Selba Prime Concern - Kids Corner
Word of the Day
LiveJournal (n): LiveJournal is a core product of Asynk Core's Biosynch technology. LiveJournal, or LJ for short, is the memory core for an individual user. LJ can be used to store emails, texts, voice messages, or any other file. Size limits vary with the memory core of the user, but tend to be around 10 terabytes to start.
Last Chance is covered in her own blood, her intestines spilled all over the simulated concrete. Her heart rate is nearly twice normal as she bleeds out in the grooves cut in the road. Her hair is spun like a pinwheel about her head, falling expertly over her face. Not covering her eyes or mouth, just framing the horror in her eyes, as they glaze over with her blood continuing to spill and her heart starting to slow.
Then the director yells “cut”, and she gets picked up by a stage doctor who helps her adjust the bio-logic software on a small robot servitor, and it quickly steadies her vitals and cranks in her lower intestine. The squat machine hovering over her, small arms and gadgets probing her all over.
All in all, easiest ten-thousand rico Last has earned. A real break. Billions of people will see her intestines spelling out the name of the Transvestite Nightmare® herself. Like a dream, really.
“You did good out there, Last. I really think the audience will park-out over your performance.” Insta, the director, says while coughing. The most he’s said since she got here. Last can’t really remember how she got this job, it was in her LJ the last time she detoxed enough the read it.
“Thank you, sir. I’m just happy to be here, really.”
“Well, take your time healing up here. I need people wrapping this up, like ago!” He says only half looking at her. Stage hands of all sorts start tearing down the backdrop and moving the sense-receptor machines to this and that set. The moment of her death gone, as quickly as it happened. Hoses washing the blood over to a corner drain.
Within five minutes, Last Chance is walking out of Stage 16 and down the hall. Her coat pulled tight against the air-conditioning, the saline in her blood giving her the chills. Last is pulling up the number for her dealer, just to get a little back in her system after all the cleansing, when she sees her.
The halls are dark, the building on its night-routine, encouraging wandering employees to exit “like ago.” Last is at a corner office, taking a spoke-like hallway coming from the center of the building. A center room is a necessity for a stage as it needs the room and lack of windows of the central pillar of the building. Down that hall, by that corner office, Last sees Sunshine Apocalypse as clear as day.
A fellow model. Sunshine and Last have been rivals. Well, if you consider a successful supermodel and a downed supermodel to be rivals. They went to the same high school, at the very least. Vindictive bitch stole Last’s boyfriend, and took him to a rival school’s prom. Leaving her alone, well not alone, but incapable of making him jealous with the date she did get. He may have been borderline psychotic, but he looked nice, and it would have been fine as long as no one talked to him. He did not like to be talked to.
Last clenches her fists, and walks slowly closer to Sunshine, trying to stay out of her peripheral vision. Sunshine is wearing a black, fuck-me-now-pay-me-later dress with strappy boots that make her look like a five-rico hooker in some cheap blue sensivise. Her hair is busted as well, all curly and knotted to one side. Last grins to herself, victorious.
Then the alarms go off.
Cirrhosis manages to slink out of the press conference without Truckee using his face as a napkin, but he is well aware that Truckee Dumpstar is not a woman… to be messed with.
Cirrhosis chuckles slightly as he exits the elevator. He’s been trying to get a hold of Toro, to explain, but the net has been jammed. Truckee is probably putting the building on lockdown after his little stunt. Regardless, Cirrhosis is headed to the main office to drop off his code-key and be rid of this whole thing. Toro will protect him, he’s sure, because dead he isn’t worth seven-million rico.
Cirrhosis rounds the corridor and there he sees Code Name walking out of Truckee’s office. Code is a thirty something anglo-ethnic who is prone to wearing closely tailored suits in exotic colors and materials, today he is wearing a gunmetal number that makes him look like he’s in armor. Not exactly a popular look, but Cirrhosis remembers them being big about two years ago. He’s carrying a small red box. Cirrhosis swears he saw that box, that box with the elaborate gold trim, somewhere before.
