A/N: I was a bit unsatisfied with the in-game Dex "conversation", so I expanded it. Hope you don't mind!
I paced the length of the room I used as my office in Purgatory, walking back and forth in front of the humming aquarium, hands clasped behind my back, shooting deadly glares at the kid waiting anxiously in front of my desk. Johnny stood over by the open doors, leaning against the wall with arms crossed, also glaring at the kid.
"It's been three weeks, Brett," I snapped. "What the fuck is the problem?"
He shifted on his feet, nervously glancing from me to Johnny to the floor. "Uh, actually, sir… my name is Ben…"
"I don't give a fuck what your name is right now," I snapped, whirling to face him and causing him to flinch, "I'll remember it when you do something worth remembering!"
"Yeah," Johnny added, moving across the office to stand to the kid's right while still effectively blocking the path to the door. "I thought you said you could hack anything? Been three weeks now, and we ain't seen shit from you. Did you lie to us? Cuz you know, I really hate bein' lied to…"
Gat pulled a Vice 9 from his waistband.
"No," Ben blurted, his eyes going wide as he backed against the edge of the desk. "No, I didn't lie! I can hack… a lot of stuff, but Ultor's file encryption is – is – it's like trying to crack top-secret government documents or something!"
"Benjamin," I said lowly, not knowing if that was really his full name or not and not caring in the least if it wasn't, "I want you to tell me right now, honestly: can you or can you not decipher the files we copied from Vogel's computer?"
"Think hard," Johnny warned. "Bad things happen to muthafuckas who can't follow through on their promises."
The kid opened his mouth, but hesitated to answer. He'd paled considerably since the beginning of our conversation and was now looking a little sweaty. At seventeen he wasn't the youngest Saint I'd recruited, but he was the only one of his age I'd actually allowed to do anything important. And now I was beginning to regret that decision.
"I can do it," he whispered finally, nodding. "I can do it; I just need a little more time."
"How much more time?" Johnny asked.
"I'm getting tired of waiting, Benjamin," I said.
The kid swallowed hard. "I just need another week or two…" He saw the look on Johnny's face and quickly amended his estimate. "A week. I'll have it done in a week."
"Good," Gat said, cocking the Vice. "And if it's not done by then, I'm gonna shoot ya in the knee."
A horrified look crossed Ben's face; he glanced to me with huge eyes, as if expecting me to save him from Johnny's threat. I simply smiled and gave him a nod, because I totally agreed with Gat.
The kid looked like he might faint.
"Oh come on," Johnny drawled. "I've been shot in the knee with a shotgun. It ain't so bad."
I turned to look at Gat, lifting an eyebrow. I remembered when he'd gotten shot in the knee with a shotgun, and he hadn't acted like it wasn't so bad.
"What?" He shook his head. "I ain't sayin' in won't hurt like a muthafucka and make you limp the rest of your life, but it ain't gonna kill ya."
I rolled my eyes, turning back to Ben. "You got a week," I said. "If I can't read those files by then, I'm gonna let Gat shoot you, and then I'm gonna kick your ass. Understand?"
He nodded wordlessly.
"Yo, boss!"
All three of us looked toward the door to see Pierce arrive, followed by a stranger in his late twenties who dressed too nicely to be a Saint. I reached back to grip my .44, but waited to draw. Gat was not so subtle; his Vice pointed at the stranger's head as soon as the man entered my office.
Pierce shot Johnny a glare. "Hey, what the fuck, man? Put that away!"
"Who the fuck is this?" Gat demanded, keeping his weapon level.
"This is Christian Young," Pierce said, somewhat defensively and with an undertone of exasperation. "He knows the code to decipher Ultor's files and wants to help us out. I thought, you know, you might want to meet him. And not blow his head off."
I narrowed my eyes, glancing over Mr. Young critically. He had expensive clothes, carefully groomed hair, and too much cologne. All things that made me distrust a person. "And how does he know the decipher code?" I asked.
"Cuz he works for Ultor!" Pierce said, as if it should have been obvious.
And it should have been. I pulled my .44 and joined Gat in aiming at Christian Young's head. The man held up his hands, taking a step backwards.
"Whoa, whoa!" Pierce moved closer to his guest, knowing better than to stand in between him and me, but still wanting to make a point. "What the hell, boss? I thought you'd be happy to find this guy!"
"The last Ultor piece-of-shit who came here to help tried to kill us," I growled. "Or did you forget that already?"
"No," Pierce insisted, "this guy ain't like Vogel."
"Got any proof?" Johnny asked.
Pierce glared at both of us. "What, just because Shaundi ain't fuckin' him you don't trust him?"
