Dasher stared out a window, furrowing his brow, while Hands paced back and forth in front of a small unlit fireplace in a rather nice little cabin. The cabin was somewhat secluded and stocked a little thinly, as if catering for people who might only expect to stay a night or two and planned on eating out. It was furnished exclusively from IKEA, but was otherwise well kept. It had its own water tanks, solar, a small wind turbine, even batteries and a wood stove just in case. It was the perfect little hideout. It would have been hard to find, had it not been for the instructions given on its Airbnb listing.

  “I’m not liking this. I’m really not liking this,” said Dasher. “Where has Derrick gone? Went out to buy smokes, my ass. I don’t think he’s ever coming back.”

  “Give him another five minutes,” said Hands, trying to sound reassuring.

  “Five minutes? What’s five minutes gonna do? He’s been gone since yesterday!” replied Dasher. “Fucking deserters. I can’t stand deserters. As soon as the going gets tough, there is always one or two that look for the door.” A look of shame came over Dasher’s face after he finished, as if he had accidentally rebuked himself.

  “Just sit down and try to do something productive, like watching the television,” said Hands, who fumbled for the remote of the ancient television that was so old it didn’t even have voice activation, facial recognition, biometric monitoring or any of the other modern conveniences that make the televisual experience so much more enjoyable. When they wanted to change the channel, they had to press a button like savages instead of shouting clearly and repeatedly five times just to be misheard in increasingly infuriating ways.

  “You know,” said Dasher, hesitating slightly before he began what he knew would be of no interest to Hands. No, he thought, it is interesting, I will tell it. “Did you know that television manufacturers almost went out of business? Yeah, before all this AI stuff with cameras that could track your attention and show just enough tasteful cleavage to keep you watching, they only made money once on each purchase. Now that they’re allowed to charge a subscription just to change the channel, the industry has really taken off. I nearly bought shares in TV companies you know. I might have been rich now.”

  “Why didn’t you?” asked Hands, still fumbling with the remote.

  “Well,” Dasher replied, seeming flustered by the question, as if he didn’t expect anyone to actually be listening. “I didn’t have any money of course.”

  “There is just the news on,” said Hands. “I can’t seem to change it, and there isn’t even a breast size slider on this piece of shit television.”

  “A shooting at an industrial shithole kills nine and injures one. Stay tuned for all the gorey pictures after these messages, or fuck you,” said the TV anchor. She resembled a swimwear model and wore a revealing but terribly ugly glittering bikini that shone artificially brightly. There were options on the screen that subscribers could use to change her outfits and request dance moves like it was some kind of video-game character-selection screen, but the two men in the safehouse couldn’t interact with any of it.

  “I still can’t believe she’s dead,” said Dasher. “I should have stayed and fought. When the shooting started, I turned and ran as fast as my old legs would take me. I ran. I’m such a coward, I don’t even deserve to keep my nickname,” said Dasher, staring out of the window over a vista that looked over their town.

  Hands thought about this for a moment. Somebody called Dasher running away sounded pretty on-brand to him. “There was nothing you could do. If you had stayed, you would have died,” said Hands, putting his hand on Dasher’s shoulder, who quickly brushed it off.

  “Turn it off. I don’t want to see her like that,” said Dasher, wiping a tear from his eye.

  “I understand; that outfit really doesn’t suit her, does it? I think they do that on purpose to get more subscribers,” replied Hands.

  “Not her, you idiot. Turn it off before they show the pictures,” said Dasher.

  “Oh, right. Sorry,” said Hands. Both of their new burner phones beeped in unison, ringtones still set to the default.

  Message from Badeer 10:06 AM

  This is important, so listen up.

  Firstly, don’t call me. I won’t answer even if you do. This isn’t to keep you out of trouble, I just don’t want to talk to either of your dumb asses, and my doctor tells me I’m killing myself with all the helium I need to suck down just to speak at your level.

  Second, the job on the old man has been canceled. I don’t want you two going anywhere near his place, and that includes the fish spa you visited.

  Third, you gotta lay low, but we also gotta make some money. Keeping you two in that safehouse isn’t cheap, so I went to the trouble of getting you two new jobs. I want you to have a chat with a bakery about moving some dough, and there are a few owners of seafood restaurants that need their heads kicked in unless they pay up.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Lastly, don’t get yourselves caught. I see that the cops are already chalking this one up as a win, but don’t get lazy. Stay off all socials until this blows over and watch out for cops pretending to be me on Telegram. If it ain’t on this channel, it’s probably a cop, so block anyone pretending to be me right away.

  Dasher finished reading the short message and stared impatiently at Hands, waiting for him to finish.

  “Nothing on Prancer or Derrick,” said Dasher, sounding anxious. “I have to organise a funeral. She had no family, no friends outside of the club, just me.”

