If you've ever had trouble figuring out whether or not you are in your own body, in your own time, in the body of someone else in a time other than your own or in the body of another but remembering a time when you were in that other body but it was about to happen, you have some idea of what it must have been like to be Leer about five seconds from now. Max was walking a few steps ahead of Victor toward a plain gray door on an equally plain gray wall. They were in the lowest level of a parking ramp which must have been thirty levels deep. Leer had lost track when the names of species of animals replaced the alphabetical sequence which spanned sub-A through sub-Z. He would have questioned his own safety being in the basement of a skyscraper whose floor numbering system seemed like an afterthought if he hadn't already been there tomorrow. This is exactly what was messing with his mind. The gray door and wall were too common. The only way to determine which memory was about to unfold would be to watch Max very closely. He had a nagging feeling of nervousness, an unpreparedness which was troubling him because he couldn't remember how many times he walked through that door before all Varst broke loose. The most important clue was nothing more than a moment of hesitation by Max as she approached the door. Leer knew that if Max paused, he had to be ready to fight. For the moment, however, he could relax, Max stepped swiftly to the door and flung it open, passing through so quickly that Leer had to step it up a bit to catch the door before it closed itself. Max was on a mission. She may have been losing interest in the violence coursing through the system in which she found herself but she absolutely loved telling a bunch of hard-ass guys what to do.
"All right, all right, let's have everybody out here right now," she announced as she entered a massive warehouse after proving her way through a series of sophisticated security devices, establishing her identity and alerting those inside to her arrival. "Where's Aldo?" she asked sharply as she surveyed the men who approached as rapidly as a bunch of guys can without looking like they're running to mama. "I need Aldo out here now!" she exclaimed but no one seemed to pay any attention to what she was saying. They had all stopped dead in their tracks. Victor had slid his way right up behind her, so close and so quickly that his breath on her neck triggered her defenses. Instinctively she pivoted, driving her elbow into Victor's gut, following through in a single motion with a jab to his face, moving so quickly that she had no time to recognize his features. Fortunately, this was of no concern to Victor, he simply collapsed his stomach in on itself absorbing what little blow there was as his body bended in anticipation of the elbow. Her jab was effortlessly diverted into a body lead followed by a quick torque turn from Victor and then they were dancing. the moment she realized what was happening, Max burst out laughing.
"May I lead?" Victor asked.
"By all means," Max returned as Victor bowed slightly toward her, signalling the end of the dance, her slight curtsy turning the spotlight over to Victor.
Leer turned toward the men who were frozen in shock at what had just occurred. Max was actually giggling at this point. The men just stared. These were some serious bad-asses, they carried weapons, knew how to fight, enjoyed JumpJuice and drinking and thought that the only dance of any value at all was a lap dance. Victor looked directly at each one of them in turn then said, "This shipment will not be taken from us. This shipment will go through. I have every confidence that you will deliver the Juice on-time and in full. However, if any one of you causes this operation to fail, I will personally teach you the dance of the dead."
No comments:
Post a Comment