Where It All Began PT. 2(A Nircean Tale)

Where It All Began (Pt.2)

A Nircean Tale



A few hours later



"Yep, they're brown." She murmured whilst jabbing her pistol into my cheek as my eyes finally began to break open. My throat hurt, burning every time I tried to swallow and I had a wicked head ache. Last time I felt like this, I was layin' under a tree with a bottle scotch in my hands.

         "What the hell?" I shouted as I shot up, sitting straight up on the couch while my captor held me at gun point. She chuckled at my frantic twisting as I tried to wriggle free of my binds.

         "They're zip ties, Benji, you're not gonna break 'em." She said, casually waving her pistol, as she were apparently the type of person to use frequent hand gestures while speaking. "I'm not gonna kill you, calm down." The woman put her pistol in the holster on her thigh. She then sat down in a rolling desk chair adjacent to where I sat and crossed her legs, leaning back in the chair while twizzling her hair.

         I took a breath and glanced around the place. I sat in what looked like some sort of giant run-off drain, or the mouth of a sewer, considering I saw a large circular opening about thirty meters down the way that led out to some sort of body of water.

The immediate area, however, looked like it was some sort of villainess' hideout. There were weapons and technology littered about the place and of course, the woman's demeanor screamed, "Classic Super Villain".

         Looking the woman in the eyes, I asked, "Read a lot of comic books?"

         She looked at me like I were an idiot and I chuckled, finding it funny that she failed to see the humor in her persona. I felt like I were about to be tied up before a painfully slow laser crept toward me, threatening to cut me in half while she revealed her "master plan".

         "Look, lady," I said, trying to adjust myself so the zip ties wouldn't cut into my skin. "I don't know what the hell you want from me." Then I paused. "Hold on, what do you want with me? Why am I here?"

         She smirked, obviously satisfied with the ball being in her court. "I saved you, believe it or not." Sensing my skepticism, she assured, "Yeah, no, really. I saved your butt. Because when YOU broke into the Dealers condo, you tripped the silent alarm and after I put your sorry ass to sleep, they were well on their way." Still twirling her hair, "Yep, I'm a regular hero."

         "You kicked the window in, I saw the shattered glass. Don't put that one on me. Also, you were there to kill folks, had I not shown up, you might have succeeded, so if anyone's a ruddin' hero here, it's me." I didn't care to argue the case, but if she were anything like the "Classic Super Villain" as I thought, then so long as I kept her talking, I could find a way out.

         "I wasn't even going to kill them! It was an interrogation. They were supposed to believe they'd die. It's called duress, something I'm particularly good at, Benjamin." She tapped my knee with a small knife she retrieved from her boot, clearly in an attempt to intimidate me.

         It was unclear who she was or what she stood for, but a woman willing to put a harmless family under duress in the way that she had, could not have been the kind I was apt to fall in line with. Still, it'd be a shame to let a pair of legs like that walk away.

         "I don't know anything worth your- hold on, Benjamin? How'd you know my name?" I asked, a bell ringing in my banged up noggin. She's pretty AND smart, I thought.

         "I'm Sahir Illitari, 26, unwed, and a handful of trouble if you don't have a sense of boundaries." She said, catching my wandering eyes. "Now that we've been acquainted, do you think we could have a civil discussion as to where to go from here?" She continued, ignoring my question. "I didn't kill you and I kept you out of APD hands, so really, I think you owe me. After all, had you not mucked up my job, I'd be a rich woman right now."

         "Whatever. Just cut me loose, we can talk." I breathed slowly, ready to grab her the second she cut me free.

         She paused. "If you attack me, I might kill you this time."

         Her face was inches away from mine, and we looked into one another's eyes as she cut my bindings. I soothed the skin where the cuffs had been and sighed. "Alright, let's talk." I began, however, before she could reply, I lunged forward, not willing to sit by and accept whatever odd and undeserved punishment she had in store for me.

         I've met her type before, the Black Widow bandit brand of criminal. She knew what her assets were and when needed, she'd willing employ those assets to bring any man to her will.

         I grabbed Sahir around the collar, and violently shook her, forcing the knife from her hands as she clawed at my arms in an attempt to break free. With all the force of my body, I swung her around, picked her up and slammed her down on top of the table next to the couch.

         She struggled on the tabletop, panicking. Perhaps she'd realized that strength wasn't always in presentation.

         After a moment, she reached toward her thigh, clearly recalling the fact that she had loaded pistol strapped to it. I quickly shifted my grip, releasing with one hand to grab her gun and toss it away. She then struck me in the throat. Again. Damn it all woman! The throat??

