Blood Simple Contract Killing

[Felders]

These events, while fascinating, are gray within the laws of the server, so again I will be using fictionalized identities for real characters. It's been a while since this occurred, but my recollection is clear.

Mid-round, I wound up in a mess by taking a drink off the bar and running to botany to go do work in the back lab. Drinks had to be paid for and the Diona (Eye of the Rim) sitting beside me had already paid. Eye was livid and the bartender (Carl) decides to avenge his stolen drink by getting it back for him.

Carl grabs up his shotgun and ends up outside botany, climbing on the trade table and smashing out the glass covering. He marched to the back door and goes on buzzin it repeatedly. Seeing his shotgun and obvious rage I just stared at him, frozen in panic. Carl stood back and took two blasts at the reinforced glass. Seeing as he created more noise and attention than a welderbomb and he hadnt reloaded I decided to step out.

I say, "Someone rang?" Carl starts screaming about a stolen martini, trouble is I already drank it. I get the glass and throw it in his face. He retaliates with a shotgun butt to the face. I disarm him and push him over, he comes back with an uppercut. I start fighting back, grab his shotgun, and beat him over the head with it til his screams of "fucker" and "shitbag" faded out.

Here I am, covered in blood and holding a shotgun over some half dead bartender and the much feared "Halt! Halt! Halt!" screams out as stun beams start sailing through the broken trade window, I knew where I stood. I run for the maintenance tunnels and find security and their droids trying to get through the back. I look over to the front to see a wave of officers pouring in. As some last ditch effort, I weld the doors shut, blinding myself, and start crouching behind livestock.

I can hear the mechanical commotion of maintbots trying to pry their way in just as the kitchen doors open and the chef (Pierre) whispers, "run". Perhaps Pierre took pity on my desperare display. I end up hiding in medbay, surrounded in a sea of bodies from some Syndicate bombing. I shop them like an outlet mall, grabbing a new ID in a favored position, the most stylish outfit available, and as much fancy headwear as I could fit. I am now Zum*qix the gateway explorer dressed in a trashbag, a wrestler's mask, shades, clownshoes and a fruitbasket hat. My vision gets repaired and I book it to the portal room.

After an hour spent on a xeno filled abandonned station by myself I finally discover the company of another crew member, a warden (Ben). A fired stun connects with my chest, moments later I'm cuffed to a chair in a reconverted medbay being told of my popularity. Ben promises me perma but says a quid pro quo arrangement could be made for my freedom and the chance at 5000 credits. He tells me he can't risk his position in security by harming another officer but that I could. I agree. He tells me the indentity of out John Doe, says to "figure it out" myself and to be back at the portal when it's over. I rig up a makeshift stunbaton and stand at the end of the sec hallways.

A message gets sent out to John asking to meet me in front of the bridge ASAP. A few minutes later and John arrives, I'm yelling, "Quick! Follow! There's a body!" and run down to the southwest disposal room with him in suit. I get him around the corner with a few baton hits all the while getting muzzle strikes to the face from his stungun.

I ziptie him to a chair I dragged in earlier and say, "The body could be yours but I'm here to save you. Someone in security wants you dead and I want to know why." "Ben?" He went on to divulge a tale of corrupt security amidst a crisis.

Everything was code red, bodies were piling up from a Syndicate explosion and a high profile manhunt on their main suspect, me, wasn't going anywhere. John took it upon himself to conduct searches to any crewmember he could, arresting people for small crimes and going as far as bending the intent of the law to ensure the safety of the crew by seperating it. "If I didn't catch the right person at least everyone's cell ensured some safety from the syndicate."

Soon after, the cells were overcrowded and people started to get released early only for it to be discovered none of the prisoners had their original IDs. A few minutes later, a group returned with replacements from HOP complaining their accounts had all been drained. John disperses the crowd saying, "I'll try figuring it out."

John goes back to patrolling and captures someone for refusing to be searched during a red alert. He brings him back for processing and hands him off to the warden. John took to casually reviewing Ben's conduct from afar and witnessed him exchange an ID for a prisoner's number, jail the new inmate, set the timer, and bolt out of security. Ben's later seen at the ATM draining the convicts account.

John confronts him with an aggressive pull through the courtroom into maintenace. Ben details a grandplan to reinvest into security by reincorporating finances from the convicts. John asks for a reason to not report him to HOS and is offered 15,000 credits. He agrees and Ben runs off to the ATM to never be seen again. I suppose this was the time he got the idea to hire someone expendable for 3x less credit: me, a suspected syndicate agent responsible for a bombing that took more than 30 crewmembers lives who was nothing more than an innocent botanist.

I commend John on his storytelling and blatant honesty, and agree to release him on one condition, my record needs clearing. John agrees to with a caveat - help him get back at Ben. I tell him to give me his pants and his PDA and to go watch for Ben while waiting inside a cryodorm.

I go to medbay and find a body bag with a bombing victim inside, I swap their clothes and ID with John's and turn the sensors on high before storing him away in the morgue as a DNR. I hide in the biosuit locker by the gateway and message Ben on John's PDA, "Check suit sensors. I'll see you soon." 10 minutes pass and warden is outside using a stolen ID to get in, and runs right past me with a combat shotgun in hand. I wasn't surprised he'd rather not pay. John wasn't far behind him, armed with the same lethal weaponry. I let him through and salute him on his way out to the other side.

I walk back to medbay for another shopping spree and come out as "Pierre" the cook dressed in a red mankini, cosby sweater, and box mask. I head back to the bar to check on that bartender one last time.

Again, I don't know who was more wrong in this situation.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Felders