Million Credit Hustle C & D

C:

To the amazement of the crowd, I ended up beating her in all of the next 10 rounds. Quickly I'd made back my bet and more. In fact, I was up 10k credits. Not bad. That was certainly more than a few squid burgers. I got a comms message from Ice, "Hey, meet me outside the game".

I figured she was going to transfer the money and say she wanted to quit.

When I looked over at her, she was dripping with sweat. Her silver bangs clung to her forehead as she panted heavily.

"I… I'm not done with you yet."

I couldn't help but laugh.

"C'mon, Ice. Don't make me take all your money."

"That's… that's not even possible."

I narrowed my eyes and examined her carefully. She was beet red and talking in a more frantic matter than before.

She pulled the blue broach off her black dress. She was so sweaty that the top of her dress clung to her skin. Even the broach felt wet when she handed it to me.

"Hang on to this, I need my dad to transfer more money to my account. Then I'm going to humiliate you in front of all these people."

I smiled at her as she ran off. Frankly, I didn't expect her to come back. I figured this was some fake trinket she bought in Neon Chinatown. Despite being pretty sure it was junk, I ran it through through an appraisal app. I got a result a few seconds later and was stunned.

"ONE MILLION CREDITS????"

I couldn't help but blurt it out. According to the appraisal app, that little broach was worth a million credits. I'd never seen so much money in my life. This would be enough to cover my entire debt, and then some.

Why would this girl use this as collateral for a 10,000 credit bet? Was she crazy?

Maybe it was an oversight, but what an oversight! Either way, my next move was clear. I stood up and made an announcement to all the people standing around waiting for her to return.

"If Ice, or whatever her name is comes back, tell her I said thanks!"

And with that, I made my exit into the sea of people.

Unfortunately, it was still so crowded I couldn't make my way out fast enough. I was still shoving my way through the crowd when I heard Ice return to the machine.

"Where did that guy go? Did any of you guys see that 'Mark Flash' go anywhere? I think that was his name."

Then some random guy blew my cover.

"Mark Flash? That's Graze Bleu, he's been hustling around here for years. I saw him head for the exit."

"Unbelievable!"

When Ice heard this, she let out a disturbing roar. I started to move more urgently to the exit of Arcade 7, but now she was attracting even more of a scene. All I could hear was random people screaming.

"That girl's crazy, put that gun away!"

"She's got a gun? Run!"

Now there was a stampede of people trying to get away from her.

Something compelled me to stop and turn around, just to confirm her location. And to my shock I saw her standing on top of the crowd. She was crowd surfing like the lead signer at a rock concert. She ran on top of the sea of people, stepping on shoulders and heads and anything else she could use to stay above the crowd as she closed the distance to the exit. Ice was making her way towards me, and she was brandishing a large black sniper rifle.

At that moment, it occurred to me that I may have chosen the wrong girl to mess with.

By the time I made it outside, she'd almost caught up with me. Now it was raining hard. The sound of hard-style techno emanating out of the arcade was almost overwhelmed by the wet slap of droplets pouring on to the pavement. I spoke urgently to the bouncer out front as I ran past.

"Don't tell that girl which way I went!"

He raised his brow and turned to look back inside the arcade, and immediately threw up his arms.

"Wooo hold on there little lady—"

There was so much commotion, I couldn't help but turn back. I saw Ice shoulder tackle the 300+ pound bouncer and send both of them flying into puddle on the ground.

It was quite a scene. The bouncer ended up falling on top of her, then moved to detain her. She was yelling at him, but had lost the haughty attitude she was sporting before.

"Get off of me! He's getting away!"

The bouncer pulled out handcuffs, grabbed her arms and it looked like I was about to make a clean get away.

But suddenly, I couldn't move. I was struck with a throbbing pain in my brain that brought me to my knees.

D:

I was writhing in pain only a few feet away from where Ice was struggling with the bouncer. The pain was from a migraine, and it was the consequence of using my special power to beat Ice in our contest. I knew it would strike eventually, it was just extremely unlucky that it hit me as I was fleeing from a mad woman with a gun.

As I struggled back to my feet, I saw something that surprised me. Ice had, somehow, immobilized the bouncer. But she wasn't even touching him. It was like he was frozen in place as she wriggled out of his grasp.

"My deepest apologies, but you left me no choice."

To my shock, she sounded calm again. Even returning to her condescending tone. She'd dropped her gun a few feet away and ran to get it. I didn't want to be in her reticle when she found it, so I took off myself. Migraine be damned.

Now I was running like mad down the side of the Bitbolt Avenue. There was even more traffic than before. And given I'd already used my power twice that evening, I wasn't going to use it again. I didn't want to trigger another, and more severe, migraine. Getting caught by the CCTV at the crosswalk a few miles up was now the least of my worries. I mean, I didn't really think she'd shoot me over this. But honestly, this girl had already thrown so many curveballs I didn't know what to expect.

Now I could hear her yelling behind me. It was like the second she picked up the gun she became frenzied.