         My grip weakened enough to where she could break free. She rolled off the table and stood on the side opposite to me. Before she could get ahold of another weapon -as I was sure the place was loaded with stashed guns- I grabbed the knife from the floor, jumped the table, and pulled her in real close. The knife was gently poised to pierce her stomach and the two of us stood silently for a moment. Her shallow breathes danced across my face, cooling the beads of sweat racing down my cheeks.

         She smiled.

         "Well?" Either she anticipated me stabbing her and was surprised, or she knew I wouldn't and was teasing me for it. In either case, she wouldn't have a hole in her so long as I felt like I had a way out.

         "You still want to talk?" I asked, politely. I didn't much care for being at the mercy of anybody, but if she really did want me dead, I would have never woken up in the first place. I felt it was safe to assume that there really was something she needed from me and in an odd way, I needed something from her.

         "Only if you're willing eat with me." She said, nodding, gesturing to a pot of noodles that had begun to boil over atop what appeared to be a makeshift stove.

         I too nodded and lowered the knife.

         She immediately, and playfully, slapped me. "I only said I MIGHT kill you. If you didn't take the chance to escape, I might have thought you to be a bit of a jelly, if you know what I mean."

         "God forbid you think poorly of me." I said sarcastically. "We'll talk, but you don't get any weapons, fresh start?" I asked, reaching my hand out.

         "Fine." She shook my hand, but rolled her doe like eyes.

         We sat down and over the course of the following hour we discussed each of our predicaments. In summary, we both failed very specific jobs assigned to us and now our employers were bound to be very angry. We surmised that our jobs were unrelated and the fact that we showed up at the same place at almost the same time, was purely coincidental. However, it was clear that we each happened upon a shit-storm and needed an exit strategy.

I explained my lack of resources, allies and hideouts and she assured me that she had all of the above. However, she didn't have allies she could trust. Which of course, poised me to ask, "Then why would you trust me?"

         "You seem like a good guy who's somehow managed to convince himself that a life of crime is the way to go." She said, slyly. Somehow, I managed to surround myself with folks that looked down on my sense of morality. "You're no more a criminal than I am a priestess. So, I'm guessing you won't gun me down in cold blood and in my world, that's trust."

She turned away from me, continuing to stir the pot of noodles. Her hips shifted slightly while doing so and again, I couldn't help my eyes. She had the kind of body that could twist up any man and if that weren't enough, she had donned a pair of shorts no longer in inches then my name in letters.

She turned back and my eyes bolted upward to hers.

         "Then you're probably right." Looking her square in the eyes I continued, "But that doesn't mean I won't tear you to shreds, should you cross me. I haven't made it this far without that much going for me." Her condescending smirk faded slightly. "So let's hear it. I was out cold for a while, must have given you time to come up with some genius plan."

         "Here's my proposal, Ben." She served herself a bowl of ham and noodles, gesturing that I do the same. As I did so, she said, "You take care of my disgruntled employer, and I take care of yours, get rid of the targets on our backs."

         Looking at her face, I knew what she meant, but still, "You mean, 'take care of'?" I made a hand gesture resembling a gun and pointed it at my head, asking for clarification.

         "You're a big boy, you know what I mean." Sahir seemed awfully calm about planning to kill a couple of guys.

         "You said it yourself not two minutes ago! I'm not apt to kill a guy in cold blood!" I exclaimed, not really wanting to kill a man, let alone, one I'd never met.

         "It wouldn't be cold blood." She said coolly, however, she seemed to be getting annoyed by my reluctance. "It'd be an act of vigilantism. This guy that hired me, Marron Marlo, is a trafficker, drug dealer and extortionist. He's far from innocent and removing him would probably save a lot of lives. It's a public service, really, and frankly, as far as me killing your guy, I know Liam Forester. The guys a dirty prick with a Napoleon complex. I have no quarrels with taking him outta the picture." She began eating her food, staring into the bowl.

         I was attracted to the woman, I was certain of that, but the more she spoke, the more I began to find reasons to hate her. Eating noodles and talking about gunning a couple of guys down, understandably, didn't sit well with me.

         Sahir beat on me, strangled me, kidnapped me and held me at gun point- none of which were nearly as frightening as her draft demeanor while discussing premeditated murder. At the same time, however, I envied her. I wasn't jealous of the lack of conscience- not at all. I was, however, very jealous of her ability to be willing to do what was necessary to solve her problem.  Strong women seemed to be my Achilles Heel and she was, indeed a strong woman.

         Even still, "I'm not a hired gun. There's got to be another way of handling this." I scrambled my mind, searching for a viable solution. "We can do some other jobs, knock over a bank, and pay the two off. I've taken on banks before, as I'm sure you have. They're business men, in a way, I'm sure they'll take the credits willingly."

