Note: I'm sorry for not writing much. I haven't been writing To the Top, Marek of the Rebellion, or In the Path or Prophecy much at all these last few days… or weeks. I don't know how long. I simply haven't felt the urge to write. I sit down and try, but nothing comes. It is not so much a writer's block in not knowing what to write so much as lacking the energy to. I have so many epic things in my head to write, so many incredible scenes and events, but ultimately I can't bring myself to hit the keyboard.

One of the things I am doing with Rhys is that I want lots of character progression with him. Not just in his relationships, but in himself. When I played Tales from the Borderlands, I was 100% good guy. I'm sorry, but he is Hyperion. That's not possible. So I am trying to balance him between his two sides we had available to us. The side that looked out for his friends and the people he cared about at the expense of himself and worked with everyone as a team, and the side of him I simply dub Greed, who would screw everyone over to advance himself. I won't have him be completely on one or the other, but have moments where either side comes out.

Chapter 13 - Armpit of Pandora

-Rhys-

-Present-

Rhys found himself being thrown in and out of the room repeatedly. Ever since he finished telling his tale about Mount Trash, up to the point he was stabbed in the brain, the bandits had not taken it well. They said he was lying. They said he was bullshitting them. They said it was impossible. After all, he didn't have a wound now did he? At least not around the head.

They pulled them out. Interrogated him. The leaders didn't show up for a weak. Instead they had their goons beat him. They threw him over a table, tied him down, put a cloth over his face, and poured water over him. A form of water torture, he realized, that was more psychological than anything else in its intensity. They stripped him naked and tied him to a beam in a kind of mid-air crouch position so that if he wasn't struggling to hold up his weight, he felt his shins would break. They returned to the routine of keeping the lights on constantly, and having goons run in screaming and waking him up at random intervals to keep him from sleeping and losing an ability to distinguish time. Was it hours? Was it days? That was the affect it had on him. He couldn't tell the difference anymore.

Rhys leaned against the wall and chuckled as they came for him again. This time, they took him to the little 'tale chair'. They strapped him down and shined a light in his face. He chuckled more.

"You think this is funny?" Mordecai wondered.

"Oh yeah." Rhys smiled madly. "Because you actually think you can break me with that crap."

"You're just a Hyperion, soft, weak, pathetic." Lilith muttered.

"I may be Hyperion, and I may have not endured daily trauma, but I lived through all that Pandora had to offer as well as having Jack in my head, and winning. You really think you can beat him?"

They were silent a long moment, and Rhys leaned back with his eyes closed. He was by no means a winner, but it felt good showing them that they weren't doing anything to him.

Course that was a lie. They hadn't broken him, but he felt the cracks. He was a cyborg. There were a million ways they could destroy him and break him. It all came down to how badly they wanted to know his tale… and how badly they wanted satisfaction.

"Then let's start from where you left off," Lilith said. "You were stabbed in the head, but there is no hole. How do you explain that?"

"I do have a hole in my head." Rhys turned his head to the side and touched his temple where his bioptic-transceiver was. "The droid was aiming for a specific point. You may think it coincidence, but the droid knew exactly what it was doing… I was just unlucky enough to be the first person it worked on."

Rhys knew the time for tales was coming. But how much could he tell? He knew it would come to this at some point, and he couldn't hide it. But if they knew everything… as in everything. They would kill him without second thought.

-Rhys-

-Past-

I hear gunfire. Laughter. Screaming. I'm holding my angel. I'm holding my demoness. I'm being flogged. I beg. I plead. I yell. I am betrayed. I scream for revenge. I seek power. I seek salvation. I seek justice. I seek revenge. I hate. I love. I run. I kill. I strangle people. I shoot people. I am Hyperion. I am Pandoran. I know what I must do. I am the past. I am the future. I am a savior. I am a murderer. I am salvation. I am damnation.

"I may be the villain, but I am the ********* hero!"

I see a bright light and squeeze my eyes shut against the blinding pain in my eye. The sensation of touch returns immediately, I feel the bed under me. The caravan jumps over a series of pebbles. After a moment I realize it isn't shaking violently, it is shaking a lot. It is moving quickly.

There is something around my head. I reach up to touch it. It's a cloth bandage around my head covering from my cheek on my cybernetic side up around my scalp. "Wha?" What happened.

