Re: Lunchtime on the rock - all characters - Day 1

[Jedi_Master_007]

Fred shrugged, already on his way back towards the cells. "We already spendin' too much time bla bla blain' at the mouth and not enough time do do doin' with our hands. There ain't but one way to get this, and that's go take it. We can take it in the shower. We can take it in the kitchen. We can take it in the laundry. Ain't none of us want to be here, and there ain't but three possible choices. We know it's goin' to be violent. We know someone's gonna get hurt, and we know if things don't go smooth it's gonna be bad on all of us."

Fred looked frustrated and serious at the same time. "Anybody who fought in the war knows that no matter what you plan, things always go to Hell and back. This ain't no different. We know what the choices are, we know what we gotta do, and we know what the outcomes are. What's the Gorram holdup?"

Fred looked between Martin and Marselle. "So what's it gonna be?"

[Ac1ds0ld13r]

Martin looked at Marselle and said, "Either way, ain't nuthin we can be doin' about it now. Might as well see about gettin' that box." He looked around all conspiratorial like. "Way I figure, ain't no way he'd be leavin' that trinket in his bunk, not with them guards doin' searches. He's got that thing on him, and I'd reckon damn near all a'time." He looked at Fred and then back at Marselle. "A brawl in the chow hall is a right good way to get us all locked down. We're going to have to get him either while he's in the yard, or before he strips down and hides the gorram thing in the showers." Martin looked back at Marselle, feeling pleased with himself. "Yer doin' that thing again. Anyone got a better idea?"

[Marselle Qin]

Marselle gave not a flicker of his cheek - his face was the same dead flesh that it always became when he was thinking hard. He had no qualms about killing a woman - he'd killed his share before... but each of them had been armed, and trying to kill him. He had no issue with acting proactively, either - it was good to kill someone who you knew was going to do you harm.

... But something about this talk didn't feel right. He wasn't the proverbial scorpion, stinging the frog as they crossed the river; it wasn't his nature to lash out as a first resort. Maybe he was just tougher than other men, and could take the abuse, but he had always wait to be injured before striking.

It's possible, though - the thoughts crossed his mind - that she's using us. She's certainly smart enough, and the fact that she waited for us to try and escape suggests that her own allies were not expendable enough to slough off like a jacket after the escape.

And that raised another question - why them? Why now? Any number of people must have voiced a desire to get the hell off of this rock. Any number of hardened, skilled men and women.

He resolved himself, then. He would find time to speak to her during restricted hours - several guards owed him small favors; Ridley was doing university correspondence, and likely would have failed without his inmate tutor. That might earn him a chance to find his way to the women's half after hours...

If she satisfied his doubts, he'd have to take measures... he wasn't sure what, but... hell. The general wouldn't let an innocent be killed on basis of fear, and he'd be damned if he was going to do the same.

[purplegeekness]

OOC:I'm going to assume that you'll want to stay out of your cells for as long as you can.

Bugeye joined the others in the queue dumping his food tray along with the others into the waste receptacle as they headed back to their table. He looked puzzled at their comments, but said nothing until they sat back down at the tables. "You guys sure bout that? She ain't exactly nice, it's true, but she don't welch" he shrugged, "but you wanna dump her after you're out of here that's your business, not mine." he settled back at the table looking a little unsettled.

***********************************
DC's eyes widened in fear. "It ain't that simple, Raynor....he had this special brand in mind. Wanted to celebrate the birth of his daughters son. She's due any day now. You won't get back in time. He'll be pissed." DC shrugged. "Look you better come with me"

DC led Raynor through a passageway to the Wardens office. He knocked loudly on the door. A deep gruff "Enter" sounded from within. As Dc led Raynor in. He noticed that the office was spectacularly well maintained. The warden was a corpulent man, given to years of excess in his life. He watched Raynor with beady expected eyes. A smile was on his face.

"Ah Raynor, just the man. I'll invite you to join me. We have brandy and now the cigars you brought"

[Ac1ds0ld13r]

Martin shrugged at his brother's comments. Not because he disagreed, but what could they do? "Fred's got a point. She'll just as soon send us swimmin in the black as get us out of here. And I got a mighty bad feelin' that as soon as the shootin's done, she's not goin to need us no more." Martin looked around to see if anyone was agreeing aside from Fred. "I mean she's kinda cute, and we could use someone smart enough to run circles around Marselle, but I ain't quite partial to gettin' stabbed in the back. I'll take my fights from the front, and I prefer to have a bigger gun 'an who I'm fightin'."

