CONTAINS CONTENT:
Action violence, animal attack, mild gore, brief terror.
{{Unedited}}
Chamber and Vincent walked beside each other in plain clothes, making their way through the endless throng of people.
Rows upon rows of black and whites marched shoulder to shoulder, weapons poised on the left shoulders as their arms swung back and forth in perfect time to a drummed-out rhythm.
The parade was in full swing and the people of Siem Reap lined the streets in droves to watch as some of Cambodia’s finest were marched by. Of course, the newly elected Banh Uh was a tyrant – or, some would say – but none of the politics mattered to Chamber or Vincent as they moved through the crowd; they were here to kill the man; to shoot him off his float in broad daylight in front of all to see. The point? To start a revolution. But this was nothing that either of them had anything to do with.
Chamber’s hand jotted out and swiped some bread from a cart. He tore it in half and handed some to Vincent.
When Vincent realized that Chamber had stolen it, he growled under his breath and tossed a coin at the oblivious vender. He caught it, looked them over and cursed them out in Cambodian, hand in the air as they disappeared against the endless wave of people.
“Don’t get into any trouble,” Vincent growled over the crowd.
“I’m nothing if not trouble, you know that,” Chamber quipped, stuffing the entire rest of the pastry into his mouth.
They paused at the first cream colored tower and Chamber gestured upward, eyeing the crowd to make sure that no one was watching. Vincent took it in; it reminded him vaguely of a church, and his hand trembled a bit as he nodded and slipped into the door that they’d halted next to. There was a winding staircase that led up to a lookout.
Vincent knew there would be a guard at the top; he would have to take him out.
Once inside, he shut the door quietly and gently knocked, signaling that he was okay thus far to Chamber, who had his own tower to go to.
“Deadeye, checking in,” a voice in Vincent’s ear said as he whirled his hands, the familiar shimmering card appeared, and he tossed it to the ground just inside the door before peeking up the spiraling stairs.
“That’s a good spot,” he whispered as he started up. “Deadeye? It’s been a while since you’ve used that,” Vincent noted.
“I figured why not,” Chamber replied. There was silence for a few moments as Vincent expelled Headhunter from his arm and held it, tip down, practicing perfect trigger control as he crept up the stairs. “I made it. I’m in,” Chamber explained.
“Good luck, going dark until the moment of visual contact.”
Vincent paused, leaning against the wall and briefly closing his eyes.
Every job made his heart pound and his head hurt, but something about this one was giving him more anxiety than normal. Maybe it was the stakes and how high they were regarding everything else in his life. Maybe it was the fact that he knew that back home, Marielle was probably with Austin. What were they doing? He had no idea. His mind filled with images; Austin’s hands on her, moving up her curves and caressing her inner thighs. He shook his head. “Focus now,” he breathed, “eyes off me.” Vincent always thought it ironic; he’d taken that line from Marielle and said it whenever he felt that he needed reassurance and comfort. More mental images passed through his mind, however. It was that smile… she smiled at Austin in a way that told Vincent that- maybe Chamber was right. Maybe he’d already lost her. What was he going to do?
He couldn’t think about that, now.
“Focus, focus,” he chanted to himself almost inaudibly as he continued noiselessly up the steps to the top of the tower as he wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist.
Once he came to the top, he paused, looking over the final steps and spotting the guards at the window. He hadn’t expected two, one would alert the other. “Dammit,” he sighed.
He stepped soundless and confident behind the first one, who – as luck would have it – was just a bit behind the other. Once Vincent wrapped his arms around this man’s neck, he was able to strangle him to unconscious without the other realizing, and gently usher him to the ground.
However, as Vincent started to move toward the second, his foot brushed some pebbles on the roof, and the second whirled; shouting something in Cambodian, into an ear piece. Then he came at Vincent.
“Some trouble, here,” Vincent said into his own earpiece.
“I told you, we’re nothing if not trouble. Deal with it.”
