[ WP ] The newspaper headline the next day read : `` Freak spatula incident leave 12 dead , 6 hospitalized . ''

The diner was a warm oasis in the cold, shitty expanse of the nighttime cityscape. Night owl patrons slurp burnt coffee and chew on lukewarm food. A gruff, overweight line cook tosses his greasy spoon offerings through the pass-through to a worn out waitress. The rain outside comes down at a light but steady pace. 
 
 The door opens and a rain-soaked figure steps inside. Cold air blows in, and the patrons nearest the door glare at the new arrival for bringing the ill weather into the sanctuary of the diner. The newcomer shakes some of the rain from the lapels of his trench coat and surveys the room. He sees what he ’ s looking for in the furthest back corner of the dining area, and heads back there. 
 
 “ Eric. Eric Holden. ” 
 
 The patron says nothing, staring intently at his now cold coffee, as if he might will it back to temperature. 
 
 “ Been looking for a while Eric. We know it was you who intercepted our transmission. ” 
 
 Eric looks up at the man. He wondered if he could make a break for the door, but dismissed the idea almost immediately. He ’ d spent so much time on the run, and still they had found him. He supposed it was true that he could run, but he ’ d just die tired. 
 
 “ What now, ” he asked the stranger. 
 
 “ We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your call. ” 
 
 “ Hard way, I think. ” Eric was trying to buy time, figure out a plan. It wasn ’ t working. 
 
 “ Really? You know how much paperwork this is going to make for me? ” 
 
 In a flash of insight Eric knew how to get out of this one; buy himself some time. It was right there in the information he had read earlier. Wheels and angles, angles within wheels. A whole mess of interconnected nodes on a causal web and suddenly he could see them clear as day. 
 
 “ Mister, I don ’ t give a rusted rat-fuck about your paperwork. ” 
 
 Eric stood up swiftly as the waitress passed by them, knocking the pizza pan out of her hand and sending the spatula flying into the oxygen tank of an old man sitting nearby. Right onto the pressure valve. Just as Eric predicted, the spatula breaks the valve clean off, the sudden pressure stream sending the utensil rocketing towards the pass-through window into the kitchen to embed itself straight into the throat of the line cook. 
 
 Startled and suddenly choking on his own blood, the cook staggers back, flailing. Again, in exactly the way Eric had envisioned, the cook, in his struggles, kicks open the gas valve for the fryers. The valve now wide open, gas pours into the kitchen and the screams of the patrons who saw the unfortunate cooks last moments are drowned out by the deafening roar of an explosion as the gas meets the flames of the cooktop, destroying the diner and opening its interior to the cold night air. 
 
 Eric scrambled from the rubble and headed away from the wreckage.
