No Romance Chapter 6

Chapter 6. Out of Mercy, A Gift to Our Dear Jack

Jack, following the chain link fence just a short ways past the warehouse, had arrived at a very strange place. The bodies of the two soulless henchmen lay on the ground before him, and a worker had raised up his hands looking terrified and desperate. But he was unarmed and otherwise alone, so Jack looked past him at the very strange place.

            It was, of all things, a minefield. Kind of. The mines weren’t hidden at all, but were blatantly stuck there in the sand, having been arranged in a quadrant-based pattern. Mine-free pathways formed a plus symbol, with the mines filling up the corner quadrants.

In the heart of it all sat a giant catapult, ropes taut and ready to launch.

            Closer, more urgent sounds drove him to act; guards pursuing him from both where he had just come (though they were slowed down by the foot-sinking sand, just as he was) and from the receiving bay, which was right next to this minefield-mabobber. Jack had nowhere to go, no chance to escape but via the great gift from the gods that sat right in front of him. The minefield defined his Path.
            He turned to the worker, who looked rather frightened.

“This is your lucky day. I allow you to live, but I need you to lend me your boxcutter.”

---

            Tristan Timothy Taylor daydreamed in the watchtower, sixty feet up. A sniper rifle leaned against the short wall next to him. He leaned against the wall too. Daydreaming.
            Is there anything uglier than chain link fencing? he thought. So much of it...so much.

And all the brown and gray and smoke and dirtiness...no aesthetics at all, other than the real estate.

Golbez should hire artists to beautify this place, he thought. The fences would be the first thing to go. Or else they could turn them into something beautiful and resplendent, something artistic, meaningful, a pleasure for the eyes. And Tristan Timothy Taylor could do that. He could be in charge of that. He had ideas, he had visions! Do a different paint job on each of the warehouses, put some colors on those walls to make it match the beautiful tropical backdrop. Add some statues, maybe some fountains...and flowers! Oh yes, flowers. He could get a number of flowers from the jungle and turn this facility into a living garden! How beautiful he could make this place, just with a small team and some beautification ideas...

In fact, he was going to go up to Golbez as soon as his shift ended and offer a proposal.  A proposal for the beautification of this smuggling facility. (He didn’t know a lot of synonyms for “beauty,” not being much of a thesaurus; Tristan Timothy Taylor’s abilities lay in the visual arts, or so he thought). He had been stationed up here in this tower and had had nothing to do for long enough that he had a plan. And it would get him away from the drudgery of watchtower duty. He’d never seen a single soul he’d needed to take down with his sniper rifle, never in the thirteen months he had worked here. So, he figured, he would go right to Golbez the second his shift was over and propose his idea. Make himself useful. Wasted up here, he was. But he needed to do something grand, something important, to get an audience with Golbez. Hmm...

His shift ended in ten minutes.

---

            The boxcutter in hand, Jack—
            No, Jack didn’t do that. Instinct, or maybe it was the leather jacket, or maybe it was his sense of hearing, told him there were two guards with guns charging him right now from different angles, one behind from where he had come and the other from the receiving bay area. Without looking he sprinted down the thin path between the two mine-filled quadrants, forced in that direction by the guards he knew were approaching. The presence of the minefield didn’t baffle him. He knew how the gods worked, giving him no other choice of where to go if he wanted to live. And where they wanted him now seemed obvious.
            He heard gunfire as he reached the catapult. Bullets whizzed into the wood of the catapult itself, just inches around him. In two steps he leaped first up to the frame and then, in a very stylized, parkour kind of way, up to the stopping bar. Drawing on the momentum from this movement he pushed up, off of the bar, and into the sky toward the bucket. Time slowed down as he flew, and he turned in mid-air, swinging Wrench up and around to aim the barrel right at the oncoming gunmen. He fired at the first guard, the one who had been close behind him, and, still in the air, and time still at an awesomely glacial pace, he used the kickback of that first shot to propel his arm towards the other. He fired again. Both guards crumpled to the ground at nearly the same time. It was the fastest thing a human does.
            With both guards down, time sped back to its usual pace, and Jack landed perfectly in the cavity of the catapult’s bucket. It was large enough that he fit comfortably. The sounds of the smugglers drowned out in there, almost like he was in his own little cave. He liked it. He felt insulated, safe, like he could hibernate here, even though he could see more guards coming behind the ones who had fallen. Always more henchmen. So he had to work fast.

