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Author Topic: MFI's Old Friend  (Read 1630 times)

kv

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MFI's Old Friend
« on: December 28, 2006, 06:42:00 PM »

I sat there, watching the others around the table. It seemed like some of these kids weren’t old enough to shave, much less watch my back on a run. I took a drag on a cigarette while I watched the fixer work over the newbies. He was offering them one half of the total payment of the run, minus his cut from what they knew.

I had known MFI a lot longer, and he knew better than to try and cut that drek with me. His charming smile distracted almost everyone from noticing that predatory look in his eyes. MFI was the lowest rung on the ladder to success- although he’d swear up and down and tell you different, and lie about all the runners he’d made famous.

I’d had soydogs more famous than his ‘greatest hits,’ but I wasn’t looking for fame. I needed money. Not the credstick, either. I needed cold, hard cash. Something I could keep with me. It’s not easy to find people who’ll pay cold hard cash. It didn’t matter to me if it were deutschmarks or newyen, or even the ever-present UCAS dollars, just as long as a handful of bills would get me a place to stay for the night.

I worked with MFI because aside from one little incident where he tried to slip me a briefcase full of corpscript, he’s actually dealt with me on the level. Not that these kids will probably live long enough to get to trust him like that.

Runs are a lot like the porn industry. Some people do it once and decide that they’re not really all that into it; some people need the money that desperately, and some people just love their jobs. The ones you have to watch for are the ones that love their job- those are the fraggers who’ll get you killed. Those chummers are the ones who have firefights for “fun,” or because they get bored. Not that people desperate for money are much better- but at least you know they can’t afford to screw up.

But whatever. I’m a tired old man, and what the frag do I know. I took another drag on my cigarette, keeping quiet while MFI cut the runners one of his classic ‘deals.’ I put out the cigarette and put my hands on the table, folded to make me look a lot more patient than I feel. The daisy eater chicka to my right gives me a look of disgust that she doesn’t bother to cover and tries to fan my cigarette smoke out of her face. I toy with the idea of pointing out that unlike the Seattle pollution she’s breathing in, mine went through a filter before getting into my lungs, but I don’t bother. I have enough enemies, and this girl actually looks halfway compenent. Maybe she’s good enough to keep me alive another few days. Not that I’m going to risk my life on her maybe.

The “leader” of the group tell the rest of us that he’s worked out a deal with MFI, securing us almost half of what the Johnson paid us. I flick a glance at MFI, my Ziess cybereyes watching that ever-perfect smile never budge a nanometer. Maybe the leader hadn’t gotten his fifty percent like he thought. It looked like MFI had cut my share too, because he was avoiding my gaze.

I had known MFI for a long time. Long before he changed his name. Back when his mom used to call him “Meriweather” to his face. A long, long time ago. Who thought all those years ago that we’d end up together, working opposite sides of the table.
I flash back, remembering the “good old days”… something that happens disturbingly often more and more recently. I remember it like yesterday. My parents, poorer than the dirt we were living on, had been forced to move into a neighborhood where the parents who had started having ‘freak babies,’ as the news was calling them at the time- who we now know as metahumans. My parents were ashamed to let me play with the kids in the neighborhood, but they didn’t want me to grow up hateful. They had gotten enough of that from my grandparents. Not that in fifteen years time a black-white marriage or a mulatto baby would make any difference to anyone. We can thank the HumanNation and the “us versus them” attitude that prevailed during those early years for that particular miracle.
Logged
"There are three rules to surviving a gun fight.
1) Shoot First
2) Shoot More
3) Shoot last
   If you can do that, you can survive."
                                 -Samus Bravo
                                (Mercury's Father)
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