Why an atheist shouldn't take offence when a religious person presents his or her beliefs

Every atheist I know would say that God does not exist. They know what the word 'atheist' means, and they stand by it. If I asked them if God is a fairytale character, they'd probably say yes.

I'm fine with this. I'm all for people making up their minds. I just wish that more people would.

So, God is a fairytale character. This means that he's in the same boat as characters like Pinocchio, Snow White, and, according to Once Upon A Time (and nothing else), Elsa the Snow Queen.

Of course, if God and Pinocchio are interchangeable, then it's fair to say that their values are interchangeable, too. So we could take God's words away from God and attribute them to Pinocchio instead.

Some of Pinocchio's words, values and commands include:
"Love Pinocchio with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind."
"Love your neighbour as yourself."
"Honour your father and mother."
"Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with Pinocchio's spirit."
"In the beginning Pinocchio created the heavens and the earth."
"For Pinocchio will bring every deed into judgement, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil."

Ridiculous, right? Pinocchio isn't even real, let alone a real boy. Living by these words, or even letting myself be affected by them, is tantamount to me crafting a wooden puppet, naming it Pinocchio, and deciding that this puppet wrote a bunch of laws by which man should live, all with his stubby little puppet hand that can't even grip.

In fact, I am so certain that Pinocchio hasn't written a single thing in the history of the world (what with not existing), that if someone approached me with a Pinocchio doll perched on his shoulder and said, "My friend Pinocchio says that you're living a sinful life," I would probably laugh. In any case, I wouldn't care. And the reason I wouldn't care would be based on my absolute certainty that Pinocchio does not exist. Pinocchio is a fairytale character. No doubt this man would be judging my beliefs, but I personally wouldn't be offended.

Whenever someone's judgements personally offend me, it's as a result of one of two things: my own doubts or my own insecurities, and the two are not mutually exclusive. I would argue that this cause and effect relationship applies to everyone.

I might feel insecure if I walked into a corporate building in shorts and a tee shirt and found that everyone else is wearing suits and ties. If those in suits and ties stared at me, I would feel even more insecure. I'd feel this way because, while a part of me believes that people shouldn't care about what I look like, another part of me would be believing that I'm out of place, that I don't fit in, that those staring are silently ridiculing, and that I should probably find the nearest exit before someone decides to say something. This same part of me might even take offence at all the staring.

This compiled feeling of judgement would be based on an insecurity in my belief system regarding my image, caused by an overwhelming and opposing belief (however strong) that anyone who enters a building like this one ought to be dressed in smart attire, and anyone who isn't ought to be shunned. A silly belief, I know.

Of course, it wasn't until this moment that I realised my 'who cares what you wear' beliefs weren't as firm as I'd thought. It was hardly the pairs of judging eyes that caused me to take offence so much as the volatility of my self esteem. It turns out that, regarding personal image, I didn't truly believe what I thought I did.

On the other hand, I'm never offended by someone's judgements when I'm certain that I'm right. If someone approached me and told me that I can't spell, I wouldn't be offended because I know that I can spell quite well, and this knowledge would be stronger than their opinion. I might get frustrated if the person persisted with examples that actually proved my point rather than his, but I wouldn't be offended.

I wouldn't be offended if someone told me to sweep my chimney to make way for Santa this Christmas, either. If I prided myself on the dust-ridden state of my chimney, I might feel sore about this man ordering me, without using much tact, to clean it. But I wouldn't feel offended over the fact that my disbelief in Santa was being judged because I would know that my disbelief in Santa is the correct belief to have.

And I wouldn't be offended if someone told me that Pinocchio created the world, Pinocchio loves me, and Pinocchio has a plan for my life. Even if my way of life was being judged, I wouldn't be offended because Pinocchio is a fairytale character.

To many an Atheist, God is also a fairytale character, and yet the mention of his name stirs offence almost anywhere, as if each person has been personally attacked. Strangely, if the name 'God' was substituted with 'Pinocchio', I highly doubt that we'd get the same results.

Someone, please, tell me what the difference is.

To recap:
1. Pinocchio is a fairytale character. I would not be offended if you told me that he was real.
2. God is a fairytale character. An atheist should not be offended if I tell him that he is real.

Like I said, I'm all for people making up their minds, but anyone who takes offence when their beliefs are challenged - anyone who feels insecure when their way of life is called to question - hasn't.

Either God is a fairytale, or he isn't.

If he is, then there's no reason to be offended when a Christian presents his or her beliefs, because those beliefs are a part of the same fairytale. They're fake. They have nothing to do with real-world morality.

So if a man does get offended or is affected in any way, then my guess is that there's an underlying doubt or insecurity regarding this man's disbelief in God. What he wants to believe (what he claims) doesn't line up with what he might actually believe (how he reacts/taking offence). Two beliefs are conflicting, like mine in that corporate building.

Now, I'm not saying that the condemning stares and scowls were morally just. Those people aren't perfect, either. But people will always believe things that you and I don't believe. When someone's belief is strong enough, he lives by it, and he feels the need to share it with others. Sometimes it's out of passion, sometimes out of love, and sometimes to condemn. Whatever the case, his attitude isn't my problem. My problem lies in what I believe and how I choose to react.

I felt insecure in that building because the stares and the scowls made me second guess my 'wear what you want' belief system. I wasn't as secure in those beliefs as I am about, say, my competence at spelling. In order to avoid taking personal offence, I need to make up my mind about the beliefs regarding my image. In the same way, a lot of atheists need to make up their minds about their beliefs regarding fairytale characters.

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Flint and Steel: Episode Four

Here, Nicky, is where you will discover your ultimate fate, and the fate of your husband!

Will you and Flint live happily ever after? Is Tatai, the obligatory villain, truly defeated? And what happened to Rowan? Will he be rescued?

This episode is rated PG. It contains mild romance (that means you, Nicky) and slightly less mild violence.

