by D W Bell
“Don’t worry, kids. You’ve all done a very fine job. We are going to regroup and take this to another act. It will be all the sweeter tracking them down again. I mean, think of it, how hard will it be to find a bunch of pregnant teens escorted by an old Chinese man and some shot-up Serbs?” He chuckled and smiled warmly, what passed for warmly for him, and said, “Marshal our remaining forces and reset. Let them enjoy their little pyrrhic victory. We are legion. After a quick casting call we will be back to shooting on schedu-”
“Sir…” As the director glared at the interruption the young technician could only point fearfully at the wall of screens. Boudreaux turned and saw the strange formation of objects that were the cause for concern, flying inbound to the compound.
“What the fuck is this?”
Paralyzed in fear someone managed to croak out, “It’s The Auntie, sir. Auntie Boom.”
Boudreaux exploded into frenzied, unintelligible hysterics as a man possessed lashing out in tongues not his own. Two of the lead technicians locked eyes briefly from across the room, nodded, and mouthed the words tally-ho while executing their tasks in the unlikely coup.
―
The Auntie, or Auntie Boom as she was often called, was a bomb. A fuel-air bomb modeled after the MOAB utilized by the United States Air Force. The Mother Of All Bombs as it was titled was a devastating weapon of monstrous size and power. As soon as its existence became known on the global stage, Boudreaux knew he had to have one.
Like the SuperCobras, it was mainly just for appearances, but appearances are everything in this business. He tasked his developers to fashion a similar ordinance that could be delivered by heavy-lifting drones, or at least kited around for the benefit of the clients.
Due to size and technical constraints the result could never match the visuals or raw power of the MOAB, but it was close enough to be a younger, more fun sister to the original, hence the familial moniker.
The official story was that the explosion was caused by a busted gas main in the compound that had fallen into neglect and disrepair since the pastor’s death, but Boudreaux’s private army was no more.
The flimsy ramparts surrounding the compound served to focus and intensify the blaze. The intense heat and pressure of the explosion and conflagration tossed body parts into the air as the fluids within vaporized and blew flesh apart, and molten drone parts fell from the sky like raining brimstone.
Suffice it to say; the pastor’s faux-Eden was Hell on Earth in an instant, then just the burning trash of Gehenna. A scorched Megiddo.
Chapter 37
For once John’s recovery had been swift, if not painless. A symphonic melding of the latest Western tech and ancient Eastern wisdom accelerating his healing to a truly miraculous pace, robot-assisted trauma surgery to stabilize and traditional Chinese medicine to treat. The young doctor who had overseen his purification at the beginning of his journey of redemption had stolen one of the state-of-the-art mobile hospitals from the organization, and Master Fu was never without his bag of tricks.
A few of the girls had insisted upon staying on to look after their knight in blood-stained armor. His blood. They had surrounded John’s bed when he woke from the anesthesia after his first round of surgeries, and, drooling groggily, he tried to be charming by proclaiming that he must have “died and gone to Heaven to wake up to all these angelic faces” before promptly passing out again. The young mothers giggled and blushed, the first time. The act became comical and their laughter more raucous as John attempted to woo them with the exact same line each time he woke, his drug-addled brain oblivious to his previous advances. So much for chivalry and romance.
In the endearing manner with which those who speak English as a second language often make nonstandard word choices, and end up saying something truly profound, a young dark-haired girl found Master Fu in the lounge area of the converted travel bus to notify him that John had awoken from his final course of surgery and said, “He is risen.”
Master Fu looked up from the book he had been reading and smiled, “Hallelujah.”
―
While the reactionary nature of Western medicine had sewed him up and put the burnt and busted Humpty Dumpty back together again, it was how Eastern medicine treated nature as a whole that would truly heal John’s mind, body, and soul.
Meditation calmed his mind and gave him clarity, while philosophical discussions with the ever deeper Master Fu about the nature of the universe served to assuage his guilt with an incongruous but comforting mix of free will and fatalism.
The health of his body was bolstered, revitalized, and invigorated by a monk-like training diet prepared by Master Fu himself. Once it was certain that he wouldn’t come apart at the seams, John began a light regimen of stretching and bodyweight exercises under the auspices of the old tiger.
As to his soul, John was feeling weirdly optimistic about redemption, whatever that means, something he had not thought of since he was dragged as a child to church. If he understood any of this, surely his recent deeds and sacrifices at least balanced if not outweighed his past transgressions, a product of subterfuge and corruption as they were. If there is cosmic justice or karmic debt, shouldn’t things tally in his favor at this point?
Although his journey back to health and wellness had progressed remarkably fast, John felt as if he had been awaiting this moment for an eternity. A return to real training.
They had resumed the regimen with repetitions of the simpler forms done slowly, a way of recalibrating John’s muscle memory and revitalizing his energy now that he was healed, and gradually increased the pace and complexity of the sets as ability returned. Master Fu even revisited and corrected John’s execution of Charlie’s family form.
Once it was deemed that his balance and movement were sound again, it was a return to the body-hardening and heavy bag work, exercises that John truly reveled in. It sounds masochistic, but the pain of the conditioning made him feel truly alive, and he was certain he deserved the penance.
