Lincoln licked another gushing tributary of red goo from her slovenly split lip
and gave Lopez an accusing glare. It wasn't often she had to taste blood; it wasn't often
she spilt any, but then again it wasn't often she found three military apes waiting for her
in her own home as if; heaven forbid; they had been invited. Lopez shirked away from
his captive's wordless challenge into a miasmic mire of assumed authority and tossed a
bright blue pill into his mouth in an escapist gesture. He swallowed, spat and coughed.
'Oh christ; you have to wonder why people take those things. This guy's in government
now; he should be selling drugs; he should be making money out of that junk; he
shouldn't have to sample the stuff himself.' She scoffed at the stupidity of such a self
made, self broken man and then remembered it was her carpet he was spitting all over
and quickly mustered up a sense of self pity.
Officers Carbajali and Ajolin let their restrained captive free at the request of
their contorted commanding officer, who strained his facial muscles violently like a
laboratory monkey subjected to a severe electric shock in the name of progressive
science as the effect of the drug hit him, and sat back with a deep breath which
appeared to emerge more out of a cool relief that the agonized swallowing of the
guttural gremlin was all over than the associated sensation of imposed relaxation which
was beginning to dwell on him like a comforting dream of Saturday morning when it's
really still deep into the working week.
Lincoln; thankfully dressed in black from head to toe; dabbed her bleeding
mouth on a woolen jumper sleeve without fear of staining. Looking scruffy wouldn't
befit a meeting with such a prestigious man whose general residence was cloud nine in
the New York City State's political hierarchy. She clenched both fists and sat back in a
chair facing Lopez's like a suspect awaiting interrogation while she plotted an escape
from her own home. The bureaucratic bigwig, however, was in a familiar position;
command. Subconsciously praising himself as if having just led a minimal army into a
victorious war against a colossal foe, he did what every good movie villain should;
began to divulge the workings of his organization to one of his most hated enemies.
"Our officers have been looking for you for quite some time." Lincoln was none
too flattered. "You've been evasive. We've had handsome rewards advertised. We've
sent bounty hunters, assassins; hit squads." She took the time to smirk her artificial
appreciation; "Either your staff are taking liberties sciving from their responsibilities or
you really need a bit of a shakeup; get some people in who know what they're doing."
Though she wasn't generally of such a derogatory persuasion, this particular occasion
warranted exception. Lopez gritted his teeth in preparation for a retaliative speech in
his own nonchalant defense, then remembered who was in control and instead flipped a
meaty cigar into his gaping maw and proceeded with frigid caution. 'Drugs and
smoking. This guy must be the surgeon general's worst nightmare.' Her own thoughts
more entertaining that her 'guest's', Lincoln allowed him to continue his complacent
correspondence; "Let's take into account that the only reason why you are still alive is
that there is a friend of yours who was not so easy to locate." Valuable information; it
was always the same old excuse; although neither of them had ever shied away from
the authorities' line of sight, be it of the big brother security candid cameras or the more
direct variety. Lincoln gave Carbajali a glare so piercing that he stepped back in sour
repentance like a new recruit silenced by the presence of a harsh military hardman. That
done, she turned her attention back to Lopez; "I thought you guys have security all
over the place; CCTV, lazer fields, probably even radar. How is it so difficult to find
two people?"
"Our cameras safeguard only strategically viable areas; shopping malls, government
offices and all the financially relevant quarters. Beyond that, our patrol officers are
generally enough to deal with other minor distractions." The esteemed commander was
keen on pronouncing words which really didn't need pronouncing. "Oh, and we would
also dearly like to be reunited with those involved in the running of a certain so called
relief hospice. They escaped the raid, and we have reason to believe they have set up a
second enterprise."
Lincoln covered her broken lip with her top one in an attempt to stem the
swelling and decided it was high time to force a way out of this unfortunate state of
affairs. Noting Lopez's preoccupation with his colossal cigar, she hurled herself into a
forward roll, landed by an antique samurai sword which she had handily mounted on
the back wall years earlier as if anticipating today's need in a Nostradamian prophesy
and skipped into the kitchen with the blade drawn by her side. Lopez waved a hand in
stern resentment; this was bad. He had been an officer since the hazy juvenile days of
the company, when he played the part of a secret bodyguard to the heir to the empire.
Before that he had worked for the elder of the two evils; a servant of both father and
son. The former had embarrassingly slashed Lopez's name from his rota when his
involvement in Volscenzi junior’s terror tactics campaign came to the fore. His father
could not be seen in public to support such underhanded tactics even if in fact he had
instigated them. Regardlessly, Lopez had always worked flat out for his country; and
not a country he blindly obeyed due to some territorial birthright, but one which he had
fought to create and consolidate himself from the very beginning. It was his pet project;
his only child; and no matter how deformed or irritating the baby, you just have to love
it.
