Disclaimer: Well, of course I own it—WHOA, did you see that pig fly by? That is CRAZY. o.o
Chapter 7: SPY
As he apprehensively returned to the Bebop's main room, Jet decided that he was officially out of ideas. He could call Faye, but what good would it do? She obviously wanted nothing to do with him or Spike anymore, or she wouldn't have taken off. It wasn't her problem, and he had no right to drag her into it.
Crossing the room to go...hell, he didn't even know where anymore...Jet wearily noted how quiet it was, despite the fact that every current occupant of the ship was in the room at the moment. The only real noise was that of Ed's fingers against her keyboard, unless one counted the barely-audible snoring that Ein was emitting as he dozed next to her. Vicious was the most silent of them, having returned to the couch so as not to undermine the training he'd done by overworking himself. He wasn't asleep, but rather could be likened to a statue, remaining within his own thoughts. His arm was draped over his midsection, giving Jet reason to believe that he had probably skipped on painkillers. Not that it really mattered. They were running out anyway.
Jet heaved a quiet sigh, shaking his head a bit. He couldn't stand this. He needed something, needed to know something. This helplessness was driving him insane.
"How long would they need?" he asked at length, pausing briefly before turning his eyes to Vicious. The question was almost rhetorical, but any kind of answer would have satisfied him right then.
"Clans differ," Vicious replied plainly. In other words, Jet was sure, Vicious was stating once more that just because he was in a syndicate, he didn't necessarily know everything about every syndicate. Frowning with frustration, Jet looked away from him.
"So you don't know what they'd need the extra time for."
"No."
"...Or what they'd have set up for when we get there?"
"No."
Jet was silent for a long moment. He was well aware that he was behaving very much like a cop in interrogation, but he really couldn't see any other options. He was getting nowhere.
Then, something occurring to him, he swallowed hard, then drew breath and spoke once more:
"...How would you do it?"
This time, it was Vicious who laid somewhat questioning eyes on him. The bounty hunter refused to look away from an apparently fascinating spot on the wall, but let the question linger in the air. He was serious. Interesting.
Vicious turned his gaze away then, allowing himself a moment to consider the question. Catching sight of Ed's e-chess board on the floor nearby, he let his eyes go somewhat unfocused in its general direction, using it to picture the most likely situation.
The atmosphere that fell over the room, Jet noted, was not unlike what had settled over the deck before, just before Vicious had gone inside. Jet felt as though he was touching on something big, and a little dangerous. The man he was talking to had completely taken over an entire crime syndicate, with only a handful of men behind him; and Jet was about to bear witness to the workings of the mind that achieved something of that scale.
At length, Vicious finally spoke.
"They won't have had time to formulate an ideal scenario," he commented quietly. "Slaine said that you were an unexpected factor. You caught them off guard. They won't have anything overly complex." His eyes never left the chessboard, as though the scene was playing out upon it. "The Jade Crows are intelligent enough as a syndicate. They'll start with something predictable. Perhaps a dozen gunmen to supervise the tradeoff, then to see to it that you never leave the room." At Jet's frown, Vicious glanced at him briefly. "They aren't going to let you out of there alive. You're a liability."
His eyes returning to the board, Vicious continued. "The gunmen will be a front. They know that your line of work makes it necessary to know how to outdo the situation. You would get a sense of security from something simple and equivocal.
"Should you get past the gunmen—they should assume you will—there will be a trap waiting for the moment you relax your guard. People forget that a bullet isn't the only way to die.
"It could be a strategically-placed explosive hidden in the last man's sleeve. More likely, in yours. Or in Spike's." At that, Jet's eyes shifted; that's right, assuming they staged the tradeoff, he would have Spike to worry about, too.
"If there is more than one open floor, they may position a sniper to take you out from the second. One of the gunmen may drop during fire, feigning death, so that he can throttle you from behind when you drop your guard. Nothing involving more than that. They won't waste resources on you.
"There is also their trump card: the men stationed around this ship. Slaine made no implication that they would escort you to his location. Keeping you here is not their only function. Should you return here alive, you won't set foot inside this ship."
At once, as Vicious had known it would, Jet's gaze immediately shot to Ed, his eyes sharp with alarm. Jericho Slaine had threatened her too; and if Vicious was right, Jet was under no false impression that they would leave her alone. A glance at Vicious' expression only confirmed Jet's suspicion. That could not happen.
That said, Vicious went on quietly. "Whatever they're using the time for, the wait won't last much longer. A day. Two, at most. With each passing day, their advantage is slipping. It won't be allowed to go on longer than it has to."
