26
"Junior!" Kim exclaimed. "Will you come on, please? We don't have time to pussyfoot around!"
"I'm trying, Blue Fox!" the overgrown child of a beefcake said with a haggard breath, stumbling after her, tripping over his own feet almost. "I'm trying my best…! This air! It's so thick… and suffocating! I can hardly breathe as it is!"
"I know." She huffed. "But we have to keep moving! I hate to say it, but stragglers get left behind in this case! And I don't want blood on my hands--not yours or anyone else's. Got to keep them clean for the Major's comeuppance, at least…."
"Oh, Blue Fox." Junior said coolly with a knowingly tone she always found so pompous, so irritating like a stubborn rash. "Why should we be afraid of this Tank Man in the first place? Sure his screech sounds terrible. But ten to one, Ms. Possible, his bark is far worse than his bite."
She blinked, dubious certainly of the beefcake's sudden surge of resolve that seemingly forced steel into his spine. She couldn't be certain for sure. Junior stood there with arms folded, so confident, so cool, and suave as though a fiery S was emblazoned behind that immature façade.
"Oh really?" she put a severe kink in her brow, perked to its maximum. Her catchwords took the back seat, pressing the back of a hand to the brow, arching her spine while the other hand unbuttoned the top to the BDU. "Oh--that's right! You never actually had the pleasure of Tank Man, did you Junior?"
Junior's brow kinked. It told her all it needed to.
"Uh…." He stuttered. "No…."
"I suspected that, Junior." She smirked weakly as she slipped the last button through the eye. "Don't worry about it. You like to work your body out, right?"
"I do my fair share, yes." He said humbly.
"I'm not the one you have to worry about, Junior." She let her other hand flop to her side from off her crown, just before she brought it back up to the flap of the jacket. "But let me be the one to tell you what a night with the freak can really do for the oblique muscles."
Like large front doors, the flaps of the BDU arced open, revealing Junior the natural splendor of the proverbial vestibule. At first she couldn't tell what he was gawking at, but the growing whites of his eyes simply beamed the nauseating surprise. The vestibule closed swiftly for good measure, too abruptly for Junior's tastes, it wasn't hard to notice.
"Oh man…." Junior was practically speechless.
"Tell me about it…." Her fingers kept busy with the buttons on the jacket, threading them through the holes again. "I'm surprised I'm still walking after last night…."
"What kind of gym does this freak run!?" Junior demanded strongly. "I ought to report him to an association, a union--or something!"
She moaned, letting her eyes roll habitually… slowly, weakly. The corridor seemed distant and quiet, as though she were looking at a painting of it. Weakness was a glowing crack in her skull, her brain slipping out through it while her head felt a few pounds heavier than it should be.
"Oh…!" she groaned. The ceiling wanted to roll down before her, but she kicked a foreleg out behind her, catching herself on the ball of her foot. "Boy…!"
"Blue Fox?" Junior's arms unfolded, letting them flop at his sides. "What is the matter?"
"Nothing." Sense sealed that crack in her skull as she batted her eyes. "Must have lost a few more pints than I thought."
"And you still are!" Junior said. "Even with that tape, you're still bleeding."
"Hirudin, I know…." She said weakly. "That leech! G must have it in its spit, or even hemetin! Either way, I don't have much time and I still need to find my clothes!"
"That cheap top with those tacky cargos?" Junior blinked. "Why risk life and limb over a pair of lousy trousers?"
"You'll see when we get there!" She brought her boot alongside the other as she righted herself. "Now let's go!"
"You're the boss." The beefcake shrugged.
Steadily, her legs carried her down the hall. Her eyes lifted her head to the skinless ceiling, running over those large square grates warily between long gaps of twisting, binding wires threaded messily over sturdy beams and smaller, curvy duct work. It was strange. This building--this base didn't look even halfway finished, as though this flophouse were still under construction. How a mess like this evaded the Mossad was beyond even her--
The huge ducts creaked loudly, buckling noisily as though it were moaning. It came from down the hall, at the junction where it t-ed, clanging closer gradually. A strange flow of air fell from the grate in front of her, a humming, droning whisper of a whirr. Her hand capped the butt of Stick Man's gun, nearly spanking it, Velcro ripping briefly as she yanked it free. She thumbed the safety.
Her knees gave way as she hunched into a crouch. She turned for Junior, his dark eyes wide and quivering in sudden fright.