Past episodes

Episode One

Episode Two

Episode Three

Episode Four

The prison bars wouldn’t relent. Flint’s jaw was simply not sharp enough. He wished he had a whetstone, but there was no whetstone in sight. The only furnishings in his six by six prison cell were a bucket, a steel bed with paper-thin mattress, and a wooden plate bearing a wedge of moon cheese. Flint grimaced at the moon cheese. He was hungry, but he wasn’t that hungry.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, his pangs of hunger were soon quashed by those of the pains in his neck and forehead, those of his misery, and those of his confusion as a direct result of his misery.

His head pains had been brought on during his escape attempt, which had mostly involved moving his head back and forth like a hacksaw – only this hacksaw had brains and muscles in place of solid steel. The resulting aches were unwanted, but not unexpected. However, Flint's misery was something he'd never planned to persist even after killing the president. Strange, he’d thought. I’d always imagined that killing a president would solve all of life’s problems.

It hadn’t. And therein lay his confusion.

Sitting on the concrete floor of his cell, Flint might have berated Ashleigh for her poor weapon choice (a blow dart) if only he could contact her, but communication between earth and the moon was impossible due to the immensity of waste disposal pods bordering earth’s atmosphere. These pods ate up communication signals like miniature hackers. Were it not for them, Flint would have arranged to be in constant contact with his sharp-nosed ginger wife.

The notion of seeing her again blanketed him in an overpowering sensation of weakness. Fond and intimate memories of her loosed his eyelids, ushered his mind elsewhere, and brought a smile to his lonely lips. The image was warm and nostalgic, almost real; and her voice, while nasally, was a balm to his lonely soul.

When he reopened his eyes, he saw a concrete wall in place of his spouse. It bore no resemblance to her whatever, save for that one incident when she came home after a week of non-stop dancing and proceeded to remove her make-up. Flint couldn’t help but shudder at the thought.

The hard floor beneath him felt colder now, and the light permitted through the small barred window appeared dimmer than before. Alone in the dark, Flint’s tender smile faded like a rose kissed by blight.

The darkness did more than just surround him. He could taste it, feel it like it he’d felt Nicky’s presence moments before. The shadows deepened until, seconds later, he was struck with an unshakeable fear. He could have sworn that the walls echoed the pounding of his chest. Out from the deepest recesses of his heart in which hides irrefutable facts came the stark realisation that someone – someone he knew – was going to die.

*

It was a fine thing that the Ozricks spacecraft landed when it did, for no sooner had Nicky walked off the gangway than the entire ship suddenly collapsed. With her back to the craft, Nicky could only hear the moans and groans of twisting, melting metal, followed by crashing, more moaning, and the faint cry of a single parrot. Nicky cringed in time with the sounds; there was only one explanation for the sudden disintegration of her carrier…

Cheese vomit.

Never would Nicky eat moon cheese again.

With the ship in pieces, Nicky would need to find another means of escape. Once I find Flint, everything will be all right, she thought, reassuring herself. Unfortunately, most of her hope scurried away the moment she beheld the immense building in which her husband was supposedly being held.

The exterior of the Ozricks Maximum Security Prison, or OMSP, was a brooding mass of stone and steel. Sparse of window and void of colour, it lacked any semblance to an ordinary building. Had it not been for the underground parking access, the smoke rising from chimneys, and the duos of sentries who manned every entrance, Nicky might have mistaken it for the ruins of a massive ancient alien vessel. The shadow of the building, which seemed to darken as she drew nearer the entrance, revived the itch at her neck and made goose prickles sprout on her arms. As she eyed the vicinity, tall barbed fences surrounding the area only made her shudder. Those thorn-like curls preventing her escape looked as coarse as Nicky’s head on a bad ginger hair day.

Fortunately, during the final seconds of her journey, Nicky had procured her original set of clothes – fake eyelashes included – and placed them in an eco-friendly canvas bag, which now hung from the handles on her right arm. Peering into the bag lent her some small solace. Nicky loved her clothes; she loved them so much that she’d more than once considered changing out of her disguise. Except, Nicky never compromised the things that mattered most in life, such as her husband’s welfare. If saving him meant having to wear an unfashionable, uncomfortable set of uniform, then that was exactly what she was going to do, no questions asked.

Nicky entered through the prison’s main entrance without so much as a second look from the guards. Notwithstanding, she had poised her hair in prime twirling position on the off-chance that they questioned her. A simple flick of her ginger locks would ward off an assailant as quickly as pepper spray – only with her hair the damage was permanent. She had learned this technique years ago in her co-ed ballroom class. Her only co-ed ballroom class.

Inside, Nicky identified an unmanned terminal that was sure to contain a directory of every inmate and his whereabouts. A quick search revealed that Flint was in ward C4, which, after counting with her fingers, she confirmed was somewhere between wards C3 and C5.

The grey corridors went on and on. They might have been as long as Rowan’s beard, if he had trimmed it. As Nicky remembered it, his beard was such that, if she were to snip it right off and entwine the strands into rope, it would still be long enough for her to uncoil it in her footsteps as a means to trace her way back to the exit. Of course, the lord of beards didn’t much want to shave, nor was he in snipping range. Indeed, had he not been so busy getting captured, Rowan might have been able to update Nicky on Flint’s status. She didn’t even know if Flint was even alive in that cell; and worse, assuming she succeeded in rescuing him, she would then have to rescue Rowan as well. She sighed. Two rescues in one day. What am I, Wonder Woman? She pondered the thought – Oh wait, I am! – and failed to contain her giggle.

She entered ward C2 to find that it was much the same as C1 – that was, boring and stuffy. Her hair, growing frizzier by the minute, didn’t like this place one bit.

Metal doors with tiny windows lined the walls. Flint would be behind a door such as these, but Nicky knew that the exact cell in which he would be kept was still two wards hence.

The corridor seemed endless at first, but eventually she made out where it met another corridor at a junction. Occupying this crossroad was a janitor mopping the floor, though Nicky wasn’t sure why; the floor seemed perfectly clean.

It was difficult to tell from the overalls and hat, but when the janitor turned side-on, Nicky deduced by way of bosom that this cleaner was female. And what followed snuffed out any further doubt.

