Ira’s bank robbery plan was beautiful. Simple, expertly made, it sang to him as he laid it out to the goons Angelo had give him. Chest puffed out, Ira pointed to the blackboard and then put down the pointy thing and crossed his arms over his chest. “Any questions?” he asked, politely, like he actually cared about their opinions.

A human man put his hand up. “Yeah, so, we work for you now?”

“That’s correct,” here, Ira couldn’t help but pause to preen, back straightening. “Angelo gave you to me. Angelo is my fiancé. We’re getting married. Soon. And I guess you guys can come to the wedding, if you want.”

“Okay, sir,” the guy slouched, face passive.

Another guy nodded thoughtfully and said, “My sister has a bet going, so we’ll be there for sure, Mr. Ira, sir.”

“My name is just Ira.”

“Okay, Ira, sir.”

Ira took a breath. “But you’re all clear on your roles? No need to go over the plan again?”

“We understood it perfectly, sir, Ira, sir,” one of the only two women in the group said. She nodded to the blackboard and added under her breath, “Your schematics are insane.” Then, louder, “Don’t worry, sir, we’re professionals.”

Ira smiled at them, kindly and gently and prettily. He’d practiced it in the mirror this morning, trying to get it just right so they wouldn’t be suspicious. He was a very kind of person, after all, and he didn’t want to needlessly worry them. That might disrupt his beautiful, beautiful plan, the he’d spent a whole twenty-six minutes on planning. To think that those twenty-six minutes might have been wasted time...

Didn’t bother him at all, actually. He was just lazy and didn’t want to be forced to come up with another one.

Planning robberies was surprisingly difficult.

Who ever could have known?

“Then you’re dismissed,” Ira said, sounding appropriately commanding. He watched them leave, laughing and talking with each other, and then he turned around and walked back out into the pub’s proper public face. There, he glanced around for a second before he veered to the bar and sat down on a stool.

“One glass of lemonade, please,” he said. The barkeep, by now used to Ira’s idiosyncrasies and tastes, merely nodded and got right on it.

The drink was soon presented to him in a cool whiskey glass. Ira grabbed it, holding it in a loose hand as he looked around the room again. There was nothing really interesting happening tonight—the bank robbery wasn’t for another week, and the wedding had been set for two weeks after that. By that point, Ren should have finished up all their business and arrived at Dingro, too.

It wasn’t like Ira could get married without his best friend. Seriously, let’s be realistic here.

Wandering around the large room, Ira tilted his head as a few of them obviously recognized him and then pointedly looked away. Rude. Ira was an absolute delight and they’d be lucky to know him.

If he, you know, didn’t kill them.

Then they probably wouldn’t be very lucky.

Frowning a little, Ira sipped at his drink and walked over to the small stage where the pianist sat, thumbing through a book of some kind. “Is Angelo here?” Ira asked, jumping up to sit on the stage’s edge. He sipped his drink again.

“Not since he dropped you off,” the pianist said, still reading.

Ira hummed. He leaned his head back and stared at the beams in the ceiling, eyes tracing over their path. “If he comes here, tell him I’ve gone out for a walk,” said Ira, finally jumping off the stage. He glanced around, but nobody was looking at him. Shaking his head slightly, he put the empty glass on the first table he passed and snagged his coat and cane as he walked by Angelo’s table.

Outside, the sun was bright in the sky. Smoke rose heavy and thick in the air, curling in long towers reaching for the stars. Ira breathed in that smell, of fog and smoke and ash, letting it sit on his tongue as he held his coughs in.

Waving his hand in front of his face, he began to walk.

The streets were busy; clogged with people going in every possible direction. The buses and trains and trams hurried along the thin streets, the horses crying as they were forced to breathe in that endless smog. The blimps in the sky flew high and fast, causing from city to city as they carried passengers all over the world. The clouds in the sky couldn’t be distinguished from the smoke—Ira took pictures of it all.

On the streets, he cut his way forward, unafraid to use his cane to knock people to the side. Rudeness was a weapon, after all, and one that he could use expertly.

After a while, he found a park. Buying a small bag of candy from a vendor at the park’s entrance, he wandered through it, gazing at the tired trees and the sad pond. He settled on a bench, eventually, laying his can beside him so that no-one else would be tempted to join him. There was only two people that he would sit on a bench in a park with, after all.

Snacking, he leaned his head back and sank into the metal bench, allowing his gaze to unfocus as he looked inward rather than out. It didn’t take him long at all (sadly) to find his Host on the map and zoom in on her.

“Stupid,” he muttered between bites as he watched her Host roughly try to find information from the city’s homeless population. Which was not, in itself, a bad plan. Like, Ira could be graceful and admit that her basic plan made sense, and she even succeeded at implanting it. But then she didn’t Ava eat money she’d bribed them with.

Awkward.

Anyway, so she was now running through a series of long, complicated alleyways, trying to escape the mob of furious pigeons the homeless people had set on her. At least it wasn’t goose. She should be thankful.