Suddenly feeling a bit overwhelmed by their odds, Jet rubbed the back of his head, looking to the ceiling. "So we have no time," he finally murmured, mostly to himself. And no plan, he added to himself silently. That little detail would have to change very quickly if either of them wanted to get out of this alive.
So, he had to think. Right now, he was the one with the advantage, as Vicious had made it obvious to him what the most immediate threat was. If they could get rid of the Crows outside the ship beforehand, Jet could leave the ship without worrying for Ed's safety. The problem: he had no idea how many Crows there were, or where they were.
"Alright," Jet began slowly, after thinking for a moment. "Say we take out these guys," he gestured toward the ship's entrance, "before the deadline the guy sets. That solve anything?"
"...Assuming word doesn't reach their employer," Vicious replied shortly. He was starting to look a bit ragged, his fingers occasionally giving a slight twitch over his midsection when he inhaled.
For a time, Jet was silent. His mind was finally beginning to work, the stalled gears resuming their turning; thus, it was in a bit of a daze that he wandered in the direction of his bonsai room. He only paused once before vanishing through the door, glancing back toward Vicious. "You really should take some painkillers," he added, in return receiving an expression that could only be described as disgust. Feeling something almost akin to amusement, Jet left it at that and turned to leave the room.
Meanwhile, Vicious attempted a deep breath, flinched, then let it out with disdain. It looked like it was either painkillers and sleep, or agony and think. The latter held one good point over the former, so agony it was, he decided as he carefully reclined backward. His eyes moved toward the doorway Jet had gone through, and lingered there for a moment before looking away.
It seemed that the bounty hunter was finally starting to use his head.
When Vicious opened his eyes again, he was briefly puzzled to find that Ed was suddenly napping in front of the door to Jet's bonsai room, rather than at her computer, where he was sure she'd been just a moment before. Noting the vague heaviness in his eyelids and that his body was oddly stiff, his face settled into a resentful scowl. So much for avoiding sleep.
Thoroughly annoyed with himself, Vicious silently sat up, tiredly digging his fingers into his hair as he allowed the sleep-induced haziness in his mind to wear off. Ridiculous, he grumbled inwardly. Being injured was a small inconvenience; it was the recovery period that brought out the worst in him.
In a halfhearted attempt to gather just how much time had passed, Vicious allowed his eyes to slowly pan around the room. The only things that had really changed were the positions of the girl and the dog, the latter of which was currently nowhere to be found.
Just as Vicious began to shift his position with the intention of standing up, a distinctly out-of-place sound caught his attention, and he slowly became very still. It was obvious that it was the sound of a ship's engine, and Vicious listened in silence as it began to draw nearer.
The sound wasn't at all uncommon—the Bebop certainly wasn't the only ship in this harbor—but something about it was wrong. The roar of this engine was close by. Very close. Too close.
However, before there was time to even wonder at the ship's proximity, there was a sound like something being dropped through a chute, and the roar grew briefly louder as the pilot revved their engine before quickly speeding away.
Hm. It seemed that this ship was older than Vicious had originally guessed, for it to still have a chute for paper mail. The only places such a thing would be of any use anymore would be the traditionalist cities scattered here and there on Earth, but in this case, it looked to be proving its worth.
While he briefly considered this, Vicious remained where he was, in no hurry just yet to see what had been dropped off. Ed, on the other hand, had instantly awakened at the sound and sprung to her hands and knees, pointing in the direction of the mail chute in the manner of a hunting dog. Then, once the sound of the engine had faded, she leapt to her feet and darted over to the chute. Once there, she deftly took the small tube out of the chute and plucked the single folded note from the tube, a large grin spreading across her face.
Then, promptly placing the note on her head, she flung out her arms, pointed her toes, and made her way back toward the bonsai room in three flying leaps. "Snail-mail, whale-tale, Birdies sent Jet-person mail!" she announced with a happy pirouette, skidding to a stop as Jet stepped out of the room to see what the racket was about. With a jerk of her head, the note fluttered into the air, drifting for a second before she caught it with her teeth. "Shee?" she asked with newly-slurred speech.
With a calm that he had most certainly not possessed the last time Vicious saw him, Jet silently took the note from Ed, flipping it open with a flick of his wrist, his eyes quickly taking in what little was written.
Seeming to notice after a moment that he had an audience, Jet blinked out of his little world and read aloud the frank content of the note: "Tomorrow, one o'clock, Tharsis Police Station. Come by foot. Bring the Dragon." Then he glanced up, lowering the note. "That's all."
Vicious found that he really had no response, so he didn't pretend to. At least the Crows weren't trying to flatter themselves by doing anything extravagant. Blunt was good.
Meanwhile, Jet had refolded the note and slipped it into his pocket, for whatever reason.
