Tuesday, January 18, 2383
Omega
Sahrabarik system, Terminus sector

All day, Zaeed Massani had had the sneaking suspicion that someone was following him.

He had employed every trick of tradecraft he knew - which was most of them - but he'd been unable even to determine whether he really had pursuers, much less shake them off if he had. The old merc knew there were two things that could mean: that whoever was following him was really, really good; or that there was nobody there at all, and he was just being paranoid.

The prospect that he was just being paranoid didn't upset Zaeed too much. He'd survived a long career as a gun for hire because he had long cultivated a healthy dose of it. When the man in charge of the Blue Suns was one of your favored enemies it paid to keep looking over your shoulder, even if you preferred to be the hunter. On the other hand, the possibility that he was being shadowed by someone so good at it that he (or she, or it) could avoid positive detection was troubling. Vido didn't have anyone that good. Not any more.

Or maybe you're just getting old, Zaeed grumbled to himself, but he didn't really believe it. It was true that he was coming up on his 115th birthday, but 115 wasn't that old for a human these days, and his dangerous profession paradoxically meant that he'd received top-notch medical care for most of those years. He still had most of a further century in him, with luck and care, and his career could easily stretch through another five or six decades at least, though there were days when he felt every minute of every hard-traveled hour in his bones.

He arrived back at the Block 17 apartment he was using as a safehouse for this operation, keyed himself in, and relaxed, as much as he ever did, once he had the door locked behind him. He had two hours to kill before meeting his contact down in the Yellow Zone. If all went according to plan, he'd get the information he needed and move on to complete this contract, then head home. Omega no longer held the interest for him that it had when he'd been a younger man.

He went to the minibar and fixed himself a drink - just one, to take the edge off his slightly jangled nerves. He'd be completely clean by the time his rendezvous came. That was important. He'd never yet turned up sauced for part of a job. It would be unprofessional, and that was one thing Zaeed Massani never was.

Sipping his Scotch and water, Zaeed went to the viewport and looked out at the tumbling rocks of Omega's debris field. Part of him took notice of the room's reflection behind his own in the duracrys. Something seemed to move. He had the sudden, fleeting impression of a shadow passing over the glass coffee table.

Zaeed whirled, his free hand going to the butt of his sidearm, but there was no one there -

- until the hazy, indistinct outline of a man flickered briefly in the corner of his eye and a fist like a sledgehammer plowed into the side of his face.

As he toppled to the floor and everything went black, Zaeed thought he heard a cheerful voice cry in triumph, "Revenge!"

Zaeed came to with a sore jaw and a mild throbbing in his head, but since he hadn't expected to wake up at all, he decided he'd take the win. Opening his eyes, he looked around and found, to his mild surprise, that he was lying on the floor of his apartment, right where he'd been standing when the phantom stranger had decked him. Even his drink was right where it had fallen, right-side up near his outstretched hand, the glass unbroken thanks to the low-pile carpet.

Picking it up, Zaeed clambered to his feet, rubbed his face, and downed the rest of the drink. Nothing seemed amiss in the room - no ticking bomb or left-behind gas canister was in evidence, the door remained firmly secured. The clock on the wall informed him that he'd been out for three hours and missed his rendezvous.

"Dammit," he growled, putting the empty glass down on the coffee table. The blinking message light of the comm panel by the door caught his eye. He crossed the room and pressed the playback button, expecting to see a NO VIDEO SIGNAL screen and hear his contact complaining that he was late.

Instead, what he got was a holo of a commando-sweatered Benjamin Hutchins, looking rather pleased with himself and standing before this very panel with Zaeed sprawled on the carpet in the background.

"Hello, Zaeed," said Gryphon. "The contact you were supposed to meet in the Yellow Zone was actually a Blue Suns hit squad. Twelve guys including a heavy gunner and two phaser riflemen. This whole job was a setup from Day 1. You're getting sloppy in your old age." He smiled. "But fortunately for you, Aria got wind of it and dropped me a line. She's oddly fond of you for some reason, and I owed you a favor." The holographic Wedge Defender rubbed the knuckles of his left hand, his smile becoming slightly nasty. "And a punch in the head. And now I've given you both and we are, I hope you'll agree, completely even.

"Take care of yourself, old man. Vision would be very upset if you let yourself get killed. And if you ever want to try a steady job, we've got lots of interesting things happening in Zeta Cygni these days. Gryphon out."

The screen went blank. Zaeed stood and looked at it for a few moments.

Then, with a faint smile and a muttered, "Fuck it," he went to get himself some ice and another drink.

"Payback" - a Crossroads Mini-Story by Benjamin D. Hutchins
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