Then the alarms go off.
“This had better be good news, Char-els. I’m not in the mood for more ridiculousness.”
“I got the ad from Susa-no, Sunshine looks beautiful getting humped on the horse.”
“Just as I said she would.” Board has been forcing Truckee to do two ad-campaigns for every one project, citing Truckee’s creative proclivity to extreme creative proclivity. You do one solid gold billboard and you never hear the end of it. He has to run two campaigns past two boards, in hopes that one makes it into post. Allegedly keeping him busy will keep him from getting over encumbered in a more fiscal sense.
“How did you get her? Isn’t she filming something on Isis?”
“Hiatus. Timor Allude is in some sex scandal or something.” Truckee had thought more of Char-els. Not knowing basic celebrity gossip is tantamount to flagrant incompetence, particularly in their line of business.
“Right. Caught blowing some endangered species.”
“No. A sentient non-contact species. Broke several Federali sanctions.” Low-Tech sentients are required to be left completely alone to their own devices until they are capable of spaceflight beyond their home-system. After which, there are sanctions involving levels and trade that Truckee is completely unaware of. Just knows that some alien technology you can buy at a store, some you buy from a van.
“Well, it’s going on the World as we speak.”
“Beautiful, Char-els.”
“About Cirrhosis, sir...”
“Dead to me.”
“He’s getting us ridiculous press.”
“Stunts always do. I’ll do a talk show whirlwind in a few hours. Get me a recording studio and a transmission staff deploy. I’ll have my secretary get me on the evening news a couple of places. Soak it up.”
“Consider it—“ Char-els cuts out. Truckee tries his eButler, but the World connection is down. Truckee curses to himself. He is presently in an elevator headed to the seventieth floor, the mood-lighting of the “night” mode is as soothing as it is cost-effective. Truckee isn’t one for soothing, but the Board liked the decreased energy bill, and Truckee really doesn’t care enough to fight over something as trivial as blue-lighting. Too busy keeping the Race on schedule. The door slides open on the fifty-third floor, Truckee’s main office. He tries to remember if he pressed the button on accident, then the door opens and a man is standing there.
The man is tall and thick, not fat or overweight. Just thick. His face is very angular, an anglo-centric gene-line, with a brutish nose that shows wear-and-tear of a man with commonly broken cartilage. Truckee would remember if he was a racer. This man isn’t a racer. Perhaps some sort of action star? Truckee smiles as if to begin talking, and the man stands still. He looks Truckee Dumpstar in the eyes, raises his right hand in the shape of a gun, cocking back his finger as the doors on the elevator start to close and just as the doors touch—
“Bam.”
Then the alarms go off.
Cirrhosis is following Code Name down the yellow-tinged corridors. The mood lighting going all pissy with the alarms. Code is running with that box under his arm. The prize Toro wanted Cirrhosis to win for him. His seven-million rico meal ticket. Cirrhosis has no plans of letting that box out of his sight. It is apparent quite quickly that Code is running from Cirrhosis, not the alarms. Cirrhosis hadn’t thought to yell anything, so he wasn’t sure the chase was official until Code threw a knife at him
.
The knife missed horribly, but alerted Cirrhosis to the fact that, he too, was being chased. A man in an ill-fitted gray suit was running behind him.
“What the fuck you want?”
“Vii.” The man grunts, pulling a gun out of his baggy jacket. Cirrhosis has to admit, Vii is a man of his word. He doesn’t, however, feel obligated to get shot to prove that point. He dodges in to a corridor to his left and then takes the first door to his right, locking the doors behind him with his code-key, a dull green plastic octagon dangling about his neck.
Code has to be heading for the elevators; Cirrhosis just has to get there first.
“He locked the door behind him, sir.”
“And you’ll be punished for your malfeasance at a later time. Change of assignment.”
