Greg pounded the tabled with an open hand, causing the empty glasses scattered across it to wobble and dance. “So, haha, Red drops the granade down in there, looks up at us and just says ‘job’s done’, hahahaha”


    I had a pretty terrible view of the whole thing through the video screen. Max had panned the camera over as much as it could, and then zoomed in and enlarged the image until it was blurry and pixelated. Greg was sitting in a semi-circular booth against the far back wall, the table piled with empty glasses and pitchers, trapping three women in skimpy outfits between himself and a timid looking younger man on the other end of the long curved bench. The younger guy had retreated into the comfort of a tablet that he held in front of him like a shield.


    The three women all burst into laughter with varying degrees of authenticity. Greg didn’t seem to care though, and continued to chuckle to himself as he raised an empty glass to his lips and tried to take a drink.


    “Empty? Pudge, get me another pitcher, and whatever the girls want.” He barked at the younger guy, who looked up in surprise before hopping to his feet and giving a hasty salute. He thumped his right fist against his left shoulder, and brushed passed Ali and Rin as they stepped up to the table.


    I saw my friends exchange a glance through the camera, before they stepped up and blocked my view of the table by standing at the end of it. Rin’s somewhat hoarse voice came through with a burst of amplified background music. “Excuse us, Greg? We have a business offer for you.”


    The guy’s voice came through their mic fairly clearly, along with another burst of background noise that was quickly filtered out. “No deals today.” Greg answered, pronouncing each word deliberately and slightly slurred, with an air of lingering amusement. “Can’t you see I’m busy? It’s a celebe– celerbra–, bah, it’s a party night! Have a drink, and introduce me to your cute little friend.”


    Ali stiffened at his words, but remained silent, while Rin continued doing the talking. “We can make it worth your while. What do your normal jobs pay, a few hundred credits? Or Arktrian dollars? We simply need transportation and an escort to the edge of the city, it won’t even take an hour.”


    “I said not now!” He raised his voice and thumped the table again. “I spent the last week on the road, lost two of my guys, and slept in the back of a hauler. Tonight is for fun, not for business. So unless you’re buying the next round or selling your girl’s services, crawl back under whatever rock you came out from.”


    “Ooooh, shit.” Max said as Ali literally shook with anger. Despite the poor view, I saw Ali flash forward and grab the man by his head then smash it down onto the table, overpowering him with swift intensity despite her smaller size.


    In the same instant, all of the lights in the bar started flashing and pulsing, and the music rose to a level that blew out the cheap microphones clipped to my friends that were letting me overhear their conversation. The other patrons either cheered and started to dance, or looked around in confusion as the bartender raised their arms to calm the situation, then started attempting to stop the sudden rave by punching buttons on a control panel built into the wall.


    While the noise and lights distracted the crowd, Ali slammed Greg’s face into the table again and a strangely digitized version of her voice undercut the overpowering music. “My services are sworn to duty, not for sale, freelancer. Something you’ll never understand.”


    There was a bit of a struggle between the two as the larger man fought to free himself from her grip. She shifted her stance and maintained her hold on him, using her body weight to push his cheek back down onto the table after each attempt. One of the girls got up from the table and ran out of the bar, looking back with fearful eyes before she disappeared out of the door.


    Greg’s pained voice came through in a similar robotic manner through her mic. “Fuck you, bitch!” He struggled again and I watched as Ali moved with him, maintaining control of the grapple and forcing him back down. I caught a glimpse of her hand as she grabbed his ear and slammed his face into one of the empty glasses, the sound of shattering glass was almost lost amongst the surging music. Her other hand reached back and I saw her pull a small dark object from her waistline before she pressed it against him and caused him to freeze.


    “Ali! What are you doing!” Rin hissed, and the music finally lowered back down, and the flashing lights ceased.


    “Yeah! Get him! Kick his ass!” Max whooped, jumping in place and punching a holographic fist through the roof of the van.


