She was going to murder Big Nose. Blondie might survive. But she was going to kill someone.

After remembering her name, at least.

She had one, right?

“Your name is Daughter.”

What?

The name felt familiar. “Daughter… rolls of the tongue,” it was hers. Likely. She knew she was famous, yet she had to know, from where?

“I know you from… let’s leave those details when we reach the motel.”

He looked over the back of the driver's seat and out the back window. “Let’s leave the details for when we reach the motel.”

The car almost flipped when he turned the corner full speed, two wheels up and at the mercy of gravity. Big Nose was driving the car as if he were possessed.

“My name is Forty-one and don’t call me Big Nose.”

Can he read minds?

“Finally, I'm not reading your mind. There’s a very good explanation for all this.” Forty-one said.

Well, that was relieving.

Forty-One swerved. Into oncoming traffic he swiped his hands about as he deftly maneuvered through traffic.

Forty-Two leaned forwards, hands on the dashboard, head darting between Forty-One and the road.

“What in the Mother are you doing, Forty-One?” Forty-Two looked back to the traffic. What in Mother’s name are they doing?” Forty-Two covered his face with his arms. Daughter got up from her side to see a Sentinel patrol car whizz past them, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision. They had seemingly won a game of chicken with both the Sentinels and incoming traffic. The Sentinel car stopped and made a U-turn to try to catch back up to them. Her jaw hung slack. What was this maniac doing?

“We need to last around… two minutes, I guess. At most two minutes and twenty-three seconds. I’m not sure, I did pour more sugar than last time.”

Her head swimming, she scrambled for a way out- or at least a seatbelt. She tumbled when Forty-one took a hard right turn toward some poor people’s gardens.

Daughter gasped, holding onto hear seat, in desire to keep her dear life.

Blondie hugged his seat, his eyes clenched shut, too afraid of flying out of the car.He spoke- yelled, really- but his complaints spewed out at lightning speed in an almost unintelligible torrent. Forty-One didn’t seem to care about what Forty-Two had to say about his driving.

The car broke a path through a set of white wooden fences, entering a park. There stood a child at the far end of it, in a playground, between the swing and sandbox. The little gremlin was busy poking a human corpse, with a stick no less. Daughter was appalled and wished she weren't stuck in a car chase, if only to punish the kid.

This generation truly had no respect or dignity.

But Forty-one’s reaction of driving towards the child seemed a tad bit much.

“A car chase,” the little gremlin lived to cry another day, jumping in the sandbox to avoid Forty-one. “You two must feel overwhelmed.”

“No shit,” she said.

“No shit,” Blondie said.

Scratch that. Blondie would definitely survive her wrath, if only because he was a victim too.

“And he is Forty-two. Not a chick.”

“I- why would I call him a chick?”

“You mean Blondie?”

“... Yes.”

“I knew tha-” something crashed into the back of their car. Forty-Two's and Forty-One’s seatbelts barely held them back from being thrown through the front window. If it weren’t for her vice-like grip on the sides of the seats, she would’ve been thrown through the front window herself. “Dammit, when will that thing caramelize?”

The sentinels were in hot pursuit. Unfortunately, even she could tell they were riding in something straight out of the bargain bin. The design was obviously cheap. The only expensive thing it had was a glimmering, jet black paint job. It was hard to make out where the car’s outline began or ended. Big Nose would likely have a tough time pulling out more miraculous driving stunts once the Sentinels reached closer to them.

Still, Big Nose seemed to be giving it his all, going one fence over the other, making a mess out of people’s backyards.

She hugged the seat in front of her with all her might. A sharp right from Forty-One and there was a tree, a sharp left and there was a pole. It was as if the entire city were designed to kill them.

“Well, I know I couldn’t match up with your driving, Bear, but you can’t blame a man for trying.”

Smoke began to rise from the car’s engine. For a moment, she worried they were toast, but Forty-One seemed to have more tricks up his sleeve.

Yet the smoke didn’t belong to their car.

The black car suddenly slowed, blocking their vision from the front. Forty-One whipped the wheel around as if he had had some complex set of instructions from Mother stuck in his head. They ended up clipping a tree.

The black car couldn’t make the turn, their engine seemed to be giving way on whatever had failed it

Eventually, they broke through one last fence and took another turn onto a street. Forty-one made a hard right turn, and she could see a tunnel from her side window. There were neon pink letters coupled with several hearts hanging from the lip of the tunnel. A pair of full lips, several doves, and two swans with necks forming a heart hung from the very top of it.

“Love Town… Where are you even bringing us to?”

“To the brothel,” Forty-one said casually.

“... Forty-one… I want you to know I was joking that one time.”

As they passed through the tunnel, it shimmered, morphing into a starry night’s sky. The traffic was sparse.

Forty-one counted on one hand, and when he got to his last finger, he suddenly swerved into the opposite lane, blocking an expensive-looking limousine’s path. He turned back to her and Forty-Two.

