But not scared. Not yet. Instead, he was
getting pissed. Pain did that to him, sent him into rages that made
him want to do something, anything, the adrenaline driving the need
to strike out to the forefront of his mind. It became a little
cycle; Brian would struggle, the missionary would adjust his grip
slightly, and Brian would again be forced to stop as his elbow
creaked in protest, spears of pain shooting up his ligaments. He
knew just how it would sound, like a chicken leg being popped out
of its socket. He looked around the coffeeshop, but the other
patrons seemed frozen—even the barista was simply watching, making
no move towards the phone. “Call the—“ Brian tried to urge her, his
voice breaking off in a hiss as the pressure again shifted.
Both men were still calmly smiling with
their small eyes looking intently at Brian as he struggled. The
first released his grip on Brian’s trapezius, the relief unnoticed
as Armlock Man twisted some more, just to keep his attention. His
partner calmly drew a small black case out of the breastpocket of
his black suit, unzipping it and laying it on the table next to
Brian. He looked down and saw it contained, wrapped in neat little
black bands of elastic, a small black vial and hypodermic needle.
Brian watched the missionary—now dubbed Needle Man in the back of
his mind—reach for it, a soft click made him turn his head, and he
saw Armlock man matter-of-factly using a knife with a boxy handle
to slice through his jacket and shirt all the way from his wrist to
his shoulder. The leather and fabric put up no more resistance to
the blade’s edge than water, and Brian wondered at exactly how
sharp that meant the knife had to be. As he saw a line of red
appear up his now-bare arm, he realized that it was even sharper
than that, having sliced into his skin without his feeling it.
Now he began to be a bit scared. He could
hear Needle Man tapping the side of the hypo, and realized that he
was about to be injected with something that would, he suspected,
remove even the quickly diminishing choices now available.
He groped for some memory of some counter,
some pretty move from his aikido classes to get out of the arm
lock. Nothing came to mind; his joint was bent further up than he’d
ever believed it could be, and his vein in the hollow of his elbow
was a plump target for Needle Man’s two finger tap-tap, preparing
to inject.
There was nothing. So he just moved. In the
only direction available to him: up.
Brian’s knee came up sharply to his chest,
and he got the toe of his shoe up onto the edge of the table with
just enough grip to let him push up fast enough and high enough to
relieve the tension in his arm. Suddenly Armlock Man’s grip became
another anchor point, and Brian used it to continue his motion up
and forward, piking his body in a forward somersault, his legs
folding over on either side of the missionary’s head, using the
hand as a brace to keep him from falling to the floor as he
desperately tucked his head and plunged forward.. It was a simple
move that Brian had done many times in contact improv dance, but
always carefully, making sure that his partner was ready to take
his weight.
Now he didn’t care. He slammed his legs
down as hard as he could, knowing that the man’s body would cushion
his as they fell to the floor.
Except that they didn’t. The man didn’t
move. It was like slamming his legs down on a thick pipe. For a
ridiculous moment, Brian hung there upside down, looking up at an
inverted and puzzled expression on the other missionary’s face.
Craning his neck, he looked up and saw Armlock Man looking down at
him with an ironic smile, and his hand was released as the
hard-eyed man raised his fists, preparatory to to smashing them
into Brian’s groin.
Brian swung his arms behind the man’s knees
and poked his stiff fingers into the back of the man’s knee joints,
at the same time kipping his body out just a bit with an arch of
the back.
Armlock man folded back like he’d been hit
with a wrecking ball. The added push from Brian accelerated his
fall and his head hit the ground with an audible crunch. Brian used
the momentum to roll up to his feet, not allowing himself to think
about the sticky liquid now pooling around his boots. He turned
just in time to see Needle Man lunging at him with the hypo, no
longer smiling, but his face in a savage grimace of rage.
Lunges Brian did remember from his aikido
class, and without thinking he stepped out of the line of the
thrust and towards Needle Man, one hand sweeping down to grab the
wrist while the other went to the shoulder, black cloth of the suit
feeling slick under his hand.
He wasn’t trying to grab it,
though, and simply put enough pressure to add to the missionary’s
forward momentum, swinging his hips in a
tenkan
swirl that brought the man’s
torso around in a spiral that ended abruptly with his head slamming
into the counter under the startled gaze of the barista.
