[center][hider=Concerning:][@Xandrya][/hider][/center]"Are you sure that's what happened?" Marcel asked, seemingly playfully as he bounced a box up and down in the grip of his meaty hand, weighing its contents. And anyone who had ever spent time in the military, or the police forces of his mother country, would have known immediately what sinister forces lied within that question: it was precisely like the drill sergeant who knew a trooper had lied to him, and was giving this idiot a chance to come clean and save himself. If he doubled down on his own stupidity, then he deserved the beating he was about to get. Thus it was with Amelia. The idea that she was lying to him had percolated through Marcel's dense skull, and instead of souring against her, he turned gentle, and even outright soft. The inflections of his voice seemed to mark his understanding of her dilemma, although his thick, leathery lips twisted up into a scowl; and his whole body looked lax and lazy, although he stood tall and straight, towering both over her and all his thuggish cronies.

Though his pale, eerie eyes fell downward toward the box of bullets, all lined up in their columns and rows like parading soldiers, Marcel felt a keen awareness prickling at the hairs on his neck, both of the snipers on the roof and of the distance from the parking lot to the treeline. He didn't like being ripped off, it was true; but more dangerous than the act itself was the fallout. What consequences should he suffer if word of this got round: that "Magpie" Marcel had allowed this transgression to take place? If he had gone soft on people who swindled his guys and made away with their due merchandise? No. He had a reputation to uphold, no less among his subordinates than those who feared him, and he knew he had to learn who was responsible for this growing shitstorm.

So he gave the courier her opportunity to come clean; to make amends for whatever she was trying to pull. If they were already short on bullets then he didn't want to waste one on her; not until it came to that.[hr][hr][hr][center][i][color=#785D62]M[/color][color=#7E6566]e[/color][color=#856D6A]a[/color][color=#8B756E]n[/color][color=#927D72]w[/color][color=#988576]h[/color][color=#9F8E7A]i[/color][color=#A78E7B]l[/color][color=#AF8F7D]e[/color][color=#B88F7F].[/color][color=#C09081].[/color][color=#C89083].[/color][/i][/center][hr][hr][hr][center][hider=Concerning:][@Fyre Unholy][@TemplarKnight07][/hider][/center]The first thing to spook any Zone newbie was just how loud guns could be; no amount of action movies prepared them for the tinnitus which lead into silence, leading thence into panic and dread.

The barkeeper heard Andrew's nine-millimeter from those hundreds of meters away, through the concrete and the soil dividing the beer-cellar from the outside world. Gideon heard it too, bouncing sharply off the village's walls and doorways, just down the road from the [i]biergarten[/i]. The entire community seemed stirred by the violent cacophony; they felt their bodies coiling up, paying attention just to the air which whistled around them, waiting to hear it a second time as a foretelling of danger.

The fat Teuton sighed. He didn't have many customers as it was, and now he was going to lose more to a spook. As he kept his wary eyes on the steps leading up to the surface (after all, he wasn't going to let them escape with their money just yet), he crawled his sausagey fingers along his countertop, til he felt them wrap round the familiar molded plastic.

"What the hell was that?" he asked into the walkie-talkie.

"Small arms fire, boss," the black rectangle said back. "Some kind of pistol."

"From the village?"

"No. West."

Thank God. Blood spoiled people's appetites. Sighing with relief, the barman said loudly enough for the whole room to hear, "Good! Keep your eye open, and don't let trouble slip past you."

"No problem, Max. Out."

With that, the barman set the radio down again, and folded his arms, satisfied. He watched his customers as they decided what to do about the menacing noise; he [i]dared[/i] them to leave. He didn't even have to bribe them with free beer; he could be clever when he wanted to be, when money was on the line.