"Tank Man!" she mouthed. Junior looked as if he were about to break down and cry. "We have to go!"
The junction seemed a whole lot closer as she took off in a full sprint. Tank Man or not, she wasn't going to find out. The locker room was just around the bend to the right. If she could only get there--
The next grate found itself on the floor with a rattling clang, slapping the floor with after a cumbersome roll on its edge. Rubber screeched. The oversized grate was a foot away when her boots brought her to an abrupt halt. She brought her gun up, and Junior let out a girlish yelp as that menacing talon flopped out of the vent--
---What the…? ---
--Dragging its owner down with it. Her finger pressed against the trigger's spring as Uzi's little twin flopped into her sights lifelessly like a rag doll. Her feet yanked her a step back cautiously. It just hanged there, inert and limp like that crude, shoddy wiring that ran from the edge of the vent down to the back of his head, and branching off at the shoulder blade, twisting and looping through and around the cumbersome length of that horrible arm.
"So that's how it moves…." She noted. "It's like a nervous system."
"This is Tank Man?" Junior asked musingly, mockingly. "-The- fearful Tank Man, I heard so much about? Ha!"
"Easy Junior…." She let her boots yank her another step back. "You don't know this freak!"
"Just like I thought." Junior's steps were as cool and relaxed as ever, ironically at best. "The reality is no match for the stories and legends. Ten to one, I bet he cannot even lift that claw--!"
Junior went airborne, tumbling backwards in the air like… well--nothing she had ever seen before. His fleeting "OOMPH" came out of him as he graced the floor with a skid.
Tank Man's twisted, warped back arced away from her as its muscles curled it up. Its dirty claw snapped as it brought it down, snatching at her greedily while its bloodshot, clouded orbs lusted for her. The cold, cruel steel bolted on its evilly strange face leaked the hunger drop by gooey drop as its tongue lashed out for her. The cold ran a finger up her spine when it let out a buzzing shriek--
She let out a yelp as that claw snatched her by the head, the steely maliciousness wrapping around her skull, ready to crush her into a dark oblivion at a moment's notice. She felt the soles of the boots lift off the floor. The toes could just barely scrape at the hard cement.
Pure tenacity consumed her, popped her knuckles as the fingers strangled the grip of the gun. She was going to escape, one way or another, and nothing was going to stop her. That consuming, torturous, suffocating torrent in which she nearly drowned all those weeks ago, plunging into it sharply, belly-flopping onto Colonel Drazen's terrible knife again and again, there was no way she was going back there.
The message was clear as day--at least should have been when the Baby Eagle's beak pecked the freak's brow.
"Eat this--FREAK!" she snapped--
Her butt kissed the hard cement at the cracking squawk of the eagle, the gentle -ting- of brass. Out from her lips came a grateful "OW" as that refreshing pain burned at her coccyx. Her legs made her boots scrape at the cement as she scrambled away.
Tank Man hanged there motionlessly like stone, with body dangling as much at its head, hand and claw adrift in the air; it looked like a strange statue. Whether it was dead or playing possum, she couldn't be certain at all.
"Did I get it??" she blinked as she pushed herself back on her feet. Her fingers pulled at the skin of the other's knuckles as they wrapped themselves around, training the baby low at 45 degrees.
"Oh…" Junior moaned. "My head…!"
"Are you okay?" She stole a glance back. Junior had his bulky body upright with an arm angled behind, locked at the elbow. The other was busy holding his noggin tightly, as though trapping what little of his brain rattled out or what air hadn't leaked out. That sleek Caesar haircut had been upturned dramatically, grime glistening in the light, sparkling in that major cowlick.
"I'll be fine!" Junior huffed. "But my hair…! Do you know how much shampoo this is going to take, just for the grime? And all the Le Goop I have to use--! GOD!! I just had my credit balance paid off too!"
"So not the drama, Junior!" she rolled her eyes. "If you had it between this freak and freedom, I think you'll suffer through one nasty cowlick."
"Oh--how would you know!?" Junior exclaimed as he stumbled to his feet. "It is easy for you to say, since you've never had to deal with this problem! But if you want to be an international pop sensation like I dreamed, the people demand a sensational image like none ever seen!"
"Yeah right!" she moaned. "Don't give me that! If you want a real hair emergency, then talk to me about a month ago!"
"Really?" he blinked. "Why? What happened?"
