by Brian Cody
“Yeah, I actually noticed that too”, Lamback replied. “He’s not with the FBI anymore, so he’s probably mellowed out.”
“Yeah, but I caught Richie the Worm. I caught his guy”, Erik remarked. “You said it yourself: there are very few people in the world with as many connections as him.”
“And you’re still alive, right?” Lamback chuckled as he turned to Erik. “In all honestly, I don’t think Richie the Worm would’ve been his top prize. He was maybe even more of a footnote. Arthur Grant’s bagged dozens of high-profile individuals, most of whom while he was tracking Richie. You know he caught Charles the Ironclad singlehandedly?”
“What!?” Erik blasted as he reared his seat up, “‘The Lightning Rod’? Wasn’t he the closest supervillain to be marked a six out of six? Arthur Grant caught him singlehandedly!?”
“Yes, sir”, Lamback replied. “And, technically, Ironclad was a five-point-eight.”
“I’d take catching him over Richie the Worm. I heard from one of the agents that Richie wasn’t even worth as much money as they thought”, Erik yawned as he, once more, retracted his seat.
“Barely ten percent of what they said he should’ve had in his accounts”, Lamback replied. “They think he’s hiding the remainder; probably with the rest of his gang. Did I tell you? The FBI—going by the assailants’ preparedness—thinks the hijackers who tried to steal the parts were either current or former members displaced after Richie was caught.”
“I suppose that would make sense”, Erik replied as he placed his hands on the back of his head. “And I suppose Director Grant’s an okay guy.”
“Difficult to work with on occasions, but a good man seeking the greater good”, Lamback finished.
“Yeah…I like how that sounds.” Erik stared out the top of the windshield. Pretend to sleep; avoid further conversations…he’ll get you if you talk too much, but… “I don’t want to go sleep… Let’s crank up some tunes or something.”
“I wish”, Lamback replied. “I can’t have the radio on while on official duty unless I’m undercover. I need to be ready for any emergency broadcasts on the two-way.”
“It’s 11:55”, Erik grunted. “I doubt anyone’s going to be calling for back-up this late, and how would they know you have the radio on in the first place?”
“Uh, hello, Erik, my name is David and I work for the United States Department of Defense, aka, ‘If We Could Track Your Every Move, We Would’. Do you know what’s keeping the NSA from bugging this car and my base?”
“You found all the bugs and disabled them?” Erik inquired.
“Nah, the last time I tried that, they reprimanded me”, Lamback replied. “I had to give some contacts my vacation days.”
“Wait, so we can give vacation days away?”
“Didn’t hear it from me, and the deal when I got this Jeep instead of the standard vehicle was that they bugged my radio usage.”
“Okay, well if I give my vacations days away, can I get more missions…?” Erik’s word trailed as his eyes jerked leftward and pinpointed a baby-blue light sliding across the sky. “Hey…Dave”, Erik murmured as he raised his seat. “Do you see that in the sky at your ten o’clock?” he asked, while that blue light, once a glimmer sidereal in apparent distance and span, grew.
Lamback glanced to the top of the windshield as passing treetops curved before him. “No.”
“No?” Erik turned to Lamback and leaned towards the wheel. “It’s right...” He pointed, but his hand lowered---the light had vanished.
“Good ole nighttime hallucinations”, Lamback replied. “It’s why we can convince most Americans that Sasquatches aren’t real.”
“No”, Erik mumbled. “There was_” Erik turned at shaded movement and watched a tree collapse along the road. He inhaled to point to that fallen trunk, but his gaze was once more diverted as the blue light curved over the road and, from two hundred yards off, rushed them. Erik snatched the sides of his seatbelt and leaned back to focus on that light, but while pouting and tensing and tightening his frame, he glanced to Lamback, finding his eyes then only dilating from the added rush of light, while his arms still held the wheel in their calmed position. Too fast; too fast; he can’t evade! He spun to Lambach as Lambach inhaled. “Dave, brace_!” The light engulfed the windshield. Erik turned back in the same moment that it impacted, and, as the windshield contorted and became striped with opaque lines, Erik closed his eyes. He heard the clangor of rived, bending, and breaking metal, felt the beats of his luggage bouncing against his seat, and perceived gravity’s tumultuous upheaval as they flipped once, thrice, and then six times. Erik opened his eyes as the seventh flip commenced, but, as he looked through the tattered windshield, he found asphalt. Inhaling once more, he braced himself. The car impacted.
