Riff Tennyson in Invasion Protocol

Riff Tennyson in
Invasion Protocol

         Riff ran across the rough asphalt of the warehouse parking lot with his standard issue Colt .45 fit snug in his hand. The warehouse was old and smoke had darkened the bricks into indistinguishable forms laying under a labyrinth of rusty stairs and walkways. A dog barked somewhere and Riff slipped into a narrow alley between two loading docks. He checked his watch. Good, I’m only a couple of minutes behind. Looks like this time I can get out before the fireworks go off.
         A cat jumped out of a dumpster, startling him, and was almost shot for its sheer audacity. Riff hurried past it, giving it a scowl, and squatted next to a small alcove in the warehouse wall. He was cautious looking around the corner of the wall. Nobody was standing by the door, but that did not mean it was not protected. Riff reached into his belt pouch and grabbed his can of F.O.G.--Faintly Odorous Gas. Spraying only a small amount into the opening while covering his nose--the label was somewhat misleading--Riff waited behind the wall for a few seconds and then turned to check on the results of the spray. It was just as he had thought. The F.O.G. had spread across the small area and revealed three infrared beams crossing the doorway. Two crossed it diagonally and one crossed it horizontally, thus effective in blocking it. Riff smiled, the next part of his mission would be easy. He double-checked that the alley was clear, walked towards the door, and then slipped on an empty beer bottle. He fell straight into the door, thought for a moment about the oaken splinter penetrating his nose, then realized that an alarm was screaming somewhere on the inside of the building. He heard voices and the sounds of heavy boots tramping down metal steps somewhere. “Crap…”
         The footsteps grew louder and Riff knew he was about to be captured. He tried to think about how to escape as he staggered back onto his feet, then something clicked. It was the hammer of a cobalt blue 9mm handgun. The last thing Riff saw was a brilliant flash of red and the hard pavement rushing up to meet him.

*                    *                    *

         Pain…ravens of Prometheus I hurt… Riff groaned. He stirred as a soft female voice whispered into his ear.
         “Please state name, rank, and number.”
         Riff tried to open his eyes. Through his squint, he saw a yellow glare with shadows moving back and forth across it. He croaked out, “Name? I have no name. You won’t get it either you bastard, I’ve been highly trained in endurance and torture will avail you little!” A small chuckle drifted through his semi-conscious mind and he tried to open his eyes wider. His voice was somewhat stronger as he said, “You may think that you can break me, but I shall prove that you can’t!” He waited for a response as he continued to fight for full consciousness.
         “Well, I guess if you have Amnesia it’s only temporary.” The quiet voice hovered beside him for a moment and then became almost inaudible as it moved across the room. “I just needed to make sure you didn’t have a concussion.” Riff stiffened and woke up fully before he could ask his questioner what she meant. Recognition stormed his brain and left him blushing. “Honestly though Riff, you’re the only person I know who’s ever been knocked unconscious by an ink-covered Nerf ball. Anyway, General Schmidt wants you in his office after I make sure you check out. I don’t imagine he’s very happy with you—again. Just thought I’d warn you.” The voice of Resident Nurse Johnson sounded bemused and more than little spiteful. Riff sighed.
         “Alright Nurse Johnson, I’m just a little bit disoriented is all, really, I was just making sure that our medical staff is up to standard level operation. Heh heh.” He still felt strange, but his vision was starting to clear up. “Could you tell General Schmidt that I’ll be up in a few?”
         Nurse Johnson smirked and set down the clipboard she had been carrying around. “Standard level operation huh? Please. Don’t forget to sign yourself out of the ward when you leave.” She handed Riff his underwear and slipped out into the hallway, muttering. He gazed at where her very curvaceous body had gone through the doorway and suddenly became aware of how cold the table that he had been laying on really was.
         Riff got off of the table and dressed, though he was unhappy about having to wear the same clothes that he had been “smeared” with. He glanced in a mirror that hung above the clinic room’s sink. Giant red paint marks radiated down and out from where the ink-ball had hit him above his nose. Great. The General is going to be furious. I’ll probably be assigned to front desk duty again. He turned the hot water on at the sink and began scrubbing his face with the bar of soap that had been sitting next to it. He slammed around the room in a fit of rage when he discovered that his training partners had used perma-ink in their guns again.
