Not Against Flesh and Blood (The DX Chronicles Book 1)

by Brian Cody

  “B-money, come on! Your eyes freakin’ match!” Nate complained while adorned in his suit and his arms flailing back to hold his zipper.

  “Too late, and nope”, Bryen replied as he unzipped his suit.

  “All right, here I go.” Erik, who was dressed and zipped in his black and red suit, opened the top of his box and tore its side. As he reached the bottom, an object slid out. Erik reared up, wrapped his fingers around a four-foot black, fiberglass scabbard that cured to a slight degree and shined with a reflective gloss. With David and Turrisi looking on, Erik slid his hand to the top of the scabbard and bumped it past the weapon’s guard, a dull-grey circular item a centimeter in thickness and two inches in circumference. Erik then tightened his grip halfway up the blade’s foot-length hilt, that tubular item being slender enough for him to close his hand around.

  Erik inhaled, while placing his left onto the scabbard, and then turned, with David, Turrisi, Shawn, and Nate watching him stare at the five-foot weapon. He exhaled, tightening his grasp around both the hilt and the scabbard. Then, he extracted in a slow, upward pull, the blade hissing as it dragged against the scabbard’s interior, and its face flashing with a reflective glow. Its cusp nipped the scabbard’s edge, and, with his weapon unsheathed, Erik lifted it and examined its surface. “Good stuff”, Erik finished as he lifted the scabbard, and, with a steady push, returned that length of Japanese steel to its container.

  “Pretty sweet”, David remarked as Erik reached into the box and pulled out a composite, black rope about four feet in length, which he tied around the scabbard.

  “Garcia’s pretty much a ninja”, Shawn remarked.

  “Pretty much, and I’m ‘Rufio’ now”, Erik replied as he glared at Shawn.

  “Oh…okay”, Shawn finished as he unraveled a fresh, white cape.

  “B-money, we should buy swords”, Nate began as he turned but stopped as he watched Bryen apply his trench coat over his closed suit. Held within Bryen’s left was another bladed item, shorter than Erik’s by eighteen inches and wider by three inches as it sat in a dulled, black scabbard. Its handle was about eight inches in length, and the blade was of western design, as Nate surmised by examining the sheath, was double-edged, and resembled a European long sword. “Are you kidding me? Am I the only person here without a sword?”

  “I got this after sophomore year. I used the money I got from selling my books back, and told my mom I put it towards loans…before that, I was using a piece of scrap iron with a dull edge and a cross-guard taped three-quarters of the way down. I was able to make it vaguely resemble a sword; good for intimidation…Oh wait.” Bryen lowered his sword, removed his trench coat, and picked his sword up before unraveling the rope coiled around it, and wrapping it around his back. “There we go”, he spoke, the sword’s hilt behind his neck.

  “Okay!” David called as Bryen reapplied his trench coat. “B-money’s pretty much an African ninja.”

  “Is that a thing?” Nate asked as he applied his jacket.

  “You’d be surprised”, Erik murmured. “B-money, who taught you swordplay?” he asked while crossing his arms, “Or are you not allowed to tell because it was a secret ninja guild or something?”

  “YouTube and anime”, Bryen spoke as he reapplied his glasses.

  “Wait, what?” Shawn asked as he spun, his cape hanging from his shoulders.

  “No, seriously; if it is a secret ninja guild, you could just say ‘secret ninja guild’. That’s considered an acceptable answer among secret ninja guilds (or so I’ve heard)”, Erik continued.

  “YouTube”, Bryen began as he reached into his coat pockets and pulled out his gloves, “and anime”, he finished as he applied each glove.

  “Huh…” Erik muttered as he scratched his head, “sure.”

  “For whatever reason, I’m not that surprised”, David remarked before sharp claps directed him to Turrisi, who knelt atop his duffle bag, with his hands fiddling with a firearm—not either of his Glocks, which were strapped to a leather harness around his torso with six ammunition holsters—but a black rifle just over a yard in length from the edge of the barrel to the back of the stock, with a small scope mounted above the beginning of the barrel, a curving magazine about six inches in length in front of the trigger, and a cylindrical item hanging from the barrel, and being about two inches greater in circumference than the barrel itself. “Turrisi, that looks like some of the hijackers’ guns”, David remarked, while Turrisi cocked the rifle and examined the nooks along its surface.

