Meredith had scrambled three small working cams that had been used for outside maintenance in the last six months. Now, the E.I. was using it to take video from behind the terrorists, who had no idea the little units were there. The video was pointed at All Guns Blazing.
“Meredith,” Dan called out.
“Yes?”
“Zoom back in on the window,” he told her, trying to figure out what the hell… “Oh Lord!” Dan cracked up and others started laughing.
—
“Kiss it you fucking posers!” Gabrielle yelled, “Hey, pass that beer over here!”
Bobcat reached over and grabbed William’s beer. “Hey!” he objected.
Bobcat passed it to Marcus who passed it to Gabrielle. “Gabrielle knows better than to ask for mine!” Bobcat told his friend who shrugged as they continued their mirth.
—
“I wonder if she knows her ass is being taped for posterity?” Lance asked Dan.
“Well… now, whose fucking ass is that?” Dan asked when a fifth object pressed against the glass.
—
“Go!” Bobcat yelled as the black German Shepherd turned around and pushed her rear against the window.
She chuffed.
“Hell yeah, that’s right!” Gabrielle laughed as Ashur’s mate chuffed additional comments about the men outside.
—
“This is getting Gottdammed ridiculous,” Lance said, trying not to laugh his ass off. “Oh lord almighty. Well, five asses for five assholes. I think we have enough for now. Reynolds!”
“Sir?”
“Tell those clowns to zip up, we’re getting rid of the trash…”
—
Reynolds voice came out of the speakers in the viewing area, “Gentlemen, Lady and Bellatrix, General Reynolds has requested you be informed to zip up and watch.”
“Oh good!” Marcus reached down for his pants. “Who the hell is going to clean the glass?”
The five of them turned and the four humans put their clothes back in the right places.
Soon, the five men started struggling frantically as the gravitic shield pushed them away from the docks. It started slowly, then sped up to push the men just short of when they would likely pass out.
“Now that,” Marcus commented, “is terminal velocity.”
—
Out in space, John Abdullah could only scream in the darkness.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The sirens could be heard getting closer as Bethany Anne walked into the ballroom. The smell of burnt flesh was still pungent from the two terrorists she had toasted with the balls of energy she hurled at them.
The men and women in the room stank of fear.
Anna turned to watch as Bethany Anne came towards them. The ex-President held her up, concerned about her health.
Bethany Anne walked through the doors and people shrank back against the walls. She looked at them as she made her way to the corner where Anna and the ex-President were… feet away from David’s dead body.
“What are you?” one of the women hissed at Bethany Anne.
“A mad as hell, recently shot in the back, pissed off bitch who is going to stick her foot up your butt if you don’t learn how to be polite to someone who just saved your scrawny useless ass,” Bethany Anne told her as she continued to the corner.
Bethany Anne’s concern was evident as she knelt. “How are you, Anna?”
“Alive?” Anna Elizabeth responded. “What happened?”
“C’mon,” she reached under Anna and easily picked her up in her arms and turned towards the entrance. Looking at the ex-President, she said, “You coming or are you staying with your man here?”
The ex-President stared at David’s body and rolled down his sleeves. “I have no idea what he was up to, Bethany Anne.”
“I know now, but I didn’t suspect when he shot me. He was mind-tapped by an enemy group who is using some serious badass mental shit.” Bethany Anne noticed John Grimes, himself a bloody mess, striding into the room and the stink of fear ratcheted up higher.
What the fuck was it about John? Bethany Anne wondered. That I fucking have glowing red eyes and damn near horns sticking out of my head, but it’s John that still causes a shit ton of fear when they didn’t even see him do anything?
Something to consider some other night.
“John, please take Anna.” He nodded and gently took Anna from Bethany Anne.
“Hey, I can walk,” Anna argued.
“Shut up, Anna. This is the only time you are going to be touching John close like this or his woman will shoot you a final time herself. So, stop trying to be a hero and allow your recently shot-to-shit-self to be carried, all right?”
Anna nodded and put her head on John’s chest.
She was asleep almost immediately.
“So, he was manipulated?” the ex-President asked.
“Yes,” Bethany Anne agreed. “He didn’t know what was going on. He was a pawn in a bigger game.”
“Fuck.” the ex-President said, looking around the room. “I won’t leave him here.”
“Well, in for a penny, in for a shit-ton of copper,” Bethany Anne said and bent down and picked David’s body up and pushed it away.
More intake of breath and muttering in other languages occurred when David’s body suddenly disappeared into thin air.
“What the hell?” the ex-President exclaimed.