         Imagining his coworkers laughter, Riff gave up trying to get his face clean and walked into the hallway, through the door at the end, and up a short flight of stairs to the elevator. He was so focused on his impending meeting with the General that his mind had tossed out all of the smaller details of the previous half an hour, including the fact that he was supposed to sign out of the Medical Ward. With inevitable desk duty dominating his mind, Riff stepped onto the elevator and pressed the button for the fifth floor. Halfway up, the realization that he had not signed-out of the Medical Ward popped into his head and he poked the button for Sub. Level Two. The elevator jerked and came to an abrupt halt. “Crap.” At least, he had thought he had pushed the button for Sub. Level 2. He started to tinker with the elevator’s buttons, but stopped when the lights flickered and went out. Damn this Cerebrus’ mother of a contraption! A short moment later an explosion rocked the elevator shaft, slamming Riff to the floor, unconscious once again.

*                    *                    *

         Cough… cough…splutter. For the second time in three hours Riff woke-up disoriented and in pain. His first sensations were the smell of acrid smoke and unnatural warmth wafting from the walls around him. What in the name of Hades? He got up, being careful to make sure that he was not injured. Finding that he was not beyond a few scrapes and bruises, Riff pressed his hand against the elevator doors to make sure that there was not an immediate threat from the fire. The doors were warm, but not at a level that meant fire was raging on the other side. He pried the doors open and stepped out of the elevator. Realization stormed his brain. He was back at the Medical Ward. Riff hurried down the murky stairs littered with bits of glass and mortar and went through the doorway. His face went pale as he stopped and surveyed what had once been the medical ward. What had once been an organized, sterile, and well-lit clinic had been reduced to charred brick, twisted metal, and melted plastic. There were worse things though. Bodies and their various parts were strewn down the entire length of the ward, looking disturbingly similar to well-roasted mutton.
         Riff held his hand over his mouth but was unable to hold back the surge of vomit that spewed through his fingers. He straightened up and pulled a handkerchief embroidered with a heart and the message, “I love Lucy” from out of his fatigues pocket and tied it around the lower half of his face. No… What’s going on here, how could this have happened? Riff’s agent training instinctively took over and he took his time walking down the hallway, examining the bodies and surveying the damage. Hmm. Looks like this may have been Austin, but the ID tags have been warped so bad that I can’t tell whom it actually was. He walked a few feet farther to the next corpse. This might have been Alexander, but I don’t remember his head having been quite so large. Body after body, Riff found similarities to agents he had known for years, but was never sure of their identities; he did not even bother to take the ruined tags from them. Is this Doyle, or maybe Stoker? That one resembles Edgar. I’ve got to find out what happened here. Pondering the possibilities, Riff found himself in front of a smoke-filled emergency stairwell and was startled by a harsh voice coming from the stairs.
         “Who’s there? Answer before I tear into you with 20 rounds of molten hot lead!”
         Not recognizing the voice, Riff considered the possibility that this could be an enemy. He tried to answer without giving away his own identity.
         “Naught but a lonely man in need of a cold beer and a warm woman!” He laughed raucously. Shots rang out several rounds of ammo skimmed the top of his right ear. Riff dove to his left under the stairwell. “Hold on! My name is Riff, Agent Riff Tennyson!”
         A bulky man in a disheveled, dark green military uniform shuffled his way down the stairs as fast as his girth would allow him.
         “Blast you Riff! You should have identified yourself to begin with! You know that the treaty requires us to, even to enemies! You’re lucky I didn’t take your head off!” The man in the uniform was speaking through a gas mask and it took Riff a few seconds to recognize his voice.
         “General? General Schmidt?” Riff raised his eyebrow. “I’m sorry sir. I was on my way up to see you when everything went dark and all Hell broke loose. I woke up on the elevator back here on SL 2. I didn’t know what to expect. Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
         General Schmidt shook his head.
         “I was actually on my way down the stairs to see what was holding you up and was on SL 1 when the lights went out. Stowe and I were the only ones on the training floor when the explosion went off. I, like you, was also knocked out.” General Schmidt sighed. “Stowe was unfortunately crushed by that new shipment of ball-point pens we had delivered.”
