A Day In The Life (Parts I & II)

Posted on Apr 08, 2015 @ 12:19pm by Lieutenant James Barton
Edited on on Apr 08, 2015 @ 12:34pm

Mission: Limbo

“A DAY IN THE LIFE, Parts I and II”

(Continued from "Blood Bond")



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“If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.” – Charles Dickens


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LOCATION: LIMBO
SCENE: Forum -> Atria -> Dive Bar
TIME INDEX: Prior to ‘Back to Work’


There was no part of the forum that wasn’t a direct assault on the senses. Simply walking from one end to the other for the bearded man with the long unkempt hair was like being caught in a five-front war.

The first assault was on his sense of smell. The various kiosks and storefront cafes were cooking and serving cuisine from hundreds of different worlds, for dozens on dozens of differing species. As a result, you could catch the faintest whiff of a perfect rotisserie chicken, only to turn your head for a deeper sniff and instead catch the preparation of a slow-cooler dung stew, all while stewing in a miasma of sweat and secretions from a variety of incompatible physiologies. Lots of first timers to the station retched when they first traversed the Forum, which did nothing to improve the aroma. The musk was so heavy that at times he could swear he could feel it coating the inside of his nostrils, his mouth, his tongue. Just taking a walk, he could taste LIMBO. That was the second offense to Jacen Barnes’ senses.

The next offense was the constant din that reminded him of the roar of hungry water. The half-supplicating, half-hostile sales pitches of the merchants, buskers, and restaurateurs ran like estuaries alongside shouted conversations, arguments, cries, and the odd scream into a raging torrent of sound. Wildly divergent languages stormed together like salt and freshwater, a brackish cacophony that never abated. Very often, there was a rushing undercurrent of The Whisper
driving the sound towards him. He found it hard to think his own thoughts when he was caught in that current. It seemed to him that the noise would one day roll over him like a wave, and pull him away from reality forever.

The physical impositions were, for him, the least troubling. After all, at nearly 6’7” and creeping on 280 lbs., he was a
mountain in pants. He wore his chestnut hair long and loose, his beard the same way. That beard was touched, almost imperceptibly, by gray, just under his bottom lip. But for that one tell, he looked every bit the overdeveloped twenty-five year old. He didn't worry about being touched, though he could understand why others felt differently about the physical imposition of the crowds. Sometimes people were touching you accidentally due to carelessness, circumstances beyond their control, or simply the crush of the crowd. Other times, the touching wasn’t inadvertent at all. Mostly, those were people like the
Klingon rabble, the Pit Fighters, or the Black Stars, who took pleasure in pushing strangers around because it made them feel large, or powerful, or important. Less often, but still not uncommon, were the pickpockets. Finally there were the drunks, the fools, and the simply violent. He was smart enough to stay clear of the posturing toughs, quick enough to evade the pickpockets, and large enough that the majority of those just looking to fight tended to look for easier targets.

But if he didn’t sweat the real and metaphorical attacks on his body, he was greatly concerned by the assault on his eyes. Everywhere he went, everywhere he looked, there was
always something moving *too quickly* at the periphery of his vision. The number of different colors worn and displayed by the denizens of LIMBO made it impossible to pick out visual patterns, so it made it impossible to tell when the patterns were broken. Taken altogether, the overall effect was that he was constantly under siege, in danger, at someone else’s mercy. Considering the choices he’d made that led him here, that prospect made his heart race. Those were the things he could barely see, but that were there. Often he would catch brief glimpses of things he could see clearly that weren’t there; those were worse.

He walked down the center of the promenade walkway, hands jammed deep into the pockets of his breeches, paying no heed to the occasional jostle. His head ached, as it often did, and his thighs were still burning from the morning’s yoga session. He was in a bad mood, instead of a terrible or hellish one, so it was comparatively a pretty good day so far. He made his way without pause from the Forum to a seedy drinking hole in the Atria where he knew he’d find Fenk.

Fenk was a thoroughly unpleasant and untrustworthy Ferengi who wasn’t smart enough to ascend the ranks, though it didn’t prevent him from trying. He slithered his way into contact with one of DaiMon Snek’s underlings, and was eternally convinced he was just one big play from gaining the DaiMon’s respect. In the meantime, he was under orders to spend most of his days waiting in a cheap bar, waiting for cheap orders and cheaper payoffs. In his own way, he was as much an outcast as Barnes, but if that was supposed to provoke empathy in the scarred human, it didn’t. Fenk was trash.

