29

Work at Channel 2 could have been better for David. It wasn't the same since Saturday afternoon, and his guts twisted at the solemn feeling that it never was going to be the same ever again. It marked him deeply, scarring him till his final breath, known as the man who showed the world what a bloody loon--a borderline heretic, as he heard what the prominent rabbis say.

-To think--I actually supported the guy…. - He shook his head soberly, gravely. -He sure played us like a fiddle! -

He removed his cheek wobbled as he slipped his hand off his face. He let his index and thumb pinch at a piece of paper beside him on his desk. The guys over at the Internet, the people responsible for their website and other computer gimmicks, were kind enough to slip him a police rendering of the mysterious VSA leader. He wasn't sure if the police's source were trying to be cute or as serious as shellshock would let him… or her, for that matter.

This guy looked horrific, as though his icy madness manifested itself in his outward appearance. He couldn't be much younger or much older than 20. His once youthful face was smeared and twisted with horrid scars, stretching his strange flesh oddly around the callous eyes. The crown undulated with fleshy webbing, exposed from all its hair to that which was responsible… a few large pointy objects standing out from his baldness.

"Is this guy for real…?" he thought aloud. Maybe the boys at Internet were toying with him again; they had a habit of doing that.

"As real as you can get from a Palestinian, Dave." Said a man passing his station by leisurely. "The guy was a train wreck, shivering like a little puppy dog. Looked like he survived that big explosion yesterday."

"Apparently so!" he nodded. "Just look at this sketch! It can't be real! Who would do such a thing to himself?"

"Maybe he isn't as masochistic as you think." The man shrugged. "Maybe something happened to him. We don't know."

"Ten to one, it's probably something the PLO drew up to feel better about themselves." He shrugged back. "To show that there is something worse than what they really are, fitting aptly, claiming that this… -thing- came slithering from our side of the fence."

"It's easier to put the blame on something else when you have so little, you know." The man said. "It's amazing what you can do when you have an understanding bone in your body."

"Yet while their greedy leader has so much," he replied, "what good would an uprising do us--do them especially?"

"Apparently nothing." The man replied. "After three years of it, our flag still is waving in the warm breeze."

"As is theirs." He nodded.

"True." He shrugged. "As much as I like to discuss further, I really got to get back to work. Care to talk some other time, Mister…."

"David." He reached out his hand. "David Schlitz for traffic and weather."

"Ah yes." The man took it heartily. "I remember you now. Covered that terrible footage yesterday, right?"

"Inadvertently, yes." He pumped gently.

"Well, Dave." The man took his hand back. Dave let his flop to his lap. "I'm Hal, freelance photographer. I'd better be getting back to work. These pictures aren't going to post themselves."

"Okay." He nodded. "Hop to it."

"Will do!"

The photographer strolled past his station easily, dodging people, weaving his way through the maze of desks to the editor's office at the other end of the room. He could just barely catch the blinds rattling on the glass as Hal pushed open the door, disappearing inside. He seemed like a nice guy, though he hoped that grouch behind the blinds thought so as well.

He shrugged it off, pushing it aside as he angled up that bizarre portrait again. His eyes ran over the sketch again, running down the lad's neck on the left, eyeing that thicker piece of flesh with scrutiny. …And a vague sense of familiarity swept over him, struck him like a brick. He had seen this man--this young man somewhere, some time beforehand, a little before the mysterious major graced the country with his angry fists.

Fingers danced atop their dance floor of letters and symbols, clacking as pieces sank deeply at his will only to spring back up again. He thanked the good Lord that he invested in wireless connectivity about a month ago; making queries had never been so much easier. With a tap on the touch-pad mouse, the ISP window flickered on screen. Soon the World Wide Web caught his laptop in its sticky strands, just with use of his name and password.

"Let's see now…." He hummed aloud. "What was I reading that day…?"

The angled arrow floated to the top of the screen, looming over the clock swaddled by a green arrow. The laptop clicked at him with a push of the left button. The history pushed his homepage away, making room for it. And there it was, sitting close to the top, about the fifth one down: the ABC News site. The hovering arrow told him all he needed to: "Colonel Alexander Drazen Found Dead: Ex-Marine's Private Army In Chaos."