  “We’re in hiding, Dasher. We can’t go calling everyone and organizing a big meet-up. But, as soon as this blows over, we’ll put on a big do in her honour. Trust me Dasher, I know what I’m doing, this isn’t the first time someone in my chapter has died and it probably won’t be the last. But first we gotta keep our heads down as best we can, and apparently harass some fishmongers just to keep the lights on,” said Hands.

  Judging by the look on Dasher’s face, he didn’t seem too reassured. Their phones beeped again. Another message from Badeer with a few more instructions. There were four addresses and a GPS location next to a lake marked as “dump bread here today”.

  Hands searched the addresses online and found one bakery, two seafood restaurants and a fishmonger.

  The visits to the seafood restaurants went relatively well. The owners were typically old men or women of small stature who were easily intimidated by the burly bikers, even if one of them was old and limping. The recent shootings were giving them a bit of a reputational boost at the moment – all that Hands and Dasher had to do for the most part was look tough and remind people how easy it was to get a gun. Neither of them actually had guns on them, since they had both left in something of a hurry, but if the shop owners gave them money, then they could go and buy one, and then they would be in big trouble.

  The fishmonger took a bit more convincing. Any profession that has experience chopping through flesh every day should be treated with care when approached with hostility. Butchers are the worst; after an incident with a meat cleaver earned One-Finger Harry his nickname, the profession was ruled out of bounds by the club for further extortion attempts. If it weren’t for Dasher’s quick thinking and a solid slap with a halibut that sent the fisherman reeling, Hands might have had to change his nickname too.

  The last stop for the day was the bakery. All they had to do was tell them to dump their unsold bread somewhere specific. It should have been simple. Hands and Dasher pushed their way into the small lakeside bakery and stood there trying to look menacing until somebody in the back of the store noticed them. A lanky teenager made brief eye contact with Hands but carried on decorating tomorrow’s cakes with an icing gun that had led to so many cases of diabetes it had racked up a body count to rival that of any gangland dessert eagle.

  One polite cough later, followed by three overtly rude ones and a dinging of the shop bell, and the boy finally put down his deadly weapon and lumbered his way over with apparent great effort.

  “About bloody time,” said Hands. “I heard that you might want to feed the fishes.”

  This, in hindsight, was not the best opening line, especially given the recent spout of gang-related deaths in the area.

  “Wot?” said the boy, wiping his hands on his apron, apparently too cool to speak in whole sentences, or whole words for that matter.

  “Don’t you ‘wot’ me young lad. I’ll mop the floor with you,” shouted Dasher.

  An older man who bore a striking resemblance to the shop boy, sans the pimples and the hair, came bounding out from somewhere out back and put himself between the boy and the counter, spreading his arms to his side in a gesture to keep the boy behind him.

  “We don’t want any trouble, sirs,” said the old baker. “Please. It’s just me and my boy. Don’t hurt us.”

  “Relax. We’re not here to hurt you. We’re here because we heard you’ve got some excess dough,” said Hands, standing by the register at the front of the store.

  The shopkeeper hurriedly walked over to the till and pressed something; the drawer sprung open with a satisfying ding.

  “Take it. Take everything. Please, just don’t hurt us,” said the baker, stepping back in front of his teenage son.

  “No, we’re not here for that,” said Dasher while Hands walked over just to see how much was in the till.

  Hands looked at Dasher and shook his head, indicating that there wasn’t enough money in there to warrant a change of plans. Hands closed the front door and stood against it to prevent any customers from wandering in.

  “Listen. We heard you like dumping your bread in the lake. Now, do what I say or you’ll be feeding the fishes. We want you to stop dumping where you currently are and drive around to the corner and toss the bread in the lake somewhere else,” said Dasher.

  “I’m confused. So, do you want us to feed the fish or not?” said the young baker.

  “No. For the last time, we’re not here to hurt you. You won’t be feeding any fish. Okay?” said Dasher.

  “Oh, I get it. There mustn’t be any fish on the other side of the lake. So we won’t be feeding any fish. Right?” replied the young man.

  “What? This has nothing to do with fish,” said Dasher, his face going red. He reached for the nearest blunt object he could find and approached the boy, intent on beating a lesson into him.

  The boy’s father moved to stand in front, shielding him from a bready onslaught.

  “I just” smack “want you” smack “to throw” smack “the damn bread” smack “in the fucking lake” smack “before I throw you in. Then you will be bloody feeding the fishes!” yelled Dasher, hitting the baker with a stunted little baguette between every few words.

  Having possibly achieved what they went there to achieve, and having definitely outstayed their welcome, the pair of would-be extortionists turned to leave.

  “Maybe you wouldn’t have so much bread left over if you made proper fucking baguettes!” yelled Dasher on his way out of the shop, the door closing behind them as Dasher continued complaining about the disappointing heft of his baton.