Ch 10. The handy clock

Diaz- " That big of a bounty? Some people have more money than they know what to do with it. So, should we try our luck outside the tunnels?"

Eury- " Don't know. Actually there is I know- a lot of people found out about it and are bent on capturing us. "

Each stepped they made dancing ripples in puddles of liquids of peculiar sources, and they cursed each splashing sounding mistake the two made. Neither Diaz nor Eury actually had a plan and for now were just following a surprisingly fast running child, even though both of his legs ended in metal plates instead of feet.

After going around, once they finally found the most silent and rickety spot, Diaz asked for a break to gather his thoughts.

-" So-", he tried to ask, before being interrupted by a successive gasps-" how many are there?"

Eury's fingers helped the count when her tired brain couldn't keep up, and showed an entire opened palm as an answer. " But we don't know if the others turned around, or heard the racket I made. I'm such a fucking idiot, what the hell-"

Diaz- " Hey, hey, hey. Enough with that. You made a mistake, but beating yourself over it now isn't going to magically fix it."

Eury- " I…fine, yes, you're right. I'll do that later."

Diaz- " Good, I guess. Now…what the hell are we going to do?"

The assigned leader of the group took Zuwa aside, putting a bulging, overgrown arm over the old man's shoulders. They walked slower than the rest, with the leader intentionaly trying to keep the conversation hush-hush between the two of them.

-" So, you know who I am?" The man was in his forties, but from his daily routine of inhaling mining dust combined with smog from above you couldn't tell the difference between he and the 60 year old Zuwa.

-" Yeah, heard about you. Dimotelo. All the pubs got your name and face on the not serving list."

Dimotelo left a healthy chuckle, happy to know that he didn't had to explain too much. " Good, good, handyman and keeper of the Service Clock.", to which Zuwa flinched but kept his head straight ahead.

Dimotelo- " Good, good, looks like we understand each other. So, when you came to us, it got me thinking. Is the old repair coot interested in the bounty? Never showed interest in the kind of job before. Maybe the easy target made him think he had a chance."

-" Oh, I guess then you're some kind of mutant psychic mindreader, cuz that's ex-"

-" Shh, shh. I wasn't done. Another thing that didn't sit right with me was- why is the kid down here? How did he knew about the tunnels? Also, everyone we threatened about it, told us that they saw three kids and some teen going on a scavenge run. Huh. What a surprise. You know who does that?"

-" You sure you want to do that?", Zuwa asked slowly, in a eerily calm tone. "Tell me, Dintonelo-"

-" The fuck did you just call me?", but got instantly shut down when the old man pressed a finger over his lips and broke one of the giant's front teeth. Before he could yell out from the pain, Zuwa sprayed him with a anesthetic, powerful enough for Dimotelo to not feel the river of blood that was gushing from his gum.

-" That also solved your breath problem. Pee-ew. So, I can guess that you don't know who put the bounty. But I do, and the people I work with don't like that Sammy's existence is out there, in the open. So, I was planning to just kill you idiots somewhere around here, but if you're useful, I might get you more work."

Dimotelo's head felt like it was pulled from all the angles, and for a moment even his thoughts were left speechless by the brazen way this sexagenarian was acting. He reached for his gun by instinct, but just as his hand was about to grab the holster, Zuwa swiftly stopped him by menacingly hovering his own hand above his. The yobbo, by mistake, lowered his index finger and just like the tooth, it was quickly cracked by a single press of the old man's thumb.

-" I can do this all day if you want. Or you can listen to my proposal. Which is it? " The roughneck was biting his lower lip from pain, and considered to sick his boys on Zuwa, but the old man caught the rebellious streak in his eyes. "Remember, you asked for this", he said before flinging a tiny piece of metal into the air, which ricochet from a pipe and flew right through the head of one of Dimotelo's men.

The rest scattered, scared by how sudden the victim hit the ground. It was a sudden, painless death, but the fact that it came out of nowhere frightened them even more.

-" Tsz, was aiming for the one next over. Well, message was still delivered, so that works. Right, Didotelo?"

Instead of even facing him, the gang leader nodded with his face down and agreed to everything the old man said. " You're boss, whatever plan you've got we're doing it."

-" Right. Took ya long enough. Anyways, today we're covering up a murder/accident, whichever suits The Noble Metal's plans with the boy. So, 'Telo, hope you're learn to be more quick on your feet than you showed me right now. Now, c'mon, let's go, Diaz will use the vents to circle east, and use that racket they just made to evade the search parties. That's how we'll capture them."

Unsure in what exactly he got himself caught into, Dimotelo pretended to check his former underling's body and call it an accident to save the lives of the rest of his gang. Same with his wounds. And that, for now, the old man Zuwa will act as his "voice" since his mouth was still under anesthesia.

-" He cn reed wel", he lied in a written note, but even without all the extra work, the others accepted anything Dimotelo told them. Still, Zuwa insisted on doing everything his way.

-" Change of plans, boys. We're going east."