by Logan Hunder
Cox, however, was defiant. “But what about your freedom? What about your aspirations?”
“This place is what we aspire to! Did you think we did all that robbing and murdering and terrorizing and drug consumption just for fun? We had bills to pay, just like you. If you don’t believe me, ask around.”
“I started a terrorist group, even though I don’t have any political opinions,” the man adjacent to him piped up with pride.
“I hijacked everyone’s Netflix and broadcasted spoilers of the latest Harry Potter novel.”
“I hotboxed Buckingham Palace.”
“I shot JR and Mr. Burns.”
“I’m actually a pathological criminal and really do belong in here.”
“I didn’t ask any of you,” Kim snapped.
Her husband’s expression of incredulity persisted throughout. He was originally going to speak up right away, but politely waited for her to finish first.
“Don’t you guys get tortured all the time?! What about all the human rights violations?”
“Pfft,” Joakim’s lips fluttered. “Terrorism happens pretty much never. And they know that. They figure out real damn quick whether you’re a terrorist with information they want, and the answer is pretty much always no. Any torture that happens in this place is usually just because they don’t like you.”
Willy poked his head out from a group of men seated around a table playing spin-the-blaster.
“It’s true. Usually they like you. But, uh, sometimes they don’t.”
The rotating pistol came to a shuddering halt and fired a bright flash of red light into the nearest player’s chest. He toppled over backwards into a heap on the floor. Donald leapt out of the way with a mighty utterance to his lord and saviour as it happened, but otherwise Kim, Tim, and him seemed to be the only ones who found the scene disturbing in the slightest. The only other reactions came from the others around the table, who erupted into cheers and jeers as instant noodle capsules and vape flavours were passed across the motionless, smoking body.
“Are you people insane?!” The captain screeched, edging ever closer to a mental break. “If you’re all so happy, then why are you all so willing to throw your lives away for pretty much no reason!? This is no way to live! Don’t you have any self-respect?!”
Silence swept over the group like a swarm of invisible quiet-inducing locusts. For a mere moment, it seemed they may have been stopping to consider their rash actions. Thumbs were pressed to chins and wary glances of uncertainty were exchanged by all until, as was often the case, they all ended up pointed at their large, unelected leader.
“Oh, you guys want me to respond for us? Well, I’ll try and come up with something.”
Relegating his personal weapon to its shoulder sling, Joakim picked up the pistol from the table and held it up for all to see, as if to admire its craftsmanship.
“Now, I’m apparently just some psycho killer with a death wish,” he mused, scratching the side of his head with the business end.
“So it makes no difference to me if I die.”
The barrel moved from his head to the head of the first inmate next to him.
“Or if my friends die.”
He removed it once more and this time pointed it at Cox.
“As long as you live! Mister Special—sorry, Captain Special. Captain Special and his special sailors. Get up here, fat boy, join your crew. That’s right. There we are, the only sane ones here! The only ones who don’t belong because they have lives worth living. Am I getting all this right?”
“I think you’re oversimplif—”
“Fan-goddamn-tastic. Well, don’t worry, we’re here just for you. Doing your fighting. Doing your dying. But unfortunately, it looks like we’re a little too good at our jobs—our jobs being to serve you—because you’re all still here and kickin’! I mean, really, if all of you just jump ship and carry on your merry way without a single scratch or lifelong psychological damage . . . then what’s the point?! What have we really given you, hmm?”
“Joakim, stop being an idiot and stop pointing that gun at him.”
“How about you shut it, Maddie, or Kim, or whatever you’ve changed it to since I last asked. I’m trying to have a nice conversation with your husband. I’m trying to help him even more than I already have, by—what did you say earlier? ‘Dying for your sake.’ Or something. Now, it seems to me that, if someone dies for your sake, you’re kind of obligated to live life a little fuller in their honour, right? I mean, after all, you’re the only one here that knows how to live. Appreciate what ya have. All that shit? So if you already have that covered, how is this new lease on life we’re so graciously offering going to sink in properly? I mean, come on. Can’t expect much in the way of results if you don’t lose anything but a bunch of . . . cannon-fodder lowlifes that didn’t exist to you before you met them and sure as hell won’t exist to you afterwards.”
“I . . . I think you’re giving this speech to the wrong guy,” Donald uttered just loud enough to hear. “He’s probably the only guy I know that would cry over people he doesn’t know.”
“Is that right, curly? So I should be giving this speech to you then?”
“ . . . No. I, uh, I cry too.”
“I believe it. Now, shut up and let me make my point.”
He seemed to be getting pretty invested in his spiel now. Every twitch and uncomfortable shuffle from those he lorded over only egged him on further. The flashing of weapons and flashing of grins may well have been a part of whatever point he intended to make, yet it was accomplishing little, besides making him look a whole lot less friendly.
“The point is: You’ve given me a great idea. It is, in my professional opinion, as someone who has dealt with and been the cause of great losses, that the only way to make you guys respect this great sacrifice me and the boys are making for you . . . is to really give you something that’ll stick with ya! I figure, by, I don’t know, sending you on home minus a member!”
