Tua swam in and out of consciousness, his face and ribs felt as if he had a ball bat taken to them. In fact, half an hour earlier one had. On the other end of the bat was a rather nasty Atrox; the same Atrox that now held him by the ankles over the side of a tall building. Giving Tua a decent view of Omni-HQ’s streets thousands of feet below; the only thing keeping it from being a pleasant view was a): He was being held upside down and b): blood from his open wounds had every now and then trickled into his eyes.
The Atrox holding him chuckled one of those deep chuckles that comes from the pit of your stomach and makes the air seem to vibrate. “Little guys like you shouldn’t pokes your head into da boss’ business.” The business the large Atrox was talking about was a small but successful stim ring that operated in the Omni cities. Tua was hired by an old lady to get back a family heirloom, a diamond necklace of some value to her, that her grandson stole to pay for his weekly stim fix.
Normally Tua would leave these types of cases alone, let Omni-Pol deal with this type of mess; but he was running low on both money and cigarettes. He’d asked around a bit, getting leads and tips about where the rings operations were headed up; turns up they had set up offices in an office building here in HQ. The office Tua was hanging from was only a few blocks away from boss Ross’ own office building. He almost chuckled at the though of Ross reading his evening report and looking over the city to see a blood man falling to his doom. Tua would chuckle if only the fact that his ribs hurt to much to breath, let alone laugh.
“We’ve also done a bit a search on you. Turns out you have been able to insure yourself for quite some time. So once you take the big plunge you ain’t comin’ back no more.” Damn, they looked into his records as well. He hoped they didn’t look deep enough to find out the story of his nickname. Dieing was one thing; but to have his killers know his embarrassing moments was another.
The Atrox let go of him, Tua’s body began to fall heavily towards the concrete below. He closed his eyes, no point in seeing his death. Tua wished he had a cigarette, that’d make it all worthwhile. Tua landed hard on his back, it wasn’t concrete, concrete doesn’t make a clank when you hit it. Concrete would make more of a “thwap” sound he thought. Tua quickly began to realize that he wasn’t dead either (though the landing hurt like hell and broke another rib), he had only fallen about six stories. Somehow he had manage to land on the hood of a passing Yalm who’s drive seemed to be both scared and angry at the same time. Tua imagined that the drive would be needing another change of clothes after he had landed on the hood.
The cockpit slid open slightly and a pissed of nano-mage female poked her head out. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Look at the damage you caused!”
Tua stood up slowly and looked down at the indentation that his body had made in her hood. “Sorry lady. Was just out there to wash the windows of my office and lost my balance. I’m terrible sorry to have to ask you this, but could you please drop me off around the sixtieth floor?” Tua needed to finish the job he started, he also need to go back a get his cigarettes from that damn Atrox.
“I’ve got quite the mind to either let you continue to fall or have Omni-Pol throw you in jail.” She shook her fist at him. Of course she was going to be difficult, women were always difficult.
“Listen lady, do you really want to sit in the Omni-Pol station filling out paperwork? All I’m asking is that you drop me off. If there is any damages to your car I’ll pay for them.” That of course was a lie, Tua could hardly afford to buy bullets let alone buy parts for a Yalm. It seemed to work though, the women closed the cockpit and angled the nose of the Yalm to where he asked.
Tua jumped of the hood and onto the balcony of an office, behind his the woman was yelling at him to come exchange insurance information so she could milk him for all he is worth. He casually gave her the bird behind his back before he slid the balcony doors open and stepped into the blush office of some executive. The executive himself seemed to be angry at Tua’s intrusion enough to merit walking up to Tua as he walked through his office. This of course gave Tua the opportunity to knock the executive out with a swift punch to the jaw. Tua wasn’t in the mood for a friendly discussion and would much rather end any and all confrontations quickly. In the corner by the door sat a set of golf clubs, he had always wanted to take up the sport of golf, until he found out how much membership to the courses were. Tua picked the nine iron out of the bunch and exited the office into another large office separated into cubicles filled with confused and tired looking workers.
