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“I see. If there’s trouble, you make a phone call.”
Lee, Enter the Dragon
Malcolm kicked the phone, screaming at the top of his
lungs. The shout echoed inside the glass cage, rattling the metal
structure. “Come on!” he screamed. “Send a god-damned collect call, you
stupid piece of junk!” He kicked the phone again, then collapsed against
the silver payphone at the edge of the corporate park.
Nearly hanging on the phone, Malcolm closed his eyes,
breathing roughly. He hung there for a moment, panting slowly. “Okay,” he
said after a moment, forcing artificial serenity on himself. “It’s okay.
Not a big deal. Just remember your calling-card number. It’s the card you
use every other day to call grandma. You know it by heart. You can dial it with
your eyes closed, listening to music. You know it verbatim.”
With a sudden explosion of motion, Malcolm kicked the
phone again. “Come on!” he screamed violently.
“Our plan, Marilyn,” Phillip said, as he waited
opposite the captive girl, “is to take you out to a particular subway
station, drug you, and throw you on the tracks so that it looks like a
suicide.” The professional man looked at her, smiling. “It should make you
feel a little better that your death will be used as an anti-drug
campaign.”
Phillip smiled grandly, holding up his hands with a
grandiose pose. “College student takes own life because of drugs.” He
dropped his hands, almost laughing. “We’ll make sure it’s a drug that
everybody’s using, so that they can move on to something different.”
Marilyn said nothing. She looked down at the
handcuffs that constricted the blood in her arms, turning her fingertips
purple. She looked back up at Phillip, but he simply smiled at her, his
grin perpetually on the verge of turning into a laugh.
“You’re calling from where?” Everett said into his phone.
Malcolm turned around from the payphone, looking out
at the collateral damage caused by the fallen corporate building. “The
corporate offices that we knocked over. I mean, we knocked over one
building. I mean we…you know what I mean!”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Everett said, agitated. “What the hell
are you doing out there? Was one building not enough?”
“Marilyn, Victor, and me got caught by the
Brotherhood,” Malcolm said, still panting a bit. “They’ve still got Victor
and Marilyn at the Solaritec place and they’re going to kill both of them.”
“Alright,” Everett
said, standing up from his couch. From the computer, Roland and Armand both
stood up, the tone in Everett’s
voice alerting them to the severity of the conversation. “Stay there. We’re
on our way. We’ll pick you up after we get them out. Okay?”
“Got it,” Malcolm said. “Hurry, Everett,” he said as an after thought.
Everett
hung up the phone, looking to the two other knights. “Roland, go get Ledger,”
the black knight said. Without a word, Roland headed out of the apartment.
Armand was left at the computer.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, looking at Everett.
“Call Edgar,” Everett
said, thinking quickly. “Send him to go round up the World Alliance
members. He and Sydney should know all of them.”
“Should I call Sydney?”
Armand offered.
“She’s already on her way over,” Everett mumbled in thought. Almost
unconsciously, he glanced over at the ninjato that leaned against the wall
by the door.
“What do you mean ‘round up the World Alliance’?”
Edgar said into the phone. Behind him, Morgan’s head fell down to the
kitchen counter, an exhausted sigh falling from his mouth. “How should I
know who they all are?”
“You’re kidding me,” Morgan grumbled, his head
leaning on the kitchen counter for physical and emotional support.
“Alright,” Edgar nodded. He hung up the cordless
phone and turned to Morgan. “I’m going to have to cut this short,” the old
knight said, rushing around his living room, gathering his things.
“Sure,” Morgan said, stacking the test papers into
‘graded’ and ‘ungraded’. “Why not? Let’s rush off and save the World
Alliance. Again.”
“Not now, Morgan,” Edgar said defensively as he
hurried about the room. “These guys are more trouble than they’re worth. I
know.”
“Now you know how I feel about the knights,” he said,
putting his jacket on. “Good thing I brought my sword,” he said with a
shake of his head.
Edgar stopped. “You’re not getting involved, are
you?”
“I’m going with you to pick up the Alliance people,” Morgan retorted, his
jacket half on. “It’s that or get grilled by your wife about where the hell
you ran off to.”
“She knows I’m a knight,” Edgar said, confused.
“Yeah, but I’m sure she’ll just as easily understand
that you’re running off to pick up a whole bunch of college co-eds in the
middle of the night just to save their lives, platonically.”
Edgar considered the for a moment, then just shrugged
in admittance.
Malcolm leaned back against the phone booth. He
stuffed his arms in against his body, trying to breathe. Sliding down the
metal railing of the booth, his eyes closed in exhaustion. For the first
time, he let the events that had just happened finally hit him.
When he hit the ground, the president of the World Alliance
panicked. Jumping up, he shouted in fear. He glanced down, to see a few
rocks where he had landed. He stayed shaking, his eyes filled with fear.
But after a moment passed, he started to breathe again. He reached up to
wipe some sweat from his face.
His hand was shaking.
“What’s the plan?” Ledger asked as he loaded shells
into his shotgun. He looked over at Roland and Armand as they crammed into
the backseat of Everett’s
car.
Before Everett
could answer, Roland piped up. “You know, Everett,
I know Sydney’s
a lady and all that, but she’s also smaller than everybody.”
“But Armand,” Ledger chimed in.
“But Armand,” Roland added. “She should be back
here.”
“I’ve got boobs and you don’t,” Sydney
said from the front seat, next to Everett.
“Get over it, Roland.”
“The plan,” Everett
said, trying to silence the arguments, “is to go in, find Marilyn and get
her out.”
“Don’t forget about Victor,” Ledger said from behind Sydney.
“I’m not,” Everett
said, pulling the car forward into the traffic of the nighttime street.
“Is this going to be a ‘hop over the front gate’
assignment again?” Ledger asked.
“Their security isn’t that good,” Armand answered.
“We should be able to get in with no trouble.”
“Need I remind you, little knight, that they were
letting you in that time?” Roland said, looking at the knight between him
and Ledger in the backseat. “And,” he added, looking up at the two knights
in the front of the car, “there’s probably a better than average chance
that they suspect that we’re coming now.”
“He’s got a point,” Sydney
said, glancing at Everett.
“I know,” Everett
nodded.
“And that doesn’t bother you?” Roland said with a
surprised look.
“Why should it?” Ledger said from the back. “Either
way, there’s going to be a rumble tonight.”
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