| Chapter 17 | Chapter 19 |
Part III
18
Roughnecks
Dutch Randstad Conurbation, April 26 2047
"Mister Gottschalk, please stop trying to fight with us, we are just here to talk."
The strangely friendly soothing and heavily accented voice of the youngest of his two attackers contrasted strongly with the hard emotionless expression on the man's face. He could not have been older than his late twenties, probably younger. Yet this young Caribbean bloke with long dreads reaching halfway down his back somehow had an air of authority about him.
The other guy, a huge bald black mountain of a man, standing over two and a half metres high and easily weighing three times that of the smaller one was in his late thirties. They had been the most unlikely team of attackers. Out of place whatever the setting. Both wearing the same well-tailored yet rather vintage looking black suit of the type that people used to get married in before Taxoga wedding suits had come into fashion. The same suit, while giving the smaller guy a vintage groom look, made the bald mountain of a man look like an oversized and equally vintage
bouncer.
"What do you want from me? I’m just a simple debrisphere miner without any political interests."
Pete knew his attackers had to be New Zion agents. Both of his attackers had waited for him in his living room when he came home. At first, Pete had thought that it had been a simple robbery.
As a veteran with years of combat experience, Pete should have had no problem fighting off two thugs trying to rob him. Even if one of them was so monstrous in stature that he might easily wrestle a silverback gorilla to the ground. Pete's fighting skills had been good. Excellent even.
Nothing had prepared him though for the fighting skills of these two. The two dark-skinned men had managed to absorb the energy from each of his kicks and punches and had used his own strength and energy against him like he was a first-year recruit.
These guys couldn’t be just muggers, they had to be New Zion agents and if they were, that couldn’t spell anything good.
"I think Mister Gottschalk that we got off to a bit of a bad start" The soothing voice spoke as the second attacker held Pete in a solid headlock,
“Let us introduce ourselves, Mister Gottschalk. I am Agent Bridgewater and my silent friend here is Agent Latour. You may call us John and Xavier if you wish. Xavier here will have no issues maintaining his headlock indefinitely, but if you promise to behave the two of us can talk calmly, Xavier here won’t need to continue making you uncomfortable. If you just answer all my questions we will leave in peace afterwards and nobody will need to get hurt.”
As Pete realized the hopelessness of the quite appealing idea of fighting his way out of this, a feeling of powerlessness overcame him.
"Ok, ok, I’ll keep calm. As I already said, I have no interest in politics and shit, you have the wrong guy."
"You can let go now Xavier, Mister Gottschalk is not going to give us any more aggravation."
As the big guy loosened his grip and stepped back, Pete felt like he had been nothing but a helpless child. Agent Latour remained standing menacing about one metre behind Pete, still as silent as he had been since when Pete had first entered the room.
"Our questions are not so much about politics Mister Gottschalk," Agent Bridgewater stated, "we are here about the special delivery you picked up on your last flight. We tracked a wanderer that decelerated in the debrisphere, Mister Gottschalk. Wanderers don’t decelerate, now, do they? Then, a few days later we detected a ship; your ship, taking in this object. Would you mind very much giving us some information regarding the delivery you took aboard from the ISS cluster, Mister Gottschalk?"
As Pete realized they were talking about Robert’s pod, his little brother's pod, his face hardened. He was not going to lead these guys to his baby brother no matter what.
"You may kill me, but I can’t tell you anything about no delivery."
John Bridgewater’s face hardened even further and now so did his voice:
"You truly don’t want to play hardball with us, Mister Gottschalk. New Babylon is not getting another foot on this planet. Not on my watch. Whatever you are hiding for them Mister Gottschalk, Xavier here has more tricks up his sleeve than just martial arts and strong muscles.
We can do this the friendly way, or you could get acquainted with some of Xavier’s other talents.
I can assure you Mister Gottschalk, the latter option isn’t going to be pleasant."
Pete’s eyes widened in disbelief, he wanted to protect his brother, not imply that he was in cohorts with those Mars-One snobs.
"No, please, Mister Bridgewater, please, you don’t understand, I don’t care about politics, but New Babylon is evil, I won’t do their bidding even if it got me a million barrels of undepleted replicator Base. I did not pick up any New Babylon crap on my last flight. The thing I picked up in the debrisphere has nothing to do with your cause."
A disconcerting but somehow still friendly smile formed on John Bridgewater’s face and kindness returned to his voice:
"I am inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt Mister Gottschalk. For now, that is. We will be keeping tabs on you quite closely though.
Come, Xavier, we’ll leave Mister Gottschalk for now."
As Agent Latour passed him and both agents moved to the door, Agent Latour finally spoke for the first time in a somewhat agitated voice with a heavy French accent:
"Stop calling me ecks-ZAY-vee-er, John. It's SHA-vee-e !!"
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