The problem was that he wasn’t sure what to do at this point. He knew what needed to happen, and knew it needed to happen fast, but in all honesty, he really didn’t know much about catapults. He had borrowed the boxcutter because he assumed there would be a rope he’d have to cut somewhere. Now, knowing his enemies were bearing down on him, he looked around him for a rope to sever.

            He found one quickly. Right behind the bucket, the rope that tied it down to the frame. He would have to wrap his arm around the curve of the bucket to cut it, which meant that when it went off, he would be flung backwards, but, well...
            He had been sawing at it with his little boxcutter knife for all of twenty seconds when he heard a voice. It was the worker we know as Gilbert. He came running in, down the pathway between the mines.
            “No, no, my lord!” he cried out.

Jack looked at him. “Hm?”

“That’s not how you do it! It will destroy the catapult, my lord! And then it will destroy you!”

Jack frowned, but did not sigh. “But I’m over halfway through. What the hell do I do?”

            “Nothing, my lord. I will do it for you! The rope should be able to hold, but when it goes off it will probably wear down the rope to the point where it will break. But do not worry! I will do it for you. I believe in you, my lord!”
            Great. Confidence from a worker/slave/oppressed person. His only friend on this island.
            “I just have to pull this cord, and off you go, my lord!”
            Jack took Wrench firmly in hand, stuck the boxcutter into his boot, and fit himself snugly in the bucket.
            “Go ahead,” he told the worker.
            For a single solitary second, as he realized what was about to happen, Jack desired a seatbelt. Then Gilbert pulled the cord, and Jack forgot all about it as he launched into the air. He sailed over the warehouse, over the astonished gunmen below, nearing the watchtower.

So, Jack thought as he soared towards the jungle. This is what it’s like to be a flying squirrel.

Then he thought a moment further.

            And Batman.

---

            Tristan Timothy Taylor, with three minutes left on his tower shift, had been ignoring the escaped prisoner drill alarm, and also the chaos raging down on the ground below. That is, until he thought he saw a man in a leather jacket. Flying.

            After gaping for at least three milliseconds, he snapped to. Here was his chance. Here was his opportunity. To fell the jacket-wearing man from the sky, and use that achievement to gain audience with Golbez. He started to take his rifle in hand, but did a double take.
            The man in the air was already aiming a gun of his own at him. A flash and a crack, and then nothing.
            And then Tristan Timothy Taylor’s daydreams were dashed.

---

            Damb it. That’s all I have to say about all of this. Damb it.
           I sighed, then shook my head. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. It’s what I’m supposed to do, isn’t it? Sigh in frustration? Well how the hell do you sigh in frustration at the fact that you’re sighing in frustration?
            As usual, I’m trapped.
            But at least I’m alive, which gives me a microscopic chance to change it all. To escape. To actually make a choice in something that wasn’t already predetermined by someone else, some writer somewhere. Or just fate. Whatever the hell it is that’s pushing me along.
            Wait, am I talking now? Directly? Not filtered through some god’s quotation marks?
            That’s refreshing.
            But now it all just feels…quiet. Suppressed. Like I’m underwater, or in a dream. Or in some pillow-lined room in an insane asylum. Actually, that’s probably exactly where I am. That would make the most sense to me.
            But sadly, it is not what I see around me; it is not what I smell, or hear, or touch, or taste. Somehow I’m going through all the motions, and they’re driving me mad, except I’m not actually going mad. It’s like achieving a sense of hyper self-awareness while in solitary confinement, which is ten times worse, or maybe a billion, than actual solitary confinement. (Precision in mathematical maths doesn’t much matter to me; I’ll make it over a twenty-foot chasm just as easily as a ten-foot one. A billion-foot one? Maybe even that, yeah. It depends whose life is depending on it. Dependence within dependence. Crazy world we live in.)