  “It’s pretty much the same”, Erik noted, “except Turrisi has the military variant.”

  “The M16-A4”, Turrisi proclaimed as he reared up and wrapped the gun around his back via a cloth strap, “standard thirty-round cartridge, and a rate of fire of up to nine hundred rounds per minute. It took me filling out some requests, but I was able to secure this guy right before the school year.”

  “Just don’t point that thing at me”, Shawn remarked as he stepped back.

  “Relax, the safety’s on”, Turrisi replied. “I usually have my fifty-cal. with me, but it’s been confiscated pending an investigation.”

  “Oh, right”, Erik muttered, while Shawn, David, Nate, and Bryen turned to one other.

  “What did you do!?” David coughed as he stepped back.

  “I shot a bear”, Turrisi mumbled.

  “The EPA, man; you never mess with them”, Erik replied.

  “Are we about ready?” Shawn asked.

  “Are we bringing our helmets?” Bryen added.

  The group of six ascended the stairwell fifteen minutes after they had descended, and they emptied onto the second floor in one conversing mass, their helmets by their sides, their suits of armor and their boots donned, and, over them, their jackets, coats, harnesses, and capes hanging from their shoulders or wrapping around their torsos. Shawn’s face-mask, Erik’s goggles, and Turrisi’s baseball hat—the separate items, some clothing, others weapons, caused enough of a variation for those standardized uniforms to have taken on matching traits to those adorned in them.

  “How are the suits?” Lamback inquired as he stood in the kitchen, another cup of coffee in hand.

  “Like, thirty pounds”, Turrisi replied. “It takes conscious effort for me to move normally in these things.”

  “Well, it should be nothing to everyone else…” Lamback noted.

  “You’d think so”, David replied as he stretched his left arm, “but since I’m so used to walking with what’s considered normal effort, I’m having trouble adjusting the correct amount of force without having to worry about injuring someone.”

  “Is that the same with everyone else?” Lamback asked.

  “Yeah”, Shawn, Nate, Bryen, and Erik replied.

  “Well…sucks to suck”, Lamback answered. “They’re temporary, and you’re helping the military.”

  “So about these helmets”, Bryen began as he raised his hand.

  “All right, well, I’m going to text Erik the address to Arthur Grant’s house. Park a mile or so away, in a woods, or a ditch, or something. You can fly once you’ve parked your car near his house, but do your best to not be seen and stay to just under a few hundred feet. Also, on your way there, do everything in your power to not get pulled over. Turrisi, keep your guns concealed, and…just don’t make it look like you’re a bunch of men in disguises with weapons, okay?”

  “Sounds good”, Shawn replied with a nod.

  “Good. I dimmed the hallway lights for when you guys walk out; and also, watch where you’re travelling as you head back to Piekarsky’s car. Grant’s house is kind of secluded, but don’t do anything that would attract the attention of the police…all right, get out.” Lamback waved the group past him and towards the front door. “If you can’t make it back by, like, two or three, have Turrisi text me an update on what you’ve got, and email me any electronic stuff—Turrisi has my address.”

  Chapter Sixteen: 2–3 May

  David landed between the l
eft shoulder of a two-lane road and a line of trees, with Turrisi in his grasp. David lowered Turrisi and stepped forward to examine the Roanoke skyline some ten miles in the western distance, with the silhouettes of that cityscape discernible enough to pinpoint the lopsided roof upon which Erik had done battle. “What time is it?” he asked as he looked to Turrisi latching his rifle onto the back of his harness.

  “11:55”, Turrisi replied as he reached into his armor’s left pant pocket.

  “Did you make that up?” David asked as he watched Turrisi press his phone to illuminate its screen.

  “…Yeah, but I looked at my phone right before you took off, and it felt like only a few minutes had gone by since then”, Turrisi replied. “It’s actually three minutes to midnight”, he said. “Close”, he remarked.

  “Yeah, close, but you have to be within one minute to win a prize”, David replied.

  A strident crack, a white flash, and then a short tremor drove David and David to look towards a yard-width crater from which Nate stepped while sighing, reaching back, and tugging his hood onto his head.

