Continued from: Part 5and Part 6 and other stories are in the 5th Column Library
**
Okay let’s process what I know. My powers are all screwy thanks to me taking a chunk out of some carrier jerk face dropkick whilst buzzing on stardust so I could actually hurt the bastard! Some guy just threw a grenade at me; a woman just saved my life and then shoved a gun in my eye. She knows that I’m the Quoll.
“I’m not the Quoll,” I scoff.
“Nice try B…” She pauses as the guy who threw the grenade puts a gun in her ear.
“He is mine,” he says, he’s got an accent from somewhere Russian.
So I’ve got a gun in my eye, the woman pointing that gun has a gun in her ear and seemingly they both want me dead. If I had a gun I could point it at him and complete this weird triangle of death.
“Someone want to tell me what’s going on?”
“SHUT UP!” They both snap at me.
“I kill him and you kill me?” asks the woman.
“Exactly.” He replies.
She lowers her gun “How about you kill him. I just need him dead. I get paid more if I do it but so long as he’s dead it’s all the same to me.”
I can see the thoughts racing across his face, processing the request. He nods “It is deal.”
“Now wait a frickin minute!” I bark only to have them both turn their guns at me. I raise my hands as I slowly get to my feet. “Someone want to tell me why not one, but two people are trying to kill me? Call it a last request.”
They glance at each other; then back at me and then each other. The level of trust between them is paper thin.
“You’re wanted by Xiphos, along with several other carriers. Dead or alive,” she says.
The man turns his gun on her “You’re from Xiphos?”
She pointed her gun at him “Yeah. Problem?”
“You tell your secrets so easily.”
“He’s going to be dead shortly.”
I almost can’t believe my ears. These two idiots are making small talk like they’re at the hitman reunion party. Think fast…“Really? Two shadowy agencies want a guy who works in the records room of Indigo City PD dead? You guys are so wrong.”
“I saw you turn into the Quoll at the railway station,” she sniggers pointing her gun back at me. “Plus I’ve been following your trail for days.”
“I have brief on you,” says the man whose gun now points at my head. “You are Quoll.”
“Well then,” I exhale and I slap their hands up. Bullets zip past my ears as I, at my own command, turn into the Quoll. “Seems you two are my problem.” I slap him across the face and give her a bop on the chin, it shocks them. I grab their hands holding the guns and spin them both in opposite circles like a dancer and let them go as I step in between them. My hearing focuses in on the metal on metal sounds of the firing pins and I wait until the last millisecond and duck.
BLAM! BLAM! Thud! Thud!
I look down to see him with a bullet in his forehead, glance back to see her with one in hers.
“Stone the %^$&g crows! Didn’t think that would work!” I gush. Now I’ve got fix this, actually more like edit. I rifle through their persons and take their wallets, keys, phones, any paperwork…I essentially rob them. But these two tried to kill me and they know who I am. I hear sirens. Gotta hurry and I’ve gotta get away from here because this has happened right out the front of my apartment block.
**
“No officer, I didn’t hear anything?” I lean against the doorframe as the two uniformed cops do a doorknock of my block. “I’ve been throwing up and lying in the bathtub.”
“Can we just check your ID please sir?” asks the woman.
“Sure, sure,” I throw open the door and grab my wallet out of my pants. I make sure to bring over my ICPD lanyard with photocard as well.
“You a cop?” asks the male beckoning for what I’ve got in my hand.
“Support staff.”
They both nod, she jots down my details as he smiles “Cool. Which area?”
“Records and evidence.”
“Oh this’ll head your way,” he says.
“So what’s going on?”
They look at each other, but because I’m a fellow officer of sorts, they begin to actually tell me asides from the blue line brush-off that normal civilians get. “Weird double execution. Looks like a drug dealer sending a message.”
“Wow, that is weird. Most of the junkies and dealers are down in Lovecraft.”
“Crazy time’s man,” he says.
“Thanks for your time Ben,” she says as she passes me a card “If you remember anything or, well…” She winks and they leave. I shut the door and smile. Things are looking up coz this isn’t just her office extension. I look at my coffee table full of assassin crap.
“Right, lets sort through this $#!t! But first I’m getting the hell out of Indigo.”
I pick up my phone and open the BookFlight app and check flights to Tahiti. Bit of sun and sand will set me right.
**
Captain Caleb McDonald looked at his computer. A big red access denied came up again on Ben Irwin’s extended personnel file. Caleb smashed his fists on the keyboard.
“Why? Why? WHY?” he ranted. “HELEN! HELEN!”
“Yes Captain McDonald?” came the timid voice of his personal assistant.
“Get me I.T! NOW!”
**
I look up at the indicator board, gate four is my flight to Abu Dhabi and then onto Tahiti. Caleb’s gonna get a shock when he see’s that he approved my holidays months ago, well that's what it says on his computer. Oh look a bar, don’t mind if I do.
To be continued…
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