         “Jesus, son of Mary. So many are already dead…” Riff was calm, but had to fight down the urge to panic. He figured that he and General Schmidt were the only ones close to the carnage where it first occurred, the only ones alive anyway, since there was such extensive damage here. He also felt that since he was the underling, even though he was not the most experienced agent ever, he had the responsibility to risk himself in investigating further. The General was of too high a rank to risk it based on Agency protocol.
         General Schmidt focused his attention back on Riff. “I checked my radio once I regained consciousness, there was no traffic from any of our agents. I switched through the channels though and found this…” He turned up the volume on his Spyman 3000 communicator and held it up to Riff’s ear. A rough, grating voice came over the static.
         “Bottom two floors inaccessible, debris blocking the stairwells. Copy.” Another voice screamed back in response.
         “Clear it out you pathetic excuse for a dung beetle’s maggot!”
         “Copy DJ. Work will proceed.” The voices went silent.
Riff looked at General Schmidt.
         “Blistering depths of the bowels of a howling monkey…that has to mean that…”
         “Yeah. We have terror agents or some other feces-throwing scum crawling through the Agency. The founders would be beyond shooting curses like 50 cal. chain guns if they could see us now. As it is, I’m not looking forward to facing the budgeting committee, if we can even get out of here alive.” General Schmidt slumped his shoulders and sighed. “The radio traffic that I’ve been able to follow up ‘till now has suggested that all of our staff and agents have been taken hostage. They call the leader of their group, as you heard, “DJ”. I haven’t been able to figure out what it means, thought that’s probably purposeful on their part.”
         Riff understood, but one way or another, he was going to find out who and where the leader was.
         “Ok General Schmidt, you stay down here per protocol and keep yourself safe. I’ll go up top and see what I can do from there.”
         The General groaned.
“No, no, don’t go Riff! I’m sure that someone else, somewhere, anywhere, is taking care of it already. I’ve already activated the silent alarm, government dispatched troops should be here any minute now!”
         Riff, at first, did not understand why General Schmidt sounded so urgent that he not go. Then, an idea entered his mind, and he shook his head slowly while patting the General on the back. He spoke soft words of comfort to him.
“Poor guy, you must have gotten a harder knock on your head than you’re thinking. Here, have a seat on the stairs.” He cleared some of the debris off of a stair for General Schmidt and sat him down in it. The General grew red and started to growl out his words.
         “Damn it Riff. Don’t go...that’s an order! You don’t understand, you’ll bring us all more trouble than we already have! You’ll ruin the agency forever!”
         Riff looked at General Schmidt with compassion deep within his heart. “Here sir, take your gun here and shoot anything that comes down these stairs. Make sure they are enemies though. If it’s me, I’ll call out the pass code: Shelly Sells Sea Shells By The Sea Shore.” He stood up straight and saluted. General Schmidt was still trying to choke words out, but Riff was already bounding up the stairs, doing his best to avoid the large debris in his way.
         Riff entered the training level on Sub. Level 1 after checking to make sure that the stairwell was still blocked above him. General Schmidt had regained his voice and was yelling something from the level below him, but it did not bother him; he was on the most important mission he had ever been on. Reflecting on this, his nerves turned to hardened steel, but his intestines decided to turn to water, so he made his first stop the restroom. He felt uncomfortable using the women’s restroom when he got to it, but after the explosion it was the only room out of the two left undamaged. In fact, it was still immaculately clean, which for some reason, left him more nervous.
         Having relieved himself, Riff went to the emergency arsenal near the shooting range and armed himself with what he thought he would need. Hmm…M-16 Assault Rifle with optional small grenade launcher, two Colt .45s, 4 extra ammo clips, 1 Bacyman smoke bomb, 2 shrapnel grenades, and several small pieces of surveillance equipment. That should be enough. He looked back into the arsenal to see if there was anything else he might utilize. What? Riff pursed his lips and picked up a magazine from the bottom of the cabinet. How in Confucius’ China did these magazines get in here? The office management boys would be going through offices like squirrels on crack-cocaine if they knew that these were here. He closed the arsenal cover and shrugged. Oh well. He was pretty sure that the same office management boys would probably stash the ‘evidence’ somewhere in the vicinity of their own desks to be thoroughly ‘examined’ at a later time.
