Part 4
JUDAS KISS
3:32 A.M. : L-1
Present Day
He wasn't sure if he'd just knock him out or if he should prepare himself for a real fight. If it was a fight at all, he was sure it'd be one hell of one. Feast or famine. Even now, after buffing up quite a bit from his gangly preteen faze, he wasn't sure how easily he'd keep this guy down. The skylights burning into his retinas from staring blankly at it didn't even snap him from his nervous millings. It was like some drug he'd accidentally inhaled, fret-crack. It scared him shitless to feel that wrenching fear in his stomach untamable and growing, just at the thought of the confrontation he'd voluntarily pulled himself into. From what the secret camera in the bathroom had provided him, Maxy knew this guy had the only physique better than his. That didn't assure him.
With his boots propped on the trash-strewn dashboard, his numb violet eyes glanced to the streetlight he'd parked next to, his hand mechanically feeding himself Milkduds and his mind crucifying him with phobia. Another Milkdud found a death path down his throat to his bitching stomach. It did him no good to die on an empty stomach, but then again… Dr. G would probably stuff the cardboard box down his throat then make him puke up the rest of the candy if he ever got caught. The whole agent thing with the syndicate was bad enough but the banning of sugar, especially for Maxy, got him in a pissed off mood. So the first thing he did upon exiting the shuttle from L-2 was buy out the nearest store's supply of Milkduds. If he didn't finish them all, he'd leave them in the stolen pickup truck and just run it off into some river.
Dr. G was strict. He remembered one of the less violent but just as threatening episodes in the belly of the warehouse that had been converted to the cafeteria for a small group of recruits, including himself. The memory was so fresh, it was just the same as if he'd pulled it from a file and had seen it for the first time, and strangely, known it forever. Maxy shivered, wondering what other horrible memories he'd retained as clearly as this. As he remembered, it was almost like being back there.
Training camp.
It was raining outside. A thick, heavy rain that suffocated any thoughts of sun for a few days and drenched even the flitting birds in the canopies of trees. He didn't mind though, he remembered. All his classes were focused on mental training and public infiltration techniques. Watching the older agents, who were above him five or six years and 120 pounds of lean muscle, straining in the mud while a drill sergeant screamed 'Pussy!' and 'Fruitcake' and 'Motherfucking Nothings' in their ears made him appreciate the roof over his head, and the years of cushion between them. It'd be a while before or if he made it that far in the 'association.'
Crime and the crime syndicate to him were strange. He didn't understand why the men who wanted this money and riches so much just didn't do it themselves. Why did they lay their trust so fool heartedly into these kids? I mean, they taught them so precisely that they were probably better than the twenty year veterans were right now. A kid, if only adequately trained, could probably scam a good crime and escape punishment to start his own syndicate, if he still had that kind of blood in him.
Honestly, the kid codenamed Maxy had a fierce distaste for anything like this, but it had been bred and beaten into him so much it was inevitable. The other kids didn't understand though. It was all a fun, exciting game of spy and don't-get-caught; a life promising cars and guns and girls in the future.
They didn't understand. They didn't have the mafia pressing guns to their heads already. They weren't the head of the class, the top agent expected to just embrace a life of cold-hearted murder and illegality. They didn't understand just how serious it was. He'd already been on low scale missions, and he'd been beat into the ground with bullets and fists, and they didn't believe his stories of sleepless nights and paranoia. The only kids who grasped a little of their doom were the ones who'd noticed Maxy's often violently bruised body, pocked by the scars of still-healing bullet wounds, sometimes in the showers, sometimes when he'd reveal it to them.
And that thought brought his chain of thought to the kid voted 'Most Flippant' and 'Biggest Slacker.' Luigi. It was a game to him, no more harmful than a day at school. He broke the rules just to see the wrinkles in Dr. G's face crease like a bulldog.
That day had simply pushed him off the edge.
Dr. G entered unceremoniously. Maxy was one of the only ones to notice, or at least, it seemed that way. Stupid ole bastard was losing his touch. Sometimes he'd just appear behind him when he'd only turned a second before and smack him upside his head for something he was going to do. His fork laid in his dish of slop, Italian slop, but nonetheless slop. His drill sergeant had abused him yesterday, and his stomach growled a fierce warning that it would wretch if he ate too much. So he had taken a bite, and hope he hadn't pushed it too far. He'd live on it. Today, he didn't feel like chatting with any of the guys. They were ravenous from their less strenuous yesterday. He, as the top agent, got a grade upward of treatment. Where they had run an obstacle course with weights strapped on, he had done the same, live-fire style.
