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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Piratecat" data-source="post: 6129270" data-attributes="member: 2">Hung-Ke disdainfully kicks the rolling chair across the room, and the charging thug leaps over it--and misses. His foot hits the seat, the backrest catches him mid-shin, he loses his balance, and all that momentum carries him forward towards the tile. He doesn't get his hands in front of him in time. The crunch of bone hitting Formica is satisfying, and the semi-conscious thug turns out to be a lot more interested in weeping and rolling around, clutching his face, than he is in hanging on to that pistol.Unexpectedly pushed back by the impact, the office chair rolls to a stop at Hung-Ke's feet. He looks at it, raises an eyebrow, and sits down as Persephone's spare phone beeps. "Ten seconds," the hacker's old phone warbles from where its been kicked under the console, but the hacker doesn't even hear it. He's busy typing.Across the room, Ashcan Quinn stands smiling at the burly man in front of him. The LED on Quinn's vest blinks quite merrily. "Are you INSANE?" bellows the Russian. "You vould kill yourself, and your friend, and launch that missile!" He makes up his mind that Ashcan is bluffing, raises a fist with a small sharp knife in it, and then meets Ashcan's gaze. They stare at each other from three feet away, the tall muscled tattooed mobster and the spry, elderly Irishman. They look into each other's eyes, and they take a measure of what the other is capable of.The mobster breaks first. He quite deliberately tosses his knife and gun away, puts his hands behind his head, and says, "You are a crazy old man. I surrender." And then he sits down on the floor.The other thug is coming through the door when this happens. He sees the vest, backpedals like mad, and runs for the exit. Quinn can see him punching the elevator button five times in rapid succession, giving up, and dashing for the door to the stairs down. The slam echoes through the space, and the only sound is of thugs groaning and Hung-Ke's madly typing fingers."Five seconds."</blockquote>

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