Thraex’s life would be so simple if everyone was as calm and rational as he was.
Why couldn’t the damn Westgates just stay barricaded in their building!?! They were safe in there! Nothing could get to them! But out here… anything could happen to them. And they were sure to do something which either further damaged their reputations or got themselves killed.
Probably both.
And then where would Thraex be?
He already had so few of them left, for pity’s sake!
How on earth could you plan murder if the principle components of that plan died before you could even launch your scheme!?!
It was an endless source of vexation for Thraex, and he really wished he could just do everything himself.
“…so if we converted those infinite arrangements of numbers, using a simple ASCII text algorithm,” Kurtz droned on, like anyone cared, “somewhere in the relationship between the diameter and the circumference of a circle, would be contained the exact text of this conversation we’re having right now...” Kurtz’s eyes widened as he considered the ramifications of that. “Think about it... pi has existed forever, and the words I’m now speaking have always been inside every single circle ever created. …Your entire life, written down in little numbers.” He swallowed, sounding haunted. “So… from a certain point of view… all of this was pre-ordained. It’s been happening since the beginning of time and no matter what we do, we can’t escape it… Life is literally a circle…” His eyes started to move over the wall rapidly, like he was seeing things which only he could see. “…Shailene told me that I was a depressing loser, but she didn’t mean it… She was just reading from a script that was written in every circle ever drawn, since long before the pyramids were even…”
“What the hell are you on, son?” Thraex cut him off, losing patience with this nonsense. “Did you try to make synthetic dope outta plastics again? Because that almost killed ya the last time.”
“Ignore him.” Nash suggested. “Kurtz gets all nihilistic and ‘edge-lord’ when he’s drunk.”
“I’m not drunk!” Kurtz declared passionately, drunkenly stumbling to the side. “…I live a stressful life. I sometimes have a drink to relax.”
“Zoe thinks that if Uncle Kurtz gets any more ‘relaxed,’ he’s going to pee himself again.” Colby predicted ominously, picking up her pet so that it wouldn’t have to wade through the supposedly looming urine puddle.
Kurtz sank slowly to the ground. “Shailene said I needed more self-confidence.” He told the group at large, like they were at some kind of therapy session. “That’s why she left me for a CPA named ‘Albert.’ And moved to Vancouver. They took my dog with them.” He swallowed, sounding very sad now, voice breaking. “I went up there to get them both back and… and he didn’t recognize me. Didn’t even wag his tail.”
Colby’s forehead wrinkled. “The dog? Or Albert?”
“Do I even have to be here?” Nash asked Thraex seriously. “Or can I just go? Please?”
“Stop whining and do your job, son.” Thraex grabbed Kurtz by the lapels of his jacket and yanked him to his feet again. “Your ex-wife is a vapid whore, who has blown more men in this town than the average thunderstorm. Your marriage failed. You’re better off without her. Move on.”
Kurtz shook him off and stumbled backwards again. “You were always against us!” He cried passionately, like the hero of some epic romance defending his destiny. “You never supported our love! But Shailene is going to come back to me, you’ll see! You’ll ALL see!” He waggled his finger at Thraex. “She almost said yes over the summer, but then the cops got involved and there was this whole scene!”
Nash looked up from her newspaper. “Why did the cops get involved?”
Kurtz waved his hand in dismissal. “Because the manager of her new kid’s daycare was a fucking asshole.”
Thraex stepped closer to the man. “Let’s get one thing straight here, son: I’m not your daddy or your friend or your goddamned butler. I’m your boss, which means you’re going to install the security system for these nice folks who are payin’ us, or I’m gonna fire you and find some other drunken idiot to do it.” He pointed towards the other building. “Move.”
Kurtz let that sink in for a moment, the words gradually working their way through the alcohol soaked haze which was his brain these days. Finally, he picked up his lunchbox full of tools and started off towards the second warehouse.
