For a small sum of money, your average hotel maid could be convinced to do a wide variety of things.

Sure, there’s the obvious joke here, and one of the players in this story would ignore it.

One of the players in this story doesn’t much like the obvious, it doesn’t suit him. If you were to dive too deep into Wyatt Connors’ mind you would find motives that your brain could not possibly comprehend, and you would find a truly invisible man. You would find a man that simply doesn’t lose. You might have instances in mind, contradictions to this point, but then you didn’t look close enough, did you? With a deft movement, he had switched the game on you, and you were left behind.

The other player in this story loved the obvious, couldn’t get enough of it: knock knock jokes, villains vs. heroes, babies in dumpsters, and so on. And yeah, after he paid the maid, the struggling single mother, to bring a case into Wyatt’s hotel room and leave it on his pillow, Lane gave her a few grand for her to bend over and read an Amy Campbell promo while he fucked her from behind.

He laughed the entire time.

Inside of that case was a digital video disc. And on that disc was an invitation.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Backstage – SOS4

Cozen had been waiting in the Aeterno dressing room for the rest of her teammates to arrive.

They didn’t.

Leaving the dressing room seemed like a poor decision. She had a lot of enemies in the building, and with her allies stuck in traffic (but most likely something worse) it didn’t seem like a good night take to take a stroll. Perhaps if she would have left the dressing room sooner she would have found out that Adrienne St Germain had fired the rest of her teammates. On the surface, the news of her continued employment would have been good, unless you factored in the reasoning. Adrienne was shrewd, and she knew the following things:

1. Amy Campbell was in the building
2. Cozen was in the building.
3. Amy Campbell hated Cozen.
4. Amy Campbell had a tendency to punch people in the face.

So hey, good TV.

The Faceless Fighter was sitting on a bench, lacing her boots. She didn’t care for the Aeterno ring gear, and the logo, goodness gracious who picked that out anyway? But she had went along with it because it was something to do. Being on the side that was kidnapping Alex, and then impersonating her? It was a rush.

She could already see the future, however. She could see a future where these bungling idealists bored the crap out of her, and Desade fed them all to pigs like in that movie Snatch.

Or Hannibal, she thought, they also fed people to pigs in Hannibal.

Her train of thought was broken by a knock at the door. Her mismatched eyes looked up at the door, and Cozen weighed all of her options. She could come out fighting; whip the door open, throw around some kicks. This woman was a former PRIME Universal Champion, and a weapon to be sure. Or she could just not say anything, pretend there was no one home. Instead, she decided to speak.

“If you are planning on beating me up I don’t understand knocking, it implies politeness and beating me up is not polite so…yeah,” she trailed off as the door opened.

Cozen’s thought was to go with her first instinct. This was certainly someone Alexandra had sent. Strike him, strike him hard. Destroy him. But there was something in the man’s smile that said that wasn’t necessary.

“Hey there, you crazy bitch. Pleased to meet ya,” Lane Stevens said, and walked directly up to her.

She looked (and felt) confused as Desade’s own Warlord extended his hand to the woman that had impersonated her. Miles Cavanaugh entered the room behind him, and made sure to give the hallway one last once over before closing the door.

“Craig Maloof, the guy has no imagination,” The River Rat said, touching the back of his hands to his forehead, and wiggling his fingers frantically. “Kidnapping Desade, impersonating her, such a short term play.”

Stevens sat down next to a bewildered Cozen, and put an arm around her. She quickly shrugged it off, and stood up, adopting a defensive position.

“I don’t know what this is…”

“What this IS…is a long term play,” Stevens fired back. “Alexandra Pierce is getting tired of my antics. And tonight, Amy Campbell has decided that she feels the same way. And her anger is not limited to me, as it turns out. You and Wyatt have found yourself in the cunt’s crosshairs. And our new boss, she loves ratings so…”

Stevens turned both of his palms over as if imply that where he is going with this was so obvious, so simple.

Cozen looked at Stevens, and then to Miles Cavanaugh who was leaning on the door. He wasn’t just doing that for comfort. He was sending a message loud and clear that she wasn’t getting out of this dressing room without going through him. And when Miles and Cozen exchanged eye contact, she became certain that he knew she could do it quite easily. But this, like many things, didn’t seem to interest him.

“What’s in it for me because if the answer is dying because I laid a finger on Alex’s girlfriend then you’re going to have to start thinking of a better benefit plan cause dying sucks also don’t touch me” Cozen blurted out, in her signature stream of consciousness.