“Trying,” Vincent replied ducking a flying fist.
The other man was shouting at him, and Vincent didn’t understand any of it. “If you could understand French, mon ami, I’d be cussing you out, too,” he growled, whirling, and delivering a good, hard, thrust to the side of the man’s rib cage. Vincent was all upper body strength, and fast and quick jabs and punches were his forte. “Or maybe I could settle this with a smack of the glove?” He removed his racing glove, and whipped it mockingly across the man’s face. Then he chuckled.
The man stumbled back, checking his jaw from the first initial contact.
He shouted something, and came at Vincent; rage in his dark eyes.
Vincent used this moment to side step, and the man lost his balance and took himself right over the edge of the lookout, falling to his death.
“This could be a problem,” Vincent noted, pulling Trademark back into his arm from the levels below.
“Get out of there, I’ll cover the rest. I have a better angle than I thought.”
Vincent nodded and began to dart back down the steps. “You only got one guard?” He asked skipping a few.
“Ironically there was no one here. They don’t know what’s about to hit them.” When Vincent came to the bottom of the steps, preparing to exit the tower he heard Chamber, “In my sights.”
However, the moment that he crossed the threshold, he felt his skin start to blister and tingle.
Jerking to a stop, he brought his trembling hands up, eyeing them with a confused expression. What was happening? He couldn’t move.
“It’s you and me!” A male voice shouted and it sounded like it was everywhere, all at once.
Vincent shuddered and tried to move, but was frozen in place as he watched the world around him melt away. Had he been drugged? Had he fallen and was actually dead? He had no idea. “Chamber, something is going on, here… I’m- I’m…” the line fuzzed and went dead.
Somewhere in the chaos, Vincent heard – but didn’t register – the familiar sound of Tour De Force, and prayed that that meant that Chamber had just made a killing shot and was done and, on his way to help.
Vincent’s world was turning purple…no…lilac… and it was covered in odd shapes that reminded him of atoms; bright, violently white, flower like atoms against purple, and lilac. He only had a moment to look around and note the figure of a man, maybe twenty feet away before something came up between the two of them; a wall comprised of more atom shapes, and two more walls to either side of him making the shape of an arrowhead with him at the tip.
The other man disappeared behind these barriers and Vincent tried to catch his breath. What was happening? He had no idea. But he did know one thing to be sure; someone was trying to kill him. This was most likely someone who had been hired to protect Banh Uh and that meant Vincent had to fight to the death with this man in this weird imaginary arena.
He pulled Tour De Force from his arm, and peeked around the barrier that had been raised. He couldn’t see his opponent, but as he tried to duck back against the partition, the wall dropped again, and Vincent was standing in a purple, and white atom covered space with the other man.
He was a young Chinese or Asian man, mid-twenties, with dark hair.
The other man lifted his hands, and a violet pill shaped shield appeared around him. Great.
Bullets flew, and struck the ground that Vincent had just darted from; there was nowhere to go.
He dropped to his knees – the only thing that he could thing to do – firing.
To his surprise and horror, the other man didn’t die. His shield vanished, however.
But in the instant that Vincent was stunned by this fact, he took a bullet to the upper arm, then another and fell back.
He rolled, knowing that it was life or death now, the other man was approaching quickly.
Vincent moved onto his stomach, throwing Trademark down again, and for a moment, the other man was caught off guard as it slowed him, giving Vincent enough time to spin, aim, and fire. He watched in what seemed like slow motion as his bullet split through the other man, spraying bright red.
The purple world around Vincent vanished and there was street, a body about ten feet away, scrambling people left and right, screaming. It was pandemonium. Someone tripped over Vincent and he smacked against the ground again, and reflexively rolled before sitting back up. He tried to stand, but the world started to spin and lurch. He was losing a lot of blood. He fell against the tower and slid down to his butt where he paused for a moment, trying to breathe and then Chamber’s hand was on his shoulder and sound was breaking in and out of Vincent’s ear drums like he was being shoved under water repeatedly and coming back up. Someone screamed, and Vincent thought that he saw the body start to move. Time to go.
