by Pen
Then, she started shimmying her upper body like she’d been taught, hoping that her flexing trick at the outset had given her a little wiggle room. It had. As she undulated her upper body in rotations a belly dancer would have been proud of, Suzie felt the strap across her upper arms begin to slide upwards. A few more jerks of her torso and the strap slid up around her neck. Even though her hands were still tied, that allowed her to slide the strap over her head. Suzie wanted to hoot in triumph, but she quickly realized that freeing her upper body still didn’t get her back use of her hands or feet.
There was a multi-tool in her purse. So, Suzie began the laborious process of dragging a chair attached to her feet across the small room. She managed it by crawling on her forearms and knees, the chair resting awkwardly against her backside and slapping against her with each forward tug. Suzie hoped the camera couldn’t see this part. Patricia would tease her mercilessly about having escaped by spanking herself repeatedly with a chair. At least she hoped Patricia would get the chance to do that.
Her whole escape was making a lot of noise—Suzie hoped it wasn’t more noise than the music and crowd. This seemed like a three-man operation and, if that was the case, she had a chance. If Sai was preparing to fight, the meat-faced man was the doorman and bouncer, and Rohit was the impresario and idea man, that really didn’t leave anyone to notice odd thuds coming from the room where they’d locked up the hostage.
With another clatter, Suzie managed to pull her purse down on herself, spilling the contents onto the floor. Including her multi-tool. Getting the damned thing open was awkward with her handkerchief-bound hands, but once she managed that, she was free from the leg strap and rubbing her tingling ankles with a blood-smeared hand trying to get the feeling back before she stood.
She wobbled a little unsteadily even though she’d taken off her shoes, but she made her way to the observation glass at the front of the box. This room must have been meant for observation of the floor below. Suzie could easily imagine a slave-driver overseer sitting up here keeping tabs on the underpaid workers below. It definitely had a commanding view of the facility.
The large, wide-open room had probably been a sweatshop in its heyday, but now it was empty except for a large cage a straight out of the lion-taming act at the circus. The oblong structure squatted right in the middle of the room, a spotlight shining down on it. Suzie could only see a shape moving around inside from her bird’s eye view, but she knew Patricia was the beast pacing inside. The whole thing was attached to a generator, a small secondary fence forming a circular perimeter around it.
A few people wandered around the blocked off area, taking pictures. Other people were streaming in through a door in the middle of the far wall. Suzie could see a tee-shirt vendor and a few snack stands along one wall. The room filled as Suzie watched and the noise became deafening. Arena rock was blaring through a makeshift and badly balanced sound system. The vibrations shook the walls and floor of Suzie’s sky-box prison. The bass rattled the equipment around her. Even the door shook in its frame.
Tearing her eyes from the spectacle below, Suzie made a quick assessment of the room. It would have been too much to hope that there was anything up here that would allow her to influence the equipment down there. The only thing in the room that even had power running to it was the camera, still pointed at the place where her chair had been.
By her count, it had been about fifteen minutes since she’d sent her S.O.S. If the team had responded instantly, it would still be another fifteen before they’d arrive. And there was no guarantee they’d been able to assemble and dispatch that quickly. A lot could happen in that amount of time. Patricia could do some serious damage to the foolish Crocodile boy trusting to body armor to protect him. “Not on my watch,” Suzie whispered to herself.
She picked up her heels and her purse and went over to the door. She pressed her ear against it, but couldn’t determine if there was anyone on the other side of it over the din of the arena rock and the crowd below. Taking a deep breath, she tried the door handle and found it, to her surprise, unlocked. She flung the door open, then pressed herself against the wall, readying herself should anyone come through it. She paused for a count of one . . . two . . . three. Nothing happened, so she knelt on the floor and peeked out, hoping the unexpected height of her head would keep her from getting it shot off by Meat-face or some other thug she hadn’t seen.
The hall was empty and Suzie crept to the head of the stairs as soundlessly as she could manage. Peering down the stairwell, she could make out a man standing at the foot of the stairs. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought it was Meat-face. Suppressing a curse, she backtracked to the sky box doorway.