Lane Stevens laughed aloud. But he was already in his ring gear, he was dead serious.

“C’mon, we all know that isn’t you. You’re not afraid. You’re just looking for an excuse, cause you think I’m just like Craig or Alex, that I’m going to bore you with dress-up tasks. You’re a weapon alright, and I intend to use you as one. But I also know what you want, and I can give you that too. This can be mutually beneficial Cozen.”

“What do I want?”

The River Rat put a hand in his pocket. The trinket he retrieved was given to him by Kathryn Shaw, and he understood very little about it. It was a pendant with a most unique shape, a variation of the templar cross. This was the symbol of the Order of St Julian.

“An adventure,” The River Rat said, his fierce grin returning.

“Why would you take her on, she’s all like do my laundry and you’re all like hey here’s your laundry Miss Pierce I hope the whites are extra white.”

“I mean, she makes a good point,” Miles finally broke his silence, taking more pleasure than he’d admit in his boss being insulted.

And Lane considered her point for a solid minute. He pursed his lips as he pondered this, as he often did when he was trying to form a sentence he thought might be important.

“There is no room for people like me in the life she is attempting to make for herself. And if she ain’t a bad guy, then she’s a good guy…and the Alexandra Pierce that I came here to work for, she wouldn’t tolerate that.”

Cozen was listening to him, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of that pendant.

“And also, not sure how long I can work for someone who doesn’t let me mess with Amy. We’re old friends, you know,” Lane added, and laughed uproariously.

“I’d like to talk to some other old friends, too.”

Phillip Kennedy opened up his mail, and looked momentarily confused. Inside an envelope there was a king of hearts, with an address written on it. Within a few moments, confusion changed into satisfaction.

“And make some new ones.”

Sealed with a red wax kiss and dolled up with fine cursive penmanship, the envelope in Terrence Kingsley’s hand glided between his fingers as he examined it. Putting his apple in the breast pocket of his black suit vest, he violently ripped the envelop open in a sudden strike, his dirty fingernails ripping the black paper to shreds.

Reading the card underneath made him chuckle.

“Would ya look at that, friend,” Kingsley said, “seems somebody’s read our mind.”

“Yes, come to think of it I really do like new friends.”

Lane Stevens toasted beers with August Monday in a basement bar, god knows where.

“Friends you’d never even expect.”

Backstage in James Varga's locker room, Varga, Rappin' Rick Malloy, and the Killer Pirates are in there chatting when there is a knock at the door. Varga gets up and answers it. There is a messenger there with an invitation for him and his crew.

“What the hell is this?” Varga asked.

“An invitation,” the messenger answered.

“Friends they’d never expect.”

Eyes stared back at the mirror through tiny holes.

The man wore a gray mask, it was a lifeless gray. So lifeless, in fact, that it barely seemed like a color at all. It was the same mask used by The Scourge in FUSE, a man that later turned out to be Jacob McKail. He looked down at the sink in front of him, where a piece of poster board was sitting. Someone had written on it in black magic marker.

YOU MADE ME DO THIS

He picked up the poster board, and showed it to the mirror as if it were a living entity.

Cozen studied Lane as he played with the pendant.

There was something in her eyes that she couldn’t quite place, but she liked it. It wasn’t that he was the right side, no, that couldn’t even be argued. But he was the most interesting side, the most exciting side. And at the end of the day, that meant more to her than she could articulate.

“Ever been to Europe?” The River Rat asked. It wasn’t a question, as much as a trigger.

“I’m in.”

“Goody!” Lane practically squealed.

“What if Alex decides not to cross you?”

“Then you forget we ever had this conversation.”

The Faceless Fighter crossed her hands at her chest, and looked slightly confused.

“What if I tell her we had this conversation?”

“Well then she’ll probably cross me, and we’re back in business” Stevens shrugged.

“This is fucked up,” Miles added.

Stevens got up his seat and approached Cozen, and put an arm on her shoulder. He looked down on her with pride for a moment, but didn’t say anything. A moment later, he leaned in and whispered something into her ear. Her brow furrowed and she took a few steps back. The River Rat encouraged her by giving a few nods.

“Hi Mom, how was work?” Cozen said in Quinn Gregory’s voice.

“Bingo,” Lane replied instantly.

Across the room, Miles turned a shade of white.

Backstage at a show in Idaho, Charlie Mittens was nursing some wounds from his performance that night as one of the BWA’s (Boise Wrestling Associaton) most hated competitors, Charlie Coupons.

