The Kasparov Agenda (Omega Ops Legion Book 1) (20 page)

Scorcher shrugged. “Well, maybe you just don’t dare to dream.”

“Hay! There’s only one way to settle this argument!” Dennis Wang interjected. “Drink off! Drink! Drink! DRINK!”

Scorcher grinned. “Well, I don’t think that’s really fair to Fashion guy.”

“Wussing out?” Fashion guy stepped up to Scorcher and dug his finger into his chest. “I’d expect that from you, and it’s probably a wise decision,” he gloated. “Believe me, I can handle my liquor.”

Lomez leaned into Scorcher. “Go easy on him, now.” Lomez knew that Scorcher had a voraciously inhuman appetite that could not be satiated by quantities in the realm of normalcy. He had seen Scorcher gorge first hand on Friday, bones and all. Game meat was one thing... He was curious as to how this would translate when consuming alcohol.

Scorcher shrugged. “Alright, serve ‘em up.”

The crowd whooped and hollered. Lomez raised his finger in the air, and immediately, a waiter came to his side. “Drinks—let’s start light here.” Lomez grabbed two bottles of beer off the tray and handed one each to Scorcher and Fashion guy. “Chug ‘em down, fellas.”

There wasn’t
even a pause for a countdown
. Fashion guy twisted off his cap and began to chug. Lomez’s guests were eating it up. Scorcher looked down curiously at the beer bottle in his hand. He tapped on the cap a few times, apparently inspecting the bottle. “Yeah!” Fashion guy cried out, holding up his empty bottle. The crowd cheered. Fashion guy laughed at Scorcher. “What’s the matter; couldn’t get the bottle open?” Scorcher looked at Fashion guy, then smiled. He held the closed bottle up in the air for everyone to see and opened his mouth wide. He released the bottle and down it went—straight down his throat and into his belly.

“WHAO!” Dennis screamed. Fashion guy’s eyes bulged. Lomez’s guests gasped and then immediately broke into applause. Everyone was apparently too blitzed to second-guess what they had just seen.

“Bloody awesome, man!” Lomez said, congratulating Scorcher. He then whispered so that only Scorcher could hear: “But that really wasn’t going easy on him, now was it?”

Fashion guy held up Scorcher’s hand. “Well, I’m not going to even bother trying to compete with that. Winner!” He had apparently gained a newfound respect for Scorcher. “What did you say your name was again, mate?”

Scorcher glanced at Lomez, who nodded, indicating that he should go on with his spectacle. “The name’s Sizzler.”

“Whoa-ho. Sizzler like the restaurant chain?”

“No. Sizzler like I’ll cook your face.” Fashion guy laughed hysterically. Scorcher’s eye gleamed. “Watch this.” He held up his hand, with two fingers pointing to the sky like a gun. A fireball erupted from his fingertips and soared into the air and dissipated like fireworks.

Scorcher raised his hands in the air triumphantly as everyone cheered him on. “That’s spectacular! How’d you do it?” Fashion guy questioned. “It’s a trick with your costume? Something in the gloves?”

Scorcher grinned. “Magic, my friend... I
t’s
magic
.” Suddenly, a loud roar followed by several screams drew their attention poolside.

“Oh crap. Lobo!” Lomez cried, and then ran towards the pool.

Scorcher pointed at Dennis Wang and Fashion guy. “You two mooks wait here. This sounds dangerous.”

“Don’t have to tell
me
twice; I don’t wanna be around when that lion goes full-blown lion,” Fashion guy replied. Dennis looked at Fashion guy with a pouting face, then glanced at Scorcher and reluctantly nodded in agreement.

Lobo was by the pool amongst a large crowd. The lion was angrily knocking over food tables, as if someone had turned his home into a marketplace. Lomez stared. “Oh, you stupid
fucks.
What the
hell
did you idiots do?!”

A drunken cowboy walked up to Lomez and grabbed him by the collar. “Oh god, Lomez, it’s bad! It’s so
bad!
Lobo got into the party favors, man! He’s gonna start rippin’ into someone any second now, and we’re all gonna get carved up like Kobe beef!”
 

Lomez shoved the cowboy to the ground. “Shut up,
fucker
!” Lobo
turned and roared at the crowd. If there was winter weather, one could easily think that someone pissed off this lion by throwing a snowball in its face. Lomez slowly edged towards the lion. “Easy, boy...
easy.
”
 

Scorcher placed a hand on Lomez’s shoulder and pushed him aside. “I got this.” The lion was foaming at the mouth. It locked eyes with Scorcher and was making guttural noises, as if it were going to cough up a giant fur-ball. Scorcher thumped his chest with both fists and the lion charged. Lobo leapt into the air with its claws out and was ready to tear into Scorcher. People in the crowd screamed with fright. “Into the drink, Mufasa!” Scorcher crouched down to avoid the paws and caught the lion under the chin with a massive uppercut. Lobo sailed through the air and landed in the swimming pool with a big splash.

