Fedor spun from an impossible position, lifting Three off-balance, and then bashed Three with an elbow across the forehead, slamming him to the floor. Fedor’s right arm hung limply, his entire side darkly saturated, as he raised his boot to stomp Three’s crotch. A moment before impact, a streak shot over Three and caught Fedor in the throat, launching him backwards into the smaller interior room. He crashed heavily to the concrete floor headfirst with a wet crunch, where he lay still, rasping and struggling for breath.
Three raised his swirling head, saw Cass crouching at his feet, facing away, a single hand outstretched towards the back room. A moment later, with a barely audible whir, the door to the back room slid shut, and all was still.
Three slumped back to the floor, stared at the ceiling, wondered if it would ever stop its lazy spin. He felt robbed, having gone from sober to massive hangover without ever passing through pleasant drunkenness. Pressure from inside his head counterbalanced the throbbing from the outside in a low-intensity equilibrium of pain. His right ear rang. A tiny silhouette slid into periphery, towering above Three from his worm’s-eye view.
“Is he…?” a small voice whispered, trailing off.
“Yeah, baby,” Cass said, from somewhere. “I’m afraid he is—”
“I’ll be fine,” Three interrupted. “Eventually.”
Cass appeared, sidling next to Wren, kneeling, eyes bewildered or amazed.
“We should go,” she said, hushed. “Can you walk?”
“In a minute.”
“They’ll be here by then.”
“Then go on.”
The weakening sun left the room a murky brownish-gray, making features difficult to distinguish. Three thought he caught Cass biting her bottom lip again; might’ve imagined it. She stood, face enshrouded by shadow, took Wren’s hand, and left.
Three closed his eyes. Twice now. No “thank you”. At least his ear had stopped ringing.
A pitter-patter approached, and Wren called from the door.
“Thanks for my car.”
Three raised a hand in silent acknowledgement, and Wren was gone.
Three didn’t know who “they” were, but he’d lain on the floor five, maybe ten minutes, and no one else had shown up. After recovering his pistol, which was undamaged by the scuffle, he’d set out with the late afternoon sun towards the agent’s office. Three-thousand Hard waited for him. Tonight, he was going to get very, very drunk.
When he reached the agent’s office, the glass doors slid smoothly open to admit him, snicked closed behind. He ran his fingers absentmindedly over the goose-egg throbbing above his left eye, shook his head to clear it as he walked the long stone corridor. Three reached the agent’s cube, waited for the greeting.
“State your business,” the voice boomed.
“Bounty.”
“State your name,” said the voice. Almost familiar. Something different, maybe. Three was too hazy to be sure.
“We did this already. I’m just here for my money.”
The same slot opened in the cube, same metal case slid out, same rubberized interior.
“Deposit your weapons in the provided secure receptacle.”
“No.”
A pause.
“Please approach the door.”
Three stepped closer, sarcastic, nose almost touching the flexiglass door. It slid open. He looked down slightly, expecting to find the eyes of the diminutive agent. Instead, he found himself looking at a broad chest. Not the agent.
Fedor.
Three
A meaty hand clapped over Three’s face, so huge that having its palm on his chin didn’t prevent its fingernails from digging into his scalp just above his forehead. Before he even finished flinching, Three was hurtling headlong into the flexiglass room, crashing face down into a stack of aged and blinking hardware, which collapsed and buried his head and shoulders under a jagged heap. Behind him, the door slid shut, whirred, and clunked heavily, some kind of magnetic lock-and-seal dropping into place. Three lay still, mind scrambling. He’d barely survived his first encounter with Fedor, with three times the room to maneuver. Three felt Fedor prowl over him. A heavy boot stamped down on the back of his knee, grinding the kneecap into the granite floor.
“So,” Fedor growled. “You are not so much.”
He snorted, and spat on Three, then drew a breath to say something else.
Instead, an ear-shattering blast of white lightning erupted from the back of Three’s coat, slamming through Fedor, spattering him across the inside of the cube. Then, a weighty silence descended, no doubt magnified by Three’s self-inflicted deafness. He hoped it was temporary.
Three rolled slowly up on his elbow, shoved the broken hardware off himself, surveyed the scene. The wreckage that had been Fedor lay folded near the door. Three’s shot had caught him right through the middle. He wouldn’t be getting up again. Three checked himself, side aching from the blast he’d fired from his still-holstered pistol. His vest was scorched, and the hole through his coat smoked faintly, but he was glad to see he hadn’t shot off any of his own important bits.
He sat up, inhaled deeply, jammed his fingers in his ears to work out the heavy dullness, took stock of his surroundings. The flexiglass cube was frosted opaque from the impact of the round that had torn through Fedor, but the walls were otherwise intact. In one corner lay the agent, broken by Fedor some time before.
Unnecessary, Three thought. Excessive. A waste.
He fished around in one of his coat’s many pockets, and drew out his remaining stock of shells. Down to six. With practiced fluidity, he flipped open his pistol’s three-chambered cylinder, and replaced the spent shell with a fresh one. He dropped the empty in another pocket, where it jangled with others he’d fired before, each eagerly awaiting a refill, though chances for that were getting increasingly slim. A sharp flick of the wrist snapped the cylinder in place, and Three slid the pistol back into its now-charred holster.
He stood, shaking his head, and set to searching for a way to get out of the cube. None of the devices that still blinked or whirred seemed to have anything to do with the door. The agent’s cluttered desk was likewise no help. He flipped switches, pressed buttons, stomped, kicked. After twenty minutes of scouring to no avail, claustrophobia began to settle in. Three realized his breathing was short, his jaw clenched. He forced himself to sit. Propped up on the agent’s desk, he tried to relax, told himself he’d find what he was looking for, that he wasn’t going to die in a box. At least, not this one. He took a deep breath and held it.
That was when he heard the scratching.
It was quiet; rhythmical, methodical. Someone was working the other side of the door.
Three crept cat-like from the desk, half-crouched on the floor, eyes darting to reevaluate his options. For all the clutter, there was no real place to hide, no solid cover. He improvised.
As quietly as he was able, Three dragged Fedor to a corner, where he lay down and rolled the giant corpse on top of himself. He shoved his arm under Fedor, leveled his pistol at the door. Waited. The scratching continued, intermittent but determined. Minutes stretched.
Three’s fingers began to tingle, nerves revolting against Fedor’s dead-weight pressure crushing down into his bicep. He rested his head on the cool marble floor, chastised himself for choosing this corner of the small room, where eyes would undoubtedly fall first. The collapsed pile of hardware was the better option. The confusion of the electronic debris, coupled with Fedor’s ragged form, would’ve bought precious seconds of advantage. Too late now. Three hoped he’d outlive this mistake.