It had taken him forever to think of the idea but it had to be perfect. If she was going to lose her gun they would rarely if ever take her flashlight, or if she was going to lose her gun she wouldn't lose her flashlight. At least he hoped she wouldn't. In the very least she could use it as a backup. He was fiddling with the thing in his hand. It was for her birthday, he saw it on some stupid advertisement when he'd been on twitter and couldn't resist getting it for her. It was absolutely perfect.
Reading the instructions he inserted the two AAA batteries into the thing after opening it, deciding that he needed to test it out or at least load it with the batteries before giving it to her. Holding it in his hand he looked it over. It was small and had a tiny flashlight on the front that wasn't an LED light but it would do in a crunch. He flipped the thing over in his hand twisting it slightly. Helen would love it, at least she better. He held it close to his face and pressed the button. Nothing happened. His eyebrows furrowed and he pressed it again. Again there was nothing.
"What the hell?" He shook it lightly and then it was as if a light bulb went off in his head. Moving to the small stainless steel fridge in the corner of his office he pressed the edge of the thing against the door and hit the button. Immediately he jumped back when it snapped at him and the blue arc showed up flickering before his eyes. "Cool."
He didn't wait a beat before doing it again and watching with wide and childlike eyes as the arc zapped from one end to the other. "That's awesome!" He almost shouted, his heart pounding with delight and his body practically bouncing. He sat back in his chair flipping the thing over in his fingers from one end to the other. He picked up the small piece of paper that was folded in with the plastic that had covered the object in its packaging. The effects of this item will be short-lived and will not adversely affect the assailant. The purpose of this item is to allow adequate time to retreat from an assailant in order to request help from 911. He read it over again, his eyes following the lines carefully before staring once again at the item between his fingers.
No way was that thing going to take down a fully grown man, it was puny. But it said it would. Maybe he could keep it in his pocket until some unsuspecting abnormal that needed it could be tested on, but maybe that wasn't such a good idea because then Helen would see it and he really didn't want her to know about it before her birthday. Not to mention her birthday was that very day and he was lucky he had even remembered. Shaking his head and ridding that idea from his thoughts he pulled up the plastic and pieced together the parts that he'd diced apart with a pair of sharp scissors and began to read.
1 second burst will shock and disorient your assailant.
2 second burst will cause muscles spasms and loss of bodily control.
3 second burst will cause massive muscle spasms and disable the assailant.
He grinned at the last one: three seconds and the dude would be flopping on the ground like a live fish out of water desperate to get back in, fluids and everything. He grinned at the image stuck in his mind. He doubted it; with only two AAA batteries in the thing there was no way that it would do that. There was no possible way.
Biting his lip he had an idea. He needed to test it. It wouldn't do good to send Helen on a mission and have the thing not work when she needed it to. He would simply press the sleek flashlight against his arm for a second and see if he felt any shock from it. He doubted he would, with only two little batteries there was no way there would be enough juice in the thing to do that.
Moving his left hand he pulled up his sleeve on his right arm and pressed the small and unoffending item to it making sure the two tiny prongs were touching his bare skin. Taking a deep breath he depressed the button and immediately his body tensed. He opened his eyes and he was on the floor looking up at the ceiling. It felt like some wrestler had barreled into the room and had completely body slammed him once or twice onto the floor and then jumped up and down a few times on his chest just to make a point. He was in the fetal position, his head upturned, his pants drenched, tears were in his eyes and his nipples burning like someone had taken a hot iron to them and refused to remove it until there was nothing left of his skin.
He didn't want to move. He didn't think that he could move. His legs were tingling so bad that he didn't think they would support his weight not to mention the fact that his arm was bent rather ungracefully and extremely awkwardly under his body forcing him to not be able to even think about lifting himself up off the floor that his face was now planting itself into.
Drawing in deep breaths he calmed his racing heart and started to think about moving. No doubt someone would have heard the massive clunk when he'd hit the ground. He really needed to sit up. Swishing his arm from under his body he was thankful to realize that it wasn't broken at all, not that he was sure he'd be able to feel it if it was broken. Using both palms against the ground he shoved upward with all the energy he could muster and sat on his bum leaning against the desk.
Looking down he saw that the front of his pants were drenched through with piss, his tablet was sitting next to him, very much broken from the series of cracks running through the screen. His phone was about ten feet away from him on the other side of the room, the chair that he had been sitting in was overturned and in the opposite direction of the phone, the desk was lying on its side and his muscles wouldn't stop twitching. Lifting a hand he brushed it over his face and felt the drool on the back of his hand. Pulling it away suddenly he realized that more than half of his face was numb and he couldn't feel anything. That probably wouldn't help with the speaking and explaining bit as soon as someone found him. Shifting he felt a squishiness under his bum and determined that he must have crapped his pants but he couldn't smell anything.
He sighed and smacked his head against the bottom of the desk since it was overturned and that's what he was leaning against. His eyes flickered upwards and he saw the smoke lightly swirling and fading away. He must have caught his hair on fire or something from the electricity because that most definitely wasn't normal. Cringing he let his head drop when he heard the heels click against the floor outside. Damn him for thinking that tasering himself would result in something less than a three second burst. Apparently when in the process of being tased one could not pull the machine away from one's skin and one could not unpress one's finger from the button of doom.
Tears were streaming down his face when she kneeled next to him, cupping his face. "Will, what the hell happened?" She took in the sight before her and was shocked by what she saw, and smelt.
"I… um… I didn't mean for this to happen."
"What did you do?"
His eyes were closing and his cheeks burning like he hadn't known they could when numb. "I got your birthday present and I had to try it out and I… I think I pissed and shit myself."
"I have no doubt about that." She was resting back on her heels then, her knees supporting her weight as she squatted. "What did you get me?" Her eyes were twinkling mischievously.
"A Taser."
She was fully laughing at him before standing and starting to right everything. She pulled him to his feet after a few more minutes and wiped the tears from her own eyes. "You tased yourself?"
"Had to make sure it worked."
She couldn't hold back the laughter any more than she could the first time he'd answered her. "I can't believe you tried it on yourself. Haven't you been stunned enough by Henry's stunners?"
"Apparently not."
She started to walk him to his room. "Come along, the effects will wear off soon enough." She was giggling like a school girl as they walked and passed other residents along the corridor.
"I'm never going to live this down am I?"
"Hardly."
