Quoted By:
>Slip around back
>65, 49, 94 vs. DC 68 — Mitigated Success
>Casey: 82, 80, 98 vs. DC 70 -- Enhanced Success
>Everard: 20, 45, 66 vs. DC 65 -- Mitigated Success
Even in your finest moments, you're not much of a negotiator. If you want something, you want it, not half of it or some of the time. Right now, you want Gil back, and you want Casey dead— not later, not someday, but now.
What's that saying, though? You can't have your Gil and eat Casey too? Your blood might be pumping, but you're not so far gone that you'd put your retainer at risk. Unless you can safely dislodge the beetles, you can't get at Casey. Which is what he wants, the smiling bastard. You'll make him chew glass soon enough. For now, you crane your neck. The cologne is wafting from further down the hallway.
Everard Kurz is loitering there, a ways behind Casey. He must think he's out of the fight. Can he fight? He's brandishing no weapons. He's awfully slim. If you got your hands on him, you could <span class="mu-r">r</span>end him end from end, limb from limb, spraying him across the corridor, staining Casey's nice suit, scattering the cowardly beetles. He's far, but he's not running. You're running. Without responding, before anybody else can react, you hurl yourself sideways, claw halfway up the wall, and launch yourself clean over Casey's head.
Casey Kemper points his device straight upward and pulls the trigger. You yourself can't see the pyrotechnics: if only you were loitering at a convenient distance, your gaze intent on the scuffle! If you were, you'd see the device— face it, the really big gun— hum and spin and eject blue forks of lightning, gone as soon as they came, mostly into your body.
>[-2 ID: 5/14]
Many people would die from this. Your heart and brain are generously insulated, and still you clench, spasm, and plummet. Your chin hits the floor first. It's somehow not the worst thing you've ever felt, which is a real indictment of how you've been living.
On the bright side— positive thinking, positive thinking, positive thinking— you have made it to the other side of Casey, even if you're laid out on the floor, twitching. Everard is a few feet away. "That is a fine piece of equipment," he's saying casually.
"Thank you! Isn't she a <span class="mu-i">beaut?</span> I think my wife is jealous of her!" Casey laughs throatily.
You try to envision Casey with a wife, but you're fuzzed out too badly. You can't even imagine Casey kissing his lightning gun, even though you want to. Your enhanced smell receptors are picking up some charcoal. If the real Richard were here, he'd tell you that you're useless. You put yourself at risk. You put your retainer at risk. Your your plan got sold out and you're covered in Wyrm and your brain cells are medium-rare. You went on a stupid death-wish mission and now you're getting your death wish and it's not so fun now, is it? You little girl. You can't do anything by yourself.
(1/3)