Chamber shouted, “Are you okay?”
“I’m- I…” And everything went black for Vincent.
***
Michelle’s dark eyes squinted against the light that was creating pillars of bright white as it broke through the treetops and fell all around him.
He turned to look at Vincent and gave him a small, sad smile.
Vincent wouldn’t understand until later that this would be one of the last times that he and his father would ever go out like this.
Michelle bent down to the many weapons laying out on the blanket and looked up expectantly at Vincent after giving them a good once over and picking at his bottom lip. “You have to choose,” Michelle said. They were speaking in French, but in Vincent’s mind, he translated this memory to English.
“Why do I have to choose?”
“Choice is important… but it must also choose you,” Michelle explained, gesturing to the arsenal that his father had collected over the years.
Vincent cocked his head to the side curiously. “It must also choose me? I don’t understand.”
“You will… the gun, it will sing to you. Then you will know.”
Vincent looked over the rifles- there were three, the pistols, and a revolver. Then he glanced up at the dappled light, and looked right when he thought that he heard something.
He met eyes with his father, apparently Michelle had thought he’d also heard something, but after a beat, both men let it go.
“What do you choose?” Vincent pressed.
Michelle gave his son an adoring smirk, and he bent, laying a hand gently on one of the large rifles that Michelle himself had built. He’d fixed the butt of the rifle with gold inlay, and had engraved across the stock – “Tour De Force.”
Michelle produced a handkerchief and wiped the back of his neck, then stuffed it back into his pocket. “This one… she is my favorite. She’s saved my life a few times,” Michelle had said the word life in a way that was odd to Vincent, but he wouldn’t understand why for many years. Michelle was sick, and he was hiding it for the moment.
“Why do you call it Tour De Force?” Vincent pressed.
“She is… a great feat. Ingenuity. I built her myself.” He gestured for Vincent to come to him and he did. Vincent smiled and bent down. Michelle took his son’s hand and put it to the rifle. He gasped, and looked at Michelle with big eyes. “It’s like it’s alive.”
“Yes.” Michelle smiled warmly and sat back. “She is alive. In some way.”
“How?”
“She sings for me. And…” Michelle lifted the gun – making sure to use all precautions – and slipped his fingertips down the barrel and when he did, Vincent’s eyes grew wide as he watched the gun seem to grow gills like a fish, and extend. “Generates higher velocity,” Michelle whispered, with wonder in his dark gaze. He smiled at Vincent. Then he handed the rifle to Vincent. “Is she your choice?”
“Why do you call it her?”
“Well, that is to do with your mother,” he explained. Then he put a finger to his mouth for a moment, “but don’t tell her that,” he chuckled.
Vincent laughed too as he took the rifle from his father.
At ten years old, he wasn’t very big at all; in fact, looking up at Michelle as he stood away from Vincent, the boy would have never guessed that someday he would be bigger and taller than his own father. Not by much, but his father had been just under two meters tall. When Vincent had stopped growing, he had easily hit two meters even. He was also scrawny, and an easy target for the violence done to him at school, it was something else that he would have never seen in the future- the fact that he would bench press three hundred pounds easily, have the V shaped body that most men wanted to achieve, and even serve in the military.
At that moment in the forest with his father, all that he felt like was a failure, unable to see the future, or what he’d be able to do.
“Does she sing to you?” Michelle asked. Vincent nodded. “Then she chose you back. It must be a mutual choice, Vincent, otherwise nothing that follows will be perfection.” Vincent listened, expectantly, drinking in his father’s every word. “She is yours now,” Michelle explained. Vincent’s eyes grew wide as he looked to his father. Was he serious? Michelle nodded, then he lifted a finger. “I will show you how to load it, and use it.” He took the weapon back from Vincent and lay it back out. “You are already a pretty good shot, son. I marvel at your ability,” he explained as he began to tinker with the weapon. Vincent pushed his glasses back up his nose. “How do you do that?” Michelle asked.
