xp_logs | Dead Letter Office: We Won't Play Sun City Part 2 (Reply)

Inside the resort's expensive ballroom, all hell breaks loose

The noise was unbelievably loud, almost like a train barreling down on the building. And since Wanda actually had experience with a train heading straight for her, she reacted seconds before something rammed into the side of the building. Even as Emma's voice whispered "watch out" in her head, Wanda's arm wrapped around Sofia's waist and a yank down had both women landing on the floor as one of the walls exploded, sending debris into the shifting and moving crowd, and the noise level increased as screams of panic and pain rose from the auction goers.

Raising her head, Wanda stared at where the wall used to be. It was now occupied by the front of a still slightly moving tractor-trailer and what was worse was that the crowd was either panicking or drawing their weapons. Another look around had her cursing. "Where the hell did Bashur get off to?"

While the tractor trailer had stopped moving, the roar of engines continued and was replaced with the screech of brakes and squealing tires as a dusty and battered Jeep skidded in next to the truck, stopping with one wheel on the rubble of the former wall. The doors popped open almost before the Jeep stopped completely, and both Marie-Ange and Bishop scrambled out, running for cover ahead of what sounded like a strongly out-of-tune rap show percussed with machine gun fire.

"I don't think anyone saw that." Bishop hooked his his arms under Wanda and Sofia to drag them out of the line of fire on his way by as some of the crowd started scrambling for their weapons. "Right now I think we have other things we have to worry about." He slid his pistol from his waist once behind cover with Marie-Ange and the pair, "It's about to get messy."

"About to get?" Marie-Ange repeated silently. A destroyed wall, at least two wrecked vehicles, and at least one auction-goer bleeding out already, it was already messy. She popped her head out from behind Bishop's acquired table long enough for an imaged stack of rubble to build itself, repeating every few feet, to appear in front of the truck. "That is not going to last long at all..." she warned.

Vanessa looked over at her "body guard" and raised an eyebrow. "Aye, they never send us invites when they're going to do that," she replied to her colleague as she pulled Jubilee under a table with her before the gunfire could be turned in their direction. She looked around and saw the American doctor was missing. "Fucking hell," she swore under her breath. Then a reign of bullets came up over the table toward them. The metamorph pulled a small, mostly useless, handgun from under her jacket where it had been tucked into the small of her back and shot out the knees from some of the people attempting to put holes into her.

While the mercenaries had been badly mauled on their way to the auction house, they still had numbers on their side, and as an added benefit, the local police had been well bribed to provide backup. While their leaders were still engaged, they had a plan for this eventuality. Each of the mercenaries had years of professional experience in their native militaries, later refined by service in many of the mercenary units that based themselves out of Symkaria. Their reasons for leaving and joining the Mengo brothers were varied, but it was never due to incompetence; a fact becoming quickly apparent as they closed in ordered fashion, using coordinated fire to pin down the opposition and attempt to reach the truck.

Frightened bidders attempted to flee through the entrances, but found themselves on the wrong end of batons wielded by the local police, paid handsomely to make sure the situation remained contained until the deal was done.

The brief standoff held for a few tense seconds, until a gunshot rang out and the entire ballroom erupted into a grand melee.

***

When Bashur slipped through the doorway that the auctioneer and the pieces entered and left, the room beyond was almost empty. The large men dressed in nondescript clothes with very nondescript guns that turned almost as one towards Bashur were the exception.

Along with the woman who was seated very calmly in the middle of the men, having acquired a chair from somewhere. She was dressed more sharply than the men around her but it was obvious that she was also sporting a flak vest under her business suit. She glanced up from her BlackBerry and smiled sharply. "Why hello there," Devi Gavin said as she slipped the piece of equipment into her purse. "Fancy meeting you in middle of your speedy getaway."

