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((don't you love it when your character does something completely in character which is soo not what you wanted?))

He was glad Mark had some sense and removed the dagger from his throat, though just like Mark, had not been prepared for what Eseen was doing.

Now that Mark was no longer threatening him, he could not help but smile at Mark's comment. Eseen didn't need to know the situation, all she needed to know was how to provide a distraction at the right time, and that, she'd managed to do.

With Mark now threatening Eseen and Leadstorm, Joe took the opportunity to quietly disappear from the scene. Once he was inside his car though, rather than starting the engine straight away and driving off, he looked over to where Eseen was, for a brief moment regretting the young fixer's death, before starting the engine.

No sooner had he started her up that the expected exhaustion and splitting headache made themselves known to him. He swore at the realisation of what was going on. The need to have his full concentration on the AI had made him take a pill whose effects he knew would wear off within 1-2 hours of taking it, the increasing headache a clear sign that it had worn off, and without any additional caffeine to feed his addiction, he now faced the problem that he'd planned to not be driving when the headache hit.

Somewhere, behind closed eyes and over the engine's noise, he wondered why all this s**t happened to him, why there wasn't any days where things didn't go wrong in one way or another.

((after I finish this post, you may want to revise your actions in this one, you made too many movements without giving us time to react.))

~Mark's knife passed through the Nanofoam tire and carved a slash, which was instantly repaired by the active fiber it was made of. as soon as He looked over to Joe's vehicle, he hit the throttle, blowing dust into the air where he used to be. He gripped tighter as the bike accelerated at outrageous speeds, firing the onboard weapons into anything that got in the way, and running over whatever he missed.~

((You had to figure things weren't going to go EXACTLY as you planned, had you been willing to give a little, it wouldn't have come to driving off without you (which I could have done at any post starting with the first one I touched the bike...)))

Mark watched lead go off, Mark half-laughed to himself as he " The fool, as I took the bike offa the truck I slipped a homing device under it while the bike was inactive, and removing said device would cause a C4 proportion explosion. So I won't bother with them, but you." He pointed to Joe who was out by this time. " You may work as collateral for getting the bike back, but maybe not. Why don't you help me get the bike back? Your employer left you to die as did your hired hand. Also you never got paid for your job. I know your car is wrecked now but, I've got something we could use to go after them stealthy. " He said looking at Joe, who was seemingly still concious and able to hear him.

((Also Lead I edited my post and your quote of my post.))

He didn't bother trying to listen to the man on his bonnet speak, instead, was still annoyed at the ongoing sound of the horn.

Had he listened, he would have found great amusement in the fact Mark needed a tracking device to keep up with the AI. And possibly pointed out a few facts, such as Leadstorm never having been his employer and his 'hired hand' not exactly leaving him to die. Instead, Mark got a groan as a reply as Joe moved his head off the horn, and leaned over to look at the foot room of the passenger seat, finding and retrieving a half finished bottle of caffeinated soft drink shortly after.

A smile crossed his face as he opened the bottle and downed the content before leaning back in the drivers seat and staring into the space outside the windscreen. Soon, his face darkened as he saw Mark still there and slowly became aware of the fact that his car was no longer capable of being driven.

About the same time, he became aware of how incredibly annoying the gun wielding armored guy really was. Realising the guy wasn't going away anytime soon, Joe lowered the driver's window.

"You had better have insurance, mate"

He pointed out, sounding a lot calmer and less arrogant than he'd been before. It'd take another coffee before he'd be able to function properly again, but for now, the little caffein in his system was enough to handle the current emergency he found himself in.

He watched Mark apathetically as Mark asked questions and made him an offer to join him in order to get paid. The fact that the man was willing to pay for the damages he caused Joe's car was seen as an act of good faith and lead Joe to the conclusion that Mark was trying to lure him into a trap.

"That.. wasn't an OD"

He confessed, though spoke no further of the subject. In general, he lived a reasonably clean lifestyle, occasionally reaching to substances to numb the mind, or like today, to speed things up. The one thing he simply could not afford in his line of work, was those substances that altered your mind and let you forget what happened less than an hour earlier. Though it appeared that Mark wasn't aware of this and thus, Joe decided to play along.