As the janitor lifted her mop and dipped it in the bucket beside her, she moved with the suppleness and grace of a cat – or, Nicky thought, a dancer. The manoeuvre was so precise that, as this janitor wrung the mop, nary a drop splashed out of turn. She pivoted on the ball of her foot back to her mopping space with a finesse Nicky hadn’t seen since before the end of her dancing career. The ginger spy slowed her pace; it wasn’t her dancing career that had taught her to question everything she saw.

For instance, at the point when she was about to pass this janitor, she noticed the woman reverse her grip on the mop and swivel her right foot in Nicky’s direction. Just so, Nicky was prepared for the swing of stick from floor to face, which she caught halfway with well-timed hands. Ginger and janitor were locked in a test of strength, which lasted two seconds before the mop split in two. Nicky had the bigger half, but she was never a fan of sticks. Instead, she kicked the bucket, sending it spinning into the air past the head of her assailant. On the way, the metal handle brushed the janitor’s hat, knocking it off and freeing a mid-length heap of layered brown hair from its containment – a heap that could have belonged to only one woman. Nicky cursed her ginger eyes.

“Ashleigh? My old dancing rival?”

In return, the girl threw her a dark look that signified sheer hatred. “The bucket,” she said, “you missed.”

Nicky smiled back. “I never miss.” During their momentary reunion, the pail had continued its trajectory to bounce off the rear wall, now finishing its course with a satisfying thunk on the back of Ashleigh’s head. The pseudo-janitor stumbled and nearly fell, but lunged a leg forward to maintain balance. Crouched, she used her thigh to snap her half-mop into quarters. Nicky, realising that two was better than one, did likewise – after tossing her eco-friendly canvas bag to a safe distance, of course. Sticks in hand, the two women circled each other like gladiators, or perhaps dancers on ice. “Before we kill each other for no reason,” Nicky said, “tell me, why are you here?”

          Ashleigh darkened her dark look. “You were always a better dancer than me. I hated that about you.” Her voice was as cold as the figurative ice upon which they were figuratively figure skating. As she spoke, she flipped her sticks in hand in what seemed like an effort to appear intimidating. “When I heard you’d quit dancing for spying, I knew that that was my chance. See, I’m a far better spy than you are.”

“I don’t know,” Nicky said. “I think I’m better at that, too.”

Ashleigh glared at her with a gaze sharp enough to rival Flint’s jaw. Nicky went on. “What I don’t understand is why you’re here, opposing me. I thought that we were on the same side.”

“We were, but my hatred for you exceeds my loyalty to your husband. So I snuck a ride on the ship he took to get here.”

Nicky debated Ashleigh’s words. “Honey, that doesn’t make sense. Why did you help Flint kill the president if you wanted to betray him?”

In saying those last two words, Nicky was reminded that her rival lacked a certain something called ‘common sense’. No surprise, then, that Ashleigh replied with sticks instead of words. The two engaged in a dance so fierce that their respective weapons were soon ground down to splinters the size of toothpicks. And on they fought, performing a cat rendition with fingers, nails and teeth, even as flurries of mop-stick sawdust showered them like confetti.

Next, they were at each other’s throats, throttling, choking, nails sinking – followed by another round of cat fighting.

They fought for several minutes, but for Nicky it felt like seconds, before exhaustion, pain, and oxygen-deprived lungs got the better of them. Leaning on her knees, Nicky looked over at Ashleigh and saw the results of her nails in the mangled and torn remains of what must have been her face. Ashleigh’s cheeks looked as if they’d been mauled by a bear; her nose was visually broken; and her bottom lip dangled by only a few strands of skin tissue. One of her eyelids was sealed shut, and the other, vaguely open, revealed an empty socket where an eye used to sit. She’s blind, Nicky thought.

Ashleigh flailed aimlessly, her arms lurching for something solid. “Get ack here!” she screeched (the ‘b’ was missing due to insufficient lip). Nicky determined to seize the opportunity, but doing so was almost impossible; the excruciating pain she felt all over her face bespoke a fate not unlike Ashleigh’s. As if her now nail-less fingers weren’t agony enough. Both her face and hands were on fire…

…but a ginger like Nicky eats fire for breakfast.

She swallowed her pain like a hot orange-zested chai with no milk, and channelled it into strength. At the same time, something stood out from the corner of her eye: a whole fingernail on the ground that must have been ripped off in one fell scratch. I knew my lengthy nails would come in handy someday. This rogue nail, while short for Nicky standards, was still half the length of a dagger’s blade, and twice as sharp. Yet her opponent was likely too wary for a direct approach to work. This ginger would need to improvise.

Noting the position of the mopping bucket between her and Ashleigh, she propped the fingernail up on a standing position, stepped back and ushered her rival closer with a contemptuous “Over here!” The girl fell for the bait, scrambling in Nicky’s direction. On her second step she tripped on the bucket and fell forward to hit the ground face down. It wasn’t the resultant thud of impact so much as the shlick of nail through stomach that Nicky took to confirm Ashleigh’s death and, thus, a hard-fought victory. This caused her to don a wide grin, which in turn released a number of teeth to clatter out of her mouth, followed by a decent-sized morsel of recently-bitten off flesh, Ashleigh’s flesh, no doubt. Nicky hadn’t realised how many teeth she’d lost, but it was the morsel of flesh that captured the better of her attention. “Hmm,” she said, “I suppose I won by the skin in my teeth.”

Battered and bruised, but giggling at her awesome pun, she retrieved her bag and limped onwards in search of her husband.

She found Flint in Ward C4 as expected. He was inside a more traditional cell unlike those Nicky had seen in the wards heretofore. This one had bars instead of a door.

“Nicky?” he said. “Nicky, is that really you?”

His words were hard to comprehend over the ringing that had taken residence in her ears some time after the cat fight. Still, the sound of his voice seemed to numb every aching nerve in her body. “Flint! Oh, sweet Flint,” she said, limping towards him. “How many months has it been?”

“Too many,” he replied. “Now, get me out of here.”

