Some Time Ago pt.9: Mr. Usher
03 Nov 2019Maul Montresor
A distinct pop can be heard echoing through the dark abandoned halls of this now vacant office building. Four men stood in varying positions in the room. A fifth man was waving an ammonia inhalant under Maul's nose. His unconscious body appeared to have been haphazardly dumped on the floor."That ought to wake the scrawny prick up." The fifth man said as he waves the inhalant back and forth.
Maul's eyes quickly open as he begins to gag and cough. One man stepped forward and crouched down to talk to him as the fifth man stood back up and backed away.
"Hello Mr. Montresor, I'm glad to see that you're still with us. I was starting to worry that we had lost you after Pete here lost his temper and beat you, even though I strictly told him not to do so."
The mystery man was genuinely smiling, as if he were happy to see Maul.
"You can call me Mr. Usher." He extends his mechanical hand.
Maul sits up and looks around the room, ignoring Mr. Usher's attempted handshake. It was too dark to really make out the faces of anyone but he knew the man that had waved the inhalant under his nose was the one that knocked him unconscious earlier. Mr. Usher could tell that he had recognized the man.
"Yes, that's Pete and yes he's the man that did this to you but considering what you did to us, do you not think that you deserved it? I certainly think you did, but as I said," He turns to face Pete. "I strictly told him not to hurt you."
Mr. Usher stands up and gets within inches of Pete's face. "I did tell you that, did I not?"
Pete smiles nervously at the other men in the room. "Yeah boss but-"
Mr. Usher puts his cold metal finger over Pete's lips and quietly shushes him as he restates his question. "Did I or did I not say to hurt our friend Mr. Montresor?"
Pete gulps and begins to tremble nervously. "I'm sorry Mr. Usher, you told me not to hurt him. I just thought-"
"Ah, so that's what happened. You thought. Did I ask you to do that? Because I don't recall saying that either." Mr. Usher slid his jacket off and reached it to one of his other lackeys then proceeded to loosen his tie. Under his jacket was a custom engraved laser pistol sitting in a shoulder holster and an entire mechanical arm to go along with his hand.
"How do you expect Mr. Montresor to help us now that he has been beaten. People who look like that stand out and this job requires subtlety. You knew that and yet, you still disobeyed my orders." Mr. Usher pulls the laser pistol out of its holster and pulls Pete into a hug and whispers in his ear.
"You did this to yourself, Peter. Remember that."
Mr. Usher pulls himself away from the now sobbing Pete and points his gun at him.
"I'm sorry Mr. Usher. Please forgiv-" Pete was silenced by a quick laser shot through his head.
Mr. Usher holsters his weapon and pulls a handkerchief out to wipe the blood splatter off of his face. The lackey waits for him to finish cleaning before reaching his jacket back to him. Mr. Usher puts his jacket back on and turns back to Maul who was still sitting on the ground.
"I'm sorry you had to see that, Mr. Montresor. As you can tell, I do not tolerate those who disobey me. I simply do not have the time to deal with such people."
He extends his hand and helps Maul up off the floor.
"Now, as I'm sure you heard me mention to our recently deceased friend here. I require your skills. I'll make this short and simple. I need you to go to Brady Ring in Met 20, there is a hotel there called The Rose Tower Hotel, I'm sure you've heard of it. It's a rather popular hub for wealthy individuals who spend their time and money rather carelessly on meaningless things such as drugs, escorts and any other tasteless things you can probably imagine billionaires would spend their not so hard earned credits on. I want to take advantage of this. That's where you come in. I need you to to hack the hotel's network and simply hand it over to me. Then and only then, will I consider us even on this whole slave transport mishap."
Maul stares at Mr. Usher, he was speechless. Mr. Usher waited a moment for him to respond but snaps his fingers as the result of suddenly recalling something.
"Ah, yes, I nearly forgot the woman." Mr. Usher says as he gestures at one of his lackeys causing him to quickly walk into another room. The lackey returns wheeling Cate out in an office chair. She was tied to the chair and gagged and judging by the mascara staining her cheeks, she had been crying. Mr. Usher turned back to Maul and smiled.
"You have," He pulled his slate from his pocket to check the time. "five hours to complete this task and if you're not standing in this room with access to the hotel's network by that time, she dies."
Cate let's out a muffled scream.
"Can I talk to her?" Maul asks, his voice was shaking. Mr. Usher gives him a look of surprise, it was the first words Maul had said during the meeting. "Please, just for a moment." Mr. Usher looks at Cate and then back to Maul with a smile. "Absolutely."
The lackey that wheeled Cate out removed her gag as Maul walks over to her. He kneels down and puts his hands on the side of her head, touching his forehead to hers. Another lackey steps up behind Maul with his gun at the ready.
"I'm so sorry, Cate. I keep fucking up and everyone around me seems to suffer for it. But I'm getting you out of this. I owe you one, remember?" He says as he pulls his head away from hers, wiping the tears from under her eyes with his thumbs. She was terrified, not only of the situation she found herself in, but of him as well.
"Who...who are you? What did you do?....Why is this happening?" She said between sniffs as she began crying again, clearly nervous and terrified.
He had the answers but couldn't bring himself to say anything.
"Enough." Mr. Usher snaps his fingers and the lackey gags her again and wheels her back into the other room.
Maul turns to Mr. Usher and shakes his head.
"I know that you're going to use the network to try to steal these people's credits. It's that or either you're going to blackmail them with the footage that the networks security systems undoubtedly have, right? Yeah, I bet there's plenty of raw footage of those billionaires snorting cocaine off of a hookers tits and you know they'd pay to keep you quiet."
Mr. Usher smiles back at Maul. "Very perceptive, Mr. Montresor. You're close but I suppose that doesn't really matter now does it? Now, you should be going. As they say, time stops for no one." He pauses. "Well, except for that sweet woman in there. The time she has left is a variable that falls entirely upon your shoulders."
Maul turns to walk towards the exit. The light coming trough the tinted window of the glass doors revealed that he was covered in blood, bruises and sweat.
"Tick Tock, Mr. Montresor, Tick Tock!" Mr. Usher shouts as Maul opens the door and exits out into the street.
Once he was outside and found his bearings, he headed directly to the nearest mag-lev train. His bloody appearance caused people to stare but no one said a word to him. He was busy on his slate trying to contact TerraBites and Al Capwned. There hadn't been contact between them in weeks but he figured he could use any help he could get on this one. Sometime later, the mag-lev arrives near the docks and Maul steps off. Pulling his slate out of his pocket, he checks if anyone had reached out to him. There was nothing. He was on his own this time. Checking the time before he puts the slate back in his pocket, roughly 30 minutes had already passed. He scans his badge giving him access to the hangers and sprints down the large halls leading to the hanger that housed The Enigma and quickly gets aboard.
He stops at the lockers to change into his spare flight suit and takes a moment to breathe. Catching a glimpse of his reflection in a small mirror hanging near the locker, he realizes how terrible he looks. Dark circles under the eyes, dried blood under his nose, blood still dribbling out of the gash above his eyebrow and bruises forming on his left cheek. He shakes it off and storms off towards the cockpit. The Enigma launches and boosts dangerously fast through the Mailslot and points towards the direction of Met 20.