Disclaimer: I really hate writing in first person.

Just a Lost Old Man

Waking up in a pool of vomit is not something I recommend. I vowed it would be the last time, a vow I'd made and broken a number of times in the past. A quick check revealed that I hadn't urinated or defecated myself, something that had never happened before but it was still a worry.

With a groan I rose to my feet and took in my surroundings. I was on an old couch in a trash filled alley in what was likely not the best part of town judging by all the 'artwork' covering the walls.

I took inventory. In my right pocket was one wallet, one set of keys, one pocket knife, one steel fountain pen, one single blade folding knife, and one pocket watch. My left held a handkerchief, a tube of chapstick, and a steel pry bar.

Less than what I used to carry when I was in the life I thought I'd left behind after I'd taken a desk job and rejoined the bland boring world everyone else occupied. Joints creaked as I rose to my feet, reminding me of one of the reasons why I'd left it all behind. Being an international man of mystery was a young man's game, one I'd played longer than most, one I'd given up when the years began to make themselves felt and the reflexes started slowing. Best to quit on a high note, I'd decided, best to leave before the decline started and I transformed from legend to has been. I'd let myself get complacent, let myself believe I'd left the old life behind and become one of the sheep. It was a galling thing to realize.

With a yawn, I stepped out of the alley and nearly ran into a bit of local wildlife. That was another mistake I'd have never made in the old days.

"Give me all your money!" the leather clad thug demanded in what he no doubt believed was a threatening tone whilst brandishing a cheap pot metal revolver that likely posed more danger to him than it did to me.

I ignored him

"I said," he growled, taking a step closer to poke me with the muzzle.

Snake quick, my right hand grabbed hold of his fist, twisting it and taking control of the gun while my left came up to shatter his elbow with a familiar pop. The look of surprised confusion on the thug's face was comical enough to force a chuckle from me as my shin impacted on his groin with enough force to lift him off his feet. My would be mugger's legs buckled as he came down. A quick knee to the face took him out of commission. It was messy, worse it was pathetic how much motion and time I'd wasted. I should have never left the field, would have been better to have declined and died on the job than to have rotted away behind a desk.

It took only a moment to search my would be mugger. What I found was disappointing, some unfamiliar currency and a switch blade. The knife was of mediocre quality, the bills of unknown value. Still, I supposed I was better off than I had been a few minutes before. I eyed his jacket for a moment before regarding my vomit stained shirt. Bastard had better not have lice.

Looking and feeling a bit more presentable, I flipped a mental coin and chose a direction. My first step swept the revolver into the nearest storm drain, my second and third started me towards my destination. Wherever that might be.

I left the slum and, to my surprise, things didn't get much better as I approached the better parts of town. Yes, the buildings were in better repair, but a quick glance into the alleys between them showed the same graffiti and the same shadowy figures looking for their next victim. A company town that had lost the company? Were other cities like this? Perhaps the place was in the middle of a depression? I shook the matter off, no sense speculating until I had more information.

The neighborhood began to turn from residential to industrial as I got deeper into the city. The signs of decay weren't as blatant here, it was apparent that someone had taken responsibility and was taking care of things.

A muffled scream drew my attention to a windowless panel van on the other side of the street. Several armed men were carrying a small rope covered package into a warehouse.

I was in an unfamiliar land, I was out of shape, I was without resources, I was not looking for trouble. In short, I was willing to overlook a lot of things. None of the gunsels gave me so much of a glance as they dragged their struggling victim into the warehouse. Kidnapping, especially of a minor, was not one of those things.

The gunsels entered the warehouse, leaving one of their number behind to keep an eye on things outside. The method he chose was to walk a circuit around the warehouse, smoke a cigarette on the front stoop, and to repeat. Professionally, I was disappointed with the quality of the criminals I'd experienced. Personally, I was thrilled. Made things a lot easier to deal with. I allowed myself a minute to make a plan before setting off to execute it. The only thing that could stop me was a run of very bad luck.

