Morning all and happy Friday. I hope you had a great week. Let’s kick the last prompt of the week off right with a deep breath and a timer set for fifteen minutes. On your marks, ready , set, wrote!
Interesting. I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going for a while. And I don’t know what story this would pair with but I do like Steve’s reactions to being questioned. Those I will use again.
Friday, October 10th: You couldn’t be more wrong if you tried.
“You couldn’t be more wrong if you tried,” Steven said. The tips of his ears turned pink and a scowl pulled his face down making it seem even longer and more horse like than usual.
“Really?” Chris asked. “So you didn’t take a bribe to ensure the results went the way DynaCorp wanted them?”
The pink stayed in Steve’s ears but red was also rising up his neck, a sure sign of growing agitation. He had the tells for years. It was why he always lost so spectacularly when they played poker.
‘Well that and the fact that Steve thinks he is smarter than everyone and can’t possibly lose.’ Chris had always been confounded by that. Steve was a regular a their monthly poker night and always lost, yet still believed he was always going to win. It was a triumph of self-delusion over reality.
“I did no such thing,” Chris declared.
“Then you probably ought to talk to your bank.” Chris replied. “They processed the transfer three days before the results were announced.”
“That…was for something else,” Steve said. “It has no relation to the results.”
“Even if it was something else you would have had to declare it so that everyone knew you were impartial.”
“I am impartial,” Steve shouted. His voice cracked on the end.
“And the fact that the test results that came in before the payment was made to you did not favor DynaCorp and were changed just before release, after the payment was made to favor them is just…a glitch?” Chris asked.
The red shot up Steve’s neck. Chris had never seen it go up past his neck and into his head and wondered if it would. His ears were still pink but the color did not descend down to the lobes, remaining at just the top of the tips. A vein in his neck and another in his forehead began to throb as Steve seemed to rummage through his vocabulary internally trying to come up with the right response.
“Are you delving into my personal matters?” He finally came out with. The accusation weighed down the words. “Hacking into my private accounts, spying on my phone calls and listening into my conversations?”
“There were phone calls?” Chris asked. He opened his notepad and took out his pen. The sound of the click was loud in the room. “I’ll have to submit a request for those records.” He made a note on the page as Steve sputtered.
“A request?” the words came out more a hiss than a question.
“You didn’t think I was personally rummaging through your bank records did you?” Chris asked. He allowed some of his amusement to show. “I was just the one tasked with going through them to look for improprieties. Someone else made the legal request.”
“They can’t do that,” Steve said. While the red hadn’t proceeded up his chin from his neck, there were hectic red spots on his cheeks now that seemed to be spreading. Chris found himself wondering if the spread would be even or if there would be pale borders of skin between the red splotches.
Ten til Midnight 