Martin kept walking and kept pace with his brother. It was a habit. He scanned his periphery. Time on the Rock taught him that the one thing he needed to be mindful of was who was behind him. More than one fight had been started because someone left Chow with an attitude over the potatos and opted to take it out on the poor sap in front of him.

[Jedi_Master_007]

Fred didn't justify Melissa's stupid response with an answer. Now it was clear, more then clear to him that she was bluffing out of her ass. Once the trio of soldiers were out of earshot of that table, Fred spoke while his eyes darted from guard to guard to guard to table to table and back again. "She means to stick a knife in our back. She wants off this rock, but she's too cowardly to do it herself, even tho she got the influence. She wasn't no browncoat and she ain't helpin' nobody. We might need her ta get off this rock, but we don't need her after none. We gonna have enough complications on our own. Bein' all high profile, she's just gonna add'em and she's just gonna hang us out anyway."

Fred glanced over at Marselle as he led the trio to their trays, and then the trays towards the dump off.

[Marselle Qin]

Marselle sat back from his leaning position, and then stood - the guards were starting to shift in that uneasy manner that generally signaled either the end of the meal period or an expected fight. He looked Brains over once, then nodded to her politely. A small tap on each of the brothers' respective shoulders suggested that they move on to catch the larger group - he had the beginings of a plan that needed fleshing out.

[Claymore]

Raynor paused and gave DC a hard look. "Geez, I thought you were joking. I'd help you out if I could DC, but I doubt I got enough to pass as part of the shipment. Hell, I doubt I got enough to last the return trip." He gave his own a funny look, but just stuck it back in his mouth and went back to unloading. "He comin down here? If someone dropped the ball, he might get a price cut or something. I can get them out here next week."

[purplegeekness]

Melissa smiled at Fred. It was an amused smile, as she somehow managed to look surprised and amused. "There was a war?" she said the mock surprised tone in her voice, before it dropped back into a more serious tone. "Fred.... underestimate me if you want. For all you know my real name may....or may not be Melissa Bryant. I may or may not have volunteered to be a browncoat myself. I may or may not have fought beside you on any of the campaigns you and your brother fought in. I may or may not be the Alliance tactician that slaughtered all of your friends. I may or may not be the person that was responsible for funding the entire Independance movement. I may or may not be a master of pentjak silat or escrima. I may or may not actually be a man. If you start off with assumptions, you're only going to get yourself into trouble. You've no idea about who owes me, and who does not. Maybe you should talk to Sam about me to get it sorted." Sam of course, being General Samuel Gibson. "I think that tomorrow I might have a browncoat protector. I don't know. They sort it out amongst themselves. I can only say one thing for sure. I know more about you, Fred, than you do about me."

Brains continued "Now back to the matters at hand. I care if he gets killed, because a lockdown makes everything harder for everyone. A beating is business as usual in this place. A murder.....different altogether. The warden has to investigate those. It makes our.....little journey more complex. The security codes are recoded after any major incident on board the Rock. Honestly. I want things to remain peaceful. The more lax the guards are the easier this whole thing will be. Look at them." her eyes darted to the gantry "We would not be having this conversation if the guards were serious. You would be noted for talking to me for far too long. I do not have a specific time period in which I require to have the box, but we can't really start the plans without it." she looked along the faces of the three men poised in front of her. "Now, once the box has returned. We'll talk seriously about our plans for continuing our story elsewhere. I think we've come to an understanding gentlemen." Brains smiled reappeared "While my panties have never been starched I can understand why you might want to murder the man. My advice to you would be to play it safe. I'll see we share our lunches together for the next two weeks, if you've not recovered it before then I'll extend the time.". Brains suddenly stared off into the distance lost deep in thought. Marselle took it to mean the interview was at an end. At the same time her erstwhile guardians moved back to the table.

Bugeye looked curiously from the table where he remained.

***********************************************************************

DC stepped on baord the tug taking a deep breath.

"You didn't get the message?" he looked nervous, very nervous. "About the cigars? I sent it three weeks ago. Gorramit. The warden was looking for you to pick him up some cigars for him." His eyes darted around the ship. "You got any cigars? Maybe we can fob him off with those. He's on the warpath today. Someone is going to pay the piper if he don't get what he's wanting. I have had a long day and it's going to get worse if the warden doesn't get his gorram cigars."

