Murder watched on helplessly as Derrick and Hands left their headquarters and headed for the salon.

  Shit, shit, shit, shit! Not now. Why do you have to leave now? thought Murder. Perhaps he could message all the gangs and the Allisters and tell them to hold off for a bit? Maybe everyone would be late, or whatever goes down will still be going on when they get back? Murder dismissed these thoughts as wishful thinking; he was going to have to improvise.

  A few minutes later, the door to the salon chimed as two walk-ins opened it then loitered around the front desk.

  “I’ll be with you in a moment,” Sally called out, putting a nail-polish brush back in its bottle.

  “Dammit, they’re here already,” said Death.

  “Concentrate – we have a job to do,” replied Hunger, furiously headbutting a tablet. As a collective, Hunger knew that they didn’t have to physically speak, but sometimes thinking out loud just felt more natural. “The first email is out: a classic Amazon refund scam. If we’re lucky, he’ll fall for it.”

  “We need more faces on keyboards and more messages out the door if we want that paranoid asshole to click on anything. How are those fry coming along?” asked Death.

  Hatred examined her hatching brood.

  “They’re too small to press anything. They’re just bouncing off the screen,” replied Hatred.

  “We need them bigger, now. They have to eat some eggs,” yelled Death.

  “No,” said Hatred, to Death’s surprise. “These are my eggs.”

  For the first time, Murder’s collective didn’t feel quite so unified. Murder had noticed something changing for a while. It felt like, if he didn’t concentrate too much, each little Murder was beginning to see the world just a little bit different from one another. It was subtle, but as Hatred, Death and Hunger aged, and their physical experiences diverged from his own, it was as if his internal thoughts were no longer monologues, but rather an orchestra that was just beginning to tune their instruments. Now dozens of fry were hatching, adding their soft and indistinct voices to the symphony. Murder, realized that was going to have to learn to step down from the soloist stage and learn to become a conductor.

  Hatred’s life had diverged the most from Murder’s own. She grew up in a separate tank and needed to process becoming a mother. It was no wonder that her voice often stood out as the loudest after his own.

  Don’t eat the eggs, thought Murder to himselves. We will find another way.

  “How can I help you?” asked Sally, walking over to the front desk and trying to hide the look of concern on her face. These obviously weren’t her usual clientele.

  “Yeah we’re here for, I dunno, a foot thing. And to pat the little kitty,” said Hands.

  “I’m sorry but we’re all booked out for pedicures today.”

  “What about the fish thing?” asked Hands. “I’ve heard about that. Why don’t you let us sit over there by those tanks and feed the fish?”

  “Sure,” replied Sally, a hint of hesitation in her voice. “Please take off any footwear and have a seat. There is room for both of you in either tank, or you can have one tank each, whatever you prefer.”

  Sally gave them a towel each and led them to their seats on the edge of the tanks.

  “That’s very kind of you Ms… I didn’t catch the name?” inquired Derrick.

  “Sally.”

  “Got a last name Sally?” pushed Derrick.

  “Bethlam,” said Sally. “I’m the owner. Please take a seat and I’ll check on you in a few minutes.”

  “Not if I check on your first, Sally Bethlam,” said Derrick, shuffling into the center of the bench seat beside Hatred’s tank.

  “Hey Sally, why are there so many tablets in the fish tank?” asked Derrick.

  “That’s a long story, and I’m afraid I have to get back to another customer,” replied Sally as she walked to the rear of the shop to continue painting nails.

  Holy shit! thought Murder. It’s really kicking off at the headquarters. I have never seen a penis do that.

  “Focus,” said Hunger. “Death, eat Hands’ feet. Hatred, help me phish while your fry eat that creepy prick’s feet. We’ll go for another classic next.”

  Hatred opened the same shared document as Hunger and the two typed about as quickly as a grandma with only one good typing finger. When the small fry grow up a little, they could place one in front of every letter or two – that would really speed things up.

  Message from US Government 10:00 AM

  Vincent Badeer, your social security number is expiring tomorrow. Take urgent action to avoid having it canceled. To renew visit trustsocialsecurity.gov.us

  “And... send. Next, let’s try a dodgy Zoom link. We’ll say that we’re Derrick with a new laptop or something,” said Hunger. “Death, have you got anything I can use?”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “Hands’ birthday is in October, and Badeer’s favorite drink is Laphroaig whisky,” said Death, relaying the information as he absorbed it from the skin, one mouthful at a time. “Hands kept getting caught masturbating in high school, that’s how he earned his nickname. Now he tells everyone that it’s because he was a good boxer.”

  “Not helpful,” replied Hunger.

  “I can taste adrenaline,” said one of the small fry in Hatred’s tank. “I think they’re about to try something.”

  You need to go deeper, thought Murder, like the time I learned to ride a BMX. If you want fresh information, you need to dig deep.

  Hunger gave up on the low-chance Zoom attempt. If they wanted to catch a whale, they would have to do more social engineering, which meant they needed more information on the gang’s leader. Death and Hunger chose a spot on Hands’ upper foot where the veins were close to the surface – the same spot Murder had drawn blood from the teenager weeks before. The two took turns taking mouthfuls of flesh until the water turned red.

  “Ouch!” Hands cried out. “These little bastards bite. You didn’t tell me they bite.”

