In the business of high espionage, sensory awareness separates the men from the boys. Anyone who dares venture into the spy arena could probably tell from the sound of a snapping twig in the forest that that the person stepping on it was a man between 180 and 195 pounds and favoring his left foot. Taylor Hanson, upon hearing a twig break, could tell you the color of the man's socks and if he was allergic to pepper.

He had honed his senses to give him an advantage in every situation.

He was most proud of his sense of touch. Textures, shapes, and temperatures...he could gauge them all with a brush of his fingertips or, in the case of gun barrels, his temple. His parents embarrassed him to no end at parties, making him play a foolish game where he identified the guests by memorizing the shapes of their car keys. Isaac mocked him for it, but it was mainly envy. His heavily calloused guitar-players hands could no more distinguish car keys than they could assemble a ship in a bottle

Taylor's trick to enhancing his senses was to sense...more. When he was trying to improve his vision he tried to see more. He started small, memorizing the eye-color of every person he met and counting the ceiling tiles in every room in the HanCave (2,848). Improving sense of touch had been a similar learning experience, with the added bonus of making him seem _really_ friendly at concerts.

When most of us fall down, it is a short and miserable experience. A person barely has time to think 'Oh my goodness, I'm about to hit the...' and then they've hit it. The nervous ganglia involved send out little bursts of pressure and pain, and before you know it you're up ice-skating again. This is because most of us have the mental equivalent of an ice-cream truck driving our nervous system data.

Taylor would never be caught dead in an ice-cream truck.

So it was with crystal clarity that the BMW of pain raced around the sensory speedway of his upper back as it slammed into a concrete floor. His left shoulder blade connected with a massive metal hex-nut, causing him to wince.

From the size he knew the hex-nut in question to be, and the amount of pain he was experiencing, he surmised that Marcus weight about 165. As the dust settled after their fall, Taylor braced himself for the flurry of blows that was probably coming.

And he braced himself some more.

He had already deduced Marcus's weight and the color of his socks (navy blue). If there were twig conveniently located, he could arrange for the agent to step on it and learn even more. But the fact that he was just laying on Taylor, heaving like a dormant walrus, was all the evidence needed to figure out that he was unconscious.

"Urgh," Taylor grunted. "Why does Zac get all the good fights?"

With a heave, he rolled Marcus off of him. The cataleptic man rocked slowly to a stop in a nearby corner and continued dozing.

"That's one down," Taylor sighed to no one. "Out of who knows how many. I think there's a rope around here somewhere."

* - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - *

Zac didn't know if he was going to win this fight, but he knew he wasn't going to defeat himself.

Complicated moves, like the flying lotus triple monkey kick that had landed him in his current predicament, are fortunately close to impossible when your ankles are duck-taped together. There are in fact three basic moves that he had on deck. The "head-butt" had caught Gilson off-guard and partially knocked the wind out of him. The "flailing-arms of pain" were currently being reserved for future use. Now he was employing a favorite move of his from almost every fighting style in his vast arsenal, the patented Zac Hanson Bear Hug (TM).

Zac had been using the bear hug since long before his days as a government employee. As the youngest brother (of the three anyway) he was usually the last to get what he wanted. He reasoned that if Isaac or Taylor had something he really felt he ought to have, they would relinquish it if properly motivated. Being blessed with the upper body strength of a drummer, he would simply latch on and supply sufficient pressure to make it a "little more love" than the target was comfortable with.

Gilson offered as much resistance as he could, but his options were limited. His arms weren't going anywhere; they were pinned tight at his sides by Zac's own. He wasn't a decent man, either. Ordinarily he would just as soon kick someone in the crotch as look at them but Zac, legs bound with the aforementioned tape, had no crotch to speak of. Isaac could break out of Zac's bear hugs probably one time in ten, and that was when he agreed to let him drive the Navigator. Anyone else was just wasting energy by fighting it.

Isaac...

Zac squeezed harder, and heard something crack.

"Aarr...you little son of a bitch... that one's coming back to you." Realizing his low probability of escaping the grip and that he could probably hurt him even more this way, Gilson tried to roll into a nearby wall. They rolled three full times, and ended up with both of them on their sides.

"I should have let Marcus shoot you..." Gilson forced Zac up against the wall with the leverage granted to him by his untied feet, and struggled to keep breathing.

"You shouldn't have killed..." Zac stopped. His broken rib would not allow him the luxury of speech when he was trying to suffocate someone using only his arms. He drew his neck back as far as he could without loosening his grip, and slammed his forehead into the other man's.