Maxy traced the old man's journey, weaving around the fringe of the makeshift cafeteria. His arched shoulders and large, oddly protruding hair, like an old dog, were alternately hidden and revealed as kids laughed and moved, exchanging food and seats, laughing. Maxy's right eyebrow came down. What was he up to now? He folded his legs Indian style, and then craned his gaunt body forward past his lunch mate for the day, the voluntarily mute kid Gary. Dr. G had suddenly disappeared into a group of kids, and with his short stature, it was hard to pick him from them.
He frowned. "What the hell…" he murmured.
Dr. G was poised over Luigi. In the second that he'd lost track of the old professor, he'd gotten all the way across the cafeteria with the speed of someone a twelfth his age. Crinkled old hands wringed over Luigi's bushy brown hair. The flippant kid was telling the most obscene joke that he'd ever heard uttered, and even from here the braided kid could hear the snarls and slurs slapped together to make a ho joke. Dr. G heard everything.
"Shithead," Maxy snorted. He turned back to his lunch and stirred it dispassionately. All the while, his acute hearing kept the conversation in his head.
"Luigi… turn around!" Marcos, another slacker.
"You'd best do what you friend says," Dr. G snapped with slow menace, giving a spine-shuddering tone. Maxy knew. He'd heard it before; it only meant suffering in the forecast.
"Dr. G, I didn't know you were joining us for lunch. Hell, I didn't even hear—"
A slap. Loud enough to silence everyone. Eyes turned, except Maxy's unique purple ones. He shook his head and stared at his Italian slop.
"You didn't hear me? Test failed, Luigi."
"Wha—" The next word was muddled by blood from his cut tongue, "— I didn't know about any test!"
"You think it matters to me what you didn't know?"
"No?"
"Good." Slap. "Get up."
"Jesus! Aw, fuc—"
Slap. "I said get up!"
"You keep hitting me! How the hell do you expect me to get up?!"
Maxy shook his head. "Bad moooove," he muttered to himself.
Silence. Blood-curdling silence.
"Repeat that…please." The death-sentence in his voice was clear. His teeth grated over the word please.
By now Luigi had realized his mistake. "Oh god, I'm sorry, Dr. G! I didn't mean that, I swear. You know, the milk's a little old and it just gets to my head… Delirium. I didn't mean that!"
Maxy heard something rustle in the pocket of Dr. G's pocket. He titled his head ever so slightly.
A knife was slapped into Luigi's wretched out hand, sharp side down so it bit and blood streamed like a red waterfall to collect in a sprawling pool on the floor. A scream escaped him but it was silenced by another snap. "That mouth will be the death of you boy," Dr. G snarled, with extra anger on the word boy. "Get rid of it now, before it causes the deaths of others."
"Wha?" Luigi cradled his burning left cheek.
"Your lips. Cut them off."
Maxy's jaw wanted to drop, but his heart was just as panicky as Luigi's and paranoia settled over him. He was afraid any wrong move would anger Dr. G and send him after him too.
Luigi started a shake of his head, but it was electrically canceled by fierce smack. A flinch echoed through the crowd and some shrunk over their plates.
"…No…" Luigi muttered, in a sort of unbelieving drunken daze.
"Okay. Don't."
This time the sound of bones breaking greeted them. A few displaced, bloody teeth clattered to the ground, and the now frail-looking body of the Deuce boy was curled up in hysterical submission.
Dr. G watched him whimper for a minute then simply waved his hand casually over his shoulder. Two older agents, their shirts busting with biceps and a cold attitude, came and collected the barely 70 pound boy gruffly. Maxy sat bolt upright, not only from curiosity but also from the ominous sensation that had made the hair on his neck stand on end. He watched as the body of Luigi was carried, Dr. G hobbling quickly behind, into a room on the far end of the cafeteria; a door nobody noticed.