"Hey, Ed," he addressed the young hacker suddenly, to which she stood up straight, swiftly raising her hand to her head in an odd salute. "Pull up that map of yours."
"Aye-aye, hai-hai, bye-bye!" she agreed, then stiffly turned on her heel, stuck her arms straight out, and happily 'flew' over to her laptop.
Vicious glanced at Jet questioningly, but only for a moment. Just what they were talking about was lost on him. Jet either didn't notice the glance or chose to ignore it, instead turning around himself and briefly disappearing into another room.
In the meantime, Vicious turned his attention back to the kid and her computer, mildly interested in spite of himself. While he watched, the push of a key brought up what he could only assume was the map Jet had mentioned. In the center was a small blue symbol, and surrounding it were four green ones.
Before Vicious could study it any further, the sound of footsteps alerted him to Jet's return. As he looked over Ed's shoulder, an expression of satisfaction came to the bounty-hunter's face.
"She worked it out while you were asleep," Jet informed Vicious, neither of them taking their eyes off of the map. "The green ones are the ships the Jade Crows are guarding from. They aren't too big. I'm guessing two to a ship. Three if they're stubborn."
Vicious remained silent. So far, whatever Jet was implying was sounding skeptical, but he would let him talk. Perhaps there was a foundation to his reasoning.
"They're positioned by all the openings on the ship. Anywhere we could escape from. That's the main door, the deck, the hangar, and the roof," Jet continued, pointing out each opening and its corresponding Crow ship. Finally, he glanced back toward Vicious. "You said it's their trump card. Not much use if it's gone when they need it."
Vicious was silent a moment, looking over the map, then looking back at Jet. "They'll have communicators," he finally stated, moving his gaze back to the computer screen. "If they hear shots fired, their employer will know."
"HA!" Ed burst out suddenly, her fingers flying to her keyboard and typing something in. After a second, a small message popped up on her screen, and she let out a wicked giggle. "Can't call the birdie-boss without any sig-nal..." she said mischievously, in a sing-song voice.
...Well. That solved that problem.
However, there was still the issue of just how Jet planned on getting rid of a maximum of twelve trained criminals. He was barely off of his walking-stick as it was. There would be no contest.
Seeming to sense Vicious' doubt, Jet cleared his throat then, keeping his eyes on the map.
"How well do you think you can move?" he asked, at length.
"That depends," Vicious replied.
Jet was quiet a moment, briefly looking a bit torn, but the expression quickly vanished, and he swallowed hard, as though swallowing his pride.
"If I asked for...your help, with this..."
Really...perhaps it had indeed been his pride.
"...Then could I trust you not to turn on us?" he finally finished, glancing back.
Vicious took a moment to consider the question.
"That also depends," he finally answered, "on how far you plan on trusting me."
For a time, Jet's face was unreadable; then, silently, he pulled his gun from its holster at his waist, keeping it lowered but ready, just in case. That done, his other hand—which so far, had remained behind his back—came out, revealing the object it held.
At once, Vicious' eyes shifted, surprised in spite of himself. His gaze fixed on the object in Jet's hand; he'd been fairly certain that he wouldn't see it again.
Once he'd allowed Vicious a moment to grasp what this meant, Jet tightened his grip on the thing, bringing it a bit closer to himself. Getting Vicious' attention again, Jet eyed him gravely.
"If I give you this, then I'm trusting you further than I want to. And know that once this starts, I'll have one eye on them, but the other one's on you." He made a point of holding Vicious' gaze unwaveringly, his grip on his gun deliberately tightening. Subtly taking a deep breath, Jet then shifted the object in his hand, holding it handle-out in Vicious' direction. "Can you do it?"
Vicious allowed the stare-down to go on a moment longer, before letting his eyes travel back to the weapon in Jet's hand. For a long moment, he was silent.
Then, in reply, he reached forward and closed his fingers around the gold-tipped hilt of his katana.
"...Alright," Jet managed after a moment, stepping back and looking toward the stairway that led to the roof. "Let's do it."
HA! Something's HAPPENING! XD
...(cough) Anyway, to my mad-spiffy reviewers:
VanillaRose-Lol, yes, Jet seems like a plan-making kinda guy, to me at least. So glad you could follow the reasoning! (whew)
Shteve-Hm, you think so?... :X (will tell nothing) Glad the one scene made sense to ya, though.
microfiber shoelaces-Yes, silly Jet...it was one of those moments that goes hand in hand with the 'Toys in the Attic' incident: "HMM, Faye is notorious for cheating at cards and I have no idea how she does it...HEY FAYE, LET'S GAMBLE!" (sigh) We love him, though. n.n