The QUEEN SONG

2074

(12) Scene 28-29

11/24/2019

Mike W McCoy

Version 3.0

<>28<>We will all die.

“Just swell,” Special Agent Boris muttered.

Standing still like a mannequin, he stared hard at the stout Chinese henchman on the other side of the doorway. 

The apparent half-brother of Agent Yoshi looked different than when they exited the limousine poolside.  His overall appearance was about the same as before: T-glass shades, gold pinstriped suit, hard-soled dress shoes, but something was off.  Maybe it was the fresh blood, or the torn hem lines on his expensive clothes.

Mahn made a brief bow towards the mutilated man then slid a step forward.

Boris shrugged, “Make yourself comfortable.”

“You sure?”

“For what it’s worth anyhow.”

“Yes,” Mahn responded without looking up.  “What it’s worth.”

His electronic eyewear scanned the open-air fishbowl.  The sunlight slanting in was staining the afternoon air with a golden glow, but it did little to lessen the depressing dimension.  The dust floated lazily for a melodic moment, then another Santa Ana breeze pushed across the set. 

“I have something for you,” the triad man added after another more formal bow.

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah.” He slid his slightly bleeding hand under his suit’s lapel.

Boris tensed, wondering if a bullet was about to come his way, but instead a chrome colored vidfone was presented.  It was his, and the stupid smirk of a smile returned. 

The special agent was savvy enough to know Mahn must have retrieved the device from the limousine, and that meant braving the scuffling ring of twitching cultists clumped around the Olympic-sized pool. 

“Um, thanks,” Boris mumbled as he took the gadget.

The feeling of a trap tugged at him, itching places he hadn’t felt in years.  Boris nodded a thanks, walked towards the broken wall, and the view beyond.

The Grand California Resort had maintained a grace as well as any abandoned property might.  The once graceful alignments of architecture had become partially hidden by weird growths of green spiky things, and piles of debris coated the corners and crumbling edges.  A scattering of small smoky fires added some flickering light into the deeper shadows stretching from the more intact ruins.

Boris stayed at the edge, and watched how the true-believers kept away from the new walking-wounded, weak worshipers.  

“Maybe you should look for messages?” Mahn tried after a cough. 

Boris became annoyed, thinking it presumptuous, but then as he glanced at the device and another thought came to mind.

“Agent Yoshi?” 

“Please.”

Reluctantly, as though it would bite, he cycled thru the vidfone warm up.  Mahn grinned, and moved closer to peek.  Boris grinned back, removed his silk tie, and left it on the suite’s broken wall.

“To Special Agent Boris,” a video recording from the Japanese woman began.

The image was dark and jumpy, but they could tell it was her, despite the battle damaged look.  On the playback Yoshi seemed to hesitate, as though at a momentary loss for words.

“Um, Boris, listen, I’m sorry.  My plan wasn’t supposed to play how it did.  Typical me, right?”  A tremor of pain crossed her grinning face, almost bringing her to tears.  The video continued on several seconds with only a constant audio of helicopter rotors.

“The truth,” Yoshi finally spat out harshly as if the words hurt.  “I played you, Boris.  The game dealt me a wildcard, and I didn’t see it coming.  No one did, except maybe…” her voice trailed off again, and Boris glanced up at Mahn.

“The point being,” she started again with the sharp tone Boris was familiar with. 

“You still saved my life, twice now.  I owe you for that.  But first, some people need to die.  I’m going to kill them.  So Boris, play nice, and let me help you.”

Boris could hear her morbid sense of humor, and grinned, thinking how the woman was truly a tough bitch. 

“Just stay alive,” her crooked scar of a smile continued.  “At least until I get there and rescue you.  Not sure how, but I will find you and make us even.”

Her image jumbled.  “Oh, and tell my brother his deal is still a go.”

Boris wanted to tell Yoshi to stop, to fold her hand and cash out, to forget about him and the creature called Jax.  But he couldn’t, so instead offered the vidfone to the Chinese gangster.

“She sounded optimistic.”

“Yes,” Mahn commented solemnly.  “That’s Cookie for you.”

“So,” Boris stated flatly, still gazing at the vista.  “About last night?”

“Bad play all round, I think,” the henchman offered then picked up the empty revolver off the crappy coffee table.  “I tried to stop it, you understand?”

“Yeah, I got that vibe.”

“She wouldn’t listen to me.”

“I also got a read on that real quick,” Boris grinned, remembering the apartment of Mohammed Maxx.  “Yoshi only trusts herself, I guess.”