The entire crowd seemed to cry out at once, and Suzie was sure that meant the fight was now in progress. She looked around, seeking options. A little further down the hall she thought she saw another door and padded her way down there to explore. Sure enough, it was a door, but the warning sign on it made Suzie’s heart sink. “Catwalk access. Authorized Personnel Only.”
Suzie glanced back over her shoulder as if help might suddenly appear there, but there was no better option. For all she knew, help wasn’t even on the way yet. Waiting might mean bloodshed and consequences no one wanted to face. Steeling herself, she opened the door. The noise from the floor below pelted her like a snowball to the face, and she gripped the catwalk railing with her free hand. Luckily, the bottom of the narrow walkway was a solid piece, rather than metal grating like the one in her high school auditorium. That made it a little easier to talk herself into walking out further.
Once she got out a few more feet, she found the courage to look around and saw that walkways covered the ceiling from one side of the open floor to the other, where a second sky box sat dark and empty. Each time the crowd roared, the young woman fought the urge to curl up in a ball, but kept moving forward until she was right above the cage itself.
She could hear the thud of collisions even over the yelling and catcalling of the lookers-on. She stretched out flat on her stomach, and pushed her head out beyond the protective railings to look below. Patricia was fully armored now, her spikes out to maximum lengths and her skin covered in impenetrable scales. She was magnificent. And she was pissed. Standing opposite her was a man dressed almost entirely in red armor. Only his face was visible—it was the Crocodile all right. Sai’s cheek was bleeding. He must have gotten too close.
Pulling her attention away from the fight, Suzie stretched a little further, trying to get a better look at the equipment off to the side. She spotted Rohit sitting behind a control panel, which was attached to a generator. Suzie smiled when she saw the ancient and patched-together machine. The generator’s protective casing was entirely missing and all of the moving parts within were exposed and vulnerable. Suzie pulled her head back, got up onto her hands and knees, and crawled a few feet further down the catwalk.
Sitting cross-legged with her open purse in her lap, Suzie dug through it, looking for projectiles. She found the multi-tool she had used to cut herself free and grinned a little maniacally. The gadget had been a gift from her father. “You never know how it might be useful,” he said. You never know, indeed, Suzie thought. Thanks, Dad. She held the chunk of metal in her hand. Folded into its compact shape, it was weighty. It might do the job, but she’d only get one shot. She didn’t know what else she could throw if it failed.
She stood and leaned out as far over the railing as she dared, raised her right hand and channeled her inner softball player. Aiming for the center of the device, where she could see rotating parts, she pulled back and threw it with all her might. The effect was instantaneous. For a second, the lights went out. But it only lasted a heartbeat, before there was a loud grinding sound, and it all flickered back to life. The crowd booed and hissed and Rohit turned and waved, yelling something that Suzie couldn’t hear. She jerked back, but he didn’t look up. Apparently, he thought the outage was just a malfunction of the machine, not active sabot
age.
That meant she could try again—if she could find anything else to throw. She dug through her purse frantically, but there was nothing more dangerous than a breath mint, unless she wanted to chuck her phone in. And she really didn’t.
Then, beside the purse, she spotted her shoes. She had carried them with her, hoping to have a need to wear them again if she could make it outside. They were sturdy things, with solid three-inch heels. Definitely not as easy to throw, but Suzie had a good arm. And Patricia needed her.
She picked up a shoe and shifted it in her hand, trying a few different positions before deciding on gripping it by the toe and executing a strong overhand flick. Suzie took aim, and flung her shoe into the center of the generator. “Bullseye!” There were sparks and a terrible grinding sound, and then the spotlight went out, leaving only the fluorescent lighting that lit the warehouse space.
The crowd didn’t hesitate to panic. Within a few seconds, they began to shove and pull at each other, some making for the exit while others trying to keep their expensively-purchased place on the floor. Fights broke out all over.
