Iron swang open the double doors at the top of the stairway with maniacal glee
and entered a vast hall garnished with lavish architecture and decorated with an uneasy
miss mash of chunky sculpture, furniture and mosaic floor patterns reminiscent of a
congested junkroom of discarded works of modern art; the basement of a cubist gallery
in which all the uncelebrated failure's work was disrespectfully stashed.
Four a-typical characters in braided military uniform sat at a slinky mammoth
table of near geometric perfection like ministers at a peace conference; their roles in
accordance with the metaphor, but their purpose an explicit equivalent. But like the
representatives of some ancient empire around the meeting table, their grave and
desperate diplomatic struggle appeared secondary to a misplaced appreciation for some
kind of pompous ceremonial dress. On the far wall a far more unsavory indivisual
picked a chipped tooth as he leant almost insultingly on a marble bust of the nation's
loving leader.
Strolling towards the group with obscene confidence, Iron began to pick up
signs of self assuredness amongst the reactions of the parliamentary faithful which
perhaps would have worried him had he never encountered such complacency before.
Meanwhile Lincoln; forever the pessimistic of the pair, crept into the frame as if
a field mouse making its way past a snatch of chattering felines on it's way to a rich an
inviting slab of cheese. And it was the 'big cheese', in societal terms, that they had
inadvertently stumbled upon. She indulged herself sufficient time to look around and
consequently took in more than her less inquisitive college. This was evidently some
cabinet meeting hall; decorated with all the bizarre and useless trinkets of an emperor's
throne room. Logically, then, this pitiful collection of stone faced kwangos was likely
to be what was left of the cabinet; though the justification for the hefty, more vicious
looking man's presence was less forthcoming. She hopped forward in order to yank
Iron back a step, and with that the quartet at the table finally reacted.
"Surely you're aware we've been expecting you." The lead man; a medal clad
monstrosity with a shaky hanoverian accent, rose as he welcomed his 'guests' like the
arch villain in a cheap action flick. Iron shook his head and considered mounting a
premature and only marginally justified assault on his illustrious host before Lincoln
persuaded him otherwise with a weak punch in the ribcage. So despite this unseen
exchange, Wolfgang Malvolla continued his muttering salutation. "What a nuisance
you've been; what a nuisance. And what a shame. To go so far; to aim so high...." Iron
twisted his wrist around just in case a little too much pressure was soon to be levied
upon it, and swapped challenging glances with the standing man, who he in some way
felt he had more in common with than the other four. The difficulty with dictators and
dictatorships is that those astride them grow so whimsically egocentric that their grasp
on reality slips and fails dramatically, leaving them to constantly squabble with the
clumsiest reassuring jibes at their would be conquers whenever rebellion rears it's ugly
head. Malvolla was no different in this respect. West German by birth, he was a veteran
of the European conflict, and a personal friend, if such a corruption of the word could
be imagined, of Volscenzi's father. With the rank of naval captain and twenty years
military experience off and on, he was the expected member of this bare bones
parliament to take the lead should an appropriate situation arise. The aging bureaucrat
went on to introduce his fellow ministers.
Aerillio Solanio was the first; another military man; this time from the Mexican
army. He was the youngest of the four, and a junior minister of a recent army regime in
his home country who had been turned northwards with the lure of a far more lucrative
financial package. Giuseppe Gratiano was the third; a moody individual who had risen
through the ranks of the Italian parliament with consummate ease before it was sacked
by one of two revolts during the European conflict. Having to restart from the bottom
in a foreign country was not the ideal scenario, but being at the right hand of the head
of state had always been his favorite position; save at the head itself. The final so called
minister was Rodrigo Alvez Oberon, who had traded a gritty career as a kickboxer in
the seediest suburbs of old LA for a post as head of security in Volscenzi junior's
original military junta. Since then he had clawed his way up the slippery pole; a good
friend of his present day master since those bygone days when he had been ever so
slightly less rotten in the head.
The conclusion of this string of introductions reached, it was now time to
familiarize his guests with arguably the true villain of the piece were it possible to pick
just one from the available five. Orvar Olivia was a tall and well built man complete
with badly shaven chin plastered with a gory scar looking as if some carnivorous
predator had taken it upon itself to have a hungry crew at his face. Olivia; Malvolla had
so delightfully announced, was a bounty hunter hailing from the same remote village as
the dictator himself. 'Funny, that.' Lincoln had thought to herself, not paying Malvolla
the slightest bit of attention; 'maybe it's one of those insest aquired psychological
disorders you get centered specifically on one town; a local epidemic.' Also, it had
occurred to her that if, as Malvolla seemed to believe, this government was 'expecting'
them so much and was obviously so meticulously prepared, why did they need to
employ the services of a bounty hunter anyway? Olivia though; determined to prove his
profession, revealed a sparkling army knife and went on to shave the edge of that
troublesome chipped canine unconvincingly manliny with the diamond edged blade.