         Riff threw the magazine onto the floor with the rest of the trash scattered there and wondered if the invading force had found any of the emergency chutes that ran throughout the building and was connected to all of the floors. He doubted that they had, since only Agents and the highest-ranking officials knew about them and they were always sworn to secrecy by signing a written oath. Of course, he knew that it was possible that a rogue Agent or government official was helming the attack, but he did not think that the leader would have been so concerned with moving the debris from the stairwell if that was the situation. “DJ”…I wonder what that could stand for. He clambered over several knocked down clapboard training sets, through paper-strewn offices, and over the pinned-down corpse of Stowe to reach the far corner of the sub-level. It was here that he found the keypad-secured door to one of the secret chutes. Using the advanced combat techniques that he had learned while in Agent training, Riff aimed his foot at a spot next to the lock and gave the door a hard kick. “Crap! Ow…ow…ow…ow!” He had forgotten that all of the chute doors were reinforced with three-inch thick steel bars.
         Once he stopped hopping around and found his leg to still be intact, Riff remembered that the keypads in the building used a N.E.R.D.-- a “never ending resource di-hydrogen” battery pack. He could still use his key-card to gain access. He fumbled around in his jacket pocket for a moment, pulled out his key-card, and swiped it through.
         Bzzzzzzzz. “Access Denied. Please try again.” Ran across the small LCD screen.
         “Crap.”
         Buzzzzzzzz. “Access Denied. Please try again.”
         “Oh for crying in the rain, what now?” Riff turned around and threw his key-card on the floor. He jumped when he found himself face to face with a burly, uniformed man. This caused him to stumble backwards and fall into a water cooler, though he was able to get a hold of a fire extinguisher as he attempted to regain his balance. Before he could right himself fully, however, the extinguisher gave way and the force of Riff’s own grip on it sent it hurtling straight into his face. He landed on the floor, dazed and seeing spots.
         “Sorry to startle you, but I figured you might try going through the chutes.” General Schmidt looked at him, clearly annoyed. “I decided that since I’m too fat to climb through the chutes myself, that I’d have to rely on you to help us if the alarm has been disabled in any way.” Riff raised himself on his elbows.
         “I’m sorry sir, but my key-card doesn’t seem to work. I tried kicking it too…after…um…trying my card. Heh heh.” Riff stood up and pretended to study the door instead of allowing the General to see the obvious lie on his face.
         “Oh…hm…well you see Riff, I had been wanting to talk to you this morning for a reason.” General Schmidt looked disgruntled and Riff shifted his gaze from the door back to General Schmidt. “I had thought that perhaps you needed a…well…a vacation…and to put it bluntly… I just wanted to get you out of the agency for a few months. I thought it might be beneficial for you to analyze whether or not this job is the right thing for you at this point in your life.” He pulled off his hat, wiped his hand through his hair, and turned his head to examine a bug crawling across the floor.
         Riff’s face turned crimson red.
         “Raging white-hot bolts of Thor! I’ve been an Agent for 5 years, don’t you think I’d know by now if it was or wasn’t right for me? I mean, a vacation would be nice, especially if the Agency were to pay for it this time, but you can’t just send me away from the only job I have any talent in!”
         General Schmidt choked on some saliva in the back of his throat and swung around to look at him. “Talent? You can’t honestly think that…” He reined himself in and changed what he was about to say. “Never mind, we’re here now and I need you to find out what’s really going on. We can talk about vacations later.”
         Riff frowned, but let the topic drop. He glanced towards the door.
         “I can’t go much of anywhere right now sir. The key-pad isn’t operating correctly.”
         General Schmidt pulled out his own key-card and handed it to Riff.
         “Technically, once someone is…sent on vacation…their key-cards are rendered inoperable, thus keeping the Agency secure. Use that one. It will get you through here and any other doors you need to open. Now, here’s the plan. I trust you remember where my office is in relation to the nearest chute?”
         “Yeah, it’s only a few doors down from it on the left side.”
         “Right. I want you to get to my office. The radio talk has led me to believe that that is where the leader of these asinine puss bubbles is. Once you get there, assess the situation as well as possible and report back to me.”