She had trouble moving her eyes off of his face, perfect razor jaw and all. His complexion was to her eyes as an orange-flavoured cake would have been to her stomach. She would have devoured the cake whole had there been no bars in the way. “Hurry up!” he yelled.

“Oh, right.” She pulled at the bars with her burning hands, but they refused to yield. “Um,” she said, “it’s not working.”

“It’s locked. You’ll need a key.”

“A key?”

“You know, to unlock the door.”

Nicky looked away, troubled. “Rowan normally handles those kinds of things.”

Flint grimaced. “Well, where’s Rowan?”

“He got captured.”

“Why would he do that?”

“You’re telling me!”

“THERE YOU ARE!”

These last words hadn’t come from either of them. Indeed, they belonged to a third voice, a voice that had emerged from the far end of the corridor. While distant, it carried a carefully-balanced weight of authority.

Nicky turned in its direction, and gasped. “Old Captain Tatai?! I… I thought-”

“What?” Tatai broke in, “That I had died with the ship?

Nicky shrugged. “Something like that.”

“Perhaps I would have, had my trusty parrot not come to my aid.” Nicky had been wondering why there was a bird circling the air above Tatai. Now it perched on his shoulder. “Mr Fringe and I make a great team. But I digress. You’re probably wondering why I’m here.”

“Yes,” Nicky said. She wanted to stroke Mr Fringe’s fringe -- perhaps when her fingernails had regrown.

“Well, you see, I lost a hand in the upheaval of the ship.” He raised a handless sleeve to add emphasis. “And even though I gained this-” he drew his sleeve up to reveal a shiny metal hook in place of a hand- “I still want my vengeance.”

Captain Tatai’s do-up of trench coat, eye patch, parrot and hook-hand reminded Nicky of something from earth – something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. All she knew was that it had something to do with water. The word ‘ocean’ came to mind, but she’d forgotten what an ocean even was.

Tatai broke her reverie with the words, “Okay, I’m going to kill you now.” Immediately, he burst into a run, his lengthy strides eating up the distance between them. Nicky gasped. Not only was she too weak to fight again, but Flint would be unable to help her so long as he was in his cell.

“Nicky, you have to flee!” Flint said. “He’s too strong. You’ll die if you stay here.”

“I’m not leaving you,” she asserted, quoting every film she’d ever seen. “There has to be another way.”

Flint took her hands into his own. “I love you, Nicky.”

Admittedly, touching his hands was not making it easy for her to leave. Not that she would have. “What about our secret weapon?” she asked.

“Secret weapon?” He raised his eyebrows in realisation. “Oh! That! Are… are you sure? We’ll, um… we’ll die.”

“No time.” Nicky couldn’t save him, but she could kiss him. Cheeks against the bars, her lips met his. Flint reciprocated in a most love-endowed fashion. With the right head angle, they were able to touch lips while avoiding the hazards of nose and jaw. 

Somewhere at the back of her mind it occurred to her that her lips were still fully intact. But none of that concerned her anymore. If she died here, it wouldn’t matter.

As the thuds of Tatai’s footsteps grew louder and closer, Nicky thought she heard a second set of steps approaching from the other direction. Her eyes were closed, but she peeped one open and saw what looked like a giant hedge made entirely out of facial hair bounding towards her. “Stop!” came a voice from inside it. But Nicky had no reason to listen to an oversized clump of black hair. Even if she wasn’t on the brink of death and was instead lying in bed or watching television – even then she wouldn’t have listened to an oversized clump of black hair. No, she and Flint smooched unabated, and at some point his rock-like jaw on her fiery skin seemed to create a spark. It was a small spark, inconsequential in all other kissing affairs, yet Nicky’s dry hair was so hay-like that, as a single ginger lock brushed between them, it turned the spark into a powerful firework, powerful enough, perhaps, to demolish the entirety of an ancient alien vessel. Tatai’s grasp must have been two paces hence when he was blown apart by fire – and not just the 'love' type of fire, either.

Nicky embraced death like she might a potent hair conditioner. Yet she felt no pain, and the explosion that was sure to deafen her ears sounded muffled and distant. When she realised that Flint’s lips were still on hers, she wondered if she was immortal. In a few moments, when she’d decided that they’d kissed for long enough, she opened her eyes.

Everything, everywhere, was dark. The air was thin, and she could have sworn that she smelled smoke.

 “Nicky, are you all right?” It was Flint’s voice.

“Fine, I think.”

“Why is it so dark?”

“I don’t know.”

Seconds passed before a white dot appeared like a speck on the blackness. The dot grew, letting in light. Soon there were multiple dots, each one spreading and growing, merging with the others. They looked to be within an arm’s reach. Burning away the blackness, they grew to be several inches in size. She realised then that they weren’t dots, but holes. Wider still they became, until she breathed in a foul stench, vile as if hair was being scorched. She touched the rim of one of the holes. It was hot and coarse.

“Facial hair!” she exclaimed.

The light was bright enough now to define the blackness as a tapestry of dark hair sheltering them like a tent. But soon the holes burned so large that the whole thing collapsed to their feet, revealing before them an entirely different scene. They found themselves dead centre in a ruin of smoke, rubble and ash. “We did all this?” Flint asked. Nicky was too slack of jaw to reply. Also, her scalp felt cold.

Through pillars of smoke and motes of ash, she saw that her and Flint’s kiss had levelled the compound so fast that it seemed as if the prison had all but up and left. The ground beneath their feet was all acrumble, and the barbed fences previously surrounding the perimeter appeared to have toppled as one. Watchtowers sturdy as brick had been turned to hollow shells a fraction of their former height. Small fires burned amidst mounds of brick and stone; their smoke rose thick and black as poison. Orange light from the setting fiery-red-thing-in-the-sky tinted the ruin a dull tone. By contrast, Flint’s steely jaw sparkled like diamonds in the twilight.

“Flint, why aren’t we dead?” Nicky asked.

Flint reached down and retrieved a tuft of black hair from the rubble. “I think that wall of hair sheltered us from the explosion.”

