‘Pete’s hit, three newbies inside…’ Jacob shouts back. ‘COVER ME…’
‘NO!’ Helmut tries shouting but Jacob runs for it, diving through the broken window to land hard, whacking the air from his lungs but he crawls on, desperate to reach his old friend firing left handed while his right clasps the bullet hole in his shoulder.
‘Get them out, Jacob,’ Pete gasps, changing magazine with a grimace at the pain.
‘CAVALRY ARE COMING,’ Jacob roars. ‘HOLD ON…’
‘SO ARE OURS,’ Robert shouts.
‘Roshi!’ Martha cries out in relief, seeing the woman running from room seven.
‘Where?’ Roshi demands.
‘I’m coming,’ Martha says, taking the lead through room one to the cold freezer of the deli on Eleventh, running out into traffic as the two women build to a flat-out sprint.
Bear crawls to Zara and Thomas. Pulling them into a huddle as the three hunker down. Pete and Jacob behind a pillar, both bleeding and only taking studied shots to keep the others back as their ammunition depletes.
Helmut waves to the others arriving. Chefs, nuns, priests, hotel bellboys and beggars sprinting flat out down Seventh Avenue with pistols up and aimed at Carpe Diem restaurant. ‘THAT’S ENOUGH…’ he shouts out. ‘CEASEFIRE. CEASEFIRE…’
The call is taken up with Pete and Jacob repeating it until some of the black-clothed operatives stop firing and a second later a strained silence settles, only broken by the groans and whimpers of the terrified and hurt.
‘Leave it, Robert,’ Jacob calls out. ‘You’re changing history.’
‘Go fuck yourself, old man,’ Robert shouts back.
‘Enough!’ Pete yells. ‘These are innocent people…we have rules…’
‘We’ve got more coming, Robert’ Helmut shouts outside. ‘Total recall. Stop this now.’
‘You’re not the only ones with a recall…’ Robert calls out.
Helmut frowns as a plain door set within a wall bursts out with people pouring out. Men and women dressed as waiters, as hospital workers, as soldiers and everything in between.
‘Scheisse!’ Helmut mutters.
The new arrivals react quickly, darting in all directions while bringing weapons up that start firing into the parked and crashed cars with a whole new firefight erupting.
‘This is not good, my old friend,’ Pete tells Jacob, wincing in pain as he cranes up to snatch a view of outside. ‘I draw them out, oui? I run for Robert…you go to Zara and the others…yes? We do this.’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Jacob snaps. ‘Just hunker down.’
‘TOO MANY,’ Helmut bellows, seeing the Freedom operatives storm into the street as behind him more Discovery operatives reach the defensive line.
‘Too many,’ Pete says, nodding at Jacob. ‘I go oui? I death charge now…’
‘No bloody death charges,’ Jacob says, pulling him back down again.
‘No, Monsieur, I will death charge. It is my honour.’
‘You think the British are going to be out death-charged by the bloody French?’ Jacob snaps.
‘Then we will both death charge,’ Pete exclaims.
‘DAMN BLOODY RIGHT WE WILL,’ Jacob roars.
‘WE WILL DEATH CHARGE,’ Pete booms.
‘DO NOT DEATH CHARGE,’ Helmut yells.
‘Christ those two are so old,’ Robert mutters, shaking his head.
‘DEATH CHARGE!’ Jacob cries out.
‘DEATH CHARGE,’ Pete screams.
‘NOBODY IS DEATH CHARGING,’ Helmut shouts.
‘Why aren’t they bloody death charging?’ Roshi asks, sprinting flat out towards the chaos at the end of Seventh Avenue. ‘They should be death charging…’
‘Fancy it?’ Martha asks, while keeping pace at her side.
‘Oh yes, fuck yes…FUCK YES! DEATH CHARGE!’
‘Roshi,’ Robert hisses, hearing her voice.
‘Roshi,’ Bear says, lifting his head.
‘Roshi?’ Beatrice lisps.
‘Bloody Roshi,’ Jacob grumbles.
‘Roshi…no!’ Helmut shouts, trying to run out as Roshi vaults the front end of a crashed car while firing the rifle at a Freedom soldier. Martha at her side, firing a pistol one handed as the two women spearhead the attack.