He had mocked the audience for paying full price for bread, and had actually asked his opponent if he was “ready to go to value town, bitch”.

Someone he vaguely knew walked by and gave him a hard pat on the back and said something like, “good job”. He wasn’t really paying attention. In reality, all this small and bruised man wanted to do was get out of the building, but he was in too much pain to move at the moment. So he held ice to his knee, and tried to avoid eye contact with anyone.

And then his phone rang.

He was going to let it ring through, but then he saw the number and answered it quickly.

“Lane!” Charlie said, louder than he meant to.

“Nope,” Regan Guest said on the other end, he could hear the smile on her face.

“Oh, hi,” Charlie said, taken off guard. “What’s up?”

In the last few weeks, she had become more involved in all sorts The River Rat’s business. The first time Charlie had spoken with her on the phone, she was polite, and sweet. This was gradually changing. To him, it was nothing new; you hang around this business long enough, and eventually creating characters for yourself becomes natural.

“Just calling to make sure everything is still peachy,” she said, a vague threat hidden underneath her amiable tone.

“Yeah I mean, they’re in. Just like they were yesterday. What the fuck does Lane intend to…”

Click.

“Fuck,” he whispered aloud.

Then, out of nowhere, he suddenly remembered that his finishing move was a top-rope close line called the Coupon Clip.

“Fuck,” he said again.

The following are the contents of the digital video disc that sat on Wyatt Connors’ pillow.

Static.

Black.

Audio.

“I must confess myself to be a bit of a closet fan.”

It was Lane Steven’s voice.

“So in honor of the council you torched, I thought I’d record my message to you. That is the way you did it back then, yes?”

Video feed.

Lane Steven’s face filled the screen. He smiled fiercely, before disappearing a moment later.

Images flashed. Desade. Sabuani. Connors. That fateful night. The River Rat’s voice is again a voiceover.

“That was such a remarkable feat. It was nothing less than a complete work of art. I admire it to this day. But I’m not really much of an artist, at least I don’t think. I don’t have a gift, as much as a chemical imbalance. My skill set is an accident. If I did not see the world the way I do, I would be curtain jerking bingo halls. Like you, I am not particularly strong, or fast. But we get by, don’t we?”

There are shots of Lane Stevens becoming number one contender, and stapling Aimz. This melted into a shot of Wyatt Connors holding the Universal Title – it froze there. Someone had edited it slightly. The word “hooray!” was cartoonishly drawn over Wyatt’s head.

“And no, just in case you were thinking it, I’m not about to ask you to unite in a holy pact to end Sin City Championship Wrestling. But you knew I wasn’t going to ask that, didn’t you? To the contrary, in fact. I’d like for it to stay open forever, lumbering along like some kind of mutilated retard – deaf, dumb, blind, and shitting its pants. What I want, what would really tickle me pink…is for the shit to pile up so high that they can never wash the stink off. How does that smell to ya?

Alexandra and Amy think that they can just hang up their bad guy boots, and ride into the sunset. Well gosh darn it Wyatt, someone’s got to be the bad guys. I’m still hitting people with chairs. Where have you been? Jared Sykes is main eventing. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?!”

There was silence for a moment, while he collected himself.

“I did not send you this to chastise you, but instead to send you an invitation. The timing is odd, because we are facing each other in a wrestling match. The title isn’t all that important to me, per se, but Katsidy would like it. And you know bitches, right?”

The belt vanished from the photo. “Sorry” was scrawled to the side.

“I will be holding a meeting next week, in Seattle, a place many believe cursed. There are many things to discuss, Wyatt. You should think long and hard about the future. Alexandra Pierce has joined the Justice League of America, and that doesn’t bode well for people like us. I’m a fan of yours, but I don’t really know who you are. I don’t know what your motives are. Do you just like to see their expressions change as you pull another one over on the hero? Who…are…you?”

The shot melted back to Lane. All we can see is his face.

“To be honest, I don’t have a bit of a clue who I am. I know I am not as bad as they say I am, yet I have no shred of evidence. Some days I want to kiss Regan tenderly on her lips and buy her puppy dogs, while others I think of how funny it would be if in the middle of dinner if I were to just stab her in the throat with my steak knife with no explanation, and continue eating while she reached out for me. And the last thing I’d say to her would be…are you going to finish that Miss?”

He laughed uproariously.

“But if I am an artist, if that is what I am, then DNA would be my canvas. So grab a paintbrush.”

Wink.

Fade.