Chapter 1: Rome On A Platter

"Come on, doc."

"I want the pay."

"Five percent for a finder's fee? We aren't the cops, now you either tell us or screw off."

"You have no manners, Spiegel."

"Does it matter in what tone of voice I tell you?....... fine, maybe one percent if the info's good."

"You drive a hard bargain, maybe next time I won't even tell you."

"The doctor wouldn't neglect his favorite patient would he?"

--

Faye paged through the last of her new magazines quickly. She was surprised at all of the ads and the lack of an actual magazine. It was what she got from ordering via internet from a site that looked extremely homemade rather than a professional website.

Unfortunately, it was all she could afford with her common trips to the casinos and, in the most common cases, never getting the bounty at all. The last good bounty they had caught was in Ganymede and that was about a month ago.

She looked up at Edward typing, searching for the big 50 million reward. Spike was somewhere and Jet was visiting his contacts. The whole thing was going smooth. At the rate it was going, Faye could easily mooch the info off of Ed or Jet before they all talked it over and could get the whole reward herself.

The door opened and Spike walked through, stretching his arms and looking around. He walked straight to Ed, looking over her shoulder to see if she had dug up anything. All he saw was the messed up websites in a weird looking ocean.

He was never too good at understanding the Internet. That was Ed's thing. He was more about the physical action, while Jet was about research and Faye was a finder, meaning she had an uncanny knack of running into the bounty (sometimes without knowing it) and screwing it up so he could get it.

"Where's Jet?" Spike asked, lazily looking from Faye to Ed.

"So what did the doctor tell you?" Faye asked, calmly, not wanting Spike to catch on.

"Where's Jet?" Spike repeated.

Faye sighed. "Fine, he's with one of his contacts or something, now what did the doctor say?" she asked.

"I'll tell you when Jet gets back," Spike said walking away.

"Hey wait!" Faye stood up, her magazine dropping to the floor. Spike turned to her and she knew she had his attention.

"Say, you tell me now and we split the bounty.... oh... 50/50?" she asked, the words carrying a sound that was meant to tempt Spike into taking the offer.

"I don't think Jet will appreciate that," Spike said.

"Who cares? Look you have to take a risk sometimes," Faye felt that she was actually getting through to him but Spike turned.

"Not interested, besides I would have to answer to Jet and now only you have to," Spike said walking away. Faye's eyes widened as she heard Jet clear his throat behind her.

--

Ed was almost there, she had spent hours hacking the information from the Mars Central Government Files about Edmund Rome and she had almost hit the main source. She removed her goggles for a second and rubbed her eyes. She wanted to be awake when she saw this.

She looked to see Ein sleeping off to the side. He was a in a deep slumber that Ed didn't dare disturb. "Ed must sleep like Ein after this," she said before putting the goggles back on and letting her vision turn colorful from the screen. She had started the hacking program that she hadn't been able to use before because of all the firewalls that she had to get rid off. But now she could use it and she was almost done.

When she finished, Jet would make a special dinner and Spike and Faye would congratulate her and she could sleep. The thought of sleep to Ed felt so absorbing and calm that she was almost tempted to sleep right then. She could dream of fantasies of Jet making a special and Spike and Faye congratulating her because she knew in the real world, it wouldn't happen.

She would get the usual silent praise and then would be ignored. She looked at Ein. Ein would be happy with her though... Ed was mad for a minute and then she realized that this was the way it always was. The crew was way too callous and independent to actually express any real emotion to one another and that was the way it had been. Ed had never shown the crew her emotions either, everything was mutual.

Then the hacking program started and Ed forgot all about the Bebop crew and everything that had to do with them and focused on the smiley faces that were eating through security. Radical Edward had struck again.

--

"So what did the doc say?" Jet asked turning to Spike.

Faye let out an angry growl and looked away from behind Jet. Spike knew that Jet had been chewing her out and giving her a lecture for the past twenty minutes. Spike also knew the feeling that Faye was feeling. A strong feeling of contempt and strangely guilt because Jet had a way with words that could make you feel guilty.

"Said that Rome came into his office about a week ago, he had a bullet hole in his shoulder so the doc fixed him up and then he was gone," Spike explained.

"That's it?"

"Anything else?" Jet and Faye's voices overlapped each other.

"Not really, besides the fact that Rome had a tattoo of a rose on his hand, otherwise I have no description," Spike said.

"What about Big Shot?" Faye asked.

"They got his picture but Ed might just get the info before hand," Jet said. Then he looked from Spike to Faye, before hearing a yell from Ed. Jet, Spike, and Faye hurried into the room to find Ed having a fit on the floor.

"Oh... why o why o why!" she yelled throwing her arms and legs in the air.

"What happened Ed?" Jet asked.

Ed looked at Jet. "Mean hacker broke Ed off!" she cried.

"You got cut off?" Faye asked.

Ein walked forward pushed a button with his nose. A note came up on Ed's message box:

Dear RE,

YoU CaN TrY aLl YoU WaNT buT, It'S NO UsE. i JuSt ShUT U DoWn So dOn't CoMe BaCk. CoNSeQUEnces wIll bE DiRE...

SiGNed,

Mo Use

"Who the hell is Mo Use?" Faye asked.

"Another hacker maybe?" Spike suggested.

"Who the hell is better than Edward?" Faye responded back. Knowing Edward's skill. She had arranged an interactive channel in record time, a very difficult task. Which meant that the Bebop was in trouble if this guy was better than Edward. He could probably infect a virus automatically and Faye knew that it could mean sudden death.

"Well, then? I guess we are out of options," Jet said.

"Big Shots is on," Spike said.

--

"I swear I don't know anything," the large man was holding the smaller man who was panicked. He was just a street punk who happened to have a large enough mouth to attract the attention of such a dangerous person.

The large man's face was serious. He didn't have time to interrogate this guy. This guy acted scared but he should have been honored for being interrogated. It wasn't every day that you met a legend. The large man picked up the smaller man and threw him into the brick wall.... almost.

His hand stopped short and the short man was hanging an inch away from the wall. His pants grew wet and it started to reek. "Now listen to me!" the large man demanded. "I will make sure that your head breaks this wall if you don't tell what I want to know,"

The street punk didn't want trouble; he just wanted to get out of this situation. He looked at the large man. That was it. He didn't care what happened to him anymore. He would tell. "Okay, I'll tell you..."

Rally was going to kill him...

--

Author's Note: So how did you like it? Insight would be greatly appreciated so please read and review. Thanks.