A New Leader

Part Twenty Five : Still The Same

"You're the last person I think I'd ever see wearing Hyperion shit." The bandit spoke angrily, gearing his attention towards me.

"Times change." I growled, sneakily reaching for my gun.

"Do it and I blow his brains out." He flicked off the safety.

"Fine... what the hell do you want Percy?"

"I want to know why in the hell you're in my damn camp."

"We're looking for something," the device more noticeably beeping like crazy, "the device brought us here." Rhys spoke, his hands still up and holding it away from the man.

"Really? What's it that you're looking for?" He laughed, his English obviously worse than before.

"A cybernetic brain modular."

"I just so happen to be looking for the same thing, Hyperion is offering good money for whoever finds it."

"I know, I was the one who set out the bounty for it." I growled.

"What the hell you talking about?" He was confused, he must have hit his head or something because he is a lot dumber.

"I set out the bounty for the modular, you know cause I'm the president of Hyperion." I smirked.

"No you ain't, I know you betrayed us after you got your brother killed, but there's now way you became the president." He laughed.

"You better damn well believe it." I nearly growled back, angered from what he thought of my bothers demise.

"You're a dirty bandit, there's no way that they'd let you anywhere near that office." He laughed, his grip tightening on his gun.

"I used my dirty bandit tactics to kill the last president then went into hiding, you really think they'd voluntarily elect a bandit who doubles as a siren?" I rolled up my sleeves.

"Damn, I always knew there was somethin' wrong with you."

"Says the one who dug a knife into me cheek cause I wouldn't fu-"

"Your scar is looking good by the way," he interrupted, "at least you'll put out for this lucky guy, huh?" He laughed and patted Rhys's shoulder hard.

"What we do is none of your business, what you should be doing is letting us go find this piece of technology so we can leave without any casualties to the camp."

"Oh yeah?" He laughed, "and how are ya' gunna do that?"

I pulled an ECHO pad from the pocket in my cardigan, tapping the screen so it floated in front of my face. I tapped around for a few short seconds, deploying a controlled blitz down on the camp. It only took thirty seconds for it to come down and blow out all the lights in the court yard, knocking over Ellie's sign.

"I can do worse, don't think I won't." I spoke angrily.

"Typical bandit whose power just goes to their head." He rolled his eyes, putting his gun away.

"Call me a bandit one more time and I sure as shit won't hesitate to spill your brains all over the ground."

"You sure haven't changed." He put his hands on his hips, looking me up and down.

"Yeah, you're still a piece of shit too." I crossed my arms.

"Look, I need the money for the camp and I know it's around here, I threw it out in one of these piles when some rakk dropped it off here."

"I can't directly give you money, is there something else I can give you, what do you need the money for exactly?"

"We need more weapons." He stated.

"I can give you some Hyperion issued guns." I began pulling up another tab on my pad, "it doesn't take too long to put out a request."

"Hyperion guns cost a lot of money, should you really be doing this?" Rhys whispered.

"Yeah... how important is this stupid piece of metal?" Percy quipped into the conversation.

"More important than you'd think." I finished putting in the order, "your guns will be here in about ten minutes at the least, now can we look for this 'piece of metal' please?" I asked harshly.

"Yeah, go ahead." He shrugged his shoulders, baffled that I even considered giving him weapons in the first place.

Rhys looked down at me, holding the device back towards the beacon. The nervousness in his face really showed once he opened his mouth, I could already feel a lecture coming. But, instead he just kept he just closed his lips and handed me the device, walking over to a hunk of metal and taking a seat. I looked down at the device and started walking towards the flashing beacon, it was close. I watched my progress on the map as it seemed to be only steps away, my heart racing. I hit my head off of a hovering piece of junk, I could hear Rhys laughing at me from the distance before I shot him a look of anger.

I looked back down at the map and realized that the device was only two steps away, but the large pile of scrap made my adventure a little harder. I groaned and put the map down on the ground, pulling pieces of scrap away from the area and revealing an old junker. I could hear the tracker basically set of an alarm as I revealed the car, I popped open the dented hood and revealed and empty front area. I put my hand in and tried to find the small piece of metal, nothing was in there but more scrap and a few old ECHO recorders.

I stood back up and opened the driver side door, checking under the seat, glove compartment, in between the seats, and even the cup holders. My body became restless, my arms getting tired and legs twitching from the anger of not being able to find this stupid thing. I sighed and angrily sat down on the ground, trying to gather my thoughts as I could still hear that damn tracker screaming. I looked around at the ground, seeing if maybe it was just laying under the car, no dice.

"Rhys!" Yelled, sitting on the ground nearly defeated.

"What?" He yelled back, jogging over.

"I can't find it, the map says it's right here." I shot my hand out towards the beaten up car.

"On a scale of one to ten, how mad would you be if I told you I was looking at?"

"About a ten." I replied in a serious tone.

"Well, don't shoot my head off."

He bent down and began pulling at the little piece of metal stuck in the treading in the tire, I raised my eye brows as he plucked the small device out and plopped it in my hands. He looked at me, an unsatisfied look on his face before he helped me off of the ground. I looked at the small cylinder, this was the last piece I needed to bring him back... yet I felt like something just wasn't right.