Cries and protestations erupted from the foursome in every form ranging from pleading to threatening. But Joakim waved them all off and carried on, seemingly uncaring as to whether they heard his words or not.
“I know, I know, you all disagree. But trust me, you’ll thank me afterwards! Maybe it’s just the, what was the word, institutionalization talking, but there’s just something about having less that makes what remains feel like more! And you can take that to the bank! Now the only question left is how to decide. Anybody got straws? No? Well, then. Looks like the burden falls on me. Luckily for you, I’m just full of ideas.”
He levelled off the blaster he had been waving so casually. Once again, it lined up directly with the chest of Cox.
“Eenie.”
He shifted it slightly to the right, hovering it right around neck level with Kim.
“Meenie.”
Then onto Donald, chubby cheeks quivering as it slowed in front of him.
“Miney.”
And lastly, Willy. He was still trying to finish counting the noodle capsules in his hand.
“It.”
14.
SPY DIVING
AFTER THE SHOT, WILLY went limp. He didn’t even have time to say “dude.” Cox’s remarkable, grief-fuelled reflexes allowed him to snag hold of the big fella before he toppled. However, he still toppled anyway, not even slowed by the feeble attempt to hold him upright. The captain cradled his curly head. With a pale, shaky hand, he gently petted the frizzy hair of his briefly employed, yet still-beloved, employee.
“Oh, Willy,” he lamented. “You poor, swarthy soul. So brave, so charismatic, and gunned down so young.”
He patted and stroked his companion’s long, dark hair.
“Look at you. You remind me of a famous Puerto Rican man named Alexander Hamilton. I bet you would have been good at rapping, too. But now we’ll never know. The ship may never have been less safe than it was with you, buddy, but I still woulda let you guard it ’til the end.”
&
nbsp; He turned his despair onto the gunman.
“How could you?! He was just a boy! He didn’t ask for any of this!”
“Of course he didn’t,” Joakim scoffed. He dropped the pistol back on the table where it landed with a clang. “Nobody asks to get shot.”
“Why couldn’t it have been me?!” The captain wasn’t talking to anybody in particular. He simply declared his words at the ceiling, as was taught by dramatic moments in fiction. Not being much of a book reader, movie watcher, or community-theatre payer-attentioner, Joakim took a deep puff out of his e-cig and treated the question as non-rhetorical.
“It was originally gonna be you. But I realized before I shot you that Maddie over there would probably fly off the handle and ruin all the fun before I could get to the punchline.”
“’Punchline.’” Kim rolled her eyes. “You always did have a sick sense of humour, but this doesn’t even have the framework of a joke. If shooting people counted as comedy, then folks wouldn’t have complained so much during World War III.”
“Oh, now you’re going to try and tell me I’m not funny? I have a great many memories of making you laugh, and making you laugh hard!”
Kim shrugged.
“I was usually faking it. But, for what it’s worth, that was probably more my fault than yours; I can be kinda difficult. So don’t feel too bad.”
“I’m good at making you laugh right, honey?” Cox asked from the floor.
“Ehhhh . . . shouldn’t you be getting mad at him for killing Willy?”
“Oh, right, you killed Willy! You bastard!”
Joakim took another drag. He couldn’t seem to decide which of the two to look at. So he just kept sucking until he could hold no more before exhaling a sizeable smoky sigh that framed his face and briefly pooled under his pronounced brow.
“You know,” he rumbled through another puff. “I’ll give ya one thing. This wasn’t as amusing as I was expecting. Not that I expected miss stoic over here to burst into tears or anything, but I didn’t think she’d start lecturing me before I got the chance to make my point. Now the timing is all off and I feel like it’s not even worth making anymore.”
Cox’s eyes had never looked more blue as their pupils shrank to pinheads. His gentle caressing of his fallen comrade ceased as he drew himself up to his full five-foot-nine and marched over to the human steam engine.
“You just wasted a human life to make a point!” He snapped. “The least you can do is make it!”
Joakim had almost a foot on the feisty blonde when he straightened up.
“Fine, then,” he growled down at Cox. “You want to know what the point was? The point was to scare the living piss outta ya.”
“Well, mission accomplished then, tough guy! Not sure what you expected to gain, but good job!”
The giant’s oblong, bell-shaped nose wrinkled into a mandala.
“Well, it shut you up, didn’t it? At least for a second. Like I said, with all the bullshit that you were heaping on us about living our lives improperly and criticizing our values, it was all I could do to resist shooting you, Mister Pious. So high above us scummy prison guys. Just because you deliver your patronizing politeness with a smile doesn’t mean we can’t see how stupid and beneath you you think we are.”
“I . . . I didn’t mean to—”
Joakim raised a monstrous hand.
“Look, you’re obviously not a bad guy. I’d even say that you’re probably a better guy than any of us in here. But looking down on people and discounting them doesn’t become okay just because you’re nice about it. Maybe no one’s ever told you how transparent it is because you’re not the only nice person.”
Cox took a second to lick his lips and let the words percolate.
“You’re making great points, and I can’t refute all of them, because, let’s face it, I can be a bit insufferable. But can you at least acknowledge it’s hard for me to take behaviour advice from someone who just shot my friend dead because he finds me to be ignorant?!”
