[LNH/ACRA/WRIMO] Anal-Retentive Archive Kid: A Judicious Use Of Overkill #2
Saxon Brenton
saxonbrenton at hotmail.com
Thu Nov 4 18:38:43 PDT 2010
Anal-Retentive Archive Kid: A Judicious Use Of Overkill - part 2
A Legion of Net.Heroes miniseries for the Raccowrimo writing month
Written by and copyright 2010 Saxon Brenton
Wendle arrived at the apartment where Elizabeth was living... well,
residing. He'd only been there once before, for school work. He got on
well enough with her, but they weren't what you could call close friends.
She wasn't his type. Which was to say, Elizabeth not only had no interest
in the strange and unusual, but an active aversion to it. And when you
considered Wendle's part time job as Anal-Retentive Archive Kid for the
Legion of Net.Heroes, this sometimes made conversation a bit strained.
Still, the young man remembered the place well enough from his
previous visit that he let his mind wander onto what sort of takeaway
he'd like for dinner this evening. So he wasn't paying full attention as
he came up the stairs, and had only himself to blame when he was shoved
in the back and thrown to the floor, and when he looked up discovered a
smiling man pointing a gun at his face when he looked up.
Now, here is where things become both extremely complex and brutally
simple, as both men's instinctive reactions and preconceptions come into
play.
Hiro Ajisai was a self-satisfied bully who liked to think of himself
as a cat playing with his victims. This is why he had the twisted nick-
name Neko, the 'cat'. He fully intended to murder Wendle in cold blood,
but as always wanted to indulge his cheerful malice first. He motioned
with his gun in a 'get up' gesture, while simultaneously saying in
Japanese, "< Time to die, gaijin dog. No witnesses allowed, >" and
completely failing to realise that Wendle could understand every word
that he said.
Wendle's first reaction was to freeze. This was perhaps an unusual
reaction for a member of the Legion, but then he wasn't trained as a
combat operative. As it became clear that Neko intended to kill rather
than rob or kidnap him, he carefully stood up, raised his arms in an open
hand gesture of surrender, and then quickly slapped one palm against his
chest.
Neko was delighted. The gangster had been watching for something
like this. He loved the way that dudes - hyped up with violent pop
culture TV and video games - would try to fight, as if they were some
sort of action movie hero. Neko himself had honed his fast draw and
quick shot skills especially for occasions like this, and would
deliberately let the punks grab their weapons and get *almost* to the
point where they could get off a shot at him - then watch the sense of
triumph die in their eyes as he pumped them full of lead, and quip,
"Hollywood lies to you all the time."
Neko had no idea until it was too late how badly he had misint-
erpretted what Wendle was doing. That Wendle was not reaching for a gun,
but instead was making a single quick slap to the plot device in the
pocket of his shirt, activating it to instantly teleport himself back to
the Legion headquarters.
It was the last mistake that Neko would ever make.
=====
Character credits:
Everyone here created by me.
Author's notes:
The use of plot devices as emergency teleports dates back at least
as far as _Integrity Quest_.
-----
Saxon Brenton University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au saxonbrenton at hotmail.com
"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex
world of jet-powered apes and time-travel." - Superman, JLA Classified #3
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