What happened? Was he serious? It was all over the news, national and abroad! Even the pompous, sanctimonious Bitching British Corporation devoted a segment to her, yet not nearly as much as word of Colonel Drazen's demise. Kim Possible: world famous freelance agent and hero on what surely would have been her deathbed. It was a miracle that the news networks dropped her from the loops just after her release from Middleton General.
"You are so pampered…!" she dismissed.
"Pampers?" the beefcake blinked. "I do not need diapers! I'm a big kid now!"
"Pampered, Junior!" she let her eyes make another roll. "Oh--never mind! Let's just go!"
"But of course, my Blue Fox--!"
-BAM!! -
The thin metalwork above clanged and rattled, shivering intermittently as the beast stuck in it tried to work itself free. Slowly, carefully she turned around. Tank Man was curled into itself, having a try with the ductwork over release of its mobile unit, one hammering swipe of the claw at a time. The metal moaned painfully through that strange, buzzing growl--and the freak dipped a few inches by the waist.
"Alive!?" Junior squeaked frightfully. "But how!? You put a bullet through the head, yes?"
"I did!" she pressed her voice down to a whisper, strained like the tightness clenched around her neck. "At least--I thought I did!"
"What is it doing?"
"Isn't it obvious?" she blinked her eyes incredulously. "Oh--never mind--forget it! We have to get out of here!"
"You don't have to tell me twice, Ms. Possible!" Junior squeaked.
"Don't worry," she smirked weakly, her boots already in a full sprint for that t-junction to freedom, "I won't! Now move!"
Galil croaked in surprise as she made like a major leaguer, sliding for home underneath it and its snatching catcher's mitt. Junior was on his own, possibly for the first time ever. The time for him to claw out of his comfort zone was long overdue, that little, cushy shell he was raised so mercifully in, for there was no way she was looking back.
"Move it or lose it, Junior!" she barked.
"EEP!" he squeaked back. "Y-Yes ma'am…!"
---
Uzi felt like such a tool, a mannequin stuck in a department store somewhere, planted undistinguished among faceless peers, thrown to the disparaging scrutiny of the public as they hurried by the window. This was not for the great Major Drazen, maybe for Senor Senior's pretty boy, but not him.
His LMG sat on the nearby table idly, stripped of its owner and its magazine. Much like him, exposed, stripped of clothes and dignity before his men as they ran him over with eyes wide with uncomforting awe. His lip curled with a sneer as they whispered amongst each other.
-At least my hair's growing back nicely…. -
"What happened to him?" a couple sniggered to themselves, way out in the back row, a couple of women no less. "Did he get into a fight with a lawnmower and lose?"
"That or maybe his great daddy learned him a lesson that he wouldn't forget." The other of the two quipped giddily, her eye color hidden by that full, puffy tuft of ginger hair. Hiding out in the open, was she? It's a gutsy move on her part, no doubt. But if she honestly thought she could put one over on him, she had another thing coming.
-Preferably a sharp thing that can cover a good 30 feet or so…. -
From his impromptu T, he gravitated his arms together, rolling his palm outward and letting both extremities of man and machine press against each other gently. His arms were like those of Moses, parting the sea of faces that dared to hide his prey. Even his tailor at the moment backed away. The man knew well of his wishes. It was a shame the crowd didn't, for it took a few swipes of the arms for the message to hit home.
"Move." He mouthed.
Several in the crowd made like those annoying dolls with the exaggerated noggins, bobbling complacently before the masses parted, leaving an aisle--a range. A few long locks of red curled around her jawbone, brimming the bull's-eye eccentrically. It was perfect!
Coolly, his kukri made little sound as it slipped it out of its sheath. The darker of the two women kept the auburn busy. Good work that she'll no doubt be commemorated for. His fingers held to the spongy grip fast, and his fist brushed against the loose tissue of his ear. He kept his elbow trained squarely on the bull's-eye, letting sheer will tense his muscles tautly--
--"YAH!!" --
--And yanking his forearm down, limb locked at the joint. The kukri lost its form in the flight, nothing more than a black, spinning circle downrange. Diabolical in its purpose, slicing through the ripe, stale air as certain death blew it down the aisle. The -shikse- barely had the time to angle her pretty little head closer.
"And to think that freak is the Major's brother--!" her dark eye went wide.
