Easy Money, Part 8
Layne sat slumped in the corner, clutching his aching broken arm and nursing a serious grudge.
Dumb-ass bitch pilot and her little freak goon and dried-up old turd repair man and hulking retard janitor ... who the fuck did she think she was? He was Layne Fucking Merkin, for chrissake! She was going to pay for this, they were all going to pay ...
Merideth sat next to him, holding a wad of bandages against her broken nose. She put a hand on his shoulder; he swatted it away. Dumb-ass slut. This was her goddamn fault; how the fuck had she let the little freak goon pop her? She was the one with the gun! She should have goddamn well shot the little prick! Hell, if she'd just put up a fight, he could have gotten his own gun out in time! Instead, here he was, arm hurting like hell, Turd standing there looking all smug and superior pointing the dumb bimbo's gun at him ...
"You whadda make some money?"
Heh. Merideth sounded funny with her nose broken.
"Always," Turd said, smirking. "But I hate to break it to you, honey; if you're trying to buy a mutiny, I ain't the guy you want on your side."
"Nod just you," Merideth said. "Whole shib. All you guys could use some money, right?"
"Us and the whole damn universe."
"Ged us out of here and we'll split it with you," she said. "Fitty-fitty. Wit dis much junk? Dat's a lot of money!"
"What the fuck?!" Layne screamed. If his right arm hadn't been broken, he would have punched her; instead, he had to settle for slapping her awkwardly with his left. "You stupid fucking whore! That's not your shit! That's mine! I paid for it! So shut the fuck up!"
Turd clicked the hammer back on the gun -- dumb bitch couldn't even afford anything better than that cheap-ass slugthrower. "Settle down, Giggles," Turd said, leveling the gun at him. "She's had a bad day, and it's not looking to get better any time soon."
"Fine!" she said. "Fitty percent of my share! Hell, eiddy -- four of you and one of me, right? Eiddy percent of half is still ... fordy percent! Dat's still a shitload of money!"
Layne snorted. "And what the hell makes you think your share is fifty, anyway?"
She turned her head and stared at him, eyes filled with dumb shock. "You said we were pardners!"
Layne laughed. "You're not that good a fuck, babe. Don't worry, you'll still get paid a fair hourly rate."
And the stupid bitch went apeshit.
With no warning, she stood up, leaned over, grabbed his throat with one hand, and started punching him in the face with the other!
Stunned, Layne tried to fend her off with his one good arm while she screeched at him, but the blows kept coming. He tried to shout at her to stop, but her vise-grip on his neck wouldn't let the words come. He tried to turn his head away from her fist, pounding into his face over and over again, while she sprayed him with blood, spittle, and obscenities.
Jesus Christ! he thought as his vision started going dark at the edges. Dumb slut is gonna beat me to death!
Finally he was able to plant a foot into her gut and kick her off of him.
She flopped against that lumpy, uncomfortable, cheap-ass bed. He tried to get up to start kicking her some more, but collapsed back to the floor, gasping for breath.
He half expected the brainless bitch to launch herself at him, but when he looked up, Turd had his hand on her shoulder -- holding her gun conspicuously out of reach, asshole. "That's enough," Turd said.
Where the fuck had he been? Turd had just about shot him just for slapping the skank, but he was cool with her damn near choking him to death?
Jesus. Life was easy when you had a nice pair of tits.
She wrenched her shoulder out of Turd's grasp -- heh, Layne wouldn't have wanted the creepy old fucker laying a hand on him, either -- and collapsed in the other corner on this side of the bed, sobbing her damn eyes out.
"If you'd fought like that earlier," Layne snapped, "we wouldn't be in this fucking mess!"
"You wanna go another round with Morg," Turd said, "I'm sure he'd be happy to oblige. Might wanna quit before you run out of arms, got me?"
Dumb-ass old fucking fossil. Who the fuck did he think he was talking to, anyway? Didn't he understand he was dealing with Layne Fucking Merkin? And that little bitch Merideth, she was on his list now, too, see if he paid her one goddamn cent after that stunt ...
Not long after, his stomach lurched as the gravity suddenly vanished. Fuck! He flailed his one good arm about, trying to keep balance, while Turd just grabbed hold of something on the wall like nothing was happening. Not long afterward, Goon stuck his head in through the door.
"It's over," he said. "Captain's come to terms with our pursuit."
"Good ones or bad ones?" Turd asked.
"Little of both," Goon said. "Good news is we're chucking both these two assholes and their mountain of drugs out the airlock after all. Bad news is we're going to waste a perfectly good rescue pod keeping them alive until that other ship picks them up."
Merideth gasped.
"No!" Layne shouted, his heart racing. "No, you can't do that, you fuckers!"
Goon looked at him. "Jesus, Ham, what'd you do to this little prick?"
"Nothing," Turd said, smirking. "He pissed her off."
"Ha-fucking-ha!" Layne shouted, panic starting to clench at his throat. "You're not going to give us to those guys! You--"
He shut-up when Goon, moving so fast he didn't even see it, pointed his own pistol at him. The pulser whined as Goon allowed it to charge.
Asshole wasn't even looking at him, but he kept the weapon fixed directly on his head. Layne swallowed; that was a top-of-the-line Mullig Scorpio-18 Personal Pulse Laser -- one second of fire from that thing would burn a hole all the way through his skull.
