In this chapter, the story lines of Pete, John and Xavier from part one and two of Ragnarok Conspiracy start to converge as New Zion suspects Pete of being in league with the Mars One aristocracy.

Note that this is still a work in progress and an unedited draft. All feedback is highly welcomed. If you didn't read my previous chapters, please look at the index at the bottom of this post.

Have fun reading and I hope you are enjoying the story so far.

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Roughnecks

Randstad conurbation, April 26 2047

Mr Gottschalk, please stop trying to fight with us, we are just here to talk.

The strangely friendly soothing and heavily accented voice of the youngest of his two attackers contrasted strongly with the hard emotionless expression on the man's face. He could not have been older than his late twenties, probably younger. Yet this young Caribbean bloke with long dreads reaching halfway down his back somehow had an air of authority about him. The other guy, a huge bald black mountain of a man, standing over two and a half meters high and easily weighing four times that of the smaller one was in his late thirties. They had been the most unlikely a team of attackers. Out of place whatever the setting. Both wearing the same well tailored yet rather vintage looking black suit of the type that people used to get married in before Taxoga wedding suits had come into fashion. The same suite, while giving the smaller guy a vintage groom look, made the bald mountain of a guy look like an oversized and equally vintage bouncer.

What do you want from me?, I’m just a simple debrisphere-miner without any political interests.

Pete knew his attackers had to be New Zion agents. Both of his attackers had waited for him in his living room when he came home.

At first, Pete had thought that it had been a simple robbery. As a veteran with years of combat experience, Pete should have had no problem fighting off two thugs trying to rob him. Even if one of them was so monstrous in stature that he might easily wrestle a silverback gorilla to the ground. Pete's fighting skills had been good. Excellent even. Nothing had prepared him though for the fighting skills of these two. The two dark skinned man had managed to absorb the energy from each of his kicks and punches and had used his own strength and energy against him like he was a first-year recruit.

These guys couldn’t be just muggers, they had to be New Zion agents and if they were, that couldn’t spell anything good.

I think Mr Gottschalk that we got off to a bit of a bad start, the soothing voice spoke as the second attacker held Pete in a solid head lock, “Let us introduce ourselves, mr Gottschalk.

I am agent Bridgewater and my silent friend here is agent Latour. You may call us John and Xavier if you wish.

Xavier here will have no issues maintaining his headlock indefinitely, but if you promise to behave the two of us can talk calmly and Xavier here won’t need to hurt you. If you just answer all my questions we will leave in peace after and nobody will need to get hurt.”

As Pete realized the hopelessness of the quite appealing idea of fighting his way out of this, a feeling of powerlessness overcame him.

Ok, ok, I’ll keep calm. As I already said, I have no interest in politics and shit, you have the wrong guy.

You can let go now Xavier, mr Gottschalk is not going to give us any more aggravation.

As the big guy loosened his grip and stepped back, Pete felt like he had been nothing but a helpless child. Agent Latour remained standing menacing about one meter behind Pete, still as silent as when Pete had entered the room.

Our questions are not so much about politics mr Gottschalk, agent Bridgewater stated, we are here about the special delivery you picked up on your last flight.

We tracked a wanderer that decelerated in the debrisphere mister Gotchalk. Wanderers don’t decelerate, now, do they? ...

Then, a few days later we detected a ship; 'Your' ship, taking in this object.

Would you mind very much giving us some information regarding the delivery you took aboard from the ISS cluster now mr Gottschalk?

As Pete realized they were talking about Robert’s pod, his little brother's pod, his face hardened. He was not going to lead these guys to his baby brother no matter what.

You may kill me, but I can’t tell you anything about no delivery.

John Bridgewater’s face hardened even further and now so did his voice: You truly don’t want to play hardball with us Mr Gottschalk. New Babylon is not getting another foot on this planet. Not on my watch, it is. Whatever you are hiding for them Mr . Gottschalk, Xavier here has more tricks up his sleeve than just martial arts and strong muscles.

We can do this the friendly way, or you could get acquainted with some of Xavier’s 'other' talents.

I can assure you mr Gotchalk, the later option isn’t going to be pleasant.

Pete’s eyes widened in disbelief, he wanted to protect his brother, not imply that he was in cohorts with those Mars-One snobs.

No, please, mr Bridgewater, please, you don’t understand, I don’t care about politics, but New Babylon is evil, I won’t do their bidding even if it got me a million barrels of undepleted replicator base. I did not pick up any New Babylon crap on my last flight. The thing I picked up in the debisphere has nothing to do with your cause.

A disconcerting but somehow still friendly smile formed on John Bridgewater’s face and kindness returned to his voice: I am inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt mr Gottschalk. For now, that is. We will be keeping tabs on you quite closely though.

Come Xavier, we’ll leave mr Gottschalk for now.

As agent Latour passed him and both agents moved to the door, agent Latour finally spoke for the first time in a somewhat agitated voice with a heavy french accent:

Stop calling me ecks-ZAY-vee-er, John. Its SHA-vee-e !!

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Index

If you enjoyed reading this chapter, please have a look at the other chapters I've posted on steemit so far and follow me for more installments from this series:

Part One: Beginnings

1. Dakila
2. John
3. Gwen
4. Bjarne
5. Rachella
6. Pete
7. Wietse
8. Xavier

Part Two: Concequences

1. Gwen
2. Dakila
3. John
4. Pete
5. Bjarne
6. Wietse

Part Three: Robert

1. Carnage
2. Soviets
3. Debrisphere
4. Roughnecks
5. Fiat 500
6. Lecture
7. Caverns
8. Cipher
9. Confrontation

Part Four: Midgard

1. Tables Turning
2. Trolls
3. Captured
4. Mindless
5. Reset
6. Air
7. Coordinates
8. Forgotten
9. Foreign Dreams

Part Five: Nilfheim

1. Perseus-Pisces
2. Holocene Past
3. Jötnar
4. New Allies
5. Old Enemies
6. Whack-a-mole
7. Antifragile
8. Cold start