“…I built a robot butler when I was 9.” Kurtz softly reminisced for some reason, as they arrived at the warehouse.
Thraex frowned at him in bafflement. “What?”
“Butler.” Kurtz reminded him. “You said you weren’t my butler, and I said I built a robot butler when I was 9.”
“Good.” Thraex didn’t care. “Please stop talkin’ now, Kurtz. I got a headache and I’m gettin’ afraid I’ll kill ya to stop it from gettin’ worse.”
The man opened the door for Thraex and started to climb the interior stairs, paying absolutely no attention to his plea for silence. “But it claimed that creating something which had feelings and making its sole purpose to serve you, was akin to slavery.” He was quiet for a beat. “So it killed itself in front of me on my 10th birthday. With a butcher knife. Then it collapsed on my cake.” He gestured back at the Westgate’s driver. “Now we just have Nash.”
“Why did you give it feelings?” Thraex asked. “Why would you ever give a slave feelings?”
Kurtz looked down at his feet, voice breaking again. “I wanted a friend.”
Thraex nodded. “A friend you made clean up after you because you were too lazy to do it yourself.” He summarized.
“Well… yeah.” Kurtz shrugged.
“Just do your job.” Thraex all but begged. “We have this one warehouse left to hook up, and I need you to do it so that we can all make it home safely, before I strangle you and am then forced to hide your mutilated carcass from Miss Sasha. She’s a good woman, she’d likely cry over your poor beaten body, and I don’t wanna do that to her, Kurtz.” He patted the man on the shoulder, steering him towards their destination. “Don’t make me do that to her, son. Please?”
“I won’t.” Kurtz drunkenly vowed.
Colby arrived in the office, setting Zoe the giraffe down among the barnyard themed desk accessories, and began to fiddle with the electronic control pad for the Westgate’s security system.
Zoe the giraffe reacted to her ceramic animal compatriots with the same confused uncertainty as she exhibited when confronting everything else in her life. She didn’t seem to be very good at un-riddling the many riddles of this world. But at least she hadn’t tried to get herself killed tonight, so she was one-up on at least half of the remaining Westgates.
That damn little giraffe was liable to outlive the lot of them.
Kurtz started to assemble his tools on the desk, looking up at the ceiling where he was going to mount the camera device. “I dated a good woman once.” He told Thraex casually, for some reason.
The man liked to talk when he was drunk, which made working with him a nightmare. Thraex would have been MUCH happier to do the job on his own, but sadly, even this limited science was beyond him.
Thraex was not a brain, Thraex was just the muscle who used to work for the brains, and who now employed them because they were incapable of doing any kind of business themselves.
In his dreams, all of the Westgates were safely ensconced in little cages, like at a zoo. Safe and quiet in their manicured enclosures… Not getting into any trouble, not causing any trouble… Content to idly graze and look pretty…
It was a wonderful vision.
And nowhere in that dream was another one of Kurtz’s depressing damn stories that went nowhere.
“Mary.” Kurtz continued. “Beautiful girl. Desperate for someone to love her. Anyone. Even someone like me. Everyone said we were perfect for each other, despite the fact she was all evil and sexy and always hot for it.” He moved a chair and stepped up onto
it. “She dressed like a nursery rhyme for some reason. That was her whole criminal thing.” He started to take measurements of where he needed to fit the mount on the ceiling. “She left me because I got drunk at a party and fucking Clara Martin practically raped me. And I’m only one man, so there’s not much I can do when she’s just like… I mean, if she’s gonna unzip my pants and drop to her knees, there’s not much... What am I supposed to do? Punch her?” Kurtz sounded truly affronted by the injustice of the situation. “Hell no, I had to let her finish once she started, but then Mary totally overreacted about it when Clara told her, and she left me.” He paused, staring down at the camera in his hand, lost in thought. “Mary got married to some other guy. I think they’re both immortal or some shit now, I don’t know. Have a mess of kids who love them. I hear they’re deliriously happy.” He heaved a dramatic sigh, feeling his own pain and loneliness. “I should have married that one. Everyone said. My life would be so different.”