[Jedi_Master_007]

Fred laughed. It was impossible for him not too. "An by boxed up he don't mean by me, neither. He means 'fore they ever get to me." Fred cracked into a genuine laugh at Brains's mention of sticking him. "Missy, you ain't got the guts ta come after me yerself, blade or no blade, an even if ya did, you're forgettin' something awfully important." Fred waved a hand around the prison, pointing out the many, many browncoats. They weren't the only faction, but they were the toughest. "A guay toh guay nown with all your smarts and all your learnin' ain't never seen no real fight. That's why you got big men that ain't worth a damn protectin' you instead of just browncoats." Fred leaned back and offered up a genuine smile. He was starting to like her, if for no other reason then because she was his kind of stupid - at least when it came to seeing past what was right in front of her.

"See Missy, you don't know me, so I'm goin' to give you a little background story. My brother an me, we got us a couple of fancy medals and more then a few scars that make us both prettier'n a peach. It all came from a nice big fat war. I'm sure a smart lady like yourself done heard all about it. The important part is, Marty'n me volanteered for that war. Same as Marselle here. So you know what that makes us?" Fred shot a glance at the two browncoats with him. "That makes us Big Damn Heroes in a room full of men that would love nothin' more then to bust outta here and stick it to the Alliance one more time." Fred smiled. He looked at Brains evenly, pausing to shoot a glance at her two bodyguards. "Don't push me, an I won't push back."

Fred nodded slowly when he said his peace. He shifted around. "We got folk two tables away tryin' to evesdrop. Might wanna wrap this up soon, but 'fore we do, I got a question 'bout this thing you want. Any certain time you'll be needin' it back by?"

[Ac1ds0ld13r]

Marty was silent for a moment and clenched his jaw. "No offense, meant to you an' yours Ma'am, but introducin' them folk to Fred here is a right good way of gettin' em both boxed up. Your men come off all da chung wu dahn." He shrugged it all off and smiled at her. "Your wantin' us to get the box. We'll get the box bao bei. You'll see. Have it back to you all pretty like. But, why can't we kill 'im? He starched my britches. You ever had your feh wu lit up like it was on fire? I'd reckon not, but then again..." He grinned ear to ear as he looked from her to her men. "It ain't pretty."

Martin's body language indicated that he was kidding, but there was a clench in his body. He was wound tight as a recoil reducer spring you found on a ship's landing gear. Martin was ready for a fight, and the more talk there was about one, the more the man got wound up tight.

Raynor hardly even noticed the expression on DC's face. He figured it just had something to do with the warden riding him or something. "Howdy", he said through the cigar hanging out of his mouth. Then he stepped to the side in a gesture of inviting him in. He only stood there a moment though, before turning around and getting to work loading one of the crates onto the mule. "How ya been DC? Look like ya had a long day."


OC: Thanks

[Marselle Qin]

Marselle simply nodded. As merely an accessory to attempted murder, he had been due to be released six months ago - the murder of his cellmate had earned him two months in the hole and another ten years on his sentence.

Funny, seeing as he'd been asleep the whole time.

"We'll fetch your trinket, ma'am." He said, simply, not waiting for the brothers to respond. He already knew their answer. He extended his hand, holding it out before her. "In exchange, you'll do what you can to keep the story going in more interesting locales."

[purplegeekness]

Brains considered Marselle's question "It's not especially fragile, but at the same point, anyone stepping on it, will crush the components. The housing is made of aluminium, toned dull grey, the same colour as the walls as a matter of fact. Beyond that, it should survive immersion or even digestion. though I would advice against the last. Some of the components should the housing be damaged, could conceivably be toxic in some manner." Her eyes carefully assessed Martin and Fred "No, the box is not radioactive. It has some electronic components that will make our eventual journey much easier."

She moved back in her chair. "How you and your friends retreive the box is entirely up to you. If you can find him in a straight fight then a straight fight would be your solution to the problem. I don't care how badly hurt he is, so long as he isn't killed. I'm only telling you what I want for all of us to get out of here. If you don't want to get out of here then feel free to ignore my request. I'll get it some other way."

A small smirk appeared on her face as she addressed Freds last point. "Fred, in the entire history of this jail, not a single browncoat has ever made parole. Not a single browncoat has ever been released. The warden here has ways of adding time to your sentence. Wait and see. The week before you're due to be released, you'll get into a fight.....inside a prison that's 3 months to 2 years, depending on how bad it is. Even if you just stand there and take it, he'll add 2 years to your sentence and think on this if I really were working for 'the man' all I'd need to do to keep you here for longer would be to ask one of my guardians to introduce himself.....or stick you myself."