But Maxy knew it. He narrowed his violet eyes stoically, then silently hunched over his cold food. He numbly lifted his fork to his lips and then felt it. The vibration in the air that the masses in the cafe ignored.
The door was soundproof. And bulletproof.
Maxy looked at the Milkdud he had pinched in his fingers, then reflecting on the hardened face of his cruel Professor, ate it up in defiance.
The clock in the old car, not even crystal or electric, ticked through the night without errors. It said it was time to go, that his victim would probably be waiting, if the bastard really had come. A smile wretched the sides of his face, and another lukewarm candy was mashed by his pearly teeth. The poor pathetic fellow actually had believed him. The Deuce, moving from his reclined position across the seats and against the driver side door, peaked again under the blue tarp in the backseat. That's were he would have put the guns and other things, but it was just some wrenches and metal poles. The guns themselves had gone into his private collection, shipped to a retreat on earth, or into the incinerator if they sucked.
Better not tell that to the guy. He didn't need him any madder than he would be. Maxy just kept reminding himself of the look on Quatre's face… that's what he was doing this for… revenge.
He needed motivation. He really didn't want to die tonight.
It was a stale night, not a single wind to cool off the beads of sweat that the inside of the car had forced on him. The heat finally came to a peak where he couldn't stand it. His lungs sang of salvation, breathing in the cooler air as he rolled the window down. He hooked his elbow on the door and rhythmically tapped his fingers against the side. He ached for a radio, but knew it only picked up talk shows that bored the jelly from his brain. From where he'd skillfully positioned the car, the only hill outside the airport was highlighted against the orange-tinted lights of far off streets and the glow from the airport itself. Anyone passing that way would have passed through it and instantly caught his eye. He had virtually had never lost eye contact with the passage out to the rendezvous. It never struck him as odd that he had never spotted anyone block the light. But he never fretted over it.
He, Maxy, a Deuce agent, had learned early on in training, in life, that anxiety burned your brain cells five times faster than nonchalance. Oh, they burned, they went away on their own, but there was no rush to it. Let life drain on its own. It'd be gone before you thought.
Suddenly, it was quiet.
It was never quiet at an airport. Departing roars cracked the black like a hidden animal screaming of the hunt as airplanes struggled to pull them from gravity's control. Those dulled and slowly ended. Canceled flights? The grunt of cars start and stopping along the lit lobby sputtered a few times and again, found their death in silence. The Deuce shuddered at the temporarily case of laryngitis that had rattled the throats of engines surrounding the airport. The thunderous beating of panic in his chest replaced it almost instantaneous and where casualness had relaxed him, his adrenaline made him paranoid.
Why was it so damn quiet?!
Violet eyes snapped side to side, inspecting the dirt road he'd parked on, leading out to a dead end in a field besides a fence and a few dotted street lights to light the inside of the airport property. Dying dandelions surrounded him, an occasional wind puffing the white seeds onto the air. He craned his head out the open window to look back at the gate he busted down and then hastily propped into place again. It hadn't been moved. Good, that calmed his paranoia a bit. It didn't put out the fire, though.
Maxy reached down for another Milkdud. He blinked, at the odd sound he heard, then jerked back upright. A chiseled eyebrow went down. He acutely listened to the ticking of the clock from where he had been sitting. It sounded fine.
Tick… tick… tick…
He leaned in.
TickTICK.. TickTICK.. TickTICK
There obviously was something wrong with his clock. Or… or….
There was something else there.
"Holy SHYT!" Maxy lurched forward, his fingers clawing into any part of the consol that he could possibly tear out. The tuner on the broken radio flew into the seat and sparks riddled the air. He winced at the sensation of broken plastic razor sharp on his skin. He plunged his arm into the consol, pulling it out and punching a larger hole. Plastic snapped loudly, glass shattered and spilled down to his feet.
The Deuce made panicked animal noises in the bottom of his throat from desperation. "Goddamnit!" he screamed, his skin still catching on the jagged edges, tearing, and preventing him from going deeper into the consol. He grunted, and passed his blood completely with his panicked eyes.
TickTICK.. TickTICK.. TickTICK… Tick… Tick… TICK
Maxy blinked and recoiled. "Too late…" His eyes narrowed. "The bastard did this…"
Then it was red and black and fire raining down.