"Why the fuck is everybody pointing guns at me?" Layne grumbled under his breath. It wasn't like he'd done anything wrong; this was all her fault.
"Merideth?" Goon said. She looked up. "Looks like you don't have a lot of upper body strength, so you're probably better off concentrating your fire -- punching the same place over and over again instead of spreading the joy. Nothing says 'I hate you' quite like a fractured eye socket."
Merideth gave a snort that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
Layne drew a breath to speak, but Goon cut him off. "You'd be amazed how much pain I can inflict without killing you, kid."
"You wouldn't be so tough without that gun," Layne muttered.
Goon gave a condescending smile. "Short-term memory damage, eh?" He turned back to Turd. "Get a hamster ball out of storage. I'll escort these two up when you're ready."
Turd nodded and floated his wrinkly old ass out of the room, pushing off the walls as he went.
"Whud's a 'habster ball?'" Merideth asked.
"Basic emergency life support capsule," Goon said. Jesus, he looked so relaxed just floating there, arrogant prick. "Semi-rigid airtight tent that inflates into a ball. Cheap-ass rebreather and some oh-two cannisters provide about four man-days of breathable air. Water and food can be dicey, but you two aren't going to be out there long."
Merideth started sobbing again. "Please don't," she said. "Dey'll kill me. Layne's dad is rich, dey'll hold 'im for ransom. But dey'll jus' kill me."
"Should have thought of that before you crossed them," Goon said.
Hah! Layne smirked; about time they found somebody immune to her sob-sob-sob-oh-feel-sorry-for-my-sexy-big-tits routine.
"Yo, Morg!" Turd shouted. "Bring 'em up; I'm ready to roll here."
Goon motioned towards the open door with his gun. "Let's go."
No. This couldn't be happening. No!
"Come on, man," Layne said as Merideth, defeated, pushed herself towards the door. "I've got more money in my bank account than you've seen in your whole life. We can work this out!"
Goon shook his head. "Get moving."
"Fuck you!" Layne said, panicking. "I'm not going! You can't make me!"
Goon smiled in a way that made him shiver, and put away the gun. "Challenge accepted."
Ten minutes later, Layne was hog-tied with a combination of "ropes" made of his own clothes and the bondage toys he'd brought on board with Merideth. It would have been easy enough to escape if every move didn't brought him agony from his broken arm, or his now-dislocated shoulder, or any of the innumerable fresh injuries that little douchebag had inflicted on him.
"What did I say?" Turd said, shoving him like a piece of luggage into the "hamster ball" formed by red and clear panels. "Morg was trained to break way tougher hombres than you, buddy. And just in case you haven't noticed yet, he's really good at it."
Okay. Layne was smart enough to see when he'd made a mistake. Maybe Merideth had been right -- maybe just begging was the way to go.
"Come on!" he said while Merideth sobbed hysterically just outside the airlock. Jesus, wouldn't that bitch shut up for a second? He could barely hear himself talk, let alone negotiate! "You don't need to do this! They want the drugs? Give 'em the drugs! I can buy more! Trust me, I can so make this worth your while!"
"A deal's a deal," Captain Bitch said over the intercom. "They said they'd drop pursuit if we dumped you two idiots and the 'cargo.'"
"And you trust them?!"
"I trust them to act in their own best interest. And if we don't have anything they want, we suddenly become more trouble to catch than we're worth."
"So give 'em Merideth!" he shouted. He struggled against his bonds, but red-hot pain exploded from his shoulder. "Come on, she doesn't matter! She's just some dumb-ass whore I picked up on Terra Nova! They get their pound of flesh, you get some money from me! Come on, how much you want? Ten thousand? Fifty?"
Morg was motioning Merideth into the hamster ball. Well, fuck. At least she'd be along to make the wait a little more tolerable; she could untie him, and maybe give him a blowjob.
"Wait," the captain said over the intercom.
"Captain?" Goon asked while Retard shuttled another load of luggage into the airlock.
"Mr. Merkin is correct. We don't need to dump both of them out the airlock."
"All right!" Layne shouted with joy. "I knew you'd be reasonable!"
"Captain," Goon said to the disembodied voice, concerned, "you said it yourself; a deal's a deal."
"Yeah, well, I'm renegotiating. Putting these two in the same hamster ball is a disaster waiting to happen."
"So you want to put them in separate balls?" Goon asked.
"Seems like a waste of perfectly good emergency gear, don't you think?"
Five minutes later, Lanye's ears popped as his hamster ball emerged from the ship's airlock in a cloud of clothes and luggage.
Layne screamed and cursed and the bitches who'd done this to him; he should have known that jailbait-looking skank would take Merideth's side. Those cunts had been out to get him from the beginning.
At least the little pod was crammed full of drugs; if he could just get his goddamn hands free, a little Easy Living was going to go a long way towards making this trip a lot more tolerable.
Damn, he needed a hit.
As he floated helplessly inside the pod, he saw the ship behind him.
That little bitch captain was lying down in some kind of bed, with Goon laying next to her. And floating above them, waving bye-bye, was the pink-haired whore who betrayed him.
He started screaming again.