******************************************************

Ben's docking was uneventful. The same old boring routine. As soon as the latches closed and the tug became part of the station. It took a long time to power the ship down. A symptom of having no other crew members. As soon as the ship was powered down and working off the umbilical from the station, there was a knocking at the entry hatch to his ship. DC was standing outside looking anxious.

BTW:I liked your intro post so +1PlotPoint.

[Jedi_Master_007]

Fred's attention shifted. At first it looked like he might say something nasty, or that perhaps he might have issued a string of foul curses. Maybe just maybe it looked like he might have responded to Brains's comment about him being too far gone. Instead, he looked at his brother. "Say what? That was him? That ung jeong jia ching jien soh is the one who has been starching browncoat underpants?" Fred looked uncomfortable. His attention went to Marselle to see if he had been having the same problem. His attention went right back to Marty. "Ain't gonna kill'em, but I am gonna break his fingers." He then looked at Brains. "I can break his fingers, right?"

When Fred spoke, he was gruff and a bit more outdoorsy and westernish then most everybody else on the Rock. It wasn't that he used it to be an ass, it's just how he spoke. "Little missy, what you're suggestin' we do is..." Fred's brow furrowed while he searched for the right words. "It's wei shan. Dangerous. Sounds like it involves too much sneakin' about. I ain't got no problems with an up and up fight, but sneakin around like footpads to thieve that which was already thieved don't make much sense."

Fred leaned backwards a little. He shifted then leaned forward again. "My brother and me ain't got but a year left in this joint. You ain't a browncoat. That makes you good as Alliance to me, what with how you sit all pretty as a peach in here. How do we know this ain't some kinda ma fuhn concocted to land us in the luhn guhn?" Fred looked serious. He looked around at everyone gathered and waited on a response.

[Ac1ds0ld13r]

Martin had sat quiet for a long time now, taking up a position opposite his brother to complete the flanking situation. He had been a little more casual about, he thought, but more an likely no. "I don't want leukemia..." He made an almost sad face, but it faded fast. "But I think I know who you're talking about. That bastard keeps starching my underpants, and it makes my parts a right bit uncomfortable. I've been lookin' to add some bruises to him in places ain't no man supposed to have a bruise or twenty." Martin grinned ear to ear. "But I really don't want leukemia." The sad face returned.

[Marselle Qin]

Marselle nodded, the threads of a plan coming together in his mind - several plans, in fact, but more than enough time to narrow it down.

"A few questions only. First-" he said, holding his hand as though he were picking at his nails, and touching his index finger. "This device. Is it fragile, or needing any care or caution besides keeping it sealed?" He moved on to his next fingers in turn. "Second. Do you know if the man carries it on his person, or in his cell? Third..." He said, lifting his eyes from his fingers and watching her carefully. "I don't want or need to know what it is. Or where it came from. Or why a weasel was able to steal it from you. I do need to know, however, if it can harm me or mine in any way. It would be a sore point were some kind of radioactive component to leave me laid up with leukemia in the process."

Ben laughed at what he assumed was a joke about the cigars. He guessed the warden was just making a quip about how often Ben has one hanging out of his mouth when he unloads the cargo.

"Am all out, sorry DC. Tell him he can have my cigars when he gets off his lazy keester and helps me unload something." He laughed again at his own joke. "See ya in a few. Raynor out." He cut the transmission and guided the ship in for docking. Pulling this off smoothly was a lot like a pitcher trying to throw a perfect curve ball from a merry-go-round. But he'd done it so many times before, he could do it blindfolded.

With a soft thud that echoed through the bowels of the ship, rattling a few loose metal plates, Raynor spring up from his chair and headed for the cargo bay. He left the pad that the warden would have to sign off on on top of one of the boxes, which had fallen on the floor when the ship docked. So he picked it up and pocketed it while waiting for them to open the airlock, and mentally double-checking that he had put Saffron safely in her cage already.