         “DJ...puss bubbles…office…situation…Ok, I won’t fail you sir.” Riff saluted and General Schmidt saluted back.
         “You’d best not agent. This could mean the end of the Agency for months if you don’t succeed.”
         Riff nodded, turned, and swiped General Schmidt’s card through the pad.
         Bzzzzzzzz. Beep. Beep. Click. “Access Granted.” Scrolled across the screen.
         The door opened and Riff took two steps forward. However, he had forgotten that some levels did not have a ledge to step out onto, just the ladder for climbing on the opposite side of the chute. General Schmidt grabbed the middle of Riff’s jacket before he fell, but was thrown to the floor by the force of the fall. Riff grunted and gasped as he was bounced down the sides of small chute like nothing so much as an arcade pinball. “Crap!” “Crap!” “Crap!” He landed with a resounding thump that left him winded. For a brief moment he considered suicide as a better option than his current state of affairs, being as he was, very claustrophobic. However, he was able to get up and brush himself off without too much trouble. He started climbing the ladder rungs back up the chute. He glanced back and smiled at General Schmidt when he reached SL 1, but hurried on once he realized which finger General Schmidt was using to wave at him with.
         Riff continued climbing, making sure to look up often just in case the enemies had discovered the chute. He reached the designated spot on the fifth floor after about fifteen minutes of climbing and crawling. He used General Schmidt’s card to unlock the door and opened it a hairs breadth so that he could observe the hallway undetected. Two men in black, non-descript uniforms were standing by the door to the General’s office, idly chatting together. One let out a bawdy laugh.
         “Crim’ny Landers, you listen t’ that old bat way too much. Just ‘cause she’s paying us don’t mean nothin’! Take me personally, I found a pretty-un downstairs that I’m gonna take me for a tip! A li’l bit o’ rough and tumble ya’ know?” He barked another laugh. The man designated Landers was visibly red and squirming where he stood.
         “Whatever Andrews, I think she’s serious about the threats she makes. I really think that she could do ‘em; she looks really strong. Don’t know about you, but I don’t like the idea of being hung upside-down and naked from the flagpole…”
         The first man, Andrews, laughed even harder at this comment from his companion. “Aw, give’t up Landers, she can’t do that. A li’l wisp of a woman like her, I’d a be surprised if her tongue-lashing ain’t a worse than her bite. I’m tellin’ ya, a cold beer’ll go down ri’ well about now. Besides, there’s no way up here but this here set of stairs, the other-uns ’ll be watching it.”
         “I don’t know Andrews, I…”
         Andrews slapped Landers on the back. “Thata boy…come on!” He dragged Landers down the debris littered hallway.
         “But…but…”
         “Come off it an’ keep ahold a your manhood Landers! We’ll only be gone fer a few.”
         With that last command the two men disappeared down the staircase towards the other end of the hallway. Everything was clear.
         Riff opened the door and stepped into the hallway, wondering how men like that had been able to take over a building full of highly trained agents. It reminded him of one of his old missions, but he quickly drove the thoughts about it from his head. He stole down the hallway, careful not to disturb any of the broken picture frames that covered the floor, and stopped right in front of the secretary’s office that led into General Schmidt’s private office. He did not see anybody in the office, so he walked over to General Schmidt’s office door, making sure not to step on the stacks of paper that had shaken off of the secretary’s desk. Laying his M-16 on the floor beside him, he pulled an Extra-sensitive Audio Recorder from his pocket and placed it against the door. The device both amplified and recorded whatever was being said behind a door or wall, so Riff was able to hear everything that occurred on the inside of the room and tape it for evidence at the same time.
         “Stupid imbecile mercenaries! I shouldn’t have paid them so much to begin with! I couldn’t get a stinking cup of extra tall blazing cinnamon iced frappa-spresso from them if I shoved one up their asses!”
         Riff could swear that he recognized the voice, but it was distorted just enough by the E.A.R. that he could not identify it. Regardless, he thought that the person inside, probably DJ, was alone since he or she was mercilessly mutilating the mercenaries with her words. He leaned in to listen again.
