In any other scenario it would have looked as if he were asleep. That was, if he weren’t fully clothed, and on a garage’s floor with some rather distressing claw marks across his front.

“Want me to kill him, Boss?” Teddy asked.

Emily shook her head. “No, no, Teddy. We don’t need to do that. We’ve won.”

Action Reward!

For finding and defeating another powered individual through luck, brute strength, and more luck, you have earned:

+1 Skill Slot!

“Oh, I got a Skill Slot,” Teddy said.

Emily nodded. “Good,” she said before turning around and taking in the main section of the garage. It was getting a little smoky, but the fire was mostly contained to one big puddle on the ground and some rags. There were other liquids, though, and she didn’t doubt they might be troublesome.

“Teddy, can you take him outside?” Emily asked.

“Sure thing, Boss.”

The bear reached down and clamped down on the front of Homie’s shirt before awkwardly dragging him toward the front door.

Emily left her to it and found a fire extinguisher by one of the doors. The thing was nearly too heavy for her to lift off the ground, so she ended up rolling it on its rim all the way over to the fire.

She hesitated before spraying it though.

The case Homie had been carrying was still in the lobby, left on the ground when Teddy had knocked him clean off his feet.

She jogged over to it and opened up the bag to reveal a laptop. The drive. The source of her woes.

The temptation to keep it, to try and unearth its secrets herself, was there. In the end, she flung it, bag and all, onto the pile of rags burning the brightest and watched as the plastic case shriveled and burned.

“Boss?” Teddy asked from the doorway. The bear could barely fit her head through.

“One sec,” Emily said. She pulled up the nozzle on the fire extinguisher and hosed everything down with whitish foam.

Was that enough to destroy the drive? She kicked the laptop over and eyed it for a moment. It was warped and melted on the edges, and she was certain that it didn’t work anymore, but maybe some of it was still retrievable.

“Teddy, could you come here?”

Two or three cathartic minutes later, and the laptop was broken up in a few dozen pieces, the drive was not-so-carefully extracted, and Emily had vented her frustration by hammering into the still-smoking device with wild abandon.

“So, Boss,” Teddy said. “Are we going to do anything about the cops?”

Emily whipped around and looked outside where a pair of squad cars were just coming to a stop.

“Where did you put Homie?”

“There’s a bench out front,” Teddy said.