One old mechanic had leaned closer when he told me about it, lowering his voice as if the walls might carry the words somewhere they shouldn’t go.
“They tried to hit the Syndicate's new labs here,” he’d said, wiping his hands on a rag, eyes flicking toward the open garage door. “Figured the Syndicate would be distracted. New builds. New expansion and all that.”
His voice somehow became even softer. “They were wrong.”
From what I gathered, Manshu’s father had led the charge himself. His people stormed the building, and what happened to them was not something they ever imagined would happen.
The version I heard most often was painted the same way.
Doors mechanically locked behind them, and the inside of the building turned into something else entirely.
Traps were triggered, hallways shifting, pathways narrowing, forcing them forward. Forcing them up. By the time theyreached the top floor, there weren’t many of them left, and Falcon had been waiting.
The man telling the story hadn’t described what happened next in detail. He didn’t need to. The way he stopped talking for a second, the way his jaw tightened—that said enough.
Manshu’s father didn’t walk out of that building. Neither did most of his people. What was left of that rebellion got buried under everything else the Syndicate built afterward. Just another story people told in low voices, usually followed by a change of subject.
Back in the shop, I tightened my grip on the rag.
Yeah. I didn’t want to be anywhere near the middle of that again. Not between Manshu and Calix. Not in any supes’ line of sight. Invisible sounded real good right about now.
The rest of the day settled into something normal.
Engines came in and out. Tools clanked against metal. Alto cracked jokes from the front while I worked through a list of repairs in the back. Yendor wandered in later, rubbing his hands together as he approached me.
He hovered for a second, shifting his weight from one foot to the other before speaking.
“So… uh… You got any plans tonight?”
I glanced up at him, wrench still in hand. “No.”
His eyes flicked toward the office where Alto stood, then back to me. His mouth opened slightly, then closed again. Whatever he’d been about to say stalled out before it ever made it past his lips.
“Cool. Yeah. Just—cool.”
He nodded too quickly and turned, ducking back toward the front. I watched him go, brow furrowing.
From the office, Alto’s voice drifted out a few minutes later, smiling casually, as he leaned against the door frame and explained.
“He’s trying,” Alto said, glancing at me with a small smile. “Wants to connect with you in hopes I’ll give him the shop one day.”
I let out a short laugh.
“Good luck with that.”
Alto huffed a quiet chuckle of his own, shaking his head as he went back to his paperwork.
Retire? Alto? Not a chance. He’d still be here long after the rest of us burned out.
By the time the last car rolled out, the sky outside the open bay doors had shifted darker. Alto wiped his hands on a rag, calling out that he would be in the office while I was shutting everything down.
“Don’t forget to order more octane fluid,” I called out from deep in the garage.
“Yeah, yeah,” he waved me off. “You sound just like Tera.” I looked back to see a smile crack along his face. “I’m not so old yet that I’d forget to order our best seller. ”
“I’ll take that Tera comment as a compliment.”
He laughed, the sound carrying through the emptying shop. He glanced at the clock, shooting up out of his seat. “Oh shit. Tera’s going to kill me!”