“What?” The man in the ill-fitted absently scratches at his balls with a loaded gun.
“Sunshine Apocalypse.”
“The supermodel?”
“Yes. She is in the building. A zeroin-whore by the name of Last Chance has her placed at Truckee’s safe at the time of the alarms—“
“She has the thing?” He is confused, almost positive the guys he was chasing had the thing. Not sure which guy, but definitely one of the two of them.
“So you aren’t completely inconsequential? Find her.”
“And when I do?”
“Take what I want. Do what you will with her; just leave no messes for me to clean, will you?”
“Yes, sir.” Shrugs, turns around and heads for the direction Vii sent.
Last Chance exits the building through the side entrance, as per Dynamite’s instructions. Her dealer perked up quite a bit when she told him what she saw. Last rightfully assumed Sunshine was up to something and is being rewarded. That bitch has finally proved worth something. The package she is to receive is reported to be “most generous” and “on the house”, both of which sound beautiful to Last. She is to meet Dynamite outside the Suzy-Q’s Bar & Stew across the street. Which is good because Last is starving. Dying can really take a toll on a lady.
Epic Death and Baby Doll Judah Stardust are sitting at the booth closest to the windows and bar. View and decent bartending, being the key factors to a successful date between the Federation’s two most noteworthy bounty-hunters. Suzy-Q’s is your typical chain restaurant, all flashy lights and waitstaff that point at you when they speak. Epic and Stardust pick this place for two reasons, one being that they don’t water down their whiskey and two being that this is the location of their first Hunt. Together, at least, which isn’t common or generally legal, because like most things that are enjoyable in life, GovNet has lawyers writing scripts and guidelines and memorandums of understanding and bills and contracts with big elaborate seals on them requiring everyone to register and tow the proper line. All just to allow a simple man the right to kill someone for money. Generally, you are only allowed to work in groups with Federali approval, unless you are handling a case above a certain level, and then there are allowances for absolute age. That said, Epic and Stardust were first-lifers back then and Selba was a bit seedier back then as well. So allowances were made, seals were affixed and cc’s were b’d.
The cook was on the take, and was funneling munitions off-system from the Hinterlands. Easy first catch, but you always remember your first. Well, Epic actually doesn’t remember his first. Was some guy in a gang on Chotella 7, ended up bagging seven people that night. Either way, this place never did find a guy who could make a steak like that one guy. Damn shame.
“So I just flew back from Toris. Caught a bitch there worth ten-million rico. Apparently, this fat cunt had strangled like two congressmen in one weekend.” Flew back being a more rote blanketing of probably stopping at three stations, switching flights, etc.
Stardust is extremely rash, but always intelligent enough to keep it frozen when it comes to escape plans. No Federali protection is given between assignments, and both Epic and Stardust technically have rather high hits on them. The nature of being an active Hunter is being sued by the families of the criminals they catch. Usually they evaporate, as almost everything they do is officially sanctioned through the Rules of the Hunt, but like everything else, it takes time.
“Toris is a shit-hole, serves them right.”
“But get this; bitch was hiding inside a missile.”
Epic snorts his drink a second, Stardust giggles at him and looks away while he wipes up.
“She—what?”
“I was looking for her all over that damned asteroid cum-dumpster they call their LaGrange, people said they saw her, but nobody knows where she was. Run around, run around, ask this fuck to talk to that bitch and then that cunt needs ten blood-elf tears to complete the quest or whatever. Typical bullshit. Checked all the manifests, nobody. Checked all the hotels, nothing. Then I’m at a dock at like three-am, drunk off my ass—“Stardust sips her cocktail, some bright red concoction of grapes, vodka and tastes-like-gasoline. Stardust likes her drinks like her men, stiff and unapologetic about it.
“This hatch is open on a cargo flyer. I hack the server, more for fun than anything else. It’s like a million years old and my dive software can barely even talk to the thing.