[purplegeekness]

Brains watched Marselle speculatively before continuing. "Very well, Mr. Qin. I have something in the nature of a small deed that needs to be done.....and rather serendipitously it needs to be done if we are both to continue our stories outside these walls." Brains looked around noticeably at the security cameras in the hall, noting they were pointing away from her table. "The box is about so...big" she holds her fingers apart to show something about the size of a small matchbox. "The man that took it from me is Ardelle Jones. He gets regularly assigned to laundry duty, but I can arrange for a change in your schedules to meet him. It is vitally important you do not disassemble the box. There are light sensitive components inside the box which I cannot replace easily. You should note Ardelle will be tricky to get a hold of. He seems to have a nose for trouble and can disappear quicker than the eye can see. He's also a notorious weasel and hides behind large friends when he has to....... while I wouldn't particularly mind if he ends up with more bruises than when he started, it's important that he not be killed. We do not need a lockdown. If you can do this for me. I'll do everything I can for us to get out of here."


*****************************************
On the tug AAB/SR/KZ1743-S
*****************************************

The trip was uneventful. The milk runs to the prison were quiet, they always were. You never had any cargo that was worth stealing. The food in the cargo container that the tug was pulling along was worse than the protein bars. You knew the warden was pulling a fast one. The container carried a hell of a lot less weight than it was reported to in the manifest.....but you could always pocket the difference in the fuel cost, and the difference allowed for the little luxuries that made life sane for any man out in space on his own. Real coffee. Occasionally real food.

The ship......was a mess. It was everything you could do to keep it going. You'd bought it in an Alliance auction about 5 years ago. No-one else wanted it, you got it for barely more than the scrap value. When you got it, you could tell it had been used for some less than legal activities. It looked as though a lucky shot had taken out the relays to the ships computer. one shot was enough to turn the tug into a dead hulk in space.....and thanks to your home recently upgrading its computer you had access to a decent second hand one for free. It was worth every penny you spent. Despite her overall mass rating, she was nimble and had a lot of raw power. The only problem was crew. You had it rigged so one person could run it....but realistically you needed more. It was a measure of how rugged the ship was that it was still running despite all of the abuse.

The maintenance Ben had scheduled was just enough to keep the ship going for this trip. He'd need to overhaul it soon. As he sipped at his coffee, time passed until the rock loomed into view. The space station was a toroid, cheapest way to keep gravity on board. All the docking was done on the central pylon. Ben could see the defence system come online as the tug slowly approached with it's cargo. Broadcasting his identity code immediately took the system offline and a friendly voice appeared over the radio. It was Cameron....they called him DC, the Director of Communications. One of the few guys who was on the good side of the warden.

"Hi Ben, you're an hour early, take up docking bay 3. The Warden is looking for those cigars you brought him."

The problem was....Ben didn't get any message about the warden wanting any cigars.

Still some ways away from the prison was the captain and soul crew member of a supply ship about to make his weekly run. It was a good gig his brother hooked him up with. Not his real brother of course, but when you grow up on a cargo ship where half the crew is related to you by blood, you tend to adopt the rest into the family.

The pay was good. More importantly it was steady. And the trip was long, which for some odd reason, made people not like it. Ben Raynor wouldn't have it any other way. And he loved how no one was bitching at him for the smell of his cigars. Sure, there was some risk of raiders, but people in his line of work get that anywhere. This ship was the first one he ran that was armed. But even without that, he knew how to handle himself. How to maneuver the big awkward things to shake loose magnetic grapplers without ripping apart your own hull. Or how to use a hard burn as a last-ditch attack. His father had taught him that one years ago. Basically, the engines are rigged to store the energy to be released all at once. Any ship directly behind it gets crippled, while you get carried off on momentum. Raynor's only seen that one for himself once though, when he was a kid. The trouble is, at best, it'll wreck your engines, and at worst, especially in a Capson thirty engine, the gorram thing just explodes. Gives folks like him a mean reputation though, making raiders think they'd rather die than get robbed.

Ben floated through the halls to the garden. He knew it wasn't a good idea to leave the gravity off all the time, because muscles will atrophy after a while. But once in a while, there was just nothing more relaxing than taking a nap in mid-air. His bird hated it for the first couple weeks till she got use to it. Saffron, named after his late girlfriend. It was some kind of parrot that got itself trapped inside the air ducts. He had no idea how it got in there, because as far as he knew, there was no hole big enough for it to fit through. Sure made getting it out interesting. Most he could figure was at some point a couple years ago when he was still taking on passengers, someone lost their pet and assumed it escaped while at port, rather than call him.

The garden, and wiring the com for music, was really what made these long trips tolerable. The Alliance paid him enough to compensate for some rations, but he would always spend his on fertilizer and batteries for sun-lamps, and just pocket the rest. Protein bars were fine, but they were expensive as hell and tasted like clay. He was never at dock for more than a couple days, so this ship was his home.

