Chapter 39: The Clowns
At first, he and his gang planned to just take the money and disappear. In the Fringe, where people from all sorts of places and shady characters from both inside and outside the city mingle, it’s hard to track anyone down.
Especially if that person is visiting the Fringe for the first time.
But this? This idiot is different! Easy money like 600,000 doesn’t come every day. The fool offered so much that not trying to fleece him for everything he had would almost be considered impolite!
"Hey guys! We’ve got a big client today," Red Vulture said excitedly to his comrades inside their hideout.
"A big client or a big sheep!?" one of his comrades joked, drawing laughter from everyone in the room.
The hideout wasn’t large, just a simple 11 square meter (120 square foot) room. Inside were three workstations, each with three to five mismatched monitors and various pieces of monitoring equipment. A stack of jury-rigged servers was held together by duct tape and an improvised rack.
The room was full of exposed wires glowing with blue and red neon signals to show they were still functional. The ceiling bore multiple smoke stains from past accidents, and stained mattresses were thrown in a corner for shift sleeping. Garbage bags... mostly filled with empty instant noodle cups, lay around the room.
"Listen, this time it’s a million—a million bucks if we get the information! That sheep already paid me 200 grand in advance. We only need to find what he wants!" said Red Vulture.
"What kind of information are we talking about?" one of the comrades asked, interested.
"It’s like this," Red Vulture began, sharing the details of Maximilian’s request and what little he knew about it. Thanks to Maximilian uncovering much of the lead himself, they had a good idea of what they were getting into.
At that moment, one of his comrades frowned and said, "Where are we going to find that kind of information? We’re not some big-shot broker with a team of mercs ready to be hired, and we definitely don’t have the firepower or connections to dig that deep. Listen to me, Vulture—you better contact that client of yours and give his money back!"