“Crap!” Erik opened his eyes and looked through the translucent windshield. “Dave, you good?” he asked as he turned to Lamback lying across the driver’s door, his seatbelt held together by only a few strands and his black shirt littered with glass and shredded upholstery. “Dave”, Erik repeated while reaching for his own seatbelt, unbuckling it, and then plunging to Lamback. Erik clasped the end of his seat and the center of the battered dashboard to hang over Lamback. “The ground’s that way”, Erik muttered as he caught himself, “we’re sitting on the driver’s side—not the most stable position. Dave!” Erik called again. He released his left arm to hang from the dashboard and to angle towards Lamback.
Erik pressed his fingers on Lamback’s neck, inhaled, and closed his eyes. He found a pulse—a slow but steady rhythm—before he pulled his hand and clasped the seat once more. “You’re unconscious”, Erik remarked as he removed his right arm to swing it towards the buckle holding Lamback’s seatbelt. “Hopefully nothing serious is broken”, he grunted as he unlatched the harness. “Hold on, Dave. I’ll get us out of here.” Erik looked to the windshield, turned to the right, pulled in his left leg, and kicked. The sole of his left sneaker pounded into and weakened the window’s edges. “Gotta love bulletproof glass”, he murmured as he wound back a second time and fired, with the glass rearing back to a slight degree, and a breeze of wintry air seeping into the SUV. “One more…” Erik fired a third time, rending the deformed pane from the SUV and launching it for fifty feet.
After several seconds, Erik lunged backwards through the open windshield with Lamback in his clasp, and slid down the hood before touching the ground on his shoulders. Erik then stood before Lamback could hit the ground, and, with his hands over Lamback’s shoulders, Erik backed away, dragged him over the littered asphalt, and down the opposite side of the road. He placed Lamback in the grass after fifty feet, and, after checking his pulse once more, he sighed and walked off.
Erik then squeezed his fists as he stepped into the center of the road, with the compression of his muscles bringing a light burn that resonated through his torso. He breathed, the act producing a sharper burn, and he felt the sides of his face in search of wounds or bruises. No cuts, Eric thought, very minor concussion if not just a blackout from being unprepared for the G-forces; nothing serious; maybe some bruising.
After stretching his legs and regaining his breath, he looked up to the stellar expanse. “Something hit us”, he murmured while crossing his arms, “very fast...very sudden…” Eric turned to the SUV and rubbed his chin. “That something is gone.” He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Blue light”, he began as he looked from left to right and down both ends of the road. “Blue light; look out for a blue light”, he muttered as he spread his legs and cracked his fists, “maybe assassination… or a suicide attack… an unmanned assault…or…aliens?” Erik looked skyward. “Gotta be aliens. Hey, Dave, aliens are real, right?” Erik turned to Lamback’s unconscious form and hummed. “I’ll ask you later.”
The susurrus of shaggy branches sounded to Erik’s left. That sound was magnified as he turned, bringing added movement as the treetops were jostled before him. Then, in a blast of slivers, a shade, near-in
distinguishable from the surrounding darkness, bolted from the forest’s edge and sped towards Erik. The shade lunged, while another form—flattened and rectangular—flew for Erik with an evanescent, baby-blue flame propelling it. Erik inhaled as the object, moving at some hundred miles per hour, came within ten feet. Then, he ducked back, and the shape, a charcoal-grey board five feet in length and half that in width, sped overhead, while a gust from its underlying fans shoved Erik to the ground. The object shot past, turned from the adjacent forest, and slapped into the side of the SUV before crashing.
Erik jumped up as the shade landed. He stepped back as the shade rushed in a blur, and he inhaled as the shade double-kicked his chest. Launched for fifty feet, Erik slapped against the ground and then slammed against the SUV’s roof. While coughing, he jumped to his feet and gasped, while the shade, across from him, stood, human in six-foot form, male in proportions, and bearing a toned physiognomy enveloped in a charcoal-grey material with vertical ridges and which held no holes for the eyes, nose, or mouth. Is that actually an alien_?—Eric tensed as the shade crossed that distance in a blur.
