Chapter Fifty-Three - Intimidation

“Intimidating people is hard.

It’s not just about having the biggest guns or the biggest kill-count around, it’s more than that. You need to look scary, talk the right way, walk the right way. It’s not as easy as people think, especially if you have... certain disadvantages.”

--Deus Ex, 2049

***

Meredith Jones had the penthouse rooms with the biggest living room space, so I decided to hold our impromptu meeting in her apartments.

First, though, I had to grab the other two guests of honour.

Stanley had the room next to Meredith’s, so after letting Myalis poke at the card-reader next to the door, I slipped into his suite and tossed a sleeping gas grenade into the bedroom. Stanley was sleeping all on his lonesome in a surprisingly non-fancy set of pyjamas.

The gas silently filled the room, and his snoring continued unbothered.

“Fuck,” I said as I stood next to his bed. I felt a little skeevy now that I’d made it this far. Sneaking past the guards and all felt fine, but standing over a sleeping guy in the dark felt... a bit weird.

Plus now I had to carry him, and Stanley--while he wasn’t fat--still had a bit of a gut and he was a full-grown man.

I tried to princess carry him, but that didn’t work. He was too floppy and I almost smacked myself in the face when his foot kicked up as I tried to grab him under his knees. Myalis didn’t help, and instead played a laugh-track in the background as I tried to pick the man up.

I eventually settled on a fireman’s carry, pulling Stanley’s arms up and then shoving my shoulder against his middle before standing up. Thank fuck for power armour, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to carry him anywhere.

Stanley might wake up with a few bruises from the way I carried him around. At least I only banged his shins against the doorframe, not his head.

I brought him over to Meredith’s living room and dropped him on the couch. Then I realized that bringing people in here might wake her up, so I cracked the door to her room open and rolled another sleep grenade in, just in case.

Next was Will.

His room was way down on the far end of the corridor, and I wasn’t looking forward to having to drag him all the way across.

On reaching his door, I could make out sounds on the other side. People talking. Two women, in fact. I crouched by the door and after Myalis unlocked it for me, opened it just enough to slip a grenade in.

“What’s that?” One girl asked.

Then there was a trio of soft thumps.

Poking my head in, I found that Will’s suite was a lavishly decorated playboy’s wet dream.

It had a bar that ran the length of the room, a jacuzzi off to one side, and an entire wall was taken up by windows that would let him look over the serfs below. The master bedroom was just at the back, a large space with a massive bed taking up most of it.

Three young women were now laying on the floor next to the wrap-around bar. For a moment I had a flash of worry as I saw a spreading liquid under one of them, but it turned out to just be some sort of drink.

Judging by the way they were dressed, these three were here to party. Or... after-party? It didn’t seem terribly lively at the moment.

Probably because it was approaching seven in the morning.

I made sure all three were still breathing before I snuck into the master bedroom, then I sighed. Will was there. As were four more women and a sex bot. They had enough clothes between them to properly outfit maybe one person.

Of course, I took a pic and sent it to Lucy. She’d enjoy my predicament.

Will was slumped over in the middle of the bed with a complication attached to his face. One of those clear masks people with apnea wore. It was tied to some hoses that rose up to the ceiling where a little machine was mounted. “Will that fuck with the sleeping gas?” I asked.

It shouldn’t.

I shook my head and detonated another grenade in my hand, the gases slipping out and spreading invisibly across the room. For some reason, the mental image of a playboy banging four chicks and a sex bot at the same time didn’t mesh with the very unsexy mask.

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Really, in his place, I would have just let the others endure the snoring or whatever.

I had to figure out the best way to approach Will. I wanted to grab him, not the others, and I might feel a bit bad if I had to drag Will’s limp form over any of the girls. So I settled on grabbing him by the ankles and yoinking him down to the base of the bed.

The problem there was that when the covers moved, I realized he wasn’t wearing anything but that sleep apnea mask.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I said. I cringed. He was limp in more ways than one, I supposed.

I kicked through the discarded clothes on the floor until I found some shorts, then I shoved them onto Will. His legs were hairy. It was disgusting.

I didn’t even try to carry him over my shoulder. Will would have to live with the fact that I was dragging his pasty ass across the floor by the ankles.

Of course, as I was leaving the room, I sensed some motion behind me and I spun around, hand going for my gun while I searched the room for whatever had moved. Will’s feet thunked onto the floor next to me.

I found myself staring at the sex bot.

The sex bot which didn’t need to breathe, and who wouldn’t be affected by any amount of sleeping gas.

“Uh,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”

The bot stared. “Are you kidnapping Master Brown?” it asked.

“No?” I tried. “It’s... Samurai business. Don’t, uh, interfere.”

The bot blinked, then laid itself back down, and I found myself entirely uncertain of what to do next.

Myalis hadn’t stopped with the laugh track.

“Okay, enough of that,” I grumped at her as I picked up Will’s ankles again and continued to drag him out of the room. The poor fuck was going to have rug burn all along his back, but it was his own fault for sleeping in the nude and having disgusting hairy legs.

Will’s back squeaked unpleasantly across the marble floor in the corridor, then I dragged him into Meredith’s room. She had a nice couch where Stanley was snoring, so I dragged Will up and sat him there next to his buddy.

Then it was time to fetch Meredith.

She was sleeping next to a man that I wasn’t familiar with, but judging by the bands on their fingers they were either married or they were both cheating. Meredith was, fortunately, a rather small, thin woman, so I was able to pick her up and carry her out of the room without too much trouble.

“Okay,” I said as I rubbed my hands together. That had been more work than I expected. Now... Well, now was the intimidation part of this whole routine, and I was honestly not sure where to start. “Alright, first, Myalis, can you lock them out of their augs? Don’t need them calling on the guards.”

Consider it done.

“Right... so, talking points? Uh... I’d like it if they stopped fucking around. I’m here to remind them that if they do, they’ll find out.” I could probably just empty all of their accounts, but then why did I go through all the trouble of getting them into this room if that was the case?

I started to think, then decided it was too early for thinking and just ordered up the antidote to the knock-out grenade, which was fortunately also aerosolized. Then I started to pace with only an end table between me and the three. At the last moment, I pulled out Void Terminus, my very large, very cool-looking sword, and planted the tip into the floor while I stood in front of the Trio.

Stanley was the first to come to, blinking sheepishly and then looking around. Will groaned next, then reached towards his back with a muttered curse. “What happened?” he asked.

“Good morning,” I said, and all three of them snapped their attention to me. I grinned, even if they couldn’t see it.

Do you want me to turn on the lights?

Ah, I’d forgotten that it was dark. “Let’s turn up the lights a bit,” I suggested.

All three of them flinched as the lights in the living room came on and probably ruined their night vision.

“So, I’ve got some criticism about how the three of you have been acting, and I really wanted you to hear it,” I said. “So here we are! Let’s have a nice chat, huh?”

***