From there it was full-tilt boogie: high-intensity interval training, thousand-sets of strikes and kicks, and hours upon hours of forms and stance work. John finally felt right again, his mind and body perfectly weaponized once more, this time for the truly righteous to do what must be done for the good. It was with boundless enthusiasm that he looked forward to resuming traditional weapons training, a way to further hone strength and coordination. He would continue his study with the most powerful and versatile martial weapon of all, the staff.
John picked up a strange adage somewhere in martial arts circles that one should “fear the novice with the fist, but fear the master with the staff,” or something to that effect. Presumably, the meaning was that an unskilled novice may swing so wildly and unpredictably as to actually be dangerous to one with some training of his own, but a master of the staff, with the requisite long-practiced precision, was a lethal threat to all.
John twirled his staff playfully but adeptly as he waited for the session to start. He smiled and nodded to the old man as he entered the room and assumed front position so they may observe the courtesy formalities and begin in earnest. Both men bowed and saluted through the required ceremony and then began to work, the always gruff Master Fu making corrections with snarl and staff as appropriate.
Master Fu commanded John through stance, movement, and striking exercises then sipped tea while critiquing the details of the younger man’s performance as he worked through the full dance card of staff forms he had been taught.
When it was all said and done, John sweating profusely and trying to control his breathing in the formal front position to end the session, Master Fu shook his head with disgust and said, “Still so weak and clumsy. I’ll never understand what Boudreaux or Charlie saw in you.” John weathered the verbal abuse in stone-faced silence knowing it was a necessary part of the training.
With an exaggerated sigh Master Fu led John through the traditional observances to close the training session. “Bre
ak for lunch and rest. We will see if you can manage not to embarrass yourself and dishonor your ancestors in the two-person sets later this afternoon.”
“Yes, sifu.” John blinked in astonishment as the full portent of what Master Fu had said sunk in. He would be performing the advanced two-person sets of the ancient art with the family lineage holding Grandmaster himself as training partner, and there had been no mention of his mother within the insult portion of the training. He must be getting better.
―
It was glorious. John realized breakthrough after breakthrough in his understanding of the art just by watching Master Fu move, but true enlightenment was attained by moving with him. Principles and applications were displayed, and legendary, closely-guarded secrets were made known. They played a myriad of hand sets, even did a few rounds with swords and sabers, but now it was time for the staff, the most sacred and powerful form of all.
John could barely contain his giddiness as they performed the necessary bows and salutes to begin, his was the pure joy of a little boy as yet unsullied and jaded by the trials and tribulations of life. All sorrow and suffering was in the past; his entire existence had led up to this perfect moment of beauty.
It was transcendent. The men moved in perfect martial harmony, their staves whistling merrily as they flexed with the wind in the spirited exchange. John was light. He was limber. And then it happened.
Master Fu hit him. Hard.
With a comically confused look on his face John apologized, thinking he had somehow missed part of the sequence, and resumed the start position for the movement they had just been working on, “Sorry.”
Master Fu hit him again. Harder. The tiger’s growl said this was no training, “Defend yourself.”
“Wha-?” John had no time to give voice to his questions, only an instant to react. A screeching flurry of attacks from the master’s staff was his only answer. Whistling war-songs singing for his blood.
Betrayal. It had become a constant theme in Smith’s life. Why would this be any different? His unfaithful wife, the sly corruptor Boudreaux, and now this old hypocrite that constantly preached about the Way of the Universe, all honorless traitors to the good.
He knew he was no match for the master, but he would not go quietly. He would not go gentle into that good night, as he remembered the poem from his long ago English Lit class said. Perhaps the fates would smile on him, for once, and decree that the lucky strike of the novice would prevail against the staff of the master. Okay, old man. Let’s roll the dice.
Lady Luck only really smiles when she fucks someone over, it is her only true entertainment, and John had that bitch knee-slapping, guffawing, and grinning from ear to ear.
First, John’s training shoes gripped a little too aggressively as he tried to lunge away from the roaring tiger. The nanosecond delay in timing cost him dearly. The force of Master Fu’s strike felt like a piano dropping on his front foot, shattering the metatarsals into a thousand pieces and driving the shards to burst through his sole in an explosion of pain, filling the footwear with blood and leaving John lame.
Second, the old man destroyed John’s lead arm below the elbow as it held the extended staff, the ulna and radius sheared and broke through the skin as Master Fu’s weapon crashed through, augmented with maximum rotational force from the hip. John’s staff clattered to the ground, dropped by dead fingers as a full-body spinning whip destroyed his other arm below the shoulder, disarming the stricken man literally, figuratively, and literally again.
A final stroke with the butt of the weapon to John’s only remaining support sent the broken body crashing to its knees. A shattered, corrupted parody of the kneeling bai shi ceremony. Membership has its privileges.
As if the savage beating had just been part of the form Master Fu continued the series of strikes and movements as it progressed away from where John knelt involuntarily on the floor, then whirled to face him with a flourish. With a roaring leap, staff shrieking death overhead, the fierce old tiger pounced. The protesting white waxwood screeched at near supersonic speed on a precisely calculated collision course with John’s unguarded head.