Erik lifted his arms and then spread his legs. With a leftward swat, he deflected a right jab. He spun to fire a reversed-roundhouse kick, but the shade ducked under the throw and elbowed his side, knocking Erik back. Erik hooked his left, but the shade deflected, sidestepped, and fired two jabs to Erik’s gut before stepping in, grabbing him by the waist, and thrusting its left knee into Erik’s side. Erik pushed against the shade’s leg to launch himself back and landed before rushing and firing a dozen superfast throws. The shade blocked and evaded with its arms in front of its head, before jumping and kicking Erik back for ten feet.
Erik landed on his knees and slid along the road before he found the strength to rear up and to angle aside. With arms outstretched and hands fisted, he gasped and glared at his superhuman foe. Not bad, alien. I want to say Jiu-jitsu but I also sense some—WAIT. “WAIT!” Erik barked as he stepped back. “I remember those moves!” he exclaimed. “I remember your moves—you’re that MMA guy who was working for Richie the Worm!” The faceless shade jolted and stepped back, while Erik lowered his guard and glared. “Are you serious? One: how’d you break out of prison; and two: what the crap are you wearing? No, ignore those questions! Is this for payback or something? I’m sorry I broke your arm. Is it even about that? It’s because Richie the Worm is in jail now, right? Are you mad about that? Dude, from the report I read, he wasn’t even paying you guys well; you were only making minimum wage! Well—rest assured—that’s tax-free minimum wage (with the pay being illegal), so I’m guessing it was slightly better_”
The shade outstretched his right arm and tightened his fist. The closing motion and then the compression of the following muscles—his forearm, his biceps and triceps, and then the muscles along his shoulder—flashed yellow and blue waves of light along his grey garb which then concentrated around his right forearm and vanished. In their place, ejecting from the wrist in a sharp ring, was a blade, two feet in length and composed of two platinum-colored edges separated by a small gap. Erik grunted as the grey shade darted in another ghostly rush and swung. Amateur swordplay but fast enough to make up for it, Erik thought as he evaded each swipe with sinuous motions. In the instants between each throw, he glanced to the SUV, eying its windowless gaps to view its battered interior and then the items in sight. There! blasted in his mind as he locked onto his red duffle bag protruding from the SUV’s back-left.
Erik lunged backwards and landed in a sliding kneel. The shade bounded for him, clearing that twenty-foot gap and swinging groundward, but Erik shot away in a low-lying dash, speeding past his foe, coming to the SUV, and yanking out his duffle bag. He reached for the zipper, but looked towards his foe, his eyes widening as he found that grey-clad shade in the middle of another extended leap, with blade wound back and body curved. Not enough time. Erik dropped the duffle bag and lunged back as the shade landed, and Erik pulled back his fists and thrust them, loosing a trio of fireballs from his hands. The shade darted headlong, sidestepping the first bolide, bounding over the second, and, spiraling past the third.
“Decent”, Erik remarked as the shade rushed. He tightened his fists, causing them to combust with orange flames, and in a curving thrust, he swiped his left at the ground, loosing a fiery surge which rose into a three-yard wave and arched towards the shade. The shade leapt fifty feet upward and fell towards Erik. Erik retracted his left and jabbed his right, loosing a fireball that slammed into the shade’s chest and spiraled him towards the roadside. As the shade crashed, Erik shot for his duffle-bag. The shade, first leaping to his feet, felt the burn mark on his torso before outstretching his left and squeezing his fist. The grey material atop his left forearm bifurcated, allowing the breaching of a six-inch tube atop a two-inch-high platform. Three strides from his duffle bag, Erik pinpointed that miniscule barrel; two strides, and he sighted a pale-blue glow brightening within the barrel; one stride, and his ears tightened by a hum rising in synchrony with the strengthening radiance. Erik reached out.
