CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Abe had no real choice but to sit and wait for the Slig to come around. He had already announced the rogue was his prisoner, and he had no real way to drag the Slig around. Anyone in these parts might have information – especially a rogue Slig, because rogues had dealings in both industrialist activity and otherwise.
He glanced at the amount of bullets the Snuzi pistol had left. 81 shots were a good amount.
Abe narrowed his eyes. He’d actually used weapons on several occasions, but that had only been in direst need. He had always considered them to be something of an abomination to everything he fought for.
But were they, really? His enemies had been using them for years, and he’d always managed to escape them, sometimes very narrowly. But in a world where there were more enemies than friends, all wielding guns, and his age was growing on, wouldn’t it be safer to have a gun?
He fingered the Snuzi pistol. Surely it couldn’t hurt to have a gun to aid him on his journeys.
He shrugged and tucked the weapon into a pocket in his pants. Defeating this rogue Slig hadn’t been all that hard, and having his enemy’s weapon, a deadly weapon at that, would only increase the fear his prisoner had for his captor.
He produced a small traveling cake from his pocket and glanced once at it. He had never been one for bringing large amounts of equipment with him, but with his lockpicking wire, a nearly-worthless map, a stack of moolah, and a couple traveling cakes, he was good to go. Traveling cakes, while nearly tasteless, were small, filling, and never went bad. Abe wondered if they were pre-made stale.
He took a bite from the crunchy bread and stared down at the Slig. It had been a long time since he’d had to take a prisoner and extract information from him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t up to it. Maybe as a Mudokon he didn’t look too fearsome, but holding the Snuzi pistol on him could loosen his tongue a bit.
The Slig groaned and sat up, and even before his eyes blinked open, Abe had pulled out the loaded pistol and held it three inches from his prisoner’s face.
The Slig opened his eyes…and groaned.
“I guess you weren’t as much of a wimp as I thought you’d be,” the beaten being grunted, looking up the barrel of his own weapon. The Slig brushed off his mechanical pants. “But then, I didn’t know you were Abe whenever I first shot at you.”
“It probably wouldn’t have changed anything,” Abe pointed out, keeping the point of his pistol as close to the Slig as he could without putting it to the being’s head. “After all, I probably have a huge Glukkon bounty on my head, and any sensible rogue Slig would go for that one. You would have shot at me.”
“Yeah, maybe so.” The Slig flexed his mouth-tentacles. “So what do you want from me? You have the gun, so you don’t want to kill me.”
“I want…information.” Abe smiled broadly. “I know you wouldn’t refuse a simple request like that.”
The rogue Slig clenched one fist, then opened it again. “Well, when the one in charge of the situation has a gun to your head a couple inches away,” he growled, “you don’t really have much say in the matter…so I guess I could, uh, answer a few reasonable questions.”
“I don’t have to be reasonable,” Abe reminded. “I have the gun.”
The Slig grinned. “And if you kill me, you lose all your information.”
Abe laughed. “Maybe I don’t want you dead, but I could still do other things to you. You know, like shoot your fingers off one by one…pull you manually out of your pants…rip your face-tentacles off…maybe even –”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” the Slig laughed nervously. “Um…so what did you want to know?”
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