I was such a fool. I was the biggest damn fool in the whole world. I was the king of all fools! I knew he was going to ambush me here. I knew she was setting a trap for me again. And yet, I came! What devastated me the most, however, was the fact that the bastard got me precisely in the same fucking way as he did it back in Greenland. I was a complete imbecile!

Still lying on the floor, I slowly turned around to look up. Cork was grinning above me, waving a positron gun like some orchestra leader. He was obviously happy—and why wouldn’t he be?

“I really didn’t think you’d be so stupid to make the same mistake again,” he beamed.

“Yeah, me neither!” I grunted sourly because, at that moment, I couldn’t share his enthusiasm and high spirits.

“You don’t know how bored I was waiting here for so long,” he continued. “All the time, I wasn’t sure whether you had already come to check out the room. Sharon thought you hadn’t, and she was right!”

I said nothing and only shrugged, which felt weird since I still lay on the floor. The bitch had scored again! She wanted to get rid of her boyfriend and me, and now, at least one of these things would happen.

“You can stand up.” Marty jerked up the nose of his gun, grinning. “I hate shooting at helpless people.”

“Yeah, I know that. How noble of you!” I smirked while getting up because the idiot was true to his style. As usual, he started blabbering instead of acting, which gave me a little bit of hope. It wasn’t much, but it was something. I already regretted my decision to shake off Chavez’s thugs.

Marty cautiously came closer, made me turn around, and quickly searched me for weapons with his gun pressed against the back of my neck. Obviously, he hadn’t seen the Beretta rolling down under the sofa because he was behind me when it happened. Nevertheless, he could’ve been at least surprised that I was clear. He wasn’t, though.

“So where’s the camera, huh?” He asked me after finishing the search. “I looked everywhere!”

I turned my head with my hands still spread out so he could see them. He took a step back, and I turned around completely.

“There is no fucking camera, you fool!” I said bitingly. “Sharon’s sent you on a wild goose chase. Can’t you see it?”

“Yeah, of course!” The jerk pointed his weapon at my face to threaten me again. “You sure about that?”

“I’m pretty sure.” I nodded and glanced around to check my options. It seemed I had none. There was simply no way to get the Beretta unless the idiot had a heart attack, a sudden fit of narcolepsy, or something else of that sort. My gun was well under the sofa.

“If there’s no camera, why are you here, then?” he asked me, and I looked at him, confused. It was a very good question indeed, to which I had no answer.

“I have my reasons.” I just mumbled.

“You know what? I don’t care at all!” Marty stepped closer to put his piece under my chin. “And I’m tired of waiting. You tell me where the fucking camera is, or I kill you right here, right now!”

“Look,” I said, lowering my hands slightly. “I can’t tell you anything simply because I don’t know the fucking answer. If I were you, I would have focused on much more important things, like saving my ass, for example. Even if you kill me here, you won’t live for much longer—maybe a day or two at most—unless Chavez completely forgets about your magic tricks at his hub, which is unlikely.”

Marty suddenly froze and fixed his eyes on me, trying to decide whether I was bluffing. By teasing him like this, I was walking on thin ice, but I knew the guy well and was sure he wouldn’t shoot me right away. First, we were going to have a little chat, and then he would come up with some very extravagant idea about my death.

“What the fuck do you mean?” he asked after a while when his wandering produced no definitive answer. He was already within my reach, but his finger was on the trigger, and my chances were less than nothing. I didn’t even consider the idea of hitting him.

“You know well what I mean!” I answered. “Reaction between ammonia and iodine leads to an explosion. You heard the thunder last night, so you know it worked. Anyway, I can assure you Chavez is informed that you did it.”

“And how the hell would he know? How the hell do you know?”

“Bobby told me before you wasted her.” I lied to him. “She was aware of your plans, and I’m pretty sure she tipped Chavez about them, although a little late, obviously.”

“No, she had no idea.” Cork rumbled, looking tensely at me. “She couldn’t have!”

“Yes, she could, and she did! She snatched a memory stick with the schematics from your car, remember? And she had a degree in pharmacy. It was a piece of cake for her to do the math!”