I slid behind the sentry as he rounded the corner. It'd been years since I'd done this, years since I'd had to, luckily it wasn't the sort of thing one forgot how to do. Just as I'd been trained to do, decades before, my left hand clamped over the man's mouth and pulled back, putting him off balance, while the tip of my blade slid into his neck. Then, quickly, my right hand thrust forward, the blade severing the carotid, cutting his throat. I wondered if they still taught the technique I'd used as I eased the body to the ground. Hopefully the new kids didn't try to copy the dreck they showed in films.

The less said about what happened in the warehouse the better. In short, it was a cake walk, I've had more trouble getting to bed after a night of heavy drinking. The hardest thing about the take down was dealing with the victim, I'd never had much experience dealing with children, it showed.

"Who are you?" the girl had asked fearfully.

"I'm someone who's here to help." My answer had neither impressed nor satisfied her. "Why don't you close your eyes and put your fingers in your ears," I suggested. "Hope really hard and the police will be here soon."

I left her in the manager's office and walked to the other side of the building to have a talk with my guests.

The films always made mention of a 'license to kill,' as if it were some great thing, as if it gave you some sort of power that no one else had, as if you could show it to the authorities in some foreign country and they'd permit you to go free after the extrajudicial execution of one of their citizens. Reality was much different, it was more akin to a removal of oversight as once one reached a certain level, one had accrued enough trust that the higher ups no longer questioned things. Once one reached that level, they were trusted to do anything necessary to accomplish their mission without being questioned as to the necessity of it. Losing that trust would not result in a reprimand, we weren't normal office workers, losing that trust would result in a bullet to the head and a notation in one's file that they'd been killed in the line of duty.

I found the gunsels bound to chairs and gagged with thick pieces of rope. None of them had been able to free themselves or move from the place I'd left them. I took a moment to give the equipment I'd taken from them a closer look. Most of it was garbage but there were a two gems. The best was a Thompson machine gun in perfect condition, likely stolen from a museum. I regretted the fact that I couldn't take it with me. Too hard to conceal, too likely to provoke an extreme response from what passed for the local authorities. The second was a thirty eight special revolver marked property of an unfamiliar city's police department. Another thing I'd be forced to leave behind as I didn't know how they'd gotten it. It was never a good idea to risk being caught with a murdered cop's gun. Still, it would work fine for what I needed it to.

"Sorry for the wait, gentlemen, I had some business to take care of." I walked to the first bound figure and removed his gag. "I have a few questions for you."

"There's nothing you can do to me to make me talk," the man sneered. "Go ahead and call the cops you-" Having heard enough, I calmly raised the pistol and put one between his eyes. The deadman's compatriots seemed shocked by what they'd witnessed. I was rapidly becoming less and less impressed by the quality of the criminal class in this town.

With a smile, I approached my next victim. "How bout you? Nod yes or shake no. Will you talk?"

The man frantically nodded his head. I took a step closer and removed the gag.

"You'll never get away with this," he said, trying to sound defiant. "We work for-" I cut him off with a bullet to the head.

"You will speak when spoken to," I said, allowing my gaze to sweep over the survivors. "Is that understood?" They nodded frantically. Good. Third time was a charm? "First question, what is the price of a loaf of bread?

I asked two dozen more questions before moving to the next, repeating until I'd talked to each one of them and I'd run out of questions I wanted answered. "One more thing," I said before re-gagging the last man. "What is the number for the police department?"

The woman who answered gave the same city name I'd found on the police revolver. "Yes, I'd like to report a kidnapping and two murders."

"Who was kidnapped?" the dispatcher asked.

"A young girl, I didn't ask her name."

"Do you know the names of the people who were murdered?"

"I didn't bother asking. There are still several healthy kidnappers you can ask if you'd like an answer. Now, I have a question of my own."

"The kidnappers are there right now?"

"Along with the bodies and the victim," I agreed cheerfully. "About my question?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Can you trace this line if I leave it open?"

"Why do you ask, sir?"

"I have no idea what the address might be," I replied. "It's a warehouse, other than that?"