If he was lucky, he'd find himself close enough to the Net to watch a broadcast and keep tabs on the core planets. The Net was essentially the use of all supply ships and a designated com channel as relays for broadcasts that they'd otherwise be out of range for. The signal was fuzzy at best. And if you got within range of more than one, getting them to sync up rather than cause an echo effect was tricky. But once in a while ya get lucky. More often than not though, it's just used for telling each other stories and keeping each other some company. These missions could sometimes last for weeks, and that's a long time without any human contact.

Raynor woke up when he floated head-first into the garden door. He groaned and checked his watch. The watch actually had two little faces on it. One for the planet where he'd pick up the supplies, and one for the prison. Permanent jet-lag was part of the job, but at least that kept him on the right schedule. He then threw his ewight forward to flipped around in midair, pushed off the wall, and headed for his quarters for some incredibly fresh coffee. The ship needed a little maintenance he'd been putting off, and he had plenty of time on his hands. This was looking to be an uneventful trip.

[Marselle Qin]

"Walking black alone, perhaps. That doesn't mean cracked and drifting." He said, his tone falling quiet, and quite serious. "Our war records are in your files, somewhere, I'm sure. You know the kinds of things we've seen - he worse than most. Still." He shrugged, returning to the nature of stories, but noticeably calmer, more reserved.

"It would be high arrogance to call myself The Author, Lady. That role's reserved for Someone else. All I am is a character with some stake in the ending, and right about now, we could use our own deus ex machina."

His eyes shone.

"There's a job what needs doing. We have some manner of skills between us. What did you have in mind?"

[purplegeekness]

"Sure looks like he's out in the black all alone." she watched Fred warily. Fred would notice that her minders stayed away at an almost absent minded signal from Brains. "You might be a tad biased in the interpretation of his behaviour, Marselle." She looked as if she was about to leave when Marselle started talking about the nature of his stories. That was enough to make her stop and sit back down.

"Mr. Qin, it is not always in the nature of the author to determine the ending of a story. You wish your story to end outside these walls, I would not be averse to my own story ending outside these walls either, but the nature of the beast is that here.....the editor decides how the story is written, not the author. Unless....you were planning a collaborative effort? You are aware there may be other authors that require to be brought in? I've heard of many planning to write their own story, Mr. Qin.....what makes your writing any different to any of the others that want to write their own stories?"

[Marselle Qin]

Marselle looked over at Fred, saw he was making his "Polite and not talkin' face," and sighed. "Don't worry ma'am. His holds are all still pressurized, he's just maintaining radio silence." He looked back at her, blue eyes shining. "As for what we need... well, I am, like yourself it seems, a fan of stories. I spent my early years in a library. Never did get over the love of them."

He waved his hand around the room, encompasing everything - the inmates, in their starched and stained gray coveralls, the guards, in their gray-and-black uniforms, the gray walls, the gray tables, the graying food. "We are here to ensure that there are more and better stories, and that these stories specifically do not end here." There it was again, that twinkle in his eye, that crooked bend in his smile - the end of his lip raising to almost touch the clean red scar that ran along his cheek. "And if I do not mistake myself, I believe you just mentioned that you had a job that needed doing."

[purplegeekness]

Brains looked at Marselle with keen interest, listening to the story with rapt attention until Marselle was completely finished.

"Bravo sir, bravo. You managed to pique my curiosity and satiate it within a story. A story like that is a gem to be hoarded from the thieves within these walls. Pecan pie indeed." she seemed genuinely pleased at Marselle's words. "But alas, all stories come to an end and the end of all stories is within these walls. What can I do for you?" She seemed unsettled by Freds glance, turning to Marselle, as her bodyguards moved back towards her "I doubt we can work something out with Fred the way he is. I need people to do a job for me, but if he's that badly gone, I can't use him. Prison gets to you after a while, looks like it's really gotten to him."

Edit:+1 Plot point to Marselle for the story.

[Jedi_Master_007]

Fred got up the same time Marty did. He crossed behind Marty and circled the other table from an isle next to Marty's. This was done on purpose. It was old habit, and a simple but effective tactic used to keep the Brothers from being too close to each other if shit were to hit the fan. Coming up on the table the same time Marty did, Fred made sure that his brother could bee-line straight for 43.

Glancing at Brains, Fred opted to take the high road. He didn't acknowledge her with anything more then the 1000 yard stare. No point in talking.

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