The Freelancers

by OverHeart

Chapter 8 - Someone On The Inside

Riot stood in front of the net cafe surrounded by his heavily armored team and the door slammed open which shattered the glass panes causing them to tumble to the ground in multiple pieces.

The sound made Chilled Coffee himself snap to attention, where he locked eyes with Riot and found several carbine rifle barrels pointed at him.

“There something I can do for you gentlecolts?” he stammered.

Riot stepped out from the crowd. “There is. You’re going to hand over the connection logs of every pod you have.”

“Am I now? I don’t think I will.”

“Don’t play cute. I and my employers know full well you know what I’m talking about, the dirty and scummy Netrunning type have been up to no good and their signal came from this very building. You facilitated the crime they committed.”

Chilled Coffee smirked. “I can’t say I know what you’re talking about.”

A single shot rings out which embedded itself in a console sat to his immediate left, it shattered into pieces on the floor where it came to a rest leaving Chilled Coffee a little shaken.

The trooper that fired the shot stepped back and rested his weapon to his side. “Apologies sir. I slipped.”

Riot pointed a hoof at the trooper. “Apology accepted. You didn’t hit anything of value anyway.”

The troopers chuckle to themselves which left Chilled Coffee a little bewildered.

“I don’t know what you expect me to tell you. I don’t ask for names, that much should be obvious.”

“Then connection logs will do fine. Give them up or we’ll have to resort to something more drastic, it’s as simple as that.”

Chilled Coffee turns a deep shade of red in anger. “Who do you think you are, coming in here like that and terrorizing my patrons and establishment?”

Riot sighed and gestured for his team to grab Chilled Coffee, who dragged him out of his seat and across the shop floor and pulled him to the door. Outside, Riot delivered a swift kick to Chilled Coffee’s stomach which sent him reeling back into the pavement.

“You’d better start taking this seriously, you get me?” Riot bellowed.

Chilled Coffee reluctantly nodded, as Riot’s team join him outside Chilled Coffee coughed up some blood.

“Now, let me ask again. Hoof over all your records and the names of all your customers.”

“Or what? I know your kind, always sneaking about and causing trouble for us. I wont give up my customers to the likes of you!”

Riot shook his head which made his long curls bounce in the night breeze. “My kind? How rude of you, friend. Bag him, he’s coming with us.”

One of the troopers stepped forward. “Sir, what about the objectives?”

“Bring in Z3 and G2 and have them extract the records the more elegant way, after you’re done you have my full permission to level the place. Send a message to the scum that they don’t get to fuck with us without penalty.”

Chilled Coffee looked up at Riot in anger. “You can’t-”

Riot didn’t give him the chance to answer and struck him over the head with a Plasteel baton, it resounded with a sickening crack as it contacted the back of his head.

He let out an annoyed huff and gestured for the now still body of Chilled Coffee to be loaded into a waiting van, as he stepped away he turned to his troopers and stared for a few moments.

“Let me know when Z3 and G2 are done here, Remind them to strip all systems they find of their storage drives and anything that looks remotely useful.”

They nod and give a salute as they get to work. Within the hour the place was empty of patrons who left with little coercion once they saw the heavily armed group flooding back into the establishment.

It was no small task keeping the rabble out of the net cafe and word soon began to spread about what happened, multiple groups stopped and gawked at the shattered shopfront as well as the heavily armed troopers milling about.

“Move along everyone, this has nothing to do with any of you.” one of the troopers outside bellowed at the crowd.

---

Pain shot through Chilled Coffee’s head, likely from the rough blow he received. He looked around his featureless concrete cell, it had no windows and no markings on any of the walls inside or outside of his cell that he could see.

He had no idea where he was and no idea who he’d been taken by, he could hear the sound of hooves echoing down the hallway and the sound of a baton being dragged along the bars as whoever it was came closer.

“You.” he growled as Riot stepped into view with the same smug smirk as ever.

Riot gave Chilled Coffee an annoyed look. “I warned you this would happen didn’t I? If you had hoofed over the names and records we politely requested, I wouldn’t have had to drag you here.”

“Like you would have kept your word anyway, you mindless lackey!”

Riot clapped his fore-hooves to his face in fake offense. “Your words cut deep, Mr Coffee. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from that.”

“Are you mocking me?”

Riot smirked. “In truth, I wanted to see if I was dealing with a smart stallion or a woefully misguided stallion.”

Chilled Coffee huffed in disgust. “If you’re here to bargain, i don’t make deals with the likes of you.”

Riot shook his head. “We can sort this out via a little understanding, can’t we? I wouldn’t want your family to have take the punishment of being associated with a criminal such as yourself. It’d be easy enough to have them work hard labor until they drop, you know.”

“You’re a complete psychopath. You know that?”

“Things would be so much easier if ponies like you weren’t so difficult, i could very easily make all this nasty business vanish, if we can come to a deal.”

While he didn’t want his family involved in such a shady deal or acting as collateral, he had little choice now he’d been locked up and this monstrous pony would likely follow through on his threats should he refuse, the thought made him physically sick to his stomach.

“What do I get out of such a deal?”

“You’ll feed us information when we ask for it, as well as a generous stipend to buy your silence. Maybe you could put that towards some renovations?” Riot said mockingly.

“How kind, it’s the least you could do after wrecking my establishment, destroying my livelihood and threatening my family.” Chilled Coffee said with a sneer.

“I just want to mention, If you think you can get away with not following through with your part of the bargain at any point, we can always pay your family a visit. But you’re a smart stallion and you wouldn’t go back on a deal, would you?”

Riot gestured to a high-caliber revolver strapped to his chest, the kind you’d use for anti-armor ops. It could easily punch through a pony and a rather cruel weapon to use on an unarmored opponent.

“So, Mr Coffee, Do we have a deal?”

“Yes. We do.”

Riot put on a sick smile. “Now was that so hard? I’ll have someone come down in a minute and have you transferred upstairs. Then you’ll tell us everything you know, understood?”

“Fine. As long as you keep up your end of the bargain.”

“I am a pony of my word, Mr Coffee.”