A Fistful of Trouble (Outlaws of the Galaxy Book 2) Paul Tomlinson (reading strategies book .TXT) 📖

have a heart,” I said. “Or a sense of humour.”

Harmony and I moved away so that Danny could finish the repair on Floyd. She looked at me and smiled.

“What?” I said.

“It’s cute.”

“What is?”

“You and him.”

“Me and Danny? He’s really not that into me. But I think you’re in with a chance.”

“You and Floyd,” she said. “You bicker like an old married couple.”

I shrugged. “We’ve been through a lot together.”

“You planning to sell him again?”

There was no point denying it – the look of shock on my face gave me away. “How – How did you know about that?”

“Six months ago,” Harmony said. “I was in Cactus Gulch when you two were there.”

Had we been in Cactus Gulch six months ago? I couldn’t remember. “You should have said hello,” I said, lamely.

“I wanted to. But you left rather abruptly.”

“Occupational hazard,” I said.

“I’ll help you,” Harmony said.

“Help me how?”

“When you sell Floyd. I’ll bid on him, help raise the price.”

“And what happens if you win?”

“I won’t. Colonel Hodge always makes the last bid.” She seemed pretty sure about this.

I glanced over towards Floyd, knowing that he’d be hearing this even from the other side of the shop. “I’ll have to talk to my partner about it.”

“I’m not trying to muscle in on your con,” she said. “I just need to make enough to pay my hotel bill so I can get away from this place.”

“I’ll talk to him. You flirt with Danny again while I see what I can do.”

“I was not flirting.”

“Oh, please! How lovely. We had one of these when I was a girl.” I mocked her.

“That happens to be true.”

“And I suppose you put your hand on his butt because you were trying to find his wallet?”

“Quin, I do believe you’re a little bit jealous.”

“More than a little bit,” I said, giving her a quick kiss on the lips. “And no stealing from Danny. He can barely make ends meet as it is.”

“I knew you had a thing about him,” she said. “If you really want to get him in the sack, all you need to do is show some interest in his robots.”

“I do not want to get him in the sack.”

“Okay. But if you ever did...” She winked. “We’d make a great threesome.” Before I could form any sort of response to that, she patted me on the arm. “Go on over to Floyd and pitch for team Harmony.”

Danny was back in his workspace and Harmony went over to join him. I wandered slowly back towards Floyd, knowing what he was going to say. He didn’t even bother to verbalise it. ‘NO!’ appeared in both his eye screens in big letters.

“You heard all of that, I suppose,” I said.

“Heard it and saw it,” Floyd said. “All of the blood rushed from your brain down into your groin.”

“It did not. I just happen to think her idea might work.”

“Then get Danny to bid at the auction to raise the price.”

“It was Harmony’s idea. And besides, everyone in this town must know that Danny is broke.”

“We cannot trust that woman,” Floyd insisted.

“I think we can trust her to work with us on this.”

“You think she’s trustworthy based on the fact that you and she had a quickie and she didn’t rob you while you were asleep.”

“It wasn’t a quickie,” I said.

“Please spare me the details. Sexual intercourse between humans is messy and unhygienic. Even when there’s only two of you involved in it.”

“We can trust Harmony,” I said.

“Really? Then why did she upload a virus to my system when you weren’t looking?” Floyd asked.

“You have a virus?”

“Not me, the robot.”

“What kind of virus?”

“Nothing sophisticated. It’s a variation on the Berserker virus. Designed to disrupt a robot’s systems for a while after it has been triggered.”

Robots cannot lie, but an artificial sentience like Floyd can. But I didn’t think he would lie about something like this.

“She’s obviously up to something...” I mused.

“This is me rolling my eyes,” Floyd said. “What are you going to do?”

“Keep a close eye on her. I want you to isolate the virus but don’t delete it. I may need it as evidence. Will you be able to tell when she tries to trigger it?”

“She will have some sort of remote device like the one you have,” Floyd said. “I will keep monitoring that frequency.” Actually, Floyd said something way more technical than that, but I have no idea what it meant. But I got the gist of it.

“We should just forget this town and move on,” Floyd said. “Running the sale scam here is just asking for trouble.”

“If we don’t do it, who knows how long it will be before we get another chance to pick up the money we need. All the players are in place, primed and ready – one more day and we’ll be on our way to the spaceport.”

“I don’t like it,” Floyd said. “I really don’t like it.”

“You just play your part the same as always. I can handle the rest.”

“Including her?”

“Especially Harmony,” I said. “What are the symptoms of her virus? Could you mimic them?”

Floyd pretended to think about this for a moment. “You know when you dance after you’ve had a few drinks – like a puppet with knotted strings? It’s a lot like that.”

I gave him a long hard stare. “What do you know about dancing?”

Floyd got to his feet, towering over me. I thought I’d upset him and he intended to crush me. I took a step back.

Music blasted out of a grill in his chest that I hadn’t known was a speaker. Drawn by the music, Harmony and Danny came and stood beside me.

Floyd jumped up on his toes and raised his arms in a gesture of surrender. But he wasn’t giving up. Music with a throbbing beat came pumping out of his chest. He jumped up on the beat and came down with his legs spread wide, arms out to the side. He danced. It wasn’t a jerky, mechanical tin man dance. The moves