Eugene slowly raised his hands. He assessed the distance to his opponent, who turned out to be so quick, and his chances of reaching him. The result was disheartening. After a slight hesitation, he dropped to one knee and leaned on it with his hands, trying to regain his breath.
"On both knees," the contractor said threateningly. He really wanted to add that he shot better than he fought, but wasting time on empty chatter was unnecessary.
Eugene complied with this order with poorly concealed reluctance. He clearly wasn't going to surrender so easily. The "broker" did get down on his knees, but he glared from under his brows with a completely wolfish look.
Nemo took another step back and brazenly sat on a chair, keeping the blaster aimed at Eugene the whole time.
"And now," his voice held a sneer, "I'm waiting for a detailed and sincere confession as to why you attacked me. And don't try to test my reaction. People usually don't survive that."
Eugene had no desire to confess and looked at the confessor with a clear "we'll settle this later" in his eyes.
"Where is the Duros?" this question had little to do with confession.
"Yeah," Nemo sighed, aimed, and shot Eugene in the shoulder. "The classic was right."
He howled, clutching his wounded shoulder, then went limp and fell to the floor like a sack.
Nemo dove into the Force, studying his interlocutor's condition.
He found not the slightest glimmer of consciousness there. Moreover, Eugene had stopped breathing.
Jumping to the clearly unwell Eugene, the young man put his blaster back in its holster. He could have killed him with the Force if he wanted. He needed him alive now. Turning him onto his back, the contractor grabbed the wounded man by the throat, still expecting a trick, and delved into the Force, studying what was happening inside the broker's body. If it was poison... then it was fast-acting. A nerve agent? He ran through the circulatory and nervous systems, looking for signs of the poison he had stuffed himself with. There was nothing. No poisons, no drugs. But Eugene's skin had turned pale gray, and his heart beat weaker with each beat. The cause was something else.
He needed this man alive... But he wasn't a doctor, and contacting Ani would take too long, and he didn't want to bother the girl with every little thing. It was about the wound. What could have gone wrong? Did he sever and cauterize an artery? As a possibility. Touching the wound with his fingertips, he began to palpate Eugene's body for internal bleeding. But everything was fine there too.
The next point of destination was the blow to the liver. It belatedly occurred to him that he started feeling bad right after the blow. And it was precisely around the liver that Eugene was in a bad way. It seemed that a lack of theoretical and practical skills had done its dirty work, and instead of a clean blow to the liver, Nemo had driven a rib into the organ and damaged something there.
Unfortunately for the broker, Nemo had never been a doctor, in this life or the previous one. Fortunately for him, he was a Force-sensitive, and had only recently begun to explore a new way of interacting with the Force. He slowly, millimeter by millimeter, began to restore the damaged tissues of the body to normalize Eugene's condition.
When everything was ready, and the "patient's" condition had stabilized, the young man, to his own surprise, thought of another interrogation method. Cupping the man's head, he concentrated, and then carefully began to operate on his consciousness. Now, after what he had experienced, the broker should be pliable, meaning extracting memories directly shouldn't be difficult. Carefully picking up the man's consciousness, he began to recreate the scene...
The broker stood in a void, Nemo was in front of him, but the young man represented a generalized image of a person, without a face, without appearance. In the same impersonal voice, he said to Eugene:
"You missed him!" he prompted him to imagine the image, the voice of the person, and the name himself.
Eugene didn't resist. His almost extinguished life was returning to him slowly, and he didn't have the strength to resist. A weak response followed the accusation, but Nemo saw the Fly in his consciousness.
"They beat us to it..."
"And how did you allow that?" Nemo asked in the same tone that tolerated no argument. If Eugene knew his employer personally, Nemo would soon know his appearance. If not... he could try to extract the name.
The same sluggish response – no guilt, no attempt to justify himself.
"They interfered. I didn't have time to save him..."
"Who interfered?" Nemo struggled to figure out how to steer everything in the right direction.
"I don't know," came the answer. "Didn't have time to find out. A mercenary... Very fast..."
And Nemo saw himself in his consciousness.
"I hope you won't let me down again," he continued after a short pause, "or have you forgotten who you're dealing with?"
"A mercenary," Eugene repeated. "He killed the Duros, sir..."
The spotlight in his face and watering eyes.
"You won't touch the girl? I almost found him..."
Nemo was shocked, his hope of resolving this simply was fading before his eyes. But first, he whispered into Eugene's consciousness in the same voice the real person had spoken: "Say the same thing, but with my name and surname."
This time, the response conveyed clear confusion.
"But I don't know your name, sir... You never said..."
