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Angel Wings Chapter 1: Creep
Posted By: Neil Yudsponwy<mark_price@hotmail.co.uk>
Date: 21 June 2008, 12:11 pm
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A quick schematics check of the Paragon tells me the Hell's Kitchen dock isn't used for everyday purposes. If the Nova pilot in my behind would stop firing at me, I'd almost feel like royalty.
Eventually someone gets through to him and he does indeed break off his lowbrow assault.
My baby doesn't need me for docking and I try again with another search on Garrison; I hate meeting with people I got nothing on. If this guy's onboard he's certainly not in the census, which means he's either under a pseudo or so under the radar as to be a gnat's fart, in other words, practically invisible. ONI guys do that; the creep of sweat up my back is an obvious sign.
Stepping down the ramp I take a quick glance around.
Absolute chaos.
It's obviously an internal sense of organisation but hectic in fashion from the outside. Staff take massive detours to get where they're going; tourists and VIPs stand out like sore thumbs not just because of their wears but because their heads are never in the same direction twice.
Over in the corner of the bay atop a large grey gunmetal stairwell, a lone black suit stands with one hand behind his back and the other clutching the rail.
The sweat on my back goes cold.
That's Garrison, beyond even a shadow of doubt.
He gives a short detectable nod in my direction before leaving the bay.
"Do you realise the mayhem you've just caused with your little stunt, sonny?"
With his arms folded grumpily, the little man that greets me at the bottom of the ramp must be Garrison's lapdog: Bugler. Or taking some of the staff's word for it: Byooler. A short stub of a guy with a chub-filled torso and battened-on legs -the photos on his blog must be old. From his tone I can see we're going to be the best of friends. He has a pinched snout and permanent furrow to his brow; I can understand why he doesn't mention the kids much if they're as gorgeous as he is.
His timbre is a series of rapid successive beats; as if by talking fast no-one will catch him out.
"Had the patrol decided to blast your ship to kingdom come, I'm quite sure that no-one would have mourned the loss of just another…"
I stop dead in my tracks.
It's time to set up some boundaries.
"You were saying?" I growl.
He draws back from what we both knew he was going to finish with and offers a much less insulting phrase.
"Meathead!"
Now I don't mind being referred to as a merc, but you gotta have some sense of occasion and authority when you say it.
I mean, I hear whispers from snipers in bays the galaxy over; they work their fingers to the bone for an honest -but measly- day's pay, go home to their loveless marriage, pork their lifeless wife, eat their tasteless pate, patronise their unappreciative kids, watch beautiful people live glorious lives for them on TV and generally endure their dullsville life.
They see a guy come in that earns up to ten times what they see in a year and he doesn't pay tax on it neither.
I'd be bitter about it too.
If one of them had the balls to come up to my face and spell it out for me, I'd shake that man's hand because they're allowed to call me a lowlife no-good son of a bitch.
They don't because at 6'9 and weighing 97 kilos, I don't exactly have that meek, beat-down at the neck, complaints-desk mouse look.
The lapdog isn't allowed because he has manicured nails and his eyebrows have a perfect silver tint. Most grunts I know aren't even aware of their eyebrows let alone have someone tint them.
He thinks because he summoned me here that he's entitled to do and say whatever whimsical thought pops into his frenzied pea-sized brain. I have little respect for authority as it is so when jumped-up no-marks act on badge rather than merit, things tend to spiral.
That's why we need boundaries.
We stand there for a few more seconds than he deems necessary. When he moves on and I remain fixed in position, he turns to realise what's happening.
On the proving grounds of my youth, I'd have already closed the gap and laid him clean out, but these days the threat of something nasty and violent is usually enough to move the bowels and prod the self-preservation cells into life.
For a moment he remains uncomfortable in my presence.
Good.
Now the boundary has been set we can move on.
It doesn't stop him bitching though.