The bar was loud when Barnes walked in, but it was a different kind of loud than the walkways of the Forum or the grand staircase. A terrible Bolian cover of a classic Terran jazz piece was being piped in on a piss-poor sound system. The conversation was lower, more muted, but still provided a cushion of sound for the music to rest upon. There weren’t many tables here, there wasn’t room enough for more than a few; instead, a classic horseshoe-shaped bar dominated the whole establishment. Three bartenders jostled and maneuvered around each other behind the bar as they tried to keep up with the never-ending requests for new drinks, stronger drinks, or simply better-made drinks. Barnes saw Fenk nursing a Black Hole all the way at the back. Inwardly, Barnes rolled his eyes, and began trying to find a way to force his massive frame through the tiny spaces available and make his way to the Ferengi.

Fenk looked up in alarm as the giant humanoid shape sidled near him, but he relaxed when he looked at Jacen’s face and when he spoke, his tone was flatly dismissive. “Take a walk, Barnes. I got nothing for you.”

Barnes fixed the Betazoid sitting next to Fenk with a dead-eyed stare. The telepath was obviously drunk, and was on the verge of expressing his offense, when some sober part of his rational mind forced him to appraise Barnes again. His eyes started at Barnes’ feet and began to crawl slowly upward. By the time he’d reached the massive shoulders, he had decided that he didn’t like this bar in the first place, had NEVER liked this bar, and would be damned if he’d spend even one more minute here. He tried to stroll out haughtily, but the effect was ruined when he couldn’t meet Barnes’ eye and muttered, “Sorry,” as he moved around the Human behemoth.

Barnes sat on the vacated stool without comment, his first words were directly to Fenk. “Come on, Fenk. I could use-“

“Kick rocks.” It was a Hu-Mon expression, and Fenk had no clue as to its origins, but he liked it nevertheless.
Something about it reminded him of futility. He sipped his drink and repeated it. “Kick rocks.”

“Get you something,” one of the harried bartenders, a surly looking Klingon, asked Barnes in a tone that suggested he hoped the answer was “no.”

“Bourbon.”

“I’m out of Terran. Got some Tellarite.”

*Then it’s not bourbon,* Barnes thought, but he simply nodded and the Bartender began to pour. *Not even the right color,* Barnes groused silently, looking at the greenish-crème liquor the tender put in front of him.

“Strip and a half.”

“His tab,” Barnes said with a half-nod at Fenk, taking the highball glass in his massive palm.

“Hey,” the Ferengi squawked, wide-eyed.

“I don’t have any money. That’s why I’m here.” Barnes deadpanned with a shrug.

“How is that my…” Fenk trailed off, caught between the disapproving, expectant stare of the Bartender and the disparity in size between he and Barnes. His face twisting up in disgusted resignation, he turned his head to the Bartender. “Fine. Fine! Just the one, though!” Satisfied, the Bartender moved off into some other customer’s world of troubles. “You’re an asshole, Barnes. Drink your drink, leave me be, and go.”

“If I could get some work, I could pay you back.” Barnes turned the glass up and drained a third of it in a sip “Goddamn… that’s terrible.”

“Glad you appreciate it, you ungrateful prick.”

“Not near as much as I’d appreciate a line on some work.”

“Clean out your malformed little ears. I. Have. Nothing. For. You.” Funny how even when species evolved light years apart, they usually sounded the same when being patronizing.

Barnes wouldn’t be deterred. “You have nothing, or you have nothing for me?”

“I have nothing that I’m willing to see blown to Nine Hells by some sloppy drunk junkie who can’t follow instructions.”

“So you have something.” Barnes didn’t take offense at Fenk’s characterization; after all, it was accurate. Or it had been once upon a time…or not that long ago… In any case, it was true then, so he couldn’t blame Fenk for judging him, but it wasn’t true now, and he was dangerously low on funds. So he would take Fenk’s abuse and insults, and sooner or later, Fenk would throw him some do-nothing job from Snek, just to get rid of him, and he wouldn’t have to leave his room again for at least a week. That would be enough to salve the wounds to his pride, if he had any, which he doubted.

“Oh, Hell…”

“What is it? Is it a collection? Folks pay when I come looking. You know that.”