“Who says he’s dead?” Joakim raised an eyebrow.
“What . . . ?” The three living crew members spoke in unison.
“This is part of what I meant about you assuming we’re stupid savages,” he explained as he waved over a couple prison doctors armed with some nasal spray. Calm as clockwork, they propped up Willy’s head and began administering treatment. “I did say there was a punchline, didn’t I?”
The captain’s jaw inched as close to the floor as his facial muscles could physically allow. Even his wife couldn’t help but let slip the slight mind-blowing that had occurred underneath her silky brown locks. Surprised or not, however, Kim was still Kim.
“Well, congrats. You proved you’re not crazy by showing you’re just a complete and total asshole instead. And your concept of a joke is still idiotic.”
“Oh, what are you whining about, Maddie? You obviously didn’t even like that guy.”
“That’s beside the point. How did you trick us like that?!”
Joakim shrugged.
“There is no trick.” He picked up the pistol off the table and shot one of his prisoner friends seemingly at random. Like all the others, he flopped over into a comatose lump. “These things are glorified tazers. All the weapons in this place are.”
“Even the guards’?” Donald asked.
“Everybody’s. Why do you think they have a fully stocked weapons cache five minutes away from our cellblock? They love this shit as much as we do! Honestly, you guys still don’t seem to realize how insulting it is that you thought we were actually killing each other and ourselves over nothing. Like we’re animals.”
Cox cleared his throat.
“You mean to tell me . . . that these weapons are completely harmless?!”
Oh, god help me. Yes.”
“Then why are they putting that guy over there in a body bag?”
“Well, that’s the guy who just fell off the roof.”
At that moment, Willy came to. He shot bolt upright with what must have been some pretty impressive abs hidden under the blubber. His cheeks jiggled like a dog’s as he shook himself awake. Eschewing assistance from his orderlies, he flipped over onto his hands and knees to retrieve any spoils he’d dropped during the blackout. At no point did he ask any questions or acknowledge what had taken place. He did give a brief pause to inspect the shiny new scorch mark on his shirt, however.
Kim picked the discarded space suit from the floor and threw it at him.
“Get dressed. We’re going home.”
“OI!” A sharp voice bellowed from beyond the palisades. “Which one of you lot is in charge in there?”
Joakim cleared the distance to the wall in four good strides. Various goons and ne’er-do-wells scurried around him trying to get a vantage to peek over its bounds, while he himself just rested his arm on it like a fence between neighbours.
“You rang?”
“Fookin’ hell, what are they feedin’ you things in here?”
“You came up to my doorstep just to ask me that?”
Cox hopped atop a box to catch his own glimpse of the parlay. The harsh voice that called to them struck a chord within his memories the moment it announced its presence. Even the inherent classiness of the British inflection turned putrid in the mouth of a particular belligerent old sadist. Despite facing down an army of his antitheses, Sir Head sounded as confident and pompous as ever.
The reasoning became quickly apparent as Cox poked his head over the defences and immediately felt as though he had taken center stage at a USO show. Swaths of guards surrounded their outpost. Most had removed their helmets and lowered their weapons, but readied for combat if they failed to intimidate based off of numbers alone. Yet they waited at the wayside, granting reins to the outsider for some reason.
“I didn’t come here to ask you a bloody thing,” the universe’s happiest little agent did declare. “I came to tell you I’m shutting down your little cops-and-robbers party unless you cough
up the stupid git who set my idiot partner’s face on fire.”
Joakim glanced around. It was hardly an invested investigation, as even the slightly attentive could have seen the grimace smeared all over Cox’s face, so it must have been more for show than anything.
“Well, I don’t know who you are, or your idiot partner, and I doubt anyone in here is just going to confess and give themselves up. So, not a lot I can do for ya. Now, unless you don’t mind your fancy suit getting all singed up, you might wanna take a hike.”
A petite woman with high cheekbones and librarian hair stepped forward from the battle-armoured battalion and took a spot next to Sir Head. Her sudden appearance startled him, and he frowned down at her in disgust. She swatted his gnarled hand away when it tried to push her back in line.
“Joakim, this is serious. According to this man, we really do have an actual group of terrorists in here for once. One of them severely wounded his partner while the other killed two of our staff members.”
“Hey! I only killed one of those guys!” Kim’s voice shouted back at them from somewhere within. “ . . . And before you ask, I did try using my words first!”
“Really?” Joakim sighed. “Not even going to try for plausible deniability, huh?”
“They found the bodies in my cell; they obviously know it was me. I don’t know where the other thing they’re yelling about happened, so chances are we can still plead ignorance on it.
“Oh, that one was me.”
“Thank you for saying that loud enough for everyone out there to hear, Tim.”
“Give ’em up, NOW!” Sir Head continued to demand.
“Calm your ass down, would ya?” Joakim chastised from his side of the fence. “We’re talkin’ here.”
With the fuzz suitably placated, he whirled around and hunched into the huddle.
“So, terrorists, huh? Wouldn’t have been my first guess, but you definitely have the cover part down. I would never have expected this guy.”