“We should approach quietly,” Method said.
“You would say that,” Madness said.
“Of course I would.” Method replied evenly. “It’s the only logical way to go.”
“Except running in guns a-blazing and scaring the shit out of everyone so they don’t have time to think or fight us.”
Method started in on some deadpanned reasoning involving fight-or-flight response and the variables it brought into the situation but Madness’ eyes glazed over. Cleo and Dixie glanced sidelong at each other, sharing a look of acknowledgement that they had brought this on themselves.
Twins. You rarely ever got the ones with the telepathic link that put them in perfect sync. Instead, you usually got a pair of fuckin’ Geminis, at odds on everything up to and including the hiest plan. Siblings – especially twins – were always way too comfortable with each other and not comfortable enough with anyone else. It created problems. A lot of times, siblings were so concerned with each other that they couldn’t fit anyone else into their awareness. Or like today, they’d be too busy trying to argue to agree on a course of action.
Cleo and Dixie usually avoided jobs where the other crewmates were visibly siblings. The jobs had been coming up dry lately. The Syndicate had grown by several hundred agents and that meant the job distribution was thinner. So they took the job with these twins (whose codenames really ought to have been enough of a fuckin’ clue that it was a bad idea) and now they were gonna pay for it.
—
“They gave us zero point ones!” Dixie bitched.
“Obviously,” Cleo harrumphed, scowling at her own phone. “They have to explain why we came out with such a pitiful take and they weren’t going to downrate each other.”
“That is such a load of shit though,” Dixie said. She slammed her phone facedown on the diner table in disgust. “Madness was the one who deviated from the plan and created a panic.”
“You would think by now, Method would have figured out how to reign his sister in,” Cleo huffed.
“Or, you know, they could work separate of each other,” Dixie said. “It’s fuckin’ weird to still be joined at the hip when you’re out of school. Hell, it’s still weird in school, but at least there I can understand. I mean, who’d want to be friends with those two?”
This story was part of my 2019 TRL event.
Cleo and Dixie are working a job with a pair of siblings (gender is at your discretion). These two are constantly bickering and sniping at each other, with C and D (maybe the driver as well) being stuck in the middle of it.
– Paupers Run
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