‘Scheisse,’ Helmut mutters. ‘DEATH CHARGE…’
A call to arms as the Discovery operatives pour over the cars to charge at the enemy. Screaming out as Roshi spins the Winchester rifle over with a grip on the trigger guard, taking another shot before doing the same again.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ Robert says at the scream going up. ‘DEATH CHARGE…’
The Freedom operatives take their turn to give voice. Breaking cover to run at their sworn enemies as the street outside the Carpe Diem restaurant fills with men and women all in varying costumes and clothes. All of them shouting. All of them running at the other side with a ragged cacophony of gunshots ringing out before they come together to brawl and fight dirty while those watching stand with slack-jaws and wide eyes.
Roshi aims and fires, leaping through the window into the restaurant while spinning the rifle over to reload. She aims and fires, her dark eyes blazing while her chest heaves in the whore dress. Turning on the spot with a swish of skirts while flicking the rifle over to fire again as she spots Bear and grins that wry smile.
‘Hello, my brave little tiger. Are you hiding or fighting?’
Another rotation of the rifle but it clicks empty as she aims on a man bringing his pistol up. She doesn’t hesitate but ditches the Winchester while moving left and quick draws the six-shooter, palming the hammer back to fire the heavy gun, and it’s that point, right there in that precise second, that Bear knows he is head over heels in love.
In the carnage and chaos of that second and through the smoke, screams and blood of the firefight, he surmises that only by dying with someone so many times can you truly understand what love is for they have held each other’s hearts in their hands. Literally. After cutting with knives and ripping them out. Which was gross at the time but now actually seems quite romantic.
Within that same second, and while Bear stares lovingly on, Roshi comes to understand that the problem with a six-shooter is that it only has six bullets. Hence the name, and six bullets don’t last a long time. Robert counts them off, listening to the different sound the gun makes. Deeper. More thunderous and on the fifth shot, while Bear sighs the sigh of a smitten man, so Robert grips his pistol and readies himself.
Roshi fires the last shot and drops the pistol to look for a new weapon as Robert surges to his feet a few metres to her side. ‘Hello, little Roshi…’
She snaps her head over, her face showing instant rage at seeing him but that expression morphs into fear when she clocks the pistol in his hand. A second of life left and she snatches a look to Bear, her eyes wide. A second of life left. A second to mouth kill ‘em all before the bullet enters her forehead and takes the back of her skull out.
Bear just stares. The world spinning around him. His mind back in the seven-sided room when the men beat her to death and the felt rage inside at someone else hurting her because although what he and Roshi did to each other was sick and twisted, it was theirs between them and not for anyone else. She tortured him, but she took it back when he learnt to fight and through those many, many hours they shared something that was theirs and theirs alone. They held each other when they died and bled. She took him to New York and called him silly names and took his rage without reaction in the warehouse and sat on his lap as they watched the whales on the raft. She came to his room nervous and scared and they made love as a man and woman. That was theirs. Theirs alone and someone else just killed her and so he is back in the seven-sided room with a deep violent rage erupting inside that someone else dared hurt the woman he loves while in his mind he sees only the words she mouthed.
Kill ‘em all.
Robert doesn’t stand a chance and feels the impact as Bear rips him from his feet. Slamming him
down to stamp on his legs and arms.
Black suit wearing figures rush in and die. Someone stabs Bear in the gut, but he snaps the attacker’s neck and carries on with the knife still there. He doesn’t go down when someone shoots him in the back either but launches Robert through the single remaining plate glass window to land hard, sprawled and bleeding on the street outside.
Bear goes after him, leaping through as the glass still falls and the Freedom operatives swarm in to die with broken bones. Bear’s shot again but still keeps going, slamming them down and battering them aside to reach Robert, pulling the knife from his stomach to slit throats. To stab chests. To kill ‘em all while that rage explodes within. There is no limit here. There was no limit in the seven-sided room. There was no limit on the circuit. Only death and violence. The same then. The same now. Roshi is dead.
Kill ‘em all.
