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Post by B. B. Wolf on Sept 14, 2007 1:40:47 GMT -6
Jack furrowed his brow as he sat in his cab and watched Aya. The street was unusually quiet... ominously so, actually. He looked in at the bellhop and the uniform stuck out like a mohawk in a Civil War re-enactment. Sure, it could have been his first day or maybe he was covering for someone but that didn't explain why he was using a cart for one bag- even a large one. Jack looked at the vehicles on the street and noticed a car with plates that his eyes and his brain could not agree on. There was also a motorcycle that gave a 'mind your own damn business' vibe.
Even as he told himself to let it go, Jack found himself turning into the hotel's parking garage and using the reservation number he'd been given by Aya's generous aunt. The first thing he noticed was a van parked in a No Parking zone, and that the security office was manned by a lone figure who did not seem to give a shit about the van. He also kept with the hotel's theme of wearing a uniform that did not fit.
Jack pulled into an open area and a man stepped toward him to tell him he couldn't park there and to get lost.
"My fare forgot her cell phone," he lied in return to the man and pulled out his own cell phone as proof.
"I'll take it," replied the fake security guard.
"Come on, bud," Jack replied lightly. "I got kids to feed and people love to tip when I bring stuff they thought they lost. Just doin' my job."
The actor pulled out a fifty and held it up with his left hand and reached out for the phone with his right. "Just doing mine," he intoned. "I need you to leave."
Jack reached for the money and pulled out his own phone, letting it drift off to the side under the guise of being distracted by the money. The actor had to look away to grab the phone, so he did not notice when Jack grabbed his wrist instead of the money. The moment he did notice, Jack was already yanking him forward into his knee. The actor let out a choking grunt as his kidney was compressed by Jack's kneecap. Jack dropped his phone and reached for the gun on the man's hip- one a hotel parking lot guard should not have been carrying.
The fact that it had a silencer was also a dead giveaway that something fishy was going on. Jack pistolwhipped the actor across the face and dragged him into the security office where he found the real guard unconscious on the floor. There was a bag of zip ties, which jack utilized after cutting the real guard free.
"You're really lucky you didn't kill him, bud," said Jack as he zip-tied the actor's ankles and wrists together. "Otherwise, this would have ended differently for you. He noticed what looked like a large alcohol wipe packet and raised an eyebrow as he recognized the rash around the guard's mouth.
"Really?" he asked the actor, who was dazed but quickly coming back into reality.
"Wha-Who?" mumbled the actor. When he realized his hands were bound he sat up to break free- but everyone and their dog had seen the videos on escaping zip ties so Jack pushed him down onto his back where he didn't have the space necessary to snap the ties. Jack pulled a glove from the first-aid kit on the wall, put it on, and opened the packet containing a chloroform rag instead of an alcohol wipe.
He then had to kneel on the actor's chest to keep him from squirming. That seemed like an odd reaction since Jack's actions showed that he did not intend to kill the man. Pulling the wet cloth from the foil-lined packet, Jack pressed the cloth to the actor's mouth and nose and pressed his foot down on the man's abdomen.
Even with that, the actor fought to avoid breathing. Jack pointed the gun at him. "Your choice."
He chose to fight and thrash and squirm and shake his head. It was pointless and delayed the inevitable moment when he'd have to breathe and could sit out the rest of the night, but he seemed determined to do it even as his face turned purple. Jack didn't have time to deal with this. Instead of firing, he moved the rag, swung out the gun to pistolwhip the actor again, and was nonplussed by the fact that the actor replied with anger.
"No, asshole, shoot me!" he growled at Jack, who replied by shoving the rag back in his face now that he had used up his air. The actor looked enraged and shook his head until his expression morphed to pleading. Jack removed the rag and the man took a breath and seemed dismayed to realize the chloroform remained on his skin and he had just breathed in more of it. He tried to hold his breath again and Jack smacked him.
"You get that I'm lettin' you live, right?" He asked the squirming actor.
"No thanks, fuckwit," snarled the man. "Shoot me." Jack obliged. He shot the actor in the leg and pressed the rag over his mouth when the screaming stopped. It only took a few more seconds for him to stop squirming as adrenaline forced him to breathe. Jack left him there with the rag and hurried into the hotel with the security guard's badge opening the door and giving him access to the emergency elevator. He had not seen Aya enter the elevator and wasn't sure what floor she was on, but when he called the elevator it came from the 4th floor, so that was as good a lead as any.