Marty squinted at me because he was still surprised I knew so much. Then he suddenly swallowed dryly.

“That’s it! I got him now.” I thought, satisfied. “I just have to stay alive for a while until I have the chance to get my Beretta.” Yet, the task wasn’t easy, and I knew it. The gun was deep under the sofa, and I had to persuade the jerk to play a game of peek-a-boo to reach there undisturbed.

“What did Sharon tell you about your little scheme here, huh?” I kept working on the moron before he could pull himself together. “That you were going to snatch Menelaus’ company? You would drive Greenspace out of business and take their place?”

He didn’t answer.

“Well, guess what? It’s just not happening! You know why? It’s simply because Menelaus was broken long before you started your plan to rob him. All his finances were sucked dry by the project on Olosega. But were you aware of it when you killed him? Did Sharon tell you about it in advance, or did she do it only after you did the job?”

Marty was looking at me gloomily, holding his gun under my chin. I was sure he wouldn’t pull the trigger at such a close distance, but maybe I had to stop teasing him after all. In any case, I wasn’t giving him much reason not to!

“Even so,” he growled after a few moments, taking a step back and adjusting the weapon in his hand. He seemed ready to shoot now, but I still didn’t think he would do it. “That doesn’t change a thing. The camera exists, and we both know it. So I want it!”

“I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, you fool!” I smiled sourly. “I’m just saying it’s not here. How do you think we met in this room in the first place?”

Sharon’s boyfriend nervously squeezed the gun handle without answering again. He was clearly confused and didn’t know what to do.

“Well, your girlfriend foisted the same lie off on me as the one she gave you!” I pushed him further to realize the bitter truth. “She told me the camera was here, and you would come and get it. Sounds familiar? Now think about it for a moment! Why would she tell us both the same thing if she wasn’t trying to make us fight and kill each other?”

“What are you even talking about?” Cork suddenly raised his voice, stupefied. Obviously, he didn’t want to believe me, but he also couldn’t stop listening to me. “She can gain nothing from my death!”

“Are you sure? You should probably ask her to show you the bank accounts, then,” I suggested. “You clearly don’t know shit about her real plans, let alone her gains! And now that the hub is destroyed, maybe she has no use for you anymore, and she simply wants to get rid of you.”

“Bullshit!” Marty shook his head, still hesitating.

I shrugged.

“You’re just stalling; you know nothing about her plans! I have a solid deal with her, and she still needs me for what’s next.” He tried to convince himself rather than me.

“Does she really?” I looked at him with pity. The fool didn’t even have the slightest idea how useless he was to her. “And what’s next, anyway? Selling ammonia to the aliens? Do you have the resources to do business with them, Cork? You’re nobody! Why would Sharon need you when she has Sengupta now?”

I saw the jerk flinch when I mentioned the name. I did it intentionally to see his reaction. He obviously didn’t know what was happening between them and was an even bigger fool than I was.

“Just ask yourself why the Indian is helping you!” I quickly nailed him afterward. “Do you think he likes you? He likes Sharon, you fool! They fucked! Did the bitch tell you about that? She has literally started replacing you!”

Marty kept staring at me without moving. He seemed entirely knocked off balance, and I had clearly disturbed his world so much that he didn’t speak for almost half a minute. My assumption that Sharon and Sengupta had had sex was, in fact, a bit of a long shot, but there was at least a ninety percent chance it was true. Somewhere deep inside his mind, Cork knew it was possible. After a few moments, he tried to say something, but the heavy silence between us remained because he still couldn’t find the right words. It made me fear I would receive a positron charge in my head any minute now.

The situation was actually very weird. The atmosphere in the room was so heavy that it felt like the very fabric of time had thickened and slowed down. It was like in a dramatic movie scene where everything—all sounds and images—hung meaningless around us, unable to reach our minds. At some point, we suddenly heard tires screeching outside on the street and car doors opening, but neither of us reacted to it. It went on like this for ten more seconds.

I was the first to shake off my stupor and briefly nodded toward the window. The area around the motel was peaceful and idyllic, so the tire screeching definitely meant something.