“They pay? Do they Barnes? Because I remember some of them running. I remember some others getting the drop on the big, stupid, hairy, Hu-mon,” each word of the last four words were punctuated by a jab to the chest with Fenk’s squat sausage finger, “that I sent after them. I even remember once when that Hu-mon, through some sort of divine intervention, actually collected the monies I’d sent him after, only to
somehow LOSE THEM in a drinking hole even shittier than THIS one!” A few heads turned as the Ferengi ranted, but not even the employees felt any impulse to actually defend the joint.

“Won’t happen this time,” Barnes said, without inflection.

“I know it won’t. Care to guess *how* I know?” Fenk grinned and his disgusting teeth curved outward, like even they were trying to escape from his ugly face. The punchline to this particular set-up was pretty easy to guess, but Fenk was
obviously intensely amused with himself.

Barnes walked right into it with his eyes open, knowing he was getting close. “How?”

“Because you’re not getting the job!” The Ferengi’s laughter was loud and perfectly suited to his face, meaning it was unpleasant and obnoxious. His belly and his overdeveloped earlobes jiggled as he tapped one hand on the bar repeatedly, making what he must have considered a fantastic production of Barnes’ embarrassment.

Barnes wasn’t embarrassed, but as he watched Fenk pantomime wiping tears from his eyes, he decided that the moment to apply pressure had come. Jacen Barnes was practiced at applying pressure. With a smile, he placed his hand on Fenk’s shoulder. There was no malice apparent; Barnes didn’t do anything nearly so overt as crushing the Ferengi’s collarbone in his fist, but Fenk’s good humor faded immediately. After all, there were deadly predatory creatures on Ferengenar that were smaller than this man’s hand. In this claptrap bar on this nightmare station, there would never be anything like silence, but the absence of Fenk’s grating squeak of a voice was a pleasant change regardless, and he took a brief moment to savor it. Then he spoke, and his voice was strange to him. It was neither angry, nor malicious, nor desperate. Instead it was casual and almost…friendly? It sounded like a completely different man. “C’mon, Fenk. Put your lobes into this. I mean, I need money. You’re sitting on a debt owed to Snek. You could probably talk me out of a higher cut than you could a more professional collector with a better reputation. But, if we sit here like this, just shooting the breeze, drinking this delicious Tellarite bourbon,” for emphasis he took another taste of the glass in his hand and managed to hold back his retching, “then nobody’s situation gets any better today. I’ve got nothing better to do than go back and
sit around with the drunks in the Dungheap, and I don’t even have any stories… except one about one of Snek’s guys not making efforts to track down Snek’s money.”

Fenk’s eyes widened. “Now, hold on-“

Barnes continued without pause. “I mean, it’s not the BEST story. It’s not even particularly new. It’s a tale as old as time, y’know? Underling decides that the Boss won’t miss some percentage of his latinum, makes up some perfectly rational excuses why he’s not able to produce it, and stuffs it under his bunk for a rainy day.” Fenk began subtly shaking his head, almost as if he was already protesting his innocence to anyone who might be listening. “The Boss asks where his money is, his underling explains that he couldn’t find anyone to collect the latinum, so he doesn’t have it yet. Boss asks around,hears the stories some sloppy drunk junkie has been spreading about how Fenk wouldn’t even make an EFFORT to collect, even when there was a willing and able pair o’ hands in front of him. Boss has to start asking himself, ‘What’s the story here?’ Probably has to bring that underling in for a very serious…conversation…about the whole affair.”

Fenk’s mouth was working in misery, but he seemed unable to force words out of it. For a moment, his hands joined his lips in waving ineffectually, and then finally his brain found the proper gear and he could speak again. “Shut up! You shut your mouth! I never-“ His voice trailed off.

Barnes took his hand off of Fenk’s shoulder, and unconsciously wiped it on his breeches. His voice dropped lower in pitch, and it also shed the friendly charm he’d been faking. It was back to the cold, near-dead thing he was used to hearing when he spoke. “I can definitely get you your money…or I can probably get you killed. How much are you collecting?”

“Three bars,” Fenk said, quietly.

*Not much,* Barnes thought. “And you’d offer, most folks, what as a cut? Ten strips? Tell you what…how about I bring you the money and you can give me five. We’ll call the five strips a fuckup tax and you just tack that on to the cut Snek’ll give you.” Five strips of latinum was a pittance, but Barnes could live on a pittance. He also knew enough to know that Snek wasn’t offering much to Fenk for brokering the deal in the first place, so he may have just offered to double Fenk’s profits.