Nicky was dubious. “Even the impact?”

“It seems so. This hair was very strong. Whomever it belonged to must have groomed it well, unlike your-” he pointed at something just above her head- “never mind.”

Nicky scanned the rubble around them. “Where did this hair come from?”

“It’s hard to say.”

 “Well, where is this man?”

“Buried and burnt, most likely.”

She sighed, and then hugged her husband in a firm embrace. “At least we have each other.” They held one another for what must have been minutes. And then, her head still on his shoulder, she saw a set of eyes staring back at her from amongst the debris. “Is that…?” She let go of him and rushed towards it to obtain a closer look.

Even in the dim hue of twilight, Rowan’s beardless complexion was unmistakable, yet when she crouched beside him, she noticed that the eyes were unmoving, and no breath entered or escaped the mouth. Half of the body was covered in rocks. The face was unblemished, but Rowan was gone.

“We killed him,” Flint said.

Nicky picked up a disposable razor lying in the rubble beside him. “Why was he here?”

Flint seemed to dwell on that question for a moment. “Do you remember the huge mass of facial hair that had been running towards us just seconds before the explosion?”

“Yeah.”

“That was Rowan’s beard.”

Nicky didn’t like what she was hearing. “But he'd been captured. How did he escape?”

“I don't know, but I think it's safe to say that he wanted to save us, and, well… it worked.” He gestured to the razor in her hand. “He must have been using that razor. I'm guessing that, as he ran, he trimmed his beard into a veil of facial hair, and then draped the veil over us in order to shield us from the blast… all at the cost of his own life.”

A tear trickled down Nicky's cheek and onto her lips. It tasted like liquid ginger. “He really... he really took the ‘h’ out of ‘shave’.” Despite the awesomeness of her pun, this time, she didn’t laugh.

Flint crouched down beside her. “Back in the prison, I knew someone would die, but even I didn’t foresee this kind of an ending.”

Beside Rowan’s corpse, Nicky saw what looked to be a plastic card half buried in stones. A row of digits indented into its surface reflected the last of the fiery-red-thing’s light. She pulled it out to discover that it was Rowan’s credit card.

“He’d fashioned himself a wallet made from the hairs of his own beard,” she said, flipping the card in hand, “which is why this is still intact.” A useful thought crossed her mind.  “We can buy our beach house.”

To that, Flint made a wry face. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

Nicky regarded the card again. Its golden finish was the only thing that glowed in the dying light; well, besides Flint’s do-not-touch jaw. “Yes,” she asserted.

He shrugged. “You knew him better than me.”

“That I did.” She stood, pocketed the card and brushed the dust off her clothes. “Let’s go.”

They walked for no more than ten seconds when Flint, in a foreboding tone, declared, “There’s something you should know.”

“What is it?”

“Your hair-” foreboding and timid- “it’s… it’s all gone.”

Nicky pretended to ignore him. She gawked at him, waiting for him to tell her that it was all a joke – a bad joke that she would subsequently warn him never to make again. Only, he wasn’t laughing. Uneasy now, she halted and threw her hands to the top of her head, still expecting Flint to say something along the lines of, “Fooled you!” Yet he spoke no such words; and as Nicky felt her scalp, she realised that she was touching something other than hair – more specifically, a stark lack thereof. Her resultant scream was enough to upset the ringing in her ears again, and to rekindle every fire in a two hundred yard radius.

“I… I’m sorry, babe,” he said.

But apologies did little to bring her hair back. She was as bald as Tatai, as hairless as the face of Rowan’s corpse. Her head was as void of hair as this compound was of an ancient alien vessel. She wanted a mirror even though she dreaded the thought of seeing herself. The pain in her face and hands returned, more intense than ever before. She withdrew Rowan’s credit card from her pocket.

“What happened to my face?” she asked.

“Your face?” A pause. “Your face is fine. In fact, your nose is a normal length now. It's never looked better! Why do you ask?”

Moving her hands from her head down to her face, she realised that the pain there was as a wounded nose, resulting from her fight with Ashleigh. While her rival’s face was torn to pieces, hers simply had a nose job. “It’s nothing,” she said, somewhat relieved.

“What are you going to do?” Flint asked.

“The only thing I can.” Her tone was a mix of despair and resolve.

He blinked in quick succession, evidently confused. “A beach house can’t bring your hair back.”

“We aren’t buying a beach house.”

“Well, then, what are we buying?”

The bald ginger clutched the card tight in her fist. “Time.”

Flint’s mouth went crooked. “Time? You aren’t thinking of…”

“Yes.”

“But that’s… that’s dangerous, and hardly legal.”

She gave him a sarcastic look that said, “And you’re one to talk,” but knew that such an expression would have been far more effective with hair on her head.

Flint dropped his shoulders, conceding. “Okay, fine, so I killed the president. But this is different; you could die!”

She ignored him and turned to face the night sky. The fiery-red-thing had been replaced by a full moon, and stars had emerged from out of the darkness. The air was less stuffy and more crisp, especially so on Nicky’s scalp. But the ginger-lacking ginger was unfazed. “I’ll get my hair back,” she said. “I’ll get it back even if it means taking a trip back in time to find it.”

THE END

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Flint and Steel: Episode Three

Based on Nicky's tendency to get distracted from her mission, I estimate that there will be one or two more episodes following this one. Again, it's Nicky's fault that it's taking so long, not mine.

Past episodes:

Episode One

Episode Two

Episode Three

The tag on Nicky’s spacecraft-issue police uniform scratched at her neck like a rash with a vendetta against orange-haired women.

The suit itself was too warm, and the spacecraft’s infirmary too stuffy, even for the moon. It wasn’t simply that Nicky disliked the moon – though, to be honest, she hated it. It had followed her everywhere, no matter where on Earth she went. Can’t you just leave me alone, moon? she’d pleaded whenever the waste disposal pods lent enough sky for her to see it – rather, it was her inability to adjust to the moon’s air. You see, the moon’s artificial atmosphere was like Earth’s, only stuffier, which served to make Nicky’s hair twice as orange and three times more difficult to brush.