He clicked it. The homepage was overwhelmed with white, blinding almost, blues and black spilling on it from the top of the monitor. In a couple seconds, the ABC logo popped onto the top of the page, as did the headline at the top of the white field in sans serif black.

"Select students of Middleton High School were supposed to be treated to a showing of one of our nation's attempts at environmental conservation the morning of--blah, blah, blah…." He read quietly. "But it all came crashing down around them in an instant when a group of heavily armed mercenaries stormed the complex, holding them hostage for reasons unknown--yeah, yeah…!"

With the help of his trusty touch-pad, the article slipped up, consumed by the monitor's top as he moved the scroll all the way down on the scroll bar. It wasn't a very lengthy article to begin with.

"Medical Technicians rushed Ms. Possible and company away, including a possible defector from the terrorists whose name has not been released, to an undisclosed location." He read on. "SEAL teams stormed the complex, rounding up the terrorists left behind as most of them had fled. Two bodies discovered at the scene are thought to be two of Col. Drazen's sons, Tristian and Vasili. The inexplicably huge body of his eldest son, Deutsche, was discovered after a through search of the surrounding seabed. The body of the youngest son, Uzziel, had not been found, despite overwhelming eyewitness accounts, including that of Ms. Possible, to the contrary. All that was found in the fess point, the central area of Escutcheon, was a bloody grappling hook…."

He stole a glance at the picture flanking the article, which pushed at the words awkwardly. It was a profile of the boy in question, puffy hair capping his head, brushed back, a light shade on his cheeks that didn't seem to vanish in the light, with a few longer hairs bushing at his chin. A darker shade than that of his cheeks encircled his eyes at the sockets. Were they brown, or maybe even green? He couldn't tell.

"This is Uzziel Drazen?" he said aloud. "Could this be the infamous Major? He can't be! He barely looks older than my 20-year-old!"

-BL-EA-EA-EA-EAT -

The phone let out that annoying pulsation of a bleat. He let out a sigh, easing himself down back onto his chair. Damn new fangled contraption! He hated that ringer, and yet he found no way to switch it or to even turn it off.

"What's with this damn phone?" he said. "It's not a sheep, for crying out loud."

"That's what I said!" said the guy behind him. "Can the boss be troubled to get us some regular phones? Not no--but hell no!"

"Ever wonder why?" he turned his ear to him gently.

"Not really." The man said.

"Me neither." He shrugged. "Hell--it could quack like the PA Chairman, and I'd still pick it up! Speaking of which…."

The receiver clunked a bit on its cradle as he scooped it up. The AC did a fine job, chilling his ear to the core as he pressed the phone against his head. With a tap near the cradle, he fingered the button to the first line, where that red light glared at him.

"-Ah… -" he yawned. "This is Schlitz."

"Schlitz…?" coming out of the earpiece was that of a man, a young man at that. He couldn't be over 25, at least. "David Schlitz, of traffic and weather?"

"Speaking." He nodded. "Who may I say is calling?"

"Don't you recognize me, Mr. Schlitz?" the young man said. "I'm sure you've seen me before. And I'm pretty sure our paths have crossed more recently than you think, like yesterday for example."

"Okay, kid." He rolled his eyes. It was prank caller, probably just old enough to see his first ejaculation. They had a nasty habit of posing as the Major, terrorizing venues and businesses owned by the Arabs. Thankfully arrests had been made recently. "I'm a very busy man. I don't have time for prank calls. If you want to harass somebody, go call our editor. He's a gullible man. I can patch you through even."

"Call me kid again," the boy growled, "and you can look forward to a bullet in your ass! But that wouldn't serve the purpose for this call, now would it?"

"Nope!" he eased his back against the back of his chair. "Prank calling… threats…. That sounds enough for an arrest, now doesn't it, -kid-?"

The phone crackled in his ear. He grinned confidently.

"But I'll tell you what, though." He let a finger twirl around the cord of the receiver. "Come clean now, and I'll forget this even happened, yes?"

"I'm telling you the truth, my thick-headed friend." The punk replied. "I'm the commandant of this little violent group, the same man who shot a hospital up back in Prague, and the same -kid---as you rudely put it--who deep-six well over 40 mongrels in their place with many more licking their wounds. The same -kid- who can easily do it to you, dear Mr. Schlitz, without losing a wink of sleep over it."