Realization dawned far too late, yanking his eyelids far apart at the sight of leaping crimson, glinting hotly in the bright halogen briefly right before it splashed on the slick cement. The girl fell into the puddle in a heap, her limbs limp, angled in odd directions. His blade angled stiffly out of her neck, quivering, shaking out the last of his energy. Her friend took a knee swiftly by her side.
"Oh my God!" the darker one squealed. "KIRSTEN!?"
-Whoops…. -
"UZZIEL DRAZEN!!" that dark girl snapped at him pointedly, shooting him possibly the dirtiest of looks imaginable. Not that him and emotions saw each other eye to eye at most times.
"Yes, solider…?" he dug his finger into the complementary ear, twisting it around just before the tip simply slid out. "Thank you for making sure my ears still work."
"DON'T GIVE ME THAT CRAP, BOY!" She screamed. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU DID!?"
"Um…!" he put the fore-knuckle of his index to his chin. Thoughts were fleeting, halted in their tracks as a sudden fury rushed through him. "Let's see, private: I spotted a bogey in the crowd, got my knife, and took the bogey down. Except… it wasn't a bogey after all! Just my imagination, it turned out to be…!"
The reddening, ginger girl laid there pitifully, jerking and quivering uncontrollably as her precious crimson oozed out from under his blade. Her dark eyes gazed blankly at the bright halogens above, coated with a glaze of dying bemusement. Her throat let out a tiny haggard, breath, and her chest puffed for a final time before it… simply sank.
"Kirsten…!" the darker one sniffed. "No…!"
Ah, that Kirsten person. That darker girl knew her well, very well. They happened to be friends since they were children, neighbors who lived across the street from each other. Both were practically green, new recruits straight from the IDF after a bombing at Tel Aviv not too long ago. Unfortunately, green was not the color of this outfit or of its insignia.
"Oops!" he mockingly squeaked. "Guess I made a boo-boo! But don't worry your pretty little head off. I'll be sure she gets a proper funeral."
-Where's G when you need him…? -
"How DARE YOU, DRAZEN!" the dark one screamed again, yanking out his kukri with a mighty huff. "YOU FUCKING -RODEF-!! I'LL KILL YOU!!"
His blade did nothing to stop itself as it whistled menacingly at him, not that it had much to say in the matter anyway. His eyes took a quick lap around, letting a sigh reverb around the spacious room as he let his arm take on all the work.
"As you wish…." He frowned--
The blade dared not to kill his master, dared not to even leave a cut when he simply snatched it out of the air, picked it like a rose when he caught it by the blade. A collective gasp swept through the crowd. He shrugged it off simply, slipping the kukri back into its sheath.
"While you were still playing dress up in your mother's closet," he sneered, his eagle pulling itself out eagerly, a little too eagerly, "I was abroad! You've ever been stuck in Yugoslavia, sticking it to the KLA and the Albanian Muslim hordes--over some stupid rumors!? I have! And, come to think of it, it was their lives and views that taught me the big purpose of their lives. And the purpose of a mongrel's life is to die…! So don't you DARE call me a -rodef- ever again!"
"I don't give a shit, Drazen!" the dark girl sneered back. "Like you don't give a shit about this country--your own people, for fuck's sake!"
"WHAT!?" his knuckles popped loudly, fingers strangling the eagle's grip. Fury was burning, a red ooze on his brain, drowning reason and sense in a torrent of range in which they couldn't escape. "YOU UNGRATEFUL SHIT!!"
"You claim you're of the people." She continued defiantly. "You say you're their protector, even the long awaited messiah of the Jew! But you know what? You're not! You're just like those fiends on the other side of the fence! Spoon feeding us with your demagoguery while you lash out at the world in your terrorist fervor!"
"I ought to crush you into dust!" he growled.
"Go ahead!" she challenged, her baby dragged out of its narrow nest against his full grown adult. The clicking of its little claw practically scratched its master's own death warrant, its own grave in the scrap yard even. "Do your worst! Not like the rest of us haven't seen it already!"
"Oh!" he took it like a gauntlet to the face, his offender standing bold and defiant while the proverbial glove laid between them, mocking him and the great authority standing proudly behind. "A duel, is this? A shame really, for if I knew it would come down to this, I'd have Shia fetch my flintlocks. Though the weapons may have changed, the vengeful spirit is the same! Why not rejoice, wench? This will surely be a glorious gunfight!"
"Are you insane!?" She demanded bemusedly, dark eyes wide, radiating the disbelief between her lids' slow blinks. "This isn't glorious--this isn't even glamorous! It's plain murder! VIOLENCE IS NOT A SPORT!!"
