The Queen Song

5) Scenes 11-12

Mike W McCoy

10/14/2019

Version 4.0

 <>11<> She is like me. 

The elevator ride to the Penthouse seemed longer than it was. The odd sensation fascinated Mahn.  The triad captain was used to time tracked to the 4th decimal place by the T-glass shades which constantly flooded his wet-works with a strenuous data stream.  He had relied on the outlaw tech for decades.  Now his fine-tuned touch with reality felt delayed, as if passing thru a room of wet smoke.  It was like someone or something was trying to tap into his electric feeds.

“Impossible,” he muttered then focused on the others sharing the metal coffin ride.

Closest was his old acquaintance, Rook.  The thin-hipped East African towered over his own short Chinese stature.  Despite the cheap and frayed damp-dirt colored suit, draped over his shirtless torso and bare feet, the man stood with a posture of pride. The long ago comrade-in-arms radiated a since of excitement and anticipation.  It twisted the angles, masking the true animalistic desire inside that was only half-hidden below his dark ebony flesh. 

The escorting bodyguards stayed huddled on the far side.  The duo’s matching scrubs and shaved skulls gave off the illusion of being a single amorphous monster.  Their devoted attitude had a fervent-fanatic flavor, which Mahn didn’t know was being enhanced by the subtle Alien acuity of Jax the Firstborn.

The honored VIP hovered with a giddy bounce of boyhood charm.  Under the loose faded-gray Polo shirt, his chest quivered, and his hands clenched tightly, just like a junkie sniffing a hit.  He appeared to Mahn as a naïve newcomer, thrust into the realm of criminals, cops, and corruption only by the virtue of birth. 

The gangster studied the mirrored reflections off the elevator walls, and wondered what was so special about the beach bum looking young man.  His unwashed smell offended as much as the visual of unkempt recklessness.  But Mahn felt there was something else, a glint behind Jax’s eyes, a reflected twist of madness. 

The covert staring contest continued for 40-odd floors before a bass rumble, pulsing from the penthouse, reached the stopped elevator. 

After a bow, Mahn led the way down a conservative colored hall, past the thick wood doors and into a bright and wild cocaine-casino styled living space.  Inside the central sunken seating arraignment displayed 2 cliques of dissimilar women. 

Nearest were the hotel’s scantily clad multi-racial pimped-out Furniture. Their costume fabrics were flashy flimsy fantasy in clear high heels.  Each wore their hair at vastly different lengths and styles, but the looks all screamed prostitute. 

The other group of women stood straight and proud, like poised show birds.  Each of the Chinese ladies was dressed in an intricate immaculate evening gown matching a subtle primary color of nature.  The hair styles emphasized a hard edged predatory look that radiated from their darkly outlined eyes.

Scattered around the wide brightly lit room were their male counterparts.  Each of the triad henchmen were practically clones of their captain, Mahn.  They were all dressed in tailored drab colored business suits of impressive material.  Each serpent stood with a stern stoic expression below their own narrow flame T-glass shades.   

In the middle of the snake pit, was the Yellow Hand underboss.  He shooed away the twittering female Furniture with a wave, and slid forward, spilling white wine and soda with each slightly exaggerated step.

“Underboss Chan Xais,” Mahn began after a formal bow.  “I introduce to you, Jax the Firstborn, and his attendants.”

Tall for Chinese, at 5’-10”, the 34 year old pasty skinned man cut a dashingly drunk figure in a suit of pond-scum green material.  His straight-cut shoulder length black hair framed a round fat face, and centered squinty eyes the color of rotten meat.  Pockmarked cheeks and a scarred chin, added to the man’s age, which was nearly half that of Mahn, the triad organization’s most trusted henchman.

“I should say this is an honor,” his slightly slurred speech sputtered.  “But who’s exactly?”

“Boss,” Mahn tried with a diplomatic tone.  “Jax has come a long way and-”

“Enough,” Xais snapped.  After a shallow smile, he exchanged drinks with an aggressive looking blond big-breasted woman, whose gaze never left the mysterious stranger from the desert.

“Jax, is it?” the underboss asked, waving the new glass dismissively.“The Firstborn?  Come closer, let us have a drink, and talk.”

“I don’t drink.”

“Well,” Xais smiled.  “We all have are faults.  Trust me, this is the good stuff.”

Mahn nodded towards the small phalanx of triad men, and watched as another working girl opened a fresh bottle.  The same tall blond handed the wine over to the underboss and Jax.

“Here lover,” she whispered in a husky tone to Xais. 