She needed to make sure that Patricia knew that the loss of the light had also killed the electricity that had run through the cage bars. Suzie grabbed her other shoe, and aimed at the cage itself. It clanged against the bars and fell to the ground, but there was no electric spark. A second later, Patricia had Sai against the bars, one scaly elbow thrust into his throat, the other beckoning for Rohit who stood behind his inert control panel, seemingly frozen into inaction.
Suzie watched as Rohit scurried over and opened the cage door. His hands trembled as he did. He threw the door up and open and took a step back. Patricia hefted the Crocodile, still clad in his armor, and threw him out of the cage where he collided with his brother. Both men fell to the floor. Patricia walked over and rested a heavy taloned foot on the pair of them, and flexed, posing for the cell phone cameras, hamming it up. She always did know how to play to the crowd.
The room went silent when a large door opened at the side, rolling up and admitting a team of six armed people in black tactical gear, followed by Fuerte and then Flygirl, soaring above the crowd. A searchlight ran across the crowd and an amplified voice Suzie recognized as The Director’s announced that the crowd should disperse and leave this to the authorities. He sounded a little like Kenneth Branagh. Or maybe that was just what she heard because he was leading the cavalry.
Flygirl, whom Suzie knew as Jessica, soared over the crowd, hurrying to Patricia’s side. Suzie sank to her knees in relief. Now that the cavalry was here, she found that she was shaking. She wanted to collapse from relief. She nearly jumped out of her skin when her phone rang from inside her Michael Kors bag. “Suzie!” It was Patricia, her voice raspy in the way it always was when she wore her lizard face. “Where are you?”
Suzie stood up and waved. “Look up.”
Patricia shielded her eyes with one claw and looked up, then pointed. A few cameras followed her arm, trying to find what the Lizard Woman was pointing at, so Suzie stepped back into the shadows. She spoke into the phone. “Can someone come get me? I seem to have lost my shoes.”
Half an hour later, Fuerte was carrying Suzie out to the transport van, to keep her from wounding her bare feet in the glass strewn parking lot. Patricia was already stretched out across the front bench seat, a bandage around her human-again arm. She sat up to make room for Suzie beside her, then wrapped her arms around her, squeezing until Suzie grunted her protest, then letting her go and running her hands over Suzie’s hair and arms as if checking for damage. “I’m all right,” Suzie said. “Nothing a good night’s sleep, some arnica, and a shopping expedition can’t fix.” She stretched out her legs and wriggled her dirty feet. “Looks like the Department owes me a new pair of shoes.” She considered her bloody skirt and damaged blouse. “And a new outfit.”
Patricia didn’t laugh. She was still staring intently at Suzie, no hint of the usual reckless gleam in her eye. “If anything had happened to you . . .”
Suzie raised a hand. “Stop.” Suzie knew things could have been a lot worse for her. If the thugs hadn’t believed she was weak and harmless, escape would have been even more difficult and dangerous. But none of that was Patricia’s problem, even if she assumed it was. Suzie was already planning to put together a hostage situation training program, and would be the first participant. “I chose this life,” she said, taking Patricia’s hand. “Even before I chose you. And I wouldn’t give either up.” Then, she let her head fall against Patricia’s shoulder and closed her eyes. They could figure the rest out tomorrow.
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THE HENCHMAN’S APPRENTICE
Stephen T. Brophy
Nobody sets out to be the bad guy. Everyone’s the hero of their own story and all that shit. Even in the depths of our most amoral acts, we find all kinds of helpful ways to justify and rationalize our bad behavior. It doesn’t hurt that whether we’re gangbangers, bikers, Mafiosi, low-level drug dealers, high-end assassins, or bank robbing bandits, society grants us full license to glorify and glamorize our outlaw lifestyles. We define ourselves in opposition to some greater force, victims of a corrupt social system—cops, corporations, bad luck and brutal bureaucracy that created our crushing poverty, or orphaned us, or stripped us of our basic human dignity and left us with no other options. We make an enemy of a broken world and hurl ourselves against it full force, goddamn the collateral damage or consequences. In our hearts and minds we’re all fighting our very own version of the Good Fight, making this planet a better place, or at least carving out a friendly livable niche for ourselves and our kind. Hell, even Hitler—history’s greatest supervillain—thought he was saving the future through his own monstrosity.