"Shit," the young man agreed, exiting the image. Invisible bonds wrapped around the broker's body, and approaching him closely, Nemo touched his forehead with his index finger. "Look me in the eyes."
He really wanted to give the man direct instructions. Very much so. To set a course of action, by completing which he would find the client. Or help him find them. But he didn't know how the intrusions of another's will would affect his consciousness. The human brain was far more complex than any droid, and he couldn't predict the consequences of certain actions. It could turn Eugene into a vegetable or simply kill him.
Concentrating, the contractor carefully began to weave his image and the parking lot where his car was located into his consciousness. Subtle images were enough, those he already had in his head: the entrance, the name, the street, with blurred pictures nearby that would surface in his mind. He had to pick up the trail and finish the rest himself. This was not an intrusion into his mind. He only pushed him towards the place from where the path could be traced. Pulling his hand away, he looked at Eugene with a strange, even for himself, condescension, whispering:
"Alright, sleep, it was all just a terrible nightmare..."
Nemo withdrew from Eugene's consciousness, checking how successful his operation had been.
The damaged liver was already recovering, although the "broker" looked quite terrible.
Nemo, now interested in Eugene's speedy recovery, ran through his entire body, normalizing its functions and removing the remnants of the recent injury. As soon as he was satisfied with the result, Nemo looked around the room and left. It seemed he had just found the person who had planted the dangerous gift for the Fly.
Already in his speeder, caught in the flow of traffic, Nemo dialed Larius.
The mercenary answered quickly – after two rings, a hoarse voice was heard.
"Listening. Any news?"
"Yes," Nemo said dryly, paying more attention to driving than talking, "I just threw out the bait. I think they'll catch me in the next twelve hours."
"You're in high demand, I see," Larius drawled with lazy irony. "Two people have already tried to hire me to find the one who took the Duros."
"As many as two?" the young man chuckled. "I spoke with a certain Eugene, he's a broker. He tried to catch me red-handed. I couldn't find out who's behind him, but by all accounts, it's a serious individual. I couldn't find out his name. I think when he wakes up, he'll be able to find me at the motel. And then, I think, someone more serious than mercenaries will get involved."
"I'm counting on it," the mercenary's voice didn't change, but somewhere, the steel jaws of a trap clearly clicked.
"It would be funny if you were the one to come and capture me," the young man said, overtaking a slow-moving garbage truck, "can you track me by your business card if something goes wrong?"
"No," the woman replied concisely. "But I can sense that something has gone wrong before you even know it. Don't lose the card. It's worth a lot."
"Alright," Nemo nodded, scratching his beard, "then I'm signing off."
"Good luck," the mercenary wished him. In her mouth, the word sounded particularly weighty.
Nemo dropped the call.
He was bothered by the fact that the incompetent broker was directly above Karvo, and this could mess up his plans. Mess them up badly. On the other hand, by warning the Fly, he might provoke unnecessary actions towards Eugene. At least now this man would be busy, and then... Maybe he wouldn't need to take revenge. After all, if he got what he deserved, he would most likely lose interest in what was happening, and if he wasn't completely stupid, he would fly off the planet. It was decided not to call the Fly, to land, have dinner, and go to sleep. Fortunately, there had been more than enough adventures for one day.
After the day that Nemo had planned to spend calmly and measuredly, gathering information and spreading disinformation, turned into a mad dash, he should have fallen into the embrace of sleep quickly and reliably. But the very thought that he might soon be caught and beaten with something in the face and not only, kept him from sleeping, and the contractor tossed and turned with his eyes closed for about half an hour, until he finally dozed off.
When he finally quieted down, a certain living and undoubtedly intelligent creature left its observation post under the bed and moved to another observation post, chosen in advance.
No one was in a hurry to disturb the smuggler, and sleep gradually deepened. After some time, some movement was noticed outside the door. Below the counter, the porter lay stunned. And someone was attaching a detonator to the door lock without much finesse.
Nemo was pulled out of his sleep by an unclear sensation, a disquiet that made him open his eyes and feel for the blaster's handle. Trying not to move, he dove into the Force, beginning to check the surrounding space, looking for the cause.
The cause didn't make him wait – the door burst into the room with a crash, almost covering the bed like a shield. Following the door, two warning shots flew over the bed, and a glopp grenade.
A strange thing happened with the grenade – it hit something and bounced back into the corridor.
Nemo didn't delay his response: not yet fully awake, he slid off the bed and, knocking over the coffee table for cover, sent a couple of shots into the passageway.