"He's awake!" I hear someone exclaim.

I wince in pain. There is clamoring of feet. I don't mind it too much, if only they would be so kind as to remove my head first. The first person I see is Vaughn.

"Hey, bro. You feelin' okay?" He looms over me with concern.

The girls are on the couch and Grandpa Grumpy is driving the caravan.

"I fe-feel like a drunkard… Only… I don't recall drinking." I try to sit up, only to have the world spin and I fall back. Okay, light: Bad. Sound: Bad. Moving: Bad. "Did I drink so much that I don't even remember it?"

"You don't remember? You got stabbed in your cybernetics."

"Oh."

That's about all I got. I feel somewhat distant from it, even though a part of me knows I should be panicking. I should be going 'what?!' Instead, it's as simple as discussing the fact that he forgot cheese on his cheese sandwich. Vaughn scampers off a moment and returns with the 'dagger' that impaled itself in my memory cortex. He places it in my hand and I look at it.

"Vaughn, this is a probe." I tell him.

"Yeah, and it stabbed itself into your… your um-" He points to his temple.

Ah, so the probe went into my cybernetic implant… specifically designed for input devices. All at once everything hits me like a truck and I feel a huge tension uncoil in my chest. My luck has been on the bad side ever since Henderson died, but for once in my life I got off on a lucky break. I laugh joyfully, and he looks at me like maybe I've lost a marble or two. "Vaugh! This isn't a knife! It's a probe!"

"I know that."

"Vaughn, the spot the robot was dumb enough to jam it in, IS DESIGNED for probes!"

"Are you serious!" Grandpa Grumpy exclaims from the other side of the camper. "Of all the people to stab by the robot of all things, just so happened to be stabbed with the one 'knife' in all existence that is DESIGNED to be stabbed, in the one place on his entire body DESIGNED to be stabbed with it!? I've heard a lot of crazy shit in my time, but that is riding one-in-a-billion odds!"

I chuckle, even as I begin to remove my bandage. I stop. "Is there blood or anything, bro?" Vaughn shakes his head, so I continue. If the droid only stabbed me with a probe in my port, then I should be okay. I remove it slowly. There is a little blood and bruising, but nothing too bad. I probably had a concussion at some point. My neck feels like it has the beginning signs of whiplash. With the bandage gone I look at myself in the mirror. The port has a little scraping -you aren't supposed to just jam things in you know!- but it should still be operable. If not, I might need to see a mechanic that knows cybernetics.

Provided we get our hands on the ten-million…

I open my cybernetic eye slowly. Everything is clear and crisp. All at once, it goes haywire and outside of my control. It starts spinning around in my skull, looking at Vaughn, looking at Fiora and Sasha, looking around the camper and spinning around over and over. I clamp a hand on it and close my eyes. The experience of half of my vision spinning like that was enough to make me dizzy all over again. I fall back with a pained groan.

"What's wrong? Did you hurt yourself?" Vaughn, of course.

"No, no." I remove my hand for a moment and try my ECHO-eye again, and once more it moves out of control. I clamp my hand tightly against it and struggle not to throw up. "I think that, while I am lucky enough to be alive, it was not without some damage. My eye is acting up."

"Let me see." Bro sits down by me and looks me closely in the face.

I really don't need him baby'ing me, but I am not exactly in the condition to argue. Besides, little things like this show trust, and who else would I trust but my bro? It wouldn't do any harm, though I know I will regret it. I remove my hand once more and turn it on. As predicted, it moves on its own. "Oh, Jack-damnit." I groan and turn it off while covering it. "Please don't ask for that again."

"Yeah, it's acting screwy." Vaughn agrees.

"That was freaky. Like a lizard." Sasha comments.

"Did I ask you?" I argue childishly. She sticks her tongue at me, and I return the favor.

"As… intelligent as this conversation has turned, you are a bit behind the times." Fiora says with a slight roll of the eyes. "Vaughn was able to get a lock on the briefcase while you were knocked out, and we are heading there."

"Great!" I exclaim happily. Progress! It's a small step, but it's a step. I may not have the ten million, yet, but I'll be happy with getting it one step at a time. Except… No one looks happy. They fail to share my optimism. They are really silent and… moody. "Uh… not great?"

