Page 25 of Static

Now we were all laughing.

"If anyone can convince Gwen to trust men again," Idaho added, "it's you." The corner of his lip twitched upward for a moment.

"If you're such a smooth talker," Rip said, "and I figured you were since you became a lawyer, why is your nickname Static?" He looked around as we continued laughing.

I shook my head. "Because of these two goddamn assholes, that's why."

"Idaho gets most of the credit," Lock admitted.

"You did your fair share of making it stick," I told him with a dark look.

"We were deployed together," Idaho said, starting the story. "Our special forces team had gotten overseas a few months after Lock's unit was already there, so we were the new guys."

"They were only there a few days when it started," Lock continued. "Everytime Static would get on the radio we'd hear nothing but static."

"This piece of shit," I said, motioning to Idaho with my thumb, "was keying his mic every damn time."

"Not every time," Idaho corrected. "Only in non-emergency situations. I used to carry around a little radio, so when we were stuck waiting around we'd have some sort of tunes. I'd set it to a station with nothing but static and key the mic whenever he was trying to talk on the radio."

"Which of course meant everyone else started hopping on the radio to let the poor fucker know no one could hear him." Lock shook his head.

"You're coming in static," Idaho said, mimicking the calls. "Can't hear you bro, you're all static. Take the mic out of your mouth before you key it up. Static again, Partner." He broke off, laughing.

Riptide's smile was a mile wide. "I always loved it when someone was hot mic'ing and everyone hopped on letting them 'know'."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, how did they not know that when the one accidentally hitting the radio button has it depressed they can't hear shit coming in?"

"I think they mostly were trying to keep the channel busy so that the poor sap didn't say something inappropriate for the entire base to hear," Lock chuckled, "since their warnings drown out his talking."

"Remember when Lewis did that and admitted to sleeping with General's daughter?" I asked.

The other two hooted with laughter. "He got an ass chewing that lasted so long he couldn't sit for a fucking week," Lock said. "Then he was assigned to guard the inside of the porta shitters, which hadn't been emptied in weeks."

"Anyway, back to this shithead," Idaho told Rip. "It eventually got to the point that anytime Static got on the radio, everyone would interrupt to tell the others to shut the fuck up 'cause they wanted to hear what he had to say before he was drowned out. He would call in, about five people would tell all the others to hold traffic, and then everyone would wait with bated breath to see what his transmission would be."

"It was almost always a required location check," Lockout said, his shoulders shaking with laughter.

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered, grinning along with them.

"I told everyone we should just name him Static, and it stuck," Idaho finished.

"That's fucking good," Rip said grinning at me.

"Better than some nicknames," I admitted.

"Yeah, like Idaho," Idaho gave me an unamused look.

"I thought it was a pretty good one," I told him with a shrug.

We all fell silent again, staring down at the table. Rip was the one to break the silence again. "You think this is going to work?"

"It's a good plan," Lock said. "I think it'll draw Fremont out for sure."

"Yeah," Idaho replied, "but what do we do with him then?"

Lock shook his head. "I still don't know yet. We can't just kill him. If he disappears they'll bring in the feds. It'd be a manhunt and we'd end up at the center of it."

"One step at a time," I muttered. "Maybe he'll slip up in a way where we could work with a prosecutor and build up a case against him."

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