"Stop, thief! You're in my crosshairs, right in the middle. Stop or I'll blow your head off!"

As scary as that was, the threat encouraged the other people on the sidewalk to get out of the way, so I appreciated it to some degree.

To my advantage, I'd gone down this street hundreds of times. I knew there was a sharp turn coming up that I could use to throw her off my tracks. Up in front of me, I saw the perfect opportunity. A woman was walking with an umbrella. To this point, she'd managed to stay dry, but that was about to change.

I grabbed her umbrella and threw it directly back at Ice. And that was when I realized she was actually able to pull the trigger.

The umbrella flew straight at her face so she couldn't see me. She fired once out of her rifle, probably eviscerating the umbrella. But by the time she had, I'd already slipped around the corner and out of sight.

I ran into an alley way and jumped into an open dumpster to hide. Ice panted heavy as she ran through the alley, not considering I may be hiding nearby.

After a few minutes I felt like the coast was clear and climbed out. I looked around, Ice was no where to be seen. She really had been in a rage. When she was chasing me, she had a totally different demeanor than before. I was impressed she could even keep up with me. And she looked comfortable brandishing that sniper rifle. 'Ice' was a mysterious girl. Normally I'd want to get to know her better, that is, if I weren't half-sure she was trying to kill me.

It was still raining heavily. I had a rancid stench after rolling around in the trash. I debated whether I should go back to my apartment and shower before I went to my fence to sell the broach. What an amazing come up that was. I knew it would be enough to pay my 250,000 credit debt and put a down payment on a nicer flat. I was getting tired of renting.

These pleasant thoughts were so distracting that I let her catch me off-guard.

I was staring off into the flashing lights of the vehicles whizzing by on Bitbolt Avenue when I felt the butt of her rifle sliding down the back of my neck.

"You aren't Mark Flash. Tell me your real name."

I was caught.

I put my hands up slowly and turned around.

"Are you going to kill me? "

"I haven't decided yet. Tell me your real name."

"You wouldn't kill me over this little trinket, would you?"

With one hand, I pulled the broach out of my pocket and offered it to her.

"I don't care about that, tell me your real name."

"Aren't you just going to shoot me anyway? Isn't it easier this way?"

"What do you—"

"I mean, won't it be easier to shoot if you don't know my name? It's like how farmers don't name the cattle they're going to butcher for sale. Don't humanize me too much."

The butt of her rifle trembled gently on the back of my neck. I was trying to stall as much as I could. I intended to use my power once more so I could escape, but I wanted as much buffer as possible. I knew the resulting migraine would be intense and I'd only have a few minutes until I was immobile.

"Don't try to be funny. Tell me your name. I'm arresting you."

"Arresting me, for what?"

"For VRMS Hustling. It's a violation of the NCMA Municipal Ordinance BI-157."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"I'm not joking. Now tell me your name."

"What are you, a cop? Don't you have more important things to do?"

"I'm not a cop."

"Then why do you even care?"

"Because I care about the people of Old Town."

Now, that response caught me off-guard. She'd slipped back into her characteristically Trojan manner of speech. Hearing, "I care about Old Town" in that accent was a bit surreal. I didn't know how to respond. She reset her grip on the rifle.

"Why do you do this? Why do you hustle? Don't you understand that you're hurting your people? Hustling may not seem so bad, but even the little crimes add up."

"Broken Window Theory? Are you some sort of politician? If that's the case, spare me the lecture and just shoot me."

"No. Tell me why you do this. Wouldn't it be so much more satisfying to make an honest living. Solnya Corp is hiring and they—"

"Fine. It's Graze. Graze Bleu. Now just shoot me and get it over with."

"Graze…"

"I don't have the time or patience to explain Old Town life to some delusional rich girl. If you're going to let me go, then please remove the rifle from the back of my head—"

"Rich girl? What makes you think that?"

"It's the way you speak."

This was apparently shocking enough to cause her to lower her weapon. And I pounced.

I activated my power and ran right into the street. There was no way she'd be able to safely cross after me. I was basically home free. But that was when she did something I didn't expect.

I was three lanes into the highway when my power deactivated. That was fine, but something caused me to look back. And when I did, to my horror, I saw Ice following after me, trying to cross the hazardous street on her own. And she seemed totally oblivious to an on-coming car in her lane.

The truth was, I didn't know this girl. And she'd just been trying to kill me. But the thought of such a pretty girl getting splattered all over Bitbolt Avenue, like the drunk guy I'd seen earlier, was unacceptable. So I ran back to stop her.

I was able to use enough of my power to get to her a few moments before she was about to be hit.

I shoved her, hard, sending her flying back onto the sidewalk. But I couldn't get out of the way in time.

A speeding taxi cab hit me straight on, blowing my body to pieces. Even without my power activated, the moment between when I saw the headlights and when I was hit was an eternity. In an instant, I reflected back on my pitiful life in the gutter of Old Town. And then I died.