“The AI tells me the fucker is full of beets. Bitch puts up a manifest for seventeen thousand KILOS of beets, like that isn’t suspicious at all.”
“Who the fuck eats beets anyway?” Epic laughs, eating his substandard steak through a grin.
“Farmers? This fat bitch, bitch must have weighed five-hundo. Must really fucking shovel those beets in the old feed hole. Anyway, so I go in with my gun out and lo and behold, no shit-ton of beets.”
Epic gets an LT, a little red dot appears in his peripheral vision. Epic tells his eButler to read it and file it, and sips his beer.
“So I go in this hold and the AI is still swearing up and down this thing is full of crates and there isn’t shit in there, but a missile the size of a fighter.”
“A fucking de-commissioned D-Stroy?!”
“This psycho spent probably like three hundred thousand on this missile, a classic if you like fusion weapons from two hundred years ago.”
A hundred and seventy years ago was the last big war. Bunch of planets in the Sprawl wanted the Hub worlds to eliminate the tax on fuel at the LaGranges. Hubs weren’t in for free rides. A station got hit. A war started. Epic’s father fought in that war, and he’s never heard the end of it. Oh, you just killed forty gang members? Well, I decimated an entire planet and I did it for my country. Etcetera ad nauseum.
“And so. I’m of course really interested now. I mean what if I open this thing and it blows the station? What if it really is some beet-missile here to blast us to kingdom fucking come with dirt-flavor?
“So I get a flame-welder to open this thing, had to pay him out the ass to come this late, and what do I find? This chick has built a mother-fucking HOUSE inside this missile. A three-bedroom, one bath, missile.”
“What did she do when you busted in?”
“Get this— She yells at me for not using the door.”
“I got a mail; eB tells me it’s urgent.” Epic grunts, the red dot growing a circle around it.
“Me too, full-blown... Fucking can’t wait till I finish my cocktail.”
“They’d be waiting forever.” Epic lifts his glass to toast.
“True.” Stardust clinks glasses with him as they both smile.
Epic closes his eyes, easier to focus on the words.
[Epic- I heard you were on planet. I have a big favor to ask you. Meet me at Isshin in one hour. Come alone, but be sure to be armed. -Truckee]
“Fuck.” Epic slams the rest of his beer. Stardust opens her eyes and grins slyly. She has an amazing smile. Like she has the purest form of happiness anyone can find, even though she probably had to fucking beat someone to death with her shoe to get it.
“Sweetheart, seems we have a c
aper.”
“Yeah. Who got you?”
“You know I can’t say.” Stardust licks her lips and bats her lashes. Epic has an urge to fuck her on the table. Settles for ordering shots.
“These meets.”
“Short and infrequent.”
“Fuck.”
“Hope to see you soon?” Stardust shrugs.
“Fine. Normal rules apply.” Epic says as they both raise their shots to toast. To the job at hand, or whatever.
“Of course, my darling Epic Death.” She grins again.
Click. Drink. Check. Out.
Epic bumps into what looks like an anemic anorexic alcoholic, her black shock of hair all twisted and gnarled. Her lipstick half on her teeth, maybe five foot six and about thirty pounds underweight. Considering the neighborhood, safe to assume model, actress or stylist. If Epic were off-duty, he would stop to find out (i.e. fuck her in every hole), but as she looks about ten seconds to immediate death and with feet being in play, he decides against. Even with modern technology and genetherapy, there are always new diseases in these skanks. Against character, he apologizes for no reason and holds the door. Bitch obviously needs to get her eat on.
Peppermint locks the door to the Ju-Ju Cha-Cha, despite the front window being shattered, he figures better safe. The cops took the suit and didn’t question the hand-shaped bruises on his neck or his consciousness-level. Having a supermodel around, particularly one covered in honey, can be to one’s advantage when dealing with the law. Albeit, this is all her fault. Hence why Pepper just happened to forget to tell her that he has a full bathroom at the store. He kind of half hopes she gets mauled to death by rogue band of bees.