The way Fenk’s brow started working, Barnes guessed he’d hit pretty close to the mark. Knowing enough to know when he’d won, he kept his mouth shut and finished his Tellarite excuse-for-bourbon while Fenk puzzled. Finally, the slimy little alien grinned again. “You’re a real piece of shit, Barnes, and I hate you. Someday I’ll see you dead for threatening me, but for today, you’ve got a deal.”

Barnes nodded. “Buy me another drink to celebrate?”

“Get the fuck out of here.” Fenk slid a scrap of paper with a name, Elx Rodn, and an ddress written on it towards Barnes across the bar. Barnes jammed it into his pocket without looking at it, stood and walked away, the disgusting little jackass watching him go.

“Hu-mon trash,” Fenk muttered into his Black Hole.


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SCENE: Atria
TIME INDEX: During the events of ‘Back to Work’

Barnes stewed as we walked. This wasn’t a good offer – either in pay or in prospects for future work – but none of the offers had been lately. Lately? How long ago was the last good one? A year…more? He shook his head subtly, chasing away the questions. Questions led mostly to nothing, sometimes to
answers, and that was usually worse. It didn’t matter if the job wasn’t the best he’d ever been offered, it was the only one he’d been offered this week and while he didn’t think he’d totally burned his bridge with Fenk, he’d definitely dropped some lit matches on it. He wasn’t in a position to turn down work, even dirty work. As he walked, he glanced casually at the floor to ceiling windows looking out onto the stars beyond and a great many of the ships currently docked at LIMBO.

One of them caught his eye and caused his breath to die in a ragged hiss deep in his throat, his stride faltering. He’d never seen anything like her, but he knew immediately what she was. She didn’t look like one of the classic vessels, not to his mind. The smooth,graceful lines made famous by so many exploratory vessels were cropped and jagged in several places. Her hull wasn’t a reflective silver that graciously reflected back starlight to the cosmos, but instead the dull gray of ablative armor, and it greedily drank and absorbed the light around it, so it hung in space almost like a great grey bruise. The bright and hopeful blue, so common in nacelle design, was instead replaced with a fiery, angry red, and the nacelles themselves were mounted at an angle that almost suggested they were attacking the ship itself. It looked like someone had taken something designed and built for noble purpose and sharpened it until it was only a tool for killing. For all the changes overlaid on her though, she was obviously a Federation starship; moreover, she was a Starfleet vessel. It had been years since he’d seen one in person. She was dangerously beautiful, and though she was still in her docking clamps, even through the kilometers of vacuum and the plasteel windows between them, he swore he could feel her positively thrumming with power, and a desire to slip her bonds and explode into the stars to impose her will on the unknown.

Even now, with four hundred years of research standing between Einstein and modern science, the effects of relativity as it related to time were a mystery to the human spirit. The long years of desperation compressed into a single moment - one easily forgotten – and the scant seconds he spent staring at the strange and familiar vessel stretched languidly into an abbreviated lifetime. For the span of three eternal breaths, he was twenty-five years old again, his friends were alive and waiting for him, the Federation was an untarnished force for good, God was in his Heaven, and he was a man, Hallelujah… Then time had been pulled to the limits of elasticity, and it snapped back like a whip crack across his shoulders. He wasn’t twenty-five, his friends were gone, and he was…whatever he had become.

There were tears within him. There were tears enough that he thought someday they’d drown him, but they lived in his heart and his soul; there was no place for them elsewhere within him. Jacen Barnes’ eyes were dry as he turned away from the windows and the impossible cruelty of the ship outside them, back to the impossible cruelty of life on the station, and began to walk…


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SCENE: Outside the Ferengi Trade Mission
TIME INDEX: During the events of ‘Purple Drink’

The address Fenk had given him was in the Penthouses. That was his first surprise. He hadn’t been to that area more than a couple of times and he couldn’t have said when the last time was if his soul depended on it. The Penthouses were near the upper limits of LIMBO, and it was, other than Tella Yavin’s private suites, the nicest area of the station. Long ago, when LIMBO had a different name, they were the first residential area on the station. Now, it was an area where civilization hadn’t collapsed into bestiality. Residents wore tailored clothing and ate food with honest-to-God nutritional content. It didn’t even stink most of the time. Barnes would stick out there like a sore thumb.

