Quoted By:
You had hoped that Horne was done - or that in some miracle, you had actually managed to get through to him - but judging from the agitated way that he is over-correcting his floating, it seems that he is still hot under the collar ... and intent on sticking around. It is enough to make you groan ... but luckily enough, it seems that you aren't the only one here who is exasperated with Horne. One of the other wreckers with him activates their radio, and Horne turns to them. To your surprise, you cannot hear the broadcast - they must not be on the standard band. What a bunch of sneaks! Now, none of your radios have any encryption, so if you really wanted to, you could troll through the frequencies until you come across their conversation ... or you could take this opportunity to leave.
That is not a particularly hard choice, is it?
After switching your radio off, you slowly open up the throttle of your boosters, and trajectorize yourself towards the inverted cupola. Horne, distracted as he is by his conversation does not notice until you are slipping through the hole you cut into the control booth earlier in the shift. You can see him react – presumably angrily, considering how much he is flailing his arms around – but the idiot forgot that he was not on the standard band, so if he is shouting right now, the only ones getting an earful are his two flunkies. Or perhaps suckers would be a more apt description. By the time that he regains enough composure to realize his mistake and switch back to the usual open band, you are slipping through the hatch in the ceiling – and his indignant squawking fades and distorts as the radio waves fail to win through the thickness of the deck. By the time that you have pulled yourself up into the empty storeroom above the cupola and checked the place over for any threats, Horne’s broadcast is nearly unintelligible – and once you close, lock and hand seal the top hatch, there is nothing on the public band but static.
While you are certainly glad to be done with him – again – you find yourself worrying that you are just setting him more and more against you. He is an ass, to be sure, and more than a little obtuse socially – but he is not an idiot, and as you have just seen, he is not without friends … or at least people who will tolerate him. You might just end up having to do something about him.
Now, on its own, that is a proposition, but odds are Boss Barone has “invested” in him, as he has in you. And that makes it a dangerous proposition. There is a level of protection that comes from Barone holding under-the-table-papers on you, as anyone who might seek to hurt or kill you knows that if ever gets out that they are responsible for it, then Barone is going hold them responsible – either fiscally or physically. Possibly both. So, if Barone holds Horne’s papers as well as your own, then … well, if it comes to violence, then perhaps you should get the go-ahead from Barone first.
