George Martin - Lowball

Franny and Mollie were forced to duck as a lucky shot from one of the goons passed between them, shattering a mirror on the wall. Franny had finally lost his inhibitions, unleashing a spray of covering fire that silenced both goons.

Mollie was crying, whether out of fear or anger or the residual effects of the Dmitri mindfuck, Jamal couldn’t know. He wondered what these Tesseract shifts did to the girl-God knew that bounceback drained him, even when he was healthy.

El Monstro had been lingering off to one side (his height made it impossible for him to truly take cover). Now the eight-foot-tall joker abruptly headed for the arena door. Jamal grabbed him. “Hey, big guy, where are you going?” He nodded toward the “door.” “New York is that way.”

“I’m not going. I like it here!” El Monstro insisted.

For a moment Jamal was furious-this was just the latest entry in a long litany of stupidity he had endured since learning about Wheels and the missing jokers. He was out of time, out of patience. He was not going to let this big goon stop him from completing this mission, no more than he had let Rustbelt stop him from winning American Hero ! He trained his Glock at El Monstro’s vast mid-section. “Look,” Jamal said, “I don’t know what they’ve done to your head here, but you’re going through that door.”

With no apparent windup, no warning, El Monstro simply swung one of his giant arms and metal fists toward him. It was slow, but still too fast for Jamal Norwood to dodge.

The massive fist slammed into the right side of his face.

It was worse than his first deliberate jump from a tall building, in Halloween Night XIII . He had time for the sickening realization that there was going to be no bounceback, that Stuntman was falling fading dying.

Everything seemed to slow down.

Franny’s vision narrowed to a tunnel that showed him only Jamal’s face, blood flying from his mouth, his right eye dangling loose, the deep indentation in the side of his skull. The agent seemed to collapse in stages, until he lay on the floor like a broken toy, casually discarded. Mollie was screaming in his ear, trying to hide behind him, yanking at the handcuffs that joined them.

Franny yelled. It wasn’t even words, just an incoherent sound of rage and grief and denial. He brought up his gun.

And suddenly the dragging weight on his left arm was gone. He whirled in time to see Mollie, a paper clip clutched between her fingers, step backwards through an opening that afforded him a brief glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, flipping him the bird. Then the doorway snapped shut.

Of course the door to Fort Freak was also gone.

Trapped. Panic clogged his throat.

The whine of a bullet past his head brought him back to the precariousness of his situation. Franny dove behind a sofa. He heard El Monstro yelling to the remaining guards, “I’ll get him.”

Despite his ringing ears from all the gunfire Franny could hear and even feel El Monstro’s footfalls as he closed on him. He leaped up and vaulted over the back of the sofa. He snapped off a few shots at the last remaining guard on the catwalk overhead, who ducked into cover.

El Monstro was closing. It wasn’t that he was particularly fast, but he was so big that each stride covered a lot of ground. The buffet table was on Franny’s left. Franny’s eyes flicked across the offerings-deli meats, bread, cheese, a mound of caviar, a soup tureen set on a hot plate. The handle of a ladle invited someone to try a bowl.

Franny snatched out the ladle brimming with hot soup. The smell of paprika hit his nose. About half spilled as he whirled, but there was enough left in the big ladle for Franny to flick into El Monstro’s face. The big joker howled, and clawed at his face and eyes. Guess it was hot not sweet paprika, Franny thought inanely. He closed with the big joker, screwed the barrel of his gun into El Monstro’s ear, and pulled the trigger twice.

Until this day he had never actually fired his gun outside the range. Most cops went through their entire careers and never fired their piece much less killed someone. Now Franny had killed a man. A man he’d supposedly come to rescue.

It wasn’t like in the movies. It wasn’t even like watching Jamal shoot Dmitri. His knees suddenly felt like they’d been replaced with rubber bands, and he found himself sitting on the floor. A bullet creased the air where his head had been only seconds before.

There was no time for shock or regret. If he was getting out of here alive he needed to take care of that asshole on the catwalk, and find his way to the outside. After that-well, he’d think about after that once he got that far.

Access to the catwalk wasn’t immediately obvious. There was another burst of gunfire from above that sent Franny scrambling for cover, but someone on the high ground always has the advantage, and Franny found himself knocked sideways from the force of the bullet that slammed into his left shoulder.

The shock wore off all too quickly, and the pain hit. It was worse then anything he’d ever experienced. When he broke an arm playing hockey, slashed his leg on a submerged tree while swimming in a lake that summer at camp nothing could match this searing agony. Franny screamed and fell to his knees.

Despite the torment some part of his brain kept working. He needs to think you’re dead. Franny collapsed on the floor, the pistol hidden beneath him. With luck the goon would leave, or come down to make sure Franny was dead.

At which point Franny would kill him. Or try to kill him. Only, God, he didn’t want to kill anybody else. Ever.

Blood was trickling from the wound. Franny could feel his shirt becoming wet and sticky. He listened to his heartbeats like a slow deep drum in his ears. The pain flared and ebbed also in time to that primal clock. Franny gazed into the staring eyes of El Monstro prone on the floor near him. He wanted to look away, but didn’t dare move. He wanted to close his eyes, but didn’t dare risk it.

Overhead Franny heard an agitated conversation in what he guessed was Russian. Two sets of footsteps. A door closing. Franny counted another thirty heartbeats and then cautiously climbed to his feet. Nothing. Pressing a hand to his shoulder he staggered to Jamal, knelt and, pressing his fingers against the SCARE agent’s throat, felt for a pulse. There was none. He hadn’t expected to find one. Not with the side of the agent’s skull crushed in in that horrifying way.

“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May the soul of this faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace, Amen.” Franny lifted his head, crossed himself, pulled the cross from his collar, kissed it, and tucked it away. “I’ll get you home to Big Bill and your mom and Julia. I promise,” he said softly. It was stupid. It wasn’t like Jamal could hear. But it did give him a purpose, and jolted him into motion.

Franny moved to the buffet table, shook out a napkin, folded another into a pad, and made a makeshift bandage. Got it tied using one hand and his teeth. Next task: Find a way out. He searched through bedrooms that smelled of sweat and jizz and perfume.

Eventually he found a door that looked like it might lead to stairs that would lead to the catwalk. It was locked. He went back and found the body of one of the goons either Jamal or he had shot. The man had taken a header off the catwalk, and his legs and neck were bent at odd angles. The Uzi was undamaged. Franny carried it back to the door. Bracing the gun against his hip, he held down the trigger. Bullets whanged and bounced, but eventually the lock gave up.

Up the stairs. There were a couple of doors off the catwalk. Franny picked one at random. It put him in a long hallway pieced by doors. At first he edged up to them, then took five-second looks inside, the Uzi at the ready. They were all empty and they all appeared to be offices. Computers that would have been old in 1990 sat on desks.