"Alright, you get me back to civilsation and I'll help you find the others." He agreed, just before mumbling. "b*****d coulda at least paid for the job...."

"So where's your transportation?"

((You are more than welcome to interrupt at any time during this post, this is just what would happen if Mark let Joe have his way, I'm open to Mark having a problem with Joe's ideas))

He couldn't help but be impressed when Mark's transport was revealed, looking up at it as it towered above them.

"Impressive"

He mumbled, looking out of the windscreen, before deciding that the view from there wasn't as good as it could be and opened the driver's door, getting out whilst retrieving his keys from the ignition.

Shielding his eyes from the glare of the sky, he looked up at the mech again, letting its size sink in, and with it, the revelation that other than a sound problem, the mech had not been detectable previously.

"Who'd you rip off to get that?"

He asked, unaware that the comment might be taken as an insult and made his way to the back of his car where he unlocked the trunk, and a moment later, produced a jerry can filled with fuel which he then dowsed the car with, making sure both bonnet and drivers seat were soaked with the fuel.

"You might wanna stand back a bit, mate"

He advised Mark as he pulled out a box of matches and lit one. He watched the flame for a moment, some form of regret visible on his face, before he flicked the match towards the car and moving back a few steps.

No sooner had he moved out of the immediate danger zone, that the car erupted into a ball of fire. Watching it, he spoke to Mark.

"We can go whenever you're ready"

((Merry Christmas everyone))

Mark's explanation as to how he got hold of the CENTAUR sounded very much like he'd stolen it to Joe. Then again, for all he knew, Mark knew people who were inclined to let him borrow hardware like that indefinitely and right now, he needed Mark and the mech to get him from the middle of nowhere to somewhere more civilised, somewhere with less mutants and chromers, or at least, where they blended in better.

To the question if it had been necessary to torch the car, he shrugged..

"Didn't really feel like giving those chromers who're after the AI more toys to play with"

Most of what had been in the car had been original and wouldn't be more interesting than spare parts generally were, the small percentage of things that weren't spare parts was the computer system onboard which not only let him regulate how well the car was running, but also gave him the opportunity to back up data, or if need be, do a run from inside the car.

At the mention of it having limited space inside the mech, he paled a bit, something that wouldn't be noticeable, given his pale complexion. He wasn't a fan of small spaces and the thought of being stuck in one made him regret having torched the car, despite knowing that it wasn't likely to go anywhere without serious repairs to the engine.

"Nice additions"

He doubted Mark had any intentions of returning the mech, to upgrade its hardware was expensive and required more skill than most people had, not something you'd do if you were sure the owner would want their toy back.

Mark's remark on manual labor made Joe roll his eyes in Mark's direction before joining him on the platform. He'd come across people like Mark before, people who thought they were being witty just because they figured he was a hacker. Not that he didn't play on that.

"You sure you're gonna feel secure? What with me being the reknown chaos and all standing next to you? Last thing I want is you to suddenly freak out at the thought of me hacking your CENTAUR whilst you're navigating it.."

He asked, sounding concerned despite the smirk on his face. The idea of hacking the mech, despite being stupid, appealed to him. It would keep his mind of the enclosed space they were about to enter, which, with a lot of luck, would be spaceous enough for him to not suffer from a panic attack caused by a case of well hidden claustrophobia.

Mark smirked to himself, " I'll be alright, I'd be more worried about you though, If you even attempt to hack my mech I won't have to think twice about killing you." He said " I always come prepared, I have a spare vibrodagger in my other boot so don't think about doing anything dumb. Now on to buisness, where do you think those two rode off to? I never actually put a tracking device on it but, it's a machine, it has an uplink so it has to have some way of tracking it." He said then he maneuvered a monitor from his side to directly infront of him. He then started to go away at a keyboard near the right arm of his seat, he had to check with his employers one last time to be certain of the specs of his job.