Chapter Thirteen – …Divided We Fall
…Divided We Fall
“Dick. Dumb, Dead Dick.”
The boss stepped into the corridor, M16 tight against his chest. “You should have stayed at home,” Bjorn said, his face shadowed against the rising sun. “Alcoholism and squalor aren’t so bad. You never know, the debt collectors may even have given you a painless end.”
I took cover behind a pillar, as the M16 barked at me, splattering little chunks of marble around my feet. “It’s over, Bjorn!” I called out from my cover. “There’s a nice, comfy cell out there, just for you.”
“You shall die!” Bjorn shouted, twenty rounds banging against the shimmering column.
I turned with the cat’s cumbersome rifle, and fired. Bjorn screamed, clutching a bloody sleeve, and tossed a small, heavy object in my direction.
My tortured legs pounded the cold floor, and the hot searing blast shrieked behind me, scattering little chunks of green marble overhead and pock-marking the wall. The M16 chased me down the corridor, Bjorn’s wrath biting at my heels, my body running on pure pain and anger. Covered in sweat, the sniper rifle’s grip slipped from my grasp. I made to pick it up, but a handful of .223 NATO rounds changed my mind. I slid on the cold, slick floor, bullets flying, and burst into a large office. Above me, Bjorn smiled down in oils. Outside, through a large window, the sun was rising over the distant jagged skyline of the city, casting a cold, golden light across the treetops.
“Detective,” the dame said, slinking from the shadows. “You are a persistent thing. Impressive. It’s a shame I shall have to kill you now.”
The contacts thudded into the wall behind me, lightning racing in slow motion down the wires and tinting the slowly waking dawn with a bright and painful blue. I ducked behind another column, as Bjorn burst in, his large, muscular body shadowed against the morning sun.
“There!” the dame called, pointing at the column I was hiding behind. “He’s there!”
Bjorn turned, peering into the darkness of my hiding place, his rifle rising.
In that instant, my head pounded. All the adrenaline and fear and, yes, peggle, rushed straight upwards, swamping my battered brain in sound and fury. Suddenly, everything was clear. The mist vanished, and I was left in the clear light of morning, with but one path left shining through the snaking maze of death and failure. I turned from my cover, and saw Bjorn slowly take aim as I accelerated towards him. Dimly, I heard the dame whisper “No…” and then:
The window exploded outwards, Bjorn and I, and together we fell, the last ounces of my energy falling away as our bodies thudded against the strobing dirt.
And, as the lights faded from my vision, I realised the flashing was the red and blue of justice. A rabbit’s face leaned over mine, his gestures and shouts growing faint, and everything turned to darkness.
