Two stepped closer, beside Lyle, and leaned down next to him face to face. Lyle continued to look straight ahead.

  “I think,” he said, very slowly and deliberately, “that you may be one of the few people that’s done something worse than treason.”

  Chapter 10

  "There are…irregularities…in your file. Very subtle. Almost imperceptible except to possibly an A.I Inspector."

  "Or someone like us," One added.

  Lyle kept looking straight ahead. To his left, out of the corner of his eye, he could see Two still staring at him at face level.

  "What about these little scars along your jawline?" Two said. "If we were to really look, would we find cosmetic reconstruction?"

  Lyle grounded his teeth.

  Agent Two smiled.

  Lyle could almost feel the Agent's joy. He could only imagine what inhuman thoughts were happening behind that visor. Whether or not they really knew all about him, dredging up the memory of the attack was a dirty play. Everything he'd heard about these guys might have only scratched the surface of what they really were. But no one ever asked the question Carson Lyle was thinking at that moment about that Authority Agent.

  Does he bleed? At that moment Lyle wanted nothing more than to find out. All he needed was one good chance.

  "If it is, it's good work. Couldn't have been cheap," Two said.

  "So what's your point?"

  Two stood up, slowly walking behind him, from the left to the right.

  One said, "You’re obviously hiding something. You do this for us and there could be an Authority pardon for whatever it is you’ve done."

  "You might be able to put the pieces of whatever pathetic life you had back together again," Two said. "…Or maybe even start a new pathetic life."

  Lyle broke his stare at the wall behind Agent One and looked up to face Two, his eyes burning with hate.

  Two smiled again. The grin seethed of both conceit and contempt. "Why do you visit Betty O'Malley before every run?"

  Carson Lyle pounded the table with both hands, standing up, sending his chair tumbling on the floor behind him.

  Both One and Two were unphased, except for Two's grin which grew just a little longer at the corner of his mouth.

  Two continued, "She's getting a little long in the tooth. She'd want you to get an honest job instead of this freight hauling, you and your criminal brethren—"

  Lyle lashed out, grabbing the Agent by the lapels of his suit and forcing him backward and slamming his back into the wall behind him. He pressed his forearm against Two's head and neck, It was then he discovered Two was a full ten centimeters taller than he was. But he used that difference to his advantage, pushing with his legs to force his arm into Two's throat hoping to crush the man's larynx.

  “We'll see how you like breathing, motherfucker!!”

  One remained seated calmly while Two's face contorted under the strain. He grunted and gasped for air slightly.

  Lyle released him, took a half step back, squared his stance, draw his right hand back, into a tightly clenched fist and let loose. The blow struck Two squarely in the cheek and jaw. Lyle saw the man's head snap to the left. The visor went flying. Two slumped over but remained on his feet. Adrenalin coursed through Lyle's body. He was going to take out nine years of anger and hate and utter contempt for the Authority on an expensive piece of their property right then.

  "You know Shit!" Lyle yelled, kicking Two in the chest. The agent's torso shot up, snapping his head upward. The back of the man's head crashed into the wall, then he slumped over again, still on his feet.

  Lyle saw One still sitting and watching. He was so angry and focused on Two, it didn't even register that the Agent hadn't done anything to help his partner.

  He turned back to the crumbled heap that leaned against the wall. "Us haulers keep this whole damn territory alive with the job we do!" He yelled, as he kneed Two in the face. Lyle stepped back and squared up to strike again. "And as for Betty O'Malley? You’re going to pay that right now—"

  Agent One looked at his partner's visor in the corner. It was cracked. "Oh no, now you've done it," he said, barely sounding interested.

  The statement made Lyle pause, for just a half second. "What—"

  Before the word could even escape his lips, he suddenly felt a clamp snap around his neck. It happened so fast. He didn’t even see the agent’s arm move. Lyle struggled to bring air in, and his lungs burned more because of it. He couldn't even force the words 'fuck you' out of his throat. Spots formed in his vision. He struggled to get free, and it finally dawned on him that the clamp around his neck, that was choking the very life out of him, was the agent's hand. He'd never felt such a solid grip. It was almost mechanical.

