The door was locked, but the mirror was already shattered, so he kicked out the remaining glass as quietly as he could manage. He'd gone to all the trouble to wait until he was in a soundproof room to start shooting; he didn't want to draw attention now.
The narrow-nosed man was lying on the floor next to his seat behind the bank of computers. The killing shot had gone through his throat instead of his head, but considering that Fleer had been firing blindly into a mirror, he felt that was still a pretty good outcome. In any case, it got the job done. The narrow-nosed man was no longer a threat.
Fleer looked over the monitors to double-check that he hadn't had time to fire off an alarm.
He hadn't.
Fleer rifled the corpses to retrieve his panic button, datasink, and shoes. Unfortunately, his socks were in an elevator somewhere, so he'd have to go sockless. He dragged narrow-nose's body into the execution chamber. No point in leaving more work for the cleanup crew.
He didn't relish the thought of trying to get out. Even if no alarms were tripped by his escape, the building was clearly already evacuated and locked down. It was going to be a dicey exfiltration. He didn't even know if the Riotfish had been notified by his panic button, but hopefully they'd be able to create enough of a diversion that he could sneak out.
His only concern there was that they'd wade into more trouble than they could handle. He didn't have a lot resources to call in a rescue strike. If anybody got themselves captured, he could kiss the little bit of money they had goodbye.
Assuming the Matters, Inc. security was in the mood to capture, and not kill.
He shook his head. For all their qualities, the Riotfish weren't, well, intimidating. Or great at planning. Or thinking on their feet. Or acting without direction and supervision. If they were even here, surely they wouldn't seem like enough of a threat for security here to take a shoot-first approach?
In any case, it was high time he got out.
With a worried sigh, he carefully laid his hand on the doorknob. He looked back at the computers.
Where there were computers, there were dataports, and where there were dataports...
He released the knob and slowly pulled the datasink from his pocket. He hadn't snagged Adler, but the day didn't have to be a total loss.
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"I don't know, fool!" Adler spat. "I don't ask where they take them! I give the orders, who cares where they're handled? Do you think I ask the janitor where the paper gets shredded?"
D'khara rammed the barrel of his shotgun hard into Adler's gut.
"You watch what you say," he growled as Adler gasped for breath. "Oliver's nice, but I'm just a stupid, angry dwarf. I've been wanting to shoot someone all day, and you've got a real big mouth."
They were traveling down one of the hallways leading from Adler's office. Oliver had a firm grip on the back of Adler's suit, with the expensive fabric crumpled up in his huge fist.
"Maybe downstairs," Adler sulked, once he could speak. "I think we have some processing rooms on the third floor."
Oliver and D'khara glanced at each other.
"Stairs," they said simultaneously.
They banged into the nearest stairwell on the north side. It was a stark contrast to the rest of the building: all exposed concrete, steel supports and bare light fixtures. Some effort had been made in the distant past to paint the area, apparently by sneezing the blandest imaginable gray onto every visible surface. A generic gray placard showed the number "18" in light gray on a dark gray background.
They clattered down the stairs, with D'khara leading the way, and Oliver nearly carrying Adler.
It was only a couple minutes later when they rounded another landing, passing a placard marked "9", and D'khara was blowing hard, but determined not to slow things up. Oliver, despite carrying Adler, had been taking the stairs three at a time, and he was barely even breathing heavily.
"Um, D'khara, would you mind if we rested for a second? I think I need to take a break."
"Yeah," D'khara wheezed. "Yeah. That's smart thinking." He leaned against the wall, drawing in deep, hoarse breaths.
Adler sneered.
"Not very practiced at this, are you? Don't work out much? Shouldn't you two run along and find work you're more suited for? I think we have some openings for secretarial work. They don't have to move around too much."
Oliver shifted his grip, grabbed the lapels of Adler's jacket with his other hand and squeezed. The quality silk and stitching strained as Oliver slowly intensified his grip. Adler gasped as his clothes tightened enough to keep him from breathing.
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"Quiet, hm?" said Oliver. He held the suffocating pressure for a long second, then he loosened his hand.
Oliver's radio crackled to life.
"Guys?" Little Timmy's voice came through. "We've got a little trouble down here. You might want to step it up."
"Roger," Oliver keyed back.
"Where, are the noodles?" Roger's voice squawked back over the radio.
"Um, I meant I heard the message is all. Sorry, Roger."
"Wheeeeeeee!" Then the radio fell silent.
D'khara nodded, gulped in a determined breath and started downstairs again.
After another six flights down, they stopped in front of a door marked "3". They paused again in the stairwell for D'khara to catch his breath.
"I'll warn you," Adler said, "my men are highly trained and well-armed, prepared for any eventuality. You're walking into a deathtrap."
"Two things," D'khara huffed. "One, we left a bunch of your well-trained guys in well-trained chunks on the floor of the lobby. And two, we may be walking into a deathtrap, but you're walking into it first. Hope your guys are well-trained to not shoot."
