Strangely enough, I was reassured by the knowledge that someone was planning to kill me. Such information was more than enough to snap me out of my emotional, hormone-addled stupor and back into 'business mode'. Assassins and arms dealers I could deal with; romance was another matter entirely.
I stepped into the tilted white room once more, glancing around. The lights were off, and I heard snoring from the bedroom. I glanced in to find Aisha curled up contentedly on the large bed, nuzzling the near-empty bottle of whiskey Kao had given me. Seemed that someone started celebrating early.
I sighed, then opted to lay out on the room's plush white couch, stared at the ceiling, and began to plan. All the pieces were set in place: Kao had his plan, Helen had hers, and I was but the victim of unlikely circumstance, unarmed, confused, misunderstood, alone, helpless. Mentally, I tallied off the points, then set about thinking ways around them.
I wasn't entirely unarmed; metaphorically, at least. I never was much of a gunman, instead managing to get by primarily on smarts. That's one thing that Kao never could take away from me. Well, at least not without the assistance of some sort of strange brain-zapping ray, or possibly Tao Magic: variables I didn't count on entering the equation. In addition, there was still the matter of my pocket computer; all I needed was an electrical outlet, and I could wreak all sorts of havoc.
Confused? Not entirely. Not anymore. I knew Kao had nefarious intentions- and for all I knew, he didn't know that I knew. Always a plus. I could stay clearheaded just so long as I didn't get overly emotional, and just as long as Helen stayed relatively clothed.
Misunderstood? Well, Aisha didn't understand human custom; and I doubted she ever would. But I knew I could count on her to back me up if someone started shooting at me. Providing she was around to do so, of course.
Alone? See Misunderstood.
And Helpless? Hardly. I knew that there was always something to be done about such a situation. After all, I'd been in worse situations before. It takes a lot to scare a man who's been to the edge of the universe and back. It takes something monolithic, ancient, and mysterious. Something that had already claimed the lives of many a hapless adventurer, dragging them kicking and screaming to their demise.
Something like Marriage.
I shook my head- just dwelling on the more intimidating aspects of the situation would accomplish absolutely nothing. I needed a plan-
Or maybe just a night's sleep; laying on the semi-comfortable couch, fatigue crept into my body now that I had the opportunity to actually realize it.
My eyes fluttered closed- once I opened them, the night was gone, replaced by day. A suited and well-armed mook towered above me, eyes impassive behind dark sunglasses. "Time to wake up, Mister Hawking."
"What time is it?"
"I think you already know."
"Shit."
"Good, you do."
Gene always told me that he never liked wearing suits- that they felt constricting, hot, and itchy. He always told me that a true Outlaw never wore a suit- that an Outlaw's wardrobe had to be balanced on that thin edge between practicality and outrageous style.
As I pulled on the tuxedo provided by Kao, I realized that Gene had been going to the wrong tailor for a great many years. The tuxedo was one of the most comfortable things I had ever worn- even more comfortable than my favorite broken in, grease-stained jumpsuit.
At least if I was going to die, I'd go out dressed well.
Given the nature of Kao and Helen's respective checkbooks, I had expected that I would have been married someplace gloriously opulent. Like, in a park, or an ancient cathedral, or someplace else that was proper, clean, high priced, and someplace where guys such as myself didn't belong.
They surprised me.
I stepped from the car, and glanced around, taking in the sight of gaudy neon signs, the smell of cheap liquor, the sounds of discordant music blared from shoddy speakers at near-unbearable decibel levels, and the general feeling that comes when one has set foot in familiar territory.
I took another step forward- and into a rancid puddle of something unpleasant and unidentifiable. Cold moisture crept into my shoe, undoubtedly ruining the fine leather and plush sock beneath, saturating my foot within.
The familiar sensation was almost enough to spur me from the impending sense of dread regarding my impending matrimony.
Almost.
"Mr. Kao wanted you to be comfortable when you got married." One of the guards told me. Apparently, making me comfortable entailed taking me to a 24/7 wedding chapel of dubious character within the City's Outlaw district.
It was a pleasant idea, and it almost worked, save for the knowledge that someone was going to try to kill me in the immediate future.
Out of habit, I surveyed the lobby of the chapel as I stepped inside, looking for enemies, allies, escape routes- the usual. As one could expect, enemies were in abundance, whereas allies were not. Kao's guards covered the doorways into and out of the It must've been an incredibly formal occasion; the suits didn't carry their machine guns, opting instead for large pistols that bulged conspicuously from under their jackets. The chapel was conspicuously absent of other guests, to be expected, at the least.
It was as I looked over the lobby that I realized that Aisha was conspicuously absent. She couldn't have been hiding- stealth and subtlety was never one of her stronger points. Before I could look further, a couple stepped forth from the chapel itself, eyes firmly locked on each other. They were almost a textbook couple, she in her bridal white, veils contrasting against her red hair. He looking mildly uncomfortable in his formal wear, red hair slicked back and combed-
The couple looked up, confirming what I had feared. Again, cruel irony chose to slap me in the face.