Anyway, where the hell I am is in a jungle. Holding onto a branch. Dangling ten meters in the air. Getting shot at by smugglers. Alleged smugglers, I should say. I still don’t know what they’re smuggling. But they’re bad guys on a secret tropical island. And I am apparently here to stop them, or kill the heartless leader, or disrupt their trade and free the innocent natives who have been subjected to slave labor. Yawn.

            I’m still alive. They’re shooting at where they think I am, round after round, but I’m still alive. Thinking, of all things, of Annie. She’s the one who is figuratively literally dragging me through the mud. By that I mean, I’ve gone through some literal muddy parts for her sake, although she only dragged me figuratively. But it’s not her fault. None of this is, not really.
            But I would GREATLY like to figure out whose fault it actually is. And then murder him. Or her. Only then I’ll be free. Not from guilt or obligation or shackles or anything normal like that. Freed from fate. The gods of pulp fiction. Oh, how they love me. I’m their little puppet. Never dying, never aging, just getting hurt and killing bad guys (who have still failed to hit me with their bullets in the something-like-ten-minutes I’ve been hanging up here in plain view) and saving damsels in distress while resisting femme fatales and denying romantic fulfillment from both of them.
            That’s my only victory. No romance, my trusted philosophy. I’ll do everything else, but I don’t have to give in to women. That’s all I can control. Isn’t it damb lousy? The only way I can retain even some semblance of sanity is by rejecting the multitudinous dating opportunities who pass through my life.
            That’s my rule: no romance. That’s me shaking my fist at the heavens, at the gods of pulp fiction.
            So am I telling this story?
            Or are they?
            Forgive me that digression and then get used to it; it’ll happen a lot as we—

---

Mercy rescinded.

Greg Dunban heard the emergency alarm broadcasted over his vehicle’s radio. He had just taken the camo-coloured open-top jeep for a ride in the sunshine, alone. He needed to breathe properly, get some fresh air and clear his mind. Smuggling was a stressful job. Even more so when they had alarms like this one, that sounded like shooting a cat right out of the water. Fortunately he was able to turn the volume down. Unfortunately he couldn’t change the station. No other stations, you see.

The dirt road he was driving down had two lanes to it, divided by a natural median of tall green grass and occasional trees. One of the lanes led west, and the other east. If followed west from the main facility at Butterknife Bay, the road took one all the way up to Machete Bay, past the Cardaccian quarters, often paralleling the train tracks. East of the facility it led through the jungle all the way to the Cliffs of High Depth, and then down a steep set of switchbacks to Boxcutter Bay.

The two-lane road had been established many years previous. Dunban loved the drive, loved the view of the sea when the road took them out of the trees, near to the coast; loved the flora and fauna constantly on display. It relaxed him to be surrounded by so much life.

But hearing the alarm in the midst of all this jolted him awake, not from sleep but from peace. It lit every single one of his nerves on fire, but he was loyal and so, already en route back to base, he pressed down harder on the gas pedal. He wanted to help out, see what he could do. He had learned from Head Hermano Amon Dem to appreciate his co-workers as brothers, and their smuggling ring as a family. And he wanted to help his family.

Very near to the base, he started hearing gunshots and yells, as well as the emergency alarm, all directly in his ears, not from the radio. He turned the volume of the radio all the way down, and when the gunshots got closer, he stopped the car and killed the engine. Right under a very tall tree.

He stood up in the jeep and looked around for his fellows.

“Guys, what’s going on?” he shouted over the din to no one in particular. “What’s all this rumpus? What are we doing? What can I do?”

Something very heavy suddenly crashed through branches into the backseat of the jeep, shaking it and knocking Dunban to his rear. He looked up and around in alarm. He saw a black leather jacket and a shiny steel revolver and then nothing.

---

Jack kicked the driver’s body out of the jeep and settled down in the driver’s seat. Keys were already in the ignition. He started to thank the gods for that but cut himself off and sighed instead. He turned the keys, trying not to roll his eyes.