“He’s in a foreign dimension, he’ll be fine until I pull him back out. We need to go.”
>> Bethany Anne, your Executive Pod is waiting outside.<<
“Okay guys, ride’s here, let’s go,” she started walking towards the exit when one of the men called out from the other corner that she couldn’t just leave.
Bethany Anne flipped him off. “Stop us, bitch!”
They almost made it to the front of the hotel when she said over her shoulder, “We have the Directorate of Special Units and other people congregating outside. Stay here until I explain the situation to them.”
The two men halted as Bethany Anne continued walking towards the front doors.
“How does she expect to explain all this...” the ex-President asked as he looked around. “Death and destruction?” He turned towards John. “And can she really get David’s body back? I’m not sure what the hell is real anymore.”
“Yes to your second question, she can get him back. I imagine she isn’t so much going to explain what happened as explain what will happen,” John answered.
“What’s going to happen?” the ex-President asked, half-listening.
“She’s going to tell anyone outside we’re leaving,” John said.
“They aren’t going to want to hear that,” he replied.
“She doesn’t really give a shit what they want at the moment.”
—
Three different FN SCARS were pulled up to shoulders and aimed at her when Bethany Anne exited the hotel. Lights had been set up, illuminating the courtyard. She used the moment the cops needed to confirm she wasn’t an enemy to check out the carnage John had wrought.
Damn, he’d been busy out here. She made a face and stepped over a particularly large puddle of blood and felt her feet almost adhere to the ground from the sticky blood.
Gott Verdammt, this was nasty shit.
“Get on the ground!” a voice using a megaphone called out.
Bethany Anne looked up, shock evident on her face. “Are you fucking crazy?”
“I said…” the megaphone speaking man came back.
“I heard what you said, you sick fuck!” she retorted. “Does anywhere,” she pointed around her, “look like a place you want to stick hands or, God forbid, your face near?”
“Who are you?” the voice called back after a moment of reflection.
“I’m the one who needs to put my shoes back on so when I kick your ass, you know it!” she replied as she stepped over another couple of bodies. “Oh, that’s just fucking gross,” she made a face. “
Any of you people who are presently aiming your guns at little ole me going to come lay down your jacket so I don’t have to walk on this shit?”
Bethany Anne listened to the heated whispering coming from the vehicles set up behind the lights.
“Sir!” a male voice. “That’s the TQB CEO.”
An older voice replied, “The one up in outer space?”
“Yes.”
“What’s she doing here?” the person in charge hissed back.
“She,” Bethany Anne pointed to herself, interrupting the hastily whispered conversation, “is trying to warn you that you need to move your asses, or you’re going to have a very bad hair day in about half a minute.”
“Why?” the person in charge called back.
“Because thirty seconds is the maximum amount of patience I have left!” She explained, “If I wasn’t trying to not flush the good cops down the toilet with these,” she pointed around her, “terrorist assholes, I’d already have …” Bethany Anne flashed sideways, using her Etheric enhanced speed to pivot, run outside of the lights and up the side of the courtyard behind the cops and stopped right behind the man with the megaphone. She hissed into his ear, “kicked your ass!”
There was shock written on his face.
—
“Yes, I’m leaving of my own free will,” the ex-President told the lead police officer a fourth time, “and if you don’t get out of my way, my ride is going to leave without me.”
Frustrated, but not seeing how the previous President of the United States could be under the mind control of the accused mutant or demon possessed CEO of TQB, he nodded his head and waved to his men to let the ex-President join the TQB people already in their Pod. The ex-President walked over, stepped into the Pod and within seconds, it was disappearing into the night sky.
The cop looked around, how the hell was he going to explain this?
—
Bethany Anne handed the ex-President some wipes. “If you have anything you need to clean?” He looked over and did a double take.
She was clean and had fresh clothes on.
He turned around, saw John in the seat behind them, but noticed Anna was missing. “What happened? Is Anna in the same place as David’s body?” He turned back to Bethany Anne. “Is Anna alive?”
“Yes,” she answered. “Anna is alive and fine. I took her up to the ArchAngel for further treatment. I took a fast shower and changed clothes because, ugh.” She looked out the window for a second. “Sticky, bloody clothes are the worst.” She turned back to him. “So… questions?”
The moment drew out; he seemed to be weighing which question should go first before finally, squaring his shoulders, he asked, “Did you know David was under mind control when you killed him?”
She returned his stare. “No… not until the pain of his death released the mental control on him.” Her shoulders slumped, “Perhaps if I had paused to consider he was acting out of character, I might have been able to figure it out. But…”
“But,” John interrupted from behind her, “Bethany Anne has a catastrophically bad reaction when she’s shot in the back.”
