Part 2- Motivated

By: X

X0832001@yahoo.com

Disclaimer: I still own nothing nor am I getting any money (But I bet we all wish we were getting paid to write fanfiction)

Four Months Latter

Bobby Jenson walked into the dirty dismal bar and sat at a table in the back which allowed him to see everyone without being seen by everyone. It was an old habit he had no intention of breaking. Not that there were many people to see in this place. An old man sat at the counter, hunched over his glass. A young couple gazed at each other and whispered near the front door. A few guys lounged around a central table, smoking, drinking, and adding to the atmosphere in this dump. Of course this whole planet was a dump. Earth, he couldn't wait to leave and get back to Beka. He was due back in 2 days. He'd told his love that he was going to hunt up a few new contacts, maybe get a couple of jobs lined up. She's told him to go have fun. Earth was not fun. But the dump was overrun with Neitzchiens and where those aggressive lab experiments went, there were weapons. That was what Bobby was really after. He was going to start a revolution. Fight for the underdog, have a purpose.

With any luck he could find some dim mudfoot here who knew where and how he could get some warheads. A waitress sauntered by and he grabbed her wrist. The middle aged woman turned around. She was a beast of a woman, short, squat, with wiry black hair and a lovely pink scar running from eyebrow to the corner of her mouth. Flirting information out of her was going to be painful.

"Yeah?" she drawled her Bostonian accent thick as the smoke from the center table.

"Gin and some…" he paused.

"Infahmation right?"

"Yeah" Bobby was a bit surprised. He was a decent looking guy, women tended to be blind to his hidden agenda. "How'd you…"

"Honey, yah ain't from around herah and yah ain't ah Uber. Yah want some infahmation."

"You caught me. I need to get my hands on some Neitzchien warheads."

"Yah must be joking, warheads from thah Ubers?" She walked behind the bar and poured Bobby's drink.

"I take that to mean no one around here steals from your hospitable keepers?"

"Nah, some of the kids- fooahls if yah ask me, they raid tha cahmpound for stuff all tha time. None stupid enough ta go for warheads though."

Bobby thought for a moment as she brought his drink to him. She was probably right; he didn't have enough thrones to blind someone from the danger with money. He'd have to offer something else. He took a long sip from his glass. He tried not to see how dirty it was.

"These kids, can you tell me where to find them?"

"Well, they hang around a bombed oaut building 2 streets up."

"Thanks Babe" he smiled dropping just enough thrones to cover the drink on the table.

"Is that all you're leaving?"

"You should have set a price for you information, can't take it back now."

"You should have smelled your drink fah poison. Plunk ah few more thrones down thar and yah won't die ah heavy metahl poisoning."

"What, you poisoned me?"

"Arsenic"

"What kind of bar poisons people?!" Bobby couldn't believe the ugly waitress had poisoned him.

"This is Earth." Bobby glared at the woman and dropped a few more thrones on the table, a hefty tip. "Nobody looks out for you but you." The scarred waitress smiled and gave him a vile. As Bobby slung back the little glass bottle's contents he mused how much this planet sucked.

XXxxXXXxxxXXXXxxxxXXXXXxxxxxXXXXXXxxxxxxXXXXXXXxxxxxxx

He walked along the cracked remains of a sidewalk. He defiantly hated this planet. Up ahead he saw some rundown buildings, likely the ones that conniving waitress had been talking about. There were people in there, dirty little street punks. By the Divine, could this get any worse?

By the time he reached the building though the street rats had disappeared. Bobby groaned. "Anybody here?" he yelled. Bobby was promptly tackled by 3 featherweights. Growling he roughly pushed the kids off him. "What is it with you idiots on Earth?" As he stood he pulled up one of the hoodlums by his long, greasy hair. "Who's in charge here?" he sneered, disgusted by these half starved wastes of human existence.

"No one man" was his defiant answer. Bobby threw his to the floor.

"I got money and I need a job done against the Neitzchiens!" he yelled to no one in particular.

"Hey! We are rebels, not mercenaries." Spoke up the greasy long haired fellow.

"Shut up Ziggy, hear the man out." Replied one of the other delinquents from somewhere in the shadows.

"Yeah, Ziggy" said Bobby, pushing Ziggy away from him. "I am starting a rebellion of my own. I need weapons, the Neitzchiens have them and I know you guys don't like the Neitzchiens."

"What's to like? They beat us, terrorize us for fun, then they kill your family and cart you off to one of the camps."

"Well, this would be a fine way to get back at them wouldn't it?"

"It would be a fine way to get killed" spoke up a blond tinkering in the back corner.

"You've raided the place before, this is no different"

"Well, we haven't raided that place in a little while; not since Sea-, I mean Harper…" Ziggy was cut off from a glare from the blonde.

"What?" Bobby asked, "A raid go bad, come on guys these things happen."

"No" The blonde spoke softly and slowly "Nothing you are offering is worth the result of getting caught."

Bobby sized up the kid, he was Harper. He was even thinner than the rest of these kids, the look in his eyes were a little more haunted than the rest of them. They'd caught him. He was the one he was going to use.

"Ok" Bobby turned and left. The band of rebels went back to whatever plan of mischief they were currently cooking up. Bobby waited around the corner for Harper to leave. Slightly before dusk the kid came out.

"Kid!" The kid kept walking, fast. Bobby lunged at him and easily sent him face first into the dirt.

"It's almost dark" was his response getting up

"Afraid of the dark?" Bobby teased

"You should be too you big idiot. You're not from around here so I'll give you the low down, don't worry, in 1 syllable words wherever possible. Dark means you can't see; there are things in the dark who take advantage of that. Dark is bad." Bobby sneered; the punk was making fun of him. Responding the best way he could think of, he pushed the boy back into the dirt.

"You're a smart kid, right?"

"Freakin' genius"

"Good, Then I think we can work together on my plan."

"I don't think so. Nothing you can offer would make me go back there and risk what they would do to me. I'd never see the light of day again, I mean, I am an escapee. I'd say they'd put my head on a pike and parade it around Boston as an example, but hey one your head is on the pike you pretty much are past the point of worrying about what they do with it, right?" Dark was closing in and Harper was getting a little antsy, so he was clearly rambling. Bobby couldn't care less about what the boy was rambling about. What he did care about was his plan. This kid could get inside that compound, quite likely he could get the warheads out too. He just needed a little motivation. Bobby thought about what he could offer as the boy finished his ramble about a fish. Why would they put his head on a fish? This kid sure wasn't as smart as he thought he was.

"What if I offered you a way off this trash heap?"

"Really?" the kid was skeptical

"I'm on this ship, got the captain as my girl and she's wrapped around my little finger."

"I'm in" was Harper's reply

"Meet me at the bar 2 streets up tomorrow afternoon at 1"

"The one that poisons everyone?"

Bobby glowered, "yeah"

"Ok" Suddenly the boy's head shot up, "I gotta go" and he jogged off. Bobby watched the runt go. He was such a naive little thing, like Bobby was really going to get saddled with him on the crew roster. He turned to head back to the ship where he would be sleeping. He turned and bumped right into the chest of a large Neitzchien on a curfew patrol. He wound up 5 thrones poorer and received a beautiful black eye for his resistance. By Golly he loved Earth and all of its colorful characters. The faster he was off this planet the better.