"Jim?"
"Gene!"
"Jim?"
"Melfina!"
The three of us in our formal wear stood there gaping at each other for a few long moments. I don't think we would have been more disturbed to have run into each other naked; at least then there might have been a rational explanation.
I opened my mouth to deliver some semblance of an excuse, but as my luck would have it, that's about when all hell broke loose.
One of the suits noticed Gene, recognizing him from the Pinnacle decable, and went for his gun. Several others followed suit. Seeing this, Gene laid into one goon with a lunging punch across the jaw, seizing the pistol from the man's hand.
Even still, there was little to be done; Kao's men had the tactically superior position, not to mention the superior firepower- it would only be a matter of moments before their amassed gunfire cut us to bits. I ducked as low as I could, hoping to avoid the fusillade of gunfire that would undoubtedly follow.
It never came.
Instead, with a squealing of tires and a gout of automatic weapons fire, somebody drove through the wall of the chapel, causing a hellacious crash of splintering wood and crunching metal. Kao's men scattered, no doubt encouraged by the haphazard automatic gunfire strewn across the lobby.
Through the dust and gunsmoke, I made out a pair of pointed ears protruding from a head of scruffy white hair. When it came to out and out chaos, one always could count on a C'tarl C'tarl. Muzzle flares from the machine gun illuminated Aisha further. She wore the torn remnants of a hideously pink and ruffled bridesmaid dress, over which she draped a belt of high-caliber ammunition which snaked around into the heavy machine gun clutched in her hands. I wondered where she could have possibly gotten her hands on such a large weapon. My gaze traveled downward, and I regretted it.
For Aisha stood triumphantly on the hood of my battered and bullet-ridden Ehehfrau; I'd have to spend months undoing all the damage she just put the poor car through. Not to mention the cost…
Aisha continued her destructive rampage, stitching a trail of bullet holes across the now-perforated chapel, a savage grin across her face. No doubt she would have continued to pound away with her machine gun, were it not for the timely jamming of the weapon, complete with resonant *CLICK!*
Like some sort of well armed, well-dressed puppets, Kao's men popped up from the debris of a thoroughly ruined wedding and trained all sorts of interesting weaponry at me and my crew. Gene and Melfina pointed pistols back in a show of futile defiance, Aisha swore at her gun, and I did my best to prepare myself for a painful, bullet-riddled end.
Over the lobby's stillness, a single, petulant, shrill voice cried out. "What the HELL is going on here?"
Like the first time I met her, Helen wore white. She stormed forward in her undoubtedly expensive wedding dress, hiking the voluminous skirts up to cross larger chunks of debris littering her path. She completely ignored the various weapons everyone pointed on each other, confident in the fact that nobody would dare shoot her. Even with her determined stride, the debris slowed her down, enough for me to exchange a few tense words with my redheaded friend.
"Jim, what the hell is going on-"
"Shut up, Gene."
"Say, isn't that the one girl-"
"Shut up, Gene."
"And what are you doing so dressed-"
"Shut up, Gene!"
There was no more time to argue, as I was snapped from my argument by a hearty slap across the face. Blinking, I looked over to Helen, who glowered at me with tears in her eyes.
"How could you, Jim? I was looking forward to this- but then your friends had to go and ruin it! Are you Outlaws so uncivilized as to participate in anything without shooting it up?"
"But, I-"
"Don't try to make excuses now! You had your chance to rise above all this, to become something more than a dumb kid with a gun and a spaceship, but you ruined it." She sucked in a breath, composing herself. "I can't forgive you for this, Jim Hawking."
"But…but…your uncle was going to kill me!"
Helen blinked her blue-gray eyes in disbelief. "…What?"
"He was going to kill me to try to take over Starwind and Hawking right after we got married!"
"How do you know that?"
"Err…I had a hunch."
"Seems like a pretty stupid hunch to me. I mean, if he really wanted to take over your pathetic little outlet, I'm sure that he could have figured out some far superior way to go about it." She sighed, dabbing at her eyes with the back of one white sleeve. "I thought I loved you, Jim. And I thought you loved me. But if you were so afraid of commitment as to have your friends wait in ambush over it, you could have told me!" she shook her head. "You've blown it, Jim. I don't think that I can forgive you for this." With that said, she spun about on one heel and picked her way across the debris once again, leaving a bewildered lot of well-dressed gunmen (and, in Melfina and Aisha's cases, women) in her wake. A few moments passed, after which Kao's men turned about and filed out, as if all this chaos had never happened. I caught a glimpse of Helen sobbing into Mr. Kao's arms, but then the two eased themselves into a limousine, and left.
As soon as Helen and Kao were off, I didn't even bother with the standard waiting period one took to comprehend just what the hell happened. I just turned around and left, going in the exact opposite direction that Kao's convoy had driven.
It began to rain.