On he goes. Unstoppable within his rage. Seemingly impervious to pain as another knife is stabbed into his shoulder. He breaks the attacker’s neck and lunges at Robert trying to crawl away. Heaving him over onto his back. Dropping over him. Pinning him to the ground. Slicing his gut open. Slicing deep.
‘RETREAT…GET THE HELL OUT…’ A Freedom operative shouts the words as those that can run break for their exit point while Bear hacks at Robert’s mid-section to open the wound before reaching in to pull his innards out, wrapping them round Robert’s neck to strangle him with his own intestines.
Mass panic all around. Chaos and confusion. Someone grabs at Bear who catches sight of a chef’s uniform and lashes out, sending the man flying away. A priest grabs Bear’s arm but drops from a broken neck. More come, nuns and beggars shouting and screaming with noise only to fall with broken arms, broken legs or broken necks.
Someone shoots him in the arm, but he is not here. This is not real, and pain does not exist. Someone else shoots him the belly but that just makes him remember the time he and Roshi shot each other in the seven-sided room and so he gets meaner, angrier and faster until Pete and Jacob, using each other as support, gain the street to take aim with pistols.
The two men fire repeatedly, sending bullets into Bear’s chest, stomach, legs and arms but still he roars until Pete lifts his aim and sends a round through his head. After that is only the familiar blackness of death that Bear knows so well.
19
Six months later…
Monday.
A beautiful autumnal dawn. Cold and crisp with an endless blue sky and the ground a breath-taking vista of reds and browns from trees shedding their leaves that give a satisfying crunch from the overnight frost when he runs over them.
He takes Main Street to the intersection, running out of town past the big detached houses, work hard to a decent position and one day get a house down there.
Bear remembers Allie’s words. He remembers them every time he runs through this end of the town, but he barely glances at the lawns and gardens, or the white-picket fences. He just listens to the leaves crunching underfoot and runs on, taking the junction that leads up the steep incline to the hobbit homes at the top.
He runs faster. Feeling his legs starting to hurt. Feeling his lungs working harder. His heart booming. He goes faster still, building to a sprint with pain radiating out but the pain isn’t enough. It’s never enough.
He reaches the top and takes hard lefts and rights down the alleys, rat-runs and paths, pounding past front doors behind which the townsfolk of Discovery slumber at peace in their beds. He vaults benches and tables, leaping walls and dropping over heights greater than his own to land and run on.
He goes past Zara’s home, noting her new curtains hanging on the inside and the nice new rattan patio furniture on her small veranda. A sprint past Thomas’s home, smiling at the enormous gas-powered barbeque that could feed the whole of Discovery in one sitting.
He slows only when his own home comes in sight. Situated at the edge nearest the treeline, seemingly set aside from everyone else, like he is not part of it all.
A metal bar bolted to a frame fixed at the edge of his veranda. He jumps up, grabbing the cold metal and starts the pull ups while looking at the rose bushes growing in pots running alongside his wall. Thorny and gnarled with twisting branches and they won’t bloom now until spring again, but that’s okay. He can wait.
Pull ups. Push ups. Several sets of each until he finally stands with sweat dripping from the end of his nose while lost in his own mind for a few minutes.
When he goes in, he does so to a place unchanged since the first night he stayed here. The same colours. The same furniture and if he closes his eyes and inhales deeply, he imagines he can still smell her cherry blossom scent.
He drinks Discovery tea and eats Discovery toast covered with Discovery butter. He showers, dresses and prepares for the day in silence while elsewhere people wake nicely and listen to music as they prepare for their day ahead.
Jacket on and he steps out to walk back through the alleys, rat-runs and paths as the townspeople come out of their doors, turning away or even going back inside until he has passed. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.
He knocks the door and waits. ‘OPEN DUDE.’ He goes in to see Thomas in his boxers shoving a piece of toast in his mouth.
‘Mate,’ Bear says, rolling his eyes.
‘I know, I know, man…’ Thomas groans, rushing into his bedroom. ‘So damn cold, I didn’t want to get up…’
‘Lazy shit,’ Bear says. He likes Thomas’s home and the way it’s full of gadgets and appliances. Juicers, blenders, drinks makers, ice makers, everything-makers. Stacks of newspapers and magazines on the sides. Books everywhere. Prints, pictures and paintings on the walls.