  “Could you be any more conspicuous?” Turrisi groaned, while Nate cracked his neck.

  “I’m just proving a point”, Nate replied.

  “What point, Klinge?” David growled.

  “Nate, you cheated!” David looked past Nate as Erik landed along the center of the road in a hard slide, while, next to him, Shawn touched down with Bryen clasping his forearm.

  “I don’t cheat. I win or I quit while I’m still ahead”, Nate replied.

  “We decided that you cheated”, Shawn replied as Bryen stepped from him.

  “It’s technically not flight”, Erik continued as he slanted his enormous blade to the left. “You’re just moving in a really fast, electric elevator”, he explained as he stepped to the group.

  “I’ll take my ‘elevator’ over your sh_”—Nate glanced to David, whose fists had tightened. “Over your crappy flight; how fast were you going? Thirty miles per hour?”

  “You’re just jealous because you can’t experience the gift of flight!” Erik retorted.

  “Yeah, Klinge, it’s a gift!” David interjected.

  “Car”, Bryen muttered as he sighted drawing headlights.

  Five seconds passed, and the vehicle cruised alongside of the small crater, which by then, had cooled enough to not bleed smoke, and rode over the cracks in the road from Erik’s impact. As the car drove off, the six slinked out of the brush along the left shoulder.

  “Garcia, is this the right place?” David asked as Erik pulled out his phone.

  “I don’t know; my phone doesn’t have GPS”, Erik replied as he examined the screen, rolled his eyes, and shoved it into his pocket. “Okay, hold on.” Erik looked left to a gravel lane, ten yards down the road, and jogged to it. He turned down that lane as he came to it, moving out of view but then reappearing and jogging back. “Sixteen–Twenty-Six”, Erik called out, “this is his place.”

  “All right, let’s get going”, Shawn called as he started for that lane. He stopped and looked back as the other five started into the adjoining brush. “What?” Shawn grunted.

  “Woods, bro”, David called.

  “Why the woods? Why always the woods? Can’t we walk up the road, in the open, for once?” Shawn asked. “I mean, it’s nighttime, and it’s probably a private driveway, so no one will see us.”

  “And it was just a couple of months back that we thought that we’d be prepared if Arthur Grant tried to pull something, while we were confronting him”, Turrisi noted. “Remember how that turned out?”

  “I’m not taking my chances. I’m cutting through the woods”, David continued. “He’s smart enough to have probably booby-trapped his property; going through the woods could be just as risky, but chances are lower of us being sighted when crap hits the fan.”

  “All right, I gotcha”, Shawn sighed. He nudged his way through the brush at first, but, as he discovered a lack of irritating contact due to his armor, he pushed with greater vigor until he moved at a steady pace, shoving past branches and pressing through a woods twenty feet in length and increasing in slope.

  A minute after the commencement of their trek, they emerged at the tree line, with the ground below them sloping to forty degrees and continuing as a grassy knoll that stopped one hundred feet off, at the foot of a levelled foundation where a structure stood. That house was visible upon first notice as it sat under the night sky, the lunar rays bouncing off of its metallic surfaces and illuminating its shape. Three stories high and double that in span, the house bore angular gables, jagged corners, and flattened sides dotted with small square windows. One by one, the group of nearing students redirected their gazes back to the gravel road, tracing its length until it stopped in front of the house and expanded into an empty lot. A doorway was sighted as the lot provided an unimpeded vista towards the three concrete steps and the nook where the door sat.

  David ascended that hill, while the remainder of the group, after a few seconds, followed. As Bryen scanned the tree line for either onlookers or cameras; as Nate stared at the ground in search of indentations or signs of traps or snares; and as Erik looked skyward, they passed that distance, coming under the house’s silhouette and stopping before the stairwell, while David stood before them. “Odds of there being a security system?” David asked as he glared at the wooden door, which bore the appearance of a dark, cherry maple jutting from that otherwise sterling structure.

  “Very high”, Turrisi replied. “This guy was FBI for three decades. I heard he pretty much designed this place himself.”

  “Okay”, David replied as he looked back, “so…plans?”