Lincoln awaited a reluctant flurry of blood and violence; well aware of the
roaming approach of Carbajali and Ajolin. It was an occupational bane she supposed
she had to bear. She found time for a pitiful look at what would soon be a ruined
carped before curving a beautifully calculated sword slash back into the room behind
her which slit the flesh of Ajolin's shin as if gliding through water and was then whisked
back into a ready position; perched up by the attacker's shoulder like a resting crow
with an artistry and grace which did not befit the scenes of atrocious agony which it
provoked.
With one of his officers down and bleeding on the floor and the other already
pessimistically contemplating a similar fate, Lopez decided enough was enough. This
sort of behavior he just couldn't tolerate; for reasons of personal pride as well as
professional. Yelling an unintelligible order, he began to feel uncomfortable in what he
had mentally christened earlier a comfortable chair. Something had changed. The
balance of power had shifted, but like any good commander, he wasn't giving in
without his minions having fight for him until the very last man. Swiftly enough, two
medal clad doormen bundled their way into the scene like a pair of substitutes in an
American football match eager to prove their worth to a corpulent coach inflicted with
an impending pressure provoked coronary collapse; intent on claiming maximum spoils
on what had already been a highly profitable evening. Officers Alain Laurent and Wes
Preece were just in time to watch a bloody nosed Carbajali slump to the floor at the
inducement of a resourceful sword hilt before the responsible fugitive launched an
unprecedented and not entirely genuine effort by flinging her weapon into the air in the
general direction of the scampering commanding officer's supposed sanctuary like a
paper plane; succeeding only in putting a hole in her own furniture.
Lincoln shook her head in disapproval at her own actions and rearmed herself
with a gleaming kitchen knife which she plucked out of a dour wooden rack as if doing
a kitchenware ad on a shopping channel targeted at the mass murderer market. Preece
held Laurent back with an arm. He had seen the reflection of his target in a fortuatously
positioned mirror and in response produced a king sized camping knife to match her's.
Without a doubt in his mind, Preece took that final step forward; straight into the
middle of a savage knife fight which seemed to spring on him as if some carnivorous
beast in the depths of a perilous and uncharted jungle.
But while Preece became preoccupied with keeping up the pace and
maintaining an effective defense, Lincoln began to hack away; apparently at the
bewildered officer's blade rather than more vital areas; with barely visible pace and to a
tumultuous accolade of writhing sparks and flashes. Somehow, working on pure
reflexes; she knew to the nearest inch where Preece's weapon would be at any given
split second of time far better than he did, and as she pummeled away mercilessly the
disenchanted bodyguard wondered if perhaps he had been plunged into a slow motion
nightmare somewhere along the line which failed to include the rest of the world.
Inevitably, Lincoln made the first decisive move to break this exhibition of frenzied
speed and hazard; spinning half way around, plucking a second, smaller knife from the
rack, completing the turn and thrusting the blade into Preece's unprotected shoulder
with a spongy thud. His eyelids feeling as if they had suddenly put on a few stone's
weight, he collapsed backwards into the front room as she replaced both weapons as if
she was just putting away the cutlery after finishing the washing up. She bit her lip,
which only made the cut worse, at the pandemic explosion of brutality which still;
despite her circumstantial pachydermic demeanor, bothered her. It was self control
rather than unfeeling disdain which kept her calm.
Calmness was not one of Rodrigo Lopez's most celebrated attributes; as
Laurent was well aware; but due to a chain of inseparable links to renounced hitmen
and a high standing in an officious regime, persuasion was. Lincoln straightened her
jaw like a wrench tightening a loose screw and reentered her by now disappointingly
scruffy front room just as the all too highly self esteemed Lopez made a sharp exit
through a deceptively warped front door. 'You don't expect this in your own home.'
She may have been a minimalist at heart, but wasn't best pleased that the idea of her
apartment as some sort of sacrosanct haven had been so heedlessly shattered.
In the corridor, Bezeel strained his spindly neck to catch a glimpse of the
commotion inside but was restrained heavy handily by his pedantic killjoy of a superior
agent. "Our purpose is to observe, you say, then you don't even let me do that."
Silvanus whistled away his subordinate's protests and waggled a substantial bunch of
keys which must in concordance have been numerically adequate to open every door
and padlock in town. "There is a time and place, Bezeel. When a door is locked
perhaps it is not meant for us to look through it."
"It isn't locked; its wide open." Bezeel had spent much of the last decade in Manhattan.
A refugee of the Balkan war, he had managed to conceal himself from the infamously
fastidious border control squads and stowed away on an amnesty 'grain plane' which
was headed back to Western Europe to refill. From there he had landed himself a job in
the IJC; the International Justice Committee. Mind numbing computer input initially,
but times were so bad that his IT skills had to be neglected for him to travel to America
to serve on the 'front line'; to provide aid to those cast into destitution by the
breakaway multinational NYCN. As a secretive member of a more direct pressure
group, he also had the personal ulterior motive of attempting to effect the
deconstruction of the delicate hierarchy the gluttonous new government then endured,
which may well have halted the proposed takeover if he hand his friends had been
successful. Needless to say such disruptive elements proved ineffective, and when the
titanium gates closed on the democratic world he was left a disenfranchised spy deep in
enemy territory.
