Funeral of a Friend

"We'll find them," Maggie said, breaking into Max's train of thought. He had just dropped a handful of dirt onto the casket and was remembering a time on the subway that had brought a hint of a smile to his lips and water to his eyes.

Max looked from the hole in the ground to Maggie; tears stung his eyes like a foreign substance. He could see that she was taking this harder than he had thought.

"We'll hunt every last one of them," Maggie went on in a very cold and distant voice. She stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. She didn't look at the casket in the ground, just the headstone.

"And what are we going to do when we find them?" Max asked. This was a side of Maggie that Max rarely saw; a look of determination, hatred and murderous intent burning in her eyes. At the moment she was like a mother bear who had lost a cub and she was going to get violent.

"Exterminate each and every one of them," Maggie said; her eyes were cold as a lunar sea. "First we'll make them pay."

"I'm in," Frank said. "We knew what we were getting into in this secret war, that there would be casualties. This one hits close to home."

"Count me in too," Goner added. He stepped forward and picked up a handful of dirt and dropped it onto the casket.

"Let's do this," Angst said morosely. She stepped away from the open grave and faced the gang.

Maggie was about to say something but Max's cellphone went off and she glanced to him. Max fished his phone out of his pocket and answered it before the second chime could kick in.

"Yes," was all he said into the phone.

They stood there and watched Max on the phone. They knew it was a vital call; who else calls during a time like this.

"Okay, just give us time to get ready," he said into the phone. And then flipped it shut and turned to his compatriots. "That was the Professor. He got a lead on the Architects' assassins."

Eating the Friday

Frank sat at a table reading a novel. He was behind in his reading of a series of books from an author that he admired, and this downtime was what he needed to catch up. Some quiet time, some coffee. 

His cup of coffee steaming before him, ordered a few minutes previous from the waitress. Goner was drumming his fingers on the table; he was bored and it showed. He didn't know what he wanted to do, and it was getting to him.

"Go to the movies," Frank told him, hoping the suggestion would embed in Goner's brain.

Goner thought about it for a few seconds before answering, the suggestion disappearing into the night like a cheap magician, "Nah."

Frank flipped the page of the novel and sighed. It was going to be one of those evenings.

"Any word from Max?" Goner asked. "He's been gone for a good long time."

Frank ignored the question. He was sure that he had answered that one about an hour earlier.

"Is Maggie showing up here?" Goner asked, his fingers were drumming out a beat. It was starting to grate on Frank's nerves.

"I really don't know," Frank stated. "Think of it as a night off, go and do something constructive with your free time."

Goner glanced around the coffee shop; he really didn't know what to do. It had been steady going for the past three months and now the past three days had been quiet.

"You know a man gets conditioned to certain things," Goner told Frank.

Frank put the book down and looked up at Goner. "Don't make me have to shoot you, Goner."

The Waiting Game

Pretty George stood in the rain, waiting. Like some rock'n'roll god once sang, the waiting is the hardest part. He glanced up at his watch and could see that it was 1 minute past the scheduled meeting.

A grimace appeared on his face, which was rare since he was always in a jovial mood. That meant that one of two things had happened, and the first was impossible since there was no way in hell that someone would not show up.

Once you make a call to Pretty, the wheels are set. 

To make matters worse, some thugs appeared from down the street and saw him standing there with the duffel bag. Pretty George looked up into the night sky and whispered, "You're not going to do this to me now are you?"

He glanced down the street and all his years of dealing and combat training told him that they were going to cause some serious trouble. 

"I guess you made that random encounter roll," he chuckled as he reached inside his long coat and pulled out a squarish device, much akin to a Rubik's cube.

> Connor in Plureality

The bones in Connor’s hand broke into a thousand tiny fragments.  

“Jesus,” Richmond said, “you’re actually a spy… A real motherfucking spy.”  

Connor blacked out then came to, his hand burning like a sun.  

“Fuck are you surprised Rich,” he wheezed, “You’re a fucking terrorist.”  

He blacked out again and Richmond splashed water on his face. “I shouldn’t have broke your hand like that… Fuck, I’ll never get you out of here with you all fucked up like that. I wanted to shoot you… Is that strange? That the first reaction I had was that I wanted to shoot you?”  

Connor gritted his teeth and shifted his body on the floor of the hotel room. “It makes sense to me. Shit you really busted it up.”  

“I need to clean up some of this blood, it’s making me nauseous. Drink this.” He poured Connor some vodka. “Then why didn’t you see it coming?”  

“Fuck Rich, you’re still my friend. I guess I hoped-” He pushed himself into sitting against the couch, shaking, taking the glass, and they both heard the knock at the door. They looked at each other and they knew the look, after years of sitting beside each other in boardrooms making business deals, years of sitting beside each other in bars trying to pick up women, they said to each other with the look that things were about to get very complicated.  

Richmond sighed. “How much do you know?”