Dirty Work: Volume 1

Red Rose - 7

We hurried into a parked kar in an old warehouse, a bucket of a thing with three dents in the one side. In the passenger seat was Markro.

'You survived then?' he asked as we left the hull of a storeroom.

'Just about. The hell is going on?'

'You didn't think the boss would let you do something like this solo, did you?' Markro called back to me. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the package, still untouched and unharmed. It seemed, yet again, to be even heavier. I was almost tempted to ask if anyone had a set of scales, just to find out if it actually was putting on weight or it was just my imagination.

'Well I thought he had a little faith in me,' I replied.

'She's been tailing you,' Markro said, pointing to our driver. The fake baby no longer strapped to her made her look several years younger, as the illusion of responsibility always tends to make people appear older. There's another tip for you budding spies; look older.

'She has a name, you know,' said the woman as we came out onto the main street I had so recently walked down.

'It's Flore,' Markro said.

'I could have told him that,' Flore responded.

'But you didn't, and so I did it for you.'

'Well aren't you just nice like that?'

'Especially. I'm always nice, unless I'm shooting people, in which case not so much.'

'Such a violent young man.'

'So are you, Miss Flore.'

'Thank you, Mr Markro.'

'Do you just flirt with anyone, Markro?' My question made Flore laugh, an incredibly hearty laugh, and not an unattractive one either.

'He has a habit of it.'

'And you have a habit of getting shot at,' Markro said to me, 'or nearly shot at, at the very least.'

'Who was he?' I asked. Markro looked back at me, his eyebrow shaking very slightly which I noted down as Markro's nervous tick. I filed that little piece of information for further use.

'We go rumours of someone on your tail almost as soon as you left, so the boss sent Flore to follow you. Strictly speaking she's just a friendly acquaintance, runs her own business. But you've been known to help us out from time to time when you're in the area, haven't you?'

'Known to, yeah,' she said, turning off onto one of the Rise-Route up to Exit 12 towards 24's main highway. Everything seemed to close in around them like a forest of frosted glass and stainless steel.

'Also known to shoot at us every now and then, aren't you?'

'That was one time, and I didn't know who you were then.'

'Oh but of course.'

'Please,' I butted in, 'continue.'

'Someone with a jacket on with a red rose on the side,' Flore said. 'Found you on the train and of course, caught sight of jacket man, now sadly deceased. Managed to cut you off and shoot Mr. Rose. You know the rest.'

'Wow. That sounds way too simple to actually be true.' I turned to Markro. 'And what were you doing nearby?'

'Visiting friends, actually.' He grinned at me. 'On work business, of course.'

He reached down beneath his legs and retrieved a package about the size of a head.

'How much is it worth?' I asked. 'It's drugs, I assume.'

'About 90K,' he said. 'You can imagine how pissed I was when the boss told me to make a detour and rescue your lousy ass.'

*

Ochre Vaults was incredibly, and ridiculously boring. With a name like that you expect massive security with laser guns on turrets and missile launchers on the roof. But no, it was literally just a massive, grey hunk of a bunker with a reception at the front.

We parked up and I went inside. Pulling out the piece of paper and the package, I presented them to them.

'Here to deposit a package. All the information is here, don't open the package, don't tell anyone it's here unless given the proper authorisation from myself, in person.'

'Certainly, sir,' said the receptionist. He scanned the document quickly. 'As everything seems to be in order, I'll send your item through.'

He placed the package on a conveyer belt, the innocence of it all, the thing seeming to smile knowingly at me. I almost imagined it pull out a little cartoon arm and wave at me as it was carried through an energy field into a black oblivion of nothingness.

The receptionist handed me a receipt, signed it, and then handed it to me.

'Thank you for your service, sir,' he said. I thanked him and returned to the kar. As we drove away, I told myself that I wouldn't have anything to do with that little box on the screen again.

END OF RED ROSE