“I think you might want to check that out,” I said nervously.

Marty slowly came alive and clumsily moved around me to get to the window. I turned around with him. He didn’t take the gun off me, even for a moment, though. When he reached the window, he glanced outside and then froze. Something was definitely wrong.

“So what is it? Who was that?” I whispered hopefully, expecting that Chavez’s thugs had picked up on my tracks and found me again.

“People with guns,” Cork grunted, gloomily.

“Are they white?”

He looked at me, surprised. “No, they’re brown! Are you a racist?”

“Dammit! These are Sengupta’s thugs,” I thought desperately. I was not a racist, but Chavez was. He wouldn’t hire Indians because they were only fit to be subjects in his “kingdom”!

“You know what?” I said anxiously. “In any other situation, I would’ve been gloating right now and telling you, ‘You see? I told you so,’ but unfortunately, this is not the moment to do it. So instead, I’m just gonna say, ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here and do it quickly! They’ll kill us both!’”

Marty turned his head to look at me, still uncertain, and then shook it.

“Naah, I think you want to use the situation to get away,” he mumbled. “I’m sure it’s a coincidence. They’re coming for something else!”

“Are you nuts?” I almost cried out, losing my temper. “Your stupid girlfriend sent them! This is the proof she wants to get rid of us both. I bet they’ll even know the room number they’re looking for!”

He didn’t reply but went to the door, still keeping an eye on me. Then he listened outside with his ear pressed against the wood. Soon, trotting feet echoed from the lower floors, and the sound grew louder with every second without any doors opening being heard. The men were coming straight to us, just like I predicted it.

Marty cautiously stepped away a bit and looked around, confused. Unfortunately, it was too late now—we were already doomed. I nervously asked myself how the thugs knew when exactly to come in order to get us both in the room, and the idea that maybe my arrival triggered them flashed across my mind. Cork had been here all morning, but they had waited for me because Sharon wanted two birds in the cage, not just one. It meant that I was right, and she really wanted us both dead. It was precisely at the moment when I thought this that the trotting suddenly stopped. A very short pause followed, during which the silence in the room cracked with tension, and after that, the door sharply launched inside with a hideous thunder. The thugs didn’t even bother to check if it was unlocked. They just kicked it off its hinges.

I instantly threw myself to the left, jumped at the sofa, and rolled over its side. Then I pulled the furniture away from the wall to form a v-shaped shield between my enemies and me, taking cover behind it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Marty shooting at the thugs a couple of times before hiding behind the side of the wardrobe near the window. The thugs, for their part, drew back into the corridor beside the doorframe, and thus, we all took positions for the upcoming battle. The only problem was that we were disturbingly close to each other.

I feverishly looked around. My heart was booming like hell, and my lungs gasped for air. With a trembling hand, I reached beneath the sofa and frantically felt for the Beretta. When my fingers touched it, I pulled it out, quickly checking if it was okay and loaded. It all happened when the thugs gave it another try to break in, and I raised my weapon over my barricade to shoot blindly at them, enforcing Marty’s fiery statement from a few seconds ago.

My sudden joining the party came as a surprise to the other participants in the shootout, and it was a bit hilarious despite the seriousness of the situation. The thing was that all my opponents had positron guns, which produce almost no sound, and the battle so far had been pretty much like a gangster’s dumb show. My loud-mouthed Beretta, however, was so thunderous that everybody immediately stopped firing their weapons, shocked. I even felt a little awkward for not observing the shooting code.

“Hey you, son of a bitch, where are you?” I heard Marty whisper after my outrageous answer to the thugs’ aggressiveness ended. He still couldn’t understand how I happened to be armed.

“Behind the sofa,” I answered quietly. “And you?”

He stayed silent for a while.

“I’m not telling you! Where the hell did you get that fucking beast from?”

“You, fool! You’re behind the wardrobe.” I ignored his question. “I can make it rain wood splinters on your head!”

It was true, and, by the way, another funny thing. The wardrobe was no match for my Beretta, but at the same time, I was well-barricaded and safe behind the sofa. Ironically, its soft upholstery was like antitank armor for positron guns, which are highly efficient in almost any other situation—including penetrating through walls—but not in this scenario. Their charges tend to get trapped inside cushions and pillows quite easily.