It suddenly became very quiet there, and in this silence, a pop was clearly heard, then a rustle. The glopp worked and was now covering the corridor, cutting off the exit for both Nemo and the attackers.
The momentary pause was broken by a burst of fire from the corridor.
"Surrender, and you'll live a little longer!" this was said immediately after the burst.
"So you can take it out on me?!" Nemo, sticking his hand out from behind the table, fired a couple more shots. "Found a fool!"
"My job is to offer," and a grenade flew into the room. A bright spot above the door stirred, momentarily throwing down a paw with extended claws, and the grenade bounced back into the corridor again. At the same moment, two armored figures burst into the room, evading the explosion.
Grabbing the table by both legs, Nemo lifted it into the air and slammed it down forcefully on the head of the nearest opponent, simultaneously blocking the second one with it.
The fighter staggered, but in his fall, he tripped Nemo's legs, forcing him to his knees.
Falling to his knees, Nemo drew his blaster, looking for vulnerable spots in the armor in this position, which were usually around the neck and chin, to shoot.
The opponents turned out to be trained and fast. The second fighter managed to jump over the table and now pushed the smuggler in the side, knocking him over.
Nemo fired at a spot unprotected by armor, simultaneously trying to fend off the second opponent with a blow to the groin.
He had one opponent less. But the second one piled on top, pinning the smuggler to the floor.
"Surrender!"
Actually, now would be the most appropriate moment to surrender. But how to do it so that the attacker wouldn't be smart enough to realize that this was, in general, something that suited Nemo himself?
Looking at his blaster, the contractor concentrated and broke one of the power circuits, then poked the blaster under the attacker's helmet and fired twice. Naturally, without result.
"I surrender," he said irritably, looking at his broken weapon.
Without further ado, they flipped him face down and snapped handcuffs on his wrists. After that, the fighter attended to his partner. The syringe-tube with a stimulant did its job – the stunned victim of the table stirred and sat up.
"... ... ...!" said the fighter who had come to his senses. "Well, if they hadn't ordered us to bring him alive..."
"They didn't say anything about him being whole," the second fighter informed phlegmatically.
Nemo subtly planted the thought in the first one's mind that if the target wasn't whole, they might have problems.
"The boss will be unhappy..." the first one drawled uncertainly, getting to his feet. "We'd better wait until they're done with him. And take what's left."
A mountain rolled off the young man's shoulders. Projecting apathy and displeasure with all his might, he nevertheless remained silent and tried not to meet the gaze of his captors. Lest it turn out like in that joke about the lemon...
He was poked in the back – noticeably, but not fanatically.
"Get up and get out. And no funny business. I don't know how you deflect grenades, but you won't escape a bolt."
Grumbling discontentedly under his breath, Nemo got up and dove into the Force, searching for who had actually deflected the grenades.
"You're sleeping too soundly," a familiar image appeared in his consciousness – a fluffy light shadow. "A little luck wouldn't hurt you..."
"I don't argue," Nemo agreed, unhesitatingly obeying his captors' orders. Being beaten was not part of his plans.
The fighters split up. One went ahead, checking the path, the second – behind, keeping the prisoner in his sights. Behind them, the fluffy alien glided silently through the corridors.
In the foyer, someone was already busy trying to crack the safe with the proceeds, but upon seeing two angry tanks, they disappeared instantly. The front one went outside, looked around, waved his hand, and got behind the wheel of a closed black car.
"To the back seat," the rear one commanded Nemo.
There was no desire or point in arguing, he just had to hesitate a little to give way to his luck, and then get into the speeder.
The light shadow dived somewhere under the car's belly. The fighters paid no attention to this creature – it wasn't a threat, it wasn't interfering, so it wasn't worth a second glance.
As soon as Nemo was in the seat, his escort squeezed in after him. The contrabandist's side was unambiguously pointed at by the barrel of a heavy blaster.
The car shot off, rapidly gaining altitude and speed.
Nemo smiled. Quickly, and so that his escort wouldn't notice. He took a liking to the blaster that was being pointed at his side, and decided he would try to take it for himself. He had to, using the fact that his eyes and ears weren't covered, memorize the route.
The kidnappers clearly weren't going to try to weave and confuse their tracks. The car went straight and full speed in the upper lane, intended for transport going to another sector. The driver and his partner remained silent.
The car crossed two sectors before beginning to descend. The car parked near an inconspicuous building. Which Nemo also memorized, just in case. Not inclined to chat, he remembered Larius's business card in his pocket. In general, he could have hidden a dangerous razor blade too. His escort, for some reason, hadn't thought to search the person they had taken.
But he couldn't change the past, alas, not yet.