Silvanus on the other hand; an old man with a greasy beard and a distinct
hobble, little self esteem and no home to go to, had no concern for politics. Daily
survival was hard enough. "The door appears open only because your mind desires it
so."
"I wish you'd stop these ridiculous riddles." Bezeel flicked a piece of shattered wall
plaster up with his boot and half volleyed it across the hall like a pro footballer. The
soaring object careered headlong into a once useful doorbell of astronomical
proportions with a shrill clang which nobody else seemed to hear. Silvanus' sibilant
stare persuaded him he had better repair the thing, although he had only barely
damaged it. "Life, Bezeel; is but a shadow; a poor player that struts and frets his hour
upon the stage, and there is heard no more..."
"It's a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing; yeah, I know
Silvanus. I've had the same literary education as you, remember? But you're the fool.
The boss won't be happy with us sitting around; sometime we've got to do something."
Silvanus straightened his beard like a meditating dwarf from a Tolkein fantasy. If only
his student realized the virtue of patience, perhaps things would progress more
efficiently. When you put too much effort into something, it will take longer to achieve
than if you sit back and let the thing blow over you.
Laurent chewed a flavorless chunk of gum as if a ravenous street hound having
been handed a grisly chop of meat by a sympathetic samaritan working in the local dixie
chicken outlet; a simile Lincoln had no trouble imagining as a concrete reality; which
added a palliative spoonful of jest to an essentially humorless situation. 'Whatever
happened to lassie faire politics?' The experienced guardsman almost hobbled forward
with a scraggly punch but found his head thumped into the door frame then swiped
onto the floor under the influence of an assiduously applied looping roundhouse, but
not before his wary master had made good his premature escape.
Lincoln inspected the carnage and tasted the bitter sweet metallic flavor of
blood on her lips again. It's natural; every day, everywhere, things get destroyed by the
spiteful contraption of human avarice, endeavor and achievement; it's just that
sometimes those things are your own.
Her features dropped as the superior officer's conspicuous disappearance was
balanced by the ungracious arrival of two more purpose hired portions of cannon
fodder. Jimmy Preece; angered by the sight of twin brother Wes convincingly playing
the part of a makeshift knife rack in the far corner; lurched with sublime misdirection
and was swiftly overcome with a numbing jolt induced by a well placed high boot
before tumbling back like a derelict towerblock packed with plastic explosives and left
to simmer.
But then something unexpected. Carbajali, who she had almost forgotten about;
grabbed Lincoln around the waist intending for the oncoming officer McCarthy to
thump away at their shared opponent uninhibited. But with speed of movement and
speed of mind likely to overcome brute force when applied correctly, Lincoln dropped
her head forward almost to her feet as if bending over to tie a shoelace at an apparently
inapt moment; thus causing the far taller Carbajali's head to smash uncompromisingly
into the glass coffee table she had been short enough to avoid as his own momentum
sent the penitent persecutor over her head like the crest of a giant wave over the head
of a stooping surfer, although he would much rather have struck a more watery surface
at the climax of his downward journey. A fine example; Silvanus would have imagined
in the corridor; of trying too hard and therefore failing to achieve the desired effect,
since if Carbajali had simply let go of his adversary's mild midsection he would still
have been on his feet.
Lincoln shook her head with misplaced appetite for this latest in an
intermittently arduous concatenation of sterling scuffles. Initially the forthcoming
destruction of her own home had struck a raw nerve, but since then she had been
persuaded by the philosophy that when you've started you may as well finish the thing.
McCarthy though; born into a family that treated boxing as more of a religion than
religion itself despite being strict church goers; threw a strathspey left hook across her
unorthodox guard only to find that the miniature character had ducked below the punch
into a favorable angle for a counter.
For the lingering moment in which he remained upright; awaiting the inevitable
like a man on his knees with a gun to his head; McCarthy cursed himself for falling for
one of the most basic acts of self sacrifice in the fight game; going for the pot shot
before even softening up with the jab. The looping elbow which struck like an
unattended girder swinging on a taught rope on a cluttered building site was nothing
more than a formality, but to rub his plane like nose in the resulting dust, Lincoln
proceeded to hoist a knifefoot into his underarm like putting up a tent strut and hyper
extended his attacking limb at an unnatural gradient behind him; successfully forcing
the disconsolated brawler onto his knees then front as his shoulder toyed with the idea
of dislocating. Malingering submission sufficed.
But now; standing in a trashed arena barely recognizable as home, being
presented with an apparent but by no means fruitful triumph was scant reward to
Lincoln, but at least this revelation of the impermanence of things provided her a
measure of realization. "That's the nature of possessions; you can't posses them for
ever. That which rises falls; its a quite simple but often resisted notion. Better to have
nothing; you just can't loose. Better to go with the flow of existence; accept the
unlashing nature of things; than to frantically fend it off like a cripple denying his own
disability and trying to circumnavigate the globe on foot; or not as the case would be. It
doesn't matter what feckless felons knock your door down if you posses nothing to
take." Which was fortunate, because after today Lincoln didn't.
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