Stung 4: A Difficult Decision
#4 of Stung
Logic's mouth went dry. He looked around, frantically searching for a possible escape route, anything that could help them get away. But his mind was clouded with panic, and he couldn't think straight.
All he could think about was what these people might do to them. The only possible outcome he could see was that these people were friends of the barman, and were going to hurt them very, very badly.
He quickly scanned the group. They weren't carrying any weapons, as far as he could see, but that failed to avert his panic. Claws and fists could do quite enough damage to put them in hospital at least.
Time seemed to be going at half the normal speed. He looked at AJ, and saw his fears reflected in the fox's wide eyes. He looked at Diago, and saw bafflement and concern on the dingo's face as he looked from one of them to the other; unaware of the reason that made them both so scared. Diago had not even been with them that night; was there a possibility that they might let him go?
As he looked at Diago, he saw the dingo's eyes flit towards the pocket of his shorts. Guessing what Diago was thinking, he desperately tried to catch the dingo's eye, to tell him to not attack, to stay safe and keep himself out of the whole affair. Diago opened the pocket of his jeans, and Logic caught a glimpse of a steel blade. Diago looked at Logic, saw the tone of fear behind the warning message, and tensed, ready to spring and keeping a firm grip on the blade. He was ready to defend his friends.
Logic felt sick. This was his fault. He had dragged AJ into this, and now he had got Diago involved too, in something that he had had no part in.
At that moment, he hated himself; hated himself for his selfishness, his thoughtlessness, and his idiocy of letting himself get caught. Above all, he silently hated himself for doing nothing, for freezing, for letting the five walk slowly over to them, until eventually they stood in front of their table.
Logic looked up at the five people, straight into the amber eyes of the panther, who seemed to have stopped, watching them, seeing what they were going to do.
Suddenly, Diago pounced. Pulling a dagger from his pocket, he leapt straight at the panther, aiming for his throat. However, as he brought the knife down in a fatal arc, the panther deftly sidestepped the blow, grabbed Diago's arm, and wrenched open his hand, forcing him to drop the knife.
The other four were blocking the view of their table and so nobody saw the punch that Diago received in the stomach, causing him to double up in pain. The panther forced him back into his seat, and then stood back, looking at the group again, re-appraising them.
"Frankly, I expected better." he said calmly.
His voice was old, much older than his youthful frame, and with a gravelly American accent, like that of a cowboy in an old western. Despite the recent struggle, his breathing was calm and even as he looked down on them, like a judge delivering his verdict, and the other four like a jury behind him. The scar beneath his eye was silver amongst the black fur, and Logic kept looking at it, imagining how he had received it.
"Knives? I've wasted a lot of effort trying to find the people who disrupted our con, and I get a bunch of yobs. Did you have any idea what you were doing last night?"
Something in Logics mind clicked. Their con?
"I'm disappointed. I thought we had actually found some talent. Who planned the con?"
Logic slowly raised his hand, "I-It was me."
"Hmm. You and the fox were the only two there, from what I've been told, so that must mean that the dingo wasn't involved, right?"
Logic nodded, hoping that this indication would get Diago off the hook, and out of trouble.
"Now usually, I would let him go at this point," the panther said, looking directly at Diago, "But funnily, I don't appreciate having a knife pointed at me. So you can stay, just like the other two."
Logic shrank back into his seat. It was settled. These people were obviously con men, and from what the panther had said earlier, they had been planning to con the barman. He and AJ had blundered in and blown the whole thing, the barman now being too distrustful of anyone to be conned.
And now they were going to have to pay.
"Stand up. We're going outside." the panther said, "I will lead, with Lisa. Loki, Stan and Mike will be behind you, so don't try anything. Move."
As one, all three of them stood up, almost as though they were all transfixed by the fate that awaited them. Logic looked at AJ, and saw that his hands had balled into fists. He prodded his friend, and shook his head. If they didn't fight, they might have a chance of being let to live.
Slowly, they all walked towards the exit. Logic thought back to the triumph of last night, and tried to comprehend how it was that they were now in this situation, about to be beaten up, or worse. He had meddled in a world that was too big, too complex and too dangerous for him. He was like a cub before a fire, who, getting close to it, rejoices in his bravery before the embers spit and burn him. He had played with fire, and now it was time for him to be burned.
The panther opened the door, and led them all out into the sunlight. The familiar sickly sweet scent hit their nostrils, but none of them seemed to care.
The panther led them down a side-alley and turned to face them.
"Now, I..."
His words were cut short by a punch on the shoulder from the wolf.
"Oh Spencer, stop it. Look at their little faces, they're absolutely terrified!"
The corners of the panther's mouth twitched, then he seemed to regain control of himself.
"I cannot tolerate having a knife..."
But this line of speech only earned him another punch on the shoulder, not hard, as though she wished to hurt him, but soft, as though she was reprimanding him for something.