    I frantically looked back to the mosaic board of security cameras, trying to find the girl who had run off to see where she was going. Max picked up on my thought and laughed again as he enlarged the correct camera feed to show her as she darted into the hostel next door to the bar. “Don’t worry, I got their backs.”


    I could hear more sounds of struggle between Ali and Greg, but kept my eyes on the runner as the camera feed switched over to follow her through the lobby of the hostel. She ran through the small lobby, then blew past an elevator and slammed her way through a doorway into a staircase. The camera view switched quickly as she climbed a few flights, jumping from camera to camera as she climbed each floor. When she stopped climbing and tried to push her way through to one of the hallways, the door wouldn''t budge. I watched her struggle with it for a moment, her face worried and panicked as she wrenched back and forth on the unmoving handle.


    “She’ll be alright in there for a while, but you’re missing the good part!” Max’s voice was almost manic with excitement, and he swept all of the screens off to the side except for the one depicting the situation back in the bar.


    I grit my teeth and returned my focus to Ali as she took out her frustrations on the unruly mercenary. “No wonder you have to pay for it, you repulsive scum.” She continued, and I heard the guy let out a low growl. “I’ll let you keep your ear if you apologize.”


    Rin stood frozen in place as the struggle finished playing out, but Greg just couldn’t let it go. “Get bent, bi– iieeeeek!” His voice rose to a high pitched squeak and petered out as Ali applied more pressure.


    “Dammit… I can’t see shit.” I cursed quietly to myself.Stolen story; please report.


    “Oh, my bad.” Max chirped, and popped up another screen. What started off as a dark window filled with dots and wiggling lines resolved into something similar to the wire-frame darkvision Max had given me in the pitch dark undermountain, but more splotchy and full of fluttering movement and vibrations. The figures shook with a sort of ethereal quality, before tightening, focusing, and then filling out into something like a rendered 3d version of what I assumed was the scene playing out at the table.


    “I finally got a handle on the echolocation thing, the house mics Ali and Thing 2 are carrying suck nuts, but with them being in the station there’s plenty of hardware to gather data from.” Max grinned smugly, appearing at my side as he showed off his work.


    “That’s great Max, but Ali, calm down! You just blew our cover out the window.” I harshly whispered at them, feeling an unconscious need to lower my voice. I spun the little image around for a better angle, and finally spotted that she was holding a small knife near the man''s neck, gripping his ear with the hand that held his face against the table, while driving the pointed window-breaker handle of the knife into the hollow of his collarbone.


    Rin seconded my opinion, this time censoring himself and not calling her by name. “Cool it, soldier. We don’t want to make a scene.”


    Ali turned her glare on Rin for a moment in my little 3D rendered version, and I saw the matching motion in the corner of my eye from the other screen. “Greg here doesn''t want to make a scene either. He doesn''t want to let everyone know some cute little girl got the jump on him, does he?” She dug the handle of the knife a little deeper, and angled her grip to pat him on the cheek with the flat of the blade.


    “N-No, ma’am! Sorry! We can talk, just lay off.” Greg sputtered out.


    “No more yelling or insults. We’re going to sit down, have a drink, and pay you far more than you''re worth for your services.” Ali continued, still not letting go of the man.


    “What?” I asked. “Do we even want his help now that you’ve roughed him up. He’ll betray us the first chance he gets.”


    My friends ignored my comment, apparently feeling differently than I did about the situation. Ali released her grip on him and stepped back, allowing him to sit up and rub his ear as he glared over at them. I rotated my view again to get a better angle as Rin gave Ali a hard calculating look, then slid into the vacant seat opposite Greg at the table. Ali remained standing, looming over Greg as she blocked him into his seat. The two remaining girls had mixed reactions, one of them was grinning and looking up at Ali with wide-eyed wonder, while the other clung to her friend''s arm and looked scared and nervous.


    Rin’s cool voice added weight to the imminent threat of violence from Ali. “Now that you understand how serious we are, let us discuss what you are able to provide for us and what the terms will be. We need armed transport to the city limits to meet with another team, and have approximately three cubic meters of material we need to transfer. Do you have the capability to perform this task?”