Lincoln nodded at him with comic appreciation; a brutal attraction to violence in even
the most unnecessary form available was clearly a prerequisite of the mercenary
profession. As too was a consummate lack of intelligence, and fortunately aside from
fighting prowess, Olivia was in actuality so dopey that if you abducted the runt of an
inbred family of mollusks, dropped it from its cot while singing disturbing gothic
lullabys onto the hard kitchen floor at regular intervals, deprived it of even a primary
school education, locked it in an empty room looking at a widescreen TV tuned into a
station contracted only to air constant reruns of inane chat shows 24-7 with the Dolby
surround sound cranked up to the max for thirteen years non stop, roped an
inexperienced house husband into baking its gray matter in an industrial pressure
cooker, secured it a job in the stock market and made it work overtime, let it go fifteen
grueling rounds with Muhammed Ali in a contest fought under ancient muay thai rules
where the combatants' ungloved fists would be peppered with shards of glass, got it
addicted to smoking pole sized zoots, paid an intoxicated car yard grease monkey to do
a lobotomy with the canckered exhaust from a beaten up Skoda, whacked its cranial
region with the lead piping from a life size Cluedo board, superglued headphones to its
ears and subjected it to a merciless ten hour stint of cheesy Swedish pop then hired a
student doctor in his fresher year to perform a high speed brain transplant between the
two, at the end of the day it would have been the mollusk who got the raw deal.
That prolonged and admittedly unspoken insult over, even a showbiz amateur
could have foreseen that a brawl was an imminent occurrence, and with her regrettable
wealth of experience, Lincoln was no amateur.
It was with almost unconscious expectation that she flicked a pair of
deceptively fragile looking fists into an unenthusiastic guard; unwittingly invoking the
ever eager Olivia to swoop thirstily at his intended prey. Lincoln weaved down and to
the left while her feet remained stoically rooted to the spot as she narrowly avoided a
skillful slash of that jolting jackknife; simultaneously achieving the apparently awkward
posture necessary to deliver a crushing right uppercut from below her opponent's
guard.
That done, she took a triple back step with semi urgent poise while the stunned
bounty hunter nursed a swelling lip akin to a precariously pumped and pierced water
balloon and wondered how someone so small could hit so hard. The answer, of course,
was well tuned speed and technique, but Lincoln would have been mad to consider
letting him in on that secret.
Meanwhile, the paper parliament's antipathy was growing with the pace of a
third world county's financial debt as the annual droughts set in. Afterall, it was always
a bitter disappointment when an investment goes sour; especially when your political
longevity depends on the gamble going good. But at least some pleasure spilled from
their visible stress; Iron was more than happy to indulge in an impromptu giggle at their
expense.
But back to the main event, and Olivia's patience was draining like a punter's
pocket in a Las Vegas casino. Putting his entire weight into a brutal hooking punch, he
found himself less than elated as his adversary utilized her sparkling reflexes to duck
effortlessly out of the firing line and leave him to clash fist first and body second into a
grotesque marble bust of his boss' late father. The embarrassment and the throbbing
agony of cracked and bruised knuckles was only compounded by the fact that when he
at least summed up the courage to turn himself around, there was Lincoln; versatile
guard up; hopping from one foot to the next as if she was the undisputed heavyweight
champ having signed for an exhibition bout against a hopeless novice who had never
before even seen a pair of boxing gloves let alone attained a comparable record.
Olivia gritted his teeth and plucked another military blade from a gastronomic
boot. Sliding one jagged edge against the other as if preparing to cut the harvest roast,
the bounty hunter trod tentatively forward as the unfazed Lincoln ducked her body
forward a little and moved from side to side like a tactical boxer looking to pick his
killer punch. Of course, this was precisely what she did; thudding a short left hook into
the side of Olivia's jaw with a speed and accuracy which bordered on perfection. But
that was hardly the word he would use. In fact, words were at present a very distant
concept in the humiliated hitman's head.
He stopped momentarily and spluttered- allowing Lincoln to drop her guard
and move back as if the injured party were taking the mandatory eight count, and
indeed, very soon Olivia was to wish he had thrown in the towel altogether. At least
that disfigured tooth of his would be of little more trouble; that last strike had swept it
almost completely off its haggard hinges. He angrily hurled one half of his high quality
knife set across the length of the meeting table like a spoilt child who's favorite toy had
been adopted by his toddler brother. Lincoln promptly interrupted his temper tantrum
by catching the bounty hunter's surprisingly sound left jab at the wrist and countering
with two punishing shin kicks; one low, one high, before turning at the hip and
whipping a flat foot back over his trapped arm and shoulder and down across his
frowning face in a motion which would have been artistic had it not been so
destructive. The professional killer's only positive emotion of the day came as he fell
back to observe that troublesome canine bounding along the finky faceted tiled floor
like a fugitive fragment fleeing from a pan of popping corn.
Malvolla and Gratiano exchanged submissive glances. Heir Volscenzi had
warned them of their potential house guest’s knack of spoiling perfectly good parties,
and now that the perspective bouncer had himself been quite positively bounced from
one side of the conference room to the other, the mathematical formulae of four against
two was looking a little less appealing. The horrified Malvolla; sorrowfully subjected to
an impertinent bout of social upheaval; reacted to the plight of his crestfallen hired gun
in impeccable autocratic style; backing off to an apparently safe distance and waving his
juniors into the jaws of death while he preferred to fumble with a scurrilous shotgun
and an entourage of assorted ammunition which he conveniently stored in a desk side
cabinet in the unlikely event of such an impromptu rebellion.