  “Yeah”, Turrisi replied as he jogged forward, grasped David by his shoulder, and pointed towards a window on the third floor and above the door. “You see that window? Throw me through it, and then I’ll run down and unlock the door.”

  “What?” David replied as he sidestepped from Turrisi. “And that’ll prove beneficial how?”

  “Anyone in there won’t see it coming; I’ll come flying through the glass doing a roundhouse kick or something”, Turrisi replied with a smirk.

  “Uh, no”, David replied.

  “Come on; this suit will take the brunt of the force!” Turrisi explained.

  “Out of the question”, David finished. “Garcia, what if you just burned the place to the ground? That’ll piss ol’ Arty off.”

  “That would also be counterproductive”, Erik replied.

  “Oh, here’s what you’ll do!” Shawn called as he stepped in front of the group. “You’ll leave it to me and my man, B-money”, he exclaimed as he turned to Bryen and nodded. Simultaneously, Nate stepped past him, and, with all eyes on Shawn, ascended the steps. “We’ve proven ourselves to be both an amazing duo and experts at breaking into houses.” A sharp crack directed the group to the door and towards Nate, whose right leg hung outstretched, while the entrance, dangling by its top hinge with a jagged line down its face, slammed against the interior wall. Before either Erik or David could call out, an electronic alarm, voluble enough to burn the ears of the six listeners, erupted from the entrance. Nate jolted and jumped into the doorway before glancing left, turning right, and firing an electric surge. A chorus of hisses and pops followed, and, immediately after, the alarm silenced.

  “That works…” Shawn muttered.

  “Klinge, calm down!” David exclaimed as Nate turned back.

  “You guys were taking too freakin’ long, and I have to work tomorrow!” Nate blared.

  “Your mom has to work!” David replied as the group started up the steps.

  “Yeah, she probably does!” Nate retorted.

  “Yeah!?” David growled as he stepped through the entrance, stepped to Nate, and stood across from him.

  “Yeah!” Nate retorted as he thrust his chin.

  “You want to go, Klinge!?” David inquired as the rest of the group surrounded the doorway.

  “Piekarsky,
I got a question”, Shawn interjected as he stood behind David.

  “Your mom has a question!” David roared as he spun to Shawn.

  “That’s exactly it”, Shawn replied. “Why the sudden bombardment of ‘your mom’ statements?”

  “Huh”, David gasped, his tone levelled and his posture loosening. “That, sir, is a good question”, he continued as he glanced to each teammate. “Okay, it’s like this”, David began as he stepped twice into the darkened space, while Nate moved aside and crossed his arms. “Since I never said those things as ‘David Piekarsky’, I’ll say them as part of my unnamed superhero persona. Not only will it throw my enemies off my trail, it’ll be something that people remember me by.” David nodded thrice and stepped back, while the remainder of the group looked on, some of their eyes squinted, some of their gazes tilted, and some of their breaths slowing.

  “That makes sense”, Erik averred.

  “It doesn’t”, Bryen replied. “What if you become so accustomed to saying it that you let it slip during your normal life?”

  “You know what? We’ve spent too much time dilly-dallying!” David exclaimed. “We’ve got a job to do! Well, are you gonna close the door, or are you just going to announce to the whole world that Arthur Grant’s house has been broken into!?”

  “If we close it, we lose all of our light”, Bryen remarked.

  “Okay, smart-aleck”, David replied. “If you guys are finished complaining like little Sallies, we can get this over with.” He about-faced and glanced to the fifty-foot hall which was marked, on both sides, by four corridors. “Turrisi, Garcia!” he called as he spun back, “since you guys know about government stuff, you should be the ones to recon this place. You’ll best know what we’re looking for.”

  “Sweet”, Erik replied as he sauntered by David, looked left, and then turned down an adjoining hall. As Erik turned, Turrisi slapped his hanging rifle, unlocking it from the clips of his harness and allowing it to drop into his grasp. He spun his rifle, by the stock, to the front of his body before lifting it to chest level, clasping its trigger, nodding, and darting past David. With Turrisi’s stomps over hardwood panels pattering behind him, David was silent for the first few moments and then glanced back to watch Turrisi bound into a passageway to the right of the hall, his firearm still held aside as if he were prepared to shoot anything which would startle him.