"Tell that to the Rugby players!" he scoffed. "Now, shut up and draw!"
"FINE BY ME!" she yelled, arcing her baby up her dark eye's level, sinking to the ground as one of her knees buckled. "TIME TO DIE--YOU DOG!!"
"You first…!" he smirked.
He let the memory of his muscles take over, letting his body fall into a tight crunch. Time was not on his side; the dark woman let a pair of eyelids fall shut like a curtain, her working index curling away. From the crouch, his body leaped into the air, low, his extremities stretching themselves out.
-PAK! -
The girl took her shot. The heels of his palms scraped the slick cement, burning like the hot lead that was sent his way discourteously. His ears snatched the loud -ZING- out of the ripe air as he tumbled over his arms, flooded soon after by a rattling of planks. The crew behind him was getting a little panicky on the scaffolding. He could have sworn one of them cursed like a Russian.
His eagle took the point as he came out of the roll, his other hand slapping the claw down as though it belonged to a Peacemaker. The girl stood awkwardly, panicky, legs twisted in towards each as she fiddled hastily with her baby's slide. It choked on its own hot feed, it seemed.
"Oh… no!!" she squeaked pathetically, weakly, her muscles with all their might trying to give her baby the Heimlich.
"Don't they teach you anything in boot camp?" he sighed, dejected as he simply let his finger take trigger up on its slack. It was so hard to find good duelists nowadays. But on the brighter side, he wouldn't have to sleep with an eye open. "All talk and little walk, eh? Such a shame!"
-BLAM!! -
His eagle bucked in his hand roughly, arcing up and briefly to the right, dragging his hand with it. The lead slug mooned him from its copper cocoon, shrinking concentrically, exponentially on its short flight. It was like watching that ginger Kirsten all over again, second by second, frame by frame as the dark girl turned predictably towards her sudden demise--
-PAK! -
Something… pushed him--shoved him hard and forcefully in the gut as though it were supposed to mean something.…
A flying, messy, stringy web of crimson leaped out of the woman chest. He had hardly seen eyes that went that wide, glistening, sparkling in the bright light before they rolled backward in her head. Her limbs went floppy instantly, flailing limply in the air as she fell to the bloodied cement in a heap. The baby went airborne, flying away without a wing to flap. It clattered to the ground, skittering away from her in a lazy spin.
"AWW…!" she screamed painfully, lifting her entry wound to a peak as she arced her back weakly.
"So pure, so weak, " a smug smirk crawled across his lips, "so green…. Too green for the Bloody Reds! With that lip, you're long overdue for a discharge!"
With its work finished for the day, suckling uselessly on another metal grub, he eased the eagle back into the narrow nest at its hip. The dark girl managed to drag her head up off the messy ground, a couple streams of crimson flowing out from the corners of her tensed, pursed lips. Something didn't sit right with him, period, at all as they curled into a smile.
"Got… you--!" her eyes rolled back into her head, her chest puffed for a final time before her last breath came out in a misty, reddened cloud. Her head hit the concrete with a sudden -thud-.
-Whoa…. -
Something didn't sit with him all right. The left side of his gut felt strange indescribably, as though the entire side constricted around his innards and whatnot, choking the crimson right out of it. His breath cycled through him differently, his ears told him, briefly and shallowly. The world became slime before him, sharply contrasted with darks and lights, oozing around as gravity seized hold of his head by the shards.
"Hit!" one of the olive blobs exclaimed. "The Major's been hit!"
"What…?" he blinked, gravity dragging his head down forwardly. "I haven't been hit--I--!"
A slick spot on beside his abs gleamed at him with a vicarious crimson shine, swimming brightly in the ooze. He blinked again, moving his hand to the spot, pressing his palm into it. It happened all the time, his victim's crimson slapping onto the flesh of his own, pooling in one of the dimples between his abs. It couldn't have been his own blood… it -shouldn't- be his own blood--!
"What… the--hell??" he said just as the tips of his fingers dived into the crimson pool.
Something was there for certain, something that shouldn't have been there to begin with, inside him deep with malignancy, solid and hard like a tumor… or even cancer. It felt small, no larger than one of his eagle's slugs of manufactured choice, not even close to its size. But eyeing the girl's smoking beak of her baby, and his fingers tracing the circumference of that crater in his flesh, it told him all it needed to.