"We're heading to Armpit."

"Armpit?" I ask in disbelief. "What kind of name is that? Who names these places? Mount Trash! Armpit! Next you are going to say the smith is a guy named 'Smith'."

"That last one is real. Where do you think the name 'Smith' came from?"

"Are you screwing with me?"

"She's actually right." Vaughn inputs himself. "In the medieval ages, blacksmiths and etc would be nicknamed 'Smith' for so long it stuck and became a family name for some."

…

Ok, I didn't actually know that.

Felix stops the caravan. Through the window I see we are parked by a small outcropping of rocks. In the far distance is a kind of city, and I mean city is the loosest form possible. In reality it is a collection of wooden walls, sheets, cardboard boxes, and layers of tin thrown together with ducttape and staples. Movement is the only real proof the giant homeless haven is populated. I see lanterns, and in all of it is incased inside the cut-out side of a mountain. The mountain itself is loosly in the shape of an arm flexing its bicep.

"I can see why they call the place Armpit." I mutter.

Felix turns in his chair and barks, "Alright, everyone get out and stretch. We've been cramped in here for a day. We will be heading in shortly." He gets up himself, loads his shotgun in his arms, and stomps out of the caravan. Sasha, fiora, and Vaughn follow, and I go out after a second glance at Armpit.

I walk out to find everyone stretching, and I join in. My back pops making me gasp, and I twist my arms around after having spent who-knows-how-long unconscious. My cybernetic's itch a bit and I feel some pressure on my scar. A little stretching relieves it. Vaughn drops down and does push-ups at a rate that, frankly, scares me, and the girls turns out are amazingly flexible. They could do gymnastics.

Between Vaughn's odd strength and the girls flexibility, I feel kinda insignificant standing here. Like, 'yeah… I'll just do my two pushups… over here. Don't mind me.'

Felix leans against the caravan, not joining in, and says to me, "Feel free to walk around and loosen up, but stay where I can see you, cyborg. Oh, and keep the caravan between you and the city." He adds as an afterthought.

"Why? Afraid they will see me and realize we are here?"

He grins ferally, "They already know. We are in range of snipers."

I gulp. Yeah, that's a reason to stay on this side. Making sure to keep the caravan hiding me from the city in the distance, I walk around and stretch my legs. The area we are in, specifically, is a wide open plain. In the far distance I see a dust cloud as a jeep, with a turret on it, screeches across the land. I hear hooting and hollering. Felix grips his shotgun in preparation, and the others stay down, but everyone relaxes as the jeep either doesn't notice us or doesn't care. It goes off.

Vaughn comes over to join me, and talks lowly once we are out of hearing range, "So, what's the plan?"

"Plan?"

"Yeah, don't you have a plan for us getting the ten million?"

"Vaughn, to be honest, my plan has been to just stay alive, earn a few loyalty points from our captors, and keep us steadily progressing towards this point. Things have been shifting too wildly from one day to the next for me to come up with anything solid. Everything here kinda wants us dead, I don't trust them as far as I can throw them, and my ability to fly by the seat of my pants is admittedly not the greatest."

"What?" Vaughn looks at me in confusion, "What do you mean you don't trust them?"

I look back at him like he's lost his mind. True, I won't deny these three Pandorans are probably stand up people, so far as Pandorans go. But that is like saying your local cannibal is an allright chap, despite the fact he still wants to skin you, just a little less than the next cannibal. "Bro, have you forgotten we are slaves, they are our captors, they got us into this mess, and they are Pandoran?"

"They went back for you!" He raises his voice defensively.

"Because they NEED me!" I yell-whisper. "They aren't our allies and they sure as hell aren't our friends! Allies have each other's best interest because of a contract, friends have each other's best interest without ever being asked to make a contract, but they are forcing us to have their best interest against our will with no obligation towards us except to decide when to kill us more conveniently! This isn't sugar-land, Vaughn! This is monopoly where you skip go straight to dead! "

"How can it be 'against our will', when we all want the same thing! I haven't heard you once argue the plan to go after the ten million!" He narrows his eyes at me, and I don't like the look in them. He knows me well. He is reading something. "Rhys, you always have a plan."

"Well, not this time!"