Adler's lips writhed.
"You... stupid semihumans," he spat, "the best you can hope for is to walk into a stalemate. What do you think will happen if you try to trade me for Fleer? Do you think you can just walk out of here? More troops are being airlifted this very second!"
"I am confident that Fleer has a plan," Oliver replied, and pushed open the door.
The third floor looked as deserted as the eighteenth. Adler was in front, silently pointing their way while being pushed by Oliver. They were followed by D'khara, who was covering their rear.
They rounded a final corner and Adler resignedly gestured at a nondescript metal door with a small sign next to it reading "Processing and Disposal".
They were flanking the door, quietly considering their options when the building groaned, a deep, harmonious cacophony that sang through the walls and shuddered the floor beneath them.
"I think we may have left Little Timmy and Roger alone for too long," Oliver noted.
Adler paled.
"Who are you people?" he asked.
D'khara glared at him with gimlet eyes.
"We're the Riotfish," he said.
Oliver nodded, smashed the door in with his free hand, and thrust Adler through.
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"Well, hello again," Fleer grinned.
D'khara and Oliver piled in behind Adler.
They were in a damaged reception area. A hole dominated the right wall where a mirror had once been, with silvered glass still clinging to the frame.
Fleer lounged near one of the computers, with a small device in his hand trailing wires to one of the computers.
"Fleer?" Adler marveled. "How..."
"You seem to have forgotten how I made my way up the ranks," he said, gesturing distractedly toward the shattered window.
D'khara glanced through the window. There were, or had been, perhaps six or seven men in there.
"At any rate, I had the foresight to bring my little datasink with me," Fleer said, waving the device around casually. "It's so much easier to crack a holonet once you're on the premises. The sink's been soaking up some details here that should be worth a tidy sum on the open market, don't you think? Naturally, you're welcome to bid on it, to keep it out of the hands of other interested parties."
Adler turned white and red by turns, suppressing an apoplectic fit.
"You. Will. Hang for this! I am going to have the old hanging laws dusted off, and I will put the rope around your neck personally!"
"Mmhmm. Perhaps. Once you're back in your office, of course." Fleer looked up from the datasink. "You'll need to come up with 90,000 credits first, though. To fulfill the contract that we came for? Unless, of course, you'd care to explain to the Guild that you filed an insincere contract?"
Adler seethed, but wisely, for once, remained silent.
Fleer unplugged the datasink with a flourish.
"Let's go, men. I think we'll need to clear out of here shortly."
"Yes sir," D'khara and Oliver chorused, grinning.
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In the remains of the atrium, Fleer grinned tightly through his horrified stare.
"Next time we pair off," he said through a clenched smile, "choose different pairs." D'khara nodded slowly while Oliver gaped. Adler started making a choking sound, unable, for once, to find anything to say.
"Many many uptimes!" Roger chirped lustily, warming his hands. He was seated comfortably next to a cozily burning pile of something in the rubble, taking his ease.
"Oh hey, boss-man. Nabbed you a corper?" Little Timmy asked. He was lounging with his feet propped on a loose statue head, practicing spinning his Nealy .45 pistols.
They'd just exited the stairwell into the atrium, taking in the breathtaking destruction that was quickly becoming Riotfish's stock in trade.
"Let's get moving," Fleer said weakly. We'll debrief back at HQ."
"Right, boss!"
"Nibbly biscuits!"
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Fleer smiled at the ongoing celebration in the rec area. Once they'd gotten Adler bottled up and under guard, everybody was in high spirits. They were all high voices and loud laughs, and Mrs. Meade was making cookies, filling the old warehouse with a lovely warm homey smell.
Even D'khara came out of his shell, explaining the dwarvish victory tradition of challenging his fellow combatants to a leg-wrestling match. He'd still been roaring with laughter as they fetched the ladder to help him down from the rafters after he'd challenged Oliver.
Fleer made the rounds, congratulating everyone and soaking in the positive energy in the HQ.
"So David," Oliver said, "how close does this get us to our goal?"
"That's a great question! In addition to the spec contract worth 90,000 credits, I get to negotiate with Adler over this," he said, spinning the datasink between his fingers with a grin. He continued in a hushed voice. "I'm betting I can get at least another 10,000 credits out of him to get this back. No telling what kinds of secrets we managed to hoover up." He raised his voice back to a normal level. "All of that puts us a fifth of the way to paying off what we owe. I'm thinking Pearce will see we're clearly a force to be reckoned with, and back off. Once those credits come through, everything should be back to business as usual."
He grinned hugely.
"So I think it's safe to say that we're solidly past this crisis. Thank you all for your excellent work out there."
A small cheer greeted this, and Fleer waved at everyone as he went back to his office to finish up the paperwork for this job.