"That does it, kid!" he growled. "I'm calling the cops! See how tough you are behind jail!"

"I can be a very dangerous -kid-, Mr. Schlitz." The kid said coolly.

"Try me, you little shit!" he growled.

"I think…" the kid paused briefly, "you should come to the closest window."

He blinked… and with sudden resolve hardened in his mind, he pushed himself to his feet, letting the chair roll back to a stop behind him. He strolled the closest window coolly. The punk was bluffing. He had to be bluffing. This little shit couldn't be the enigmatic Major that terrorized the people east of the fence, or Colonel Drazen's kid for that matter.

It'd be far too easy. Probably, he was just some punk calling from a payphone, possibly across the street. If he found that kid there, boy was his ass going to be so red! He served his time in the IDF; he knew all the Krav Maga he would ever need, and probably more than that punk ever did.

"Okay, Punk Bad-Ass." He stabbed his fingers through the blinds, spreading them far enough apart for an eyeful. "Where are you--!?"

Standing attentively across the street, with bull-pup rifles and SMG guns at the ready, stood several soldiers, swathed loosely in olive. Their machine-gun mounted Hummer vibrating behind them, purring, Hebrew characters emblazoned in red on the door panel. One of the men moved his head back and forth, his neck arcing it back inch by inch as though he were scanning his building for something… someone in particular.

"Oh… -dreck-!" he cursed.

He blinked. These guys were with the VSA, of course, but they didn't take orders from a punk. They wouldn't. The punk was closer than he thought--

The soldier's head ceased his sweep, his face staring right at his while the eyes narrowed. Dave's heart murmured nervously, squirming as the soldier moved his face away, pressing it into the radio he held near his ear. Two of them left their post, strolling for the other side of the street, coolly passing under the edge of the blinder just below his eyes.

"See?" the punk continued. "Now my men know where you are, Mr. Schlitz. They're coming up. You should have been nicer, Mr. Schlitz."

"Shut it!" he growled.

"You're about to shut it in a minute, Mr. Schlitz." The punk said. "Permanently, if you keep this shit up."

"Fine!" he cursed. "What do you want?"

"Oh?" the kid threw it back. "So -now- you actually want to hear what I've to say, huh?"

"Just spit it out." He rolled his eyes.

"Fine…." The kid sighed. "If that's the way you want it to be."

"It is…."

"Fine." The punk said. "Recently, I've been having problems with a small group of people. People I can't stand. People that have been interfering with my operations, no matter how small or how large they are. They don't want them to go forward, come to fruition, blossom into things of beauty… my beauty.

"And…?"

"My men and I've managed to capture one of them." The punk continued. "Two of them are hiding like vermin, while one is unaccounted for. I know they're out there somewhere, my dear journalistic friend, plotting and planning my demise even as I speak. I must know where they are--and fast! Time's never on my side! And soon my greatest plan has yet to come into play!"

"What plan?"

"Oh, you and the rest of the civilians will see soon enough. But I need your help, Mr. Schultz--!"

"Schlitz."

"Whatever!" the kid said. "I need you all the more."

"And what can I do?"

"Nothing right now, my friend." The kid said. Strangely, the disjointed polyphony of the office was silent, gone almost with the exception of a paper flailing here and there, phones bleating together like a herd. "It sure has gotten quiet in the office of yours, hasn't it? My men must have already arrived then. Isn't that right, boys?"

"That's right, Sir."

A firm, clenching hand clapped onto his shoulder petulantly. He felt as though he was in a film, stuck in slow motion as the hand turned him away from the window roughly. His protagonist made himself known to him with that crossly frown, eyes swollen with a sullen fury, resolve hardened in a drawn out instant. His skin grew clammy as the man's breath wisped over him.

The other one stood at ease, arms behind his back, legs apart with his bull-pup pressed across his chest. This one was no different than the one who stared him down, eyes--rather---eye- swollen with that same sullen rage. It was a disease, contagious throughout the ranks of the Victims' Separatist Army, as the reporters of Channel 2 noted. A mark, as it were, of those who truly were denizens of the devilish heretic himself.