And you wanna know what your part is in all this? You secretly love us for it. We’re the bad boys and girls that you vilify and worship in almost equal measure, the ones that let you fingerpoint with your there but for the grace of God nonsense while finding us strangely alluring to the point of fuckability. You hate us and blame us and secretly wanna be us, because deep down you recognize that the world is broken, too.
Think I’m talking out my back end? Uh-uh. Bonnie & Clyde became folk heroes both in spite and because of their unchecked sociopathy. Richard Ramirez, aka Nightstalker, was an indiscriminate murdering scumsucker who nonetheless had serial killer groupies writing him love letters in prison and one of those nutty dames even married his ass.
So I’m a bad guy? Okay, sure. Call me what you want. But only because you wouldn’t have me any other way.
* * *
EL REINO, GUATEMALA, APRIL 1992
As a born-and-bred Texan who’s spent a lot of time south of the border, you might be surprised to hear that the best tacos I ever ate were served to me by an octogenarian bruja with lobster-claw hands in a Guatemalan penitentiary. But then, El Reino ain’t no ordinary prison. It’s more of a self-governing city-state the populace of which just happens to be some of the scariest repeat felony offenders in all of Central America. The town used to be a kind of getaway destination for bad guys who were on the lam or cashing out on the life, until the Guatemalan government got wise and threw some fencing and barbwire around the whole thing and just kinda declared it a prison. It’s not guarded and staffed like an ordinary pen, because only those more dumb and desperate than the folks already inside the walls would ever take that job. The citizens of El Reino police themselves. And seeing as they aren’t too fond of cops in the first place, they do a pretty half-assed job of it. Which is fine, as long as nobody fucks with this taco stand.
“Damn,” Battery says, folding a fresh cornmeal tortilla around a juice-drenched fistful of carnitas and cotija cheese. “You ain’t kiddin’. This is the bomb.”
“And you didn’t wanna stop to eat.”
“Well, considering we just broke into the most dangerous holding facility on Earth, it does seem like taking time out for lunch is maybe not the wisest choice f
or staying inconspicuous.”
“Inconspicuous,” I say, raising a straw-punctured plastic baggie of tamarindo soda to my lips with my nifty new prosthetic arm and giving him a once-over in his paramilitary flak vest that leaves his full chest tattoo of an Eveready battery on full display. Between the two of us, we weigh nearly half a metric ton, and we’re about as hard to pick out of a crowd as a couple rhinos in a petting zoo. “That’s you and me, partner.”
I try to give him a friendly wink with my right eye, because old habits die hard, but there’s no eyelid over the robotic camera prosthesis, which means it can’t wink or blink and when I want to “close it“ to sleep or whatever, I have to send a mental command to shut it off. If I forget, the eye keeps recording straight to the hard drive in my brain and I get some seriously fucked up dreams.
“Yo, we ain’t partners,” Battery reminds me, his tone only half kidding. “Not yet. You got miles to go before that day.”
He’s right, of course, but it still stings. I’m nobody’s partner, hardly an employee, considering I’ve been with the Abaroa Cartel just three months, and this is my first legit field mission. I haven’t even earned henchman status, in spite of all the money and tech they’ve sunk into me already, and if I fuck this day up even a little, my boss’ll field strip me down to my skeleton and sell what’s left to a teaching hospital to recoup her investment.
“Hey, if you pendejos insist on eating in front of me, at least slip me a little bit of that pork, huh?”
Speaking of my boss, that high-pitched, sultry, sour-toned voice belongs to her, and it’s currently emanating from the right breast pocket in Battery’s flak vest. As for slipping her the pork, I did almost get the opportunity once, but I passed out from a bad mix of opiates and cervezas before I could close that deal.