    Greg rubbed at his ear, and shot Ali a wary and angry look. He pressed two fingers to his collarbone and frowned when it came back with a red spot of blood from where the spike had broken skin. “You certainly have my attention. You’re awfully confident for someone wanting a job done, we could just kill you and take your shit once we have you out of the control zone.”


    Rin looked over, past Ali’s shoulder, and locked his eyes on the camera for a full three seconds before looking back to Greg. “We have… unusual means, and are not alone. We could make your miserable existence much shorter and even more unpleasant.”


    Greg glanced over at Ali, and then snorted and spat a glob of phlegm and blood onto the table. “What kind of means?” He paused for a moment, considering Rin’s words before continuing. “You saying you’re a couple of spooks? I heard about people like you from DAGER, always stepping on the little guys like me.”


    He eyed them warily, and I watched as the drunken gears struggled to spin in his mind as he attempted to catch up with the situation. If he thought we were from DAGER, the council''s worst kept secret also known as the Department of Abstract Government Espionage and Reconnaissance, we could roll with that. Using the threat of the shady government institution was as good of a cover story as any, and should keep him quiet afterwards.


    Rin didn’t answer his question. He didn’t even flinch a muscle. He met Greg’s skeptical look with level eyes, and his unchanging expression that sat somewhere between bored and disappointed. He stared at the man with his blank look and monotoned. “Who we work for is unimportant, our credits are untraceable and spend as good as any. We need just enough support to deter the local gangers and transfer the goods.”


    The guy''s assistant finally returned, carrying a tray covered with drinks. He stopped and gave Ali a nervous smile before giving Rin a strained and worried look when he found him in his seat. He set the tray down on the table, and when he noticed Ali’s knife he very intentionally slid a step to the side.


    Greg grabbed the pitcher of beer off of the tray and took a long drink straight from it, letting it run down the sides of his mouth to splash onto the table. Then pulled a med-pen from one of his pockets and stabbed himself in the arm with it. He shook his head and let out a huff as the enzymes from the injection pen quickly ate through the alcohol in his bloodstream and rapidly sobered him up.


    While Greg was distracted, the woman who had been staring at Ali with admiration boldly spoke up. “You can have Cherrie’s drink, since she run off.”


    Ali’s eyes darted to the woman, but she didn’t reply and remained focused on Greg as he tossed the spent pen carelessly over his shoulder. He glared back at Rin as he finally answered. “I charge a thousand credits a day, but I want double that to make up for ruining my night, and I want it upfront.”


    Rin’s eyes flicked back towards the camera, and I quickly agreed. I coached him through the ear piece he was using to listen to me. “We can afford that, but there’s no way we’re paying it upfront.”


    Rin nodded, “We will pay 1500, and give you twenty percent upfront. You’ll get the rest upon safe delivery to our secondary team.”


    The two stared at each other while Greg thought over the offer. Ali suddenly reached over and snapped up the drink the call girl had offered her, sloshing a third of the liquid onto the table and causing Greg to flinch in fear at her sudden movement. She gave him a cool look and sipped the brightly colored cocktail.


    Greg’s flinch rattled the table and all of the scattered glasses, before he gave her another wary look. He turned back to Rin and answered. “Fifty percent upfront, you must be really over a barrel if you’re trying to make a deal with me after all that. You’ll be responsible for gate fees as well.”


    “Twenty five, and a two hundred and fifty credit combat bonus if we encounter any issues. You pay the fees and bribes out of your end.”


    Greg flashed a mean grin, which waned slightly as his eyes darted back to Ali when she took another drink. “Fine… we have a deal. I want to see the credits loaded onto chits before we leave though.”


    Rin stood up, ignoring Greg’s extended hand as he offered to shake on it. “We will be in touch with further details, be ready to leave in three hours.”


    Without another word, he stood and walked away from the table. Ali stayed a moment longer to loom over the mercenary and take another sip. Greg avoided her gaze, and a second later she set the drink back down on the table with a victorious smile, before turning and following Rin back out of the bar.