         “Can’t the jack-ass idiots just do something straightforward for once? I should be on the helicopter by now, but the incompetent fools can’t find the General! I swear to all that is evil and unholy that if they don’t find him soon I’m going to castrate them all!” Riff was beginning to put things together in his mind when an alarm like an air raid siren started to blare and a deep voice thundered:
         THIS WATCH WILL EXPLODE IN 4…3…2…1…BOOOOOOOOM!
         “Crap, crap, crap, crap…” His face drained of all color as his watch again indicated it was time to clock-out for the day. 3…2…1…BOOOOOOOOM! He looked for a place to hide and when he found none good enough for his purposes, he pulled his M-16 over his shoulder and pointed it straight at the door, waiting for whoever was inside to open it.
         “Drop the weapon NOW agent!”
         Riff turned his head to look to his left and found, to his intense horror and consternation, that the door he had been listening through was not in fact General Schmidt’s office, but the broom closet. He was caught off guard even more by the revelation that the smooth, commanding voice he had just heard through his E.A.R. came from none other than Resident Nurse Johnson. “DJ” made perfect sense to him now that he remembered that her first name was Debra. She had a wicked looking .10 gauge pointed at him and he was pretty sure that the ammo strapped into the belt across her ample chest were full metal slugs.
         “NOW Agent!”
         Riff put his weapon down slowly.
         “I don’t believe it Nurse Johnson. Why, I mean, how, or, wow…you’re the Agency NURSE!” He straightened up while facing her.
         “Don’t EVER call me Nurse. Not anymore!” Debra’s face was purplish-red and she was trembling with fury. “That’s exactly why I did it Riff. It was perfect. Nobody in the Agency thought that lil’ miss Nurse Johnson could do anything more than apply bandages and look pretty, nor expect her to do anything more. I’ve taken full advantage of that fact and my position in the Agency. Now my job is simple. I get to apply pain, as much of it as I can, and get away with it completely free of suspicion. Ha ha ha. Oh, and by the way, start looking at my face when I talk to you, it’s about a foot higher.”
         Debra sauntered over to Riff and shoved him towards General Schmidt’s office. Her voice sounded like musical chimes as she chuckled under her breath.
“You are such a moron Riff. It’s incredible that you always rationalize your immense failures and ignore the fact that the entire Agency laughs at you. Tell me, you’ve failed how many missions? Five?” Riff scowled as he was led into the General’s office.
         “I didn’t fail them! A few minor…glitches…occurred, but I got the job done.”
         “Please! You forced the Agency to spend millions of dollars on the extra resources and manpower to fix those ridiculously fumbled operations. I’m personally surprised that they didn’t just leave you stranded in the jungle on that last mission.” Debra sat Riff in a cushy, brass-studded leather chair. “Of course you’re right. I knew that you might be the one to inadvertently destroy my plans because of your amazing lack of coordination. Just think about it, you are one who spends the most time in the Ward.” She sneered at Riff as she fumbled around in a black duffel bag sitting on the office desk. “Wishing to avoid this potential problem, as well as initiate my plan, I was able to procure a miniature heat bomb from Tech. Development. You have no idea how disgusting it was to seduce Agent Pope so that I could grab the bomb from his desk drawer and slip it into my pocket. He kept insisting that he wanted a lock of my hair. Ugh. Nothing more than perverted mouse dung.”
         Debra kept talking as she took a role of duct-tape that she has taken from the bag and secured Riff to the chair. She teasingly slid up and down his body while breathing her soft, traitorous words in front of his face. “But, in true Riff Tennyson style, after I placed the bomb in the pen used to sign out of the Medical Ward, you didn’t remember to sign out! I ran back down the emergency stairs, figuring that my whole life had just been ruined by you--an insolent fool-- but I was lucky, Agent Pope had been waiting to see me for…” she smiled, “…a pain in his groin area. I told him that I would come up to his office later, but that he needed to sign out to make his visit official. Thus, I received an easy second chance to implement my plan from the greasy, stained pants of that goat’s teat.”
         The overpowering scent of General Tao’s chicken on Rachel’s breath almost caused Riff to vomit. He sneezed instead.