“Yes, herself.”

The special agent saw the smirk cross the henchman’s face as he examined the empty revolver.  “Not to be rude, but you should get going.  I mean before-”

“Yes, I know,” Mahn cut in, then unexpectedly drew his own weapon.  Boris watched closely as the Snake dropped the magazine and slowly peeled off bullets.

“I think we will all die here,” the henchman added, admiring the clinking brass.  “This is a place of madness and magic.  A trap.”

“Swell,” Boris flatly agreed.  “Something tells me I’m already captured.”

Leaving the bullets behind, he whispered, “Yes, we all are,” 

“Do something for me,” Boris added as Mahn paused at the room’s door.  “Tell your boss Xais, he throws one Hell of a party.”

An unexpected laugh cracked the Chinaman’s face.  “Sure thing, friend.”

After the door closed, Boris drifted to the table and slowly loaded the blood speckled bullets into the gun until he also smiled.

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<>29<>  “It’s Showtime.”

It wasn’t long after Boris finished playing with Yoshi’s war chest revolver that a loud twittering and scuffing noise started outside the doorway. 

He grinned, thinking it was ‘Laughter’ sliding all slippery and sideways across the Soundtrack, the universe messing with him again.  Outside the closed door the sounds seemed scattered and surreal, but inside the scar-faced man’s memory, the concert of lunacy was like the undercurrent of a bee hive.  Closer and closer, clanking, banging and barking curses cried from the corners as they crawled up the stairs towards his room.

“Cutting it close this time, special agent Boris,” he told himself while looking at his vidfone reflection.  “Hitting a hard eight twice would be easier.”

The fading sunlight had cast a harsh golden backlight into the ruins of the Resort, and framed Boris as a lone shadow standing.  Outside the cultist noise stopped, and only heartbeats remained.

“Oh, swell.”  He picked up the large frame revolver.  “It’s Showtime.”

The foolish macho action proceeded the cultists by only seconds.  Fire-pit ash over pale flesh was the dominate color on the half-naked followers costumed under scar tissue and clothing scraps which dangled like the busted edges of the broken Resort.

The biggest pair to burst on set wore red bandannas and carried short wooden clubs.  They immediately separated wide for a 3rd man, holding a large coil of dirty hemp rope, who slowly entered and smirked at Boris.

“You guys with room service?” he asked as a trio of skeletal-thin long-haired white women also angled past the door.

“Not really,” Mr. Rope answered, then nodded to the thug on his left.
The cult devotee responded with a broken tooth smile, and sauntered forward, angling around the legless couch Boris had used for his nap.

Boris raised the weapon.  “Ao, that’s far enough.”

The enforcer thug either didn’t hear, or chose to ignore the warning.  Raising the club threateningly, he charged for Boris.

CHA-BLAM.

The .45 caliber weapon thundered in the special agent’s hands.  He could feel his stomach roll from the adrenalin surge coupled with the visual of the Enforcer absorbing the bullet on the heart side of his chest.  In an instant it ripped thru flesh, muscle, and bone before collapsing the lung on its way out the man’s backside.  The cultist was dead before sound could even echo, and he gave no emotional reaction before colliding over the crappy coffee table. 

The mind-body connection of Mr. Rope was quick into action.  The burly dark skinned man darted like a Bollywood dancer as Boris tried to line up a shot.

CHA-BLAM.

Boris missed by a wide margin, as the fanatic follower had ignored the danger with a squirrel-quick leap and dash.  However, the round continued of its path at 870 feet per second and impacted with the 2nd bandanna wearing thug.  Unintentionally, the hot slug slammed thru the guy’s head, tearing away his right cheek and shattering his jaw.

Boris hardly had time to process the dead man’s explosive blood loss, before his back foot came into contact with the room’s fragile-looking half-crumbled, wrecked wall.  He wasted a moment to reframe the situation.

The 3 tall sisters, dressed in ragged remnants of gray and green maid uniforms, had advanced steadily across the suite’s cluttered floor.  In the right hand of each, a deadly sharp pointy thing was help up and ready for the sacrificial plunge.

Another Santa Ana breeze blew over the scene just as they collectively hissed a challenge over rotten yellow teeth. 

“Now ladies, hold on,” Boris started, but the life or death choice had already been made. 

CH-BLAM.

The slug only clipped the foremost female, ripping off a chuck of her swinging arm with a sick sound of slapped flesh, and a syrupy squirt of crimson.