The cowboy raised a fist to his mouth. “Oh snap! Bro, you just knocked Lobo the fuck out!”

Scorcher and the others watched the lion’s body bob in the water for a few moments, then slowly sink into the pool. Scorcher glanced at Lomez, who was standing in silence, rooted to the spot in shock. He looked just about ready to cry.

“Alright, Lobo, you can come out now...” Scorcher waited, but there was no response. “I know you can swim; you’re just perpetuating a stereotype! Your fellow cat brethren would be ashamed of you!”

The cowboy placed a hand on Scorcher’s shoulder. “Bro, he’s not coming up...you KO’d him.”

Scorcher looked around nervously. “Come on now, Lobo, this isn’t funny!” The surface of the pool was now calm, and Lobo the lion had sunk to the bottom of the pool like a stone. “Shit...someone fish him out!”

“How?” one of the bystanders asked. “He’s a great dirty lion... He weights like 500 pounds.”

Scorcher sighed. “Ahh. Well,
fuck—me
.” Scorcher walked to the edge of the pool, unfastened his
cape, and dove in.
 

***

It was well into the early hours of the morning. The party was still going, but much more relaxed and mellow. Scorcher was lounging by the pool with several of the party guests including Lomez, Dennis, and Fashion guy. Lounge chairs were set up all over the lawn, and with the clear night sky, it was perfect for stargazing.

For the last hour, Scorcher had been spouting nonsense back and forth between Lomez and the other characters lounging by the pool. He swirled the drink in his glass, then polished it off. Scorcher had consumed an exorbitant amount of alcohol—he wasn’t even sure if he
had
a cut-off limit. The warm, fuzzy feeling hugging him all over gave Scorcher the impression that he was in fact intoxicated. But the feeling stayed the same, despite him continuing to drink increasingly lethal quantities of alcohol. Scorcher glanced beside him where Lobo was lying lazily in the grass. “This guy’s sure calm now.”

Lomez grinned. “Yeah, I’ll say. He had the uppers, and now he’s on the downers. It’s all a balancing act.”

“So, how the hell did you manage that?” Fashion guy asked.

“Oh, it was easy. Me and Sizzler took him into the house and put him in my hotbox room. When he  woke up, he was one
cool
cat.”
 

“Meh. I still think you should’ve gotten a tiger instead. What did Tony Montana have, huh? A tiger!”

“What you talking!” Dennis yelled. “This the king of the jungle!”

“Oh please, that’s a false crown. Tigers are bigger, stronger, and smarter. You pit a tiger against a lion, nine times out of ten, the tiger’s gonna win.”

“But the lion’s got the speed and the mane! What about the mane! That stuff’s like armor! How’s a tiger gonna claw at that jugular with all that mane!”

Fashion guy smirked, shaking his head. “Okay, first of all—”

“Fashion guy, shut the
fuck
up, ya know-it-all fuck! Lobo here’s the king of the jungle!” roared Dennis. “You suck, tigers suck, end of story!”
 

Lomez rubbed his face. He turned to Scorcher. “So...how’s Sizzler been working?” Lomez asked.

“I think they like the name; they really like it!”

“Ahh, Interesting topic,” said Fashion guy, nodding. “What’s in a name?”

“Do you even have a name, Fashion guy?” Scorcher asked.

“In actuality, his name is Jeter,” Lomez responded.

“The hell with Jeter!” Dennis Wang yelled. “Everyone here knows you a Fashion guy, not a Jeter!”

“What about you,
Lomez,
what’s that?” Scorcher asked. “First or last name?”

Lomez laughed. “That’s my only name; I don’t need two. You say the one name and you
know
who it is. Just look at me and you, man: Lomez and Sizzler. There’s no first or last with us. Our names transcend time—they simply just
are
. Only the best of us can pull that off
.”

“Cheers to that.” Scorcher and Lomez clinked their drinks together.

“Hay! Screw you both!” Dennis Wang yelled.

Lomez
leaned in so that no one else could hear them. “Just between you and me, Scorcher… What’s your deal?”

“What’s my
deal
?”

“How can I put this delicately... Why do you look—the way that you look? Science experiment gone wrong? Born a horrible mutant freak?”