However, despite this unexpected advantage, things still didn’t look good, and I felt pretty desperate. I carefully took out my cell phone and tried to reach Peularia while closely monitoring my surroundings. The doorframe was clear for now, but I had to be careful about Marty. I couldn’t trust the bastard, even though we were in the same boat here. I hit the button to connect, but unfortunately, the line remained closed, and nobody picked up.

“They must be making love in their stupid seaside house with so many rooms and no fucking doors!” I thought, devastated but also envious. I would have given anything to be there now and not here.

“Hey, who are you calling?” Marty suddenly whispered again from beside the wardrobe.

“My funeral agent. Why?” I whispered back. “I just remembered I didn’t pay her the last time I was dying!”

“Don’t call the cops!” the jerk hissed angrily. “They’ll kill us both and then say we were trying to escape.”

I cautiously peeked from behind the sofa, surprised.

“Are you sure?” I grunted. “You really think those outside in the corridor will give us a treat with a glass of whiskey and a bowl of peanuts?”

He didn’t answer. In his hiding place, he was checking his gun; I could see his reflection in the window glass. It made me consider my options. The window was actually my only way out, and I could try climbing down the wooden trellis on the outside wall, but it was right next to the bastard, and I doubted he would want to negotiate it.

I carefully raised my cell phone and took a picture through the window. It was another beautiful day in hell outside, but it looked like heaven compared to the situation inside the room. At the same time, it was so close and yet unreachable! I attached the picture to a message, adding a few words, and I was just hitting the send button when I noticed Marty peeking from behind the edge of the wardrobe. When he saw I was out of cover, he showed up a little bit more, and after a quick hesitation, he raised his gun. I promptly drew back behind the cushions and shot a lonely bullet into the wood above his head.

“You, son of a bitch! You deserve one right between your eyes!” I thought, furious, and I hadn’t even finished that when everything in the room changed again. It suddenly filled with smoke, making me look around, surprised. Unfortunately, I had no time to wonder what was happening because I saw thin, bluish trails hissing everywhere, piercing every surface they met while leaving curly tails behind. Someone had obviously brought a positron machine gun to the battle, making it a nightmare. I instantly dropped to the floor and crawled along the back of the sofa to peek out from behind its other end. Then I shuddered, horrified.

I was right to be afraid. The bastards had started a full-fledged war at the door, and an offensive was in progress. I noticed two pairs of legs cautiously stealing inside the room while keeping away from the trajectory of the machinegun charges. One of the jerks was positioned beside the doorframe at my side, and the other was at Marty’s. They were silently taking the “ship” now.

Desperate, I pointed my gun there and fired a few shots, after which I quickly drew back. The sofa almost immediately blew up. It started shaking hideously and raising smoke. Most of the charges were trapped inside the cushions, but despite the flaws of the positron technology, the situation was critical. Soon my armor was going to burst into flames, and then I would be fucked up.

Since I didn’t know what else to do, I thrust my arm beneath my barricade to my elbow and initiated a frantic cannonade of blind shooting. After a few seconds, someone shrieked near the door, and I heard them dragging on the floor. There was a short kerfuffle, and then the raid ceased. I used the moment to crawl back to the other side of the sofa and produce a more convincing effect. There was a large blood puddle a few meters from me. After I assured myself the offensive was really paused, I frantically retreated to my initial position because I was afraid Marty would start an attack there.

“Hey, are you alive?” I whispered when I saw he hadn’t come out.

“I’m fine.” I heard his hoarse voice. “You know what? I have an idea.”

“You do? You want me to call the cops now?”

“No, I don’t want that, you jerk! I want you to throw me a cushion, and then we can go for the door together. We have armor; they don’t. We can push them away.”

“Of course we can!” I hissed, annoyed. “I bet you’ll take on the task of watching my back, right? Do I have to put a cushion on my ass too?”

“You idiot!” he cried, disappointed. “At least keep shooting at them for a minute or two. I’ll try to edge behind the doorframe and push them away myself!”