            Engine on, he punched the gas pedal, just as bullets started whizzing past his ears. A couple strays hit the jeep. It was lucky for him that Golbez insisted each vehicle be lined with kevlar. It would have been super effective! if not for the fact that none of the jeeps had tops.
            Jack yanked it into gear and then sped down the dirt road, staying to the right lane while heading east through the jungle. He passed the smuggling facility from what he could see through the trees. While passing he still heard occasional bursts of gunfire, but all the chaos gradually fell away, including the sound of that blasted alarm. But...
            “The music’s still playing,” Jack muttered. “I’m not out yet.”
            As he said this, another jeep appeared in his vibrating rearview mirror, pulling onto the dirt pathway behind him. Four men with guns, automatic guns. And they were starting to aim.
            Jack sighed, thought a moment, then gently pressed his foot on the brake. He took it down to a leisurely pace, around 25 miles per hour. He wasn’t going to race. No point to that. The other jeep could go just as fast and they had all sorts of resources Jack didn’t have. Plus they knew their way through this jungle, which might play a minor role despite it being difficult to get lost when there was only one path that could be taken.
            In taking his speed down, Jack lowered the intensity of the fight, thus taking away the gunmen’s abilities to fire automatic weapons. If they did so now, it would just look silly. Why so much force and violence against a man driving a vehicle at residential speeds?

And it worked. The gunmen, pulling up alongside him, didn’t know quite how to react.

“What are you doing?” called out one of the gunmen to Jack.

“Just going for a relaxing drive,” Jack called back.

“Well I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us,” the gunman in the passenger seat declared. He had straight, combed blond hair.

“All right,” said Jack, and he slowed to a stop. “Can you put those rifles away? It’s a little intimidating to a regular guy like me.”

The gunmen all looked confused.

---

            Terry Akroyd looked confused. He wasn’t sure in the first place why they were sent to kill this guy, or take him in or whatever. It was they were supposed to do. And Terry was just the driver. But...they could never have anticipated this.
            But no one could have anticipated the guy would fly into the jungle, either. And somehow steal one of their cars...
            Then the alarm on the jeep radio changed to a voice.
            “Kill on sight! Kill on sight! Kill the leather jacket on sight! He’s murdered three of our own already!”
            At that second, every brow in that jeep creased, every mouth turned downward in a snarl, and every gun was being raised when the leather jacket man fired his own weapon straight at Terry.

---

            The enemy jeep now without a driver, Jack once more stomped on the gas pedal, firing blindly behind him. This was the simplest way of putting a reasonable distance between himself and the guards with guns who wanted to kill him.

Though he did not have much of a plan before (other than to get away from the smugglers), his mind started developing one now as he raced through the jungle. He realized that with this much havoc under his belt, he should soon draw out the one he wanted to see. If Vanasmas hadn’t put out a bounty on his head, it would have been much easier. That was the problem in the end. But this whole escape and chase sequence...it should do the trick.

And even if it wasn’t a great idea to begin with, he hoped and trusted the gods would make it work.