  Two stood to face him. Lyle's eyes went wide at what he saw. The man's hair was…moving. It slithered and swayed, like something out of Greek mythology. In a few moments, it had moved back into place perfectly.

  Lyle grunted and struggled again, trying to kick Two in the knee caps, anything to get him to release his grip. He needed air!

  He saw Two raise an eyebrow and, in that moment, his body seized and froze. Lyle’s grunts turned to panicked squeaks and wheezing. His eyes darted back and forth as he tried to grasp what was happening. It was like all of his muscles had cramped all at once. Pain, on top of the burning in his chest, lit his entire body on fire. He tried to scream, but nothing came out. Lyle felt the grip loosen slightly, but he still couldn't move. Air! His rapid breaths were restricted, but air was flowing. The pained scream that had been building up was finally released. It didn't help.

  Two leaned in close. Lyle was baffled and almost horrified by what he saw. Gashes on the man's face, opened by fists, didn't bleed…and they appeared to be sewing themselves closed. No blood. No scars. And the eyes. They were different. There was no sign of a pupil or an iris, but they were moist and fleshy like normal eyes and had what looked like a pattern of circuitry but it...moved.

  "What…the hell…are you?" Lyle said, forcing the words through his pain and fatigue.

  Two didn't respond.

  One stood up, finally, and walked over. Lyle's muscles were still locked in Two's grip.

  "You help us. You get your life back," One said. "You don't. You disappear."

  "There's another option," Two said.

  One looked at his partner.

  "We can just let you go."

  Lyle grunted.

  "Just throw you out in the street. Impounded ship. Revoked credentials. Frozen assets. Someone will find you. Maybe the Grey Corporation will come looking for their cargo? Maybe even the 501st? They'll have some very direct questions for you. What will you tell them?" Two said.

  Lyle struggled to get the words past his clenched throat. "Wh…what…if I told them what you want…me…to do?"

  "You could do that," Two said. "And whether or not they believed you, your corpse would be found in an alley somewhere." His tone was one of smug satisfaction.

  One added, "You'd be dead and the rogues would continue on without answering for wiping out Wagner. Have you forgotten that?"

  Two released his grip from Lyle's throat. He immediately dropped to the floor in a crumpled heap at Two's feet, coughing and sucking in deep gulps of air at the same time. Movement crept back into his muscles like a wave of needles washing from his extremities, inward. Lyle laid there for several long moments. He couldn't believe what he was thinking. What they were saying, as much as it sickened him, it was a chance. A chance at...something. A chance to not have to keep one eye over his shoulder everywhere he went. But he was Carson Lyle now, and he did have a good life. He helped people. He was fulfilled in that life.

  But Sarah...

  Chapter 11

  The loss of his wife hit Carson Lyle harder than anything ever could. The first couple of years were the most brutal - trying to cope with the loss and trying to make a living as a hauler at the same time. There was more than one occasion, when he was most down on his luck, where he was a trigger pull away from being with her. He had his service sidearm with its last government issue round in the clip. It seemed fitting that since the Authority caused her death, an Authority-issued gun should finish the job with him.

  Laying on the floor with the agents standing over him, Lyle found himself remembering a time when he'd bottomed out and came closest to reuniting with Sarah. It was shortly after he'd met Mad Jack and Betty. He'd only been hauling for a year or so, at the time. Knew everything and still wet behind the ears. Jack had undercut him for a job that was agreed to under the table. It had Lyle on the edge of losing his small ship, everything.

  Jack took some pity on him and was going to let him help on the next run and pay him a cut. He'd gone to their place to hammer out the details. All through dinner, Mad Jack was telling him what he was and wasn't going to do, and how he was and wasn't going to do it.

  "You stick with me, Scrub, and I'll learn ya...But you'll have to work for it," Jack had said.

