Assault (Red vs Blue)

14: Incentives And Discoveries

14: Incentives And Discoveries

Present Day: Undisclosed Location; Near Mystery Coordinates (The planet Chorus)

The trip so far had gone fairly smooth; Locus couldn't deny that. The soldiers he and Felix had picked to bring along were working together effortlessly. There'd been no random outbursts, no fights amongst the men — even the scientists seemed to be holding their own. Not that they'd run into any trouble to speak of so far. In fact, they hadn't seen any other signs of human civilization in days. Locus was happy about that. They didn't need to be leaving a trail of dead bodies behind them at the moment.

There had been one fairly persistent issue, though. The Chairman didn't seem to have gotten the hint that neither mercenary particularly wanted to speak with him. Felix had been very adament about the fact that he refused to talk to their employer. Ever since the incident that caused all Charon's hybrid weapons to self-destruct, talking to Hargrove was at the bottom of his list of priorities. Locus couldn't exactly fault his partner for that; he wasn't jumping at the chance to speak to the Chairman, either. However, they were going to have to speak with him at some point. If they still wanted to recieve their payment when everything was done, they couldn't ignore him for much longer.

It was a point Locus currently found himself trying to make to Felix.

"I don't care what you say, I'm not talking to that asshole," Felix argued. "All he's gonna do is bitch at us for all of his toys getting broke. Which, by the way, wasn't our fucking fault. So I'm not dealing with it."

"We've been ignoring all of Hargrove's transmissions since before we left base," Locus countered. "I'm not exactly keen on speaking with him, either. But I do, however, still want to be paid at the end of all this. I know you do, too."

Felix turned on him. "How dare you try to use the idea of money to bribe me into talking to our boss. Nice try. No amount of money could get me to talk to him right now."

Locus grunted in annoyance. "Hmph. I guess you've forgotten about the other part of our payment with this whole mess. Which is odd, considering it was the part of the payment you wanted most."

"I wanted the technology our employer had to make me an even better soldier," Felix pointed out. "But in case you've forgotten, all that tech just fucking blew up. It's useless. So what other motivation do I have to talk to Hargrove? Hmm?"

"There's still a chance he could get everything back online. If you're truly willing the give up on that possibility, so be it," Locus said, then turned and walked away.

The group had been held up at their current location for a little over an hour. Some of the scientists believed they were near whatever the coordinates they'd recieved were leading them to. The road had stopped exactly where they had landed, but there was a small foot path that led into the trees. A small team consisting of the scientists, a couple of the soldiers from Project Independence, as well as a couple of Charon's own men had gone off to investigate. However, they hadn't been heard from since they'd left. It made the mercenary uneasy. Though it did give Locus the chance to contemplate contacting the Chairman. He wasn't looking foward to it by any means, but it had to be done.

Just as he was about to start a call to the Staff of Charon, the screen on the laptop he was standing at lit up. It was the Chairman, trying once again to contact his mercenaries. Locus sighed. Before he hit the button to accept the call, Felix walked over and joined him. It was clear by the other mercenary's stance that he was less than thrilled to be joining in on the call; not that it was Locus's problem. At least he'd shown up.