Shocked for a moment by having a plethora of guns, once again, pointed in his direction, it took Bashur a moment to recover his wits. With a raised eyebrow he looked at the woman seated on the chair and took a moment to compare the young woman before him with the toddler he remembered as the bosses' daughter from his days at Infonet. Smoothly, he feigned a smile and swallowed his nerves, putting his hands up. "I'm unarmed, Devi, you can have your men lower their guns."

Still smiling, Devi smoothly rose and placed a hand on the wrist of the mercenary nearest to her. He immediately dropped his aim to point the gun at the floor and the rest of the men followed suit. "Why, my dear Bashur, you act as if you do not trust me."

In the next moment, she had pulled out a gun of her own from the purse on her arm and had it trained to the middle of his forehead. “Good instincts,” Devi mused. “Now, let’s talk, hmm? You have something that belongs to me. And I happen to have a gun – small, quite fashionable and in working order – and a good number of men who are paid very well to do whatever I tell them to. Why don’t we talk business?”

"I personally find it best to discuss business over coffee, not gun oil," keeping the smile up, Bashur slowly lowered his arms. "But, you say I have something belonging to you- so please continue."

"You’re a man of business," Devi continued. "I happen to like that in a man. I’ll make you a deal. If you hand over any, and all, items that belong to Infonet we are prepared to offer you amnesty. You would have the backing and assurance of your continued well being through us, perhaps paving the way for a future working alliance. If you do not wish to hand over our items, Infonet would be willing to pay for your funeral costs."

"Both generous offers, but I have a feeling that the items you are talking about are not something you'd be able to simply rummage around for once you'd put a bullet or two in my brain," his lip twitched as he controlled a contemptuous sneer aimed at this woman. "If you can, then I've obviously been out for too long and have been scanning the wrong files." Taking a cautious step forward, Bashur watched as the obviously dangerous men tracked his movement through their sites.

"I'm willing to hand over the data, but not for something as obvious as 'my continued existence.' One-hundred thousand Euros sounds reasonable when paired with your generous offer of amnesty. With that you also buy my silence to ever having met you and open avenues to continued cooperation between myself and your organization."

"Fifty thousand Euros," Devi shot back, "and information regarding one of our safe houses for your use if you ever come to need it." Her eyes flicked to the door behind him and she smirked. "And from the sounds of it, you just might."

Weighing his options, Bashur doubted he was going to get a better offer and in this case, it could hurt to push his luck. "Tack on the understanding that should we do business again, you leave your private army at home and we have a deal."

"The boys will be quite sad not to see your face again but we have a deal." Devi winced as something, or someone, was slammed against the other side of the door with great force. "On that note, I believe we shall take our leave." She slipped her gun into her purse and crooked a finger at Bashur. "Our deal starts now. Gentlemen, if you would kindly escort the both of us out of here while our guest and I continue our discussion, I would prefer to reach our transportation before that door caves in. Who knows what kind of unwashed horde lies beyond it?"

***

Jubilee had gone on the defensive the moment the truck crashed through the wall, and now she peered through the concrete dust still liming the air, trying to gauge where the threat would come from.

She didn't have to wait for long, as she heard the sound of a foot hitting ground behind her, and dodged the punch aimed at her lower back. She twisted on one foot, pushing herself into the air and hit the bodyguard in the side of the head with her other.

Momentum drew her back around and she settled back on her feet, maintaining her center as she looked at the man now on the ground. She kicked him in the side of the head as he groaned, and then stepped over him, looking around for Morgan.

It was at that stage she saw Arkady headed toward her...

The albino Russian had shrugged off his trenchcoat, revealing arms that could have been carved out of marble. What Jubilee had initially taken for gaunt thinness was a wiry, unnatural physique obviously the product of surgeries and biological enhancements.

"~Now, I finally get to kill something,~" Arkady grumbled in Russian, followed by a low rolling laugh as he stretched his arms - pausing only to shrug off a stray gunshot and pivot lightning-quick, burying a throwing knife to the hilt in the offending gunman's skull before turning back to his prey. "~Would you like to see your own spine, girl?~"

"~Russovich, I have a message for you!~" came a yelled challenge from behind him. Wanda had seen the most dangerous of their targets heading in Jubilee's direction and had fought her way through the crowd to reach them. On her way, she had grimly ruled out using her powers directly on him.

