The Pill and the Patsy – Part 4

All that I am as a person screams at me to write no more.  That surely my next word shall be my last.  My tired brain orbits around the observation “Didn’t we just write yesterday?  Why do we have to write today?”  It’s not wrong.  I could lean on my son as an excuse.  He was up at 3:50 this morning, which basically meant I got zero sleep.  I woke up in a dark, quiet house, under blankets I had warmed to perfection when my alarm went off this morning.  I lay quietly, playing out the most logical consequences of refusing to get up and beckon to the call of my corporate overlords.  I mulled over calling in sick, calling in late, calling it quits.  Yet much as I was at last able to crawl out of bed and into my car, I sit here before the blank canvas of yet another post, and place one letter after the next in the endless waltz that is my career as an author.  There’s never a “done”, never a spot where I can stake my banner and proclaim “Here, and no further!”  No matter what I accomplish, no matter how much I achieve ‘success’ whatever that’s supposed to be, I will always be able to see that the next hill over is larger than the one I’m on now.  I’ll be able to remember the vivid failures that accompanied me on the climb, and think of ways to avoid them.  Writing isn’t as simple as one event, or one day of work.  If I am to be an actual author, if I am to make my living as a wordsmith, writing must become a part of who I am.  I must write the words, no matter how freely or grudgingly they come.  To find my own voice, I must sift through an avalanche of words.  It’s not pretty, it’s not quick, and it will never be over.  Yet the man I am today is far more developed than the man I was yesterday.  I wouldn’t recognize the Justin Wallace that sits here droopy eyed, writing anyway, when I first began my journey.  Imagine what I will become, if I’m willing to make the effort to find out.

Enough pontificating and illustrating, The Pill and the Patsy beckons.  Monday built the mood and the ambiance.  It set the stage for what will come today.  Up till now, all my work has been leading up to this confrontation.  That’s most often the way of such things in a dark and gritty novel.  Sure, it’s slightly formulaic of me… but I don’t care.  This story is as much for myself as it for everyone else.  I love novels done in this setting.  Harry Dresden, Snake Pliskin, and Rick Deckard all are accustomed to this style, this pacing.  Each is masterful in it’s own way.  Although I would never stoop to stealing the work of another, I don’t mind at all having my own hands pay homage to what those characters have meant to me for more years than I care to count.  That isn’t unoriginal: That’s love.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

With further genre cliches,

The Pill and the Patsy – Part 4

Patsy crouched in the rain, hidden from her future assailants by a trash can and their own insistence on making the cameras miss all the action.  She had scouted them out, and even now was bringing her army of vagabonds home to roost.  I’m going to need them very soon Patsy thought to herself as water flowed down her face.  Six Andros, a full squad of the Wickers most powerful operatives, all waiting to do her grievous injury and then take her somewhere quiet where they could do all the real damage.  Not today, you IG lapdogs Pasty thought with steely venom.  She had her swarm of helpers at the ready, and it was time her assailants learned something about The Duchess.  She might be a cat-burglar, but she was first and foremost a military experiment.  For three years before her escape, she had been forced to train on every single marshall skill known to mankind.  Without making a sound, Patsy came to a decision on where to strike first.  With the ease of long practice, she scaled the nearest drainpipe, coming to rest on a window ledge a few sills to the right and above the first of her attackers.  She couldn’t be heard over the rain, and they were all still waiting for her to show up in the alley below.  The window was comprised of standard fibreglass, made from layers of clear laminated woodpulp.  The security on the glass was laughably ineffective.  She barely even needed conscious effort to pop the seal on the window and slide it noiselessly into the built in recess.  Her assailant crouched with their back to her on the floor of this level of the office building.  They kept their eyes on the doors which must lead to the stairway.  They had no idea she was here.  Patsy smiled a wicked hunters grin, and dropped noiselessly to the floor.

By the time the Andro knew she was there, it was far too late.  Their face turned with the speed granted by implants, but hers were faster, and she hadn’t made a single sound as she had advanced into their blind-spot.  Her hands shot out, muffling the Andro before they could vocalize their distress.  Patsy twisted, hard, all of her implants working in concert to give her enormous torque.  She heard a sharp snap, and her would-be attacker became lifeless in her hands.  One down, five to go Patsy thought as she lowered the Wicker to the floor.  She sent forth her nanos into the office building once more, seeking information on her next target.  Two windows down, three towards City Center.  She climbed the ten feet back up to the window she had arrived in, and slowly shut it.  Noiselessly in the downpour, she climbed to the next window, barely noticing as she sliced through the security systems.  As she slid the window back, a small whine altered her too late to the fact that this window had hardly ever been used.  Her assailant looked up with the speed of a striking snake, and instantly communicated the situation to the rest of the squad.  Patsy had no time to think, she had moments to dispatch this foe and come up with a new plan.  She launched herself from the windowsill, directly into her opponent.  The Andro hit the floor with a sickening thud, but managed to roll away.  The Andros left arm hung limp, clearly broken and useless.  Patsy gave her no quarter as she continued the assault.  She brought out one of the many knives she kept on her person, the deep black of the graphene blade barely visible in the dim light.  She feinted, the strike coming out lightning fast.  The Andro dodged, but with their arm disabled from the fall they couldn’t draw their own knife.  Instead, they pulled out a top of the line flechette pistol, clearly designed to deliver a load of implant disabling drugs.

Thanks to her top secret upgrades, Patsy had a precious few seconds to react before the pistol put her down.  She aimed her knife on the rebound strike directly for the hand which was holding the pistol.  The Andro made to dodge, but their hand remained stationary, their whole body jerking sickeningly around it.  Bones broke, and Patsy’s strike found it’s mark.  The graphene blade sliced through the armor and sinew with barely a whisper, the implants in Patsy’s body once more providing all the force she could ever want.  The Andro didn’t even scream, it just drew back the twisted and bloody lump of what had been a hand, and quickly arced a spray of blood right across Patsy’s face.  Her eyes stung, her vision swam, but Patsy didn’t slow for a moment, relying on the data feed of her little nanos to guide her hand.  The same nanos that has so recently swarmed the since-removed hand of the Andro, giving her the purchase to use a magnetic field to lock the hand in place.  Her blade arm rebounded, the return slice cutting across the neck of the Andro, severing her spine with a single clean cut.  Blood pumped from the slice, and the lifeless body of the Andro fell to the ground.  Patsy didn’t have time to gloat in her survival, for the door leading to this floor of the office building flew off it’s hinges as a large boot drew back into the hallway.  Only her instinctive ducking had saved her, as three muffled huffs presaged three flechette darts pelting into the wall where she had just been standing.  She ran, weaving behind and between desks as she fled into the recesses of the darkened office building.  Flechette after flechette dogged her every footstep, the huffs trailing her the whole way.

Stealthfully,
Justin