The dazzling death-stroke stopped short. The terminal tip lashed so close with its whipping flex before it snapped back that a cooling breeze blew across John’s battered face. The adversaries locked eyes, and the student saw the truth in the teacher.
John’s gaze went from that of defiance, to dumbfoundedness, to epiphanal bliss. He understood, mostly. He had not attained complete enlightenment, but it was enough for this lifetime. In an act of free will he accepted his fate.
His mentor was not beating him to death in betrayal, but blessing him with purification. Master Fu was exacting payment in kind for John’s karmic debt so he would not carry the weight of it into the Great Beyond. He understood, sort of, and was thankful. John smiled up beatifically at the old man, nodded his consent, then bowed his head to accept the final blessing. The Great Tiger nodded sternly and delivered the masterstroke.
With a thundering, sky-splitting roar, partly in keeping with the force of the blow and partly to herald his pupil’s imminent arrival in the heavens, Master Fu brought his fury crashing down on the top of John’s waiting skull.
The sacred staff crushed down and through bone and the crown chakra, destroying the brain and dousing the light. Instant physical and psychic release. A metaphysical pod-kill.
GAME OVER
Press Start
―
Master Fu built the funeral pyre himself. He laid John’s naked corpse atop the low pile in the ancient aspect of rest, arms crossed over the chest, and doused the body in fragrant, flammable oil. He even dripped a dram of Laphroaig over the cold dead lips that could no longer savor for good measure.
Pulling a cigarette from a battered pack, he placed it between his lips and patted his pockets feeling for the matches or a lighter. When thrusting fingers came up empty-handed he stepped back into the dwelling to find fire, but it was a conflagration of consternation that was ignited by what he found there, causing the cheap cigarette to drop from the corner of his mouth.
Cuddled together in a heap, arms wrapped around each other, in the chair formerly occupied by him as he recovered, sat two children who bore a striking resemblance to the body that lay on the pile of wood out in the yard.
They blinked in sleepy confusion as they woke from their nap and took in the strange and unfamiliar surroundings. The older girl started as she saw Master Fu and instinctively hugged her younger brother closer.
“Don’t be afraid, little one. I’m not going to hurt you.” Master Fu smiled and knelt so the children would feel less threatened. “My name is Master Fu. It’s nice to meet you. How did you come to visit me today?”
Still uncertain, the little boy cringed closer and buried his face in his sister’s protective embrace, but the girl sensed safety in the old man and spoke up, “A lady said she could take us to see our daddy. I know we’re not supposed to go with strangers, but that place was so terrible, and she was so nice!”
“So it seems, dear one. So it seems.” With narrowed eyes Master Fu scanned the surrounding perimeter through the windows but saw nothing. “She is quite kind.”
“So, is our dad here? We haven’t seen him in a long time.” She looked at him with hope shining in her eyes as her little brother peered out from his sibling sanctuary with a questioning, hopeful gaze.
Master Fu regarded their innocent faces and thought carefully on how to proceed, “Yes, your father is here, but I am sorry to say that he is dead. I was just preparing his funeral.” The old man watched both children closely for reaction.
With downcast eyes and a slight shudder the newly orphaned children embraced strongly, then, unexpectedly, they sat up straight and stoically squared their shoulders, the brother drawing strength from the sister and vice versa. Deep down they somehow knew this would be the Way of things. Mourning was meaningless. A new day was dawning. With a voice of resolute strength that be
lied her age the little girl asked, “May we see him?”
Curious, thought Master Fu. “Please. It would be my greatest honor to take you to him. Come with me.” He rose to his feet and took each child by the hand, the girl on his left and the boy on his right, and walked them out into the garden where their father lay.
“How’d he die?” She was the first to speak after looking down at the object that was the shape of her father but was him no longer. The son and daughter stood hand in hand alongside the pyre. Master Fu stood at a respectful distance behind.
“He died a hero.”
“Who killed him?” The question quavered with little boy anger, but a squeeze of the hand from his sister brought comfort and calmed his prepubescent fury.
“A bad man, but a good teacher.” Neither child understood, but both stood in silent acceptance of things they did not know. The boy too young to comprehend, and the girl just old enough to understand that she couldn’t understand. Not right now.
“I know you both feel sad about losing your father, but we are here to honor him and his legacy. This tradition of burning is meant to release his spirit from all attachment and free his soul back into the universe.” Master Fu gently took both children by the shoulder and turned them away from the body to face him. “But that doesn’t mean we will forget him. You. Both of you are his legacy here now.”
Master Fu sat lightly on the ground in lotus position and motioned for the siblings to follow suit. He stared intently at the brother and sister individually and then together, eyes boring into their very souls, divining their fate. Satisfied with his assessment the old man closed his eyes and tilted them towards the heavens, as if blindly searching the all-knowing sky for answers.
After a few moments of silence, Master Fu grinned broadly, nodded, opened his eyes, and addressed the children, “Young ones, in honor of your father, let me tell you a tale of Tigers and Dragons. It is an ancient story in which he played a part.”