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FangedSmile
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Post by FangedSmile on Sept 14, 2007 1:46:18 GMT -6
Aya followed Jeremy out of the elevator and kept up the small talk she had nervously started in the lobby. He wasn't very good at small talk and she was feeling the sarcasm when he asked him why he'd decided to become a bellhop and if he enjoyed it.
"Yes ma'am," he replied dully. "It's the best. Here is your room."
She stared back timidly and looked at the floor. She'd read a Reddit thread about American customs for travelers and had not remembered it saying anything about them hating their jobs and openly expressing that when asked about them. It had only mentioned tipping. She fumbled for her purse. After all, he did not want him to be mad at her since she was going to be there for a while. Though, as she scrambled to get her purse open and tried to remember what the standard tip was for a bellhop, Jeremy only seemed more impatient.
Her hands shook and eventually, she just held her purse open at him and bowed apologetically.
"That's okay, ma'am," he intoned, looking patronized. "I'm well paid."
She could feel herself start sweating as her heart thundered in her ears and her face reddened. She wondered if beet red would turn into her permanent skin color during her internship and she'd leave the country with people still talking about that weird Japanese girl. "I-I-I'm s-s-sorry," she sputtered, quickly putting her wallet away and then having to take it out again when she remembered her keycard was in it.
Jeremy took the card from her after her sixth time failing to open the door, and unlocked it for her with a loud, "I'll get it, ma'am."
He opened the door on the first try and gestured for her to go inside. She stepped forward and noticed that none of the lights were on and the window curtains were drawn shut... that was... Wasn't that a little rude? Now she had to find a light switch in an unfamiliar room. What was ruder was Jeremy shoving her inside with the cart and shutting the door so there was no light at all.
"Jerk," she hissed and hoped he did not know Japanese since that was the language she'd insulted him in.
The lights switched on and stung Aya's eyes, though she did not dare shut them as they revealed a group of strangers. Two were dressed in every-day clothing and two were wearing tactical gear. One of those two stood next to Jeremy, near the door. The other was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed as he looked through a small gap in the curtain, at the street below.
"Alright, rookies," droned the tactical man near the door, addressing the ones in casual wear. "You have a very important item to collect, which you can't touch, and the person who can touch it doesn't seem like much of a threat." His eyes rolled over Aya in a hungry way that made her shiver and pull her bag up to her chest. "Shouldn't be any trouble." the man continued with a sneer. "If you manage not to screw up this cakewalk, you'll be one step closer to joining the ranks. If you fuck this up, we get to kill you." He gestured to himself and the man by the window.
Jeremy looked at his watch. "Five minutes," he stated. "We've got other leads to track down if this ends up to be another fake."
"Yeah yeah," said the leader, gesturing toward the man near the window who was wearing a mask. "He says the cab driver went into the parking lot and hasn't left. I can't get Roderick on the radio. Go figure that shit out."
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B. B. Wolf
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Post by B. B. Wolf on Sept 14, 2007 1:49:21 GMT -6
Jack stepped out of the elevator only to have a welcome party of one already waiting for him. It was the bellhop with the ill-fitting uniform. Bellhop had the element of surprise and the advantage of better positioning and still managed to end up swallowing a few teeth as Jack rammed his face into the handrail.
"The service here is terrible," said Jack, crouching next to the bellhop. "How about you tell me which room you took the young lady to and I don't leave a bad review?"
The bellhop shook as he clutched his bleeding mouth and fought through the pain. He was glaring pure venom but having your teeth knocked out tends to make the nervous system go haywire, so glaring was pretty much all he was going to be doing for a while. That and possibly going into shock, since he was shaking so much he seemed only a few moments away from a seizure.
Jack pried the handrail off the back wall of the elevator since it was much looser now, and smacked it against his hand, feeling the heft of it and watching the bellhop flinch at the thought of coming into contact with it again.
"See," Jack began. "I kinda feel like you lead her up here into a lot of trouble. That's not good. For you. So, maybe you want to answer my question and I don't knock out your remaining teeth."
He waited only a few seconds before raising the bar to strike, and the man held out two fingers that Jack assumed were not meant to be the peace symbol. "That so hard?" Jack queried before turning to find the correct room. He had only taken a few steps when he spun and aimed the stolen pistol at the bellhop who was aiming a similar gun right back. Jack fired first and the bellhop never fired anything ever again.