"Well, well, well…!" he batted his eyes uselessly. That unsteady, queasy feeling was back again, tickling his brain, running its shaky touch up his belly. "Looks like the… -shikse- bopped me one after all---oh…! - I ought to kick her in the head…!"
"Major Drazen, are you okay?" the good doctor inquired.
"Okay…?" slur grabbed him by the lips, pulling them in strange directions as though he had a little too much to drink at that Zanzibar place. Then again, a cold one would do him some good right about now. "I got shot--and you're asking if I'm okay…? I'm better than okay! I'll be invincible… -whoa… - just as soon as the world stops spinning…!"
"Shit, you do need attention." The Doc noted aloud. It truly was amazing how everyone around firmly grasped hold of the obvious, telling those them what they had just done. "Everyone: listen up! Now that Solomon Rex is complete, I know you're all bored, but you're also contaminating our operating room! Anyone who's not a patient or a medic, clear out now!"
A complacent grumbling mumble swept through the crowd, washed through them, he should say. The room around him began to retake its shape, but everything still retained a bit of unstable liquidness. The olive blobs around shrank, bubbling away into the dark.
A pair of hands clasped onto his shoulders, squeezing them gently.
"Major Drazen," the good doc said, "if you please lay down supine, we can begin."
"Oh…!" he blinked. "Of course…!"
Memories of his childhood came aboard his train of thought; memories he had thought were long forgotten. He remembered it as though it were last week, going to the Na Homolice in Prague with his "mother", guiding him by the hand, how she chased him around the sterile halls over a finger stick, "a simple poke" his ass! The table should have felt cold as his back pressed against it.
"Now, Major Drazen," his heart skipped a beat as the Doc lifted up a scalpel, letting it bask in the light for a second, shining menacingly at him, "you're going to feel a little pressure around your oblique muscles. Not just yet, mind you. I still have to get the disinfectant."
"Of course…." He blinked groggily. "Do what you need to."
"Right." The man nodded. The tiny blade made a clatter nearby as the doc's hands sank underneath the horizon of his side. Liquid sloshed briefly close by. Pinched in between the latex fingers, the good man lifted up a cotton swab, stained darkly with a color that reminded him of mud. "This should sting a bit."
Sting? What sting? There was no sting at the side, not even the faintest trace of a gentle poke. Flesh at his side stretched and contracted strangely, being pulled at one side, letting its elasticity snap it back naturally as the Doc ran the swab over his side.
"I feel nothing…." He yawned.
"I should have known." The Doc noted. The swab found itself airborne at the Doc's behest, resounding in a sturdy plop in the trash bin at bedside. "The blades in your head must have nicked the hindbrain, or something close."
"Can't you yank them out?" he moaned.
"Sorry, Major Drazen," the scalpel glared at him in the light a second time as latex fingers carried it off the table, "I can't. Our x-ray machine's due here -Yom Chamishi-, and until I find out what exactly is in your noggin, there's nothing I can do."
"Inside?" He sulked. "What do you mean exactly? I got brain matter, some blood vessels, and some fucking steel!"
"Diagnosis noted, Major Drazen." The Doc replied. "You did happen to grab your x-rays from Na Homolice during your stay, did you not?"
"Nope." He fixed his eyes on the dark blackness above, between the bright halogens as the sharp glint of steel fell upon him. "Had to leave abruptly, if you recall."
"Yep--!"
"OOO!!" his eyes nearly popped out of his head as he felt that steel invade him harshly. His abs yanked him up reflexively, his arm in the lead for the latex hand intuitively as he felt that malignant lump jiggle. "SHI…!"
The Doc let the steel go, letting it jut out of him like it were an extension of his own body, jiggling--stirring the oozing crimson with every cringe. The man capped his spotted red hand atop his crown, forcing him back down.
"I FELT that…!" he growled.
"Easy, Major…" the Doc said soothingly, "just pick a spot on the ceiling and stare at it. I got to dig this bullet out. It's in here pretty solidly."
"Right…." he nodded.
"So Major," the man said, "you care to tell me what happened back there?"
"Excuse me…?" he put a kink in his brow weakly.
"Don't feel like you have to, Sir." The man shrugged, his shoulder jerking as much as the steel in his belly. "I'm just curious."
"Need I remind you that I hold the rank of Major, and that I'm the commandant of the Organ Grinder?" He replied. "If you want the story, go talk to Lieutenant Bonnet after I meet with him."