“I’m not sure,” Vincent shrugged. “It’s like… the target becomes the only thing that exists, except me.”
Michelle paused and nodded at his son, “Quite right. Yes.”
“It’s like the world falls away for a moment.”
Michelle listened as he continued to manipulate the rifle. Then he walked Vincent through safety, and how to load it, hold it, and fire it.
The first shot rang out, echoing through the woods. A bird took flight, scrambling through the branches to get away.
Then Michelle handed it to Vincent. “Are you ready to shoot her?”
“I think.”
“You can’t think.” Michelle tapped the side of his head with his fingertip, “You must know. Do you know, Vincent?”
Vincent nodded confidently, “Yes, I will shoot her now.”
“Yes, good, my son.” He returned Tour De Force to Vincent and helped him to position himself so that he could fire it. He did, feeling the massive recoil, but holding his ground with his father’s fingertips to his lower back to steady him. Michelle roared with pride. “Again! But this time, let me see you hit something!”
Vincent dropped the gun away from his face. “What shall I hit, papa?”
Michelle squinted against the trees and the splashes of light. “There,” he lifted a hand and pointed. “Do you see the tree that is cracked?” Surely enough there was a tree that appeared to be hit by lightning, but hadn’t split enough down the middle to have broken in half. “Can you strike it down all the way?” Vincent squared his shoulders, pretending that he was bigger than he was, and squinted. “Don’t complicate it, Vincent,” Michelle said. Vincent let out a breath, took aim, and the bullet rocketed through the air. The tree – about sixty feet away, fell away from itself like a cocoon opening; except there was nothing inside. Michelle pumped a fist into the air, “My son!” He cried with pride. Vincent smiled. “So, she has chosen you, then?” Vincent nodded, certain. “Then she is yours for sure. A gift.”
Vincent almost hugged the gun, but he set it down on the tarp instead and looked over the others. “Thank you, papa.”
Michelle tipped his head down at his son. “How will you handle these kids at school?”
Vincent scoffed and looked away, embarrassed. “I don’t know,” he balked, putting his arms over his chest, protectively.
“Drop your arms, Vincent,” Michelle ordered, but gently. Vincent obeyed. “You do not let fear overtake you, do you understand?” He asked. Vincent nodded. “I know what happened the other day. I know what happened at school. It will keep happening if you show them fear.” Michelle stood and gestured for Vincent to come to him. He obeyed. Michelle took hold of Vincent’s chin, and turned his face to get a better look at the black eye that had bloomed against Vincent’s young face after being held down and punched several times. “You must not be afraid- not of man or beast… not of life…” Michelle looked away for a moment, distant, “and not of death.” He said concretely.
Vincent glanced down. “But- but what if I am afraid?”
Michelle tipped his chin and gave him a good, gentle squeeze there with his fingertips, “My son… we are all afraid at some point. The thing you must do is react well to the fear. You must learn to breathe calmly, and stay focused. The fear will pass, but life will go on for you.”
“I don’t want to be afraid.”
“It is a choice- but it’s like a lover. When you choose fear, it chooses you back. You must divorce her as soon as possible. When next they try to corner you, show them something that will make them afraid.”
“Like what?”
“Hit targets in class? You never miss. It will make them question themselves. They will be more curious.” Michelle opened his vest and handed Vincent something from inside. Chocolate with orange peel wrapped in tinfoil. He gave one to Vincent, and ate one himself before the two wiped their hands and stood.
Michelle pointed an imaginary gun at a nearby tree, closing one eye, and pulled back on the pretend trigger, making a sound. “Now they are nervous,” he chuckled.
“You think that we choose fear?”
“Not at first. She’s an easy lover. But when we know her power over us, we must let her go,” he said distantly as he ate his own chocolate.
“You’re trying to teach me about choice today,” Vincent noted, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist.
