Gardener Fall - Chapter 2a - by nova

Cruz went ahead of us yelling "Make a hole! Make a hole people!" They began to move, saw it was me and Ninja and moved a little quicker. A quick thought, "Man, I love this shit" went through my head. By that I mean people getting out of my way. I wonder what Ninj thought about it or if even did. When I was an IT drone as I was damn near invisible at work unless someone wanted something from me. I bet being an Asian back then, even as a kid, was the same way.

My guy, Thompson, was standing there, doing what he did best which was look good. He was trying to project charm, contriteness, and boyish innocence.Thompson was a good looking guy, and I tried not to hate him for it. He looked a lot like an aging action hero from one of those big budget, special effect laden movies that were popular once. He was also borderline worthless, a bit of a bully when he thought he could get away with it, and a magnet for woman who only thrived in abusive relationships.

I could tell by looking at him he thought he was going to be able to charm his way out of this. Probably because he was our first thief and we hadn't set a penalty for it yet. I knew there had been some borderline incidents but they were petty and handled at the squad level. This wasn't going to be.

Everyone had shown up for this. I saw Max talking to Freya while Night was listening intently to something Shelli was telling her. She saw me, smiled, and went back to listening. I grinned at her, damn, she was striking when I met her but she had become pure beautiful somewhere along the line. I refocused and headed for Max nodding at people who caught my eye along the way.

The aggrieved party, Statler, was standing about fifteen paces behind Max and Freya. I didn't know him by name but I recognized him. I would have known he was the complainant just by the way he was glaring at Thompson. I took note that he had his squad behind him while Thompson only had a woman I recognized from the dungeon where I had found Carol. I hadn't seen her yet but I knew she and Zane had to be around here somewhere.