The Gaming Outpost

The post-mortem exam revealed that Mr. Jeremy Angles had not been intoxicated, nor had he some sudden onset illness. His car was sent to the police lab, and some tests were performed. His car had been substandard in a number of ways, but all what were called ‘Yellows’ instead of ‘Reds’ so nothing actively dangerous was involved. Most cars on the road have at least two Yellows if they are more than a few years old.

I went on over the files again, and decided to call the Computer Lab.

“Doxy.”
“Dox, this is Ken, Ken Leary, old pal…”
“Whatdya’ want, Ken?”
“What do you mean…?”
“Those tickets you sent me and my girlfriend? They were for a game the week before. I had to go to the opera which was her choice, instead of taking her to a crashball game.”
I paused, my mouth open. Eeew. Opera. That did sound bad.
“Ken, old buddy, this time, I see the tickets first. And, I want tickets to the Crashball Championships.”
“Um, Dox, old man, I sympathize, I truly do, but y’know those are hard to …”
“You’re breaking up, Ken. This phoneline must be bad.”
Aargh. I had a contact in the Ticket Office who got me tickets. Seemed I had saved his life. But I had wanted to take someone, perhaps even the lovely Collins to the game.
“All right, Dox. I’ll bring them over tommorrow.”
“And I’ll be ready to work on your project…tommorrow.”
“Fine!” I snapped. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, you chiseling snake!”

That off my chest, I stormed out to my Ninja ready to wreak some serious speed on the unoffending roads.

But then I saw a man leaning on my beautiful motorcycle. And another one was but five feet away, and staring at me from behind his black sunglasses. Over his hands were black leather gloves, and in them was a small pistol.

“Mr. Leary.” I stared in utter amazement. Sure, I’d been hustled and smacked against a wall a time or two before, but never so early in a case.

“So you killed a Senator…?” I said looking for some way to get away from the firing arc of that deadly device in his hands.

He stared perplexed, and so did the other man.

“Mr. Leary. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I am repossessing your vehicle. You’re behind on the payments.”

“I am not.” Indeed, I was not. As I said, it was my one indulgence. I sent in the money the day after the bill arrived.

He pulled out a sheet of paper, and read off a list of information describing me, and my vehicle. Then he added a list of past due claims sent to me, and with a final flourish pulled out another sheet of paper.

“Notice of Repossession of Item.” it said.

“We usually leave this under a rock, but…” He handed it to me. It looked official, and all that.

“And the gun?” I asked. He put it up with a small smile.

“We had a note in our file that you were dangerous and tempermental. But I can see you’re not.”

I wanted to slug them, but they were just doing their job. I knew I had paid, and they had records that said otherwise.

So that meant someone had hacked into their files, and rearranged my record. I watched them haul my beautiful Ninja away, and smiled a trifle grimly.

This had been a mistake on my opponent’s part, an amateur move. Before this, I had just been doing the thorough thing before certifying the wreck as an accident. Now I knew it was not.

And the way they had put in my file the ‘scary bad man’ quote to get me killed or scared by the repo guys meant they watched too much television, and did not know how repo guys operate.

Despite TV, repo guys rarely shoot even criminals they are taking back from. They might do a show of force at worst, but actual violence leads to a ton of paperwork for them and their bosses so it had better be well justified. And they can always come back the next day with ten guys.

I was facing someone amateurish who had a personal hate on toward me, or what I represented in their freakish little mind.

Speaking of which, Doxy was going to be wondering where I was. I went and called a taxi.