The Meet

“They’re late,” Tyr heard Peregrine complain as she stood leaned against the hood of the group’s standard getaway vehicle; a Cadillac FS-500 which had been modified by Simon and Jenny to such an extent that it could go toe to toe with mid-tier sports cars while at the same time remaining a common enough sight so as to not arouse any unwanted attention.

“Yeah, not by much though,” Tyr replied, knowing that Peregrine was glancing at her watch even as he told her so. Acting pedantic in her tracking of the passage of time was one of the ways in which Peregrine dealt with stress.

Feeling the cool wind come in from the bay and hearing the steady drone of cars on the nearby highway, Tyr shifted his feet as he stood on the desolate stretch of country road.

Apart from him and Peregrine, the only other member of the group which would actually partake in the meet was Dove, who was currently pacing back and forth behind the Cadillac’s trunk in an effort to keep warm in spite of the chilly August evening.

The rest of the team, minus Mr. Clean, was currently seated in the team’s GMC “Bison” pickup truck one hundred yards down the road from the meeting place, remaining ready to come wading in if the meet would turn bad. Not that Tyr considered that to be a risk, but it tended to be better to err on the side of caution in these kinds of situations. To that end he had considered bringing Simon along to the meet itself, guessing that the mere presence of a troll would make people less inclined to try any funny business, but had decided against in due to the difficulty with which Simon would just barely fit into the Cadillac’s rear-seat.

Finally, the whirl of a V-8 engine and the flicker of a pair of headlights signaled that their contact was coming round the bend, and soon Chaple was stepping out of his Ford Phoenix sedan, with two bodyguards escorting him while the driver remained behind the wheel.

Peregrine had gotten into the Cadillac, so it was Tyr and Dove who ventured out to meet up with Chaple halfway between their cars.

“Tyr,” Chaple smiled faintly as he nodded at Tyr, his smile becoming wider and warmer as he did the same to Dove, “Dove”.

Tyr noticed that, but paid little attention to it. At this point he was quite accustomed to people reacting to Dove’s beauty, particularly noticing her cheeks and plush lips or the generous swell of her C-cup breasts, and was rarely jealous because he believed without a shadow of a doubt that she was as faithful to him as he was to her. It was a tossup which one of her and Peregrine who would be considered the most attractive, with chest-men falling for Peregrine’s D-cups and face-men doing the same for Dove’s smile. But then Peregrine rarely showed much interest in men, spending so much time in the garage with Simon that Tyr almost suspected that she didn't care much about sex or men.

“Chaple,” Dove might be the group’s face, but it was Tyr who handled these kinds of meetings, “what’s the run?”

“Concise and to the point as ever,” Chaple chuckled at Tyr’s response, and then reached into his pocket to fish out a chip which he handed Tyr.

“You’re to retrieve some very sensitive data which our employers are very interested in.” Chaple informed them.

“I don’t really want to know just who exactly our employers are, do I?” Tyr asked as he tucked the disc into his coat-pocket.

“No,” Chaple assured him, sporting another faint smile.

“All that you need to know is on that chip,” Chaple went on, “and the run needs to be tonight.”

“That soon? It’ll cost you extra…” Tyr responded, “about 25% more than our usual fare.”

“Stop trying to rob me. I’ll throw in 5%, extra, but only because I’m feeling generous.” Chaple giving him a counteroffer was a good thing as far as Tyr was concerned: him accepting Tyr’s offer directly would have increased the risk that he wasn’t intending to pay them at all.

“Fifteen.”

“Deal.” This wasn’t the first time that the two of them had had this kind of discussion.

The meet was over, and Tyr and Dove returned to the Cadillac, where Tyr proceeded to feed the chip into the car’s media-deck while Peregrine swung the car around and drove off in the direction from which they came.