Stop Light Philosophy

 "There are three common factors about a job, and you get to pick two of them."

Roll let out a sigh. The silence had lasted a lot longer than he thought it would. To the point where he'd been allowed to space off staring at a light pole for the last half hour. Giving his cigarette a tap with his middle finger, he watched the ash shake off to the ground, letting the sentence settle for a bit longer. Perhaps if he waited long enough, traffic would magically let up, and they wouldn't have to dive into whatever point it was that Zen wanted to make.

A glance down the road said the odds of that happening were zero. They were still a block and a half back from the blockage, and there was no way things were going to get moving any faster. Some borg had gotten zeroed, and it had delayed their trip, all five blocks of it, by a few hours. At first he'd debated just getting out and walking, but then he'd never have heard the end of it by the time Zen had caught up.

Taking another toke, he finally turned back into the car, offering Zen a sincerely bored look, "Alright. I'll bite."

Zen brought up three mechanical fingers, "Fast. Easy. Pays good." He let those concepts linger for a moment, before continuing, "You get two. Fast and easy? Won't pay good. Fast and pays good? Ain't easy. Easy and pays good? Sure as hell ain't gonna be fast."

"Yeah, that sounds about right," Roll said, turning to blow a cloud of smoke out onto the street, "But easy shouldn't be included." He lifted his left hand, motioning for Zen to shut up for a moment, "There's no such a thing as an easy job. If it's easy, it wasn't worth doing, and if it seems easy, shit just hasn't hit the fan yet."

"And I don't think that disagrees with anything I just said," Zen countered, shifting around. Roll could feel the whole car rock in the process.

How Zen managed to keep driving the old beater had was beyond Roll. Even before he'd chromed out his arms Zen was a brick wall of a human being. Where before he had some trouble fitting into his own ride, now it was a process climbing inside. The entire thing sagged to whichever side Zen was sitting on, and Roll was surprised it hadn't scraped against the ground on some longer hauls.

A few more cars slipped past the clean-up, inching them closer to the promise land. They'd already watched MaxTac come and go, and now Roll could see somebody taking a hose to the side walk to clean off the gore. A street sweeper was lined up in the alley, waiting for its turn in the queue. Settling back into silence, Roll took one last breath from the cigarette and tossed it out the window.

"Those things are gonna kill you," Zen mused.

Roll gave him a look of disbelief, "Zen."

"Yep," Zen said, not taking his eyes off the road.

"I got shot during the Palendo job last week," Roll said, dry as possible, tapping his shoulder.

"You did," Zen said, matter of fact. Which was how he said just about everything.

"We get shot on the regular, right?"

"We do," Zen said, "Though you definitely get shot more than I do."

"Okay, so with that firmly established. It's the cigs that are gonna kill me?"

"It's always the little things," Zen mused. As usual, he ignored that Roll was questioning him, treating it more as Roll slowly coming to see things his way, "The things we least expect."

"Well shit," Roll said, laying on the sarcasm as thick as he could, "I'll take that. Be the first runner to die of fuckin' cancer." A few more cars slipped through, they continued up in the line. "What's gonna kill you then, smart guy?"

"A beautiful woman," Zen said plainly, "I haven't met her yet, but I just know it."

All Roll could muster to that was a dismissive "Uh huh."

They sat in silence for a few more minutes, before a digital voice crackled through both of their skulls, "You two talk about the weirdest shit." Roll rolled his eyes, marking yet another time a netrunner picked the weirdest time to state the obvious.

Before Roll could muster a witty comeback, he saw that it was finally their turn to shoot the gap. Finally. Just as they rolled past the cordoned area, Zen turned off, into a gas station parking lot. He leaned left a bit to glance at the dash. Tank was almost full. A look was shot at Zen, before looking back at the little station.

"Is this..."

"Yep," Zen muttered, iris blinking as he double checked the information.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me."