“Okay, Rambo! You can go on and conquer the entire island afterward,” I laughed. My “trustworthy” ally clearly thought I had an entire ammunition factory here. In fact, I was already short of bullets after pushing the last offensive away by myself. I just hadn’t thought I would have a whole regiment of thugs to fight against when preparing for this war.

“Fine. Let me hear your brilliant ideas, then!” Marty snorted in his hiding place, obviously upset. “Since you were the one to get us into this, I think you should get us out, too!”

“What?” I didn’t believe my ears. “I got us into this? Your Martian whore got us into it!”

Another violent series of hissing positron charges broke our childish argument. I promptly sprawled on the floor and started shooting from beneath the sofa in an attempt to stop the thugs from getting in. This time, Marty was kind enough to pitch in with his positron gun from behind the wardrobe because he probably realized at last that we were doomed here and needed to act together. Unfortunately, he had only stupid plans in his head, which weren’t much help. By the way, I doubted any bright ones existed to tackle such a hideous situation like this.

“Hey, Cork,” I whispered again when, after a while, the thugs drew back behind the doorframe to regroup.

“I’m fine, thank you,” he growled.

“I don’t fucking care whether you’re fine! I have a question to ask you.”

He didn’t answer.

“Remember, back in Greenland,” I went on, “when you killed those guys in Menelaus’ house? Why the hell did you pull the bodyguard’s pants down?”

Marty suddenly showed his face, surprised.

“Really? You think this is the right moment to discuss that?”

“Well, we may not have any other,” I mumbled, embarrassed. “I just wanted to know.”

“You’re a sick son of a bitch, Mellrow!” He roared after a second. “And you’re also very annoying. You brought me so many troubles in that house!”

“So?” I insisted, ignoring his remark.

“When the housemaid came, she was already wet for the guy, and she got undressed immediately, cuffing herself to the bed,” Marty explained reluctantly. “Then the bodyguard arrived with his belt undone. I didn’t have to invent anything!”

“You mean, his pants just slipped when you caught him running up the stairs toward Menelaus?” I asked, disappointed.

He didn’t answer.

I shrugged and quickly started counting my ammunition. I had expected to hear quite a story because the guy had a really wild imagination, but obviously, my imagination was wilder than his. As usual, the reality was much more boring than the movie crime scenes, and I was disappointed. When I finished counting, I looked around worriedly. There was no time to waste, and we had to act quickly. If we didn’t come up with a plan, we were going to die soon because the thugs were ready to attack again. I could hear agitated bustling behind the doorframe.

After a brief consideration, I whispered at Marty, poking my head out of my hiding place, “Hey, do you, by any chance, have a lighter on you?”

“Why? You wanna smoke one last cigarette before you die?” The jerk asked me without showing his face.

“Don’t be a smartass! Do you have it or not?” I snarled, annoyed.

Nothing happened for a while—no answer, any sound, or movement followed. Then I heard some rustling, and his voice said, “I have two butts, but I’m not sure if I want to give you one.”

“Keep your stinky shit for yourself, you moron! I only asked for a lighter. There is a fire alarm device on the ceiling, just above the wardrobe.”

Another few seconds of silence passed.

“So?” The genius couldn’t get my point as expected.

I sighed heavily. The guy was as bright as a retarded amoeba. I was really fucked up with a partner like him!

“So I wanna try and trigger it, Einstein! What do you think will happen? The fire brigade will come around and save our asses!”

In fact, my idea was quite decent in general, but as soon as I said it out loud, I saw a significant flaw in it—something I had overlooked in my hastiness. I remembered the numerous burning houses all around the island, and suddenly, it seemed doubtful that we would be rescued in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, it was our only option now, so it was worth a try.

In a while, I heard Cork whisper, “How are we going to trigger it? We have nothing to set on fire.”

I thought for a second and grabbed a cushion from the sofa, throwing it to him. After trapping so many positron charges, it was almost on the verge of bursting into flames, and it needed just a little push.

“Here, try this!”