  He excused himself to hit the head. After the door was closed, he sat on the toilet and pulled out the dull, scratched, forty-four. He released the clip and looked at it long and hard. It had one high-explosive bolt round left. He took the round in his hand and held it in front of his face. Lyle fixated on it. Everything else around him turned to a blur as his turned the round in his fingers. Like the face in the mirror, It, too, was tarnished and showed its age.

  He was so possessed by the sight of the round and the relief it could bring, he didn't hear the knock at the door or see it open slowly.

  "Carson," a gentle woman's voice said. It was Betty. "What are you doing?"

  He didn't respond.

  "Carson..."

  "Have you ever wondered," he started, "what your salvation might look like?"

  Betty didn't say anything. Jack came to the doorway at that moment. He started to say something, but Betty held up a dismissive hand.

  "This," Lyle said, holding up the round. "This is my salvation." Then clicked the round back in the clip and slowly slit the clip back into the handle until it clicked and locked into place."

  "Government issued forty-four H-E bolt round?" Jack whistled. "That'll make quite a mess in here, Betts."

  "It seems like you've made up your mind. I only ask that you take it somewhere else," Betty said.

  "Maybe I should."

  "But you know the police will have questions for us," she continued. "It may help things to know why you'd do this."

  Lyle still sat, turning the gun over in his hand. Running his fingers over the impressions in the metal. He cocked the hammer. The metal on metal 'click' seemed to almost echo in the small bathroom.

  He sat for another minute, not saying anything. Jack had pulled Betty back and moved into the doorway.

  "Easy there, Scrub."

  "My name...is not 'Scrub'."

  "Fine then," Jack said with no ease in his voice. "Would you prefer 'Mr. Lyle'?"

  "My name is Carson...Magee and that's one reason why I'm doing this."

  Lyle wasn't sure what came over him. Maybe things had built up inside of him so much they just had to escape. He told Jack and Betty everything; all about what lead up to changing his identity, Wagner, Sarah…everything.

  By the time he was finished he was in tears. Jack was able to take the gun from him, but Lyle didn't care. He'd released the pent-up emotion that had been torturing him for two years. They were the only ones he ever told everything to.

  Jack held on to the gun for weeks before giving it back. Lyle still had it on The Majestic. He decided he'd save it with that same one round for a special occasion; when he found the Mech commander that was leading the attack on Wagner that day. Now that was a real possibility.

  The trick would be to get what he wanted without giving the Authority what they wanted.

  Chapter 12

  After a couple of minutes laying on the floor and regaining his breath and muscle movement. He rolled over and propped himself up on an elbow.

  "That's a pretty solid offer," he said. "I think I'm going to..."

  Sensing affirmation, One said, "Your government thanks you for your—"

  "...tell you to cram it up your ass."

  Agent One stared blankly. Two's smile faded.

  "What was that, Mr. Lyle?" One said.

  Lyle got to his feet and leaned in looking at his reflection in One's visor so he could be sure he had the Agent's attention.

  "I said – and I quote myself – 'cram it up your ass'."

  One sighed deeply. "That's disappointing, Mr. Lyle. Very disappointing. If it were up to me, I'd count it as another act of treason. I may be more irritated that you've proven my colleague to be right about you. Disappointing indeed." One turned to his partner. "You can collect on our wager."

  "Collect?" Lyle said. "Collect what?"

  "We bet on how reasonable you would be," One side, with a small measure of disappointment.

  "You lost," said Two.

  Lyle saw Two step forward, then saw a fist come down on his face. It came so quickly, and with such force, it knocked him down to the floor.

  He felt left eye swelling up already. He struggled to get to his feet. He leaned against the wall and brought his feet up under him to stand up. He turned around just in time for another blow to strike his jaw. His head snapped back to the left and struck the wall, then he was down again. He was barely aware of his surroundings, but the warm, salty taste of blood was in his mouth. Powerful arms effortless lifted him off the floor, by his jacket.