‘Been for a run?’ Thomas calls out.
‘Yep,’ Bear says. ‘Come with me tomorrow.’
‘Say let me think. Sure. I could do that. Or, I could use the gym that has heating and running machines and music and nice women in tight clothes…’
Bear chuckles to himself, flicking through a pre-internet clothing catalogue from the 1980’s.
‘Ready,’ Thomas says, presenting himself.
‘You’ve trimmed it,’ Bear says, nodding at Thomas’s beard.
‘Zara said a short beard makes me look trustworthy and authoritative.’
‘Authoritive.’
‘Nah dude, it’s authoritative.’
‘It’s not. It’s authoritive.’
‘Whatever man,’ Thomas says, widening his eyes. ‘We going or what, huh? Waiting all morning for you.’
‘Twat.’
‘Holy moly, it’s cold out here,’ Thomas says when they step out.
‘Morning, Tom.’
‘Who’s that?’ Thomas asks, looking round. ‘Oh hey, Norman.’
‘Cold day,’ Norman calls out, walking past while making a point of not looking at Bear.
‘Sure is, I just said that to Bear,’ Thomas says.
‘You have a good day now, Tom.’
‘Thanks, Norman,’ Thomas says, offering a grim smile to Bear who just shrugs.
‘Open up…it’s the feds,’ Thomas says a few minutes later, knocking at the door.
‘Better have a warrant…’
They go into an exquisitely designed interior of soft browns and creams that all blend to create a beautiful home. Everything from the rugs on the floor to the artwork on the walls, to the style and design of the furniture is sublime and if Bear likes Thomas’s home, he loves Zara’s. They both do. It’s impossible not to.
‘Well done,’ she says with a nod at Tom’s beard. ‘Looks better.’
‘Authoritive or authoritative?’ Bear asks.
‘Authoritative,’ she says, walking off into her bedroom.
‘Told you,’ Thomas says, nodding slowly. ‘And now you owe me ten bucks.’
‘What? Fuck off…we didn’t bet money.’
‘One month ago, we made an agreement that all disputes will carry a financial penalty for the loser…ten bucks.’
‘Seriously?
’
‘Yup,’ Thomas says. ‘Ten bucks.’
‘Zara?’ Bear asks.
‘The night Thomas got his new spaceship…I mean barbeque…you had a few beers and agreed it.’
‘Fine,’ Bear says, pulling a banknote from his pocket to hand over.
‘I, thank you,’ Thomas says, plucking it away. ‘I bet that hurt deep your tight ass.’
‘Right, come on then,’ Zara says, bustling them to the door and out into the cold air. ‘Work to do, chop, chop.’
They reach the diner on Main street with the morning sun bathing the town in gorgeous yellow light and the air filled with the scent of pine from the forests surrounding them.
Zara goes in first to an early morning muted ambience of people sipping coffees and eating breakfast before they start work.
‘Morning, Zara…hey, Tom.’
‘Morning, Mavis,’ Zara replies, showing displeasure in her tone at Bear being ignored.
Bear reaches the counter, moving into a gap between two men who suddenly decide to take their coffees to a booth instead.
‘Ah, man, that’s just rude,’ Thomas remarks, earning rueful looks from the men.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Bear says quietly. ‘Morning, James.’
At least James greets him warmly. A big smile on the big man as he looms massive behind the counter. A white apron covering his blue jeans and checked shirt and he serves the coffees with the speed of an elephant moving slowly.
‘Pancakes?’ Bear asks, looking at Zara and Thomas. ‘Three for pancakes, James.’
‘Okay, Bear.’
‘Thanks, mate…oh and Tom is paying,’ he says, grabbing his and Zara’s mugs before stepping away to their usual table at the back.
‘Hey,’ Thomas blurts. ‘You’re so goddam tight.’
‘Funny how life works out,’ Zara remarks as they slide into the cushioned seats.
‘Guess so,’ Bear replies.
‘Guess so, what?’ Thomas asks, sliding in next to Zara. ‘You’re an asshole for that,’ he tells Bear.
‘I’ll buy you lunch.’
‘Where are you going for lunch?’ Zara asks.
A Town Called Discovery Page 20