The hum erupted into a bellow, and the light flashed into a bluish-white beam. Erik evaded in a sideward lunge, and that beam carved a molten streak along the road. The shade turned after Erik, and the beam followed, its bellow maintained as it sliced through asphalt and earth. Erik looked back and stomped rightward, unleashing a surge of flames that roared from his soles and thrust him into a conflagrant race. He turned as the beam drew near, and he rocketed along the tree line, speeding past one, two, and three hundred miles per hour, while the shade spun after him, swiping his radiant edge, felling trees with deflagrant might, and aiming his right hand at his inactive board.
As the beam drew near, Erik bolted onto the road and towards the SUV; yet, the diminution of that searing light and the vanishing of its synchronous roar drove Erik to look back—the laser had ceased. Why would he_? Erik turned to the faceless shade but his view was impeded by the shade himself, a tail of azure exhaust curving behind him as he rushed, atop his board, for Erik. He used that stupid laser to distract me long enough to rout me—not bad. The shade pounced from the board and speared into Erik’s side, throwing both Erik and himself in a jouncing race along the asphalt and just behind the SUV. Tossing the shade, Erik jumped, his breaths short and his arms and clothes littered in scrapes. He bolted from his foe, rushed for his duffle bag, and unzipped it. Clasping the hilt to one of his katana, he looked back, but jolted as he found the shade lunging once more. Turning his wrist, Erik unsheathed, but the shade moved first, slamming into Erik’s gut, rending Erik’s grip from his weapon, and tackling.
The grey-clad shade then leapt off, stepped back, and pounced, but Erik rolled onto his front and swept his left leg to throw out the shade’s feet and flip him onto his back. Erik jumped up, squeezed his right fist until it was engulfed in flames, and pounced, but the shade drilled his foot into Erik’s gut, heaved him over his body, and slapped him onto the ground. The shade then jumped up, wound back his blade, and lunged, but Erik reared up, caught the shade by the underside of his bladed arm, and slammed him over his shoulder. Erik hook-kicked his left, but the shade caught Erik’s foot and smacked him onto the ground. The shade then jumped up, then staggered, and then charged.
Erik intercepted his opponent, swung for, and was intercepted by his opponent. The two spiraled to the ground and then returned to their feet and fired against the other until one or the other would slam the other on his sides, his front, or his back, their impacts shaking the road, fracturing the asphalt, and layering their bodies in smarts and scuffs.
Erik rolled off of his back and balanced on his right, his breaths whistling, and his mouth agape as he glared at his foe. His bruises overlapped, and his limbs shook with a growing tire, but that faceless shade, though just as scathed, knelt with calmer breaths and stronger poise. You wouldn’t be so fancy if you didn’t have_—stumbling to his knees, Erik slammed his right hand to the ground; the shade, jumping to his feet,
pulled back his blade and lunged. Erik inhaled and pushed up, but tensed as he perceived an elevated and elongated surface under his palm—the hilt to his katana. With a hurried squeeze, he clasped the handle to his folded steel, and, with a simultaneous rush, he charged with the blade held behind him. In a flash, a sheath of orange flames engulfed his katana and tightened around it to conform to and to superheat its edge. The shade wound back, and Erik lifted his engulfed blade overhead. The shade thrust for Erik’s stomach, but Erik nailed his katana between the sword’s two blades and against the shade’s arm, driving it to the ground but failing to puncture its grey exterior.
As the shade stumbled from its diverted charge and reached for Erik’s holding edge, Erik placed both hands on his katana’s hilt. Roaring, Erik augmented the intensity of his flames and the vigor of his nailing drive. Thrusting, he pierced that adamantine hide, goring his blade through that grey suit, through skin, muscle, bone, then out of the opposite end, and into the asphalt. The shade howled as Erik held his blade firm, and the shade snarled while aiming his left, squeezing his fist, and loosing his incinerating beam; yet, in simultaneity, a column of flames erupted around Erik, and, in the next instant, the laser shot through, dissipating those flames but failing to strike its target, who landed alongside of his duffle bag.
While surceasing his laser, the shade turned from Erik. While wheezing and trembling, the shade motioned his left for the katana which pinned his right forearm to the ground. With his hardest squeeze and the slamming of his covered jaws, the shade pulled. After nary a minute of struggle, he ripped the blade from his forearm and dropped it while letting his right arm hang, the grey material covering it then soaked with a viscous red. The shade reared up to his feet, his shoulders jerking as he gasped and looked to Erik gasping.