“So… why was that guy after you? Don’t worry I won’t tell the cops.” Pepper looks at her, directly, for the first time. She’s the girl from “All in the Hay”, that colonial-era slasher movie. Movie was really big, what with the tentacles and the sweeping vistas of barn-filled Checktiza, which put her career into the big digits, finally making her an S-class. She hasn’t really done much since then, few minor roles in award fodder movies released when people are supposed to be paying attention to their families. Heard she quit to teach children to read or some such shit. Her tits are bigger in real life, though.
“I really don’t know. I just wrapped a shoot for the Race.” Sunshine mutters, trying to adjust her hair in the store’s remaining window. She’s having her eButler search for a bounty-hunter. Sunshine needs to get off planet, but with people after her—who knows how far she’d get without protection.
“Oh yeah? No drugs, or?”
“No. I never liked how they made me feel, all… confused? I barely know what’s going on without something else taking it from me. Down-programs sometimes, but nothing major.”
“Maybe something else—“ eButler. Inquiry into— “…Seriously?”
“What?”
“Bitch, someone has a death wish for you something fierce. They just put a hit out on me.” Cops on the take? Hacked surveillance?
“How do you know that?” She looks startled, looking around for potential assassins.
“Let’s just say, I’m out of retirement. How much money you have on you?” Peppermint says, looking over his shoulder as he walks through the destroyed window. He’s going to need guns. Plural.
Isshin is an Asian-fusion restaurant in the Box District. The streets are all wide for trucking of this and that freighter, and the looming bulk of the Gravsling sits idle in the background. All manufacturing, warehouse and freight. The smog is palpable, even with hybrid vehicles, pushing a building down the street still takes a lot of energy. Let alone using anti-grav pulse generation to toss it into orbit. That said, it’s actually a decent side of town, security being privatized on Selba Prime, as is the case all over the Colonies and most of Federation Space, as well. It means that the locations with the most to steal are also the most covered in GovNet cruisers.
Epic Death walks down an extremely well lit sidewalk; he’s wearing a black-leather vest over a dark red suit-shirt. His jacket got a little overbearing, so he has his smokey-gray duster slung over one arm. Metal flecked jeans and his dad’s contribution, vintage combat boots (gun holsters included and loaded), and the look is complete. Bad-ass waiter, vicious rodeo junkie, roadie for Izzie Bloodwake, etc…
Isshin is busy. Busier than Epic would have chosen for a meet, but Truckee Dumpstar doesn’t do “small”. The restaurant is brimmed with tech types who run the cranes, security between shifts, and hip social seekers looking for somewhere trendy obscure to eat between zeroin binges. Epic isn’t excited for this one. The money will be there, but with everything Truckee has going on right now, this shit has to be huge.
Truckee is sitting near a window. So it’s not a hit on him, at least. Epic hates assassination cases; tedious following of suspects isn’t really his bag. Give him a guy with a gun; Epic will give you a guy you can strain your pasta with. Give him an ex-wife trying to poison some oil magnate, and he’ll end up giving you pasta when he should have recommended a good marriage councilor or some shit.
“Glad you could make it, Mr. Death.”
“Epic is fine. What do you need, Truckee?” Epic quickly looks Truckee over. He’s wearing a wig that looks like it was rescued from a tree hit by a hurricane. Some sort of florescent fabric dress that changes colors from green to gold. Must be all the rage somewhere where rages happen to be all. Epic thinks it looks like some kind of mistake. Also like a pile of vomit he created once. Harsh hangover, that.
“Forward, I like that. Okay, I’ll cut to the chase then. You heard of the Race of the Ancients?”
“I was born with a head.”
“I’ll take that as a maybe.”
“Like, maybe I have a head?”
“Like maybe it functions.”
“You called me.” Epic shrugs.
“Valid.”
“Okay. Race. I get it. And?” Eyebrow raise.