Over the head of the lapdog, I note out the corner of my eye that Candy's orphaned pup has been stripped of its entire weapons rack and all the good tech been dismantled.
Shame, the old lush carried a torch for me and I'd have liked first refusal on her rig now she's dead.
We make our way towards the spot the spook-suit disappeared, with Dave circling me and nipping at my heels every step of the way.
I end up leading him out of the bay like some excited and wayward child.
Up the stairs and beyond the door, with the pandemonium of the bay behind us, it's Bugler's turn to lead.
He's still yapping for all he's worth and with the corridor empty, his voice begins to grate.
UNSC vessels are fairly uniform in design, meaning that if you've visited one Carrier, you've toured them all. There's no love lost between me and these lumbering beasts, they got no style, they cruise without doing any cruising.
I'm lead into a large office space lined with perfectly-sized, red leather-bound handbooks on two of the four walls; the window behind the main desk pretty much takes up a wall to itself. The suit turns from the onyx panorama behind him and greets me with open hand and a silver-toothed devilish grin.
The dead man's donny is ice cold to the touch and the smirk seals a fate I'm unsure I want sealing.
"Mister Ephialtes, I'm so glad you could join us. Your somewhat instantaneous arrival has certainly caused quite the fuss."
Garrison's voice has the most curious of effects, even though he sounds like your average garden variety suit, something about him is deeply unnerving. His face is of a stark grey and his eyes narrow into formidable slits. Crow's feet making patterns in the sand around them every time he grins (because the guy doesn't smile, he just exudes a mad grin). A skeletal frame with a pallbearer suit thrown over the top to hide the ribs and a self-assured fang-and-dimple curtsy to hide the fact he knows where the other bodies are buried.
"I was contemplating my next move." I offer as way of apology, holding out the note which I had received.
"The note was a tad ambiguous even by my usual standards."
"I'm inclined to agree." Garrison said as he passed the unread note onto a mawkish-looking Bugler.
Bugler stutters in the firing line.
"I, erm, thought it best to keep things to a minimum."
"That minimum should have been expanded upon, David, in order to eliminate any misconceptions our good friend here may have had. We should give thanks for Mister Ephialtes' careful diligence on our behalf."
"Just Ephialtes, please Mister Garrison; the formality is unnecessary."
I wasn't thinking diligently, I was just concerned there'd be no-one alive to hand me my big fat cheque.
And I know for sure that I prefer the outright creep of Bugler to the creepiness of Garrison. Nowhere in Bugler's blog does it mention the softly oppressive Garrison and I can see why such an amnesiac block would occur; for the very opposite reasons the jumped-up grump doesn't make much noise about his ugly progeny. Shame and fear being strange bedfellows in that respect
"Now, let us put such trivialities behind us and return to the matter at hand."
He offers me the chair opposite his desk.
"Please Mister Ephialtes: be seated."
I know the formality to be intentional, as if to say I'll call you what I damn well please. Never have good manners sounded so intimidating and unwelcome.
"You're aware of how unusual it is for the UNSC to enlist outside help?"
Up until recently, we were only ever called in for clean-ups and watertight, denial-ready takedowns, but the eleven frozen outsiders taking up space in the mortuary would attest to the new policy if they could.
"Let's talk money, Mister Garrison." I viciously retort.
Dead friends should always up the ante, nothing to do with the fact that I wasn't first in line for the job.
"Oh, I would have thought three mill-"
"It's not." I interject fiercely.
"My friends stinking up your morgue say it's not."
So I didn't know four of them, another four hated me because I stole jobs from under their noses but were too chickenshit to do anything about it. Two only drank with me because I paid and the only woman of the dead soiree just wanted to get into my pants.
Garrison may give off the smug Buddha look, but it's doubtful that he knows of our chummy history.
He pauses for a moment, not taking his eyes from mine; trying to feel me out.
The galaxy and his wife believe that a liar cannot face down his accusers, that by some divine right he must show his guilt in some way.