JUDAS KISS
3:32 A.M. : L-1
Present Day
He wasn't sure if he'd just knock him out or if he should prepare himself for a real fight. If it was a fight at all, he was sure it'd be one hell of one. Feast or famine. Even now, after buffing up quite a bit from his gangly preteen faze, he wasn't sure how easily he'd keep this guy down. The skylights burning into his retinas from staring blankly at it didn't even snap him from his nervous millings. It was like some drug he'd accidentally inhaled, fret-crack. It scared him shitless to feel that wrenching fear in his stomach untamable and growing, just at the thought of the confrontation he'd voluntarily pulled himself into. From what the secret camera in the bathroom had provided him, Maxy knew this guy had the only physique better than his. That didn't assure him.
With his boots propped on the trash-strewn dashboard, his numb violet eyes glanced to the streetlight he'd parked next to, his hand mechanically feeding himself Milkduds and his mind crucifying him with phobia. Another Milkdud found a death path down his throat to his bitching stomach. It did him no good to die on an empty stomach, but then again… Dr. G would probably stuff the cardboard box down his throat then make him puke up the rest of the candy if he ever got caught. The whole agent thing with the syndicate was bad enough but the banning of sugar, especially for Maxy, got him in a pissed off mood. So the first thing he did upon exiting the shuttle from L-2 was buy out the nearest store's supply of Milkduds. If he didn't finish them all, he'd leave them in the stolen pickup truck and just run it off into some river.
Dr. G was strict. He remembered one of the less violent but just as threatening episodes in the belly of the warehouse that had been converted to the cafeteria for a small group of recruits, including himself. The memory was so fresh, it was just the same as if he'd pulled it from a file and had seen it for the first time, and strangely, known it forever. Maxy shivered, wondering what other horrible memories he'd retained as clearly as this. As he remembered, it was almost like being back there.
Training camp.
It was raining outside. A thick, heavy rain that suffocated any thoughts of sun for a few days and drenched even the flitting birds in the canopies of trees. He didn't mind though, he remembered. All his classes were focused on mental training and public infiltration techniques. Watching the older agents, who were above him five or six years and 120 pounds of lean muscle, straining in the mud while a drill sergeant screamed 'Pussy!' and 'Fruitcake' and 'Motherfucking Nothings' in their ears made him appreciate the roof over his head, and the years of cushion between them. It'd be a while before or if he made it that far in the 'association.'
Crime and the crime syndicate to him were strange. He didn't understand why the men who wanted this money and riches so much just didn't do it themselves. Why did they lay their trust so fool heartedly into these kids? I mean, they taught them so precisely that they were probably better than the twenty year veterans were right now. A kid, if only adequately trained, could probably scam a good crime and escape punishment to start his own syndicate, if he still had that kind of blood in him.
Honestly, the kid codenamed Maxy had a fierce distaste for anything like this, but it had been bred and beaten into him so much it was inevitable. The other kids didn't understand though. It was all a fun, exciting game of spy and don't-get-caught; a life promising cars and guns and girls in the future.
They didn't understand. They didn't have the mafia pressing guns to their heads already. They weren't the head of the class, the top agent expected to just embrace a life of cold-hearted murder and illegality. They didn't understand just how serious it was. He'd already been on low scale missions, and he'd been beat into the ground with bullets and fists, and they didn't believe his stories of sleepless nights and paranoia. The only kids who grasped a little of their doom were the ones who'd noticed Maxy's often violently bruised body, pocked by the scars of still-healing bullet wounds, sometimes in the showers, sometimes when he'd reveal it to them.
And that thought brought his chain of thought to the kid voted 'Most Flippant' and 'Biggest Slacker.' Luigi. It was a game to him, no more harmful than a day at school. He broke the rules just to see the wrinkles in Dr. G's face crease like a bulldog.
That day had simply pushed him off the edge.
Dr. G entered unceremoniously. Maxy was one of the only ones to notice, or at least, it seemed that way. Stupid ole bastard was losing his touch. Sometimes he'd just appear behind him when he'd only turned a second before and smack him upside his head for something he was going to do. His fork laid in his dish of slop, Italian slop, but nonetheless slop. His drill sergeant had abused him yesterday, and his stomach growled a fierce warning that it would wretch if he ate too much. So he had taken a bite, and hope he hadn't pushed it too far. He'd live on it. Today, he didn't feel like chatting with any of the guys. They were ravenous from their less strenuous yesterday. He, as the top agent, got a grade upward of treatment. Where they had run an obstacle course with weights strapped on, he had done the same, live-fire style.