"No. You always have a plan." He repeats. "No matter how bad things have always been, you had a plan. Even if it wasn't a fully concrete plan, you had an objective. A goal… Something to aim for…" He gulps. "What aren't you telling me?"

I avoid his gaze and brush it off. "We may want the same thing now, but do you really think we will once we have the money?"

"Don't change the subject."

Vaughn is usually not the pushy type. He is the follower, the one encouraging others, the one that has everyone else's back. It takes a lot for him to hold his ground of his own will.

"Rhys…" He stresses. "What are you not telling me?"

Do I tell him? Do I let him stay ignorant? I hear Jack saying that what he doesn't know won't hurt him.

But he's my bro…

I sigh, "Vaughn… I haven't had any plans because… I don't know what to aim for. I don't see us going anywhere."

His composure softens a bit in understanding, but I know he doesn't get it. "We just get the money, and get back to Helios. Even if it's not all the money, because you know they will want some, we can still point at Vasquez or-"

"It's too late for that." I interrupt. I hate how defeated I sound. I rub my eyes and try not to sound like I'm torn up about this. I've had time to digest it, but even a few days isn't enough when you simply ignore it. "Vasquez pinned it all on us."

His eyes widen and he goes rigged. "Wha?"

I pull up the messages I received on my hand for him to see. He reads them, and grows steadily paler. "Sorry, bro. I would have told you, but… Screw it! I should have. I've been scared enough to admit it to myself, and I've hoped I could come up with some way out of this, and I didn't want you panicking, and…" I shrug. "Sorry."

"Heh." He chuckles, still reading the message from my hand. "It's not that big of a deal."

"Vaughn…" Here we go.

"Relax, I'm not panicking. It just means we can't do business… on Helios… or anywhere for that matter. All of our assets are liquidated. The moment we set foot on civilized soil, we are criminals. We have a bounty. That's all. Not a big deal at all." He gulps. He continues to grow steadily paler. "B-but I'm not panicking! Are you panicking!? Because I'm not panicking! No, it's only our entire lives up to this very moment flushed down the toilet! Heh… We can rebuild! Rebuild everything! So long as we don't panic we will be okay!" His breathing picks up. "I me-mean, it's just Pandora! The expected life ratio of a Hyperion on Pandora is six seconds, and we have already surpassed that enough times to give me whiplash! I mean, we have been in hot water, but this is getting hotter. I mean… really, it's getting hotter! Has Pandora always been this hot!?" He suddenly stops breathing.

I can practically hear Jack going, '3… 2… 1…'

"I think I'm going to have a good faint now." Vaughn falls backwards with his eyes wide-open.

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO NOW?!" Felix yells.

"I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!" I bark back.

"I LEAVE YOU GUYS ALONE FOR TWO SECONDS…"

Felix lets loose a string of curses in a language I don't understand while him and the girls run over. I manage to lift Vaughn's shoulders, but not much else. His eyes are staring wide-open and its really kinda freaking me out. Fiona looks at me irked, "What did you do?"

"Nothing." I growl. "I just let him read a message. I knew he would panic, but he insisted."

Fiona picks up the guy's legs and helps me carry him back to the caravan. Meanwhile Fiona yells directions for Sasha to wet a rag. We lay Vaughn on the couch. Felix slams the door shut and directs a glare at me, no doubt for causing him trouble yet again, before returning to his usual seat. Sasha hands Fiona the wetrag, which she places on my best friend's forehead after placing a hand on his forehead.

"He doesn't feel that hot, but his pulse is racing," Fiona says. "Poisonous bite? Did you see anything or hear anything or did he really just pass out from panicking?"

"Like I said, he panicked."

"Probably a good idea to check him anyway, just incase."

Fine, don't trust me. I was there!

"I think he'll be fine." Sasha assures us.

"What tells you that? Have you checked anything?" Fiona asks, still irked.

Sasha and her stare at each other a moment, and I get the feeling some kind of understanding passed between them, because Sasha goes quiet and turns away. Felix steers the caravan out from where it is hidden and has us heading for the town. Fiona just nods. "That's what I thought."

Felix yells back from where he is. "We don't have time for this. Cyborg, check your friend for bites or puncture wounds. Fiona, Sasha, up here. We need to figure out how we are going to do this."