Marty kneeled and reached out his hand to take the cushion, after which he pulled it behind the wardrobe to examine it. I saw his reflection in the window as he tried it on his body, and when he found it satisfying enough, he put it aside. The jerk obviously wanted to use it as body armor later. Then he agitatedly looked around for something else and grabbed the nearby torch lamp. He detached the shade from its stand and pulled his precious lighter out of his pocket.

Watching him do it, I grunted in despair and prepared to be patient. I had every reason to believe I should be. What followed next was a really epic battle to obtain fire, and I was sure ancient people needed less time to invent it than my friend here required to light that shade. Five minutes of struggling passed before he finally realized the material was probably incombustible, and during that time, I had to keep the doorframe clear and push the thugs away twice, which left me almost out of bullets. In the end, I got really pissed off and couldn’t stand to watch him anymore.

“Damnit, Cork!” I shouted impatiently. “Would you do something, at last? There’s no fucking use in triggering the fire alarm after we have died!”

He peeked from behind the edge to look at me, both angry and desperate. Then he threw the lampshade away and took off his shirt instead. He twisted it, made a loop, and set it on fire in no time.

“Where?” he asked. “I can’t see from here.”

“It’s just above the wardrobe, twenty or thirty centimeters from its top. It’s on the opposite side from you,” I guided him.

Marty took a small step back—toward the window—and tiptoed to see the fire alarm. After that, he concentrated intensely as if going for the Olympic record in the javelin throw, and his burning shirt almost burned away in the meantime. Then he finally hurled it. The garment flew toward the device; it brushed it briefly at the peak of its trajectory, but then it plunged down and fell on the floor on the other side of the wardrobe. My idea had been that it stayed on the top profile, burning there for a few minutes.

Strangely enough, the result of this lame attempt suddenly seemed like a very threatening act to our enemies at the door. As soon as the shirt landed on the floorboards, they violently started shooting at it as if it wasn’t only a piece of clothing but something extremely dangerous, like an incendiary bomb or something, and it was going to explode any minute. I just didn’t know why they thought they would neutralize it by opening fire at it! All the while, I had a clear shot at them, but I remained passive and simply watched them because I didn’t care about Marty’s shirt and also wanted to save my last bullets.

“Damn it!” I heard Cork swear after the thugs paused the cannonade to recharge. He stood on tiptoe again and raised his weapon, aiming for the device.

“Be careful not to hit it directly.” I tried to warn him. “Just aim at the side of—”

He didn’t wait for my instructions or even look at me. I don’t think he heard at all, and he just fired once, hitting the ceiling a couple of centimeters to the right of the target; then he burned a hole a little bit to the left of it, and his third shot was right in the middle. The device bloomed open like a tulip, its electronics and wires hanging down and burning. It didn’t produce even a cough.

I sighed, anguished. That was it; we were dead now, for sure! The thugs immediately focused their attention back on us, starting another cannonade, and from behind the sofa, I saw legs stepping into the room again. I answered their fire, but it was more of a pose. After a few rounds, I heard the anticipated, very unpleasant click from my gun. Then I clicked a few more times—just in case—and I stopped, devastated. I was officially out of the battle now. Although highly effective and time-saving, blind shooting was actually known for its resource inefficiency, and I had just proved it.

“Ha, ha! Out of bullets, huh?” I heard Marty sneer happily near the wardrobe while returning fire with his gun. I looked at him dismally and wanted to throw something heavy at him, but I had only cushions and didn’t want to give him more body armor. Just then, the sound of tires screeching came in through the window again. I looked there, very hopeful.

“Who is it?” I cried to Marty, praying that it was the police.

He looked outside and roared angrily, “Two black Comatsus and some more people with guns!”

“Damn it! These are Chavez’s men,” I thought, disappointed. “They’ve tracked me down after all!” Even though their coming was better than no help, I doubted it would produce anything good because Chavez only needed me to take him to Marty. After that, I was just an undesirable witness to him.