Nicky had moved to the moon after being offered a job as a secret agent for the Untainted. They’d said that her unsurpassed dancing skills more than accounted for her carroty hair. Meanwhile, Flint’s orchard was dying; so, on the assurance that Nicky would one day earn enough money for him to join her, he spent all of his savings so that she might make the trip.

Alas, the Untainted is non-profit, meaning that Nicky’s salary was far smaller than she’d hoped. She herself had to fund the mission that involved assassinating the president to allow Flint to meet her on the moon. It was only after paying for every viable resource demanded for the completion of this mission that she realised the money could have instead been used to buy a ticket for Flint, as well as a beach house. Now, not only was she minus a beach house, she was stuck on an infirmary bed with an itchy neck and a gnawing fear that the medic would soon return to announce that her proclaimed injuries weren’t injuries at all. Her fears were swiftly vanquished, however, due to a magnitude 6.1 murmur in her stomach, which reminded her that she’d left her food-printing wristwatch at home in favour of the one that had produced her irritating disguise. Her tummy’s remaining hope was that a spacecraft large enough to have an infirmary would also have a kitchen.

The on-board medic had let her rest after she’d refused treatment for her lack of injuries. She hadn’t planned on sleeping – she wasn’t even tired – but she must have dozed off because, sometime later, she heard an alarm in her ear, which sounded like a mountain man calling her name through facial hair thick enough to need hedge trimmers. As her eyes readjusted to light, she realised that it wasn’t an alarm at all. “What is it, Rowan?” she asked, unenthused.

“Were you… sleeping?” he replied. “You should have left the craft an hour ago!”

Nicky looked at her watch, which didn’t actually display the time. “Uh oh. How long have I been asleep?”

“No idea, but you’ve been in there for more than two hours.”

Nicky paused to count with her fingers. “More than two hours, then,” she concluded.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Flint might already be on the moon!”

“Oh.” She jumped to her feet. “On it!”

Thankfully, the kitchen was in the adjacent room. There, her stomach enjoyed a deliverance of wholemeal bread, cold chicken, banana cake and moon cheese. Moon cheese looked like cheddar cheese shot through with white veins, and it tasted like cheddar cheese shot through with peppermint. Neither Nicky nor her stomach complained, though. “Food’s food,” she mumbled with a shrug and a swallow.

She was halfway through her wedge of cheese when a guard entered. Addressing her, he said, “Captain Tatai would like to speak with you.”

She looked up, mouth half full. “Now?”  

The guard nodded. Nicky put her cheese down. A frown from her stomach came in the form of a low whimper.

It was a good thing that the guard had escorted her; she’d have had no idea where she was heading, otherwise, and would have just as soon found herself stuck in the extraction booth. Not a fun way to go, certainly.

She was led into the control room, which bore the shape of a semi-circle. The only furnishing was a crescent-shaped panel, whose surface was crowded with colourful touchscreens. The ends of the panel tapered to a point as if to make it look like a half moon. Nicky could have vomited. Moons everywhere.

The far wall was a convex window made entirely of thick glass supported by a criss-cross of black fibreglass frames. A man with his back turned to her stood gazing out the windows, which displayed a grand view of the city of Moonopia, the moon’s capital, over which the craft flew. The estimated two-hundred feet drop between Nicky and the surface brought to mind earlier thoughts of how, while she enjoyed squashing ants and small insects, she didn’t much desire to be squashed herself. In any case, when the man at the window turned to face her, her fear of becoming a disturbing pile of flesh, blood and ginger hair fell two places on her list of top ten concerns. Above it sat the fear of being questioned and, above that, the subsequent fear of being discovered. Is that why I’ve been summoned?

“You survived the explosion,” the captain said in a deep voice. His tone carried with it a carefully-balanced weight of authority. “Tell me, what happened?”

Nicky almost cowered as she looked her inquisitor in the eye (literally - he only had one eye). Old Captain Tatai wore a long denim trench coat with dark padding at the shoulders. His face was adorned with a black eye patch, which seemed to match his bald scalp. Offsetting the darkness were gold buttons that dotted the middle, shoulders and sleeves of his coat, and a fragment of daylight glinting off his silver earring. Nicky noted the display of medals and marks of honour on his left breast, and on his right the Ozricks crest: a half moon completed by a half earth, set against a black sky. This time she did vomit, but it wasn't out of any loathing for Ozricks. Rather, it was that damned cheese. Afterwards, she wiped her mouth with her sleeve. Cheese and peppermint… what was I thinking?

The captain seemed to ignore the steaming, pungent mess on his carpet. “I asked you a question, soldier.” His one eye bored into her like a sword made of ice.

“Oh, right,” Nicky said between gags. She swallowed, shuddered and stepped away from the mess. Then she cleared her throat. “The explosion, yes.”

“You will tell me what happened, and who was responsible.” His tone was sterner now, so stern that Nicky’s heart broke rhythm.

“Of- of course, captain.”

“Well?”

“Well, it wasn’t me, or… or my hologram.”

“Hologram?”

She’d said too much already. “Uh…” And her heart wasn’t slowing down. “There was a man. He had a bomb. It… went off.”

Tatai leaned forward and placed a hand on the panel, his petrifying gaze no less potent even with one eye. “A man, you say? How did he get on the roof?” As he spoke, a cleaner entered with a bucket and cloth. Nicky stepped aside to give him more room, only then realising that she’d cornered herself.

“A grenade- I mean, what? A jetpack!” She fumbled at her ear piece. “Rowan, tell me what to say!”

Tatai pushed off the panel to stand straight again. “Who’s Rowan?”

She waited for the man in her ear to respond. Then, repeating his words, she said, “Rowan is my deity. He alone guides my every word and thought, ensuring only truth and justice even in the midst of… trauma.” No longer having to think, her stutter had apparently vanished.

Tatai allowed a slow nod, but the furrow in his brow indicated that he had yet to be convinced. He narrowed his eye to a slit. “If this intruder was a man, why did we find a bunch of women’s clothing on the roof, along with a handbag containing a hairbrush tangled in wiry ginger hair?”

