Chapter 96: End and the Time Machine
"BANG!"
Ron fired six shots in rapid succession, the gunfire so fast it sounded like a single thunderclap. Six bodyguards, each with their head exposed above cover, dropped to the ground with bloody holes in their skulls. He still had two rounds left in the cylinder.
Ron glanced at Arthur, who was staring at the smoking revolver. "Smith & Wesson Model 327, chambered in .357 Magnum, eight-shot capacity. Someone mentioned I was running low on ammo earlier, so I upgraded. If you want it, it's yours."
"Nah, I just don't get why anyone still carries a wheelgun as their primary in this day and age. I'll stick with my SIG P226," Arthur shook his head.
"Maybe you should consider upgrading to a more modern semi-auto. Better capacity would help you develop your marksmanship skills. After all, revolvers are gas-sealed, you know."
This time, Ron shook his head. Semi-automatic? Who's gonna give me the skills for that? Without the skill bonus, Ron wasn't upgrading anything. Even though the boost was minimal and barely noticeable.
But Ron knew that without that tiny edge in fire rate, the moves he'd perfected by copying video game techniques wouldn't work at all.
"You're still green, kid. You don't understand," Ron said with the wisdom of experience. "Convenience is temporary, but style is eternal."
Arthur was at a loss for words. With all these corpses scattered around, who exactly was he trying to impress?
"Fifty-four," Arthur counted the bodies. "That means Dean's the only one left standing."
"Here you go," Ron said, dragging Dean out like a sack of potatoes and ignoring his desperate pleas, dumping him in front of Arthur. "You've got twenty minutes. I want to know where he's stashed all his cash. Show me what you've got. I can't be doing every interrogation myself."
"Please, don't kill me! I've got more money than you can imagine. I'll give you anything you want," Dean begged from his knees.
You could call him a successful businessman, but he definitely wasn't made of stern stuff.
"Ten minutes is all I need," Arthur said confidently.
Sure enough, ten minutes later, a single gunshot echoed from the office. Arthur emerged alone, handing Ron a piece of paper with an address written on it.
"This guy converted everything into gold bars and buried them at this remote location in his old hometown. Get this—he actually hid all the gold inside his father's casket at the family cemetery.
We're talking about roughly $80 million, and that's not even accounting for the recent spike in gold prices."
"Outstanding work," Ron praised him genuinely. "I'll leave the recovery operation to you and Hank. Hope you bring me good news. As for me, I'm clocking out."
After a full morning of intense combat, Ron was exhausted and decided to grab some chow and head home to crash, leaving the collection job to Hank and Arthur.
Ron wasn't worried about them making off with the loot. Besides the fact that Hank was an honest family man who was crazy about his wife and would never risk his steady paycheck for a manhunt, even Arthur had always wanted out of the game but couldn't find the right exit strategy due to the nature of the assassination business. Now Ron had not only given him that opportunity but also helped clean up his identity.
Arthur would have to be completely nuts to run off with the money and end up with a federal warrant on his head.
Plus, working as a team meant they could keep tabs on each other. Ron wasn't sweating it. His biggest priority right now was some serious shut-eye.
Even if he skipped lunch, he needed that sleep!
God knows how wiped out Ron was. He'd been in firefights from last night until noon today—except last night's opponent was Max, and today's targets were a bunch of killers who had it coming.
Even a perpetual motion machine needs downtime, right?
He hit a small snag when he got home. The stairway to his apartment was blocked by a large, elaborate contraption that looked like it belonged in a Victorian mansion, and the culprit was none other than his beloved roommate.
"Come on, guys! Put your backs into it!" Sheldon yelled from the top of the stairs while Howard and Raj pushed from below.
Howard groaned, "If I push any harder, I'm gonna prolapse something!"
"Hey, fellas," Ron said wearily. The two weaklings immediately let go of the massive object and waved at him sheepishly. "Oh, hey Ron!"
The contraption slid down the stairs. Raj quickly jumped aside, nearly taking out Howard, but Ron caught the thing.
"Thanks, buddy." Howard clutched his chest dramatically.
Ron carefully lowered the contraption down the stairs. "What the hell are you guys doing? Please tell me you're not stealing university equipment to turn the apartment into some kind of mad scientist lab. If that's the case, I'm moving out right now to avoid getting blown up by whatever crazy experiment you're cooking up—just like that elevator incident. Do you have any idea how annoying it is to climb stairs every single day? The only reason I live here is because Mom asked me to keep an eye on Sheldon."
"I'm an adult now. I don't need a babysitter," Sheldon shot back.
Ron smirked: "Oh really? You mean an adult in his twenties who still reads comic books every day? I noticed you're still using that Luke Skywalker shampoo that's marketed to kids under twelve."
"That's conditioner."
"It's a time machine," Leonard quickly explained, looking guilty. He couldn't help feeling responsible. While Sheldon seemed like the biggest troublemaker in their group, the elevator explosion was Leonard's handiwork.
"Well, I'll be damned," Ron tilted his head to examine it more closely. "Didn't know they'd actually cracked that technology. Can it send me back to slip my ten-year-old self a Sports Almanac? I'd place some strategic bets and use the winnings to buy Google, Apple, and Amazon stock. Then I could be cruising on my yacht with a hundred supermodels right about now."
"Ron, you're thinking of 'Back to the Future,'" Sheldon got serious again when the conversation touched on sci-fi movies. "The time machine in that film is a modified DeLorean DMC-12 sports car.
This time machine is from the 1960 movie 'The Time Machine' based on H.G. Wells' novel."
"Blah, blah, blah," Ron mimicked Sheldon's lecturing tone. "So can this thing actually let me travel through time and space or what?"
"Of course not. It's just a movie prop replica. From a scientific standpoint..."
Hearing that Sheldon was about to launch into another hour-long physics lecture, Ron quickly cut him off: "If it can't, then forget about it. I'm not interested in standing on these stairs listening to you give a TED talk on theoretical physics. So can you move your time machine out of the way and let me go home and get some sleep?"
(End of Chapter)
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