I dejectedly put my useless gun into my pocket and prepared to meet my fate, but as it turned out, it wasn’t an easy thing to do. As always, I wanted to live a little bit more. Cork, on the other hand, suddenly woke up to another fight. To my great surprise, he started shooting at Chavez’s thugs through the window glass and calling them fagots, even though they couldn’t hear his voice down there. The idiot really pissed them off with his fire, however. They answered it, and soon his plan worked—we heard more shooting from old-fashioned guns like mine downstairs and then some screaming.

The unexpected arrival of a new party to the battle changed everything in literally no time. It completely rearranged the positions and priorities of Sengupta’s thugs, taking the heat away from us and allowing us to breathe. At some point, it became relatively peaceful by the door, and I toyed with the idea of coming out of my hiding place and trying to hit the roof. The problem was I would have to leave my back open to Marty, and I was sure he wouldn’t miss his chance. On the other hand, though, the bastard knew I was out of bullets, and he would most likely go for it anyway.

“Hey, don’t shoot for a while.” His voice surprised me and proved me wrong in the next moment. In the commotion, he had clearly forgotten my magazine was empty, or maybe he just thought I had a spare clip. “I’m saving our asses now!”

I looked at the wardrobe and noticed his left hand reaching out of the shadow. When he felt no burning charges in his flesh, he crept out slowly, holding the cushion in front of his bare chest as if he wanted to hide his tits. He looked really ridiculous, and if I had at least a single bullet left, I would’ve laughed my ass off, making fun of him for sure. Unfortunately, I had none, so I had to swallow my jokes. Besides, I suddenly saw my chance in this hilarious situation. When he passed me, I quietly sneaked out from my barricade.

Cork kept cautiously advancing toward the door without turning back. Downstairs, the shooting had intensified, but it seemed somehow distant now. I stealthily slipped toward the window, still keeping an eye on the bastard, and when I reached it, I tried to open it carefully. The entire glass pane was punctured with positron charges and looked like delicate lace. I warily turned the handle, expecting all hell to dump on my head, but it didn’t. Then I pulled it a few centimeters toward me and stopped.

I nervously turned my head back to look at the door. Everything was alright there. Marty was still at the doorway, peeking into the corridor. I opened the window extremely slowly and moved my left leg outside, trying to feel the trellis bars. I did it successfully, and just when I pulled my right leg off the floor, thinking that my plan worked, things unexpectedly went sideways. My luck abandoned me unscrupulously, and in the next moment, hell really opened up.

In fact, I felt something was wrong even a couple of seconds before that because, during my acrobatic performance, I sensed a flow of air gently brushing my wet cheeks. Deep in my consciousness, a warning light flashed, and I knew I had to watch for the window. Unfortunately, my hands were already on the sill, and I couldn’t do anything about it. The danger hadn’t even fully presented itself as such in my mind when the window swiveled on its hinges, making me realize I was fucked up. The handle barely came into contact with the wall; it just lightly touched it like a snowflake caressing your face on a quiet Christmas night, but it was more than enough. The punctured glass instantly broke into thousands of tiny pieces, and they loudly showered upon the floor, rolling everywhere like little, shiny bugs.

Marty sharply turned around, alarmed. His nerves were already pretty taut, even without my acrobatics. He looked at me, and I looked at him too, still hanging in the air like the prima ballerina of the Bolshoy Theatre, with my left leg outside and the other one nowhere in particular. It was a delicate moment, and I knew it wouldn’t last long. And it didn’t! Cork slowly raised his gun, pointing it at me, and behind his back, one of the thugs unexpectedly appeared in the doorway. He also had a gun in his hand. I was the only one without a weapon in this stupid situation, and my only option was to perform a ballet scene from “Swan Lake” for them and hope they would like too much to kill me.

What happened next was really, really quick. I had enough time just to make a sudden, jerky movement, with which I naively hoped to evade the positron charges they would shoot, but in my delicate dancing position, it proved way too risky. As a result, my left foot suddenly lost its unsteady grip on the trellis, and I began the last and most spectacular act of my life long before I was prepared for it. I tumbled back ungraciously and headed for the ground head first, leaving my humble audience of two behind, totally surprised and breathless. They were so shocked that they didn’t even produce a single shot. They just stood beside each other, watching me, bewildered.

©2016 S.T. Fargo
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