Ira laughed when the birds pooped on her, grinning wider when she plunged into a small river to escape from the relentless chase. She stayed down there for as long as he breath held, swimming along the current to escape, and Ira scowled at the thought that that, too, was kind of clever. It was the worst thing ever, to have a Host that was kind of clever.

At least she was wet and miserable and coughing when she managed to climb out of the filthy water. A small comfort, but one nonetheless.

Ira plopped another snack in his mouth, biting down on the crispy surface. His Host was now sneaking through a backyard, flinching at every sound, scuttling through the shadows like a make-believe assassin. He snorted when she crawled under a window, and giggled when she negotiated a cat to silence.

Finally, she managed to get up onto another roof and thus she collapsed. Wheezing into the smoky wind, she laid on the roof uselessly—and Ira took pictures of it all. For posterity, or something.

He frowned at his empty bag, turning it upside down and shaking it, but naught but dust fell out. Frown growing heavier, he sighed deeply and stood. He grabbed his cane, dusting off his coat’s as he exited the park. At the vendor’s, he got a whole new bag of candy, and he grinned brightly at the vendor person.

“There he is!” someone yelled loudly, another person gripping Ira’s arms tightly and carting him off.

Ira blinked.

Then he was sitting in a low automobile, what was not advanced enough yet to be properly labeled as a “car” and the not-car’s engine turned on, and then they were off. “Don’t move,” the person sitting next to him, still with a punishing grip on his arm, said.

“What?” Ira asked, confused. He blinked again, like reality would just fix itself when he wasn’t looking.

Had he been... kidnapped?

No... System-napped?

Seriously?

“This is a kidnapping,” the same person said. Now that he was looking, this person was very heavyset; thick and bulging muscles and a wide belly, and his eyes stared at Ira hatefully. Ira very carefully did not smile, because he was not going to be accused of egging them on. And so he very carefully did not wiggle his eyebrow, or make any kind of snorting gesture, or even a small sneer. He did none of those things. Honest.

“Why are you kidnapping me?” Ira asked, instead. He looked himself over—he was wearing secondhand clothes he’d borrowed from Angelo, because the man threw all of Ira’s clothes out the window when he thought Ira wasn’t looking and then swore that he didn’t have any clothes that could fit Ira, so sorry.

It was a lie so transparent that it was straight-up hilarious.

But the point was that he wasn’t exactly swimming in riches at the moment, and thus was a poor choice for a kidnapping. Unless it was some kind of organ stealing thing... but had this world even invented organ-transfers yet? Ira genuinely did not know.

“You’re Angelo Smith’s fiancé,” the man said, condescending to the nines. He clicked his tongue harshly and continued, “With you caught, that fucking Angelo will finally be forced to deal with us on our terms.”

“Oh,” Ira’s mouth formed a circle. He nodded thougthfully, glancing at the driver int he front seat. “And that’s something you want?” he asked, looking out the window at the view slowly passing by. They were still moving through the city, hadn’t gotten very far at all yet. The houses were still thin, narrow, and high, and the chimneys still spat out perpetual gray clouds.

“Of course, that’s what we want.” The man laughed. He nudged Ira’s foot and Ira’s whole body was jostled, elbow slamming into the window and leaving him wheezing in pain. He curled over his poor elbow, trying to protect it from further abuse.

“Angelo won’t forgive you for this,” Ira said, hissing between his teeth. Fuck, but why did human elbows have to be so sensitive?

Then he remembered that he could turn off his sense of pain and gladly did so.

Breathing returning to a slow and even pattern, he leaned against the backrest. “So, where are you taking me?” Ira asked, already starting to grow bored. They weren’t doing a very good job, these guys. They hadn’t tied him up, or bound him in any way. They seemed like rather bad kidnappers, honestly.

“Oh, we’re taking you to the worst place you can imagine,” the driver spat at him, hatefully. He glared at Ira through the dusty rearview mirror, eyes also hateful. Ira rolled his own eyes in response, sighing deeply. The driver’s eyes narrowed and he spat, “Why you looking so calm, what, you think you’re gonna be rescued or something?”

“Obviously,” Ira rolled his eyes again. He closed his eyes, then, not wanting to see more of this misery. It wasn’t even funny, it was just a bad job.

“Oh, and why’s that? You might be Angelo’s fiancé, but it’s not like he actually cares about you. He’s a heartless son of a bitch, you know,” the buy beside Ira said, shaking Ira’s arm to get his attention. Ira hummed to politely signify that he was listening and the guy continued, “Angelo once set a hospital on fire, killed everyone inside. Just because some of his enemies were hiding in there! Countless innocents, lost!”

Ira hummed again. The guy added, “He killed his previous fiancé! Stabbed them with a knife in the heart, just days before the wedding!”

Wait. “Angelo’s been engaged before?” Ira asked, eyebrows furrowing as he tried to make sense of that. So... engagements were pretty common then? Wait, no, what even was an engagement, in the first place? Like, besides a promise to get married?

Wait, had Ira missed something?