The galaxy nor his wife know shit; I could tell him I'm his father without batting a fucking eyelid, flinching or subconsciously nodding my head to say otherwise.
"Even though they were all invited separately, not one of your 'friends' saw fit to include you in this lucrative operation, did they, Mister Ephialtes?"
His big grin loses its shine as Garrison strokes his left middle finger with his right thumb and forefinger. Almost like an obscured flipping of the bird.
"I will throw their ships into the deal; I'm sure a man of your hardy salesmanship will have no problem in turning a decent profit."
"And the stripped guns too?" I add hopefully. The ships themselves are probably the least profitable parts.
Garrison's grin disappears altogether, replaced by a solid graven stare.
"We do not have them." He states categorically.
I wait for the explanation but for the first time since meeting him, Garrison's feathers seem slightly ruffled.
"The deal stands at three million with the three ships taken as seen, take it or leave it. I am in no position to authorise any more funds. We have a further two dead mercenaries and their vehicles currently in transit and awaiting processing; if their possessions are not claimed, you may have those as well."
That brings the tally up to thirteen. And the grin is definitely on the other foot.
"May I ask why I was not considered before half the population for the job?" I ask semi-facetiously.
Bugler decides to come out of hiding and pulls against his master's reigns, whining furiously from over my shoulder.
"Because your reputation as a fucking slimeball precedes you by several planets, you rotten merc!"
I reckon he's been holding that in since the docking bay. Probably chopping it and changing it to suit every sentence I've uttered since, trying to cram it in like big ball in a little box.
It's certainly true that I've got a bad rap due in no small part to my activities, but you don't earn respect in my chosen trade without mercilessly slaughtering a few people.
Admittedly, I'm pro-publicity because it helps spread the fear. If they know you're coming and they know you mean business, then they know the best thing they can do is leave their body somewhere visible and a will leaving me all their worldly goods.
I don't deal in live bonds anymore; it's like opening a candy bar and giving half the candy away.
"Your rising celebrity status and the all-too coincidental appearance of several media reporters during your last few acquisitions have had a somewhat… detrimental effect on your chances of being employed in our services."
"Plus." The leather of Garrison's chair creaks as he leans forward someway and utters in quiet revere.
"The Catholic holy man did not help matters."
"He wasn't holy." I counter, snorting with derision.
"If my benefactor had granted me licence, that perv would be spending eternity torn between the eighth and second circles of hell."
"Quite apart from the alleged crimes for which he was acquitted; taking him from his diocese and delivering him unto a penal colony to be sodomised by the inmates happened to constitute several transgressions of Earth law."
"Pandora's Box penitentiary was the closest I could get to hell and only the church admonished him of any guilt, right before they shuffled the deck and stuck the scum with yet more children to abuse somewhere else." I rebuff.
"Besides." I continue, feeling myself on a roll.
"My benefactor assured me of his deviancy and the last time I checked, Earth was little more than a speck of dust in your window."
That's the beauty of paying for good legal advice; you know where you stand with galactic laws. Anything beyond Martian space and Earth forces can't be bothered with extradition costs. Hell, they have trouble extraditing genocidal dictators from one hemisphere to the other so what chance they got out here of a man that rights a few wronged little choirboys. My lawyers would have me free even before the detention ship navigated the Asteroid Belt.
Garrison leaves our little tempestuous tangent to peter out of its own accord, referring instead to the bounty itself.
"Yes, well, personal feelings aside, we are happy to have you onboard for what is proving to be a rather large thorn in our side."
Finally, the nitty-gritty. Eleven bodies, three ships and a whole lot of tangled horns later, I'm actually gonna find out what all the fuss is about.
"I'm listening." I pucker.
Garrison seems reluctant to continue, he narrows his already squinting eyes in the direction of the bookshelf's shadows behind me, towards Bugler.
"Leave us."
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