"Target captured, Sir." The man in back noted to his radio.

"Good!" the punk on the line replied. "As you can see, Mr. Schlitz, I'm not lying. I have no reason to, after all. When you're the Major of this outfit, you can do anything. And as much as I'd like to keep harassing you, dear sir, I'm afraid that work must interject itself again. My men will take it from here. I'll look forward to seeing you…."

The phone went off instantly, clicking, dead silence swirling in his ear. It wasn't a lie after all. Soberly, he laid the receiver down upon its cradle, possibly for the last time.

All eyes were on him, the soldiers, his peers, even that portly editor managed to lumber out of that door, hands at his hips, grasping feebly at his reputed authority. He knew those looks all to well, the empty gaze they gave to someone on the verge of eternity. David P. Schlitz: dead man walking.

"What on earth is going on here!?" the editor demanded weakly.

"This doesn't concern you, Sir." The soldier in back replied.

"Mr. David Schlitz." The man in front of him said.

"Yes…?" he asked needlessly.

"The good Major wants a word with you." The man replied. "Come with us immediately."

"You storm in here and detain one of my employees!" the editor barked. "The -hell- this doesn't concern me! You guys ought to be arrested yourselves!"

"Shut up, Moshe…!" he exclaimed drawly.

"The -hell-, you say!" The editor shouted belligerently, unintelligently. "There's been an accident on the freeway, a goddamn pile up--traffic's at a standstill! I can't loose a man now! I'm calling the police--!"

-BAM! -

The women shrieked--yelped, some even jumping out of their chairs as if the seats became superheated. Something growled explosively at the portly man as he wobbled back into his office. Moshe had tumbled through his prestigious door, planting his pudgy face on the hard carpet out of his eyes' reach.

"Moshe…!" Hal shouted. "MOSHE!! Damn it--CALL A FUCKING AMBULANCE!!"

He placed his gaze back upon the men. The soldier in back just stuffed his pistol back into the holster at his leg.

"Let this be a lesson to all of you, people!" the man in front exclaimed. "Fuck with the VSA, fuck with our leader, and get fucked yourselves!"

Dread touched his spine with an icy finger when the man in front put those swollen, angry orbs back on him. All the Krav Maga in the country couldn't save him now.

"Come, Mr. Schlitz." The man said coolly. "The Major is waiting for you."

---

Utter blackness all around and not a single shred of light to see. It had been a while since the thugs in olive had taken him alive, detained him, as they simply called it. Kidnapping was too harsh a word, plucking the wrong set of strings. If David Schlitz played it wrong too much, a simple pick at the next string would be his last, snapping out of control like a loose piece of piano wire.

If that string dealt him the final blow, hardly anyone would know. It'd be weeks--maybe even months before the troops found his rotten body, consumed by the elements and the vultures flying by. David Schlitz, gone forever with the sunset. It was going to be a long afternoon….

As far as he could piece together patiently, he was taken to some kind of building after a lengthy car ride. Loafers fell hard upon a floor, hard and rough like cement, scraping his soles as he dragged his feet. His plodding steps resounded closely together, one after another. It was a corridor of some kind; he just knew it.

"-Uh…! -" He groaned. "Where am I…?"

"Shut up!" that petulant soldier barked. "You'll find out soon enough. And when you finally do, you'll probably wish you hadn't!"

A door was addressed, the stifled clattering of a knob, the hinges moaning piercingly for grease of some kind. He nearly stumbled over his own shoes as the men guided him along by his thumbs.

"You're just about there." The petulant one said--

A horrid stench plowed into his nose, drilling in through the nostrils. Shit--what an odor! To say it was overly ripe would be the understatement of the month. It smelled more of a meat locker that some sadomasochist eagerly cut the power to. Judging by its intensity, the meat wasn't even a jog away.

Uneasy queasiness churned what little lunch he had in his belly strongly.

"And…" the petulant man said as something scraped nearby, "sit!"

Curved, hard plastic slammed against his butt as he relinquished easily from the man his thumbs. His butt pressed against a chair, armless like the ones he had seen before in classrooms, its back tipping just above the small of his own. The blackness before him shifted, up his crown--and light, sweet light stung him harshly in the eyes.