Shaundi was currently working on an Ultor executive, using her charms to pry certain company secrets and plans from him. Admittedly, though, her progress had been slower than usual. The exec she'd chosen was a hard-baller. And I kind of got the impression she enjoyed his wining and dining. A little too much, probably. I'd have to talk to her about that.
"I don't trust anyone on the outside, Pierce," I finally said.
"Well at least give him a chance, man. I mean, what else you gonna do? Wait for Shaundi to get bored with the guy she's workin' on?" He gestured toward Ben, who still stood silently by my desk, hoping we'd forgotten about him. "Wait for what's-his-name over there to finally figure out the code? Come on. Christian can get you that information in a day."
I hesitated, considering. Loathe as I was to admit it, Pierce had a point. And anyway, if worse came to worst, we could always just kill the Ultor bastard and dump his body in the ocean. Or leave his decapitated head on the desk of Ultor's newest Chairman. That thought, at least, made me happy. I lowered my gun.
"All right, Mr. Young," I conceded. "What's your story?"
"Look," he started somewhat timidly, "just for the record, I never liked Vogel, either. He was always a jerk to me."
"Just get to the part where you're useful to us," I scowled.
He nodded, lowering his hands a bit before glancing toward Johnny and then raising them again. "I'm an accountant for Ultor," he explained. "I have access to almost all their encrypted files –"
"Almost all?" Gat interrupted. "That doesn't sound very helpful, does it, boss?"
I shook my head once. "Nope."
"Wait," Christian Young blurted, seeing Johnny get a better grip on the Vice, "I also know how to get you access to the files my password won't get."
"That sounds a little more helpful," I said.
"Told you," Pierce muttered.
"And what's in it for you, Mr. Young?" I asked, crossing my arms. "What reason in hell do we have to trust you?"
He glanced toward Johnny again and licked his lips. "Well, I have no desire to get shot… or killed… or anything like that. And my mother lives in Shivington."
Gat shifted on his feet, getting impatient. "So?"
Young finally looked at me directly. "I know you guys started the fires there and I know you only hit certain buildings – drug labs or something, I heard – but the fire department just let the district keep burning. My mother's house was fine but…" he glanced around to everyone in the room before looking back at me, "but now I hear Ultor wants to bulldoze Shivington. Like what they did with Saints Row. They're telling the public it's because of the violence and fire damage… but it feels like they had it planned for a long time. Maybe they even paid off the fire department to do nothing when it started burning, I dunno. All I know is they're going to tear down my mother's house and leave her with nowhere to go. That house is everything to her. They won't even help relocate her. They haven't even told the Shivington residents what they're going to do yet!"
I was silent for a minute, trying to figure out what this Christian Young might want us to do about his little problem in exchange for his help. Luckily the accountant took our silence for apathy and spoke before I did.
"I know the Saints have no love for Ultor. That's why I want to help you out. Anything you can do to hurt them, set them back, delay the destruction of Shivington, is good for me. Do whatever you want with the information you retrieve, I don't care. Just do something. You're the only ones who have that opportunity."
Now I understood.
I smiled, stepping forward and extending a hand. The man warily took it and I shook it heartily. "Welcome to the club, Young."
"All right," Pierce cheered.
"Fuck," Johnny growled, reluctantly putting away his gun.
I grabbed Young's hand tightly and pulled him toward me, looking him right in the eye, my smile disappearing. "You fuck us over, though, and your mother being out on the streets will be the very least of your worries. You got me?"
He stiffened, staring at me. He searched my face, maybe trying to decide how serious I was. I was very fucking serious, and he must have seen that, because he nodded, also very seriously. "I understand," he whispered.
"Good." I released his hand and looked back to Benjamin, who winced as my eyes fell upon him. "You," I ordered, "make yourself useful for once and help Young out."
"Yes, sir," he croaked.
"Pierce," I said, looking to my lieutenant next, "show our new friend where to get to work."
"You got it, boss."
Twenty-four hours later I stood in my office again, alone this time, shuffling through a huge stack of papers on my desk.
Ultor's secured files.
Or at least some of them. But the information in this first batch of hacked documents alone made my head spin, and my once-dismal opinion of Mr. Christian Young went up a notch. I stopped shuffling at the sight of an employee phone list and pulled it out, lifting my eyebrows. I had been looking for that for a long time now… ever since I recovered the recorded conversations between Julius, Dex, and Troy from the police station. Julius' police file had listed a phone number for Dex, but when I'd tried to call it a recording said the number had been disconnected.
Dex wasn't stupid. If he could be certain of anything these days, he'd know I'd try to find him eventually. He'd know it was only a matter of time…
I found his name; followed the line to his extension, and smiled, pulling out my cell phone. I'd been waiting for this day for months; I wasn't going to waste any more time.