Whoever these people were, their agents sure liked dying. He made it to room 402 and was amazed by how much of the hallway smelled like chloroform. That did explain the lack of civilian interference. He raised the handrail to bash down the door but decided to knock instead. No harm in being polite.
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FangedSmile
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Post by FangedSmile on Sept 14, 2007 1:55:15 GMT -6
Aya herself could not use magic in the traditional sense. If someone needed a potion she was all over it. A hex? Sure. Charms? Why not? But none of those things were things she could do now. She shivered with terror as she looked at the men surrounding her and used her thumb to etch symbols into her nail polish.
"Wh-what do you want?" she asked.
"Don't play dumb, doll face," said the man near the door. "Reggie, you gonna draw this later? Don't dick around. Move."
One of the people in plain clothes who Aya had thought was a man, turned out to be a burly woman. Reggie lunged toward her and grabbed her shoulders. Aya cried out in fear and slashed her nails across Reggie's face. The sneer on her attacker's lips spasmed as Reggie released Aya and stumbled backward before dropping to her knees and clutching her bleeding face. To her credit, Reggie stayed reasonably silent as the poison seeped into her skin. The man near the door watched her with visible disgust and used his gun to lazily signal the other man to continue before firing a bullet into the shin of the woman on the floor. The other man snapped forward.
He grabbed her wrists and her school bag fell to the floor out of reach as her arms were pulled behind her back and handcuffed. It seemed like he had forgotten that they couldn't touch the object they'd wanted her to carry and were more concerned with her poisonous nails.
When someone knocked on the door, the man pulled her close and shoved a gun into her face when she tried to scream for help. The noise stumbled off like her plea had run up her throat only to skid to an unsteady stop at the sight of the pistol.
"Quiet," hissed the man pointing the gun.
The guy who had been near the window grabbed his arm and pulled it and away. He yanked her free from the man simply by snapping his fingers- a move her assailant apparently feared.
"She could scream," the complained.
"So what?" came the emotionless reply.
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B. B. Wolf
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Post by B. B. Wolf on Sept 14, 2007 1:59:34 GMT -6
Jack had his ear pressed to the door, and his eyes were shut as he listened.
He got "Quiet," then some shuffling, and an argument. One person in there seemed to have a brain. He guessed three others were in the room, but he wasn't sure. If there were more than three people moving it was always hard to tell. He shrugged his shoulders and grabbed the pole. Though, as he got ready to swing, he had a better idea.
With his back against the opposite wall, he stepped forward and kicked the door in, breaking the frame apart. He swung his arms forward at the same time and hurled the bit of railing into the room, clobbering a man in a mask and tactical gear right in the face, then let the door swing shut as he drew a knife and the gun he'd used on the bellhop. He heard a sickening crunch and a dull thud as the tactical man fell to the floor.
"You've got one minute to put any weapons you may have on your person down and surrender," Jack called to the remaining occupants of the room. If you don't, then use your minute to write down what you want on your tombstone. Does everyone understand?"
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Post by FangedSmile on Sept 14, 2007 2:07:34 GMT -6
Aya watched the plain-clothed man have a meltdown in response to the door flying open and a large railing crashing through the face of the man who had been standing nearby. The leader. The woman struggled to her feet and drew her pistol with eyes the size of dinner plates.
The masked man who had been near the window cringed and rubbed his forehead like he'd just watched his associate take a pratfall and was disappointed in his entire organization. It seemed to dawn on him very slowly that he was now in charge, and this fact did not appear to sit well with him as he looked around the room like someone had told him to lead a band of blind ferrets into battle.
The other man pulled his gun back up and pointed it at Aya again. "Back off, fucktard!" he screamed with a shaky voice that changed pitch like an adolescent boy. "We have a hostage."
"No," sighed the masked man as he grabbed Aya's shirt and shoved her down between the two beds. "We have weapons and he's just one guy. Call for backup, barricade the door and-"
The man he was speaking to announced that he was not going to jail again over this shit and grabbed their fallen leader's gun.
"-And throw a tantrum," finished the masked man. He pulled out a radio but had to wait until he could be heard over the idiot screaming,
"Who the fuck are you?!"
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B. B. Wolf
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Post by B. B. Wolf on Sept 14, 2007 2:14:36 GMT -6
Jack glanced at his watch. Hostage, huh? The minute was just about up when he heard someone request to know his name. He turned his attention back to the door and silently cocked his gun. Then, in a clear but soft voice he sang out, "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. Jack jump over the candlestick. Jack jump high, Jack jump low. Jack jumped over and killed his foe..."