He seldom went unnoticed - his sheer size ensured that - but he very often went unremarked. Amidst the unwashed masses, he was nothing more than another failure, one of a million stories in the naked space station. Standing a head and a half over the majority of the population didn’t matter because everyone knew, no matter how big he was, that his life was just as wasted and wretched as theirs. One more loser in LIMBO; just another dog bites man story. Most people wouldn’t even look twice at him, let alone remember him.

The Penthouses wouldn’t be like that. The foremost issue were the Black Stars who patrolled the area constantly, but he was fairly certain he could avoid them. They didn’t have military precision, but they generally followed Kajek’s orders well and he was a tactical thinker. As such, their patrol routes would be pre-planned and not filled with redundancies. Careful and quiet should get him past the wandering security. What he was more afraid of was that there he would be an avatar of the rich’s worst fears. He would be a walking, talking reminder that they lived over a precipice, filled with the unfortunate. He would be a mocking insistence that, though they had money and influence, it wasn’t enough of either to get them the Hell away from LIMBO. They would fear him on sight. They would hate him on principle.

It would make the job harder.

All these thoughts were with him as he took a turn he didn’t take often and made for a shortcut. A short climb up the (formerly) Grand Staircase, a half dozen elbows to the back and ribs, and a short trek across one of the attached walkways and he found himself in the “upscale” section of the Forums. This was where those who lived in the Penthouses did their shopping. Already, not ten steps off of the staircase, he noticed that instead of being pressed into a mob, passersby were going out of their way to give him a wide berth. He was suddenly making much better time. No one attempted to look into his eyes, and he made no effort to look into anyone else’s. He dropped his eyes to the floor, keeping his head low and his gaze fixed to the floor a few paces in front of him.

A ruckus broke his concentration and he whipped his head, like those around him, to its source. He noted, somewhat amused at the irony, that he’d maneuvered his way, without intention, to a pathway just outside the Ferengi Trade Mission. While he wouldn’t be stepping inside again any time soon (if ever), the latinum he’d be holding in his hands within an hour would find its way behind those doors before station ‘nightfall.’ He noted that there was some sort of confrontation near the door. A human man with a military-style haircut and a goatee was, judging by appearances, about to be eaten by the pair of armored Gorn bouncers at Snek’s front door.

“Brak! Tell him I’m a friend of Brak,” the man called in desperation, backing towards a nearby railing.

*Brak got you killed, friend* Barnes thought to himself, with neither humor nor regret. Somewhere he made a note for himself. *Don’t trust Brak.* There were a lot of names on that list these days. The crowd around him, well-dressed and well-heeled, began to buzz as the human retreated from the Gorn, closer and closer to the edge of the platform they stood on. Barnes stomach rolled over itself as he realized that these moneyed and status-conscious elite were becoming…Lord, no other word for it…aroused at the prospect of seeing this stranger fly, however briefly. He cut his eyes to one nearby woman, with her purple hair swept up into a high, intricate thing that could only be adequately described by using architectural engineering terms, who, as the Gorn reached out for their human quarry, rolled her eyes heavenward in an ecstasy.

Her gasp died on her lips, however, as the human dropped to his knees, out of Barnes’ sight. There were snarls from the Gorn, shocked exclamations from the crowd around Barnes, and then the man was in view again, holding two curved short swords in a defensive ‘x’ in front of him. Barnes couldn’t see how, but he’d moved through or around the Gorn so that now they were standing with their backs to the platform edge they’d almost tossed him from. Barnes looked at the purple haired woman and nearly burst into laughter. She looked like a teenager who had gotten used to the tip and wanted more, only to have her new toy pulled away from her. The frustration and *hate* on her face was the best amusement he’d had in months.

Turning his attention back to the conflict, Barnes was surprised to find, probably due to the purple-haired violence fetishist, that he was ROOTING for whoever the hell that dead man was. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had an opinion on violence he wasn’t involved in, but although he knew it wouldn’t happen, he found himself hoping this man would walk away from the conflict alive. When one of the Gorn charged in, he held his breath, and when the man danced away, swinging one of the swords and spraying Gorn blood in a high arc, he grunted in satisfaction. Purple-Hair glared daggers at him, and he resisted the urge to wink at her. There was a time when he would have taken the risk, but now he understood too well the kind of trouble someone like her could make for someone like him. The risk/reward ratios were too out of balance to make it worth his while to rub someone else's half-win in her face. One of the Gorn bellowed and tried to remove the smaller human’s head from his torso with an open-handed swipe of his claw. The man jumped back, fast enough to keep his head attached, but not fast enough to avoid the blow outright; three bright streams of crimson flowed down the side of his face. Purple Hair gave a pleased ‘harumph’ and smirked sideways at Barnes.