I set the employee list back on the stack of papers as the phone rang. And rang. And rang. I began to pace again, getting frustrated. I told myself Young would know where to find Dex's office if the little bastard didn't pick up –
"Urban Planning, this is Dex."
His familiar voice sent a predatory thrill rushing through me. He'd been hiding all this time, trying to avoid me, but our game of cat-and-mouse was over. Right now, I had the advantage. And I was going to use it.
"Dex," I said, his name twisting wickedly on my lips. "You're one hard motherfucker to find, you know that?"
Silence. Just long enough I thought he might have hung up. "Playa," he finally drawled, sounding like an old friend. Sounding like he did in the old days when he and I were still on the same side. "Good to hear your voice."
"Yeah, I bet," I scowled. "You didn't think I'd forget about you, did you? Didn't think I'd forget about what you did to the Saints?"
"Don't give me that bullshit," Dex snapped back, and the level of his sudden defensiveness surprised me. "I didn't do shit to the Saints and you know it."
"Like hell," I countered immediately. "You knew Troy was a cop and didn't say shit to the rest of us. Didn't do shit about it. You shoulda capped that motherfucker a long time ago!"
"Yeah? And what good would that have done?"
I gave a snort of disbelief, holding up my fingers to count one by one, as if Dex could see them. "Maybe Julius wouldn't have got arrested. Maybe the other twenty or so guys the fucker Troy put in jail wouldn't have got arrested. Maybe I wouldn't have gone to meet Hughes on his yacht. Maybe I wouldn't have got blown the fuck up, you wouldn't be working for some jerk-off corporation, and the Saints would never have lost their control of Stilwater. Maybe I'd still have five years of my life back."
Dex let out a low chuckle. "Oh, I see. You want to blame me for everything that's happened." He scoffed. "I thought you were smarter than that, Playa. I heard you broke into the police station and stole some tapes. You got the conversation right there, you've heard it. Julius was never serious about the Saints. He never wanted to own the city; he just wanted to clean it up. He was more a cop-in-disguise than Troy. Least Troy felt some guilt about what he did. Julius…" Dex trailed off, heaved a sigh. "Julius was the first to drop his flags, Playa. He sold everyone else out to save himself. To be able to walk away. To be able to live a normal life again. He betrayed you, Playa. He betrayed all of us. Without him, without you, the Saints didn't have a chance. I was lucky to get out when I did."
"You're still a fucking sell-out," I growled, my initial anger coming back full force. But now it was backed with an even greater rage toward Julius. I was going to find that man… if it took me years, I was going to find him. He'd destroyed everything I thought I knew, everything I'd worked for, everything I'd believed in, and on top of it all, stolen five years of my life….
"And what else was I supposed to do?" Dex demanded heatedly.
"Shoot Troy," I said simply.
"Look, I don't blame you for the way you feel –"
"Did you know about the bomb?" I asked, tired of listening to his excuses.
"What? No. No, of course I didn't. Are you kidding? I may have wanted out, Playa, but I never would have done anything like that."
"But you helped bulldoze Saints Row. Helped renovate the church. Doesn't sound like you much cared for the Saints, either, Dex."
"I think I liked it better when you kept your mouth shut," he bit off, his tone suddenly sharp.
"And I liked it better when you weren't such a pussy," I growled back. "Don't worry, Dex, I'll be coming to see you real soon." And then I hung up.
I stood there for another long minute, fuming, my hand clenched around my phone. Of all the people I wanted to make pay for what happened five years ago - and what had happened since - Dex was the one uncertainty. Until I'd learned that he'd known about Troy being an undercover cop, I had no proof he'd done any actual wrong against the Saints.
But now I was certain. He'd never been a true Saint. He was just what he appeared to be: a sell-out, a fake, a traitor. His loyalty was with Ultor now, and that made him a problem that needed to be dealt with.
My cell phone chimed, buzzing in my hand. I looked down to see a text message displayed across the screen. I wasn't surprised to find it was from Dex. I was surprised, however, by what it said: don't do anything rash, playa. if you want julius, i know where he is. meet me at the church at 6pm and i'll tell you.
I grunted, shaking my head, and deleted the message. So I had scared him. Good. I wanted the little shit to be scared. I wanted him jumping at noises, looking over his shoulder, dodging the shadows. I wanted him to expect me to take a helicopter through his window like I had with Vogel. And if he thought giving me Julius would keep me from taking vengeance out on him, he was wrong.
But… that didn't mean I wasn't going to meet him at the church and let him tell me where Julius was. I checked my watch. It was almost three o'clock. That gave me three hours to make sure I wouldn't be walking into some kind of trap.