He kicked the door open and ducked low as it was fired upon by the man who had apparently assumed he would charge in like a moron who had forgotten that firearms exist. When the man shooting the door moved to actually locate his target, Jack dove into the room and fired at the armed moron with his right, taking a portion of his ear out in the process. He rolled his shoulders and pulled his legs into his chest as a shot blasted through the rubber insole of his left boot and got lodged inside.
The move allowed Jack to spin and land on his feet instead of his side, so he could charge forward and change directions as another shot whizzed past him and hit where he would have landed. Jack fired out a shot at what he could only politely call a female and the bullet bit into her collarbone as he landed in front of the only person he had not attacked yet, slammed a knife into the man's foot and aimed the gun at his target's crotch.
"I'm Jack. Don't move," he told the man.
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Post by FangedSmile on Sept 15, 2007 17:00:22 GMT -6
The masked man cringed in reaction to the pain, though he did not cry out and actually started to fight back... until he realized where Jack was aiming. He had already seen that his opponent was much faster than he was, so he obeyed Jack's command.
"Stop!" he ordered the man dressed in regular clothing who was on the floor with blood leaking from his face and ear but pointing a gun all the same. The woman dropped to the floor either from blood loss or shock.
Aya sat in a daze, but she knew the man with two guns liked to aim them at her. She tried to make herself small and scoot out of view, but there was only so much room between the two beds.
The leader of the group began to move again, though he was clutching the broken half of his face and groped for the gun that the recruit had taken. He took in his parter's predicament and looked confused but that was to be expected from a man with a shattered face. When he spoke, his broken jaw impeeded the words but they were clear enough. He said them in Latin, but the gist was 'win or die.'
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B. B. Wolf
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Post by B. B. Wolf on Sept 18, 2007 19:55:47 GMT -6
Jack gave the knife a bit of a twist at those words as they seemed to have a hypnotizing effect on his hostage, and Jack was the selfish type. He wanted the man's attention to be on him and his needs.
There was no cry of pain, but the movement stopped and he seemed to have remembered his priorities. Jack released the knife, grabbed the man's gun and pulled it out of his hand without resistance. The assassin near the door saw this and let out a guttural curse. He managed to get to his knees and balled his hand into a fist at his side. Jack noticed his hostage cringe like he was expecting an attack.
Without a moment's hesitation, Jack merely took one second to point the hostage's gun directly through the hand positioned over the eye socket of his broken face and squeezing the trigger. Mr. Win or Die wouldn't be recovering from that. Jack then noticed that the man across from him looked to be thinking up something stupid. He inserted a bullet into that thought, before tossing the gun away and taking hold of the knife again. "Congratulations," he chimed as he looked back at his hostage. "You're the last man standing. You enter the bonus round where I ask a series of questions and you answer in English, human, terms. I should warn you, there are penalties for incorrect answers. The first penalty is you lose the use of this foot. The second..." he let his eyes roll to the gun pointed at the man's crotch. "You lose a few other things. Get it?"
The hostage nodded stiffly and was doing a fair job of keeping his composure.
"Good man," Jack chimed. "Why were you and your boys here trying to hurt the pretty young woman I picked up at the airport?
"We were not told to hurt her," the man replied. Jack got that itch he felt whenever someone lied to him but he wasn't a fan of torture so he let it go. "Our instructions were that we should arrive here... and escort her... along with any luggage she had-"
"-And now you're buying time," Jack interrupted with a dismissive tone as he tightened his grip on the knife and he located the teeny tiny bones that hurt like a mother fucker when broken.
The hostage took a breath and tried again. "We were told to come here, and that another team had al-" his filibuster cut short as Jack rocked the knife back and forth and felt the 3rd metatarsal bone fracture. With a gasp, the hostage got to the point. "Get here. Get the girl and her bags. Get back to base. Those were the orders."
"Better. Why care about either?" Jack asked, keeping a firm grip on the knife.
"I don't know," said the hostage. "I'm... just... f-following... orders..." said the man, slowly and forcefully as Jack shook the knife to try to get a better answer. He was disappointingly resistant to pain.
Jack yanked the knife out, stood up, and offered his hostage a pandering smile. 'Sure, bud. I believe everything you're lying to me.' He tossed the knife onto the bed, out of the man's reach. With one hand still holding the gun to his hostage's groin, Jack used the other to search him.
