Sunday, October 18, 2009

Chapter 13

I woke in a cold bed, a gurney. A thin, scratchy, blue blanket lay over me. Around me was a curtain that was the same color. Behind me, there was a chrome desk with needles and syringes and all kind of other big medical tools with strange names.



I had a bad headache, and I was feeling very tired. I was pretty sure I was drugged, and I heard a slight moaning sound from the other side of the curtain.



I blacked out.



When I woke up again, the curtain was pulled back and I could see a small window, around ten or fifteen feet away. In it, I could see a black sky, speckled withstars, with the moon peeking around the left side of the iron window frame. I lay there for hours, watching the moon inch along the sky, then looked at the sun following in it's path.





I passed out again.





When I woke for the third time in the hospital, or what I assumed was a hospital, the sun was just dissapearing through the other side of the small window. That was when I noticed a sour smell coming from behind me. I moved my eyes seeing if I could see what was going on without moving. No luck. I tried moving my head, slowly. My neck tensed up from stretching very far, my chin restin on my shoulder. I slowly moved my upper torso, getting another three or four inches until I felt that area stretch too. I moved my hips, finally able to see, dissapointed that I made so much movement. I saw two men dressed in medical scrubs standing over the other bed in this room. I recognized their faces, but from where? Where...



I went through mental images of places where they could fit in.



First image... Four years old. My house. I snuck outside from my parents to play in the rain. My eyes drifted across to our neighbors house. I saw a smaller kid, who seemed to be about two or three years old. A middle aged man who I now know to be his father bent down to play with him.

The man was smoking a cigar. His wife walked up and yanked the cigar out of the man's mouth, then she pointed his finger at him and said something angrily while she held the cigar in her other hand. The man moved one of his legs back, as if backing away would lessen the blows of her insults. His son was rested on the other leg's hip. When he stepped back, the child was moved slightly closer to the woman. The boy's little fingers moved closer to the cigar, and he grasped the burning end.

What happens next takes less than ten seconds.
The cigar is yanked from the woman's hand, the dropped onto a rug by the child. The man stumbles back, hitting his head on a glass table as he goes down. He holds the child up, and absorbs the impact of the ground, preventing the child from hitting the ground. What he does not prevent, however, is a five inch long shard of glass being slammed into his back, cracking a rib and easing to a stop in his heart. He died instantly.

Richard Johansen just lost one of his parents.

His mother grabbed the baby from the father, who she did not know was dead. She ran into the kitchen, where she filled a ziploc bag full of ice, dropped into a paper bag, and pressed it onto Rich's burnt fingers.

The mother continued to comfort the crying child as the cigar set the rug to fire. The fire then spread to the curtains of the window. The curtains and rug then burned a wooden table, from which sparks caught fire to the carpet on the stairs to the second floor. The front door was now blocked, and as fire rushed through the now departed father's den and to the family room, the back door was also bocked. This was when the mother noticed the fire.

Ten seconds, and one child was injured, one man was killed, and half of a house was destroyed.

The child had cried himself to sleep in the time the fire had spread to the kitchen. Mrs. Johansen, or should I say Ms. Johansen, lifted the child and climbed out of the kitchen's window, where her T-shirt was caught by a sharp object. The firetrucks and ambulances called by a neighbor were three minutes away.

The child woke up, and noticed his mother's shirt was caught. They struggled with it for thirty seconds until the mother's shirt caught fire. The woman shoved Richard away, and told him to get to the street. Two minutes and thrity seconds until help arrives.

Or, porfessional help, at least. Ten seconds after Richie ran to the street, the people from two of the houses nearby rushed over. The man of the house to the Johansen's left side tried to pull the shirt free, burning his fingers, which attracted his wife's attention. The man to the right of the Johansen's, who lived alone, grasped the mother. He pulled at her shoulders until the shirt ripped free. She then stood screaming for ten seconds until she remembered to "Stop, Drop, And roll."

Two minutes later, the firefighters fought the fire for twenty two minutes and seventeen seconds, which was sixteen minutes and twnety three seconds after Sally Johansen died in the ambulance. Richard Johansen was an orphan.

I shook my head, back in the present. the men weren't there. Fast forward five years.