Bethany Anne turned to say something to John, but he put up a hand. “It all goes back to Petre’, Bethany Anne. No one can survive an experience like that and not be changed. If you get shot or hurt somehow from behind, you immediately go into a protective mode which usually means you immediately attempt to remove the threat.”
“You’ve been shot in the back before?” the ex-President asked. “I feel like I’ve fallen into the Twilight Zone.”
John started counting on his fingers. “She’s been shot, stabbed, burned, shot some more, cut with swords and other sharp instruments including claws and fangs,” he paused a second.
“Not helping, John.” Bethany Anne told him.
The ex-President asked, “Why didn’t David’s bullet’s blow you away? I just noticed a couple of shoulder wounds and that’s all.”
“Bethany Anne doesn’t go anywhere without back protection now. She’s wearing a specially designed flexible metal shield that’s about an eighth of an inch thick,” John supplied.
“How did you keep it on?” he asked, curious how this woman kept protection on her when he would have sworn she didn’t have a vest on underneath that white blouse.
“Sticky glue,” she answered, “the protection goes on in sections so I can move around easily. Then, once the sections are on if I need to look presentable, a skin colored cover is placed on my back as well.”
“Oh,” was all he replied.
“No, there isn’t anything up front,” she told him. “I worry about my back getting shot. If someone’s in front of me, I can deal with that.”
John leaned toward the ex-President and whispered, “And she hates how the protection hurts the precious pair.”
“John Grimes!” Bethany Anne’s voice was half embarrassed, half exasperated. “This is the ex-President of the United Fucking States!” She pointed a finger at him. “You have been around Tabitha way too damned much.”
“I haven’t seen Tabitha in weeks,” he protested.
“Which, obviously, was still too recently,” she said before pulling her finger down and addressing the ex-President. “We’re going to be at your house in a few minutes. This gets you there before anyone can react to the situation and you can decide what you want to do.”
The rest of the trip was silent, with everyone in quiet contemplation until Bethany Anne received a call from her father.
—
Two men stepped out of the black Audi A-6 with license plate A-216. The lead officer walked over. One of the gentlemen looked around at the carnage. “I’ll be back.”
Finn Jacobs closed his door and waited for the special directorate contact headed in his direction.
Those that knew license plates numbers knew he was from the government.
Finn held out his hand. “Eden, right?”
The officer nodded. “Yes. Good to meet you Mr. Jacobs.”
“Call me Finn,” he said and looked around. “Looks like we have a huge mess here.”
Eden looked at what he was seeing. “We do. We also have ten rooftops with more bodies and we suspect at least a couple of more.”
“Rooftops?” Finn asked.
“Yes, the terrorists used shoulder mounted SAMs to target TQB ships.”
“I didn’t hear about that.” Finn rubbed his face. “Sorry, too early in the morning and no coffee, yet.”
“You really don’t want to eat anything right now, sir.” Eden advised.
“Who did we lose inside?”
“Predominantly guards, two innocent hotel attendees and at least four of the hotel employees.”
“How about the special guests inside?”
“You knew about this meeting?” Eden asked.
“Not until I woke up this morning,” Finn said. “I got an update from my partner who’s out looking around.”
“Someone I should know about?” Eden asked.
Finn shrugged. “It could become a problem to know more about him, but I’ll leave that in your hands to decide.”
Eden shrugged it off. If he needed to know, he’d ask him. He nodded towards the hotel. “So far, none of the VIPs inside, except one, are dead. That death was VIP on VIP violence.”
Finn’s eyebrow raised.
“Seems, for whatever reason, the ex-President of the United States’ security put three or four rounds into the back of TQB’s CEO. The negotiator for TQB jumps him, he puts two rounds into her and she drops to the ground, then TQB’s CEO becomes some sort of demon and punches through his chest and kills him. She forces blood into her negotiator’s mouth and terrorists start shooting as they come in from a broken window. Her security is busy shooting the shit out of… well,” he pointed to the dead in the courtyard, “all these shitheads. The ex-President takes over guarding the negotiator who is apparently reviving and our demon CEO starts walking towards the terrorists trying to get in through
the window.”
“Did you say three or four rounds in the back?” Finn asked, “I’m just trying to figure out how she stood up.”
“The injury we could see was in her shoulder, so the thinking is she had some sort of super high-tech bulletproof vest or something on under her clothes.”
The Kurtherian Gambit Omnibus 05 - The Fans Version: My Ride is a Bitch - Don't Cross This Line - Never Submit Page 47