The Pandorans discuss amongst themselves what the plan is while I tend over Vaughn. I know that Vaughn fainted from panicking, so I feel no need to check him over just because Fiona is butting heads with her sis. Lo and behold, Vaughn wakes up quickly, and he is confused as can be.

"Rhys? Wha? What happened?" He winces and touches the back of his head. "Why is the back of my head covered in dirt?"

"Hello, Sleeping Beauty. You passed out on me back there."

"Passed out?" He looks at me in confusion.

It is probably not the best idea to drop the bombshell on him a second time and have him pass out again. I just smile and pat him on the shoulder.

"The plan is to infiltrate Armpit, and then the gang under Vallory. August knows our faces and names, so we have to find the money and get the bomb without being seen." Felix looks between the four of us from where he is in front of the map. "Cyborg, can you track the bomb to a more precise location?"

I nod. "It will like trying to look for a star against a sun, but possible. The easiest method would be triangulation."

"Is that like strangulation?"

I just smile in mirth and chuckle. Some part of me wonders how I can find such a question amusing. It tells me a lot how much I have endured already when it doesn't make me bat an eyelash. I touch three points on the map as I talk.

"No. I'll save the technical gibberish, but we will need three people to take a tracker around the city. These three points here should be good. From there we can pinpoint it to a building."

Felix looks at me for a long moment before directing his attention to the map. "Okay, set the trackers. Fiona, take Vaughn and go here. Sasha, take the cyborg and go here. I'll set up here. Once the cyborg has the location, we decide where to meet."

It takes me five minutes to set up the trackers and place two on the table, along with my third. I briefly show them how to handle the devices.

"How exactly is this going to show us where the bomb is?" Fiona asks. She takes one of them and sticks it in her pocket.

"It won't." I explain. "I will. The points will simply give me what I need. Like I said, it's a bunch of technical gibberish."

Felix frowns, clearly unliking the prospect of depending on me so heavily, while I feel assured my position is secure. "Go on then, the sooner we get the bomb the better."

Vaughn and Fiona leave the caravan first. Vaughn looks back over his shoulder at me, with an unreadable expression, before he follows after her. A few minutes later Felix has Sasha and I head out. Sasha takes the lead while I follow. She has an SMG on her hip, and she prudently keeps a hand on it as we walk.

"Don't I get one?" I ask as I step over a drunken (or dead) Pandoran. The sound of gunfire, drunken laughter, and partying and singing from people who are incredibly high makes me twitchy. "I don't need… you know… a military grade rifle. A pistol would suffice."

"No."

"A pea-shooter? BB-gun?"

"No."

"Well at least give me a butter knife!" I insist.

Sasha looks back at me, considering it, before shaking her head. "I can't. I shouldn't be allowing you to be armed."

I mutter. "Fine, I'll just kind of hide behind you if these people go nuts all over us. To hell with my pride… This place as as bad as Tortuga."

"Tortuga? Where's that?"

I eye her a bit in disbelief. "Pirates of the Caribbean? Captain Jack Sparrow?"

She growls, "Is that another alias Jack used?"

I shake my head in disbelief. "Captain Jack Sparrow is just the main character of a very good series of movies based on pirates, but this whole… Pandora city reminds me so much of Tortuga or Shipwreck, cities from the movies. You really need a movie wish list. Star Wars, Star Trek, The Three Stooges, the good Terminators… If I ever get a life back, I'm sending you a hundred things to watch. "

"That's if we ever get the money."

"You doubt our abilities? You know, if it weren't for the war, I would actually think we all make a good team. I have skills none of you have, and it got us this far. I'll get you a bit further, and then you all will do what you do best to get us further from there."

Sasha didn't immediately answer that, and while it is somewhat rude, it also leaves me a bit pensive. I wonder about what I just said. It was just conversation, but I still find myself considering the truth behind it. I don't trust them. I plan to jump ship with Vaughn as soon as we got the money and figure out what to do from there. Sasha is alright, Fiona is meh, and Felix would rather shoot me than make nice. The only one I would feel remotely sorry for betraying is Sasha, but I'm not so foolish as to forget that it is their fault my life was ruined or that I am alive only so long as I am useful. They are what they are. I am what I am. Our interests are temporarily aligned. Allegiances naturally shift.

