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With a wary sigh, you bring the full brunt of your attention to the unexpected visitors. “Hello, Pierce.” And to his sides, you barely nod in acknowledgement. “McDonald. Shannon.”
No answers from Dumb and Dumber. Unsurprising. Not when they’ve got one Conrad Pierce yanking their chains all across the Duck. And he in turn, has only got eyes for you.
“You guys need help with anything?” I ask dryly. “If not, you can always join our spirited discussion about Old World technology.”
Pierce is at least two inches shorter than you, but his boots make up the difference. You see nearly eye-to-eye, insofar as his standing position, your seated gait. His face is contorted into an ugly frown that spells twelve kinds of trouble. You can only hope that the old man doesn’t get caught in the crossfire.
“You owe me money, slave,” he hisses. “You owe me a whole lot of money.”
“I owe you money,” you repeat, unimpressed. “How do you figure?”
His hand slams down, hard, on the table. Droplets of scurvy-b-gone splatter everywhere as the glass is knocked across the surface. Larkin raises an objection, but he’s overlooked. “Cut the shit, Unami. I know you’ve got friends on the night shift. How much did they pay you to sabotage us?”
Ah, fuck. So, this is his angle. New in his arsenal of trying to fuck with you. It’s almost original in the three years he’s been trying to get the up over a perceived pissing contest you have. You couldn’t give less of a fuck what he thought so long as your ability to work remains undiminished.
Your chair grinds harshly on the linoleum as you stand up to meet him. “Sabotage. That’s what you wanna call it? That’s a pretty serious crime you’re leveling there, Pierce.”
He thrusts a meaty finger, stopping just short of my nose. “There was nothing wrong with the failsafe! You overstepped your bounds, and fucked all our hard work! A fifteen-thousand ducat bonus, gone because of a fucking slave!”
It takes a special kind of stupid to make you angry. You aren’t there yet, but you’re rapidly fast approaching. “I fucked you. Is that what you think? Because I’d hate to see what a rape looks like from your skewed perspective.”
Dumb and Dumber bristle, muscles coiling beneath grease-smeared tank tops. “You dare-”
“Shup up,” you snarl, before turning back to Pierce. “Better that I fuck you than see the Duck suffer a Byford Dolphin. Your recklessness nearly got the shift crew splattered in chunks all across the Belt.”
Predictably, he doesn’t buy it. “The fail-safe would’ve held! LeGrange signed off on replacing the interlocking mechanism, and he’s been here longer than you!”
“And the fact that he’s a beneficiary of a bonus doesn’t make him compromised?” I counter. “Both of you are lucky that I didn’t go directly to the rig manager. Conspiracy to foster an unsafe work environment."
(cont.)