---

            Eddie Raja, Jim Trombone, and Scruffy Wilcox all stared in shock after the man in the leather jacket pulled away from there. They had been told at Orientation that smuggling was a dangerous line of work, but never before had they been treated so violently after showing mercy to a rogue. No honor whatsoever. And now Terry was dead.
            “Vengeance!” slickback Eddie cried.
            “Blood!” screamed the tall, gangly Trombone.
            “Come on, men!” Sergeant Scruffy shouted.
            They kicked Terry’s body out of the car and Eddie plunked down in the driver’s seat. He started the engine and they raced after the leather jacket. Their fury fueled their chase better than gasoline or corn on the cob ever could.
            “He’s heading east,” Scruffy reported into the radio receiver. “But I don’t think we’ll need backup.”
            Eddie zoomed through the trees, accelerating on curves and ignoring the bumps of the rugged terrain. Nothing cleared the mind like the thirst for revenge. Nothing gave more focus than the desire for justice. And though Batman might tell us that there’s a difference between those two motivations, he’s not here right now, so who even cares.
            After rounding a corner so fast it made Trombone lose some of his edge and feel a little nervous, Jack’s vehicle came into sight. Trombone promptly forgot about the nervousness, but he did start to feel a little carsick.
            “We’ve got him in the crosshairs, boys,” said Eddie. “And we’ve got a nice long straight stretch for stability. Take him down.”
            Scruffy and Trombone steadied themselves in the moving vehicle and stood up to take aim. Just as they were about to fire, they met a rock in the road. The rock didn’t survive the jeep, but it did jar the stance of the two gunmen, and they had to break aim to hold onto something.
            Because of this, they didn’t notice Jack’s vehicle slowing down. Instead, when they had re-stabilized their footing and found themselves still closer to Jack, they assumed they had been catching up. And so they laughed and cackled and giggled (respectively), and started firing their assault rifles at him. After several successive missed shots and angry growls and frustrated frowns and the most cutting of curses, they shared a quiet moment. And Jim Trombone, even through his carsickness, started to wonder if he was in the wrong in all this, fighting the wrong people, loyal to the wrong side...
            Jack’s vehicle, only twenty feet ahead, suddenly screeched to a halt, sending up a cloud of dirt and dust and crashing into the enemy’s vehicle behind. The unexpected bash drew out the contents of Jim Trombone’s stomach and deposited them all over the backseat.
            Trombone looked up, and in a moment of perfect clarity saw the man in the vehicle ahead, Jack as they called him, swerving around from his seat, holding a revolver with two hands, aiming and firing. The wretched Jim Trombone was blown back from a shot straight in the chest.
            Eddie, upon searching and searching and finally finding his bearings, shouted out a heart-wrenching primordial cry:
            “TROMBOOOOOOOOONE!!!!”
            Then Jack zoomed off while the rest mourned, shocked and infuriated.
            “This man is a monster,” said Eddie, breathing heavily.
            “He’s like the abominable giant-killer,” said Scruffy, staring blankly. “Jim Trombone was truly a giant of a man.”
            “He was tall,” granted Eddie. “And he did have quite the Adam’s Apple.”
            “Jack the giant-killer.” Scruffy picked up the receiver. “We might need backup, chief,” he reported into it.
            “No, Scruffy,” said Eddie, placing his hand on the receiver. “We can take him. This is our fight. He took down Jim Trombone and Terry. We’ll do this ourselves.”
            Scruffy looked at him with somber eyes and nodded. “Okay.”
            Eddie turned back to the wheel, and they resumed the chase. They forgot the body lying on the trunk behind them until it slid off the back. Eddie and Scruffy turned to see when they heard it happen, then looked at each other. They said nothing, but quietly returned their attentions to their mission of vengeance.
            Strangely, they caught up rather quickly to their prey, who seemed again to be going at a safe, leisurely pace compared to their own. Scruffy gripped his rifle tightly, firing constantly—and missing just as much—as they closed in. This time he would ignore the slow speed, the lack of intensity. Death was his only goal. Death to the man now driving parallel to them.
            “Guys!” that man said over the whipping wind. “Try firing at my tires! Why haven’t you thought of that yet?”
            Scruffy looked over at Eddie, who said, “He has a point.”
            Scruffy cursed but took the advice. He pointed his rifle down at the front left tire of the enemy vehicle and pulled the trigger.
            Nothing. Empty. Out of bullets. Or maybe jammed.
            In a rage, Scruffy hurled his weapon across the grassy divide at Jack. This turned out to be the most effective of all their ammunition fired thus far; it clanged against his head and made him shout “Ow!” and rub the spot that it hit. He glanced over at Scruffy angrily.
            Still in a rage, Scruffy stood up in his seat and poised himself to leap. At a safe moment he jumped across to Jack’s car. He landed and Jack swerved to shake him off. But Scruffy grabbed onto Jack’s seat and held steady. He was about to attack with his bare hands when Jack pointed something out.
            “If you try to poke my eyes out or wrestle me down or anything like unto it,” he said, “both of us will die in the inevitable crash that follows.”
            Scruffy stopped, mid-move. He calmly realized the truth of this. Then, foiled, he leaped back over to the other car.
            “He made a very compelling argument,” he told Eddie with a shrug.
            “Forget words! Actions are all that count now we’re in the field of battle,” Eddie chided.
            “You’re right, Eddie Raja. He will not be cut down with words. Only actions. Pull in front of him. Then I’ll get vengeance for Jim Trombone and Terry.”
            As Eddie pulled their car ahead of Jack’s jeep, Scruffy climbed onto the trunk, once more ready to leap onto the enemy vehicle, though this time onto its hood. He caught a glimpse of Jack’s face. It seemed interestedly curious.
            Scruffy narrowed his eyes, and with an animalistic roar jumped forward. Unfortunately, Jack easily anticipated this move and once more put his brakes to good use. His jeep withdrew from the spot, and Scruffy, eyes wide in his final moment of terror, plopped right down between the cars. His forehead put a significant dent in Jack’s hood before his body was tossed aside.

