Down in the narrow, dimly lit basement workshop beneath Bill's Custom Tailoring, the air smelled of wet wool, iron, and machine oil. Bill stood near his cutting table, his heavy canvas coat discarded over a chair. In his calloused hands, he held a small, unbranded satellite phone, its dim screen blinking with an incoming encrypted line.
He clicked the receiver and brought the phone to his ear, his broad shoulders tensing slightly.
"You're making far too much noise, Curt," the cold, raspy voice came through the speaker, low and quiet, accompanied with an absolute, suffocating authority which caused the ambient hum of the shop's fluorescent lights feel distant.
Bill opened his mouth to speak, but the voice cut through him without raising its volume by a single decibel.
"I am thoroughly dissatisfied with your lack of coordination," the voice continued, slow and deliberate. "You act like a starved hound let off its chain. It is becoming exceedingly tedious for me to continually pull strings and rewrite municipal reports just to indulge your grotesque, personal little fetishes while you are supposed to be executing precise directives."
Bill lowered his head, his bloodshot eyes staring down at the chalk outlines on the dark floorboards. His usual terrifying demeanor vanished entirely, replaced by a rare, humbled quiet.
"I apologize, sir," Bill replied, his voice dropping into a raspy, respectful murmur. "I know the perimeter was loud tonight. But... the baseline core was executed. I tested the exact serum payload delivered from the central lab. The transmutation phase was a complete success on the subject—the force output and muscle density exceeded the projections by thirty percent. I proved the batch works."
A long, frigid silence stretched across the line before the voice spoke again. "And yet the specimen is currently sedated in a precinct medical wing, and the entire district is crawling with state troopers."
Bill wiped a hand over his thick jaw, leaning closer to the receiver as he took a slow breath. "If I may suggest a necessary adjustment, sir... Detective Quive needs to be removed permanently."
"Go on," the raspy voice commanded softly.
"Quive is soft," Bill urged, his tone growing sharper as he pushed his case. "Compared to Janvis, he's hesitant when it comes to burning loose ends. He gets caught up in procedural protocols and local morals. Tonight proved it—he was a complete hindrance on the grid. He's going to keep digging into the clinic's intake logs until he drags the whole operation into the light. Taking him out while he's sitting in that hospital bed clears the lane completely."
The phone speaker suddenly erupted into a terrifying burst laughter—a dry, raspy wheeze echoed off the damp stone walls of the cellar with such sudden malice which caused Bill's hand jerked, nearly dropping the satellite receiver onto the concrete floor.
Bill's grip tightened on the plastic casing as the cold laughter slowly subsided.
"And that, Curt, is precisely why no one in the real circles will ever view you as a true surgeon," the voice rasped softly, every word dripping with condescending disdain.
"You possess the skills, yet you lack the vision. You see a light and your only instinct is to smash the bulb."
The man paused, the faint sound of rain pouring against glass whispering in the background of the line.
"Detective Quive is an exceptionally important figure in this scheme," the voice smoothly added. "Precisely because he follows the rules. Quive stands out as a man walking a righteous, moral path—a dedicated officer serving the public good. And as long as he stands in that light, we can operate quietly inside his shadow. We remain hidden, feeding off his credibility, expanding our reach right behind his back until the shadow grows broad enough to swallow his light entirely. You, on the other hand, want to murder a decorated officer in a hospital bed and bring every federal agency in the state down on our heads."
Bill swallowed hard, his throat dry, his jaw clenched tight as he endured the scathing reprimand without daring to interrupt.
"Your drastic, short-sighted methods will not help us, Curt,!" the voice cautioned, dropping an octave into a grimm command.
"It is far too early for such overt butcher's work. You will lay low. You will not step foot near the clinic, nor will you touch the detective. The university is in complete chaos, the campus is evacuated, and the police are chasing ghosts. This is your ideal window. Finish processing the batch you've already caught, harvest the remaining parts, and dispose of the remnants quietly while the town is distracted."
Before Bill could muster a response, a sharp, flat tone cut through the line as the call was abruptly ended.
Bill lowered the satellite phone, his knuckles pale, his heavy chest heaving in the quiet, dim workshop. He turned his head slowly toward the back of the room, staring through the dark doorway toward the heavy iron door that led down into the cellar.