I was nine years old. Richie was eight. My parents had adopted him four and a half years ago. He hated them because, "They were just stupid adults trying to impress the man for being good samaritans." as he put it. I have to admit, looking back, he may have been right... They weren't the CPS guys he called to investigate for, "hating a kid they didn't even need."

Two more years. Richie and I on our own, living on the street. Blade meeting us. Blade. That no good, dirty, son of a *****, mother ******, lying piece of ****, who wasn't worth the ****** he *****ed on. Uh, sorry about that. Then it hit me. They were there at the ambush. His right and left hand men.

If they were at the ambush, and I was at the ambush, that means the only person in the other bed could be... Oh my God.

Author's Note:
In case you haven't noticed by now, the first few chapters make this seem like a sci-fi novel, with futuristic weapons and clones. further along, though, this story seems more like an action/adventure/thriller, the latter is closer, but I will be retyping the first chapters in the next few weeks, so go back to the beggining every once in a while to stay updated with the Bounty Hunter story. Thanks!

-Semper Liber-
Mark G.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Chapter 12

I dreamed that night. Not just nightmares of the Boss' betrayal and the shooting of Richie. I had another peculiar dream...

I woke in a building, feeling heavy. I looked down and noticed I was wearing a full suit of medeival chain mail armor. Suddenly, a man wielding a hand axe rushed towards me. I instinctively brought my hand up, and the sword I didn't know I carried had been pulled from my belt,gently pushing the axe right past my head, making a Whoosh! sound as it slashed around my ear. I continued the arc of my blade, and buried the light weapon in the man's chest. He fell to the ground, coughing up blood, and in that moment, reminded me of my former leader's treachery. I continued to walk forward through the stone hallway, occasionally passing a mounted moose's head or two swords crossed behind a shield hung on the wall. The roof started curving about twenty feet in the air, so gently that the torches that lit the halls could not remove the shroud of darkness above. Suddenly, I heard a clapping sound. I whirled around, and saw a man who held himself in a way that said, "Respect me, Fear me, Worship me." Acting almost against my will, I kneeled down in front of the man, handing him my sword above my head. The man, who appeared to be in his thirties, but with wise eyes much beyond his years, spoke to me in a voice that sounded like many talking at once; "You have done well, but defeating a senseless brute is nothing at all like facing a trained warrior. I looked up, expecting to see the man in the dark green robe he was wearing before. When I looked up, however, I saw he was glaring at me with smoldering eyes of hatred, with his angry head set upon his shoulders, where the cuirass of armor he was wearing began at his jugular. I heard a Shink! sound as the sword I had presented him with was pulled out of it's scabbard, this time around the man's belt. I stared cross-eyed at the point, which was touching my nose so gently and gingerly, it didn't even break the skin. I pushed myself backwards as he pushed the blade forward, the previous being a miniscule amount faster. I rolled backwards, and did an akward kind of dance as I dodged his thrusts, backing towards the wall. The wall!!! I remembered the swords crossed behind the shield, and hurried towards the nearest set. I kicked the wall, but these ancient sandals don't do much in the way of toe protection. The only thing I managed to do was hurt my foot. The man charged at me; I sidestepped and he collided into the wall. I saw he kept a cool face the whole time. Dang. People get reckless when they were angry. Kind of hoping on that. When the man collided in to the wall, a shield fell loose, but no sword. I blocked an attack or two, but that thing was heavy, so I had to drop it. He swung towards me again and a sword fell this time as I jumped out of the way. I picked it up as I rolled forward, getting between his legs. I brought my sword up hard and fast, catching him on the wrist. The sword flew into the distance and I heard it clang on the floor far away. I quickly swung my sword a few times at his chest, and the light blows brought him to his knees. He looked at me, not pleadingly, as one might expect, but questioningly, as if saying; Well? What will you do? I answered his unsung question by raising my blade. As I brought it down, however, I noticed it feeling lighter and lighter. I looked up, and the sword was fading out of existence! As it was less than an inch from his neck, the sword dissapeared entirely, and my hand was an empty fist. He looked at me with a cross between an all-knowing look and a smirk. "It is time." the man said calmly. A bright light suddenly filled my vision, as if a flare went off. I started to feel woosy, and I was unconscious before I hit the floor...