“Yes. Choice is important. You must choose something and stick to it. When you choose a lover, they must also choose you back.”
The forest went quiet, and for a moment, everything was at peace as the men ate, and watched the beams of light- like angel’s fingertips caressing the ground around them.
Then that moment ended. There was a rustling nearby and Michelle put a hand to Vincent’s chest, pushing him behind him a little. “Stay behind me, Vincent,” he whispered, and he bent slowly, keeping his dark eyes on a specific line of trees.
Vincent followed his father’s gaze, unsure of what Michelle was looking at, as his own brown eyes frantically scanned the space around him.
Then he saw something move, and time seemed to slow down, as every hair on Vincent’s body seemed to stand at attention. What had he seen? He wasn’t sure, but it was big, and brown.
“Bear.” Michelle said under his breath as a giant furry mass moved between two large tree trunks, cutting some of the pooling silver light on the forest floor.
That was when they heard it as well; a low huff from a massive mouth as it poked the front part of its muzzle around the trees.
Michelle was still as a concrete pillar for a moment, then he slowly bent, never breaking eye contact with the creature as it stared back at them, and took hold of Tour De Force, where he paused a moment. The bear had shifted again, still eyeing the two of them, and it was clear that Michelle knew that this bear was going to attack. It had come a little further into their line of sight and it was sniffing the air as if realizing that they were food and sizing them both up.
The moment that the massive creature came at them, Michelle bolted upright and attempted to aim. It didn’t matter, the bear swept through them both, swinging an enormous paw with a deep growl, and not only throwing Michelle to the ground like he was nothing, but slashing across Vincent’s arm, tossing him into the air for a moment.
The boy landed with a thud, not registering the pain yet, and tried to assess his situation.
“Oh, you are so dead!” Michelle cried, standing, and trying to aim the weapon again. But the bear turned like lightning strike, and was upon him, the rifle flying from Michelle’s hands.
Vincent sprang into action, sliding to his knees – not realizing how much blood was dripping from his elbow to the forest floor – and taking Tour De Force up into his arms, he lifted it to his eye, aimed, and fired straight into the bear’s face as it had reared up, preparing to slam down on Michelle again.
The bear jerked, and fell to the side; dead.
Panting, and dripping blood from a gash in his forehead, Michelle looked from the body, to his son, to the body again.
He stood, and dropped to his knees before Vincent, who had frozen, looking down the barrel, his small shoulders rising and falling intensely. “Vincent!” He cried, taking the gun from him and setting it safely aside. Then he held Vincent to him. Both men were bleeding profusely. “Vincent, you saved us!” He squeezed his son.
But when he pulled back, Vincent had fainted, and Michelle scooped his son up into his arms, and began to run despite the rivulets pouring from his own head.
When next Vincent awoke, he was in a starched hospital bed, and when he looked down at his right arm, he saw three large lines with stitches from his elbow to his wrist. He stared at it, and swallowed…
***
Vincent took in a sharp breath and sat up, instinctively looking down at his arm where there were two bullet holes the last time that he had been conscious. Somehow, it had been healed and new, perfect skin was staring back at him.
Chamber came to his side in the hospital bed. “We don’t have a lot of time. The Cambodian government is looking for us. We need to get out of here, fast.”
“Th-the mission?” Vincent asked groggily as Chamber threw him his jacket. He hardly had time to realize that he was in what seemed to be a hospital bed, and an IV was being removed from his arm by Chamber.
“Success. I got him.” Vincent looked down, confused at everything. “We need to get to the airport. They’ll take us to Pleiku in Vietnam,” he was speaking quickly.
Vincent sluggishly tugged on his jacket. “How did yo-“
“I found a healer. It wasn’t easy, but you lost a lot of blood. Now come,” he said, clapping a hand on Vincent’s shoulder, and helping him up.
Vincent gave him a swift, strong nod, and the two ran out of the hospital via the stairwell at the back. It set off the alarm, but they were long gone before it mattered.