Short Stories
“You got it sister. Mr. Sturm und Drang over there filtered to only receive mission specific chatter. Bit boring if you ask me.
(Here comes Shadoe singing oldies, goldies
Be-Bop-A-Lula, Baby What I Say
Here comes Shadoe singing I Gotta Bad-Guy
Down in the kitchen, gonna make him pay)
Ruby turned the sound down a bit more and just shook her head. “How did we get hooked up with crew, Chaz? Oh well. I guess it beats running from Deutsch Corp the rest of our lives. Stop grinding your teeth, you’ll get in soon enough.”
“I’ve had enough o’ this plan!” Chaz tugged the van door open. “We’ve no confirmation of the child bein’ well an’ safe, an’ he’s dancin’ an’ singin’ about inside like some kind o’ dandy. I had enough.”
“Chaz, he’s getting the job done—Chaz!” Ruby sighed, clicked her com on. “Team member coming in the front door, Shadoe. Make sure you or Bruinski don’t mistake him for a hostile.”
“Copy that, Driver,” Shadoe answered. “Now, you’re staying put, right Wheel Woman?”
“Engine’s running, just in case we need to make a quick get away.”
“And just to be on the safe side – oh. Oh my.”
A sudden roar filled Ruby’s ear through the com.
“What ‘s that? What’s happening?”
“Bruinski, it would seem has had enough of playing with all this “man’s toys” stuff and is just going after the bad guys au natural.”
“You mean he’s –“
“Yep. Furry, clawed and one mean mother mauling up bad guys right now.”
“Will he know Chaz when he comes through the door in that rage?”
“You kidding? Bruinski knows Chaz-boy’s smell. Don’t worry your pretty little head about him. Ooh-hey! Here’s the stairs down to the basement. I’m going in.”
“Not without backup you’re not!”
“Relax, I got Surround-O-Vision; no one can sneak up behind me.”
“Shadoe, wait for Chaz—“
“Ta-ta for now, darlin’.”
Shadoe wound down the staircase, the shouts and shots already fading as he closed the door behind him. The basement was pitch black, and so he turned the optics in his eyes to infrared, and navigated by the heat differences in wall, floor, ceiling, furniture and objects. There in a corner of the large basement, he saw two life signatures, one small and radiating a lot of heat, contained in the arms of a second larger one, and some metal object poised upon the smaller.
“Back off me, man, or the kid gets a bullet in the head,” a haggard voice called out from the darkness.
“Oh, my friend, that is one big mistake,” Shadoe cooed. “You don’t want to be pointing that pea shooter towards that kid.”
“I mean it man! And the kid’s death will be on your conscience!”
Shadoe puzzled this one for a moment.
“Noooo, actually,” he said slowly, “his death would be on yours.” Shadoe shrugged. “But we’re not here to talk about guilt and conscience cause and effect and all that Gestalt stuff. You really are quite exceptional philosophically for a bad guy, you know—“
“Not another step. I mean it!”
“Fine by me. Really, I’m your friend here.”
“I seriously doubt that!”
“No, really given your choices. Take a listen. You hear that roaring sound followed by some serious screaming? The screaming is your buddies -- getting their head torn open or arm ripped off or some such gruesome thingy -- by my buddy, who is actually some kind of man-bear or bear-man, I’ve never been able to figure that all out. But you can take that gun of yours and fire into him all day and I’m not so sure that it’d be doing much to him, except possibly make him mad. But that’s pretty moot at this point, because he is hugely protective of little children – “man cubs” he calls them. It’s really kind of cute watching him play with kids, you ought to see it sometime – he’s got this juggling act—“
“You’re crazy!”
“Oh, no, that’s where you’re wrong. You want crazy, there’s this other guy who happens to be my buddy, too. Now he’s a real piece of work. I don’t know what trauma he had at some point but he is manically protective of some kid named Shamus. I don’t know the whole story, but every life and death situation he overlays this whole Shamus scenario and suddenly it becomes all personal. And trust me, you don’t WANT this maniac to get all personal on you. Really, I’m the best one of the lot you could be negotiating with. The others kill first and don’t ask questions later.
“I ain’t negotiating no nothing! I walk out of here or the kid dies.”
“I hate to disagree with you, especially when you’re all stressed out and have this agenda item of walking out, but that definitely sounds like terms in a negotiation. I won’t even bring up the triple negative which has some interesting implications when you—“
The man holding the child suddenly jerked backwards pinned against the concrete wall. A neat circle scored in the middle of his forehead which only now started betraying a trickle of blood. The shocked look on the man’s face a death mask of surprise and disbelief.
“Took you long enough,” Shadoe called over his shoulder. A silently panting Chaz stood with his silenced muzzle still pointed at the would-be captor, the snarl frozen upon his face in a killer’s death mask. “My money was on you getting down here first. Bruinski is much too involved in his feral activities to make it down here into the “bad-guy’s den”. Still, I have to compliment you on the neat job. Chaz?”
Chaz lowered his pistol with a shaking hand, eyes transfixed upon the recently freed child.
“Are ye all right, Shamus?”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Chaz, the kid’s name isn’t Shamus. Now go and make yourself useful and let Bruinski know that the “man cub” is safe and unharmed. Then go pump lead into the bodies if that’ll make you happy.” Shadoe glided over to the confused small child.
“I’ll take care of the necessities here. Ruby, you copying the vitals on this child?”
“Affirm that. Odd, no raised heartbeat or respiration at all. Either the child didn’t understand the danger it was in, or didn’t have a care.”
Shadoe whistled slowly, appraising the child with a new appreciation.
“I think I’m beginning to understand why we were sent to rescue this particular kid. But never mind. Mission accomplished. I’m coming in with the package and the other boys are doing clean-up. Over and out.”
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