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Chapter 11

"So, what is Project NightCannon, anyway?" I asked as we sprinted through the labyrinth of corridors that was this guy's base.
"I dunno. But I can tell from the look in your eye that OW!"
"Maybe you shouldn't be looking in my eye when we're running through narrow hallways, huh?" I said with a smirk.
After a few minutes of re-enacting a five year old's attempt at a maze on the back of a kid's menu at Denny's, we reached another dead end. This time, though, we gained magical powers and shot laser beams out of our eyeballs and flew away with our magical wings of magicalness. Yeah, right. What actually happened is that the fat dude recovered from his teeth caving in and cornered us. I looked at Rich and said, "YTLAITRSWCFH." "Uh..." he looked confused. "*sigh* You Take Left And I Take Right So We Can Flank Him. It's an acronymn." I replied coyly. "Oh, you said something?" Richie wondered. "Sorry, I was busy doing this." he said, indicating the unconscious fat guy.
I heard an electric cackle, and the Boss' voice came through my communications system. "Ifyou two are done playing hostage, we've got a mission. Head outside and I'll..." "Gee, boss, we would love to come and out have a freaking slumber party, but we're kind of lost here." Rich said. "Hold on..." We heard fingers quickly drumming on a keyboard, and then, "Alright, I hacked the security mainframe of this building, so I'll give you instructions on how to get out." He told us when to turn, and a few minutes later, we happily burst through the door and into the... ambush. Well, that's what it would look like to the untrained eye. We could see it was just the boss and his bodygaurds... pointing... guns at us. It was an ambush. We turned on our heels and ran towards the builing, but the boss fired a burst of rounds from his Glock-18 automatic pistol. One made a clean hole through my shoulder, and blood splattered the pavement.
Rich made it away unscathed, but turned around when he saw I was hit. I tied to indicate with my arms for him to run, but all I could do was fall to the ground and think about how much it hurt. All I could hear was a ringing, wooshy kind of sound, like having your ears half in and half out of water. The world faded to just shades of gray. Richie ran towards me, his footsteps inaudible to my ears.
I rolled my head and saw flashes come out of the barrels of the men's guns. I rolled my head back and saw Richie recoil as gray liquid spilled out of his chest from lots of gunshot wounds. He dropped onto his knees,and his head hung down. More gray liquid spilled out of his mouth, and when he tried to breathe, even more came out as he coughed it up.
Then I blacked out.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Chapter 10- Welcome to the new and improved, Grammar Friendly version of this book. (Thanks to Seth and Steph)

While we bere being held hostage, I had planned to talk to Rich about his problems while formulating an escape plan. Something like, "How does that make you feel? Oh, and attack that gaurd on the count of three."
Of course, when you're bound and gagged, it's more like you squirming around and saying, "Rwwwrwwwrwrrrwrrwwwrrwrrwrwrwrwrwr."
So, that is what happened. Sometime around an hour later, I don't know excactly, the completely not ominous black van we were in, stopped, and the guy who took us from our base grabbed Richie by his hair, and me by his collar. I'm sure this was very scary for Rich, because the guy was a lot taller than him, but for me, when a fat guy around my height with shaving cuts all over his face grabs you by the collar, you have to try very hard to stifle a chuckle.
He dragged us to the prison cell, which was just an unfurnished, crappy bedroom with no windows. He had pulled up most of the carpet, except for two little spaces for us to sleep on. I couldn't believe it. We had helped stop professional military organizations, (Alex Rider's got nothing on us) yet we managed to get captured single-handedly by a chubby dunce.
After a few days of eating food so bad the dumpster's special behind KFC looks like some five star buffet to someone who's a vegetarian, and water was so dirty and dry, I could have sworn I was drinking sand, the chub-o marched us off to his interrogation room, which was excactly like our "cell", but with no carpet and a spotlight in the middle. He started with Richie. " What do you know about Project NightCannon?" He stood still as if expecting a reply, as though Richie didn't have a cloth wrapped around his mouth. He realized this, and removed it. he repeated the question; What do you know about Project NightCannon?"
"I'll never tell!" Richie barked back. I could tell Richie was lying. He didn't know anything about Project Whatever it was.
"Oh yeah?" Replied the fat man as he slapped Richie across the face. Blood trickled out of his mouth as Rich replied,
"Let's see how coy you are with my foot in your mouth!"
"Kid, if you're gonna be dramatic, get it right. It's 'With your foot in your mouth.'"
"Not this time..." Mumbled Richie as he kicked the dude in the face.
Time To Get Out!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Chapter 9

