Session Three: Remembrance
"Holy Fucking Mother of God!" Spike shouted as I swerved through four lanes of traffic, shooting between cars at speeds too reckless even for the craziest wheelman. "Get down," Vicious snapped from the back seat as the back windscreen smashed apart, bullets spraying through it. Not missing a beat, he shot back up with a semi-auto and started firing through the window at our pursuers. I swerved again, my jaw tightly clamped, trying to lose them between two eighteen-wheelers.
"Jesus," said Spike as he popped out the window just after clearing the trucks. He squeezed off two shots at their tires blowing out one, causing them to careen into a guardrail. He slid back in, popped out the empty clip and retrieved the last one from the glove compartment. The chasers blew up with a roil of fire which then settled to a mild blaze causing others to get distracted and slide into it or each other. He gazed at something which passed quickly, "umm, Laura?"
"Yeah?"
"You missed the exit."
"Shit," my eyes narrowed, "hang on." Both Vicious and Spike obligingly clung to something having grasped the nature of my driving. I smashed my foot on the brake, turning in a tight one-eighty that would've made James Bond cry with envy, and raced into the on coming traffic. " Holy fuck! Are you nuts?" was the general opinion as I found an opening, hit the brake again and slid smoothly down the exit. I eased the car into the nearest gas station and parked. Everyone was silent as the engine ticked letting out excess heat. Spike and I let out a collective sigh of relief and even Vicious seemed to relax though it was hard to tell under his cold exterior. We sat and waited as the evening wore on. No one appeared to be following us, so I pulled out and headed back to the city by a different route.
Like I said that was the part of my job that I actually enjoyed.
As the streetlights turned on and the sun faded out, Spike had the audacity to pull out a cigarette and attempt to smoke it in my car. I snatched it out of his mouth, to his surprise, and flicked it out the window, "not in this car you don't!"
"This ain't your office you know," he glared. I glared back, "as far you're concerned it is." I tapped the built in computer screen on the dashboard that allowed me to access files on the run. He ended up sulking for the duration of the trip and said nothing. Point for my side! It's been an on-going problem with all the guys but Fratboy Spike was the worst. Every single time he came into my office it seemed that he just had to have his quota of nicotine right there. Personally I wouldn't mind it if my office had proper ventilation, which it didn't, and if it didn't have highly sensitive (and illegal) equipment, which it did. So, for time immemorial, the Cancer Stick War raged on which to one instance I had to point a gun literally under his nose to make him put it out. All I had to do with others was just glare at them; but then again they were just simple-minded flunkies.
One time I glared down Vicious, but that was a once in a lifetime chance.
We came to stop at a tall non-discript building, as if any building in Alba City was non-discript, and shuffled through a back door. I looked back at my beat up Dodge Intrepid; this was the third time in two months that I had to have the rear windscreen replaced. No matter, I could get it fixed off the record but it would be hard being that nobody makes this style anymore. So many memories…
I turned, thinking of the day when I wouldn't have to be sneaking through back doors.
I finally reached my office only to find that green haired lunkhead sprawled on a sofa smoking, "you really enjoy this, don't you?"
"Yep," he took a long drag and blew out several cloudy rings just to emphasize the point. I ignored that and sat at my desk to finish a report for Mao. Spike got up and stretched walking over to see what I was doing. My mind reeled just thinking about how ridiculously skinny he was. I mean, you could mistake him for a coat rack if he stood still. He stooped over my shoulder, which he knew irked me, "you're still working on that report?"
"You're still smoking in my office," I threw back. Privately, I found him amusing but I wasn't about to let him know that. He shrugged and went back to being a lazy bum when Vicious came in and asked for some irrelevant file. He looked drained as I handed over the hard copy. "You should get some sleep," I said quietly. Of course, he said nothing in his usual icy manner and yet there was something spooky about his demeanor that I couldn't quite place. For a time I had genuine sympathy for that man, when he was still human.