Maxy traced the old man's journey, weaving around the fringe of the makeshift cafeteria. His arched shoulders and large, oddly protruding hair, like an old dog, were alternately hidden and revealed as kids laughed and moved, exchanging food and seats, laughing. Maxy's right eyebrow came down. What was he up to now? He folded his legs Indian style, and then craned his gaunt body forward past his lunch mate for the day, the voluntarily mute kid Gary. Dr. G had suddenly disappeared into a group of kids, and with his short stature, it was hard to pick him from them.
He frowned. "What the hell…" he murmured.
Dr. G was poised over Luigi. In the second that he'd lost track of the old professor, he'd gotten all the way across the cafeteria with the speed of someone a twelfth his age. Crinkled old hands wringed over Luigi's bushy brown hair. The flippant kid was telling the most obscene joke that he'd ever heard uttered, and even from here the braided kid could hear the snarls and slurs slapped together to make a ho joke. Dr. G heard everything.
"Shithead," Maxy snorted. He turned back to his lunch and stirred it dispassionately. All the while, his acute hearing kept the conversation in his head.
"Luigi… turn around!" Marcos, another slacker.
"You'd best do what you friend says," Dr. G snapped with slow menace, giving a spine-shuddering tone. Maxy knew. He'd heard it before; it only meant suffering in the forecast.
"Dr. G, I didn't know you were joining us for lunch. Hell, I didn't even hear—"
A slap. Loud enough to silence everyone. Eyes turned, except Maxy's unique purple ones. He shook his head and stared at his Italian slop.
"You didn't hear me? Test failed, Luigi."
"Wha—" The next word was muddled by blood from his cut tongue, "— I didn't know about any test!"
"You think it matters to me what you didn't know?"
"No?"
"Good." Slap. "Get up."
"Jesus! Aw, fuc—"
Slap. "I said get up!"
"You keep hitting me! How the hell do you expect me to get up?!"
Maxy shook his head. "Bad moooove," he muttered to himself.
Silence. Blood-curdling silence.
"Repeat that…please." The death-sentence in his voice was clear. His teeth grated over the word please.
By now Luigi had realized his mistake. "Oh god, I'm sorry, Dr. G! I didn't mean that, I swear. You know, the milk's a little old and it just gets to my head… Delirium. I didn't mean that!"
Maxy heard something rustle in the pocket of Dr. G's pocket. He titled his head ever so slightly.
A knife was slapped into Luigi's wretched out hand, sharp side down so it bit and blood streamed like a red waterfall to collect in a sprawling pool on the floor. A scream escaped him but it was silenced by another snap. "That mouth will be the death of you boy," Dr. G snarled, with extra anger on the word boy. "Get rid of it now, before it causes the deaths of others."
"Wha?" Luigi cradled his burning left cheek.
"Your lips. Cut them off."
Maxy's jaw wanted to drop, but his heart was just as panicky as Luigi's and paranoia settled over him. He was afraid any wrong move would anger Dr. G and send him after him too.
Luigi started a shake of his head, but it was electrically canceled by fierce smack. A flinch echoed through the crowd and some shrunk over their plates.
"…No…" Luigi muttered, in a sort of unbelieving drunken daze.
"Okay. Don't."
This time the sound of bones breaking greeted them. A few displaced, bloody teeth clattered to the ground, and the now frail-looking body of the Deuce boy was curled up in hysterical submission.
Dr. G watched him whimper for a minute then simply waved his hand casually over his shoulder. Two older agents, their shirts busting with biceps and a cold attitude, came and collected the barely 70 pound boy gruffly. Maxy sat bolt upright, not only from curiosity but also from the ominous sensation that had made the hair on his neck stand on end. He watched as the body of Luigi was carried, Dr. G hobbling quickly behind, into a room on the far end of the cafeteria; a door nobody noticed.