The embattled human juked around another Gorn swipe, planted his toe behind him, and lunged forward with both swords extended. It should have been a killing blow, but he’d either started off-balance or the Gorn armor was better made than first glance suggested, because there was an audible *chunk*, even as far away as where Barnes stood with the crowd, and suddenly the man was disarmed while the lead Gorn had two swords embedded in his chest. Barnes was reminded of a gruesome version of King Arthur’s legend as the second Gorn approached his comrade and unceremoniously pulled his own blade from his partner’s torso. The Gorn Barnes had dubbed ‘Pincushion’ wrenched the other blade from his own chest as well, in a tearing manner that Barnes could tell had caused a much greater wound than the initial stab. Jacen was squarely on Team Whoever-the-Hell-That-Dead-Guy-Was, but he couldn’t help but wince as he watched the lizard’s blood fly.

Barnes couldn’t hear what he was saying, but as he watched the Human back away from the advancing guards, the dead man was holding up his hands in a placating fashion. Jacen knew that posture; not much left now but the dying. ‘Arthur’ and ‘Pincushion’ didn’t look placated from where the observing crowd stood, and step-by-step they were backing their prey to the door of the Ferengi Trade Mission. Then, his back was against the door and there was nowhere to go. Barnes turned to leave; he didn’t care to watch what would happen next, so he didn’t actually see the door open and the human topple into the Mission, but suddenly everyone around him stiffened. In an instant, he’d whipped his head around and realized they weren’t reacting to an immediate threat, so he turned back to the fight.

Snek was there now. He’d met the Ferengi DaiMon a handful of times, back when Barnes' reputation was less tarnished. They’d made each other a fair amount of money, though of course Barnes provided more for Snek than the other way around. When the money he’d been able to bring Snek slowed down, due to circumstance and…otherwise…Snek had given him a few more scars for his collection. Looking at the revolting little goblin, Barnes was amazed to realize that even though Snek had ordered him beaten and tortured for three and a half days, *that* wasn’t even the thing Barnes disliked most about him. Wasn’t even in the top five. For just a moment, he wondered how the universe could have gone so terribly wrong as to be populated by creatures like DaiMon Snek. Then, as he turned towards the dispersing crowd around him, he caught Purple Hair’s eyes one last time. The revolt on her face, the sneer on her lip, wasn’t about their support of rival combatants in a bloodsport. No, this revulsion was just for him being who, and what, he was while having the temerity to be in her presence. She was wondering how the universe could have gone so terribly wrong as to be populated by monsters like Jacen Barnes.

Deflated, he dropped his eyes to the floor and shuffled along towards the Penthouses.

=[/\]=

SCENE: The Penthouses-Elx Rodn's Home
TIME INDEX: After ‘Purple Stuff,’ before ‘Win If You Can’

Elx Rodn was in a grand mood. He was ‘midday’ drunk (as much as one could be on a station with an arbitrary artificial ‘day’), which was his favorite kind, his shrew of a wife had taken the day to do whatever (or whoever, he mused with a sardonic grin) the hell she did, and there was an old-style Parrises Squares tournament final broadcast on vid. The Romulan ‘businessman’ was sprawled on his suede couch, wearing his elegant silk robe, in the middle of his opulent living room, in his luxury apartment on the highest levels of LIMBO, surrounded by all his wife’s worthless shit. ‘Art,’ he sarcastically corrected himself with a snort as he took another hearty swallow of Romulan ale. Some damn idiot had not only talked her into trying a potter’s wheel, the fool had apparently also told her she was good at it. Probably someone looking to camp out in her lady bits – it certainly hadn’t been borne of artistic appreciation. ‘Asshole,’ he mused. Rodn didn’t mind some poor sod penetrating the woman he’d married, if nothing else it kept her busy and quiet while Elx found younger, prettier, more compliant women of his own to take advantage of. But filling her head with notions that she was *good* at something had filled his apartment with vases, pots, and bowls – all of which more closely resembled mutated organs - and that was inexcusable.