She had no idea if it would trigger his death spore but she couldn't take that risk. Instead, she leveled the gun at him, saying "~Maverick sends his regards.~" as she fired the weapon, activating her powers to cause the bullet to ricochet in a pattern too fast to watch before bouncing back toward the big Russian.

The unpredictable ricochet creased Arkady's temple, making it hard to tell if his bellow of rage was due to the gunshot or the revelation of North's continued existence. "So the coward lives," he mumbled in English before turning his head to take in both Wanda and Jubilee, each standing well away from him.

Despite appearing to hold a tactical disadvantage, the monster known as Omega Red simply smiled, yellowed teeth bared under chalk-white lips. "Perhaps you can prepare a place for him in Hell."

He snapped his arms out to his sides, and the skin of his inner forearms split with a wet sound, like a melon cracking against pavement. From under the flesh, twin tentacles of a greasy white metal slithered out, cracking like whips. One wrapped itself around Wanda's gun and yanked it away to skitter across the floor, while the other coiled around one of Jubilee's ankles, dragging her off her feet.

"Fucker!" Jubilee cried as she was yanked off her feet and into the air. She pulled power from within, and then directed it downward toward the tentacle still holding her ankle. Bursts of plasma tore apart the fabric of her pants, but seemed to do little to the tentacle holding her.

Wanda bodily threw herself to the side as hard and fast as she could, a red glow pulsing from her hands. It almost wasn't enough and she cursed in Russian as she felt one of the tentacles wrap around a chunk of her hair.

Tears sprang to her eyes as Arkady yanked backwards, dragging her by her hair towards him and she couldn't help but think of how ironic it was that it had grown out a little. Careful to not touch the thing in her hair, Wanda grabbed right above it and blasted her own hair with a hex bolt, sending the smell of burning and decaying hair everywhere as she wrenched herself free.

Arkady laughed as he stepped over the body of a Sudanese arms dealer who'd caught a bullet in the neck. The slick tentacles retracted, coiling around his body before sliding back into his arms with a sound like a wet zipper. The wounds seemed to seal back over themselves, with only a wriggling movement visible under the pale skin.

Picking up a knife from the floor, Arkady walked it across his knuckles as he stepped over Wanda, placing one foot on her chest. "~You fight,~" he said with a kind of sick fascination in his eyes. "~I like that. But it is over now, maya krasaveetsa..."

The knife did not have time to fall, however, as a sharp voice rang through the ballroom. "Arkady!" Abraham Cornelius shouted, face red with anger. "Stop fucking around! We have to go! Now!"

Russovich growled, but obediently reversed his grip on the knife without letting up the pressure on Wanda's chest. "The synthesizer, Doctor."

"Now!" Cornelius insisted. "The synthesizer can be acquired later, we have the treatments until then." He paused, then his voice grew lower, more commanding. "Now, gospodin Russovich. We must go now!"

Arkady nodded, kneeling to brush one knuckle against Wanda's face. "I will remember your smell, until we have a moment to play again," he whispered before backhanding her roughly and striding across to rejoin Doctor Cornelius.

With a low groan, Wanda rolled over and pushed herself into a kneeling position. She shuddered in disgust and fear, wiping at her cheek. "~I'll be watching my back, my ugly Russian friend, that much is for sure,~" she muttered to herself, rubbing at her bruised chest as she got to her feet.

"Now where the hell did Jubilee get off to?"

***

"Tch, such a mess," Devi said with a shake of her head as her men fanned out before and around her and Bashur. She didn't bother with her gun - her 'boys' could handle anything, or almost anything, that came at them. Anything they couldn't handle wouldn't be her problem.

Cannon fodder was purchased for a reason.

