THE TALK

“Ven aquí querida. No tengas miedo.” Carmen called out. “Don’t be afraid, dear Angie. Step out here with me.” Angie could see Carmen step out into the open. Carmen used her hands while she talked, one of her hands just happened to be holding a submachine gun. The barrel aimed here and there, always carelessly wandering whenever she talked.

“It’s a trap,” iWinner said.

Angie whispered “I’m more likely to be shot accidentally than on purpose.” She paused. “But it’s probably a trap.”

“Estoy aquí, right here in the open. Let’s talk like friends.” Carmen was looking from one crate to the next, looking for which one Angie was behind. “Aren’t we friends?”

Angie took a deep breath and stood up. “I’m not sure friends is the right word.” She stepped clear. She held her G-78 Accelerator rifle with the barrel pointed down and to the left- not threatening, but it could quickly be on target.

“If we are not friends, why did you come to visit me?” Carmen smiled at her.

Angie ignored the bait. “My commander wants the case.”

“Just the case?” There was only one case they could be talking about, the one Carmen stole.

Angie shrugged. “The Captain didn’t say anything about you. Just the case.”

Carmen tilted her head slightly. “You know what it is in the case?”

“Nope,” it was the truth. “I just know its important.”

“Muy importante. We can sell the case and split the money. You people, my partidarios, there will be plenty of money for all.”

Angie frowned. “If I let you go.”

“If you let me go. Or come with me, we sell it together and then share the money.”

“O podría matarte ahora, perra.”

Everybody looked. Marina was there.

“Where the hell did she come from?” iWinner asked over the intercom. Angie’s thoughts mirrored his. Where the hell did she come from? She wasn’t on the minimap the last time I looked.

Marina’s rifle was aimed at her sister. “You always ruin everything.”

“What, what are you talking about?”

“We were fighting for the cause, and it turns out you are a thief, not a freedom fighter.”

“I shed blood for the cause, our brother died for the cause, for libertad. And what happened when TU’Cons show up? The marines leave and we start to fight the TU’Con. What happens when the TU’Con leave? The Marines show up and we have to struggle for freedom again. It will never end, hermana. Who has been responsible for our tragedy? Tu’Con? Marine? Central government?”

Marina was somewhere between pleading and accusing. “So you are going to steal money and then what?”

“What’s going on?” iWinner asked, “are we watching a cut scene?” Angie didn’t answer.

“And then we leave, or build a place so strong everybody will leave us alone. I don’t care. I want them all gone and I want them to pay.”

“But the government….”

“You and your government. You ran off to the capital, jugando con los políticos, while I stayed with father and we fought.”

“Don’t you talk about my father...”

Seriously, Angie thought, Daddy issues? The devs must be out of their minds.

“Not your father, puta, my father. You were his daughter, but you were a disappointment to my mother, father, everybody.”

In the distance there was more shooting. Southaven and Mike clearing out... in the quickening volleys of gunfire, one shot stood out to Angie. It wasn’t louder than the others, it just stood out to her ears. Something blinked in her visor’s map. One of the gamers flashed red. She didn’t have time to check statuses.

Carmen continued to taunt Marina. “He always loved me best.”

Boom. This gunshot was a whole lot closer.