  "The things we can do to the human body, just by touching it, are fine for when we want to be subtle," Two said, standing Lyle up against the wall. "But nothing sends a message like simple brute force."

  Lyle felt a sledgehammer hit him in the gut, knocking the wind out of him.

  "This is what should have been done with you and your band of traitors," Two said, standing him up against the wall again.

  Lyle snapped his head forward, hitting Two with his forehead across the bridge of his nose. He saw the agent's head recoil back to its normal position on his neck. For a moment, the agent's nose was crooked, broke from the impact. But in a few seconds, it straightened. There was never any blood. It was if he hadn't been touched.

  Two grabbed Lyle by the neck again with his gloved left hand and got into his face. "You got your shot," Two said and started to squeeze Lyle's throat again. "That's more than you deserve."

  WHAM! Lyle's head snapped to the right, blood flying across the room.

  "You and your kind. You're pirates! You're scum!"

  WHAM! Teeth with trailing strings of blood and spit hit the floor.

  Two clamped his gloved hand around Lyle's neck again. "The worst common denominator!"

  Lyle struggled to get air into his lungs. His breaths turned to wheezing, then to coughs.

  "I'm going to find out if I'm right about who you are," Two said, showing outward signs of anger for the first time. "I'll find out…and there won't be any tribunal, this time."

  Two kept squeezing. The strength left Lyle's legs. He started sliding down the wall.

  "That's enough," said One.

  Two kept squeezing, lifting him by the neck back to a standing position. Lyle was limp against the agent's grasp.

  "That is enough!"

  Two held on to Lyle's neck for two more long seconds and let him drop to the floor.

  Lyle forced an eye open. He could barely make out the two agents standing over him. He felt consciousness slipping away.

  …Then everything went black.

  Chapter 13

  "Wake up!"

  The voice was distant, barely perceptible.

  "Wake the hell up!"

  This time the voice was followed by a slimy, wet, stench that poured over him. Carson Lyle sat up suddenly, coughing from water - or something that was supposed to pass for water - that rained down on him from a bucket held over his head by a rough-looking woman.

  "This ain't no hotel, hauler!" She said, in a think, raspy voice. "Your hour's up."

  Lyle tried to rub the haze out of his eyes. He grimaced. The water on his hands smelled putrid, like unfiltered waste from a garbage scowl. His managed to clear up sight enough to make sense of his surroundings. It looked like it was meant to be a pub - on the lower end of the spectrum. Dank, dirty, smelled of bad, warm beer, and packed with people lacking even the most basic social graces - just the kind of place someone who needed to get out of the public eye would go to.

  The woman was wiping the table around him, muttering to herself. "Blimey haulers think they can just crash any old where."

  "Where…am I?"

  "Bilbo's," she said, pushing him back against the seat of the booth to wipe the table right in front of him. "Two bloaks dropped you off 'ere and paid me a quad to let you stay for an hour. Your hour's up. Move it!"

  Lyle looked around, dug around in his pockets. His credential pouch, cash, and even his chop on the chain around his neck were accounted for. He would need time to figure out what to do.

  The woman bunched up the rags she was using for cleanup and turned to head back to the bar. He grabbed her by the arm. "Wait—"

  In a single, swift motion she turned back and Carson Lyle found the rusty point of a very large knife just centimeters from his face.

  "Easy, love. That'll cost you extra and you pay up front," she said through a discolored teeth.

  Lyle slowly released her arm and held his hands out. "Sorry," he said calmly. "I was just going to ask you to bring me a drink."

  Two other large, unsavory types walked up behind her. "Everthin' okay, Myrtle?" One of them said.

  The woman's glare hung on him for an extra second or two. "Can ya pay fer it?"

  "Yeah."

  She tossed the knife in the air, in front of Lyle's face. The other large man grabbed it by the blade in the air.

  "Great!" She said with a smile that exposed the rest of her needed dental work. "Then I like ya, already. What'll ya have?"

 

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