Chapter 3
When facing an imminent confrontation with multiple thugs, the PI handbook (now long out of print in both paper and electronic versions) strongly suggests that you remember the acronym W.E.P.N.
• Wits: keep them about you.
• Evaluate your foe’s strengths.
• Postulate their weaknesses. And assign each foe a slightly demeaning …
• Nickname (it will subconsciously help your fighting skills if you convince yourself that your opponent is someone known, for example, as “Bedwetter”).
These particular thugs in front of me were clearly hired muscle: big men (one of them truly immense) in big suits with big ugly scowls on their faces. Working from left to right, they were.
Stupid Ape: I had to quantify this with the word “stupid” so as not to offend the ape community. Large of limb, impotent of intellect, he was the kind of guy who lettered in leg-breaking at thug school but flunked the written exam because he didn’t know which end of the e-pencil to use.
Fuzz Face: I pegged this guy as the boss. My first clue was that he stood in the middle. Let’s face it, when you’re dealing with thugs, the boss always stands in the middle. They’re a lot like geese in that respect. He also looked a little less animal-like than the other two. Shades hid his eyes and a dirty little mustache and goatee stippled his chin. My guess is that he thought the facial hair made him look menacing. To me, it only made him look like the back end of a blind shepherd’s ewe.
Both these goons were packing high power hand blasters which, of course, were aimed directly at me.
Man Mountain: Stupid Ape and Fuzz Face were trouble, but this guy brought the situation up a few levels on the danger meter (right up to “uh-oh, did I pay this month’s premium on my life insurance?”).
First off, he was immense. I’ve said that before, I know, but I want to make sure I do him justice here. He was two and a half meters tall and very nearly as wide. To this guy the Bahamian diet was something you try because you’ve already eaten Jamaica and St. Croix.
Clearly, the guy was GE (genetically engineered)—thugs that size just don’t come from Mother Nature—and this set off all kinds of alarms in my head. It takes a pile of credits to get a GE (they’ve been outlawed since 2035), so I knew right away that I was up against a goon squad who had some hefty financing behind them.
“Zachary Johnson,” Fuzz Face barked, further strengthening my belief that he was the brains (such as they were) of the outfit. “You’re coming with us.”
“Don’t they teach manners in thug school anymore?” I responded, trying hard to sound unimpressed.
“Manners don’t mean much when you got a blaster pointed at your face,” he growled. “Now like I said, you’re coming with us. Alive or in pieces, it don’t matter to me.”
“My, my,” I stated coolly, then glanced at HARV, “when it comes to kidnapping, you fine gentleman certainly are in the dark.”
“What the DOS are you talking about?” Fuzz Face demanded, clearly a little confused (but, frankly, I had the feeling that confusion was a state this guy visited often).
Right on cue HARV killed the office lights and shaded the window screens to black, plunging the room into total darkness, and utter confusion.
“What happened?” one of the thugs (Stupid Ape, I think) mumbled.
“Ugh,” another thug (probably Man Mountain) grunted.
Just then the lights blinked back on and my three thug friends suddenly found themselves faced with fifteen identical versions of yours truly.
“How’d he do that?” asked Stupid Ape.
“Ugh,” Man Mountain grunted again.
“They’re holograms, you idiots. But one of them is the real thing,” Fuzz Face answered as he turned and aimed his blaster at the wall screen covering HARV’s power unit. “We just need to take out the computer and …”
The real me chose that nano to leap at Fuzz Face from the crowd of holograms and nail him a hard with snap kick to the groin—not very sporting, I know, but what do you want, he was going to shoot my computer.
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to pick on defenseless and very expensive computers?” I asked, as he crumpled to the ground at my feet.
Unfortunately, my move surprised HARV as much as it did the thugs because when I moved on Fuzz Face, the hologram images of me all remained motionless. And that pretty much blew my cover.
Stupid Ape was quick to take advantage of the opening. He hit me with a haymaker to the gut that sent me stumbling backwards. I managed to remain on my feet (thanks mostly to the wall I hit) and came right back at him.
