Some Time Ago pt.2: The Price Of Peace
10 Oct 2019Maul Montresor
Maul stands leaning against the wall outside of the bar. He glances up from his pad occasionally to look at the people going about their usual nightly routines. Time on a station is a weird thing. Day and night barely make any sense but people still need some sort of structure for things to work properly."So what's this guy look like?" He sends a message to Xero from his pad.
Xero replies with a picture of the target. He was a pasty white man with gelled back brown hair in a fairly nice suit.
Maul smiles as he types his reply to Xero.
"Xero, this is the most generic human being I have ever seen."
"Yeah I know but listen, his name is Sebastian and from what I've seen, he likes to drop into bars on the stations he's spending the night at to find a little "company", if you know what I mean."
Maul rolls his eyes.
"Of course he's one of those guys. Why didn't you ask Terra to come out here and do this? She'd be better suited, don't you think?"
"Um, well she's not exactly his type."
Maul briefly looks up from his pad to survey the surrounding people, looking for the target.
"Wait, how would you know? You don't even know what she looks like. None of us have ever met, that's the rule."
"You're actually more Sebastian's type. If you catch my drift. :p"
Maul thinks for a minute as he tries to work out the implications of that tongue face. It suddenly dawns on him. Sebastian is gay.
"....Oh. Okay, I'll contact you soon." Maul replies and then pockets his pad and enters the bar.
The bar was full of commanders and locals just trying to drown their demons. A group on the other side of the bar were arguing about politics while another group was celebrating someones recent job promotion.
Maul took a stool at the bar.
"What you drinking tonight buddy?" The bartender asked politely.
"Just a water."
"Oh, really cutting loose tonight, huh?" The bartender ribs at Maul.
Maul smiles. "Kinda."
The bartender pours water into a glass and sits it in front of Maul and steps away to continue his work.
After roughly thirty agonizing minutes of listening to the group across the room arguing about politics, he hears the sound of the door open. Maul quickly raises his head off the bar and looks towards the door and to his relief it was Sebastian.
"Fucking finally." He mumbles under his breath.
Sebastian takes a moment to scope out the place before taking a seat at the bar just a few stools down from Maul. He looks over at Maul with a grin and nods. Maul raises his glass to him and nods back.
"Looks like you're here on business." Maul asks referring to the mans suit.
Sebastian smirks. "Something like that. You?"
Maul nods and fabricates a story for himself. He wasn't about to let this man know anything about him.
"I just got back in from a six month stint out in the black. I fancy myself as a bit of an explorer. Was tired of all the seclusion and figured what better place is there to surround yourself with people other than a bar?"
Sebastian shakes his head and smiles.
"I could never do that. I'd lose my mind being alone for that long."
"After a while you get used to the loneliness." Maul says with it dawning on him how alone he actually truly feels. The only friends he had were ones he ran jobs with through his computer. They vowed to never meet or exchange real names in an attempt to protect their own well being.
Sebastian moves to sit in the stool next to Maul and reaches out his hand.
"I'm Scott."
Maul squints his eyes and looks at him. This is the man in the picture. This is Sebastian. Was he just trying to hide his identity to protect himself as well?
"Hi Scott, I'm Eli." He says as he shakes Sebastian's hand. "Can I buy you a drink?"
"I'd love that." Sebastian says with a smile as he gestures to the bartender.
After an hour of drinking and swapping fake stories with Sebastian, Maul decides to try to make his move. He needed to get this man somewhere secluded and get the information out of him.
"How about we get out of here?" Maul says leaning in close to the drunken Sebastian. He himself hadn't had a sip of alcohol but Sebastian was too busy trying to impress him to pay any attention.
"You work quick. I like that." Sebastian responds with a smirk. "There's a hotel I spotted down the street. How about we go there?"
Maul nods and continues his drunken act as they stumble out of the bar. This was the perfect chance to get the info.
As they stumble down the street, Sebastian stops to vomit in a near by trash bin. Maul spots a pistol holstered under his suit jacket.
"Who the fuck is this guy? Xero's going to be paying extra for this shit." He says to himself.
"Huh?" Sebastian says as he pulls his head out of the trash bin and looks at Maul. Spit and vomit stringing down his chin.
Maul shakes his head and smiles. "Nothing. Let's just get you to the hotel."
They eventually make their way to the hotel and successfully get a room. Sebastian takes off his suit jacket and throws it on the bed. Maul walks up to him and rubs down his arm starting from the shoulder and stopping near where the pistol was holstered. He grabs the pistol with his left hand and punches Sebastian in the nose with his right, causing him to stumble back. The pistol smoothly slides out of its holster as Sebastian falls back into the chair behind him. Maul switches the gun to his right hand and briefly examines the custom engraving on the gun before pointing it at Sebastian.
"The fuck arr yo doin?" Sebastian blurts out in a slurred voice.
"Shut up! Now listen to me and listen carefully. I'm going to ask you a question and you're going to get one chance to answer it. If you don't give me the answer I'm looking for then I'll blow your goddamn brains out and pick through the pieces to try to find the answer myself. Sound good?"
Sebastian nods as he hold his now bleeding nose.
"Good. Now, What is the price of peace?"
Sebastian drops his head back and rolls his eyes. "Shoulda knownd, Xero sendt you huh?" He says still heavily inebriated.
"I'm the one asking questions here. Now, the next thing out of your mouth better be an answer." Maul says as he steps toward him pressing the barrel of the gun against his forehead.
Sebastian stares at Maul for a moment and then sighs.
"200 Mil."
"What?" Maul responds, with confusion in his voice.
"Tell em it's 200 million credits for his freedom. They ecept....They expet...expect no less than 10 mil a moth." Sebastian was barely conscious at this point and was having a hard time stringing together a sentence.
"10 mil a month? That's fucking absurd! How's he supposed to come up with that?" Maul protests.
"Not my problem. I don't make de rules. I'm juss a fuckin messenger, man!" Sebastian says almost begging.
Maul quickly pulls the gun away from Sebastian's head and sticks it in the back of his pants at the waistline. He walks into the bathroom and comes back out with a towel and reaches it to Sebastian.
"Here, I'm sorry about that." He says referring to Sebastian's busted nose.
Sebastian snatches the towel out of his hand and starts wiping the blood from his face.
"Juss get de fuck outta here." Sebastian says feeling defeated.
Maul exits the room and takes a convoluted route back to his apartment in an attempt to throw any potential tails. He enters his apartment and flops into his computer chair to message Xero.
"200 Mil. They expect 10 Mil a month. That's your price for peace. Also, dude had a fucking gun, so I want extra."
"Fuck. Thanks for helping me with this. I'll be sending your payment and a little extra for all the trouble. I may contact you again soon with more work. It sounds like I need to find something that pays big if I'm ever going to pay them off. Thanks again, Gh0uli3."
Maul turns his computer monitors off and relaxes into his chair, letting out a sigh of relief. He grabs the gun out from behind him and tosses it into a drawer full of candy wrappers in his desk. He gets up and walks over to the couch and unmutes the holo display as he relaxes. The horror movie that was playing started filling the apartment with suspenseful music and disturbing screams.
"Any thing interesting happen while I was away, Ashley?" He calls out to the A.I.
"Not really, though I did make you a grocery list. We've run out of microwavable pizzas and I don't think I need to remind you what happened last time that happened do I? What about you? Anything notable?"
"Nah, not really. Hey, could you turn the volume up? This dude is about to get his head lopped off."
The sounds of ripping meat and gushing blood fills the room.
"Ya gotta love those old school practical effects." Maul says with a goofy smile.