But Maxy knew it. He narrowed his violet eyes stoically, then silently hunched over his cold food. He numbly lifted his fork to his lips and then felt it. The vibration in the air that the masses in the cafe ignored.
The door was soundproof. And bulletproof.
Maxy looked at the Milkdud he had pinched in his fingers, then reflecting on the hardened face of his cruel Professor, ate it up in defiance.
The clock in the old car, not even crystal or electric, ticked through the night without errors. It said it was time to go, that his victim would probably be waiting, if the bastard really had come. A smile wretched the sides of his face, and another lukewarm candy was mashed by his pearly teeth. The poor pathetic fellow actually had believed him. The Deuce, moving from his reclined position across the seats and against the driver side door, peaked again under the blue tarp in the backseat. That's were he would have put the guns and other things, but it was just some wrenches and metal poles. The guns themselves had gone into his private collection, shipped to a retreat on earth, or into the incinerator if they sucked.
Better not tell that to the guy. He didn't need him any madder than he would be. Maxy just kept reminding himself of the look on Quatre's face… that's what he was doing this for… revenge.
He needed motivation. He really didn't want to die tonight.
It was a stale night, not a single wind to cool off the beads of sweat that the inside of the car had forced on him. The heat finally came to a peak where he couldn't stand it. His lungs sang of salvation, breathing in the cooler air as he rolled the window down. He hooked his elbow on the door and rhythmically tapped his fingers against the side. He ached for a radio, but knew it only picked up talk shows that bored the jelly from his brain. From where he'd skillfully positioned the car, the only hill outside the airport was highlighted against the orange-tinted lights of far off streets and the glow from the airport itself. Anyone passing that way would have passed through it and instantly caught his eye. He had virtually had never lost eye contact with the passage out to the rendezvous. It never struck him as odd that he had never spotted anyone block the light. But he never fretted over it.
He, Maxy, a Deuce agent, had learned early on in training, in life, that anxiety burned your brain cells five times faster than nonchalance. Oh, they burned, they went away on their own, but there was no rush to it. Let life drain on its own. It'd be gone before you thought.
Suddenly, it was quiet.
It was never quiet at an airport. Departing roars cracked the black like a hidden animal screaming of the hunt as airplanes struggled to pull them from gravity's control. Those dulled and slowly ended. Canceled flights? The grunt of cars start and stopping along the lit lobby sputtered a few times and again, found their death in silence. The Deuce shuddered at the temporarily case of laryngitis that had rattled the throats of engines surrounding the airport. The thunderous beating of panic in his chest replaced it almost instantaneous and where casualness had relaxed him, his adrenaline made him paranoid.
Why was it so damn quiet?!
Violet eyes snapped side to side, inspecting the dirt road he'd parked on, leading out to a dead end in a field besides a fence and a few dotted street lights to light the inside of the airport property. Dying dandelions surrounded him, an occasional wind puffing the white seeds onto the air. He craned his head out the open window to look back at the gate he busted down and then hastily propped into place again. It hadn't been moved. Good, that calmed his paranoia a bit. It didn't put out the fire, though.
Maxy reached down for another Milkdud. He blinked, at the odd sound he heard, then jerked back upright. A chiseled eyebrow went down. He acutely listened to the ticking of the clock from where he had been sitting. It sounded fine.
Tick… tick… tick…
He leaned in.
TickTICK.. TickTICK.. TickTICK
There obviously was something wrong with his clock. Or… or….
There was something else there.
"Holy SHYT!" Maxy lurched forward, his fingers clawing into any part of the consol that he could possibly tear out. The tuner on the broken radio flew into the seat and sparks riddled the air. He winced at the sensation of broken plastic razor sharp on his skin. He plunged his arm into the consol, pulling it out and punching a larger hole. Plastic snapped loudly, glass shattered and spilled down to his feet.
The Deuce made panicked animal noises in the bottom of his throat from desperation. "Goddamnit!" he screamed, his skin still catching on the jagged edges, tearing, and preventing him from going deeper into the consol. He grunted, and passed his blood completely with his panicked eyes.
TickTICK.. TickTICK.. TickTICK… Tick… Tick… TICK
Maxy blinked and recoiled. "Too late…" His eyes narrowed. "The bastard did this…"
Then it was red and black and fire raining down.