She looked up at at Brian from the two black-suited
men lying on the floor. “Dude. I think you fucking killed
him.”
Brian turned to look where she pointed, and saw
that there was a stain on the floor under the head of Armlock man,
a growing dark liquid that spread viscously along the floor. “Fuck…
” Brian said, softly. He was just starting to become cognizant
again, and most of coming back to rational thought seemed to
involve the idea that he was really in a world of shit.
“Nah. Just drained him for a bit.” Both Brian and
the barista turned at the voice from the door, where Sullivan was
leaning against the jamb. “I’m surprised, bucko, I had you written
off as another dead fucking idiot.”
Brian found himself furious. “Didn’t much feel like
sticking around to find out, though, did you? Fucking coward…
”
Sullivan gave him a coldly appraising stare.
“Obviously I only had the first part wrong. You’re still a fucking
idiot. I tried to get you out of here and you thought it was a ploy
to get my lips into your package, you arrogant sumbitch. And I will
not sacrifice myself, no, for a guy who isn’t all that cute to
begin with.” He looked down at where Needle Man was beginning to
stir, and pushed off from the door jamb. Walking over, he very
carefully put the heel of his boot against the side of the man’s
chin. Just as the man’s eyes snapped open, he snapped his foot
down, hard, and there was another crunching sound as the man’s
vertebrae were twisted apart.
“What… why did you… ”
“You didn’t hear me, did you?
Takes a helluva lot more than this to kill these things. But I
gotta admit, you did slow them down some. What the hell kind of
martial art was that?” As he talked, Sullivan pulled Brian towards
the door, and this time he did not resist, until they got to the
door. Suddenly he looked around the room, and realized that in
spite of the fact that two men—
or
whatever—
had been apparently killed in the
room, no one was reacting. In fact, the guy with the laptop was
back to typing, the barista was reading her book… as if they
couldn’t even see the two men in the dark suits—
The dark suits that were moving. Slowly, but
unmistakably, the limbs were beginning to rearrange themselves, to
push up against the floor.
Brian decided to save the questions for later, and
let Sullivan hustle him out the door.
III
“Are you a sinner, Brian?”
They were sitting at the kitchen table of
Sullivan’s house, a suburban ticky-tacky special indistinguishable
from the hundreds of starter homes in the subdivision around them.
Brian had seen. The inside was decorated in the in the prairie
style, neat flat planes of dark wood with occasional personal
touches, like the crumpled magazine next to the couch or the dvd
casually tossed on the floor next to the television.
Brian had looked closer as they walked in, though,
and realized a few subtle touches hinted at the proclivities of the
owner. The candles on the end table were clear tallow, melted
crenellations indicating their utility beyond decoration. The arms
of the chairs had holes bore in them, which just happened to be the
right size to attach restraints, and the hanging plants were
hanging on very large industrial-looking hooks,
Sullivan had laughed as he watched Brian assess the
room. “yeah, yeah, I know, it’s only subtle if you’re vanilla.” He
had taken him to the kitchen, where a large and very sturdy table
now held two Sierra Pale Ales on woven straw coasters, and the two
of them had simply sat quietly for a while, letting the banality of
the backyard calm the absurd violence of their morning.
The question that had finally broken that silence
didn’t seem out of place, and Brian gave it some serious
consideration. “Sinner? Honestly? No, I don’t think so. Not by my
own moral standards.”
“And what are they?”
“Stolen. From a sci-fi author named Heinlein.”
Brian watched the other man for the eye-rolling reaction he often
got when he mentioned the writer, but Sullivan just grunted and
took another drink of beer. “Not entirely, of course. But I liked
his definition: the only sin lies in hurting someone else
unnecessarily.” He grinned for a moment. “I think he added
something like ‘hurting yourself unnecessarily isn’t a sin, it’s
just stupid’, but as moral codes go, I figure I could do
worse.”