Again, Nicky waited for Rowan’s response. “This intruder was an extremist. His ploy was to send a message to you and to the government proper: a message that Ozricks will fall, fall like this spacecraft. But the craft sustained the explosion with little more than a ruptured roof. How’s that for sturdiness? Anyway, two loyal men lost their lives out of sheer dedication to protecting their station. They will never be forgotten.” She paused then added, “He was also ginger.”

“Ri-ight,” Tatai said, tone sceptical. “But can you explain the handbag, hairbrush, shirt, skirt, coat, heels, hairpins, shawl and, heaven be damned, fake eyelashes?”

Nicky licked her lips. Rowan’s voice was growing less and less assuring. “As I said, the man was an extremist. Many extremists like to make a statement not only by their actions, but by their attire as well. He wanted to be remembered after… killing himself.”

The cleaner, who had at some point donned an oxygen mask, picked up his cloth and withdrew from the room. He seemed to have forgotten the bucket. In place of the mess was a patch of soggy-looking carpet about three times its size.

Tatai stroked his hairless chin before responding. “Very well, soldier,” he said. “You are dismissed. We will be landing at Ozricks Maximum Security Prison in ten minutes.”

Nicky could have jumped for joy at his words. Thanks, Rowan, she thought, and almost said. Moreover, she’d boarded the craft with the mere intention of finding the coordinates of the prison. Never did it occur to her that this same craft would be heading to that very place.

She turned to leave, but paused as a thought entered her mind. Turning back, she said, “Can I have the clothes?” She didn’t realise what she’d asked until she’d asked it. She expected Rowan to scold her, but he remained silent.

“What?” Tatai asked.

There was no turning back now. “The clothes you found. Could I… keep them?”

There was a pause. “Fine. Now go!” He flicked a hand in her direction for emphasis.

Back in the corridor, Nicky had trouble deciding what to do for the next ten minutes. “What now, Rowan?” she asked.

There was no response.

“Rowan, push your beard down; I can’t hear you.”

Still nothing. What is he doing?

Moments later she heard Tatai speaking to someone, though no one had entered the control room since she’d left. She leant an ear on the door.

“What? An intruder?” Tatai was saying. “They work for the Untainted, you claim?”… “Still on board?” Nicky wondered whom they might be talking about.

“And what is the name of this man you’ve captured?” He paused again. “Well, tell this Mr Thorpe that his ginger-haired friend here is about to be water-boarded with her own vomit!” He cackled like that of a self-proclaimed villain. Then he added, “Oh, and after that, you can kill him.”

At some point between the words ‘Thorpe’ and ‘kill’, it occurred to Nicky that she didn’t much like what she was hearing. She had to assume the worst. “I’ve been made!” she cried. Her first instinct was to put as much distance between herself and the control room as she could, but she was barely in the next wing when the captain himself materialised in front of her, blocking her path. She would have tumbled into him had her dancing skills not included lightning-quick reflexes. Already she was racing in the opposite direction. Damn him and his teleportation watch, she thought. Why do villains always have better tech? She shouldered into the control room, only then realising that she’d cornered herself. What followed was the sensation of déjà vu.

“It’s over,” Tatai said upon entering. He took his time to straighten his eye patch whilst a troop of guards squeezed through the entrance, flanked him on either side and aimed their firearms at Nicky’s chest. She looked down to find a colony of red dots mingling above her solar plexus. Her stomach whimpered again.

After all the guards had formed up, the speakers overhead erupted with the sound of a computer-automated voice message. “Arriving at Ozricks Maximum Security Prison, ETA five minutes.”

When Tatai was happy with the position of his eye patch, he regarded his men to emphasise the impossible odds of Nicky getting out alive. Then he turned back to her. “Any last words?”

Nicky eyed the faces of her adversaries. “Actually, yes,” she said. In a moment of un-ginger-like clarity, she’d noticed that, with the panel between her and her enemies, none of them could see the pail held tightly in her hand. Just so, she clutched the bucket with both hands, stepped forward and shoved it into the air. “Cheese vomit!” she screeched as a flurry of mould, soap, stomach acid and sheer putridness showered the faces and uniforms of her assailants. Tatai’s eye patch went from black to sickly white.

The guards tried to open fire, but their guns, splotched in Nicky’s regurgitation, had jammed; and seconds later, they began to melt. Her assailants had time only to witness the disintegration of their weapons before themselves passing out after a foolish decision to inhale. Tatai also succumbed, if slightly more dramatically: as his strength left him, he reached a helpless hand into the air and cried a lengthy, “No-o!”

Nicky, meanwhile, held her breath. She was able to hold her breath for five-and-a-half minutes, a skill she’d mastered during her career as a dancer. This skill had absolutely no relevance to said career, except in the case of underwater dances, of which she had performed none, because Earth contained next to no water. Needless to say, the ETA of five minutes had therefore been a welcome relief.

Four minutes later, she turned around to behold the grey and obsidian site of the prison drawing closer with each second. Guard towers and railed posts bordered every yard and sector. Overheard, light from the-fiery-red-thing-in-the-sky hit the buildings at a low angle, casting lengthy shadows into which the spacecraft would soon descend. The sight of those dark forms made Nicky’s smile turn wry. Her mission wasn’t over yet.

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Flint and Steel: Episode Two

The second episode of a story I wrote for Nicky's birthday. Her birthday was ages ago, but the story hasn't ended. Apologies in advance, Nicky, but you don't star in this part... though I can't say the same for your future husband.

Click here for episode one.

Episode Two 

Flint sat, cross-legged, cross-browed, staring with anchored expression at the blow dart cradled in his hands.

The reasons for Flint’s crossed state were a) he found it more comfortable sitting on his bottom with legs overlapped than, say, standing or kneeling, and b) Flint was miserable. 

So miserable, that his next action would be to assassinate the president of planet Earth.

But who could blame him? It was the laws of this president that prevented him from returning to the moon to live with his wife, Nicky Brown.