"Of course, Sir." The Doc nodded.
"Speaking of which," he blinked, "have you seen the good Lieutenant around lately?"
"Can't say that I have, Major."
"After we're finished, send him to my quarters if you see him around." He said. "I need to brief him on where we stand. Send Galil if you see him as well."
"And may I inquire what you plan to do with those… -shikse---as you've put it?"
"Do what we always do with fresh meat." He yawned. "Give them to Galil. Draw them, quarter them, and do whatever my little brother wishes. I'm sure they'll make a nice midnight snack or something. And get me some more scopolamine while you're at it."
"Yes sir." He nodded. "And I'm almost there…!"
The steel glinted sharply at him when the Doc thankfully yanked it out, its glare bloody red as his crimson trailed down its length. The clatter as it dropped onto the table was music to his tired ears. Something else scraped the table--and the good Doc lifted up a pair of tweezers, its glint as fleeting as its presence as it dropped to his flesh.
"Oh…!" he yelped as they yanked the incision far apart. The malignancy wiggled strangely inside him, rolling and turning, slowly lifting up inside him, surfacing like a submarine.
"Almost--!" the doctor said--and with a hollow huff, the tweezers arced out of his body, the copper glinting as hotly as the scalpel, shining like that slick white hair and those thin, brass frames that traced his sockets. "There! It's out."
"Goody…!" he sighed. "Can I go now?"
"Not just yet." The doctor said. The metallic tumor made a rattle as the tweezers pushed those latex fingers apart, clattering in the bottom of the nearby bin. "You need bandaging."
"Just get some duct tape, for crying out loud!" He quipped. "It's nature's band-aid, you know, and I got shit to do."
"As you wish, Major Drazen." The Doc sighed. "You're the boss. I'm just the measly doctor who took time out of his busy schedule to dig a bullet out--!"
"Damn right, I'm the boss!" He frowned. "Just tape me up, and ship me out. You were with an HMO, it shouldn't be too much skin off your nose."
"You have no idea, Sir…." The Doc sighed cryptically.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" he said.
"Nothing, Sir." The Doc graced him with his scrubby blue backside as he walked away. "I'll get the tape. When you leave, go straight to your room and relax. You'll need rest."
"Fine with me." He nodded. "And should I call you in the morning too?"
"But of course, Major Drazen." The good Doc replied.
"I should have known…." He shrugged.
His abs yanked him up flawlessly as though they had not came directly out of an operation. Crimson filled in the creases of his flesh's making, its twinkle shifting moderately as it continued to ooze. It pooled deeply in one of the folds, particularly between his lowest pair of muscles and his groin.
The doctor was busy fiddling at the table no more than a meter away, his cumbersome obsession hidden by the average build of his blue swathed back. That haunting familiarity swept over him again, his heart jumping at that ghostly touch. Why though, and why now of all times?
"Mind if I ask you a question, Doc?" it came out more like a statement.
"Shoot." The Doc said--and a screeching rip poked his ears as the man yanked at a thick roll of gray.
"Have I seen you before," he asked, "ever? Something about you rings a bell in me, but I can't put my finger on it. Like a… second sight, you know?"
"I have that feeling plenty of times, Major." The gray flail floated down, just before those blue shoulders twitched, letting out a sharp rip seemingly. The man spun on his heels, his latex hands pulling a smallish piece of tape tautly as he approached. "But I can't say that we've met before, I'm sorry."
"Hmm…" was all his throat could muster.
"Maybe in a past life or something." The Doc shrugged. Uzi let his opposite side collapse as that strip neared him, stretching the bloody flesh as tensely as the elasticity would allow. The strip rolled on him smoothly by the Doc's gentle touch, a latex hand smoothing out the wrinkles as the other laid it on with practiced ease. "But that's hardly even a long shot. Just relax for the afternoon. I'll have someone haul Galil's snack for you, and even help round up the little fox loose in our henhouse."
"Thanks…." He let gravity's center pull him back upright. "What would I do without you?"
"Not a whole lot, I guess." The man shrugged. "Now, off to your room with you. Doc here's got a lot on his plate."
"Don't have to tell me twice." He nodded.
"Good," he smirked, "I won't. Now go."
"Uh… Doc?"
"Yes Major?"
"You… just--did." He sniggered. The Doc's gray eyes rolled behind those thin lenses. "Can you say irony…?"
"Oh, Major, grow up!"