“The prize.”
“A jewel or some shit.”
“Stolen.”
“Heard about it.”
“Already?”
“You know who by?”
“I have an inclination.”
“You should get that looked at.”
“You heard of Iced Mocha?”
“Yeah, he’s leader of the Destiny, a gang out of Torch in the Sprawl. You think he did it?” Epic knows Iced Mocha, and Iced Mocha is a sky-crane, this is completely out of character and above ability.
“One of his goons was on the floor where I kept the Jewel not seconds before the alarms sounded. In my office on 53.”
“Okay. You got history with this kitty?”
“I owe him some money.” Truckee was fiddling with his food. At some point they had been served, despite Epic never ordering. Epic’s plate has eyes. A big squid. What is this asian fused with, anyway?
“How much?”
“Thirty-three.”
“Million?”
“No.”
“Billion?”
“No.”
“You fucking buy Torch on credit? From a gang?”
“Heh. Let’s say you could if I were to pay you what I owe him, and leave it at that.” Truckee looks out the window. Shame spiral?
“Okay, so this race was supposed to pay him off I assume?” Where did Destiny get that much money from? Destiny is not that liquid, not that much money in drugs.
“Yeah. Mostly. Why I’m pushing it so hard.”
“Gotcha, so why steal the prize, then?” With that much money, couldn’t he just buy it?
“To keep me working for him. Forever.”
“He could just extort you with the info, or threaten you by force. This seems… fishy. Destiny is barely small fry, where the fuck would this guy even get thirty trill from?” Poking his… this is NOT squid… for effect. Epic pushes his plate away.
“All I kno
w is my contact with him was at my office when the Jewel was stolen and he gunned me.”
“What? Where?”
“With his fingers.”
“That is disgusting. “ Looking at the ‘squid’ for effect.
“No. Like this, bang.” Doing the gun motion, Epic gets up.
“I’ll check on it. I’ll LT you if I get anything, till then lay low.”
“Like that will happen.”
Epic shrugs as he walks out the door. Gang fights and stolen shit. Now that sounds like fun. But seriously, does everyone owe some drug-dealing train-wreck nauseatingly large sums of money or what? Iced is like barely important, unless he became considerably more level since his last refresh.
Cirrhosis runs as fast as humanly possible through the various corridors and office backrooms and comes out just as Code dives through a window. On the fifty-third floor. Just for his own consideration, Cirrhosis goes to the window. There is only a light wind and it’s rather warm. Code is gone and Cirrhosis is generally fucked. Also confused, but with a focus of fucked. He needs to get out of here before Vii’s guy catches wind of him. Avoiding the elevators, he takes the stairs.
He makes it about five floors down before realizing that he forgot to quit while he was up there. Considering everything, he figures he can just mail the code-key when he’s no longer getting shot at.
Cirrhosis hits the ground floor on a flurry of coughs and wheezes. That’ll probably serve as his cardio for the day. The city is bright with action, it’s only around nine-thirty. As soon as his foot hits pavement, his eButler reports World-contact. Also that he has like forty LT’s.
He instructs Jeffy, gotta name him something, to sort them and bring up anything that is not about the stunt he pulled at the press conference. Jeffy gets that number down to four by the time Cirrhosis sees himself in a shop window and realizes that he’s still dressed like Captain-Captain Suzaku’s Hot Pickin’ Go-Go Chicken. That being a mouthful, Cirrhosis decides a trip to the homebase is necessary. He LTs a taxi and is off in a moment. Hover service in Hojo City is straight AI, but some of the best he’s ever experienced. Taxis aren’t even covered in urine.
The car takes a ramp up the clear carbon-fiber street to the thirtieth floor and Cirrhosis dives into his mail.
[Cirr- I need to talk to you about what happened. I checked into what you said, but it seems… we need to talk. Additional players appear to be on the board. Have my secretary set something up. ~T]
Jeffy is smart enough to ignore orders sometimes.