"OH--!" he winced.

"Light too harsh for you?" the petulant one mocked. "Too bad."

"-Uh…. -" he sniffed lightly. "What's that stench…?"

"You don't need to worry about that." The man said. "You'll get used to it sometime."

He blinked, sense filtering gradually back into his head with the batting of his eyes. The decorator had a fascination with red-out, it seemed. Dark red was splotched everywhere in the square room, unevenly and messily, like a Pollack work gone horribly awry. Grays filtered in slowly, bleeding into the red as unevenly and messily… before they outgrew the red completely. A lengthy smear was in the corner; colored of flesh, morphing, shrinking into a crisper shape, shape that of a human--!

The place looked like a third-world slaughterhouse. Blackened crimson was splattered on the dingy walls, caked on, smeared on, whatever you could do with blood, it was probably gleaming right at him in the light. In the corner, a stripped woman hanged by a meat hook, her goods hidden by swathing black panties and a sports bra. Her crimson encircled a bloody piece of duct tape, trickling down her side. A loose burlap bag, wrinkled at her shoulders, hid her identity.

-Unconscious…. - he nodded. -The stench probably got to her---

A snap crackled throughout the room, a lengthy, crackling snap that made his stomach turn. That sound, he remembered it well--too well from his days in the defense forces, sitting in a hospital, listening to god knows what as the docs operated on his buddy. The poor guy tripped a claymore; nasty shit it was too. A few doped-up pellets caught him in the leg, but his buddy caught the brunt of it. He could have sworn he heard some bones snap at him that day….

Cautiously he let his neck carry his head towards the shoulder on the left, letting the hairs on his chin drag it and keep it at a halt. The corner was dark, no bright, intruding lamp shining overhead. Something was there definitely, hunched over, shifting in the shroud of the shadow. The thing let out a grunt--or what seemed like a grunt, a buzzing, crackling growl--and something was thrust into the air, tumbling over the creature's head, behind it. It -slapped- onto the floor, in the harsh spotlight--

It was a leg, a bloody leg at that, crimson smeared all over the smooth skin while some pooled onto the cement. His insides began to twist sickly. It looked like it belonged to a woman, the leg and calf too thin and small, the foot too dainty and cared over to be a man's.

"Oh--gross…!" he stuck out his tongue.

--A chunk of twisted, crafted metal fell out of the shade, screeching as it scraped the floor, close to the limb. It looked like some sort of junkyard claw, bulky and chunky, designed to scoop up large, cumbersome objects like it were a mere pillow. It made a rattle as it lifted off the floor, chunky digits lifting off the boxy pockmarks they made on the pavement. With a droning buzz, it moved over the limb. He winced as the pavement let out a screech, the limb trapped within that death grip, blood smeared as it was dragged back into darkness. Another buzzing, crackling grunt escaped that terrible shade.

"Oh God…!" he cringed.

"Ah…!" a familiar someone said elatedly over the creaking of the door. "My esteemed guest has finally arrived!"

"The punk kid!?" Dave blinked. "What the fuck man!?"

"Must we really go through this, Mr. Schlitz?" the punk graced him with his dark, flowing plastic backside as he walked passed. What the hell was with this guy? He never had seen anyone wearing a heavy-duty poncho inside before. "Do you really want a repeat of what happened at the newsroom? Not that it really matters to me. Piss me off enough, and I'll have Channel 1 to turn to."

"Is that a fact?" He sneered. "Then why don't you just kill me outright?"

"I don't believe in killing the good Lord's chosen for no reason." The punk replied. "They must be a -rodef- for me to go through with that. The -real- monkeys and pigs on the other side of our fence are a different story. People like you should have seen it by now. They are not viable partners for peace, Mr. Shultz--"

"Schlitz!"

"Whatever." The punk rounded the corner of the table, metallic legs scraping the cement as he drew the chair out. "They are not peacemakers, Mr. 'Schlitz'. They are warmongers, just like you and your kind call me! They are interested in nothing but our destruction as a people and as a state. If they want to drive us into the sea, as they always scream, I say we give them hell before they do! So I do give them hell, driving them back to the deserts where they belong. And how do you people repay me…?"

