by Mikael Aizen
* * * * *
Taimu flew to New York.
He was sitting in his wheelchair in front of the AIG building hardly able to keep his eyes open. How the yellow-green woman had known Taimu's next contract job would be here, he could only guess. But he was here and he was in a grim mood.
The AIG building loomed. It was the thirty-ish tallest building in the world. Its glass doors and domed front attracted you to look up, only to realize that you couldn't twist your neck back enough to see the rocket-ship tip of the building. A doorman opened the door for Taimu.
"Taimu! How's it going?" Big Jason, AIG's rep, came forward to greet him.
A time traveling alien's boot had destroyed Taimu's house. How was he? "Tired," Taimu said, shaking Jason's hand. "It's been a long few days."
"You look it. You ready to get busy or do you need some coffee, first." Jason looked down. "Nice boots by the way."
Taimu had put on the boots for a few reasons. One, they stopped smelling if his feet were in it. Two, what else could he do with them? Leave them? It'd be like letting a weapon of mass destruction lay around unguarded. Not that anyone would want the boots with the smell.
Taimu thought he saw a mischievous look on Jason's lips. He looked again and Jason wore a pleasant smile.
"Coffee?" Jason asked again.
"Uh...yeah. Yeah, coffee. Triple, straight."
Jason laughed. "You got it. I'll have our guys ready for you in five. Head up to sixty. I'll meet you there with your coffee."
Sixty? Like the sixth highest floor in the building? Taimu lifted his eyebrows. "I thought..."
"We're moving things around. With the recession, we have a lot of empty space so we thought we might as well get a room with a view. We're selling the building, you know."
"Yeah, I heard," Taimu said.
Jason sauntered away, whistling as he went. Taimu had never seen Jason happy, usually the guy was a grouch. Greeting him was the worst part of coming to AIG. Maybe the guy'd gotten laid. Taimu rolled his way to the elevators and punched the up button. He blinked when the elevator opened, it was full. A whole bunch of suits looked at him and he looked right back. The door closed.
Strange...
He pushed the up button again. When the next elevator opened, it was completely empty. Taimu guided his wheelchair in. Sixty, Jason had said. Taimu pushed the buttons.
The elevator music was a step up from most, but it was still elevator music. There were no stops all the way up to the sixtieth floor. The doors opened.
A flash of light shot across his vision. Taimu rolled back in and hammered at the door's close button. Laser fire, had he just seen laser gun fire? He thought he'd seen men in black armor uniforms and...hairy things with big eyes holding guns. A series of blasts. A scream of pain. Warbled yells and Taimu kept jabbing at the button. The doors wouldn't close.
Jason stood in front of him, holding a cup of coffee.
"Jason! What's going on?"
"We're under attack."
"Under attack? This is the AIG building! How are we under attack?"
The walls of the elevator shook and Jason nodded. "I wondered too," he rubbed his chin. "The Koalas have become very aggressive. You must be more special than we expected."
The Koalas? Special?
Another explosion and the elevator suddenly tilted. Jason seized Taimu by an arm and threw Taimu onto his back with inhuman strength. He handed Taimu the coffee and jumped from the elevator just before it creaked and snapped. The elevator fell, screeching as the entire building shook. Taimu dropped the coffee and latched onto Jason's thick neck. They ran down the hallway, hairy "Koala" men wielding guns were on one side and all sorts of funny looking people wearing black uniforms were on the other end. Some of the uniformed people held guns, some had brooms and others had swords. One had a skateboard that he was using as a shield to deflect laser fire.
"I have him I have him!" Jason yelled.
Something struck Taimu's head. The momentum made him head-butt Jason and a piercing headache shot through his face. Jason fell, Taimu on top of him.
Another impact hit Taimu's spine like a baseball. He rolled over and shielded himself. Fire from a hundred guns hit him and while the laser fire bounced off him, he felt like he was being stoned.
The laser fire stopped.
Taimu looked up. The people in the big, black, marshmallow uniforms had surrounded him. They were protecting him. Taimu saw a familiar face. The yellow-green woman.
"You brought my boots," she said. She wasn't in uniform. Instead she wore that ugly oversized, purple jumpsuit.
"What the heck is going on?" Taimu asked.
A deathly scream from someone near him. It was a familiar scream, a voice that he recognized and knew that he should be able to place. But he couldn't. The yellow-green woman frowned mournfully as she got behind Taimu and dragged at him. The uniforms stayed tight together, he couldn't see any of the Koalas.
"I wish I could give you a choice, like I wanted to. But I'm sorry, they found you. They must have followed us," yellow-green woman said.
"What do you mean? Who are you and who are they? Did someone just die?"
Yellow green woman's face glittered lightly, subdued, kind of like it had right before throwing the shoe at Taimu. "I will explain, later. We will see you at home."
"Whaa..."
The yellow-green woman grunted, throwing Taimu. He crashed through the window, and just as he realized that he was falling from one of the highest buildings in New York, he struck a lower portion of the building. He crashed right through the concrete like he was some denser material and he kept falling through floor after floor. Impacts thudded in slowly accelerating regularity, knocking his body around like a rag doll. But he felt no pain. That was odd. Images of paper, people, machines and desks and glass flashed passed, disorienting. He wasn't slowing. How come he wasn't slowing? How come this didn't hurt?
Taimu did the only thing that he could process. He pointed himself boots first towards the ground and screamed his bloody head off.