“You ready to go home, pard?”

The ‘horse’s driver looked at the rear-view mirror at Dallas, a wondering look in his framed eyes.

“I wish I could, but it’d seem that bridge has been burned, Mr. Gregor.”

“Gabs, pard. Gabs is fine.”

“Gabs, then, please take me to the port.”

Gabs paused. “Lone Star?”

“The same. I need to go to the North end.”

“Well, if you’re sure. This is a profitable night for me, but I don’t want yuh gettin’ hurt, you know?”

“I know.”

“May we see Secunda, please?”

Austin was not a large man; barely five-foot-ten and slender. But his voice had the musical quality of sun on silk, and his long, flowing locks of dark hair and smoldering eyes rested on Triana’s face. He was a focused contrast to his brother, who stood behind him glaring from under his shaggy mop of hair through his glass-bottle sized lenses of his glasses. At six-feet-plus tall, he looked more intimidating than his brother and knew it, using his height, medium frame and dark long coat to the fullest effect possible. In school, the boys had used their contrasts in looks and shapes to confuse and intimidate more than one bully or teacher, and they fell into their roles here easily.

Triana, having been more experienced in her game than she often let on, kept a cool, smiling demeanor even in the face of Austin’s almost legendary charm and the damaged desk her arms rested on. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “Secunda is otherwise engaged. Perhaps I could arrange something with-”

“No,” Houston said, his facial expression unchanging.

“I…see,” Triana said, looking first at Austin, who kept smiling and waggled his eyebrows, and then back to Houston. “It seems there’s a problem, here. If you’ll just give me a sec-”

“Is there a problem?” said a voice from the stairway behind her. Hardin, now in a more casual outfit of loose-fitting shirt and gray sports-pants with sport-shoes attached, walked from the stiarway’s open door.

Triana stepped back and made way for Hardin.

Austin, seeing the stubble-encrusted, frowning jaw of the man in front of him, smiled wider.

Houston put his hands in his pockets and remained passive looking.

Hardin stepped forward, his eyes narrowing to razor-slits. “An’ exactly why’re both here, gentlemen, if I might ask?”

“We’re in a bit of a hurry,” Austin said, still smiling, “and looking for someone very important to us.”

“And? This someone got a name?”

“Dallas. Dallas Morgan.”

“Get the hell out,” Hardin said in a voice that made Trania take another step back, “Or I’ll be givin’ yah just what he got! ‘Cept I liked him, an’ I don’t like you, so’s I’ll use more than my fists and my shoes ta ‘convince’ you to seek your entertainment elsewhere. Understand?” He waved his fist under Austin’s nose for emphasis.

Austin smiled even wider, without showing his teeth. “Well, good Mister- Hardin, was it? You see, we’re looking for him. I can guess he’s not here now, so if you’ll just tell us where he rode off to- maybe on foot, maybe on a ‘horse- we’ll be off, too.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Aren’t you the pretty one?” Hardin said, his voice softening, his smile widening, and his arms dropping to a relaxed position. “Now, as I recall, I told you, to get -”

Hardin swung at Austin’s face.

Austin, never losing his smile, brought his hand up and blocked the blow.

“DON’T!” roared Houston, both his hands suddenly jumping from inside his pockets, a pair of very odd and homemade pistols in them. A pair of beeps, and then two very loud clicks sounded as a pair of blue dots suddenly appeared on Hardin’s forehead.

For a moment, everything was silent.

Hardin kept absolutely still. Licked his lips. Swallowed. “How- how’d you get those past my scans?” he whispered.

“My brother’s very good at what he does, Mister Hardin. Now, shall we finish our discussion regarding my brother’s whereabouts?”

“I don’ know nuf’fin.”

Austin sighed and held up his hands, turning them front to back. “Mister Hardin, do you see my hands? Hm? I keep them very clean, you know. The kinds of ladies I like to dally with like that sort of thing. It makes me very, very aware of the hands of others, like you. Very coarse, in need of a manicure, and- with the tracest smell of blood on the knuckles.”

Hardin stayed quiet. Houston inhaled, took a step closer. The pistols in his hands and the odd techno-mods attached to them began to whine louder for no apparent reason.

“We’re going to have our brother back, Mister Hardin. I’ll admit, I’m a pretty-boy, and my brother here is a tech-head. And our baby brother Dallas is a great fool - with terrible taste in women!” Austin shouted this last at the stairwell, hoping Secunda would hear it.

The stairs began to creak as someone slowly came down- in a few seconds, it was revealed to be an older woman, perhaps in her mid-forites, wearing a housedress and a robe over it, her eyes squinting in the bright light of the lobby.

“Hardin, I pay you to keep things quiet! What in Samuel-Hill’s goin’ on here?”

“Ah, these gentlemen are asking about the last visitor to Secunda’s room, Momma,” Hardin said, trying hard not to gasp or move, holding Houston’s steady, unblinking gaze.

“Ah, Momma!” Said Austin, moving away from his spot in between Hardin and Houston. “I’ve heard so much about you. Not only from my brother, but-”

As if by magic, a very large, double-barreled rifle appeared in Momma’s hands, her eyes suddenly wide and all pretense of being a frail middle-aged woman gone.

“Ah hear yer from a family of faith, boy,” she said, the lower-class twang in her voice sharp enough to cut logs with. “So’s either git busy leavin’, or you’ll get busy dyin’!”

“You pull the trigger on that, my dear lady,” Austin said quickly, his smile faltering, “you might obliterate us, but you’ll kill your man here, too.”

“He’s fired anyway.”

“What?”

“Shuddup, Hardin! You just brought the whole damned wrath o’ the House of Morgan on my place!”

“Miss Momma,” Houston said, using the kind of voice one might try to use to explain theoretical physics to an idiot child, “you are using a weapon modeled after an Old Earth double-barreled shotgun, one that throws hundreds of tiny, pure, superheated plasma droplets to devastating, shredding effect on its target.”

“So? You know. Git.”

“There’s a good half-second between when you pull the trigger and the charge heats up enough to blast the target. Design flaw known to weapon enthusiasts like me.”

“And?”

“ ‘Means I’ll have more than enough time to turn Hardin’s and your head into big, splattery pieces of abstract art on your wall so ugly, even my brother here wouldn’t hang it on his gallery at one of his parties.”

Austin turned back to his brother, annoyed. “I beg your pardon?”

“Seriously, Aus; remember that last piece you tried to sell to the commissioner? It looked like the flying spaghetti monster with a hangover. Oh, and,” with a flick of his wrist, Houston now had one of his oddly made pistols’ target scope pointed at Momma’s chest. “Lower your weapon, my dear lady. Even the blaster-resistant fabric you’ve hidden in that robe isn’t gonna stop one of my slugs traveling at seventy-five percent the speed of light, and hitting you with the power of a Old-Earth nuclear bomb squeezed into the space of pinhead above your chest.”

Momma blinked.

“Your brother,” Hardin said, “the ‘horse he rode out on prob’ly went Joe and Zeke’s place.”

"What's that?" Houston said, "A bar?"

"No- a hospital."

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