         “It’s obvious that your mental state has deteriorated Nurse Joh…” Debra whacked Riff across the face with a riding crop that she had pulled from the back of one of her black boots. “…Ow! I mean Debra… Don’t you realize that the government has probably stationed several battalions of troops around here by now?”
         “Ha! Troops huh…that’s funny Riff. No, I took care of that annoying little situation. Mr. Bunyan called for the General to confirm the alarm. I told him that it was just a standard Agency drill and that General Schmidt was indisposed due to his impending prostate exam. He bought it and hung up before I could tell him any of the juicy little details.” Rachel giggled maniacally. “No, no, no Riff. Since you’re the only one who knows who I really am, and Pope was the only one who might have suspected me, I’m an automatic winner. It’s ironic…Pope didn’t even recognize his own invention.” She finished adhering Riff to the chair and walked over to the large plate glass windows that overlooked the city. Debra picked up her radio. “Andrews, Landers, get in here you insolent buffoons!” Riff watched the door open and realized that she must have alerted the two mercenaries before she had confronted him. The last time he had seen them they had been going on a beer run. “Give him a ride down the outside fire escape. Make sure that the rail at the end of the first flight is still rusted out.”
         Andrews and Landers saluted. “Yes sir!”
         Landers blanched. “I mean Ma’am!”
         Andrews cracked a viscous grin. “She really has you whipped, doesn’t she Landers.” Debra slammed her fist holding the riding crop onto the desk.
         “SILENCE! I’ll have you both flogged with a bullwhip if you don’t follow my orders! Get him out of here!”
         Andrews smile faded from his face and he grabbed a hold of the chair Riff was stuck in.
         “Yes ma’am. Sorry ma’am.”
         Riff was trying to figure out what he could do, but none of his ideas were workable. He had always been prepared, always…well…at least usually, but now he could see no options at all. He temporarily blacked out and his life started to flash before his eyes. He came to after a few seconds and began to cry. “Why, oh God, Zeus, and Thor in the Heavens above why? All I ever wanted was to protect my country and earn a retirement somewhere in Uzbekistan!” Riff was wracked with uncontrollable sobbing.
         Andrews slammed the chair around as he started wheeling Riff out of the office. “Stop blubbering you pansy assed woose! At least it’s a quick death; only a four or five second…”
         At that moment, everyone in the room heard a soft whump and caught sight of a spherical object, about the size of a small grapefruit, rolling under General Schmidt’s desk. They had also noticed where the object had fallen from—a metal pin swaying on Riff’s belt pouch. Riff’s eyes widened.
         “Crap, crap, crap, crap…”
         Debra gasped, looking like she was going to asphyxiate, Andrews cursed, and Landers threw himself into the farthest corner of the room. Debra regained her voice and screamed, “Shrapnel Grenade!”
         The same instant that the grenade exploded, Andrews threw himself, along with Riff in the chair, through the office doorway. Riff thought of two things before the world turned dark for his third time that day. The first was that he was probably going to die; the second was that he had forgotten to pay his life insurance bill before he had left for work that morning.

*                    *                    *

         Why am I always in so much pain… Riff became aware of the fact that he was alive after his initial thought. He opened his eyes, though they were unfocused. Crap, I wonder if I’m really alive, or if this cold nothingness is the anti-thesis Hell mentioned in that one report… He attempted to clear the mucus from his throat.
         “Hello? Anyone there?” He rasped. Being disoriented still, he could only see soft light filtering from somewhere around him. He heard footsteps from somewhere far away. They got closer and he tensed for a moment, wondering if he had been smeared again. A bright voice penetrated his thoughts.
         “Riff? Riff Tennyson? I’m Doctor Shelley…Mary Shelly…how are you feeling?”
         Riff was not sure why, but he felt a sudden chill creep up his spine. He responded in his dry rasp.
         “Well, I guess I feel kind of disoriented, and I hurt, but that’s fairly usual for me.”
         Dr. Shelly placed her hand on his forehead and listened to his chest with a freezing cold stethoscope.
         “Frankly, Mr. Tennyson, after surviving a close encounter with a shrapnel grenade, you’re lucky to feel anything at all. When they found you, you were unconscious and missing your left foot from your ankle down.”
