Balance (40 page)

“Excuse me m
iss, can I have a word with you?
” 

She
decides
this isn’t a v
ery well trained security guard
,
as
he
’s
ap
proach
ing
in a non-threatening
manner.  Either they didn’t tell him Frienz was dead or he doesn’t see her as a threat, her guess
is
the later.

“Ma’am, if you could ho
ld up there a second, I need to a
sk you a couple questions?  T
here
was
an incident
upstairs
.”

The guard
only
a couple feet away, the
first floor
of
the
building next door explodes.
T
he concussion
shatters
the windows in the RamSteele lobby
,
send
ing
broken
glass
pieces
in every direction
,
distract
ing
the
guard
.

Aware of the explosives
,
expecting the
distraction
,
Rena
steps
behind the guard
for protection
at the first sound of the
detonation
.

H
e crumbles
to the floor
,
his throat cut
.

Amidst the
chaos
,
Rena
exits the
Ramsteele building
with
the
other
terrified
bystanders
.
 
H
ead
ing across the street
into the park,
Rena
walk
s
briskly in her high heels.

A
lone
dark
figure
,
wearing a long coat
,
emerges
from behind some trees,
walking to
catch
up with
her on the
sidewalk
. 
Draping
a long black wool coat over her shivering shoulders
, Michael
moves in next to her
.
They w
al
k hand in hand for
the
six blocks
to
the
waiting limousine
,
and then
driv
e
away into the night.

B
efore Michael or Rena
even
have a chance to start eating their
breakfasts,
M
r. Black arrives at their table,
giddy
with excitement. 
“Excellent work
you two
.
I wanted to meet you when you arrived, but I figured you were both exhausted.”

“Thank you, for your consi
deration
.” Rena greets
him wryly
.

U
ninvited,
B
lack sits down, gazing
approvingly
from one to the other, like a dog
a
waiting
praise
.

Without a
word
,
Michael ignores
decorum
and starts
to e
at
.

“So
,
did the operation generate the desired outcome?” Rena finally asks,
conceding
their uninvited guest
was not leaving to let them
enjoy their breakfast in private
.

“Oh, we won’t know that for some time. 
The
bombing next door
has
captured
all the media coverage
,
explosions
being
more
spectacular, and all
. 
Although,
I expect
the pieces
t
o
start
coming
together today.  They’
ll find
Michael’s
rifle on the roof
and everything will fall into place.  Sinc
e Frienz has had so many blonde beauties
in his company, I don’t
expect
you,
my dear
,
will get much play
.  Which is good
. 
Michael on the other hand, they might make the connection to you,
or
appropriately
the Harbinger,
based
purely
on sensation
.  The
Harbinger of Death
slant will raise readership.  I understand you were in Italy
,
just last week.”
Mr. Black
explains
;
approv
ing
the
ground
swell of notoriety
the Harbinger
has been generating
of late
.

Michael swallows
,
“I was in Italy?  What the hell is this?”
he exclaims
angrily
.

“Michael, that’s the way
media work
s
.
Y
ou know that.
” Rena offers.
“
G
et a good
angle
and ride it for all its worth.”
sympathetic
to
Michael’s
unease
of a reputation
,
based on
cold-blooded
actions.
 
“Even I
took ad
vantage of your infamy.
I
mention
ed
the
Harbinger of Death
to Frienz.
It
scared
the hell out of him
,
help
ing facilitate the manipulation. 
Just the mention of
the
moniker
,
in
the right
situation
,
can be effective
.”

F
rustrated
,
Michael
leaves the dining hall.

A confused
Mr. Black
turns to Rena
,
“I don’t understand.
What’s wrong?
  You performed a
waltz
last night
, absolute precision
. 
I only wish I was more involved
,
so I could have at least experienced some of it
,
real time.”

“He’s just a little sensitive, uncomfortable with the
infamy
.” Rena explains
, empathizing with
Micha
e
l
’s plight
.  She’ll deal with him privately, away from prying eyes and ears.  In the back of her mind,
she
believes
the Harbinger of Death
may very well have other benefits.  She
too,
has
also
been mo
nitoring the chatter on the web,
looking for
instances where
the Harbinger
has been
implicated
in conjunction with some
grisly incident
.
 