Perhaps expectedly, it was the former kickboxer Oberon who fancied his
chances; an observation Iron had impetuously realized he could use to his advantage.
Oberon almost took the head off a grotesque characature of a statue rather than that of
his opponent with a looping roundhouse. The rust of years off the circuit would have to
be shifted like a castigating coat of corrosive car paint being scraped clean with a blunt
and unkempt stripping instrument before he was to make any meaningful impression on
targets of the more evasive human variety.
Dealing with the less proficient Solanio and Gratiano was a menial task for the
innovative Lincoln, who would have been forgiven for apportioning herself guilt at
committing a misdemeanor not unlike bullying a pair of defenseless juveniles for their
lunch money had the physical disparity between the two warring factions of a once
comparably harmonious society been less pronounced. Gratiano immediately
committed the cardinal sin of wading in unprotected like a complacent frogman who
believed his many watery incursions had prompted him to spout gills, and was promptly
preempted by a cerebral left leg sidekick to the throat and another to the shin which
impelled the initial target area to drop a few feet as the afflicted leg caved in at the
knee, allowing the aggressor to deliver the final face high boot without having to
perform such an improbable stretch.
Meanwhile, Iron tracked back ponderously like the head of a dueling cobra;
biding his time before lunging back at his foe, who bored into perilously placed artifacts
of commercial conquest with his propeller like legs as if a guilled gyroscopic gimlet.
Jolting his head beneath an improvident roundhouse, Iron needed only to flick a waving
hand under Oberon's standing ankle to end his ephemeral performance, although a
gannetous pillar which endeavored to swallow him whole like a ravenous whale
ensured he at least retained a semi perpendicular posture. However, a rapier jumping
kick proceeded to coerce his stomach into a concave contortion, and with it to make
his head wilt like a dehydrated sunflower during a hose pipe ban; gifting Iron the
opportunity to plunge two lever like arms under his shoulders and onto his back as if
organic meat hooks, with which he enabled himself to prize the bedraggled minister
right off the floor as if hoisting a hefty treasure chest out of a sandy hole. In the
preordained space of time before the limited leverage ran dry, he had the foresight to
ram his upside down adversary head first into a punishing marble wall and run his face
across a cringe inducing borbled bookshelf like passing a potato over the assorted
blades of a peeler before having to drop the incensed soldier sharply onto his polka dot
punctured pout as if dumping a sack of garbage.
In a prolonged fit of fickle frustration, Solanio charged forward but was swiftly
cut down by Lincoln, who simply twisted to one side and slammed a rib fracturing
roundhouse at the oncoming adjutant, who dutifully tumbled onto the watery black
conference table and promptly slipped back off it teeth first like a diving salmon with a
drug induced lack of coordination. Malvolla winced in the corner as a superlative
backick put paid to Gratiano's unconvincing offensive and tossed his weapon back into
its hiding place having never been able to fire a shot in anger; hoping against rational
hope that the pair of intrepid trespassers had never noticed him point it in their general
direction.
"Perhaps you could tell us where we might find the boss." Iron perhaps should
have asked that before trashing his beloved boardroom, but then again Malvolla would
have reacted differently to that strategy without the benefit of hindsight. "Top floor."
Malvolla and Lincoln answered him in uneasy coordinace; afterall the dictator was a
cardboard cutout character true to his stereotypical roots. That information acquired;
or more accurately verified; the duo of detestable dissidents disappeared back through
those massive doors leaving Malvolla to his newfangled plans for a sleazy abandonment
of the authoritarian company he had worked for for so long.
Confronted with a poorly lit hallway ending in two steep adjacent staircases
which seemed to reach upwards into the darkness of space itself, Iron and Lincoln were
presented with a testing conundrum. Up was surely the direction to take; but which up?
"You take the left and I take the right?" Something in Lincoln's head teased her that
this was a test from god. "No; you take the left; I take the right." They swapped over
like stunt doubles in the wrong positions who would never if they remained where they
were standing be plausibly integrated into the shot just to accommodate Iron's
groundless and admittedly unconscious superstition. There was a certain something
telling both that either option was the wrong decision. Lincoln offered a cupped palm
intended to indicate agreement which Iron slapped with a little too much authority;
highlighting his own unusual sense of foreboding at the unknown trials ahead. As the
two began to move as slowly as they were able without being hurried by a didactic
force called destiny towards their respectively designated stairways, their hands grew
further apart; palms then fingers, each uncertain step feeling like a wrench twisting in
Iron's gut, the attritious moment where even the indentations of fingerprints on those
last contacting fingers lasting a lifetime. As they parted he felt as if a sword was being
passed through him; an anthropic agony. He felt he missed her already.
On to next chapter
Back to Main Page
Mail me
All material on this and connected pages are protected by general copyright. Please do not thieve anything from these pages without my consent