"Put some of that in the microwave for me, will ya?" I asked Richie. "Whatever..." he mumbled. Huh. That's not the kind of thing he would usually say. It'd usually be more along the lines of, "Wow, Jonah! You would let me do that for you? Oh my god, thank you so much!" He's sarcastic like that. As I was eating my spaghetti, I remembered his half-hearted remark. "What's troubling you, Rich?" I asked. "It's my parents." he replied. "But, you're an orphan." I stated. "Exactly!" He pointed at me with his fork, flinging a few noodles on to my face. "We'll have to consider this conversation over for now, boys." said the assassin who had just appeared behind Rich with a Sig Sauer 10mm silenced pistol pointed at his head. Huh... WAIT A MINUTE!!!!

Friday, May 29, 2009

Chapter 8

After I thanked the guys in desert camo dropping me off at the helipad conviently located about 3 miles north of my hideout, Richie pulled up in some kind of segway(or however you spell it) looking thing. I eyed it, and he looked at me with a sly smile. "I've just always wanted to ride wunna these, ya know?" He said. Richie is a guy who's about 5''6', very thinly built, with a mop of dirty blonde, shoulder length hair like a curtain around his head. If you look closely, or so I've been told by his most recent ex-girlfriend, he's got a tiny stubble on his chin. I'm talking like, you might be able to see it if you hold his chin under a microscope, maybe. He's always wearing a plain T-Shirt under a short sleeved plaid jacket, loose and unbottoned. If, you're looking for a reference, picture Kurt Cobain, on really short and with bad singing skills. I'm 5''8', and I'm more muscularly built than Jonah, too. I've got short, light brown hair.If I'm not in shrunken army fatigues, then I'll usually be wearing a hoodie and T-Shirt, with some ripped jeans and tennis shoes. "Up for some sparring?" I asked. Instead of speaking, he replied with a roundhouse kick I blocked with my forearm. I brought up my knee to, well, knee him, but he did a back handspring, then charged at me with his shoulder. He knocked me onto my back, but I rolled, turned, and ran towards the wall. He gave chase. As I neared the wall, I ran up it two steps the flung my left leg out in a spinning kick. He did some kind of crazy how-low-can-you-go back bend, so my leg flew over his head. "That all you got?" He taunted. "You wish" I called. As we continued our fight for another few minutes, a sleek black car pulled up beside us. As the passenger got out, I said, "what's up, boss?" "Some sparring, I see." Blade, who's name I had figured out, said. "I bet we could whoop you!" Richie challenged. We charged, but Blade caught Richie's fist with his left hand, flipped him, and did the same for me in his right. "Oh, you kids," he sighed with a shake of his head.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Chapter 7

Okay. He's down. I reach for my headset that isn't there. Right. Oh, well. I'm on my own. Good news, though, they didn't notice the 6 and a half inch knife hidden in my boot. As I near the door, I hear gibberish coming through. Sounds middle Eastern. S**t, now I gotta deal with some kind of clones AND terrorists. As I peek through the door, I see there are 2 guys. One's holding a Desert Eagle standard issue military sidearm, while the other is resting his elbow on an AK-47 Assault Rifle. Now, any normal 12 year old would be shaking is his converse sneakers, but not me. Not Jonah Lagunaz, a kid who's already fluent in English, French, and German. Not a kid who's already certified to be a United States Special Forces Unit as well as a British S.A.S. Officer. So, I did what any kid like me would do. I threw my voice to outside their door in English, "Soldiers! Storm the house on 3! 1! 2! 3!" They oth turned to face the door, so I rushed forward, grabbed the shoulder stock of the AK-47, clubbed one guy in the head, and unleashed a burst of fire on the other guy. Aha! THere's my headset, on the dresser. I scan for a signal, detect a U.S. military outpost a few miles out, and call for some assistance. A few minutes later, I'm sure the guys who pulled up in a military chopper weren't expecting a 12 year old with a gun slung over his shoulder. Ha.