"Francos"

[oZoneRanger]

Antonio looked over at the two men staring at him from the front bar. The distance, dim lighting and the alcohol blurred them out to where what he saw was two back lit shadowy figures. He looked back at the computer screen going over the communication chains. His paranoia jumping a notch or two since he picked up on the "Shadows" watching him from the shadows.

"...don´t know who I can trust.." he mumblesto himself, his fingers working the keyboard, he had been feverishly toiling away on something that he thought made sense, but that he likely would not remember the next time he woke up.

He feels a small vibration and hears a small chirp. He freezes, fingers on the keyboard, head straight forward looking at the screen, his eyes moving around the periphery of his visual field, trying to get a clue as to what and from where the next danger was coming. He feels the vibration again, and starts to tap and squeeze himself, his hands darting from one pocket to the next looking for the source of his anguish.

Several months ago, he had literally stumbled on to a murder scene. A murder still unsolved, most likely a professional hit, the kind of death that never made the papers. Corrupto being first on the scene got "Salvage Rights" to anything on the corpse that was of value. Low pay, high debt plagued most of the LPI´s officers. It was no secret that the Corporation paid its rank and file officers next to nothing, compared to what you could earn green flagging a transport full of contraband into Manhattan. A little unlawful seizure of property off of a corps was more about trophy hunting than about actual credits to be made.

In his "investigation" of the corpse he found a communications unit, and it was this comm unit that was requesting his attention. "No....No....not now...., I knew I should have kept walking...". He stumbles through his pockets almost frantically. "why don´t I just fracking mind my own business...." The alcohol severely hampering his thoughts, vision and movement.

Reality is perception. From Antonio´s point of view, all of his motions and moves were crisp and sharp, he was totally coherent and in control. Back at the bar, the bartender and the man with his change and code still in hand, look on at the sight of a man wavering back and forth in his chair to the point of, but never falling off, arms flailing about as if he is trying to put out imaginary flames that have erupted all over his body.

"You are telling me this guy owns the place?"

"Yeap, inherited the license and property from his adopted parents." The bartender finishes wiping up the bar, throws the rag into the sink, both men are looking toward Corrupto as he seems to find what he is looking for, a personal communications unit that he was now opened and is looking at a message he has received.

"But, in his defense, he is not all that bad, I mean I know he looks all shady and dodgy and drunk off his ass, but he is not corrupt, maybe a bit dusty but not dirty, he may bend a rule or two in his favor...sure... but he is mostly a decent cop, I mean it could be worse ya know, he could be a cop that owns a bar and stays sober all the time, at least drunk he is more entertainment than he is dangerous...." As he is reaching for a bottle to pour himself a shot, the voice from the back of the bar cuts the bartender off.

"...Do I look..... like a.... fffffffracking delllllllivery serviccce...."