Chapter 1p5 – My Little Joke

"Your action figure?" said Tic. Well, here it was, the moment of reckoning. He couldn't exactly say, "You see, my Lady, when I arrived back on Crux a few hours ago, I discovered that the item you commissioned me to deliver had simply vanished out of my hold. Isn't that amusing?" No, in this scenario the truth was very much not the best option.

So Tic blurted out the first excuse that came to mind: "It, uh, got sucked into some kind of weird hyperspace anomaly!"

Lady Libden squinted through her glasses at Tic for several long seconds. "BOLTER," she huffed, "YOU MUST THINK I'VE GONE COMPLETELY SENILE."

"No, of course not!" protested Tic. "Just my little joke, ha ha."

"WELL IT WASN'T FUNNY!" Libden shrieked. "I WANT MY ADAM ASTROBOT. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH IT?" She struck the floor with her cane. Two of the Liberati stepped in closer to Tic and put their hands on his shoulders.

Tic went into Desperation Mode. "I, uh, I never had it! I went to the seller and he said he sold it to someone else who was willing to pay more."

Libden gave Tic another long, squinting glare. Then she nodded at the Liberati, and they let him go. "YOU'RE A SQUIRMING RAT, BOLTER," she said, "BUT I BELIEVE YOU. MR. DUNTER HAS DONE THIS TO ME BEFORE.

"HERE'S YOUR NEW JOB: GO BACK TO DUNTER, FIND OUT WHO HE SOLD MY ADAM ASTROBOT TO, AND TRACK IT DOWN. AND IF I FIND OUT YOU'VE BEEN LYING TO ME, YOU'LL BE VERY, VERY SORRY." She turned and stalked out of the docking bay, the Liberati at her heels.

"Well," muttered Tic to himself as he watched them leave, "that's one more client on my Do Not Call list."

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