The Chinese gangster leader looked around the room, and nodded to his wide-hipped triad Bird in the expensive looking red silk dress, before offering a toast. 

“To our future and good fortune, yes?”

“Yes,” Jax agreed.  “To good fortune.”

The Firstborn sipped from the glass as a pair of clear heeled girls took him by the elbow. They gently walked him to the wall sized patio window which framed the brightly lit central Core of the city.  Rook and the bodyguards looked uncomfortable and out of place, so they slowly shuffled several strides sideways.

The Firstborn began calmly.  “Mother wants to tell you…”

Mahn could tell the VIP had more to say, but Jax had drifted off, obviously seduced by the sparkling vista of the world beyond

For him, it was more than a 60 story window view.  A psionic vibe of was weaving past the penthouse’s reflections overlaid against the city.  The Firstborn frowned as if sensing a slight touch of something from the California desert, something that felt like Mother.

“Jax, please continue,” Xais started, nodding for the blond girl.

“Um, thank you,” he mumbled back, accepting the wine glass. 

Xais began stepping towards the window, new drink in hand.  The music in the room slowly dulled, leaving only the slight twittering of the Birds and the practiced polite laughs of the Furniture.

“I have decided you may me call me Chan.  After all we are to be brothers, right?”

“Yes, um, brothers?” 

“Now, brother,” Xais smirked, and looked at him eye to eye.  “Tell me of the sister I am to marry.”

“Sure thing, brah?” replying with a quick slim smile.  “My sister is only a month old.”

“What?  I thought,” Xais gasped, sloshing out most of his drink.  “No matter, I like them young.  Right boys?”

Mahn, and rest of the triad Snakes nodded their heads, or quickly grinned at the comment from their underboss. 

“We should celebrate.  Let’s make this is a double-plus exciting party.  Sweethearts,” Xais added with a gesture.  “You and you, come dance with Jax.”

The Furniture moved quickly, and the music resumed at a lover’s level, allowing the louder murmurs of conversation to filter back.  Jax appeared to relax as the pair of Hispanic fanciful flowers blew his way, and clung like a vines against his sun stained flesh.

The girl’s reacted as if his muscles had a repellant lack of warmth, but their looks of distrust and confusion quickly fell away to an unexplainable attraction.  But, the new sexual desire appeared twisted with an undercurrent of ‘Fear’.

Rook remained alert, moving about to position and counter-position with the Snakes like in a middle game of chess.  The scrub clad bodyguard’s odd sign language gestures brought a frown of caution to the more experienced serpents in the room, who then adjusted to keep up close protection on their underboss.

Slowly, like a cobra, the young lord of the Yellow Hand stepped behind the central figures gazing out the window.  Jax was in the middle, arms around the pair of flowers who kissed on his neck.  Xais appeared to admire their silhouettes against the light from the city outside, as well as his own vain reflection off the glass.

The portal revealed a world that was far away and below, an existence so strange to Jax it held him mesmerized.  The reflection also confirmed a coverage of multiple lines-of-sight by henchmen who would strike on the slightest order.

“Jax, if we are to be brothers,” he stated with no attitude.  “We should go someplace special, maybe see some sights.”

“Can we go out there?”

“Yes Jax, we can go anywhere you want.  But I have someplace already planned, just for you.”

“Is it far?”

“Yes and no,” Xais answered while taking another sip of wine to consider his move.  “But, I think we will leave soon.”

Jax nodded back, as if understanding.

“But first, our boys need to relax,” Xais added while pointing.  “Want to call your dogs off my yard?”

It was not really a question.

Jax nodded with a tight smile.  “Rook, we will go soon.” 

The situation between Snakes and bodyguards seemed to momentarily defuse. 

“Jax!” the underboss barked forcefully, drawing everyone’s attention. 

“Jax, I need you to tell me something.”

The Firstborn turned his back to the window, facing the room, while the flowers quickly wilted away. 

“Jax, I am wondering.  I am wondering what is so special about your mother.”

He continued, aware of the twitch in Firstborn’s eye after saying the last word. 

“Who is she that I am sent to this damn city like a dog?”

His body language was working up to a fever pitch. 

“What is so important about this sister I am to marry?” Xais demanded, smashing his wine glass at Jax’s feet.

The whole penthouse population tensed up simultaneously, most dreaded that things would go sideways towards a blood-bath air.  Everyone seemed to isolate outside of themselves, seeing everything in slow-motion, especially each other. 

Jax retrieved the stem of the broken wineglass, and slowly he placed the sharp edge against his left palm.

“You ask about my mother, brah?” he growled at the Chinaman’s squinty little eyes.  “About my sister?”