She
thinks
Mr. Black needs to improve
h
is information mining skills
;
the Harbinger cited often
.

F
inish
ing
her meal in private, Mr. Black having left
shortly
after Michael stormed off
,
Rena
has a chance to l
ook around the dining hall.  She
notic
es
a couple new faces, nervous
young
faces. 
She
considers
their odd
looks of
discomfort.
“Oh crap!
” She
exclaims out loud.
Turning,
Rena
scans
the room for the
aggressors
, spotting them
right away
.  A tab
le of four;
‘roiders,
t
hree of the ones
she and Michael matched up with on their first day.
 
Watching them, she notes that n
o one seems to have taught them any new
tactics
,
repeat
ing
the
same distract and
flank
strategy
.

The targets,
two
males
and
a female
, both
men
are
mid-twenties
and
physically fit.  The girl
, slight in frame,
can’t be
much older than eighteen
. 
Rena suspects
she might have spent some time in the flesh trades
.

The distraction works, the first
‘roider
gets the drop o
n one of the guys,
get
ting
him in a headlock
, the recruit already turning blue
.
Enrapt,
Rena
watches
t
he
‘distraction
’
, the ‘roider walking to the buffet,
drive
a
fist
to the back of the head
of
the second
young man,
collapsing him to the floor, unconcious
.

Then the
girl does something stupid and
incredibly
brave
. 
T
ak
ing
her butter knife
,
she
drives
it into the
fore
arm of the firs
t
‘roider
.  She gets
either very lucky or very unlucky, depending on how you looked at it, hitting
a major artery in the process
.

Screaming in pain,
bleeding profusely,
h
e releases his hold on the
young man
.

T
he two
‘roiders
at the table
quickly
join the fray.
 
The girl looks terrified
as
the
three
predators surround her
.

Rena suspects
they too must have made the flesh trade connection, as they start trying to pull at her clothes, like vultures trying to steal
pieces
of meat from
a lion’s fresh kill.  Th
ey succeed in tearing her shirt
, exposing her under garments, increasing the
girl
’
s fear and el
evating the ‘roider
s
’
frenzy
.
 
N
ot wanting to watch
,
Rena
can
’
t
leave.  The young girl is in a place she shouldn’t be, but through some
horrible twist of fate,
she ended up here, s
urrounded by monsters,
now
on display. 
Suddenly
Rena
notic
es it;
no one
watches from the balcony
,
n
o one
to
stop it if they wanted to.  The rest of the
tables
remain
idle, unwilling to get involved.
No one
intervened
the night her and Michael were attac
k
ed either.

Michael
,
likely
in their quarters
,
is
too far away to help.  Takada m
ight have stopped it if he was
here.  She’s on her own
.

Without
contemplation
, Rena enters the fight
,
hoping all the time Michael spent training her
, pays off.  She
advances
quickly, like a dancer, every move of the sequence appearing in her mind,
anticipating
the reactions of each of the ‘roiders
.

Un-noticed, s
he glides in behind the first targ
et.
 
N
ever s
lowing
her
advance
,
s
he pirouettes backward.  A
t the last second
she
kick
s
her leg out with remarkable velocity,
performing
what Michael calls a snap whip
kick,
strik
ing the side of
the
‘roider’s
knee
.

O
n Takada’s order
,
Michael
taught her how to generate more power and
energy from compact movements. 
Other than the knife incident, s
he had never really spar
red
with the intent to injure, so the end
-
result … the ‘roider
’
s knee
collapsing
sidew
ays, is unexpected.
 
Unexpected in many ways,
the first
;
being that
her
goal was to disarm and diffuse the situation
,
the second
;
being the reaction of the other three ‘roiders. 
Rena’s
intent, mo
st definitely
,
was
not to i
ncite their rage
.

The f
irst ‘roider
preoccupied with the blood pouring from hi
s
arm,
Rena
turns her attention on
the last two
, both
big men, far larger than
herself
.  Using
her size and speed to her a
dvantage,
she
advanc
es
quickly
on
the
second target, before they have a chance to coordinate their attack
.