“I hear every little thing from your dumb little earpiece. I know I was gone a while but you’re supposed to be smart, Nick, that was,” he pauses, kicking up his feet, “literally your pitch. You’re lucky I’m feeling really sore. Ten seconds.”
“Sir,” Nico’s assistant says slowly, fidgeting with the papers in hand. “It’s a visual sensor.”
There’s a pause. On the screen behind Jack’s head, Nico’s eyes slowly close. Jack’s feet drop to the floor.
“I can assure you that - ” Nico begins.
“Hold that thought, kiddo,” Jack interrupts, ripping the pages from Nico’s assistant. The assistant stumbles a step away, lifting his hands - Jack is either unperturbed by his fear, or he digs it enough to let him live a little longer. “Question, Mister Bon-Bitchy,” he lifts the pages as if to show the man on-screen, remembers something important about the man on-screen, and sets them on his desk. “So you sent me - hey, heey. What did I say about staring? Eugh. - a hand-written report. Why.”
Nico looks down and files his nails. He considers his flaunted blindness as a luxury, one that allows him to multitask and not fake eye contact. His earpiece, after all, alerts him to Jack’s sudden movement toward the only other shape in the room with something a little weighty in his hand, rectangular and metal.
When it collides with the assistant’s face, it spits out a staple.
It happens so fast that it’s not until after Jack’s begun beating the assistant’s face in, staples and blood spewing, that the earpiece registers the object as a stapler.
“My connection from Pandora is shaky at best,” Nico explains amidst the chk-chking and stifled wailing, “and most of these bastards are illiterate.” Crnch. “Oh geez.”
“I think that was his nose, ha ha, I dunno. Don’t get squeamish on me now, brighteyes!” He bounces upright, planting one foot on the gurgling assistant’s bloodied face. “So, yeah, I get that. They’d rather eat a piece of paper than read it. What’s this ‘shaky connection’ bullcrap?”
Nico’s lip curls. “Rats on the wires.”
“We talking literally or figuratively?”
“…Both.”
“Right. I’ll send down an exterminator, but it’s coming out of your paycheck. So this is everything I asked for? Aw, it’s even in cursive.” He flips through the pages. “I frickin’ hate cursive.”
Folding his arms, Nico leans forward. “I’m gonna be a lil’ bold and say I went above and beyond what ya asked for, sir. I got eyes on all of ‘em and it didn’t even take me a year. We’re more than ready to- ”
“Tsk-tsk-tsk,” Jack doesn’t look up, skimming a page. “If I can be patient through a coma, you can be patient, too. My revenge, not yours, okay? Okay. Good energy, though. Knew I kept you around for some reason. Alright.” he claps his hands. “Good. This is good. Later, loser,” he says, and ends the transmission.
