by P. J. Lowry
Meet me at the pub, first round is on me.
As she was walking back to the hanger to grab her speeder, a message from Rogers came back in.
Already there, first round is on me this time. Hurry up before O’Brien drinks the place dry.
Star smiled at the message. While her day had been a crazy one, she was happy to see things were getting back to normal. The capital city was safe again, at least for the time being. If that wasn’t a good reason to get smashed at the pub, Amanda didn’t know what was.
He sat there at his desk, looking a down at the blaster that sat before him. There were several other men in the room, standing there in silence and waiting to be spoken to. The old man had been sitting there for the better part of ten minutes, trying to digest what he had just been told. Years of research, millions of dollars spent on techs working around the clock to build the new algorithm was just flushed down the toilet because one of the beta testers got greedy and tried to hit a store for some extra cash on his way back from the test site. Shots were fired and one of their prototype blasters was seized. Less than ten hours later, the grid had been updated. Their new blasters were useless. They were now just very expensive paper weights. The man stood there and stroked his grey beard, trying to settle his nerves and resist the urge to kill the men that were standing before him, especially the one up front who had vouched for the man that had gone rouge that morning, as his arrogance and inability to grasp the big picture had cost them everything.
“Do you filthy beasts have any idea how much it cost to make these blasters?” he finally asked, “Any idea what so ever?”
When it looked like one of them was about to speak, the old man stood up and grabbed one of the blasters that was sitting on the table and threw it at the wall. The site of the expensive blaster breaking into pieces upon impact with the sturdy wall was enough to scare many of them.
“Millions!” he roared at them, “Worse than that, they were being produced for someone who needed them in two months! Now that person is going to have to roll back their schedule because now he has no blasters to complete his operation. Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is?”
One of the men again tried to speak. “Professor...”
Without warning the Professor clenched a tight fist, which caused an electrical gadget on his arm to activate. Without warning, the man who tried to speak was no longer able to speak or breathe. He stood there, with eyes gaped open and his tongue sticking out of his face and blood coming out of his eyes as the Professor shook his fist until the man collapsed onto the ground, dead before his body hit the ground. Once his was down, the professor opened his hand and the machine on his arm deactivated. He looked back at the other four men who were still standing there in silence.
“No one speaks out of turn!” he roared at them, “If you cannot understand even the simplest instruction, how on all the Earths can I even trust you with these important jobs?”
The men stood there, not making a single sound. They all had the answer but were not speaking out of turn as they were all aware that the professor was again testing their resolve.
“Much better,” he said as he sighed, “I will give you another chance to make up for this enormous blunder. The client was unaware we had cracked the grid, so we will tell them that the algorithm failed. They were aware this could happen and we’ll have to move on with our next operation. If any of you screw up like that again, I promise that you will suffer just like this man has. Are we clear on that?”
The men still stood there and remained silent.
“Get out of my sight before I change my mind.” the professor said with a clear tone of disgust in his voice.
As the men walked away there was another man in the background who didn’t seem as thrilled as he walked up.
“I’ll smooth things over with the client.” he told the professor. “Grant me some extra credits and I’ll wine and dine them to see things our way.”
“Very good, Clive.” The professor said as he patted a few keys on the side of his arm, the very same machine that had activated earlier. “It’s done. Send them my deepest apologies but this blaster thing was a long shot to begin with.”
“That’s how I’ll sell it.” Clive said, grinning.
“I’m glad this amuses you,” the professor said, still unimpressed.
“You need to look on the bright side,” Clive informed the professor, “The Patrol thinks they beat us. They have no idea this is just the beginning. We will make them pay for what they did to us. We also still have the element of surprise; they’ll never see us coming.”
“Yes,” the professor said, as he finally smiled, “That is true.”
“We were just delayed,” Clive continued, “I think our next plan is better anyway. The Capital will fall and then the real fun will begin.”
“I look forward to it,” the professor said, “it shall be glorious.”
