Tribal Dealings.



They cautiously eye the empty snow covered sidewalk behind them as they turn down Blunt street towards the dilapidated building known as the Allen Hotel. Rom slowly pulls the army green coat up around his shoulders to fight off the brisk early morning chill. He eyes his partner Grenzel and then looks back for the seconds. The detachment that was sent to be their safeguard. His fellow reds have been getting their asses handed to them on a daily basis for the last seven years they could never seem to get the upper hand in their war with Threshold. This was to be their one good shot and they didn’t want to take chances with it. The three Humans that had been following them through the city for the past twenty four hours did not appear to be Threshold agents. This made Rom nervous, Not knowing who they were or what their interests were, didn’t make them any less dangerous as any ten Threshold agents. Grenzel pulls on Rom’s shoulder and takes him into the alley just below the Allen Hotel. He pauses to light a cigarette and looks around nervously. He watches as his warm breath carries through the cold morning air.
“Tell me again Rom.. Who are these people that we are buying the explosives from?”
Rom gives pause to light his own.
“Mercenaries.” he tells him.
Grenzel rolls his eyes skyward.
“Human mercenaries? You would have us do business with human mercenaries?’
“Do you know of any other kind Grenzel? Do YOU know how to obtain enough of the C-4 explosives that we require for our mission? We need them, their trust can be bought with this money we carry.. They will get us what we require.. Yes Grenzel.. This is necessary.”
As they make their way deeper into the alley a pair of headlights softly blink off and on in the distance. Rom nods to Grenzel who is nervously looking around behind them.
“I don’t like this Rom! We have nothing but solid brick walls on either side of us with no way to escape.. And where is our back up?”
The car in front of them turns its lights off and slowly begins to roll forward. Rom checks his partner.
“This is it here we go.”
Two men emerge from the vehicle and begins to approach the two suspicious reds.
“Did you bring the first payment?”
The two reds nod.
“Half of the money now, and the other half when the merchandise is delivered.”
They think it is almost funny as the first human stumbles and then falls into the snow, but the humor begins to fade as he lay motionless six feet from them. And when the second bullet strikes the second human in the forehead. The reds know.. They are not alone.

In The Mix.



Rom is out in front of him on a dead run through the snow Grenzel eyes the small red dot on the back of his coat as it slowly moves up towards his head. Grenzel blinks and Rom’s head all but disappears. Stunned, he stumbles and falls into the snow bank behind him at his feet, the large shadow that towers above him is now almost twenty feet to his right. Now it moves closer and Grenzel can see the massive figure of a human being staring down at him, but it is mostly shadow. All but the eyes and the faint outline of silver hair catches his attention and then the deep throaty voice that talks to him,
as the large human kneels down to look at the red closer.
“A bit far from the roost aren’t we redman?”
Grenzel doesn’t however appear to be fearful. He rolls on his back and looks up at the stranger, but says nothing.
“Relax boy.” He tells Grenzel. “It’s barely past midnight, save your strength, your morning is just beginning.”
He feels a sharp pain in his lower thigh, and it begins to burn into him as hot as hellfire. And then he blacks out. The large silver haired man stands to meet the first of his two allies.
“Where’s Cavanaugh?”
He nods to the mouth of the alley.
“Were there any others?”
“We took care of their back up, there isn’t anyone else except this one here. Cav should be along in a minute.”
He looks slowly in the direction of the two human bodies.
“Pretty sloppy for Merc’s wouldn’t you think?”
The other man leans forward.
“You think they were working a con on the Reds?”
He studies the dead bodies silently.
“Hmmmph.. It just doesn’t seem likely that these dipshits could get their hands on firecrackers, let alone military grade explosives.”
“Hey Tomb?”
His eyes roll up to meet the voice.
“What do you think the red’s are gonna do with them explosives anyway?”
He lights a cigarette and motions towards the unconscious red.
“That my friend, is what HE’S going to tell us.
The large man slowly stands while looking into the dark early morning sky.
“Load him into the van and get rid of the other three bodies.. And Loki?”
He looks over his shoulder at him.
“Don’t forget the satchel of money.”
A black van slowly rolls to a stop and Loki and Cavanaugh open the doors to load the red.
“Anything else?” Cavanaugh asks.
Loki grins raising the satchel of money.
“Nope.. This about covers it.”

Outside of The Bay.



When he awakens there is straw everywhere as though he were in a barn or shed of some kind. He is bound at the wrist and is hanging from chains extending from the ceiling. “This is not looking good” he thinks to himself.
He can see the large human male more clearly now. He is huge, larger than any red soldier Grenzel has ever seen, close to 6 ft 8 he guesses. Long silverfish colored hair falls to his shoulder s and his face seems weathered and scarred. With one scar in particular that gives him a frightening appearance. It starts at his right eyebrow and travels downward across his eye and down his cheek stopping at the side of his lips.
“Well, I see that you are awake. Sleep well did you?”
Grenzel does not answer.
“You see boy.. I’m not going to waste a lot of time on you. I’m not going to try to scare you into telling me what I want to know. No posturing. No threats. No games. I’m just going to tell you who we are and what we know. And if you can add anything to the conversation so be it, if not, I won’t waste any more time on you, I’ll just kill you and move on until we figure out this little scheme of yours.”
Grenzel doesn’t answer.
“My name is Tombstone. Because I am quite good at sending people to their graves. That fellow there is ‘Loki’ and that is ‘Cavanaugh’. see we’re just three average American guys who do some very bad things to people that we don’t like, and sometimes we even get paid for it. Now.. Let me tell you what we know. We know that you came into Camaroon Bay to buy explosives from those so called mercenaries. And we know that you only brought half of the payment with you and they were going to get the other half after they delivered the explosives. And we know that they were supposedly going to deliver them to NYC to a detachment of you reds sometime next week.”
He stops to light another cigarette.
“See boy I don’t know how smart you dumb red bastards really are, but I have a theory. I think that you were being conned. But see, that’s just a theory. See, we’re being realistic here, and we know that there’s a chance that you weren’t being conned. and those jackasses that you hired to steal military grade explosives really are Merc‘s, and if the explosive are indeed real, well then, this suddenly become a viable threat.. well that thought concerns me a little.. Lets recap.. We know that you only brought half of the money with you.. We know that the two guys that were going to meet with you are dead.. Your partner is dead.. Your back up is dead.. And all because WE killed them. Pay attention boy here is where you come in.”
Grenzel draws a deep breath and silently listens to the man called Tombstone.
“ Here’s what we don’t know.. We don’t know what you reds are going to do with all of those explosives.. Hmmm. So what is it about redman?.. Going to kill a couple thousand innocent civilians because you couldn’t kick Thresholds ass? Pissed off are you? See? we need to know what it is that you intend to blow up.. And more importantly who’s helping you and why your doing it. And if you don’t tell us anything useful, this will end for you quicker than it began.”
The red does not answer. Tombstone stands.
“Well this is a complete waste of time, you obviously aren’t in a talkative mood.”
He removes the weapon from underneath his coat and fires it from point blank range into the skull of the red without so much as a afterthought.
He turns to Loki.
“We’re going to have to do this the hard way. Load the van and get it ready for the drive east.”
“Where we goin Tomb?”
“New York City.”

Scratch.. A.B.T Copyright © 2007

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