[Cirrhosis Induction, Sir- We again extend the hand of welcome to you to visit exotic outpost, and tourist hot-spot, Torch. As official sponsor of your team, Captain Susaku’s Hot Pickin’ Go-Go Chicken, requests your presence at our yearly investor’s luncheon. Several hundred of our investors, as well as the Media, and celebrity presenters will be present. We would like if you were to take a tour of our R&D department with the Media, perhaps give a small press-conference on the last night of the tour. If you were to look at our contra—]
Cirrhosis has had enough mail. Perhaps a trip to Torch is in order, although what the hell sort of R&D a chicken restaurant could possibly be running eludes him completely. Gang violence is totally hot right now. However, there is the small item of Toro and Code. Also the matter of his being banned from Torch under pain of severe and flagrant dismemberment. Perhaps a cocktail at the house, a shower and some pants that don’t choke the hose will clear the head.
[Incoming Call] Cirrhosis curses as he swipes his palm over the reader on the door of the cab. Cirrhosis lives in a high rise in the Sahari District. The Sahari District is lower downtown, meaning south and east, which places it farthest away from the Gravsling. Nice place, open floor plan, good light.
“Acknowledge. Hello?”
“Cirrhosis. What the fuck?”
“Noseta Stone, long time no swear at me for no reason.”
“You know damned well why I am swearing at you, you filthy goddamn motherfucking son of a sewer-rotting cunt-whore.”
“You should really take to naming restaurants, Noseta.”
“Fuck and you. Consider your place.”
“What does Toro want?”
“I don’t know? To be in the fucking loop when his lead racer decides to quit the team before the largest race in Colonial history? Perhaps?”
“Vii Ariable threatened my life, inside that building not ten seconds before I did that.”
“What?”
“He knew about my debt, the amount of my debt, and promised to pay off Toro if I got him the Jewel.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“He knew amounts and plans. You have a leak in your organization somewhere.”
“That doesn’t explain –“
“So I try and LT and Truckee has done the whole radio silence thing.” That wasn’t until after, but what Toro doesn’t know.
“Then what?” Hooked him.
“I go to quit, which I haven’t officially. And I see no other but Code Name stealing the item in question—“
[Line Ended.]
Cirrhosis is chuckling to himself, peeling off his bodysuit, and halfway into the shower when he gets another call. Jeffy warns him who it is this time, warns him by saying its Omega-encrypted. Cirrhosis steps into the shower, audio-only eS connections only pick up what he says, which is to say what he is thinking of saying. He doesn’t even actually have to speak out-loud; it’s just easier to conceptualize that way.
“Mr. Abobo.” Cirrhosis says, scratching his balls and trying not to moan. Aloud or mentally. Free from tyranny.
“Cirrhosis, you saw someone steal the Jewel?”
“Code Name. I know him from back when I used to run with Iced Mocha.” Cirrhosis used to be a bit of a gang banger, running with Destiny before Iced took charge a few years ago. Eventually he outgrew the guns and moved on to crossbows. Similar when you really think about it, which Cirrhosis only does when he is drinking. Cirrhosis pads to the kitchen for a vodka warbomber. Drinking in the shower, now there is the life.
“They are centered out of Torch now.”
“I… you want me to go after him?”
“You get it for me, we’ll call it even.” Toro is being very direct. Too very direct. To think of it, Toro has never just called him before. Although this is what they were grooming him for since four years ago, when Truckee announced the Race. And Cirrhosis has known that the prize was what Toro wanted. Not fame or money. If he didn’t win the race, Cirrhosis was positive that he would have been asked to steal the Jewel, and would have done it as well, if he hadn’t been beaten to the punch. What the fuck is this Jewel, anyway?
“I’ll do the meet with the Captain while I’m there.” Brownie points might get him a guarantee he doesn’t just get force-tanked when he gets back.
“Sure you do that.”
[Line Ended.]