The game had been great so far, made even better by the fact that his picks were squarely in the lead with only a few units of play left. One of the losers trying to take money out of his pocket (he liked to take his wagering personally, it made it more thrilling) took an ion hammer to the chest, and Elx roared in celebration, throwing his arms into the air. One of his hands impacted a kidney-shaped candy dish on a shelf behind him and it rocked precariously in place. With a squawk, Elx was out of his chair, spilling the bright blue ale all over himself and the furniture, as he desperately fumbled to right the dish. He hated the dish, and he hated his wife, but he hated it more when she was yelled. Her voice was a high, reedy, scratchy thing and when she screeched at him, he found himself hating all women everywhere. Exl Rodn didn’t like feeling that way; Women were some of his favorite toys, after all.

He turned his attention back to the game, decided that he had already won, and began thinking about celebrating his good fortune. Humming a jaunty little tune, he moved over to his wetbar and refilled his ale cup, drained half of it, and refilled it again. Then he swiveled the communicator screen on the wetbar towards him and keyed in a comm code he’d committed to memory. Moments later, the connection finalized and he was looking at a bored-looking Lurian. “Hello Dunn. I’d like to see Linara.” The Lurian pimp grunted and moved offscreen, a moment later, he was replaced by a stunningly gorgeous young Bajoran woman. When she saw Elx, her face split in a smile much too wide to be genuine.

“Hi, Daddy,” she said, using the pet name he’d asked her to use. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too, my sweet. I want you to come see me.”

“Ooh, Daddy, I’d love to...” she pouted. “But what about your mean old wife?”

“She’s not here. She won’t be back until- Hell, who cares? Just come.”

“Oooh, I will, Daddy,” she cooed. “And so will you,” she cut the line with a wink.

He knew Lurin kept his girls hopping, so he expected Linara within fifteen minutes. He sipped his drink and moved back to his couch. With a frown, he noted that the losers had scored while he was on his call. It wouldn’t be enough to get the win, or cost him his wager, but for the next seventeen minutes, they were his sworn enemies and he cursed any good fortune that found them. He cursed twice in the next five minutes as they scored again. Finally, his team scored again, and though their lead wasn’t nearly as secure as it had been a few minutes ago, things were again moving in the right direction.

There was a chirp that announced a visitor at his front door. He glanced at the chronometer; Linara had taken more time than he’d expected. He’d have to complain to Dunn about that. The Parrises Squares game briefly forgotten, he hopped him and waltzed to his door. There he paused for just a moment, checking his appearance in a mirror mounted in the entryway. He thought he looked rather dashing. Loosening the belt of his robe with a lecherous smile, he swung the door wide. “Hello, my dear, I hope you’re…Oh.” Instead of the nineteen year-old Bajoran sexpot he was expecting, Elx Rodn was staring at nearly two meters of Human muscle and unkempt hair. He was immediately suspicious, and he glared at the intruder as he tightened and reknotted his belt. Straightening to his full height (a full head under the Human), he spoke with a haughty air. “What do you need?”

He noticed the larger Human was holding some type of package. With an obsequious grin, he checked the label. “Mr. Willis Baker? Apartment 221?”

Elx rolled his eyes at the primate’s idiocy. Couldn’t even read apartment numbers. “No, you idiot. This is number 223.”

The furry mongrel waved its stupid cow eyes over his door, his face, the package in its hands. Its green/gray eyes wavered and it looked like it might actually start to weep. “You’re not Willis Baker?”

“No, idiot. I am Elx R-UNNGH!” The mongrel had struck him! It had swung the package it carried and… actually …struck him! Before he could speak, before he could even blink, the Human had placed its giant hand on his chest and pushed. Elx took three haphazard steps backward, trying to keep his legs under his center of gravity, but to no avail. He crashed onto his tailbone as the intruder stepped into his apartment and thumbed the door closed. Elx then began to slide backwards in a seated position as the Human advanced on him. He looked at the package in his attacker’s hands and saw a strange green streak on its corner he hadn’t noticed before. Realization dawning, he raised his hand to his eyebrow where the package had struck him. His fingers came away slick and green with his blood. “You…you… What do you,” he stammered.

“Elx Rodn,” Barnes said, ruining any hope the Romulan had that this was a case of badly mistaken identity. “You owe three bars of gold pressed latinum to a mutual friend of ours.”