"I understand, sir, we are able to trace the line to your location."

"Wonderful. The kidnappers are tied up, the victim is locked in the managers office, and I will be somewhere else before you get here."

"Sir, please remain on scene until the officers get there. Sir? Sir?"

I ignored the operator's instructions, letting the receiver drop and hang from its cord.

I eyed my captives for a moment. Knots had never been my strong suit, best do something to prevent them from getting away with the kid.

Decision made, I picked up the Thompson and emptied the drum at knee level, figuring the best way to ensure they'd be here when the police arrived would be to ensure they were incapable of walking. They'd likely need to make a career change, but they'd be alive. Well, assuming the police arrived before they died of blood loss.

It was starting to get dark when I left the warehouse. Seemed I'd spent more time entertaining my captives than I'd realized. Trust an old man to get lost in thoughts. Picking a direction based on the information I'd acquired, I found myself headed into a more commercial section of town, the relative cleanliness and affluence of the shops giving evidence that it had not been as severely effected as the other sections of town I'd passed through. Still, that was a case of every third business being boarded up rather than three quarters.

My shoulders dropped when my ears detected what sounded like a strong arm robbery just off my planned route. I was beginning to think the criminals in this town outnumbered the victims, also starting to worry about the kidnapping victim I'd left in the warehouse. I made a mental note to check up on that.

The switch blade came out of my pocket and popped open with a click as I rushed around the corner. Looked like a hop head was menacing a couple and their child, my opinion of the town lowered another notch. The woman screamed as the hop head reached forward to rip the pearls off her throat, the man, seeing his chance, jumped between her and the threat – getting a bullet for his trouble. I wasn't a good person, no one in my business could be called a good person. I'd seen and done things that would sicken the most hardened criminal, all to keep the world turning. Had I been on a mission, I'd have likely walked away, can't save them all and can't risk the mission to save a few. Fortunately for the couple and unfortunately for the man who was accosting them, I was not on a mission.

"Stop!" I shouted, drawing the thug's attention before I threw the knife. There's one thing I think I should make clear at this point, throwing a knife does not work the way it does in the movies. I did not expect it to sink into his throat, I expected that he'd see a sharp piece of metal coming towards his face and do the same thing most everyone else would do. Duck. He did and that was all the time I needed to close the distance and render him harmless.

"Thomas, Thomas," the woman sobbed, clutching the wounded man.

"Martha," he responded weakly.

"Take the kid and go back into the theater," I ordered, pulling the woman roughly to her feet. "The sooner an ambulance gets here, the better his chances are. Hurry!"

I took a moment to examine the man, it didn't look good. Bright red blood was spurting out of a wound on his inner thigh, worse, it was a bit too high for a tourniquet.

"Just relax," I told the man as I pulled out my pocket knife. "This is going to hurt a lot."

"You're supposed to tell me I'm going to be okay," he said weakly, trying to make a joke.

I didn't respond, too focused on widening the entry wound enough to get a couple fingers in so I could manually pinch off the artery.

"That depends on your surgeon and how fast the ambulance gets here," I said, responding to his joke.

"What?"

"I think I'll be able to prevent you from bleeding out for at least a couple minutes. You've got a chance if we can get you to the hospital soon and they've got a good surgeon on duty."

"With who I am to this town?" The man grinned. "I'll have the best."

AN: Were I interested in continuing this, I'd rewrite this chapter to take two to four weeks of story time and would include the main character spending more time gathering resources and remarking mentally that it wasn't the first time he'd been dropped in a foreign location and that it was always a good idea not to have anything on you that you couldn't afford to be found or that did not fit your cover. Basic idea is that some retired high level agent falls through a plot hole into another reality. Not sure who the main character is, was tempted to make him an elderly Rex Racer aka Racer X.

Would have a scene where the main character thinks about the currency he'd recovered from the thugs and to think that it looked a bit like US currency but all the people on it were wrong or something if I were to continue this which is fairly unlikely.

Typo by Luan Mao