Jax jabbed the broken glass deep into his palm.  He pulled back quick and clean, opening a wide gash which his heartbeats immediately tried to fill with blood.

Everyone appeared frozen as the Firstborn held out his extended bleeding hand steady for all to see.  A streamer of darker than humanly normal blood dripped like strawberry syrup from his clenched fingers. 

Jax moved closer and closer towards Xais.  With each step, his splattering blood burned into the floor with a hissing pop of acid.

The assembled killers, followers, and floozies stood motionlessness as he stalked closed to within hugging distance.

“Understand me, brother.”  The acid blood continued to burn the floor.  “My sister is just like me.”

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<>12<>  Fear had taken root.

The triad henchmen Snakes tried to stay reserved.  Their attention was divided between reassuring the frightened looking Birds, and keeping a tab on Jax and his escorts.

Most of the hotel’s Furniture backed far away, but a few showed their true inner nature and hung around like an arthritic appendage.  ‘Fear’ had taken root in the penthouse.  Underboss Xais tried to force ‘Laughter’ back into the mix, but his drunken attempt was sloppy.

Mahn took advantage of the pause, and maneuvered the big blond working girl and her friend outside the room.  He waited for the elevator doors to close before pulling out his vidfone. 

“This cannot be real,” the henchman captain muttered to himself. 

He tried to make a call, but instead kept thinking of the acid blood.  The idea of brought up a fowl taste. 

“This is not how the family does things.” Mahn continued, self-assuring himself the ideals of loyalty must not let the Yellow Hand to become involved.  

“What am I going to do?” 

The question hung in the silence of the corridor as his trembling fingers stabbed at the vidfone.  With effort, Mahn dialed the only person who might be able to stop this madness before it imploded. 

“Yoshi, please pick up.  Please, before this kills us all.”

<>[]<>[]<>

Meanwhile, back inside the penthouse, underboss Xais finally stopped his nervous drinking.  He handed the empty bottle to another of his henchmen, and fixed on a flashy false smile of bravado.

“Jax, I, I want…” he began with a slight wobble to the words.

Blood still slowly oozing from his gash, he turned to face Xais.  Rook and the red dressed triad Bird stopped talking to each other, and focused on Jax’s reactions.

“Listen, you and I are to be brothers, right?” Xais started again.  “I, I have a car downstairs, a big one.  Lets you and me, we, go someplace and celebrate.”

“Rook?” Jax asked with a sideways glance.

“A solid dead,” the black man responded slow and tense.

“Sure, sure, you all can come.  I, I even bring a few of my guys.  A double-plus goodtime,” the underboss finished with a wide drunken sweep of his arms. 

Jax nodded, and together they headed for the elevator.

Once sitting inside the triad’s opulent white limousine, the men and women unconsciously chose sides that were more than just physical.  It was an emotionally confusing moment which seemed to eviscerate each person’s point of view.

The fanatic bodyguards kept glancing at the dark electronic sunglasses worn by the Snakes, and the sparkle of gold jewels accenting the female flesh of the Birds wedged between them.

Mahn felt uncomfortable sandwiched alongside Xais and his current Vulture of a woman.  It was still his job to do, but his face appeared to show that protecting the underboss from himself was getting harder and harder. 

The view outside the windows was changing, and not for the better.  The surface streets steadily slipped away from the brightness of the megacity center to a more shadow filled cement and dirt texture. 

Maybe it was the safest route, henchman captain briefly thought.  It probably confused whoever, or more likely whatever, was following them.  It had him lost, and wondering about the grueling unpleasantness of left turns, tunnels, and overpasses, which seemed to say that this was the only way to get to Club Uzi. 

Mahn reluctantly decided it must be that a side trip through the Twilight Zone was a required part of the show.  Across the limo’s aisle, the Firstborn’s features were framed with a since of fascination.  The secret environment outside had entranced him, and excised the emotion of ‘Fear’ riding inside the car. 

“How soon now?” Jax asked excitedly.

“We are close now, brother.  I promise you a good time,” the lacquered words of the triad leader calmed both sides, easing the tension.  “Double-plus good.”

His murmurs had become less drunk, but nervous.  A sudden strong look of concern crossed the eyes of Xais upon seeing Mahn on the vidfone.

“What are you doing?”

“Confirming with Don Bolanos,” Mahn lied with a straight face.  “Making sure the show is ready.  You said you wanted it as a surprise.”

“Yes the surprise.”

“Oh a surprise?” the Vulture in the red said, digging her talons into Jax’s leg.  “I do so love surprises.”

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