Scorcher grinned. “Getting warmer.” Lomez thought for a moment, then made a small gesture, pointing up to the sky with his index finger. Scorcher tapped his nasal aperture, where on a normal face, a nose would have been present.

Lomez leaned his head back and let out a hearty laugh. “Ho-ho, that’s rich. But you know, for a monster-looking alien abomination, you are a cultured cat. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has such an in-depth knowledge of rock & roll history as myself.”

“Yeah, you pick up a thing or two, being on this planet as long as I have. Hmm, how long has it been?” Scorcher paused a moment to think. “Hell, I don’t even know anymore.”

 Lomez’s phone began to vibrate. “One sec.” He ruffled through his pants pocket and pulled out his cell. “Yeah? Hey, Turly, how’s it going, buddy?” Scorcher stared at Lomez while thinking to himself that if Turly was trying to reach him by calling Lomez, then the call was probably nothing good. “Yeah, he’s with me; you want me to put him on?”

Scorcher shook his hands in protest, but Lomez took no heed and tossed him the phone. Scorcher sighed. “Yeah? Uh-huh, yeah. No, don’t worry, I’ll be back in time.” Lomez watched Scorcher curiously. He could hear Turly’s voice yelling through the phone, apparently giving Scorcher the business. “Don’t worry—no, I will...I will! Monday morning, got it. I said I got it! ‘Kay-bye.” Scorcher tossed the phone back to Lomez.

“Schemes?”

“Yeah…” Scorcher whispered so that only Lomez could hear: “Monday morning, we got a big heist planned.”

“You’re not going to kill anyone, are you?”

Scorcher looked affronted while shaking his head vigorously. “No...no-no-no! Well, yes. Just one person.”

“Oh well. Strictly business?”

Scorcher smiled. “Strictly business.”

Lomez picked up the end of Scorcher’s cape. “Now I tell you what you do Monday morning. You walk into your job wearing this cape. It compliments the hair.”

Scorcher laughed. “You’re joking, right?
This
cape?”

“Yeah—I want you to have it. You protected my guests and saved Lobo from drowning. It’s the least I can do.”

“No offense, Lomez, but this thing’s kinda gaudy.”

“Kinda gaudy? My god, man! Just look! Look at that face of yours! You are the
poster boy
for gaudy.” Lomez pointed his beer bottle at Scorcher. “You need to start embracing that.”

Scorcher stroked his chin. “Hmm...maybe.” Scorcher stretched his arms and looked up at the stars, feeling content. “We’ll see…”

***

Monday, November 1st, 1999

“Mommy, Mommy!” The little girl tugged on her mother’s arm. “This is boring, can we go?”

“Soon, dear. I just need to finish a few errands and then we can go.” It was a deceptively chilly November morning, with the sun shining as bright as it was. A mother and daughter waited in line at the New York City First Bank. Mondays were typically busy. The bank lines were long, and all of the tellers were occupied.

“Mommy, can’t you do the errands later?”

“Don’t worry, it’s worth the wait,” the man in line behind them told the little girl. “They’ll give you a lolly at the end of it.” He winked. “If you’re a good girl for your mother, that is.”

The girl closed her mouth, made a zipping motion across her lips, and gave a thumbs-up to the man. Her mother smiled pleasantly at him. “Thanks. She’s always a handful.”

“Not a problem.”

“Well, aren’t you the gentleman,” Lucas Solly mumbled to his brother.”

Mark smirked. “Always trying to spread a little sunshine.”

The mother and daughter finished their business, and the Solly brothers were next in line. Each brother was carrying with them a metal briefcase.

“Call Enrique, please,” Lucas instructed to the teller. “He knows why we’re here. Tell him, ‘It’s for Jack’.”

“Oh, erm, okay.” The teller was a bit puzzled but did as she was told. She left her counter to fetch the branch manager.

The mother and daughter that were in line attempted to leave the bank, but the doors were locked. “Excuse me? Could I get some help here?” the mother called. “There seems to be a problem with the front doors.”

A solitary man in a suit was seated on the bench by the doors; his face was buried behind a newspaper. He lowered the paper to reveal a sinister smile. “Trouble, miss?”

“Yes, the doors seem to stuck. Do you work here?”

“Something like that. You’d probably want to step away from the doors.”

The mother was puzzled. “I’m sorry?”

Two bank employees approached the entrance to lend assistance. They jiggled the handles, but the doors held firm. Mark Solly looked over his shoulder to see what the commotion was by the entrance. He tapped his brother on the arm to turn around.