Sullivan nodded. “You’ve got that right. Much
worse. And most people do. It’s a brilliantly rigged game. First
you convince people that sex is bad. Since everybody can’t help but
want it, everybody feels guilty. Then after scaring the bejeezus
out of them with hell, or AIDS, or the imminent threat of weapons
of marital destruction, offer them a way out, salvation, if they
only sign up with the status quo.” He grimaced. “Fuckers.
Information age was the worst thing that ever happened to us as a
species. Gave them the ability to control and censor what almost
everyone sees or, more to the point, believes, and there’s not much
we can do.” Sighing, he fiddled with his beer glass. “Except what
we do. Fight a holding action, guerrilla warfare, try to keep the
flame alive, all that happy horseshit.”
Brian got a feeling of deep
weariness from the man’s voice. “Can we back up here a bit? Please?
I’m still not sure what’s going on, really. I mean, after those…
whatever, terminissionaries, I guess, tried to grab me, I can tell
something’s going on, and I know I need your help. I mean… ” He
realized he was rambling, and decided to follow the advice of his
favorite Spaniard. “No. It is too much. Let me sum up.” He was
gratified to see a half smile appear on the man’s face.
Never fails, everybody loves the Princess
Bride
, he thought. “I know something’s
going on. I know that I don’t know what that something is, really,
and most of all, I know that what I don’t know is probably going to
get me killed.” He paused again. “And possibly not only me. First
and most important question: are these people going to go after my
family?”
Sullivan looked startled. “You have a family? You
look too young to… ” his voice trailed off as Brian waved a hand
dismissively.
“I started early. Forget about it. Fact is, I have
two daughters, one who lives with me and my wife—“ he ignored
Sullivan’s raised eyebrow—“and one who lives with my ex.”
“I’m not too worried about my wife—she’s in New
York City for the weekend, visiting a lover—but right now both of
my daughters are with my ex, it’s her weekend, and I’m worried
about a sudden visit from Men in Black Suits.”
Sullivan nodded. “Ok, that’s a fair approximation.
But they rarely go after infants, so—“
“They’re thirteen and fifteen.” Brian was annoyed
now at that shocked expression that kept coming over his host’s
face. His voice got harsh. “Look, here it is: I got my girlfriend
pregnant when I was 18. I joined the Marines, we got married, had
another kid, I got out of the Marines, we got divorced. So I’m 36
now with a couple of teenage kids, my wife and I have a polyamorous
marriage, and so on weekends I go out to play. And this weekend I
seem to have picked the wrong woman to play with, and now I have a
hairy guy telling me that my life as I know it is over because the
missionaries are now trying to stick me with needles and some sort
of vast right-wing conspiracy is after my vital fluids.” He paused
for breath and lowered his voice to a calm level. “Is that about
it? Did I miss anything? Because I need to know if my kids are
going to be in danger.”
Sullivan was openly grinning now, obviously
enjoying the rant. “You know, you’re cute when you’re angry.” He
chortled at Brian’s disgusted sigh. “Relax. Yeah, you pretty much
got it. Right-wing is kind of limiting, though. And life isn’t
over; it’s just that you have to become a responsible adult,
instead of being that immature person you’ve been since, when was
it? Eighteen?” Brian nodded, and Sullivan continued.
“OK. Well, then consider yourself lucky, because
you’ve had eighteen years of frivolous youth. And you say you’re
polyamorous?” Brian nodded, and Sullivan looked thoughtful. “That
word means a lot of things to a lot of people. Mind telling me what
that means to you and your wife,” he paused expectantly.
“Bec. Short for Rebecca. Never Becky.” Brian looked
down at his beer and realized that he had, as usual, peeled most of
the label off absent-mindedly. “It means that we are committed to
each other, but not exclusively; we allow for the possibility of
romantic relationships outside of our marriage.” He paused again,
gathering his thoughts, and went on. “We’re not swingers, per se.
We don’t go out trying to have sex with other people. Lots of our
play never actually has any sexual contact, but it tends to be in a
sexual context, if that makes sense.” He smiled a little. “But
occasionally we meet someone who things just click with, and then,
well, it’s great to be able to act on that without worrying about
cheating, or jealousy, or the end of our marriage or anything like
that.” He looked up suddenly, eyes narrowing. “You still haven’t
told me if my daughters are safe.”