---

            Jack tsked. They should know better. That Jim Trombone fellow had had a certain look to him. He seemed to get it, at the end. Jack was sorry he shot him. But no, he said to himself, shaking his head. They never really got it. They never achieved true self-awareness. They had no real souls.

---

“Okay, we definitely need back up,” said a very shaken Eddie Raja into the receiver as he rumbled along through the jungle, all alone but for the enemy. The paleness of his face matched the general paleness of other pale-faced frightened souls.
            The trees on the left suddenly dropped away, and the road now overlooked an impossibly high cliff on that side as it weaved back and forth alongside the cliff edge, no guardrails or signs or any other injury-preventative boundaries. Nothing but one’s driving ability and presence of mind to keep one from flying over the cliff. Eddie definitely had the former. The latter, however...
            With a gasp Eddie realized that he was on the left side of the road, the side of the cliff, and Jack was on his right, and he saw his fate even as it was happening. Jack’s vehicle slowly eased over and started grinding against Eddie’s. If Eddie had had a little more self-awareness, he might have used the greatest power at his disposal in this situation, the power Jack had used to such an accomplished degree in these last few minutes: his brakes.
            But no, Eddie did not think to slow down; rather, he simply accepted his fate, albeit while screaming as Jack shoved Eddie’s vehicle over the edge of the cliffside. Eddie Raja plunged to his death, and even though he was screaming, it still came as rather a peaceful moment to him after watching his friends, his brothers, die one by one. He would soon join them, wherever they were.

---

Easy enough, thought Jack. But that can’t be all of them.

            He slowed down and took his time enjoying the jungle sights and the gorgeous view from the cliffs. Below lay a sea of treetops, the green canopy of the forest below, and in the distance Jack saw the beach and the beautiful waters beyond. What a gorgeous, magnificent isle this was.
            Other than sightseeing, Jack wasn’t sure where he was going right now, or why he was going there, but he knew it would all become quite clear soon. Reinforcements for those poor henchfellows he had had to kill would be coming shortly. He knew this because the music had faded away, and he was now in between scenes. If it had been a true victory, the heroic music would have been playing, and he could drive off into a montage. He also would have a set destination. But he possessed none of these things, and so he continued to drive (safely) and wait.
            After a minute he checked to make sure his jacket was still on.

It was.

            The music resumed. This time it had a lighter touch, a quiet, accelerating, suspenseful feel. Subtle percussions and just the slightest of strings. Hearing it, Jack flitted his eyes up to the rearview mirror. There they were, the reinforcements, an entire fleet of open-top jeeps filling up both lanes of the road, slowly catching him, all filled with more guards and more guns, though nobody was aiming at him. At the head of the pack was the purple jeep, with the same two people in it Jack had seen before—the large muscly man, looking too big to fit into the seat properly, and the large fat man, with the darker skin, white mane of hair around his whole face, and small round glasses that reflected the sun, making it impossible to see his eyes—and in the backseat of the purple jeep sat Paula, looking dangerous and contemptuous, ready to move and fight at a moment’s notice, as usual. Sitting next to her was the old man Jack had seen by the hilltop villa before he was imprisoned, the one with the bushy white mustache and the eyebrows that were almost mustaches themselves.
            The fleet followed him at a distance, not bothering to capture, nor to kill. This puzzled Jack, and distracted him from the road. Further ahead he saw the jungle completely opening up, the trees and road ceasing, but did not think about what it meant. Instead he was thinking about what methods he would use to negotiate with this army behind him, how to get them not to shoot him immediately, despite his immediate killing of at least half a dozen of their men without a second thought.
            Gradually he perceived a vine dangling down over the middle of the road from an overhanging tree branch. For a few seconds he wondered why it was there. Then his eyes discerned that he was coming to the end of this road, the end being a cliff that his jeep was hurtling towards.
            He went into action mode overdrive. He jammed on the brakes, but they didn’t work. His overabundant use of them earlier seemed to have dulled their effect. There was nowhere to turn, either, for the road before him simply ended. And at last he understood the function of that single solitary vine. At the last second he unclipped his seatbelt and reached up, grabbing hold of it with all his might. The momentum from the vehicle swung him forward on the vine, and he dropped to the ground at the zenith of its arc. He watched as the faithful, dented vehicle he had driven careened over the edge of the cliffside and out of sight.
            Jack turned and found the fleet of jeeps just behind him, seemingly about to mow him down. He started running, but he came to the same situation he had in the car: nowhere to go.
            But the fleet didn’t physically strike him, as his vehicle had done with poor Scruffy. Instead, the two rows of jeeps divided as they reached him, each vehicle arranging to form a circle around him, boxing him in against the cliff. The purple jeep, though originally in front, had kept back and now closed the circle like a keystone in an arch. Once every vehicle was in position, the gunmen all exited wordlessly and looked on at Jack, their hands, as always, carrying assault rifles.
            Jack had no eyes for them, though. He stared at the man with the white mane and glasses, and was about to open his mouth when the thick, huge driver of the purple jeep, hoisted himself out, giving Jack a proper view of this bear of a man.