He took the man's second sidearm, wallet, keys, and anything else he could find except for pocket lint. He also yanked off the balaclava and wasn't surprised to see he was dealing with a younger man. After all, this wasn't the type of field where people planned for retirement. All this man's age told him was that there were a lot of hormones going on that could lead to a lot of bad ideas.
"Hi," he greeted now that they were finally talking without a disguise between them. The man glared pure vitriol. That was a bit more rebellion than Jack liked in his hostages, so he forcefully spun the man around and pushed him toward a table in the corner. Ignoring the grunt of pain the hostage let out upon putting weight on his damaged foot, Jack ordered him to, "Sit in that chair, put your head on the table and put your hands on top of your head. Quickly."
When the hostage complied, more slowly than a terrified rookie would have, Jack approached Aya. He stopped after a few steps and fired off a shot into the base of the chair the man was sitting in. "I didn't tell you to move," he warned in a light and casual voice when he noticed the hostage watching them over his shoulder. One shot was enough to bring the man's forehead back to the table but there was more annoyance than fear in the movement.
Jack offered Aya a warm smile as he turned back to her and noticed she was shivering. "S'cuse me darlin', but I think you should find a different hotel. Service here isn't too good," he joked as he used a handcuff key the hostage had been carrying to free her wrists.
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FangedSmile
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Post by FangedSmile on Sept 18, 2007 23:56:29 GMT -6
Aya flung herself into Jack's arms and cried even though she barely knew him. Her heart was pounding and she looked at all the blood and bodies and felt so many emotions that they overwhelmed her. She could not remember a time she'd ever felt so scared or so desperately happy to see someone she'd only met a short time ago.
"I want to leave," she sobbed. "Please."
--
The hostage took shallow breaths as he tried to decide if he could make it out the window or door while the two seemed distracted. The problem was his foot. It was bleeding heavily and there was no way he was getting far on it. The hotel window would not open far enough to jump out of, his radio was out of reach. He wasn't sure why he was still alive, though his mind was already thinking up what he was going to tell his superiors when questioned later- if he got to that point. Things were not looking very promising at the moment. The shot fired into the chair had erased his first thought of escape and made him wonder if he was up against a psychic or a time lord.
Whoever this wildcard was, he was faster than he should have been and definitely well trained.
Despite the odds against him, his thoughts berated him about his actions and told him he should go ahead and fight because things would be worse if his coworkers arrived and found him alive after the mission failed. It was only supposed to be one or the other. He needed to do something, he just wasn't sure what. If he was caught, the newcomer would hurt him...
But I can't be caught here alive...
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B. B. Wolf
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Post by B. B. Wolf on Sept 22, 2007 18:20:27 GMT -6
Jack embraced the scared young woman and turned to keep an eye on his hostage. The young man was already tense again and was subtly trying to see if there were any weapons around. Before Jack could say anything, Aya stepped away, looking embarrassed. Jack bent down and grabbed Aya's schoolbag from the floor and handed it to her.
"Can you wait in the hall for one sec?" he asked. "Then we'll go."
Aya nodded and hurried into the hallway. Jack stayed near the hostage, close enough to feel confident that he could stop any escape attempt or attack, but far enough away that the man wasn't going to grab his gun even if he turned out to have Bruce Lee's speed. The odds of that were slim, but there was still a lot of rigidity to the younger man's stature; like he was waiting for an opening.
"Anything you want to say?" Jack asked.
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Post by FangedSmile on Sept 22, 2007 18:28:42 GMT -6
The young man stared at the table. He knew the female recruit was still alive and too new to know any better. If the wild card let him live, he had to worry about anything he said getting repeated. If he lied, he wouldn't live.
It was either tell the truth and possibly live long enough to limp out of there and have his employers hunt him down, or lie and hope Jack was short on ammo or in enough of a hurry that he'd make the shot quick... One way was, at least, a faster death.
"... I'm just following orders," he replied. "And there are others coming. They were waiting for us to call in and are probably on their way now."
Truth was... not many people were waiting to help. Why bother? The mission had changed when the girl got the book. It went from minesweeper to a cake walk. Other agents were busy tracking down the original target to make sure she hadn't just planted a decoy- which was her style. Three other people had already been dealt with, but their books had all been fakes.
No one seriously thought the little Asian girl had the real one.
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Post by B. B. Wolf on Sept 22, 2007 18:39:40 GMT -6
Jack knew he was being lied to, but he got the hints. There was someone else still alive in the room, and his new hostage had employers who were not very polite to snitches. Or survivors, considering everyone else's preference for death over failure.