“For what? For who?”

“I don’t know for what. The who is Fenk, who’s taken on your debt on behalf of DaiMon Snek.” Barnes loomed over the fallen Romulan, his tone neither angry nor consoling. “Where’s the money, Rodn?”

On hearing, Fenk’s name, Rodn’s temper flared but he kept it hidden. That runted little monster actually sent *goons* to collect a paltry three bars?! He was only three…perhaps four weeks late! He’d have the Ferengi’s ears for ashtrays, and he didn’t even smoke. However, for the time being, he forced a placating smile to his lips. “Oh, Fenk. I understand now.” He looked around and shifted his weight, preparing to stand, laying patter down as he moved. “I swear to you, this is just some kind of mistake.” He reached up and put a hand, palm down, on an end table, preparing to pull himself up. “We can just-“

Before he could blink, the box smashed his face again. Stars danced behind his eyes, and his weight fell back to the floor. The stranger reached out with his other hand, and quicker than a hiccup, grasped Elx’s ring finger. The snap sounded like a pistol shot, and when Elx’s looked at his hand, still resting on the end table, he was almost sick. Four of his fingers were still touching the tabletop; the fifth was pointing straight into the air, its fingertip rotated 180 degrees pointed at him. He stared at it, uncomprehendingly for a moment, like it wasn’t even a part of him. It twitched, almost as if in obscene greeting. Then the pain, and the realization: The savage had all but torn his finger OFF! “No mistake. Where’s the money, Rodn?” The Romulan opened his mouth to scream, and his attacker slapped him across the face, hard. “Don’t do that. Where’s the money?”

His pride wounded by the slap, green color rushing to his cheek, Rodn surged to his feet and snapped at him, “I don’t have it, you ape! I-“

The first two punches were accompanied by the dry snapping of several small bones in his face. The sound of the third was more of a wet crunch. It happened faster than he could even be afraid of it. Time, and Elx Rodn, floated away on black wings of velvet. With the taste of blood from his shattered nose filling his mouth, consciousness mercifully abandoned Elx. He didn’t know how long he was out, but suddenly there was searing pain throughout his crushed face. His eyes opened again and he saw his attacker standing over him, an empty bottle of Romulan ale dripping its last few drops onto him. He was lying amidst the broken shards of his wife’s pottery. He must have collapsed into one of the crowded shelves. The nearly pure alcohol burned like liquid fire in his facial wounds. He started to scream again, and that got him slapped a second time. He clamped down his screams and merely whimpered instead.

His attacker squatted down, nearly to its haunlches, began wiping Elx’s blood from its hands to its breeches, and spoke to him. There was something strange in the Terran’s voice. Rodn would have loved to believe it was remorse, or sympathy, but it wasn’t and, deep in his guts, he knew it. It was a deadness - a disconnect that told Rodn that even though this human was physically in the room with him, brutalizing him, much of who this man actually *was* was somewhere far, far away. That deepened and hardened his fear. “I don’t enjoy doing this, Elx. But I’ll do it all day and all night. I know how to make it last. You won’t die, I promise you. But you’ll wish you did. I’m absolutely willing to destroy your life. For three bars of latinum. You want that?”

“P…” Rodn trailed off.

“What was that?”

Rodn’s voice was an anemic croak. “Please…”

Barnes sighed and reached forward. As his hands neared the Romulan, Rodn tried in vain to pull away, but he was too hurt to do anything but waggle his head uselessly from side to side. Barnes grabbed each of his ears in one hand and held them tight between in his fists. With this grip, he pulled himself and Rodn face-to-face. He could nearly taste the copper in the beaten man’s blood. “After I ask you this one more time, if you don’t answer me, I’m going to tear them off. It won’t be quick, or clean, but I can do it, and I will.” He gave each ear a snug tug for emphasis.

“Please…” Elx’s left eye rolled around the room hopelessly; his right eye was dark and still, like a dead thing. For just a moment, his gaze settled on the vidscreen. The losers had made a last second rally, and won in the final moments by a tiny margin. He’d just lost another six bars. The bastards were hugging and laughing about what they'd done to him. He chuckled once, in despair, and felt blood rise from inside him. He dribbled it out. “Please…”

“Where’s the money, Rodn?”

=[/\]=

Dale I. Rasmussen

~Writing for~

Jacen Barnes
All-Around Nice Guy...Sorta