It really hurt, but it was a good hurt.

Whether or not it was a "Good Hurt" to Gilson was mainly an academic question. His current mindset was one of disbelief, that he was being hugged into submission by someone he was pretty sure should have been dead by now. The fact that Zac was trying to kill him hadn't escaped him either, but the Knights of Anarchy won most of their battles by assuming everyone was trying to kill them.

Then he felt it. Short breaks in the tension of Zac's steely grip. One... then two... and then it almost relaxed entirely. The Zac Hanson Bear Hug (TM) was deteriorating quickly into the Zac Hanson Hug--although clearly this had not been the plan.

Then Gilson recognized the pattern, for now he could almost free his arms and Zac's entire body was shaking.

He was sobbing.

Then he could feel the wetness of Zac's face as it pressed against his ear--the wetness and the heat that can only indicate a good cry. He waited for a weak moment - a quick intake of breath - and then pushed back against Zac with all the strength his arms and legs could muster. Finally separated, Gilson scrambled away gasping for breath.

Zac pulled himself behind Gilson, reaching for a shoe but missing. The agent turned to face Zac again, still on his knees, and reached for his gun.

"This..." Zac began with all the breath he had. As he inhaled he drew himself up on his hands, as if he were preparing to do push-ups.

"...Is..." He inhaled again, kicking his taped feet up behind him and pivoting on his hands.

"...For Isaac!" Gilson had extended his gun slowly and his arm was shaking. He got a good look at Zac before the boy really started moving--his face already stained with tears and determination.

As propeller kicks went, it wasn't great. It was hardly Zac's favorite kick to begin with, and now he was facing a significant handicap - unable to separate his legs for speed and balance. He walked his hands in a wide circle, getting up as much speed as possible in the 540-degree spin.

His Hanson Reebok connected with Gilson's temple, making a sound not entirely unlike "Thrarp".

Zac rolled over on his back and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. There would be more time for mourning. Now he had to free his legs and get out of here.

* - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - *

Merchant had checked almost every room in the place. He had caught sight of Isaac at one point, but thought it was best not to get his attention. He looked like he was handling himself OK.

So this room, the garage, was the only place left for Zac to be. It was possible they had moved him but not likely. As near as he could tell, this was a two-man operation. Could one man move Zac?

The place was dimly lit and bland with some light from the parking lot creeping under the massive rolling door. As he walked into the open of the garage his shoes--even the scuffed one-clacked on the concrete floor. On his fourth step the sound stopped, causing him to pause.

There was a large, crumpled ball of duck-tape stuck to his shoe.

"Well this has been a banner day. These are new." He kicked irritably at the tape, which then attached itself to his other shoe, and then settled in at the cuff of his pants.

"Isaac..."

"Now I have to get duck-tape gunk on my hands. This job doesn't pay enough." "Oh God... Isaac..." What _might_ have been his imagination previously had definitely been the voice of a living, breathing Hanson this time. "I can't believe it."

Zac was sitting in a ball in the corner--his back against a crate--arms clenched tightly around his legs. His hair was a mess--which Merchant figured someone was probably going to pay for if they hadn't already--and his forehead was resting on his knees.

"Little Hanson! You got a moist towelette? Like the kind you get with chicken?" Merchant held up the ball of duck-tape like road kill and tossed it aside, where it landed on Gilson's inactive head. "What happened to him?"

Zac looked up wearily. His cheeks burned and he tasted the acid of battle in the back of his throat. His eyes were like black fire.

"I guess you answered _that_ question. Are you OK?"

"Merchant. Isaac. He killed Isaac."

Merchant's brow furrowed. He had seen Isaac not five minutes ago. He ran through a list of adjectives associated with death. Pale, rigid, docile, inhumed, extinct--Isaac had been none of these things.

"Actually I think I just..."

"There's no time. I think he's dead." Zac gestured vaguely toward Gilson, who had yet to move. "You know the way out of here?"

"Yeah but you don't understand. Isaac..."

"Merchant. I think I'm bleeding." Zac touched a hand to his chest. "And I've got at least one broken rib."

"...Which is all the more reason we should find..."

"You armed?"

"I'm sorry?" Merchant had an overall sense of what it was to be 'armed,' but he detested fighting and weapons in general. He had pocketed Marcus's sidearm, and displayed it carefully. "I guess I have this."

"Oh God ISAAAAAAAC!" Zac moaned, burying his face in his hands.