"Cute," he breathed, shoving everything useful he could get his hands on into a pillowcase. The assassins had been carrying some interesting goodies- including more chloroform rag packets. "That was a nice try," he stated as he opened one of the packets. "But I figure you know more than you're saying, so you're coming with me."
Jack pulled the man's head off the table and clamped one of the chloroform rags over his mouth and nose. "Stay still," he warned when his hostage attempted to grab him and fought to get away from the rag. "And I'm not dim enough that holding your breath will actually work, so you might as well breathe deep... Now, please. I'm not feelin' patient and guarantee you'll breathe plenty if I start shooting kneecaps."
Looking pained, the hostage took a reluctant, choppy breath. The next came easier, and the next easier still. When the tension had faded from his posture and the will to fight was no longer apparent, Jack moved the rag away and pulled the hostage over to the bellhop cart. He cuffed the man's hands behind his back, around the cart rails, and made him sit facing Aya's bag. He wasn't going to get far on that foot anyway, and Jack didn't want to waste any more time.
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Post by FangedSmile on Sept 22, 2007 18:52:52 GMT -6
Aya moved away when she saw Jack come out of the room with one of her assailants on the luggage cart. True, it was the one that had stopped her from being shot... but it wasn't like the man had offered to let her go. He was a lot younger than she'd expected and she found herself wondering what his parents would say if they dropped him off at home. Then again, they obviously had not done a great job raising him so maybe they would just say he made a mistake and leave it at that.
Thinking about the man in that capacity made her feel less anxious, so she followed Jack as he shoved the cart through a door marked 'Staff Only' and saw a service elevator and another dead man. Jeremy. His mouth was stained with blood and his eyes stared at her accusingly. It was impossible to think that he deserved his current condition because she'd been walking around with him. Alone in an elevator. He had not done anything violent.
Then she noticed the gun in his hand. He must have had it the entire time.
She shuddered at the thought of how easily she could have been killed.
"Maybe," she began, feeling light-headed. "Maybe I go back to airport. Fly home."
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Post by B. B. Wolf on Sept 22, 2007 19:05:36 GMT -6
Jack heard her request but delayed responding because he knew it wouldn't be that simple. He pushed the button to call the elevator and the doors opened immediately to allow him to shove the cart inside.
"Come on," he said to Aya, attempting to steer her attention away from the corpse she'd locked eyes with. "You'll never win that starin' contest."
The traumatized young woman looked toward the elevator and stepped inside, giving a wide birth to the unconscious man handcuffed to the cart, and hugging her school bag. Jack snatched the bellhop's gun, but Aya did not respond positively to his attempt to hand it to her. She seemed afraid of the weapon, so he placed it in his waistband and instead offered her a smile that was returned meekly.
When they reached the garage, Jack was pleasantly surprised when the doors opened and he wasn't met with a hail of bullets. Things actually looked pretty much exactly like they had ten or so minutes ago and both the real and the fake security guard were still sleeping peacefully. He pushed the luggage cart over to his taxi and opened the rear passenger door for Aya. He popped the trunk and set her pink suitcase inside it, then paused as he looked at the van parked where it shouldn't be.
Curiosity wasn't really his trademark, but he did know the importance of understanding every element of a situation. So, he approached the van and flung open the rear doors. It was empty beyond some crates of soda syrup. At least, it was until he turned his head and the scene seemed to flicker. He closed his right eye and the scene seemed like a bad 3D effect where the image and reality could not work together. It hurt his head to look at it, but the more he stared the more he no longer saw cases of syrup and the more he saw what looked like large cages. Like the kennels at an animal shelter, but there was also gorilla tape and shackles.
Probably not for catching stray pets then. He closed the doors and stepped back, examining the exterior of the van. This disguise or whatever it was looked much more solid until he scrutinized it more carefully. Shaking his head, Jack returned to the unconscious man and uncuffed him from the cart. He dumped him in the shotgun seat where the partition kept Aya safe if he woke up and tried anything, then cuffed his hands to the metal poles of the headrest because it made it look like he was just hanging out as casual as could be.
Besides, using handcuffs on people who carried them was always fun- for various reasons.
"One sec and we'll be off," he assured her before wheeling the cart back to the security office and using it to transport the real guard further into the garage. He called the police from the man's phone and was back in the taxi in less than two minutes. Then they were off.
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