“The hell you are. Fine, you’ll have your money within the hour.”
“Excellent,” Vincente leaned back in his chair and smiled. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Hines.”
“Fuck off, you pirate.” the comm call ended. Vincente swiveled his chair around and found Jasmine staring at him. He shrugged his shoulders and abstractedly waved a hand in the direction of the comm.
“Think I asked for too much?”
“Too little,” she grunted. His eyes widened in surprise. “Do you know what people in that sector call Gorgon IV?”
“No... and I have a feeling I should,” Vincente admitted.
“You ever heard of Murder World?”
“Yeah, sure, everyone’s heard of– wait. Seriously? That place is real?”
“As real as you or I,” Jasmine said.
“Shit.”
“That’s what you get for getting so damned drunk last night. I thought you were just crazy to accept the job, not stupid and ignorant.”
“I can always say I changed my mind,” he muttered as he turned back around. “Just gotta get on the comm...”
“Too late,” Jasmine said and passed over the small banking tablet. She jabbed a finger at the account balance, which was now markedly higher than it had before the comm call. “Money’s already been deposited. We have to do it.”
“Damn it. Now what?”
“Now we go to Murder World,” Jasmine said, “and probably die. Momma said that following you around would kill me one day. I just thought it’d be much later than this. Thanks a lot, by the way.”
“We’re going to need a crew,” Vincente moaned as he rested his elbows on the console. He buried his face in his hands. “Besides you and Kamol, I mean. Probably have to pay them well, too. Bunch of damned mercenaries. You know how much money it costs to get a mercenary squad together? Then we have to buy their armor, ammo, food...”
“Psychopaths,” Jasmine added, her lips pursed in a thoughtful manner. “That’s the only type of people we’re going to be able to hire. We try to hire non-crazies and they’ll chicken out the minute they hear that we’re headed for Murder World. And there’s only one place in this sector that has the kind of psychotic scumbags needed...”
“Alawi,” Vincente sighed. “I’m going to have to go back to Alawi and see–”
“And apologize to her.”
“–and apologize to that, that–”
“Lady?”
“–contemptible, soulless bitch–”
“She’s going to shoot you again if you talk like that. I may have to help her.”
“–and she’s going to want a cut of the money as well–”
“Well, you did cheat her out of over one hundred thousand credits.”
“–just to let me even begin to try and hire someone sitting inside her bar willing to sign on and go die with us,” Vincente finished. He glared at Jasmine, who smiled serenely at him. He looked at her with a quizzical expression. “You, you really think Mooney’s going to shoot me again?”
“Definitely,” Jasmine nodded. “She might even aim for something vital this time, like your di–”
“I hate that woman,” Vincente said as he rubbed his temples. “Damn. The stim is wearing off. Can I have another?”
“Tough,” Jasmine said as she walked out of the cabin. “One every twelve hours. Sorry. Serves you right, though.”
“Women,” Vincente muttered as the first wave of his monstrous hangover crashed over him.
Murder World is available from Amazon here
Kaiju Apocalypse II Page 8