a little paranoid on the train. More than anything in the world, he really needed this win. He needed it to be him that came out on top. So badly that he’d jump to the worst conclusion? So badly that he’d suspect even his closest friends of trying to ruin it for him? He was ashamed to admit it, but that didn’t surprise him at all.
His frown deepening, Desmond, without meaning to, strode ahead of his friends, pulling away. Both Victor and Raisa kept pace behind him, but gave him space and silence. They both knew he needed it.
Unfortunately, that was their mistake.
In the middle of his brooding, Desmond did not notice the two hooded figures approaching him until they were right in front of him. Not good at all. He instantly raised his fists, looking around. There, in the darkness — two more figures approaching from an alleyway to the side. He should have been keeping his guard up for something like this. But, and the irony was not lost on him, he’d been too busy thinking about how he was too suspicious to be suspicious enough.
“Hello there,” said one of the figures, though he couldn’t tell which. They were all dressed identically, with their beat-up black hoodies, jeans, and masks. It wasn’t the uniform of any major crime family he was familiar with. More likely, this was just some random street gang. Which, really, made it all the more humiliating.
“What do you want?” Desmond responded, slowly backing into a defensive stance.
“Well, you know how it is,” came the same voice, as each member of the gang produced a long, silver knife from their pockets and brandished it at him.
After stealing from the Councilor of his whole City-State and surviving near death on the SkyLine, Desmond really shouldn’t have been afraid. He really shouldn’t have been. But he was. Aside from the odd scrape, scratch, or bruise, he’d never really been hurt badly in his life. Even as an agent of the Dark Lightning, he’d never had to fight or suffer. That wasn’t his job, though it sure seemed like it was about to be.
He could not help but begin to imagine how those blades would feel — cold, firm, unyielding as they slashed his skin. Then there would be a hot rush of blood, a searing pain across the wound. He might scream. He knew his friends would. He knew it might not be as bad as getting hit by a train, but somehow, this — this personal, up close, cruelty — seemed a thousand times worse.
“Guys…?” Desmond called, looking over his shoulder for backup. His eyes went wide immediately. Victor stared back in confusion, Raisa cocked her head to the side — and then the two yelped, as two more hooded figures jumped forward and grabbed them from behind, raising a knife to their throats.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Desmond shouted, raising his hands and taking a step towards his friends, but was swiftly cut off by one of the bandits stepping in.
“Careful, now,” they warned, pointing their knife at him. “Wouldn’t want things to get messy, now.”
Desmond moved no further, just raised his hands in surrender. “Don’t want any trouble. Just take our things, and go.”
“Very good. That’s the idea. Everything in your pockets, now,” commanded the first thief, motioning to the trio.
Desmond gulped, looked over to Victor and Raisa, and gave a single nod. He slowly turned out his outer pockets only, handing over a couple of levitating discs, a toolkit for building maintenance, and a handful of avium chips. Raisa handed her captor a pair of binocular goggles, three flash drives with spent code, and a long cloth that was either a scarf or a bandana. Victor, for his part, surrendered a small rod that expanded into a ladder, a ring with forty two keys on it, a bag of half-eaten donut holes, a pair of wooly socks, a tangled bronze chain, and a rubber duck wearing a hat made of real straw.
Sure, it was a bit of a shame to lose their keepsakes and leftover gear from the Xoltras job, but the real prize from the job was still hidden safely inside his jacket. For a brief second, as the bandits pocketed their stuff and sheathed their knives, Desmond really believed he could get away with this, feeling the beginnings of a grin begin to tug at his lips.
He would immediately regret indulging in that feeling, though, no matter how briefly. The leader, the only hooded figure with their knife still out, took another look at him and immediately pointed it at him. “That’s a nice coat. Hand it over.”
“Me?” Desmond responded unconvincingly, a sudden rush of fear hitting him and forcing the hairs on his back to stand.
“Look, man, do you see anyone else wearing a totally awesome coat here?” came the response. “Hands up. Just take off the coat and throw it over.”
Not now. Not again. He couldn’t lose out on this one, too. Maybe there was still a chance. Maybe this didn’t have to end like all the other times did. Maybe he could slip his hand in somewhere? If he just took it slowly, as he pulled the coat over his shoulders—
Even before he’d fully doffed it, one of the thieves ran in and all but tore it out of his hands. Desmond reached out in a futile attempt at getting it back, but the thug had already pulled it out of reach and handed it to their boss.
“Come on, man,” Desmond attempted one last time, throwing up his hands. “It’s cold out.”
“Yeah, which is why I’m taking your coat,” responded the bandit, sheathing their knife, tugging on Desmond’s coat, and nodding in approval. “I’ll say this, man, you got style.”
Then they put their hands in the coat’s pocket, and felt it at once. Desmond did not cry out, for there would have been no point. He could only watch helplessly as the masked bandit pulled a flat, blue hard drive from the inner pocket.
“Oh, holding out on us, are we? Tricky, tricky,” said the bandit, taking a closer look at the drive and sparking a little light with their fingertips. “Let’s see what we’ve…”
Their voice trailed off. Desmond knew there wasn’t much printed on the drive to wow them. Just a single name, which meant absolutely nothing to those who had never heard of it. But to those who had; to those whose ears had at some point picked up on a loose whisper or stray legend; to those who had ever wondered about the inexplicable, the strange, and the unusual; to those who ever thought about what was truly unknown, even to the genius of the Thyrian race; that name told them they were now holding the key to all the mysteries of the world, waiting to be found.
“The Enigma List,” spoke the bandit, their smile audible. “Well, I’ll be. It does exist. And you three… what, you three stole this from the government or something?”
Seeing the utterly despondent Desmond, Victor, and Raisa, the thief chuckled heartily. “Don’t worry. We won’t tell nobody. Catch you around.”
With that, the half-dozen thugs disappeared into darkness, as swiftly as they’d come. While Victor and Raisa froze, not sure what to do, Desmond dropped to his knees, punched the ground repeatedly, and screamed for as long as he possibly could. When his lungs finally gave out, the raw, rageful noise he’d made haunted the streets a while longer, before it, too, faded into silence.
“Damn it,” he said, head bowed in disgrace. “Just… damn it.”