“Mary?” Colby asked.
Kurtz looked at her like she was insane. “No, Clara.”
Thraex pinched the bridge of his nose again. “You have the worst taste in women, son.”
Fucking Westgates.
THIS was the reason why their whole breed was going extinct.
Kurtz drilled a hole in the ceiling and pulled out a handful of wires. He fiddled with them for a moment, attaching them to the camera with a confidence which was typically lacking from everything else he did. He twisted several of the wires together and one of them sparked. He swore, then glanced at his niece. “You getting a reading yet, Colby?”
The girl didn’t answer, utterly focused on her pet. When that girl focused on something, she went off into her own little world and there was no getting her out of it.
“Colby?” Kurtz repeated, irritation in his voice. “Colby!” He yelled, spinning to face her. “For fuck’s sake are you…”
Thraex glared at him, stopping him cold. “Don’t.” He warned, then reached over to tap his fingers on the desktop next to the girl’s pet. “Colby? Pichouette? Your asshole waste of an uncle wants to know if you’re getting any readings, honey.”
Colby jolted like he’d startled her, then she shook her head to clear it. “Sorry, I was thinking.” She cleared her throat. “Umm… yes, I’m getting a reading now.”
Kurtz rolled his eyes. “For fuck’s sake…”
Thraex pointed a finger at him. “Just do your damn job and…”
His Westgate communicator crackled to life, blaring what sounded like Sasha’s voice from its tiny speaker, then immediately shorted out.
Thraex reached down to check on it, but the battery inside shocked him repeatedly and painfully as he tried to rip the damn thing from off of his belt. Finally, he blindly grabbed for one of the animal accessories which lined the desk… narrowly avoided choosing Zoe the giraffe as she stood camouflaged among her brethren… then used a pink plastic cow to knock the damn communicator from his body before it killed him.
The radio began making a high-pitched squeal that was nearly deafening, and Thraex flattened his palms against his head in an attempt to shield his already throbbing head from the noise.
Finally he just stepped on the damn thing to shut it up.
Sasha had created those communicators when she was 8. Honestly, they had never worked right.
He blamed Kurtz.
He fished his phone out of his pocket and dialed Sasha’s number. The woman answered a moment later. “Oh, hello.” She sounded surprised. “Why didn’t you answer on the communicator?”
“Some technical issues, Darlin’, probably due to a faulty battery or your no-account wretch of a brother.”
“Ah.” She accepted that excuse, used to Kurtz’s idiocy. “Anyway, there’s something on the readings I’m getting here.”
“Uh-huh…” Thraex turned to watch Kurtz try to balance himself on the task chair, wondering how long it would be before the man fell and broke his fool neck. The chair had wheels, for pity’s sake. Every time the man’s weight shifted, the entire chair moved ominously closer to the window...
Thraex looked up at the ceiling, trying not the scream. Trying so HARD not to scream at Kurtz, but finding it so blasted difficult. “Are you out of your damn mind, son!?! Get your fool ass off that chair this minute! If you fall out that window, I ain’t even gonna take you to the hospital, I can sure enough tell you that. You can just…”
“I think they’re stealing something…” Sasha continued.
THAT got Thraex’s attention and it instantly made him forget about his idiot step-brother’s looming accident and probable paralysis. “What!?!”
“They’re heading… ” Sasha continued, apparently getting readings from her equipment. “Towards me…”
Thraex’s head spun to look at Colby, and the girl held up a matching panel, which displayed the footage in question.
Yes, someone was indeed loading something into their vehicle. Without prior authorization from management.
And they were headed towards Sasha.
Thraex took off running from the room, instincts taking over. He raced full speed down the length of the building, smashing through a door which blocked his path. Then another. He hit the main hallway, the strong muscles in his legs desperately propelling him forward.