         “My ankle? My ankle’s gone?” Riff’s eyes focused and he frantically tried to move his left leg. Dr. Shelly placed a calming hand on his shoulder.
         “Don’t worry about it Mr. Tennyson, we were able to successfully re-attach your foot with the aid of our newest cybernetic technology. We expect you to make a full recovery within the next year or so.”
         Riff closed his eyes and sighed. At least General Schmidt wouldn’t have to force him on vacation now.
         “Why don’t you get some rest, there are several people who will be wanting to see you soon.”
         Riff nodded and relaxed his body. He was asleep again within seconds. What seemed like only a few minutes later, he heard a voice calling him.
         “Riff…Riff…wake-up you old spittoon stain!” Riff raised opened his eyes and turned his head to face the speaker. The room was still a little blurry, but he recognized General Schmidt standing next to his. Thinking about what had happened at the Agency, he stammered out an apology.
         “General Schmidt, I’m sorry about your office sir…truly, but it wasn’t my fault!”
         General Schmidt leaned back and guffawed.
         “Now, now Riff, don’t be like that. You saved the Agency! You’re a bonafide hero of the A.C.I.A.!”
         Riff’s face turned from anxious anticipation of reprisal to a look of utter confusion.
         “What? But how? Surely the mercenaries followed out Debra’s plan. I guess though, that now that I think about it, I really didn’t discover what her final objectives were.”
         General Schmidt let loose a broad smile.
         “To make a long story short, since you were there for most of it, the mercenaries all bailed out when they found their employer’s personal body guard laying on the floor and looking like nothing so much as several pounds of grade A ground beef. Debra was no where to be found.” General Schmidt looked sick for a moment, then continued. “Anyway, other than the mercenary ground into the floor of my secretary’s office, we found another mercenary who had miraculously escaped the worst of the explosion, missing his arm though. He had been too afraid to leave and told us that his name was Landers. In exchange for a plea deal, he gave us the rest of the details in Debra’s plan and told us the exact story of what had occurred in the office. It appears that Debra was going to take the confiscated money from our evidence lockers and fly to Cancun, Mexico on our company helicopter. He also told us that she had ordered the mercenaries that upon her escape they were to kill all of the staff and agents. He didn't see how she escaped the building, though she didn’t get the helicopter. The one thing she accomplished was that she was able to escape with the money. We are at a loss for how she could have slipped past all of our security networks.”
         Riff shook his head in amazement.
         “Still, I don’t understand why I’m a hero sir, the only reason I wasn’t a pancake on the employee parking lot is because I didn’t check to make sure my grenades were secured on my belt.”
         General Schmidt paused and looked at Riff with an odd expression on his face. He shrugged.
         “Regardless Riff, it was your bravery that kept everyone alive. The President is even going to award you the Medal of Honor as soon as you recuperate well enough to be seen in public.”
         Riff opened his mouth, but all that came out was a strangled gurgle. General Schmidt guffawed again and turned to leave, then turned back around.
         “One last thing Riff, I thought you should know that I’m promoting you to Senior Agent designation. As soon as you’re well enough, I want you back at the office.” He walked out of the room. Riff could hardly believe it as he lay recovering from the hardest and strangest mission he had ever undertaken. Senior Agent…his folks would be so proud.

*                    *                    *

         A woman wearing two small strips of cloth and a thin sheen of oil was reclining on a beach in Mexico, a briefcase sitting in the sand next to her chair. Her ample curves fit snugly into the towel-covered wicker chair that she occupied and she was sipping on a coconut daiquiri. Half of her face was covered in flecks of melted metal that reflected the midday sun.
         A muscular young Mexican man passed by and glanced over at her. He did a double take and turned around to get the advantage of a full view of her. Approaching her chair, he muttered with his poor ability in English.
         “Hola Señorita, you have some nice melons, si? I buy them from you por favor?”
         The woman grunted and glared at the man from behind her sunglasses. She pulled a silenced 9mm handgun from underneath her towel and shot the young Mexican three times in the head.
         “No pechugas por tu… I’m one body that no one will ever mess with again…”
         Something thudded into the sand behind her and the woman turned to see what it was. Lying next to where they had fallen from her cooler were two Mangoes.
         “Crap…”


Owen Latchkey