Just doing my job

“ARGGHHH!!” The mugger struggled in my grip, terrified by the view of Seattle our unique position offered.

“Stop fidgeting or I’ll drop you.” I warned, still feeling a little guilty: she was barley out of her teens, and had been living rough for some time if her smell was anything to go by, “Now, why did you try and hold me up a knife point?”

“I just needed some money!”

“Yeah, that I worked out for myself. What did you need the money for? Drugs?”

“I don’t do drugs!” She protested, trying to loosen my grip on her collar, despite what that would result in, “I need to eat.”

“Couldn’t you go to a shelter?”

“No way man: those places are full of bible-bashers!”

“Well I’m afraid I can’t let you go if I think you’re just going to try and mug someone else.”

“Come on: I just need enough money to get home.”

“And where is that?”

“Portland.”

“Hum.” I rubbed my chin; “I may be able to help you there.”

*********************************************************************

“You gave some street kid my Cadillac?” Ren protested next mourning, “Are you insane?”

“More than likely.” I nodded, “But she needed to get home, and I wasn’t about to fly her there myself. And as we don’t need the car ourselves anymore…”

“You gave her my car!” Ren protested again.

“A good deed is its own reward.” Artemus shrugged, not even looking up from his book.

*********************************************************************

“This is embarrassing.” I complained for the hundredth time, “When you said you knew someone who could lend us a plane, I presumed it would be able to fly.”

“Stop complaining you big baby!” Ren smiled, leaning back in the pilots seat, “It’s less conspicuous this way.”

“Yeah, sure.” I muttered, wishing there was some way to cushion my back against the weight of the ancient DC-3 I was strapped the to ceiling of so we could pretend to fly it into Russia from Japan.

One of Ren’s underworld contacts had provided us with the dilapidated airframe, claiming it was all he could get in our price range. I admit the plan had merit, but had still cost us more than it was worth as scrap.

I tried not to think about the fact that I could barely even feel the weight: whatever the hell it was that had happened to me in New Mexico seemed to be at least semi-permanent, and I was sure Ren and Artemus had noticed. Ren had mentioned reputably that I was easting and sleeping less than before, and I could tell from the look in her eye that she was worried.

Personally, I was scared shitless.

*********************************************************************

I have often lamented on my complete lack of skill with languages.

Hell, I can barley comprehend English sometimes, and my attempts to learn French are best not spoken about near anyone who can.

It is no surprise then that I was completely at a loss when we landed in Vladivostok. The only Russian I know I leaned from Bond films and Tom Clancy novels, and that’s not very helpful when you’re trying to book tickets on the trans-Siberian railway.

Ren, on the other hand, has a natural affinity for languages, and can speak almost a dozen fluently. Mainly she uses them to swear at people, but at times it proves useful, and the three of us were soon on a train headed for Moscow and Star City.

*********************************************************************

A wise man once wrote ‘If everything seems to be going well, you obviously don’t know what the hell’s going on’. His name was Murphy.

And you know what? He was right.

The brakes screeched in protest as the train slowed, the dark night sky filled with bright stars that gave very little illumination. I turned over and tried to get back to sleep, thinking it was just another stop to drop of mail or supplies to some middle-of-nowhere village.

Being forcible thrown from my bed changed my mind instantly.

Ren landed on top of me, cursing in what I believe was Dutch, while Artemus was able to grab the rail running down the side of his cot in time to stop himself falling.

“Something’s wrong.” Ren looked out the window, grabbing her cloths from where she’d dropped them on the floor of our cabin.

“You think?” I asked sarcastically, pulling my trousers up and grabbing my shoes before running out into the corridor.

The train was in chaos: people were screaming and yelling, obviously demanding answers from the overwhelmed staff. I silently opened a door and disappeared into the night, not even noticing the sub-zero temperature as I made my way along the side of the train, heading for the front.

The engine looked like it had been involved in a head-on collision with a mountain: it was bent and buckled, almost unrecognisable. Something had hit it, something either very big or moving very fast.

I clenched my fists automatically, and they started to glow in the dark night.

“What happened?” Ren and Artemus appeared in a flash of light.

“We’ve got company.” I muttered, scanning the horizon as best I could, “Get ready for a fight…”

Two men ran at me, trying to knock me down. I stepped to the side at the last moment, grabbing one of them and ripping his mask of to reveal the now familiar face of a Brown-clown. More of them erupted from the snow; their white and grey camouflage suits making them hard to spot in the near total darkness. I snapped the clone’s neck without a second thought, drooping his body at my feat as I readied myself for the fight.