If this was a different place, a different time, I could imagine we would truly make a great team. We could perhaps even be friends. Not the kind of friends you stab in the back just because its good business, but that you have a kind of love for and trust they care enough about you too to have your best interest at heart.

Unfortunately the universe in which this tale exists in is not so kind.

At last Sasha says, "I don't doubt our abilities. Despite a few hiccups, you have proven to skills we don't have. At the same time, we have skills you don't. I doubt you have ever fired a gun in your life. It's just…" She hesitates.

"Just what?"

"Just a gut feeling. I have a bad feeling about this whole thing. Something… something doesn't feel right."

"About us being here? Are we being watched?" I struggle against the urge to look around.

"No. About the deal. I don't know what or how, but I've been having this nagging feeling in the back of my stomach since it all started, and it has only gotten worse. Like this whole thing is bigger than what we think it is, and we are just looking at the tip of the iceberg. You know the feeling you have when something very bad is going to happen, but you don't know what?"

"Can't say I do."

"Yeah, well. I've had it." she sighs and puts her head in her hands to massage her temples. "Don't listen to me, I have no idea what I'm talking about. I probably sound insane."

"Oh, I won't deny you sound insane." I agree. She shoots a glare at me and I smile widely. "But if it is any consolation, I find gut instinct is something worth relying on. The galaxy is so full of facts and figures and junk to fill your head with, but try as we might to process it all, the subconscious does it much better than we ever can. Have you ever heard of a shark?"

"Don't think so, why?"

"A shark is a sea animal, a predator. It can smell blood from miles away and know where its prey is with just that. It doesn't know where its prey is, it can't see it, it has nothing to rely on but gut instinct and the simple knowledge that it is there,. Yet despite all that the shark still finds it."

Her jaw goes a bit slackjawed, but she clamps her mouth shut and starts to chuckle under her breathe. "Now I know I'm insane. My own family never believes me because it's just part of my con playing, and the only ones to believe me is our prisoner and a guy we handed a bomb to."

"Sounds like you have had about as twisted a time as I have had."

She glances at me again, and we laugh a bit. After a moment just standing there relaxing, Sasha nods in the direction we should get moving in, and we continue on. I find that, oddly enough, the atmosphere isn't as chaotic to me as it was a few minutes ago.

She's right. From the very beginning she was talking about having a bad feeling about this. Her words were spot on when we met. Perhaps it was just a way of playing us, she did change tune awfully fast, but then maybe not. Maybe, deep down, her instincts were really telling her that there was something going on… something that would go bad.

I listen with one ear as Sasha tells me that we will be stopping at a bar. We stick mostly to the crowds. We stop at said bar where Sasha steals a hooded coat from a drunk man leaning over his stool, and tells me to wait while she enters the bathroom. I try to appear casual, but I have no idea what I am doing. There are waitresses with low cleavage all over the bar with filthy men at every available seat. I am the most smartly dressed man here at this point, and that is saying something considering how I haven't had a chance to freshen up since I left Helios.

With the other part of my brain, I consider what she said. She feels this deal was just the tip of the iceberg. Now that I consider it, her feeling has merit. My first question comes to, why Vasquez? Vasquez was not that big on Helios before the deal with August, and I am saying that not just because I despise him, but because it was the truth. The man was lower than me. Killing Henderson did not mean instant promotion in place of the man he killed. Killing Henderson should have meant the next runner up gets promoted: me. So why did Hyperion skip protocol and go straight for Vasquez?

My second question comes to: Why was Vasquez the one August contacted? Vasquez was a low-class shark with limited reach and resources. He had a weak network. I have a limited network, but one with long reach. I had access to all kinds of information. The only information Vasquez had access to, that I didn't, was direct P2P messaging, and even in that area there are much bigger fish. Fact is there are much bigger fish than me (that is so painful to admit) and bigger than Vasquez with more powerful resources, a better team, more authority, and more ability to handle these transactions. There are people in Hyperion who are as dirty, as powerful, and as skilled as they come, and of all people that lands this deal it is Vasquez? Why didn't Hyperion have their top man handling it instead of just a couple contract men?

