Even though it had the same wood paneling and pictures as the bar below, the atmosphere of the room was completely different. It had seen far less traffic and was nearly sterile in the way a lot of offices seem to be. A large desk with a banker's lamp and carefully arranged items dominated the room, but the man sitting behind it was more interesting. He looked like something I'd expect on Mort, but not here in the middle of nowhere.
"Operative Cole, this is Boss Richardson," Roman said.
The man seated on the other side of the desk was about middle age and had the look of a manager as opposed to someone who gets his hands dirty for a living. He was clean-shaven and well groomed, with a set of extra chins that made him look like one of those cartoon pigs that sells sausages during the ad spots on Gorezone. The way that he peered up at me only reinforced the image. It didn't help that he was wearing a bright white suit, the type that would have been perfect on a cheap financier or maybe a pimp. It put him in stark contrast to the dark surroundings and his assistant's clothes but the attitude was the same.
"Mister Cole," he said as he leaned forward smiling and held out his stubby little hand.
There was a hint of an accent in the voice- perhaps a drawl but it wasn't pronounced enough for me to place and I shook his hand. He radiated confidence and maybe a little arrogance, happily setting back in his chair again to look us over. The image of the pig carrying the "Eat More Pork!" sign came back to me and I smiled back. A thin layer of sweat was on his brow and I figured that the heat didn't agree with him very much either.
"Glad to see you're adjustin," he continued. "Everything to your liking?"
I nodded and looked around. Roman had taken a position to the side of the desk and the two guides were now behind us near the doors. There was a quartet of other armed guards in the room that might have been statues for the amount of movement they were showing.
"Yes, everything is nice," I answered. "Mr. Richardson -"
"You kin call me 'Boss'," he interrupted as his grin widened. His charming smile was more predatory than friendly and the term "downtown swamp alligator" came to mind. As I thought about it, I realized that his accent sounded a little like someone from lower downtown's Swamps and hoped that this wasn't the case. From what I've heard, that kind was crazier than anyone ever to have been locked up in Bethlehem.
I hesitated before I spoke, feeling more unsettled by the minute. "I'd like to thank you for everything you've done for us."
"No thanks necessary, boy," he said. "You're a company op-rative and we all do what we can to keep the company running. Don't we, Johnny?"
Roman muttered a "yes sir" with a little less than full enthusiasm. He didn't seem to like being called Johnny very much and I can't say I blamed him.
"We like to do what we can to co-operate," he continued and leaned forward. "So, what brings you boys way out here, all the way from Mort?"
Although we hadn't talked much about it, K'rth wouldn't have given them any information on our BPN. After all, these people had made it clear that they hadn't wanted to talk to a non-human anyway so I decided to stick to some of the truth and improvise from there.
"We're on a BPN for some misrouted cargo," I said and saw a confused look wash over Richardson's face. He looked over at Roman who spoke up.
"A BPN," he said. "An assignment, color-coded for the type of mission that company operatives are given."
"Uh-huh," Richardson said as he opened up a dark box and pulled out a cigar. After he snapped the tip off and lit up, his little piggy eyes came back up at me. "So, what color was yours?"
"Yellow," I answered. I didn't believe that anyone in the WoP could not know what a BPN was but kept my voice neutral. "Just a standard search and retrieval."
"I see. So it's a de-tect-ive job then," he said in between puffs. As he leaned back in his chair, it creaked under the strain and he chuckled. "So, you boys come all the way out here after something that some pencil pusher sent to the wrong place?"
"It's a little more complicated than that," I said. I was still sticking to the truth as much as possible.
"So I understand," he said as he blew out a ring of smoke across the desk at Roman who coughed and blinked. "Now, how'd you end up fulla bullets if this was just a simple de-tec-tive job?"
"I got stupid," I said flatly. Nix's answers usually sized things up pretty well so I went with her view. There wasn't anything particularly funny about the statement, but Richardson must have seen it differently and started chuckling. The chuckles built up into a loud guffaw and the rest of the employees joined in with entirely too much enthusiasm. K'rth, Nix, and I traded looks as the laughter was gradually brought under control. The only one who had not been laughing like a trained monkey had been Roman, but no one had seemed to notice.
"Damn, boy!" Richardson said as he wiped tears out of his eyes. "That's the best laugh I had in a long time!"
There still wasn't anything funny about any of this, so I just waited for the other shoe was to drop.
"Y'all bail out of your ship and land here, all of you shot to hell and it's 'cause you was stupid?" he said, still wiping at the tears. "That sounds like one helluva a fish story to me, don't you think Johnny?"
His mannerism shifted, pushing the jovial attitude aside like a cheap curtain and the hair on the back of my neck stood up in response. The eyes of everyone in the room were on me and for the third or so time today, I was acutely aware that we were completely unarmed and surrounded.
"So boy, why don't you tell us why you're REALLY here?"
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