“Wait here. Follow me when I give the signal.”

He got out of the car while hiding the gun behind him. Like everything was normal, he knocked on the luxurious car's door.

The door slid open to reveal a pig, or at least a close, mechanical relative. The pig harrumphed. “What’s got in your cogs you crazy cl-” those were the only words he got to mutter as Forty-one shot the Pig’s face.

Forty-Two covered his face with his hands in total disbelief. “What have we gotten ourselves into…?” He groaned. Daughter didn’t know either.

Forty-one got into the limousine and ran over the dead man. A wave of gray goo launched itself forth, trying to cover seemingly everything in its path. He backed up and ran the man over again. Forty-One shouted. “Get in!”

As they drove off through the other side of the tunnel, something caught her eye in the rear-view mirror.

There was a giant gray blob covering the tunnel, and the rich pig's body was nowhere to be seen.

Forty-two seemed calmer after seeing that giant gray blob block the way they came from.

What was up with that grey goo? Daughter was too afraid to ask.

When they arrived at their destination, Forty-One turned back around to them.

”Let’s be quick. We only have four hours.”

***

Forty-one, he, and the Daughter walked into the brothel.

This was a joke, and frankly, he was waiting too long for the punchline.

If it wasn’t, he would punch Forty-one instead.

He guessed it wasn’t fair to judge Forty-one. It really wasn’t. He saved their life today, yet he still felt ready to lash out. Forty-One told them to stay together and walked off.

The Brothel they entered could only be described as a peacock's dream: flashy and way too many feathers.

Purple, red, and white feathers with glitter were sprinkled around the premises, mostly on the walls. The floor had a purple carpet which might have been magenta a long time ago.

The red leather couches had many cuts on top of them and stains he couldn’t identify. He wanted those marks to be from natural wear and tear. From sitting amicably for a chat.

They weren’t, and he knew it.

Daughter scanned the room curiously. There stood several girls in the lobby. One caught Forty-Two’s eye. She was white as a pearl. Her hair, skin, and even eyes all lacked color apart from a slight glimmer among her black irises. She smiled at him.

Forty-two broke eye contact. He definitely didn’t belong here. That was so awkward. He decided to do a reliable hobby of his: observing the wall. The wall had red, some more red, and finally a bit of white along with a sense of he should stop being a manchild.

He decided to look for Forty-One. Maybe he would get to actually strangle Forty-one. Then ask him what is going on. Presumably not in that order. Presumably. He turned to Daughter.

“Come on, let’s go follow Forty-One.” She nodded. They walked up to a desk with pamphlets, a metal bell, and a cigarette dispenser on it. Forty-one rang the bell. It seemed a bit too loud for how tiny it was.

A woman answered the call soon after.

If there were reports of a local swan apocalypse, it was definitely caused by her.

White feathers covered her whole being. Orange lipstick and black eyes bore into him. She looked somewhere behind them momentarily, then met both of them in the eyes, first Daughter, then him. There hung a smile on her face. It was likely artificial.

“Welcome dears to our wonderful, fantastic love hotel,” she looked behind them again and winked.

He heard orderly, smooth, confident steps behind them. As Forty-Two was about to say something, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked around. The pale woman from earlier had approached them. There was a hand on Daughter’s shoulder too.

“Which one of you is the jolly, cupcake-loving child-at-heart?” She whispered in his ear, loud enough for both him and Daughter to hear.

Then, she turned towards Daughter, who had already turned herself, to lean closely into her face. “Or are you both hell-bound?”

She pressed both of their shoulders, dragging them closer. “We can get that lovely lady over there as well, if odd numbers aren’t your thing,” The pearl-colored woman gestured with her eyes towards the Swan, who still had that content smile on her face.

Forty-two made up his mind. He would definitely punch Forty-one in the face once this was over.

The issue was the moment at hand. Or to be more precise, in his and Daughter's hands.

This may have possibly been the worst day in his life for this. He definitely wasn’t interested in tangling with prostitutes right now. He didn’t even want to deal with prostitutes in the first place. He didn’t even know their names. He wanted… more personal experiences in his love life. It was unfortunate that he would likely become a laughing stock if word got out that he mucked up the advances of two gorgeous women.

Daughter seemed to be eyeing him skeptically as well. Why couldn’t she just have immediately rejected them? They weren’t in a relationship. Take control of the conversation like you took control of my roof! These women presumed too much. Daughter could totally have given him a way out while preserving his reputation. He would have to be the one to make it awkward.

“As for you, my dear?” Swan put her hand over Forty-one, who was observing on the sidelines so far.

“Yes, I do have some desires,” Forty-one leaned towards the lady, grabbing something from his back pocket. “One room, separate beds, and don’t try to pawn the Cecil room. I know what's in there,” Forty-one handed the money to the Swan lady, who had a smirk that got wider as she counted the cash.

“You and I, mister, we should get to know each other, much, much better.”