As the punk sat down, his hand went for his baggy hood, drawing it slowly over his head… over the large, metal slivers imbedded in his skull. It was just like the drawing! The brown hair was cut skintight. A cloudy, milky orb sat beside the eye of hazel. His cheeks were marred with twisted scars, the punk's left side more than his right. For some malicious reason, the punk kept his left hand out of sight.

"You send that -shikse---" the freaky Goth, punk… thing pointed to that bare, bleeding girl in the corner, "over there in the corner, to put a propeller through my head. Thankfully for me, that didn't come to pass. Thicker skull, you know."

The thing in the shadow let out another growling, buzzing snap.

"Well, what do you know." The punk said. "He agrees."

"That thing's a 'he'?" he took another look.

"He was sometime ago." The freaky punk shrugged. "Doesn't really matter now if he was de-sexed or not. He's still alive."

"So what do you need me for?"

"What's your occupation over at Channel 2?"

"Traffic for the most part, dabbled into some meteorology here and there." He shrugged back. "Typically I report how much Johnny Jackass screwed up on the freeway. Did you hear my boss back at the newsroom about the huge pileup? He'd have me in the 'copter post haste. Oh wait--that's right, you didn't hear him, did you? After all, the gruesome twosome put a smoking hole in his chest."

"I heard about it from them." The punk replied. "This Moshe person sounded like a real jerk. I practically did you a favor."

"A favor!?" He let his growl become a crescendo. "A FAVOR!? That wasn't a favor--it WAS JUST PLAIN MURDER!!"

The punk shrugged. "Favor, murder… two sides on the same coin, if you ask me."

"I didn't ask you, punk!" He exclaimed. "I -told- you! Shit--I can't believe I was ever biased towards you. You killed dozens of people, you killed my boss, and it didn't even take you a few days!"

"Blah, blah, blah, Mr. Schultz--!"

"SCHLITZ, DAMN IT!"

"Whatever…!" the punk yawned.

"Why am I here!?" He demanded.

"You said it yourself, Mr. 'Schlitz'." The metal head made quotes with his hand. "You're a reporter, you're here to report. And what I need now, dear sir is a reporter! I don't care if you are in traffic or in weather. You have access to materials I'm in need of right now."

"What are you going to do with them?" he asked.

Four legs scrapped the floor again while the metallic punk pushed himself away from the table. His eyes narrowed on the empty sleeve on the poncho, dangling and swaying beside the punk as though it were fringe, yet something bulky angled from the left oblique up to the right shoulder… and a little beyond, a small, thin tent peaking on the shoulder.

"Broke your arm?" he asked.

"I can't say," the punk replied, as he strolled for the bagged prisoner, "but -she---on the other hand--can!"

The psycho put his hand onto the girl's taut belly, just above her little navel. Drawing the pads of his fingers up her body, he moved them straight up her breastbone, in between her perky mounds without a second thought, dipping the index into the slight dimple just above where her collarbones met. He twisted his hand outwardly, scraping a hearty piece of the burlap into his grip and drew it over the girl's head, letting it slip to a stop on her reddish crown.

"Isn't that right, precious…?" the metal-head said cutely, bitterly, gripping her angelic face by the chin, forcing a nod out of her. "Well what do you know--she agrees with me."

The reddish--red hair, her button nose, her beautiful face; he had seen the girl somewhere before. Quite often, in fact, but he couldn't put his finger on it, though it were just out of his reach.

The punk pried her eye open, a bright emerald that sat on a bed of white, just before he pushed his face close to it.

"Eye see you…!" the punk chuckled.

And the gears in his head finally let out a sturdy -click-. "Is that who I think it is…?"

"Probably." He shrugged. "I didn't know Israel cared so much to keep up with her exploits all across this disgusting spinning ball of filth. Canada, Cambodia, Japan--New Jersey even! This little wench gets around, kind of like the village bicycle--everyone gets a ride!"

"Kimberly Possible…!" Schlitz said in awe. "-The- Kimberly Possible; the same one that axed that unstoppable Family bunch? You actually captured her!"

"Don't ever speak to me about The Family!" the punk growled. "Each time gets a broken finger!"