         "Yeah, and then our lives. Seriously, have you ever watched a movie?" She spat out her food, stood up and tossed her plate on the table. Clearly fed up with my hesitance, she said, "I know you're a real boy scout, and I respect that, really, I do. You know, in the same way that I respect people who think that giving homeless people money will feed them rather than pay for their drugs. But you need to open your ruddin' eyes, pal." She jabbed her finger into my chest. "Men like them continue to do as they please, use hard working stiffs like ourselves until they deem us unworthy and feed us to the sharks. They will keep after us and they will find ways to hurt and oppress others. This is our only way out and if it makes you feel any better, as I've already told you, we'll be saving others."

         It did make sense, in a purely objective kind of way. They were crappy men who deserved what they had coming. Maybe I could take a page from Sahirs twisted book. We were, in essence, perfect strangers and in no way would I have been tied to Liam's death and nor would she in Marron's. Unless someone were able to deduce our- friendship? No. I preferred the term associate. Yeah. - Unless someone were to deduce our association, there was no way we'd be targeted for the deaths of two separate crime bosses.

         I grit my teeth, further loathing Sahir. Not only was she cold, but she was right.

         What else could I really do? Sit back in Sahirs dump of a hideout and hope things would blow over? Seemed like more often than not, that seemed to be the way I lived my life; clutching onto whatever piece of ground I could and waiting for something to happen, hoping it would turn out for the best.

         I was in the middle of being circled by sharks that I'd welcomed into my life and when time came for them to feed, I was just wading in the water.

Glaring at her, ensuring that she recognized my contempt, I agreed.

"Okay, perfect. I'm glad you can see the light at the end of this stupid tunnel. Which, by the way you created." Sahir was a snide woman. She wanted to make sure I'd feel bad for interrupting the interrogation of an innocent family.

This is all going to come back on you, Sahir. Bad things happened to good and bad people alike, but if her karma didn't kick in, I figured I might have to help move it along.

         "Let's just get this going, I don't want to prolong the anticipation of murder." I took no pride in what I planned on doing. It would be my second kill, the second notch in my belt. A story for another day...

         "Don't be a baby." Sahir said, cramming a couple grenades and a silenced pistol into her bag.

         "You think, maybe, that might be a tad counterintuitive?" I asked, pointing at the silenced hand gun (intended for stealth and avoiding detection) and the grenades (intended for really loud and confrontational combat).

         "What do you mean?" Initially, I thought Sahir was being sarcastic, her baffled expression steering me away from that assumption. She really had no idea why it was dumb to have grenades and a silenced weapon.

         "Nothing." I chuckled. She may have been tough and cold but certain things didn't seem to click in the woman's mind.

         She handed me a rifle with a scope, 14X magnifier. It was a nice rifle. Old world tech, purely gas powered with a lever action pull and wooden components. As primitive as the weapon was, it was pretty.

         "It doesn't have any electronics in it, so it won't be picked up on target scanners, which should allow you to move undetected. You're kill is going to be a lot harder than mine." Sahir pat my arm. "Marron's kind of paranoid and generally won't allow a strange looking guy in his building. You'll be stopped at the front door by a squad of goons. So instead, my friend, you will have to play Hitman and hide out on an adjacent rooftop and take him out through a window." Sahir spoke as if she were actually upset that she couldn't do it.

         Sensing her tone, I asked, "Why would you prefer this method?"

         "Because it's so movie-like!" She exclaimed, smiling. Her smile, a genuine one, shown brightly and made me feel...butterflies. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with me? I was utterly disgusted by her intent, her demeanor and her overall way have "handling" the situation, and yet, I was attracted to her. Perhaps I was too focused on that aspect.

         "Well then, next time, you can play roof top assassin and I'll give the pep talk." I made a bold attempt at flirting with her, not fully understanding why I did so. Sahir bashfully bit the corner of her lip and raised an eye brow, knowing full well what I was doing.

         She replied with, "You're gonna get yourself shot, talking like that." She again smiled, though she also tapped the grip of her holstered pistol. I couldn't tell if she were flirting back, or if she might actually shoot me.

         We went over our plans and essentially it boiled down to me being an elaborate trigger man, while she would waltz through the front door of Liam's office. She would enter under the guise of a gun for hire, and sweet talk the guard before putting him down. Then she'd work her charm on Liam, dropping him quietly before diving through the window, falling seven stories before being saved by her Jet Repulsion boots, designed specifically to reverse her fall before the point of impact. I mentioned that I wanted a pair in case things got hairy, to which Sahir said, "You'll be fine."

         Either she seriously thought I would pull the job off without a hitch, or she assumed I would die shortly after killing Marron. Whichever resulted, she still got what she wanted.

         I'd be a fool if I didn't consider it, is she playing me? She could have easily had this planned out and just needed to find some directionless shmuck to help carry it out.