"They thought their lives were in danger! Of course they're going to try to defend themselves! Anyway, it's not like you were hurt, was it?"
The panther tried to control himself, and failed. He broke into a wide grin, and all five of the group burst out laughing.
"You should have seen the looks on your faces!"
"Fucking hilarious!"
"I don't think I've laughed so hard in ages."
The panther laughed for a bit with the others, and then held up a paw. Silence fell almost instantly.
"So." he said, addressing Logic, "What do you think is going on?"
Logic, for his part, was completely lost. He had no idea what was going on. Why had they been laughing? Were they not going to get beaten up? He thought about everything that had happened.
"You're... con artists?" he began hesitantly.
"Got it in one."
"You had some plan to con the barman, but after we conned him, he became so distrustful that you had to call it off?"
"Give this kid a doughnut, he's on a roll."
"And... you're..?"
AJ chipped in. "You're not going to kill us?"
"I hope not. It'd be a shameful waste of young grifting talent."
Diago spoke. "How did you know where to find us?"
"Loki. You don't serve as a scout in General Rain's army without picking up at least a few tricks. After he saw you pulling off the con in the bar, he followed you back to your apartment. He told us where you were, and we went there this morning just in time to see you leaving. We followed you, and saw you going into the bar. After you didn't come out, we decided to go in and get you."
Silently, Logic berated himself for allowing him and AJ to be followed. There was one thing that was bothering him, a phrase that both made him feel slightly flattered and extremely worried.
"Why do you keep referring to us as 'talent'? Why are you not going to hurt us? What are you planning?"
The panther laughed.
"Straight to the point, I like that. You see, we're in a bit of a tight spot. That last con was supposed to put us back in the black. That barman whom you conned out of seven hundred quid sleeps with twenty thousand under his bed; twenty thousand we now can't get our hands on."
Logic felt like he had just been punched in the same way Diago had. Had they really not hurt the barman at all? Had his plan really been so ineffective? And now, thanks to him, the barman would be on high alert, and safeguard his money from everyone. The panther continued speaking.
"And so, we have a little proposition for you. From what Loki, Stan and Mike saw in the bar, you two have some talent for this stuff. What can you do?" he asked, looking at Diago.
"I play poker."
"Anything else?"
"I win at poker."
The panther smiled.
"If you hadn't just tried to knife me I would say that I like your attitude. But anyway, there is one thing we have that you don't, and that's expertise. We're willing to share that, if you give us a cut of your 'earnings' until we're solvent."
The fox and the dingo looked at Logic, who looked at the panther.
"Can you give us a minute to consider?"
The panther shook his head.
"I'm afraid I can't do that. Think of this as a test of your leadership. Can you make the right decision?"
Logic thought. This was a lot better than the scenario he had been imagining five minutes earlier, but it was still not good. If they accepted the panther's offer, there was no doubt that they would have to pull off more cons, and risk getting caught by the police. If they declined, he thought that his original scenario would become a lot more likely. He didn't know if he could trust these people; they deceived people for a living, after all. He decided to ask one last thing.
"Why do you want to train us? What's the point of this deal? Why not just pull some more cons yourselves?"
The panther stopped smiling. He looked straight at Logic, as though sizing him up.
"Look around you."
All three of them looked.
The city was huge: gleaming skyscrapers loomed over their heads, reflecting the bright sunlight until they were difficult to look at. The streets were so clean; you could almost smell the disinfectant wafting off them. The roads were a deep, dark black. There was hardly a breath of wind in the place.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
Logic stared at the panther, who had his eyes raised to the sky, like he saw a vision in the cloudless blue. He had never thought of the human district as beautiful before. To him, it represented so many terrible things: oppression, exploitation, neglect and privilege that he never stopped just to take the buildings at face value. He looked again, and for the first time saw just how impressive the skyscrapers were, these towering structures, which went higher than even many avians dared to go. The roads and streets were flawless. It was, to a human, a perfect place.
"And all of this, this wealth, this grandeur, was built on our broken backs. Where do we live? We live in slums, which are dangerous, filthy and dark, while the humans live off the fruits of our labor. We do the work, and the humans count the cash. What do you smell in the air? What do you feel when you smell it? You feel afraid, afraid of the things that the humans did, afraid of what they might do. The way I see it, the more people around to even up that playing field, to hit those greedy bastards where it really hurts, the better. I'm old, older than you can possibly imagine. I saw what the humans did when they first came here, and when I see what they live like now, it is hard to contain my rage. That is why I do what I do, and that is why I want you to do it too."
During this last speech, the panther had become more agitated, waving his arms around to illustrate each point he made, while the scar under his eye throbbed and pulsed. At the end of his speech, his arms dropped by his sides again, and he looked at all three of them, breathing more heavily than he had done after his fight with Diago.
"Final answer: are you in or out?"
Logic looked at each of his companions, then back at the panther.
"We're in."