"The bosses say you haven't wired the money yet." Unfortunately, silence wasn't always purchased with it. "Stan is pissed. He says, and I quote 'wire the fucking money now, you bitch!'. He is angry. You would not like him when he is angry." One of the Mengo Brothers' men shouted to Bashur, ignoring the mutants and the Infonet armed guards. He had his head cocked, carbine slung, listening to his phone for instructions. "You paid for the truck to get here. The truck got here. Actually, right over there. Extra distance for free. Please wire the money now, or I'm sure that he'll set off the charges that they placed in the trailer, uh, there. Big ones. Your cosmetic surgery would not last long against it."

Devi stepped in front of the uncharacteristically silent Gareb and shook her head. "And your boss knows that he will only get his money once my new friend and I are safely out of this building. There are people at Infonet who have been told to expect my phone call in ten minutes and the phone is traceable." She looked him over, from top to bottom. "And I highly doubt you or your compatriots could do my voice good enough to pass muster or know enough to answer the questions they'll be asking me."

"I don't think Stan will like it." He put the phone to his air and spoke in Polish. Then he held the handset several feet away from his head at the furious spate of insults. "He doesn't like it. He says to wire the money now, or he takes a new offer from a very interested freelance assassin for the job of shooting you and your men. It is apparently a good offer. I hope there is dental involved. My teeth, you see. I am not a well man."

She tapped her finger against her chin. There was pressing the limit and then there was being smart and Devi prided herself on doing both very well and knowing when to do both. "One moment, if you please." The phone appeared in her hand like magic and disappeared a minute later. "Tell Stan to check his account and if he happens to be satisfied, tell him I can add in a little extra for some extra help."

"Good. Good." The man waited casually for a moment, chatting away on the phone, before holding it out to Devi. "The assassin? He wants to speak to you. I think the brothers might kill him for what he did to their truck. They loved that thing. It had an all leather interior, and the wheels were perfect for smuggling heroin in. Maybe this is a final wish, like a secret love of skinny northern types with ugly shoes. Here."

He passed the phone over, and a smooth accentless voice came over the line. "Miss Gavin?"

"Hopefully the annoying little man isn't right and this isn't some bizarre last wish," Devi said, "What can I do for you and more importantly, what can you do for me?"

"My name is Gambit. You know it. Your brother is one of my creatures, and it would appear that you've managed to successfully use what could have been a very profitable venture for myself into a victory for yourself. I can't get to the product without an financially unacceptable loss of pawns, and am forced to cede it to you. You should enjoy your triumph." The voice was carefully modulated; pleasant, conversational enough. The kind of voice you hear at your elbow in a bar and instinctively want to like. The only trouble with that was Devi knew what that name meant.

"Now, Miss Gavin, I suggest you make choices about manipulating the members of your family that I own very carefully in the future. Or, I assure you, you will enter your mother's seventh floor corner office one day to find I've used her head as a decorative planter, and will be much longer in finding interesting uses for your body. My record is sixteen weeks, you know." It could have been relating a mildly amusing newspaper article, for the evenness of his tone. "I must be off. Do let your brother know I'll be in touch with him about this at some point in the future."

***

Well, this was just one colossal fuckery of irreducible proportions. Over twenty-five men dead, precious cargo ruined, the police bribe turning out to be totally insignificant. But at least they'd been paid.

The black luxury sedan sped out of the gates of the Sun City West resort, heading for the freeway to Johannesburg. Slowing down slightly over a cattle crossing, the manicured businessman behind the wheel found himself slowing to a complete stop when he saw the two disheveled men standing in the road with high-caliber weapons pointed at his windshield.

One perhaps-overly-excessive display of automatic gunfire later, and the businessman's body slumped out the door onto the dusty highway. Stan and Greg Mengochazcraus glanced at each other, shrugged, then boarded their newly-acquired transportation.

Slipping in a CD of Ukrainian folk covers of American pop songs, the two mercenaries sang along with the refrain as the sedan sped off to the horizon.

At least they got paid.