A look of confusion crossed his face as I rushed him. And by confusion, I mean above and beyond his normal level. Apparently, he wasn’t accustomed to seeing his victims bounce back after taking one of his good punches.
“Huh?” he questioned eloquently.
“You must be losing your touch,” I said, lying through my teeth. That punch would have cracked my ribs like eggshells had it not been for the armor I wear. It’s a light, but extremely strong, carbon alloy specially designed for me by my good buddy, Dr. Randy Pool. It protects me from heavy blows and even light blaster fire. It gets a little itchy in warm weather, but a man who makes a living poking his nose into places where it doesn’t belong can never to be too careful.
I gave Stupid Ape a nano to wonder about his shortcomings and then moved in for the kill.
“Next thing you know, you’ll develop a glass jaw,” I said. Then I let loose with a fast right cross to his block-like chin.
A wonderful look of total shock and confusion swept over the thug’s face as he flew backwards through the air like a hovercraft with stuck accelerator. To him, it was as though every rule in the world had suddenly been reprogrammed. Some average Joe had just taken his best punch, shrugged it off and then hit him harder than he’d ever been hit before. He had a few nanos to ponder the new rules as he flew over my desk, crashed into the wall and then fell to the floor.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my many years as a PI, it’s that sometimes you need to cheat a little bit to survive. Let’s face it, St. Peter’s parlor is SRO with guys who tried to fight fairly. Anyone who’s been around the block a time or two learns the hard way that when it’s do-or-die time, you don’t get extra credit for being nice.
My armor helps me cheat. On top of protecting me, it’s also soft-wired to my muscles, which means that in times of need I can draw juice from its circuits, channel it directly into my arms or legs and basically give myself a quantum-sized helping hand. Yes, it’s cheating. I’m not as tough as these thugs think I am. But remember, I’m not the one who came into the room waving his blaster around, so forgive me if I don’t strictly adhere to the Book of Fisticuffs Etiquette.
Unfortunately, in this case, I’d used my trump card a little too soon. Two thugs were down but my luck was about to run out because Man Mountain chose that nano to join the fray. I knew this because a fist the size of my desk chair swatted me from the side and sent me tumbling. I felt this blow, even through the armor, and this time when I hit the wall, I felt it crack (at least I hoped it was the wall).
Man Mountain gathered me up and used his massive girth to drive me into the wall that housed HARV’s computer screen. I quickly juiced-up my fist with energy from the body armor and countered with a jab to the behemoth’s gut.
Sparks flew.
Man Mountain smiled.
I gulped.
“You not so tough enough, eh?” he said as he wrapped his fingers around my throat. “I made in 2029 before tests banned. Made real strong.”
“And exceptionally smart as well,” I said, trying as always to remain lucid, or at least as lucid as one can be when being strangled to death by a tank with arms. “If they ever bring back slapstick, you could play all four Stooges.”
I flicked my left wrist in just the right way and my trusty Colt 45 version 2-A, popped neatly into my hand from its forearm holster. Guns are nasty, messy items, but there are times when nasty is called for, and messy is just something you have to live with.
But Man Mountain had somehow anticipated this move and reacted with surprising speed. His free hand grabbed my arm and pinned it, gun and all, firmly against the wall. Then he gave me one of those “ha ha, you’re even dumber than I am” smiles, which was especially nasty because, in this case, it rang so true.
“I talk not good but I smarter than words,” he said. “When I strangle you, your armor, I know you wear, no help.”
He began tightening his grip on my throat with his giant atomic vise of a hand and I began to regret not ordering the armor in the turtleneck style.
“Okay,” I gasped, “I guess I’ll come along quietly now. Where are we headed?”
His lips curled back at the corners and the smile turned into a snarl.
“What you say?” he snickered. “I not hear you. Oh well.” And his fingers tightened even more, cutting off my air and slowly crushing my throat.
I felt my eyes roll back in my head and the world turned gray around the edges. Unconsciousness beckoned. The dark void opened before me and I felt the urge to plunge into the netherword and let its peaceful shadows cover me in the big sleep of nevermore.
That was when I knew I was in big trouble. I always get way too metaphoric when I’m facing death.