Heroes and Conmen

[Pyromaniac]

Episode 10

Alex tapped away at his keyboard browsing through the neural net for anything of interest. It had been a quiet few days aboard the Intruder. Joseph was MIA, and Rufus had finally given up the search. Alex was sure it was because he'd figured out Joseph hadn't been captured by anyone.

Alex sighed and continued coding some DOS attacks to ease his boredom. A short ways away down the hall he could hear the sounds of Blain playing video games.

"Go left." He ordered some troopers. "I said left'€¦ Left you n00b'€¦ Your other left!!! Left! THAT'S STILL NOT LEFT!!!"

Alex rolled his eyes and pushed himself off the wall propelling his rolling chair into the hallway.

"Blain!" He shouted.

"What!?"

"Keep it down! I'm trying to work here!"

There was silence for a moment and then Blain's chair rolled out into the hallway.

"Alex, you don't do any work. All you do it fly around and pew stuff." He shot back.

"I do to do work all the time! I just don't do it for you." Alex replied. Blain snorted.

"Oh really? What kind of work?"

"I'€¦ er'€¦ code'€¦ hack stuff'€¦ for money." Alex replied unsteadily. Blain raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms.

"Who's your client?" Blain asked.

"Shut up dude." Alex replied. Blain gave Alex his 'I'm right and you're wrong now quit complaining and get back to doing nothing' smirk.

"Well it's not like you do any work!" Alex shot back.

"What? I do all kinds of work! Hell I do all the work." Blain replied.

"Yeah? Like what?"

"I arranged a weapons contract earlier."

"And before that?"

Silence.

"At least I'm not some meathead pilot who can barely shoot straight!"

"Meathead! I'll show you how straight I can shoot!"

"Will you now? Alright let's take this outside right now and settle it once and for all!"

Clyde rolled out into the hallway on his own chair.

"Both of you shut the hell up! I'm trying to have a nice meal with my wife and you two squabbling like children isn't helping!"

"Shut up Clyde!" Both replied in unison.

Clyde was about to respond when the door to Rufus's office slammed open. All three men fell silent and turned their attention to Rufus. He walked slowly down the hallway and stopped in front of Alex.

"Hey boss'€¦" Alex greeted him. Rufus tossed a one million credit chip at Alex.

"What's this for?" Alex asked.

"You won the bet. Tomasso's not coming back." He threw over his shoulder. Alex was silent. Rufus stopped at the nearest link to the PA system.

"Attention all pilots of The Society." He began. "I'll keep this short: Thirty million to whoever kills Tomasso and twenty million to kill his whore."

There was silence.

"What are you waiting for? Get out there and kill them!" Rufus shouted. The Intruder was enveloped in a flurry of activity as every pilot ran to the hangar. Alex sighed and kicked his chair back into his room. He stopped Clyde.

"You owe me two million." He told him. Clyde rolled his eyes and tossed the credits to Alex. Alex stared at them for a minute while everyone ran for the hangars. With a final sigh he pocketed them and made his way to his Eagle.

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