  With a laugh that dripped with menace, and feet dripping with entirely unoffensive water, Derrick got out of the tank and started walking towards the rear of the shop where Sally was still doing the nails of another customer. “Oi, Sally, those fish fucking bit my friend.”

  A white-faced Sally looked up from the nails and saw Hands nursing an injured foot. Blood poured from a small wound, mixing with the water to form a pink hued puddle on the white tiled floor of the spa.

  “Let me get you a bandage; I have some in the first-aid kit,” said Sally, standing up and trying to walk to the cabinet that held the first-aid supplies near the front of the store.

  Derrick moved to block her path.

  “Excuse me,” she said, trying to get past, but he moved again. She heard the splashes of the second man getting out of his tank behind her.

  The fresh blood in Hunger’s stomach started flooding the collective’s mind with memories. He searched for anything relevant but there were too many memories for one mind to sort quickly. He felt more minds joining in and processing the information.

  “The gang relies on Telegram for anything important. They think it’s encrypted but they never turned on the encryption,” said one of the small fry.

  “Badeer is going through a messy divorce. He keeps talking about settling with his ex, Veronica. His lawyer’s name is Sebastian Demrikov,” said another.

  “We can use that. We can definitely use that,” said Hunger.

  Unnoticed by anyone in the store, dozens of fish started to pound into the tablets that lined the side walls of the tanks. They all opened the same document and typed in parallel. Two fish typing in one tank, dozens of tiny fish running into the glass in the other, mostly in small clusters of two or three that swam closely together.

  Message from Sebastian Demrikov 10:05 AM

  Final settlement proposal

  Good news Vincent. I finally got her to sign our latest proposal, and I don’t think they read it because it has some very favorable terms that I just snuck in. Please sign the provided doc and get it back to me ASAP before they realize their mistake. You might be asked for sign-in verification, just hit accept before she changes her mind.

  Regards,

  Seb

  Not twenty seconds later, Badeer had clicked through and entered his details into what looked like a Microsoft sign-in page.

  “We got him. Quick, open up Telegram. Let’s try those credentials,” instructed Hunger.

  Now that the dozens of fry were working in little groups and were capable of pressing keys, it was faster for them to do all the typing while Hunger coordinated and watched through their eyes.

  They encountered the first security feature. It was a small box that read “I am a human”. They’d had to click these CAPTCHA tests plenty of times before, but usually they read “I am not a robot”. The fish hoped there wasn’t some hidden way the tablet could tell… Could it? Why, all of a sudden, was there a change from a blacklist that only excluded robots to a whitelist that only included humans? All of Murder felt slightly offended, needing to lie about being human in order to steal someone’s account. It didn’t sit right. A twinge of anger bubbled up inside the collective Murder. A small school of fish ran into a tablet, ticking the box. They were in.

  Derrick took a step towards Sally, forcing her to take a step backwards, where she collided with Hands.

  “Got security cameras?” asked Derrick.

  “Yes,” replied Sally quickly. “The complex has cameras. They saw you come in.”

  “Any in the shop, Sally?” came Hands’ voice unnervingly close to her ear.

  “No,” Sally admitted, not wanting to bluff when it could so easily be called.

  “That’s a shame,” said Derrick. He leaned in closer; “Anything could happen,” he added in a menacing whisper before taking a step back, giving Sally a little space to breathe.

  “See anything suspicious recently?” asked Hands. “Maybe a guy on a bike acting weird, coming in and stealing a little fish or anything like that?”

  Unnerved by the presence of the men who were obviously trying to intimidate her, Sally was caught off guard by the fact that she did have the information they wanted. Will it be that easy? she asked herself. Will they leave if I tell them what I saw, or will it only make things worse? She hesitated for just a split second and cast her dice.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t seen anything,” said Sally.

  Hands’ demeanor changed instantly, like a psychopath changing masks. A menacing leer turned into a sadistic smile and he took another step back and appeared to relax.

  “My apologies Sally. It appears as though my colleague and I have you at a disadvantage. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Hands, and this is Derrick.”

  Derrick also took a step back and gave a little nod.

  “Do you know why they call me Hands?” he asked.

  The smile fell from Derrick’s face, his gaze met Hands’ and he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Hands’ smile only widened.

  “Because he’s a wanker,” answered Death.

  Hands’ stare intensified, demanding a response from Sally, who shook her head without saying a word.

  “It’s because I play a lot of poker, and I’m very good at knowing when someone is lying to me,” said Hands, “and I think you’re lying to me right now.”

  Relief washed over Derrick’s face while Sally appeared on the verge of panic. The tension was broken by a persistent beeping from Derrick’s pocket.

  “Sorry, I gotta check this. One sec,” said Derrick. “It’s Badeer. We gotta go. Now!”

  “This isn’t over, we’ll be back,” said Hands as the pair picked up their shoes and rushed out of the store barefoot.

  Sally waited for the door to close, then she fell to her knees, her hands shaking, tears starting to well up in her eyes. “I just want to run a salon. Why does this kind of thing keep happening to me?

  It’s really kicking off at the clubhouse now, thought Murder. In case anyone was wondering, I know what spleen tastes like now. It’s better than gallbladder, but not as good as liver.