Artemus disappeared in a flash, reappearing behind a clone and punching him in the back before flashing out again. He repeated the same move several times, always teleporting out before his opponent could react, dodging the return blows. Ren was more of a traditionalist, hitting the apparently inexhaustible clones so hard they were knocked back into the darkness they had come from. It was a delaying tactic, something to keep us busy while someone more powerful moved in. but even knowing this, I found it hard to work out what was going on.

But I’d recognise the bastard who showed up next anywhere.

No one knows his real name, and he’s usually called Reaper. He used to be a freelance assassin and mercenary. I’d been part of the team who’d finally managed to take him down and put him in cryo-stasis two years earlier. He was one of the most dangerous people on the planet, able to absorb someone’s energy to the point where they either died or fell into a coma.

A superhuman vampire, if you like. Ten of us had been sent after him, and only four of us had walked away, another three so badly drained that they were still in a coma.

He made a move to grab Ren from behind, so I grabbed a Brown clone and threw him at the anarchist, knocking her out of the way just in time. She rolled across the snow-covered ground until she finally came to a stop, apparently unconscious.

“Hey, asshole!” I shouted at Reaper, ripping a length of metal from the demolished locomotive, “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” I lifted my weapon like a club; swing it around my head.

“Hello again Nathan.” Reaper smiled, “I was hoping I’d get a shot at you: they said I was to try and bring you in alive, but accidents can and will happen.”

He ran at me, and I swatted him out of the way with the steal pipe, knowing full well it wasn’t enough to put him out of the fight. The only problem was that it only took a few seconds of physical contact form him to drain you, and I couldn’t risk him getting that close.

“So you want to play games, do you?” Reaper lifted himself off the ground, grabbing a rail from the railway track, brandishing it like a sword, “Ok, let’s play!”

He was a lot stronger and faster than I remembered, probably a match for me as I had been, but I found I was able to dodge his attacks, blocking those I could and getting in a few good hits of my own. The only problem was, it didn’t slow him down one bit.

We continued fighting like that for sometime, move and counter move, until finally our weapons gave out. I dropped my club, trying to work out what to do next. Reaper circled to the right, a dangerous grin on his face as I mirrored the move, keeping my distance.

I realised to late what he had in mind, and he lifted Ren from the ground, holding her by the collar of her coat while holding his other hand close to the side of her face.

“So, what’s it going to be, Nathan?” Reaper smiled, “Your friend here, or you?”

“You bastard!” I spat, unsure what to do, “Let her go?”

“What’s in it for me?”

“You’re a mercenary: you said your bosses want me alive? Let her go and you can take me in.”

“I’d rather kill you.”

“You wont get paid if you do that.”

“A small price to pay.” Reaper grinned, moving his hand closer to Ren’s face.

Artemus reappeared out of nowhere, grabbing his friend by the waist and teleporting out again, leaving just Reaper and me to fight it out.

“We finish this the old fashioned way.” I changed up my fists, knowing that my only chance was to take him down hard and fast, “First guy to die loses!”

Reaper ran at me as fast as he could, and time seamed to slow down. I reached back with my right fist; ready to punch him as hard as I could when he reached me. His feet seamed to be made of lead as he made his way towards me; his teeth bear as he grinned insanely. My fist started to move forward with disturbing slowness, and too late I saw Reaper raise his own hand to intercept the blow aimed at his head.

His hand caught my fist, and pain creped up my arm as he stated to drain my energy. His grinning face continued to close my own, and I suddenly saw a look of surprise in his eyes. The glow coming from my fist started to grow, visible even through Reapers hand.

The light grew, spreading down the assassins arm and up to his shoulder as his face contorted into a mask of agony. He opened his mouth to scream, but only a bright light emerged as his entire body was consumed in flame.

Time seemed to return to normal as I was thrown backwards.

“What the hell did you do to him?” Ren asked, leaning heavily on Artemus for support, “I didn’t know you could do that?”

“Neither did I.” I looked at my hands, shocked.

“The first thing we do when we get to Luna is have you looked at by a doctor: this isn’t normal.” Ren looked concerned.

“Yeah, good idea.” I looked round as I heard the sound of distant helicopters approaching through the night sky, “You up to flying?”

“Are you kidding?” Ren raised an eyebrow, “I can barley stand.”

“Ok, then just hold on.” I took the two of them by the hand and took off into the night, heading west.

To Be Continued…