Hell, for that matter, why did Hyperion allowed the man to do it. I can understand it looks good to be able to get a vault key for only ten million. That looks really damn good on a resume. But at the same time a vault key is such a matter of security that you would want to stick a whole army on it just to make sure it doesn't get a scratch. If anyone so much as farts in the direction of a vault key there should be more gunfire going off than a fire range. Yet… Hyperion provided no kind of security. They didn't step in for a single moment and ensure the deal went through smoothly. The fact that a simple contract man, namely myself, was able to intercept the deal, shows the sheer and utter lack of security provided by the Hyperion Corporation.

I stepped in and screwed it up further, because it still didn't have the slightest bit of insurance, risk management, or protocols followed as it should have, and I had been too hung up the whole time on my life to realize that.

The way it should have happened was that Vasquez lands the contract, and Hyperion handles the rest to ensure the package is delivered. Or a middleman of respectful business sense to provide the insurance of the vault key being delivered into the warm, loving hands of corporate men.

Something is going on. This whole thing was crooked from the beginning. Not just from the con-artists, but the men who agreed to have the deal done.

My eyes widen in shock as a thought occurs to me. Did Hyperion know it was a con from the beginning and left it to Vasquez, with no backup, because it was a low-risk/low-reward scenario? Is that why he had such a hard time getting ten-million? No. Even a fake Vault Key can be a publicity stunt.

So was Vasquez doing it all behind the Hyperion's back? That would explain the lack of protocol and hush-hush, but then Vasquez wouldn't be able to point fingers at me and Vasquez…

Except we stole ten million dollars and he doesn't really need to say why we did, only that we did.

This is an important detail, I feel it. My shark senses are tingling.

My thoughts derail as Sasha leaves the bathroom and I'm left speechless. She changed her hair. Before it had been in wrapped cords, and now it is curly and almost like a small afro. I try to withhold my mirth, but with a single raised eyebrow from her, I can't resist. I laugh. "Wh-why did you change your hair?" I ask after I can breathe again. Now that I am looking, she also put on makeup. Not the kind to make yourself beautiful, but to look scarred over an eye down to her jaw.

"It's part of doing cons and making an identity. August's men will recognize me the other way."

"Ah." I say simply. Another chuckle escapes. She levels an even glare at me before rolling her eyes.

"Laugh it up, Hyperion. I'm not the only one getting a change. We didn't have clothes that fit you back at the caravan so we will have to improvise." She looks over the crowd, picks one, walks over, and hits the guy over the back of the head with a bottle. People from all around stop and turn to look at her, and my hair stands on end. She just shrugs and says, "Fly. Got it for him."

Naturally that answers that, because they all seem to understand and turn back to their business. Sasha grabs the unconscious man by the shoulders and drags him over to where I am hiding in the hall. She throws the man into the bathroom and motions for me to have my turn. "Ladies first."

"Don't mind if I do." I allow the jab at my manly pride.

The door shuts behind me. I strip the man, and about gag on the smell of his own body. His clothes have blood on them, and not just from when she hit him. Before long I manage to get it on. I take one look in the mirror and gape. The shirt is a few sizes too small and goes up above my belly button, exposing the scar I have, and the pants go up just below my knees. I have a hat that covers my scalp and falls over half my face because lo and behold… it's a couple sizes too big.

She just shrugs, "You look more Pandoran than you did earlier. And cover your holoeye with the hat. Just let it fall over your face a bit an… let me see." She steps in and adjusts my clothes while I stand there with my arms out feeling like a mannequin. After a moment of fussing and adjustments, she steps back to survey her work. She gives me a thumbs up. "Much better."

I look at myself in the mirror. I would say I don't look bad… for a Pandoran hobo in clothes either three sizes too small or three sizes too big. "I look like a hobo!"

"And you will fit in fine now, provided you also talk like an illiterate and think four times four is fish. Let's go. We can go deeper into the city now."

I follow her out, and I smile ferally behind her back as a plan blossoms. My shark senses smell blood.

If Vasquez revealed why we stole the ten million dollars, then he would have been thrown into jail or exiled or killed for trying to do such a big contract behind the back of some very powerful people. Vasquez is not in jail.

Therefore, he didn't. He told them we stole the ten million to get us blacklisted, but never the reason.

Therefore, Hyperion doesn't know about the Vault Key screwup.

Therefore, we can do it again. If I can get my hands on the money, then I can skip the middle man fencer (August), go right to whoever-the-hell gave him the fake Vault Key to begin with, and get them to make a second one.