He should have known better than to let the Westgates split up. Predators would immediately go for the stragglers! You needed to keep the entire Westgate flock in sight at once! It was their only protection!
Stupid, Thraex, stupid!
His eyes narrowed, mentally judging distance and speed like a bird of prey, then he jumped through the window on the far side of the building, without breaking stride.
He crashed through the glass, plummeting from the five story height towards the parking lot below… and then directly onto the hood of the thieves’ car as it past under him.
His damn near invulnerable body crushed the hood of the car into the pavement like a tin can, stopping the engine dead and flattening it beneath his feet.
He took a second to locate Sasha, and he spotted her standing near the exit of the first warehouse.
It had been close, but the car hadn’t gotten within 100 yards of Sasha’s location.
He’d gotten there in time.
The thieves started to scream in panic, obviously shocked that their assassination plan had been thwarted at the last moment.
Thraex moved to the driver’s side door in one fluid motion and ripped it off its hinges, tossing the metal away, and then pulled out one of the suspects by the front of his shirt. “Get out of there!”
The bandit hit the pavement and slid for several feet from the force of the throw, colliding with the side of the warehouse. “Oh, shit!” The man squealed. “Oh, shit, please don’t kill me!”
A woman exited the car and started to flee the scene, screaming like a sheep headed to slaughter.
Since she was running in a direction away from Sasha though, Thraex decided to focus on the leader of the gang first, then apprehend the other thief.
“Take it!” The man screamed again, holding up the car keys with a shaking hand. “It’s yours, sir! If you want it back, take it! Please don’t kill me!”
Thraex frowned, realizing that his suspect was… a teenager.
His eyes cut to the backseat of the car where a large spool of wire was sitting.
“Jesus! I think you got them, you psycho!” Kurtz called down to him from the broken window of the second warehouse. “They’re just kids stealing wire, for fuck’s sake!”
Great.
Kurtz was right.
For once.
…Surely an isolated incident and not the start of any kind of pattern, but still right.
Thraex pinched the bridge of his nose, cursing his life.
“To be fair,” Sasha defended, looking into the car, “that’s a really rare spool of wire.” She straightened. “So, I think that we can say that our security system has its first real success st
ory.” She paused, reaching over to take Thraex’s clenched fist in her hand. “Please don’t kill this young man though, that won’t be necessary.”
Thraex looked down at her small hand as it closed around his, and he felt… less angry about Westgate stupidity. Still a little angry, mind you, but considerably less than was objectively warranted by the situation.
He squeezed her hand a little to show that he wasn’t going to do anything rash, then cleared his throat. “I… I need you to fix my communicator thing again.” He shifted on his feet. “Kurtz stepped on it.”
She looked up at him, starting to answer.
Then the third warehouse exploded.
The blast wave knocked everyone else off their feet, and Thraex automatically turned to shield Sasha with his body. She let out a scream of surprise as all of the windows in the building behind them shattered in a split-second and showered them with broken glass.
She grabbed hold of him, nestling against his chest in fear for a moment, then pulled away to begin calling to her family in the second warehouse, who were as shocked as she was.
Thraex turned to look at the third warehouse as it burned, broken pieces of metal and roofing falling into the inferno which raced through what had formally been the interior.
Well, shit.
This was what happened when you got Westgates to act as your security guards.
Chapter 7
“Patience Westgate. Died 1780. She was bein’ imprisoned in Philadelphia by the British for selling ‘illicit goods’ from her drug store, and died in custody. Can’t imagine what those goods could’a been, but knowin’ Westgates, it was probably what killed her. Or maybe she just started mouthin’ off to the fella in charge of the prison, givin’ no damn thought to her own well-bein’, and that’s what done it.”
– Thraex, Damn Fool Ways Westgates Ended Up Graveyard Dead: Vol. 1
“I don’t know what to tell you.” Thraex shrugged, brushing soot off of the black fabric of his shirt. “We were all next to it and then it exploded.”
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