The 2nd Sister Wife died instantly as the same bullet opened her neck like a tube of red toothpaste.  A ripped strip of flesh dangled alongside her wide-eyed, frantic, frozen emotion of wanting.  Boris stood stationary, watching her body stumble forward another 2 steps as her ash-painted face changed looks from one of not knowing why she was dying, to an expression of release with a smile.

“Damn,” Boris grunted just as a sudden pain refocused his deadly instinct.

Rocks and other rubble were being hurled from back-stage, beyond the open door.  They pelted the area around the special agent with weak sliders and dropping fastballs.  His ability to aim accurately was handicapped when a stone smashed into his gun hand.

“Oh, damn it.” he cursed, and cowered from the rock & ruble assault.  The action almost ended his life by distracting him just as the last wildcat pounced.

CHA-BLAM.

The bullet cored her shrunken sunburned shoulder and ricocheted sideways through both lungs with a .45 caliber mushroom tunnel of love.  Her emaciated body jerked a half step closer then collapsed fast as gravity asserted itself.

The shooter’s next actions are remembered only as scenes of quick cut close-ups, and gruesome gore.  Seizing the chance, Boris altered his position, and kicked with all his weight to bust open the dilapidated wall between the hotel suites.  A surprised yell of fury erupted from Mr. Rope, and was quickly joined by the others. 

CHA-BLAM.

Boris snap-fired at the swift clustered line of cultists crowding towards the improvised door, and got nothing but ‘Laughter’ returned from amid the jeering fans.

He shimmied into the 2nd room of deep gloom and dusty debris.  After stumbling across the suite, he paused to yank on its closed door, and aim his next bullet carefully back at the makeshift gap. 

CHA-BLAM.

The chest of a short, topless French thug, sunburned flesh covered with imbedded cactus needles and seeping rivulets of sand-encrusted blood, imploded when the bullet entered as the size of a bee, and exited with the bulk of a fist.

The man’s dead body momentarily impeded those trying to follow, and allowed Boris time to bust open the door, and exit into the hotel hallway.  Mr. Rope barked something, and another cult creature rushed low, swinging a short broken pipe coated in dried blood over rust. 

CLICK.

Boris quickly reacted by striding into the rushing attack, and using the empty heavy gun, he smashed the steel down hard and sideways.  The target’s face exploded with blood, broken teeth, and a vomiting trail of pink, soapy. crimson bile.

Then, as the creepy cultist collapsed to his knees, Boris dashed into the hallway, putting a short distance between him, the angry faced Mr. Rope, and the half dozen other oddly dressed cult extras crowded awkwardly outside his original suite.

“Oh, just swell,” Boris grunted with a sarcastic tone after pausing in the hallway before his mirrored reflection from above an iron and marble Spanish consola.  His suit’s jacket and shirt were now ripped into an adventurous ‘Doc Savage’ style, and revealed several deep bleeding scratches across his midriff and side.

“And I really liked this suit.”  ‘Laughter’ stared back at him.

Re-focusing, Boris dashed down the 30 more yards of hallway, only to stop abruptly at the second stairwell.  Looking inside, he saw that the unlit tiers descending into the different shades of darkness, were barricaded by dangerous piles of dead dried-out smart-cactus.

Behind him, back down the sparsely lit hallway, the chasing cult dregs had stopped their pursuit.  They had begun to resume their noxious noises.  As his tried to find a way out of the trap, Boris noted that they were oddly mindless, like mice.  Then only several heartbeats later, the grouping parted and from amongst their midst the Firstborn made his approach on set. 

“Jax.”

“Officer Boris.”

“It’s Special Agent Boris,” he muttered while getting a good look at the cleaned up version of the young man. 

The Firstborn was now costumed in the seemingly standard issue ragged dark work slacks, un-laced shoes, and the sleeveless, light-colored business shirt of the better fed followers.  The mid-length black hair was greased back by something shiny that matched the oily gleam off his exposed, well-muscled arms and stern, fox-shaped face.

The revolver fell to the floor with a dramatic clang, and for some reason Boris assumed an oddly relaxed pose.  The desire and impulse to turn and run ebbed away along with any thoughts of escape.  The encroaching clique of damaged, drained, and dying cultists spread themselves wide.  An Alien mental trance, an artificial emotional embrace of wanting had altered their faces, just like at Club Uzi.

The hybrid’s eyes and cruel smile burned into Boris, who was suddenly surprised by how passive he had become.  He wondered what was going on, and why did the walls seem to move?  Those last fleeting thoughts confused the daydreaming Boris just long enough for Mr. Rope to attack.

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