The workers were smarter then their boss at least, they left him alone as he made his way to the elevator. Only after Tua had entered the elevator and the doors closed behind them did they start to talk amongst themselves and go check on there boss. Tua hit the button that would take him to the roof; hopefully that Atrox would still be up there with his stuff. The doors opened and sure enough the big guys was standing up here still, his back turned to Tua. He puffed on one of Tua’s cigarettes.
Tua raised the nine iron above his head and crept towards the Atrox; he counted five butts lying used up on the roof, a sixth was perched in his mouth. In the ten minutes that Tua had left this guy had managed to smoke all but one of Tua’s cigarettes. Tua brought the club down onto the top of the Atrox with all the fury that a nicotine fit could provide. The Trox lurched forward, holding the back of his head. “Wha?..” He began to turn as Tua swung the club through the air with a mighty baseball swing. The club caught the Atrox in the jaw and snapped in half. The Atrox fell forward and landed on the roof with a meaty thud.
Tua threw the handle of the club away from him and kicked the side of the passed out Trox. “I guess you boys do have glass jaws, don’t you?” He searched through the Atrox’ stuff, found his two Faithful’s and a pack of cigarettes containing one cigarette, thoughtlessly crushed by the weight of the big man falling. Tua brought the cigarette to his lips and lit it, the tip of it angled off to the side. Tua checked the clips of his pistols, both empty. Great, he thought to himself, he’ll have to fake his way through the rest of this.
He got back in the elevator and made his way to the floor where the ring’s office was. The doors opened and Tua immediately drew the sites of his guns onto the leader of the group, or at least the person who Tua thought to be the leader since he was the only man sitting behind the large desk. The leaders lackeys began to draw their own weapons. “Hold it fellas! You don’t want me to do anything rash like opening fire on your boss here using soul scattering munitions do you?” They paused and eyed their leader. “I assume you know what I’m talking about, right? If I hit him with one of these bullets it bye bye boss. No reclaim.”
The leader stood up and slammed his fist down on the table, the lackeys still kept their guns holstered. “How the hell did you make it into my office a second time and what did you do to Tiny?!”
“I assume you’re talking about the big guy that took a ball bat to me… he’s fine. He just felt like taking a nap.” Tua grinned and cocked the empty pistols. “All I want is a necklace you received as payment a few days ago. Give me that… and a pack of smokes and I’ll leave as quietly as I came in.” Hell, as long as he held them at attention he might as well get something out of it. Why not a pack of cigarettes.
The leader nodded to one of his men who turned to go into an adjacent room. “I like your style Mister Cannon. It’s not often that someone such as yourself puts me into a situation like I find myself in now.”
The lackey came back into the room, walking over to Tua with a jewelry box and a fresh pack of smokes, made from expensive organic tobacco from off world; not the synthetic brand that Tua usually enjoys. Tua grabbed the cigarettes and stuffed them into his pocket. “Open the box.” He nodded at the lackey.
“Yes sir.” He opened the box. Inside was a tarnished gold chain with a large locket encrusted with cheap looking jewels.
Tua picked the locket up and looked it over with a raised brow. “I risked my life for this?”
The leader laughed. “I see I’m not the only one that was robbed. One of my pushers gave away a rather expensive supply for that thing. Needless to say he no longer works for me, let alone breath.”
Tua stuffed the locket into his pocket along with the cigarettes and slowly backed away to the elevator. “You have to love clients. They seem to cherish the simples of things. If you’ll excuse me I’ll be leaving now.” He kept his guns on them even as the doors slid shut. Tua let out a deep breath and brought the guns down to his sides. He needed another job other then private detective; but there was no other job where he could have this much fun and still make his own hours.
Tua would go back to his office in Trade and have the old lady come get her locket. The money for the job would go along way for him, perhaps he might even get to use the cellular scanner. Tua wiped a bit of blood away from his lip with the flat of his hand. He rather liked this body, why ruin it by getting another. He decided that another way to spend his hard earned credits would be to drink the pain away at Rompa’s while on of the bar girl danced for him. Tua holstered his Faithful’s . He’d also have to see about getting some of them soul scattering munitions he talked about, in the case that next time they wouldn’t believe him.
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