Living in the Fray

28

 'Ah this a nice warm.' Ronson said as he made himself comfortable on a lounger on Muller's private beach. 'I could get used to this.'

Krieger had been messing about looking for a parasol she could use, to keep herself covered from the direct sun. She liked being the "nice warm" that Ronson had been talking about, but she didn't like the blazing sun much, as it gave her prickly heat and heat exhaustion sometimes. She thought it was amusing, considering most of the skin on her body was lab manufactured with an aramid weave that provided some protection from bullets and cuts. It was DNA matched however and was made to function like real skin would, so it still bled, blemished and behaved like the real thing. And in her case that involved burning in the sun.

Ronson had the same skin, DNA matched and everything with the same aramid weave; but unlike his friends, his actually tanned quite nicely. He put that down to his distant European heritage of Italian and Iberian that gave him his dark hair and lovely sunkissed skin. Krieger's family were from countries where they had fair skin, that burned and made every freckle and mole suspicious.

They weren't going to worry about Muller right now, that could wait while tomorrow when they would be discussing his travel itinerary. One of Muller's house staff wearing a smart but casual uniform of a short sleeve white shirt, maroon red waistcoat and black tailored shorts brought them over two bottles of cider, carried expertly on a tray.

'What's your name dude?' Ronson asked the youngish looking man who brought their drinks.

'James, sir.'

'Well thanks for the drinks James, but... we're gonna need more of these, if you don't mind. Like, several more.'

'Please just bring the crate James.' Krieger interjected.

'No problem. I'll return shortly.'

James the sort of butler guy scooted off and returned with a cooler box, which he placed between Ronson and Krieger's sun loungers.

'Thank you James.' The pair said to him in unison. James bowed his head then wandered back over to his boss Muller, who was sat on the patio area at a small glass table reading an analogue book. He was also drinking cider, flicking through the pages of his book as he casually watched the two mercs chatting and laughing. They had already downed the bottles of cider James had originally brought them and were now cracking in to the cooler full to the brim with fresh bottles.

It didn't take long for Krieger and Ronson to get through half the cooler and they were soon on the beach, doing what they did best. Which was being dickheads. They were attempting to recreate the famous lift scene from Dirty Dancing and, like everything they attempted after getting more than a few drinks in them; they were failing miserably. From a distance it looked more they were trying to rugby tackle each other, the pair of them were now covered in sand which clung quite nicely to their sweaty, sticky sun creamed skin. Figuring they wouldn't be able to do the lift, they started building sandcastles instead and then, realising they didn't have any nice little buckets to help build their sandcastles; they began burying each other in the sand. Their entire afternoon on the beach was a sight to behold; a strangely childish and carefree endeavour.

'Ugh I can't believe we agreed to this fucking job.' Krieger told Ronson via their secret comms link. 'You think we've bitten off more than we can chew?'

'Pftt, does the pope shit in the woods? Of course we have Cas this was a fucking stupid idea.'

Ronson dug his hands in to the sand and gouged it all up in to a mound, that he started molding in to some sort of shape he hadn't decided yet.

The money's too good though. And I guess when we actually fucking shaft this guy we'll properly be a household name, I mean think of the merchandising alone'

'You really are a greedy bitch aren't you Cas?' Ronson chuckled in his head through his comms channel.

'Hey, money literally makes everything tick and without it you can't do anything you want. And I like doing whatever the fuck I want. Besides, I didn't see you complaining with all that money you had to buy that fancy walk in steam shower thingy and posh as fuck jacuzzi tub.' Krieger reminded her friend. She got him there, Ronson's spending habits were significantly worse than Krieger's by a country mile.

'How we getting rid of this bellend then? Cough natural causes cough.' Ronson smiled at his odd sand mound which he was now fashioning in to some artistic representation of a fish.

'Something like that, I dunno I guess an opportunity may present itself and we shuld capitalise on it.'

'Fair enough.Want another drink?'

'Sure thing.'

Ronson got up to grab the few remaining cidrs out of the cooler. Krieger felt like being an arse, so she brazenly shoved her foot in to Ronson's sand fish. She'd had enough of the sun now.