"So you really are Col. Drazen's youngest after all…."

"Call me that again, and I just might let G over there have himself some seconds." The metal-head growled again. "Isn't that right, G?"

That freak in the corner let out another unintelligible, buzzing snap.

"Oh--he likes that idea!" the punk made the burlap drop over the ginger girl's face again. "Very much so…! But we're getting off topic here. Now, what I need you to do is get me some airtime! Sometime soon… like--oh, I don't know--today!"

"For what, pray tell?" he'd fold his arms if he could.

Something was up definitely. He should have known already when the 'Major' gestured towards Ms. Possible.

"Bait, my dear man!" the kid said. "I have the distinct suspicion that she was not plotting my demise alone, no sir. There are others out there, watching and waiting, I in the pinch of their crosshairs already. They must be brought to light if I ever want my plans to succeed!

"We're going to have ourselves a little execution, Mr. Schultz--!"

"Schlitz!"

"Whatever!" the kid graced Ms. Possible with his backside, strolling coolly for his seat. "As I said, this little wench is going to die in Technicolor, and you're going to help me!"

"Oh really?" he frowned. "And what makes you think I'm going to help you?"

"I still have some buddies in the IDF, Mr. Schlitz." A button slipped out of sight on the punk's chest with help of his fingers. The flap was reared up against him as his fingers snaked into the pocket, the wrist whipping it out just as his fingers stopped squirming. Pinched between his index and his middle was a small slip of paper, no bigger than a wallet sized photograph. "They tell me things, good things, bad things, and things in between, like who survived and who didn't come back this afternoon."

His heart skipped a beat when the punk slipped him the paper. It came to a stop at the peak of his belly, threatening to flutter to the nasty floor with a tip.

As he took the paper, he couldn't help but think how his little boy was doing in the service. He lost a friend in the field just a couple of weeks ago. It rattled his nerves a bit, yet he had the strength not to give into the fierce hatred like these clowns. Just like his boy, Junior was, always making his old man proud. Again, he should have seen it coming when he took saw the face of his son, staring back at him on the paper.

"What--have you done to my son, Drazen!?" he demanded. He felt the fury rush up with in him, burning much rhyme and reason to a charred crisp.

"Given your emotional state," the punk demeaned him, "I'm going to forget you said that. But it's not what I -have- done to him, Schlitz. It is what I am -going- to do to him for your noncompliance. You've been drafted into the Defense Forces before, right? A lot of things can happen in the field, Mr. Schlitz, like a stray bullet or a booby trap. Whatever it is, it all adds up to a bad day, and especially a bad day for your kid."

"This is OUTRAGEOUS!!" He exclaimed. "I will NOT be threatened by you, Major Drazen!"

"Then all you have to do is get me some airtime." Mr. Dead Meat said. "Others will coming running soon enough. Soon the whole world will know and fear me, Mr. Schlitz, and your son will be safe. I can't promise the dirty-rotten-inbred-filth next door won't though, but I'm certain Junior knew that going in."

"Fine…!" he nodded grudgingly. "You'll get your fucking airtime! But what guarantees do I have from you?"

"Well--for one, you won't get a bullet through your head!" the punk shrugged. "I think that's good enough, don't you think?"

"…." He growled.

"I'll take that as a yes, Mr. Schlitz." Drazen nodded. "But come now. You've got a lot of work to do, and not enough time to do it."

The kid angled himself away from him, to the doorman of a grunt.

"Get Mr. Schlitz back to his office, post haste!" The kid barked. "And get this bitch cleaned up! I want her packed and ready to be shipped out! All nonessential personnel present, I want them ready to move out within the hour! I'm in the mood to defile something!"

"Yes sir!" the grunt exclaimed--and then came a squeak of the door, loud and screeching, whining as it came to a close inside its frame.

"Come now, Mr. Schultz." The punk turned to him again, narrowing his eye--the only eye that apparently worked. "You've got shit to do!"

The blindfold slipped over his eyes easier now. Madness, sheer madness it was. Drazen, the cannibal afraid of a little light, and the slaughterhouse that summed it all up in a bloodied gift box, he'd be happy if he never saw any of it again.

"I'm going to need one hell of a bath after this…!" he mumbled.