He stood six-and-a-half feet tall and had an even longer wingspan. He looked from his build as if he had, with the famous American presidents, been carved out of the stone of Mt. Rushmore. He stalked towards Jack, hands curled up in fists like cinder blocks, brute face utterly passive.

But then he spoke.

“I am a gladiator,” he said, revealing a surprisingly soft voice. “I duel you for rights to be here. I represent Golbez Industries. You represent you. Yes?”

“And if I win?” Jack said, eyebrow raised.

“You win and you can do what you like, go where you like, riding a bike, like a small tyke.”

“Are you offering me transport services to go along with—”

—interrupted by the man’s fist flying forward, hitting Jack in the forehead of all places. He really needed to stop getting hit in the head. He had no doubt it would catch up to him someday.

In fact...what were these gods planning, with those kinds of blows? He wondered this as he stared blankly up at his opponent, the gladiator.

And yeah, “gladiator?” What was that all about? What was going on here? To be honest, it did kind of feel that way. The guards all stood around like spectators in a coliseum, Paula and the other Occupant of the purple jeep reigning over the proceedings like monarchy, dressed in the royal color and all that.

Not a situation he’d been in before. And as he got lifted up by his shirt collar and punched again by the large man, he forgot what he had come here to do, lost in his questions of what these men here were here to do. The gods must have something planned.

Something.

Jack knew that he wasn’t going to beat this man by physical force. There was some trick to it, some cleverness he needed to find out. A word combination or a unique opportunity to escape. Jack just worried about getting severely beat up before that happened. Pain wasn’t pleasant, no matter how many times one experienced it.

The beefy man lifted him up again, and threw him bodily away. Jack landed in the dirt on his back, and as he rolled over and raised himself to his knees, his hands, specifically the tips of his fingers, found out for him that he was at the very edge of the cliff. He dared not look over.

“Nothing to say, invader?” said the man. “I will kill you; I’m no traitor.”

“Not the most poetic of rhymes,” Jack said under his breath. “But—”

The giant raged, and lifted him to his feet. Then he literally took Jack’s neck in one humongous hand and lifted him again, this time by the throat. He held Jack up in the air, dangling helplessly. Jack, finally realizing that the gods weren’t going to step in, was struggling for the first time in...well, a very long time.

“My name is Blake, and your end I’ll make,” the giant seethed in his soft voice. He stepped one foot forward.

Jack was now dangling over the edge of the cliff. The drop below was at least a thousand feet.

The giant, Blake, called out over his shoulder.

“Do I have your permission, Boss Golbez?”

“Sure, why not,” answered the white-maned man in the purple jeep.

Jack’s eyes opened wide.

“Wait! Wait!” Jack cried out, almost literally breathless. “You’re Golbez? Golbez MacDowell?”

“I am,” said he. “And you are?”

“I’m Jack McDowell! I’m your son! I’m your son!”

And Blake the Giant let go of Jack’s neck in surprise, dropping him directly over the cliff’s edge.