Tucker woke me up jumping on my bed like some hyper ass kid on Christmas. He held a newspaper in his hand and shook it in my face so fast that I couldn’t read the headline. I snatched it from him and knew why he was so excited. The front of the paper said “Desert Storm,” and featured troops lining up for recruitment in the Army.
“Bro, we can get at least twenty new recruits in here within weeks!” Tucker shouted.
“I have an even better idea,” I said. Tucker looked at me questioningly. “I bet you two million bucks that the two of us could end that war.”
pits.
“Bullshit,” Tucker scoffed. “No way.” “Guess you don’t have the confidence that I do,” I said as I tucked my thumbs under my arms
“You don’t have two million,” Tucker said.
“Yeah, I do,” I replied. “Actually more than that. You do, too.” Tucker’s mouth dropped so fast it made a sound.
“How much we got? Together.” Tucker looked way too excited. “Around sixty two million,” I said. It was hard to keep myself from smiling. “How?” Tucker asked. “This,” I said while sweeping my hand across the room. “It may not seem like it but we do get
paid for this shit.” “Damn,” was all Tucker could say. “So how about the bet?” I asked. “Sure,” Tucker said. “How fast do you think we could do it?” “Three weeks tops,” I said. Tucker laughed and I swatted at him with the newspaper. “Bad boy!
Off the bed! No! No!” Tucker jumped off and ran out of the room yelping. Two weeks later and we were done. No new recruits. No medals or awards. Just a lot of new
interest from other countries in the project. And knowledge that “Kilo Sierra Echo,” works. You should have seen us! Tucker and I were surrounded by almost one thousand Iraqi soldiers. Tucker took a shot in the leg and went down. I almost started looking around for Hollister like he was some kinda guardian angel. Yeah, one that looked like the Unabomber but a guardian angel nonetheless. Then Tucker looked at me and nodded. At that point I knew it was on and crackin’.
“Kilo Sierra Echo!”
Have you ever burned yourself? I don’t mean like touching an iron for a second. I mean like having a father that was a little more authoritative than he needed to be. The only way he saw fit to punish you was by using a hot wire of his cigar. Or grabbing a hot pot and being to paralyzed with pain to let it go. Imagine that but all over your body. That’s what this K.S.E shit did. Both of us dropped to our knees and held our heads. I looked at him and he looked away. I thought it was because he was scared. It was actually because he didn’t wanna burn me. A beam unlike any I had ever fucking seen came from him. It cut through the guys surrounding us on the left. I saw red and got all kinds of happy thinking I was about to shoot a laser. But that wasn’t it. I was headed towards hundreds of troops with no weapon. I don’t care what Mr. Hecksford says, I remember every moment of this shit. The look on their faces as they watched their brothers frying under the ever searing eye of Tucker “Red Eye,” Raves. I pitched them in the air so high that they would die from shock before they even hit the ground. I was like a Black tornado. This was taking too long. I sped towards Tucker and grabbed him by the collar. He was actually laughing.
I dragged him in the air. I was moving that fast. The troops were running but we tracked them down and killed all of them. Killed them all. Why? Money? Pleasure? As the K.S.E began to fade on the helicopter ride back to the project this was the shit I thought about. And the extra two millions I would get from Tucker.As we landed Tucker was taken to the emergency care center even though on the way back his wound had healed. Probably just running more tests on him to see how the K.S.E affected his body. Either way it was gravy. As I got off the ‘copter The Corps and the Hecksford’s were there to greet me. I could barely keep from grinning at Mrs. Hecksford seeing as how I knew what she looked like naked. I tried my best to control the raging hard on growing in my pants. The Corps looked happy, which I took as I bad sign.
“Congratulations, L.T,” he said as he shook my hand. Mr. Hecksford nodded and reached out to hold my hands. “You’ve just earned the project five and a half trillion dollars.”
“How much do I get?” I asked. The Corps just laughed. “No, seriously.”
Alarms began blaring and Tucker ran out of the building wearing a hospital gown. We could only look on in astonishment as he bolted, his bare white ass showing as his gown flapped in the breeze. We all just looked at one another. Tucker came running back to us.
“Uh, yeah,” he stammered. “Run.” Explosions ripped through the project site.
14
Veterans Day Page 26