#//spike ain't heartless lol he just show mercy to people he knows is innocent

[reddragon-cowboy]

Eyebrow twitches up sharply. And the smirk disappears as he admits a chance for her words sink in. Then, his upper lip curls up, resembles close to a sneer, and the husky timbre of his voice hovers darkly in the dim lit room, wafts through the air like cigarette smoke under his breath, filters between hot wires and cords connected to bright monitors that paint his tall figure in stark blue as he looms over her.

❝ Oh yeah ? ❞ No hint of surprise presents itself in his tone, nor does surprise manifest upon his features that maintain a steel rigidness as solid stone, now devoid of humor as his mind quickly analyzes over this proposal Hal granted him on a silver platter.

His hand clutches the guns grip in a tight hold. The weapon doesn't waver nor stray off aim of his target, but there's no intention to waste a 9mm bullet unless a reason incites him to violence with a simple application of pressure against the trigger. Kid or not. Whether someone was younger in age or older in years was irrelevant to Spike when a big fat bounty was stamped across their forehead. ❝ You okay with jus rattin out on your lil friends jus like that, kid ? ❞ He questioned, unimpressed by her lack of loyalty as she was clearly crumbling under the pressure of this situation, the way she was willing to sacrifice the freedom of her associates to a miserable life behind bars.

But the benefits involved ? Well, his wallet gets paid in full, and she possessed the rod to reel the fishes in closer to shore. ❝ Maybe my fortune isn't running dry after all. Okay then. . . you got my attention. What's someone y'know on Mars that got a bounty closer to yours ? Possibly, maybe, bigger ? ❞

The brandishing of his gun was met with a cold look, a deep frown, eyes wide but strangely empty of the spark they'd had while she'd been messing with him all this time. He wouldn't do it. She was worth more alive anyway. Those she'd harmed needed someone to undo the damage she'd done, untangle her programs and viruses until all was as good as new.

She would have done it nicely in the first place, if they paid her enough.

Nimas didn't know loyalty, not even really to each other, and the more Hal was starting to learn that, the more she felt a certain amount of cynicism filling in where so much naivete used to be; a family of liars and cheats, doomed to forever be in retreat to as far as the reaches of the known universe would allow. Hal was young, but she was already on that same path, cloaking her whereabouts in a blanket of stars, the cold vastness seeming to open up and swallow her whole.

"Tons of lowlifes come close to my price tag, guy." did they? Hal actually didn't know, it had been a while since she checked.

The other hackers that came close, as far as she could remember, were also Hal, just under different monikers. That would no-doubt make things complicated. Surely there were other cyber criminals, ones who weren't amateurs who Hal hadn't already played for suckers time and time again.

"Okay. Maybe not tons, but I'll more than make up for my bounty with just how many actual, nasty bad guys I can catch for you."

Actual. As though she wasn't just as bad if not worse. At least she was no bounty hunter, bottom of the intergalactic barrel if you asked her, and here she was, about to help one.

"And I'm talking some real freaks! Not just jaywalkers and.... space clowns or whatever."