*

In the year 2148, technology was buzzing; global warming was no longer a thing; 'overpopulated' was an understatement; and the government was corrupt. It had been ten years since the world's governments merged into Ozricks, one all-encompassing entity, and one hundred years since the end of World War Pi.

"This new government isn't all bad," many brainwashed individuals would say. "They've solved world hunger; they've fixed the economy; they've guaranteed no more wars; and everyone has a job!" 

But the minority who weren't brainwashed, nicknamed the Untainted, knew better.

"How foolish this brainwashed race of humans has become, stating facts as though only they matter. Have they lost sight of the bigger picture?" By 'bigger picture', the Untainted meant the swiftly diminishing water supply.

In order to provide every single human being with a job, Ozricks commissioned all those without jobs to scoop water from every lake, river and ocean, and dump it in water-removal hotspots located all over the globe. These hotspots, primitively known as 'pipelines', led to the Bravo Disposal Plant, where the water would be loaded onto space pods and sent into space. Ozricks decided that this venture was a genius plan in order to both give everyone a job (employees had an Ozricks bucket delivered free of charge, bar shipping, to their homes), and also to create more living space where there was once only water and strange creatures that couldn't survive out of water, known archaically as ‘fish’. For this reason, there were now more waste disposal pods in space than space itself, and, when one looked up into the sky, he didn’t see sky; he saw waste disposal pods.

The up-side was that Water Collectors - for such was the name of the profession in its most technical terms - were paid by the hour, and not by the bucket load, meaning that there were equal wages for all. Alas, the job was so tedious that some workers refused to bail water and instead play with schools of helplessly-flopping halibut whose homes were now puddles on the seafloor; but tedious or no, eventually only a tenth of the water on Earth remained. Also, Flint was miserable.

Over the years, as water levels receded, Ozricks decreed that those with gardens or orchards may only have their sprinklers switched on between the hours of 8 and 9 o'clock each morning and evening. Months later, as there grew to be more fish than water, the allowance applied only to Thursdays. When asked about the choice of weekday, Ozricks replied, "No more questions."

Finally, when 95% of Earth's water was in space, Ozricks decreed that sprinklers may only be used on a Thursday, between 8 and 9 at night, in winter, during which the moon was full. Since these conditions occurred almost never, orchards and gardens, even those with genetically-modified flora said not to need nutrients of any kind, quickly decayed.

Flint owned an orchard, but the dry months, which, without water on the planet, meant every month, were unforgiving. Columns of fresh tomato berries and broco-mangoes were now rotten stems and vines, tangled in hopelessness and rage – not unlike Flint's rage.

"I have to assassinate President Nathan," he said one day to his fellow Untainted Ones. "Because of him… because of Ozricks… I can't return to my wife." Flint spoke the truth. With his orchard rotting away, so was his bank account; and without money, he couldn't cross the Astroll Bridge to see Nicky, who lived on the moon. "I just want to go home."

Flint was a formidable and handsome young man. Short, russet brown hair, hazel eyes, perfect height and a medium complexion did him all the favours you'd expect. The drawback, ironically enough, was his chiselled jaw. His jaw was so chiselled that, whenever he tried to shave, the razor didn't trim the hair so much as his jaw trimmed the razor. He tried scissors, but the blades would now and then bump his jaw and take on all kinds of scratches and dents, which only served to make Flint angry. (Flint had a soft spot for metallic objects - also ironic). As such, he was typically clean-shaven on all parts save the jaw-line, where a U of constant, curly hair portended to troublemakers that they'd do well not to cross him head-on, literally.

Unfortunately, the same weapon that overcame his adversaries also warded off countless women who had liked every bit of him save his lethal jawbone. Nicky, his wife, was the exception, if only because she had a nose of equal lethality. You can imagine how hard kissing was for them.

In order to assassinate the president, Flint needed something a little more practical than a jaw-line of steel, so it was a good thing he had friends.

Ashleigh was both a weaponsmith and an inventor. Only a recent convert to the Untainted, she was at first hesitant about the whole opposing-the-government lifestyle. But at the point of no return, pondering whose side she should take, she saw Flint at his desk, sharpening his jaw with a whetstone whilst murmuring death threats about the people who opposed him. From there, the choice was easy. Muttering something along the lines of, "Oh, all right," Ashleigh signed the papers, and they welcomed her with open arms.

Douglas was Flint's loyal friend, proven when Flint made his bold and audible-for-all proclamation that he would assassinate the president, to which Douglas replied, "You'll need a gun." A man of few words, Douglas had subsequently been granted the role of 'sidekick'. Yet, the title was amended to the more favourable 'partner' when, during the mission briefing, he voiced his wishes to be neither kicked nor eaten as a side, and unveiled two automatic firearms as background supporters to his cause.

Nicole was the last in their quad, but certainly not the least. Otherwise known as Generic Tech Girl, Nicole was as reliable as she was nerdy. It was thanks to her that they knew exactly where President Nathan would be on Friday afternoon, the preferred time of assassination, because it was an hour before Ashleigh’s Zumba class, which she was most adamant about not missing.

Nicole had put it aptly when, from the generic tech van parked outside, she said, "A swimming event? Really?" In response, the others simply threw palms to faces, the sounds of which were amplified through their comms devices.

"We discussed this a week ago at the briefing," Flint reminded.

"Was I there?" Nicole asked.

"Yes."

"Oh. Sorry."

Like an Achilles heel to her unsurpassed intelligence, Nicole suffered from short term memory loss, a rare condition brought on from consuming space-recycled water, or water launched to space and then retrieved again. "It isn't the same," she said one day (and every day hence), comparing the stuff to ordinary water, of which there was none.

But she never forgot a thing when it came to computers, and she remembered every detail she saw on a monitor, which made her the prime woman for her generic yet vital role in the team.

"I've looped the security feed. Flint, you can make your way to the top floor."

By 'top floor', Nicole meant the fifth floor, from which Flint would take his shot.

It was the fabled words of an ancient philosopher, whose name was probably Pluto, which read, "Common sense gives way to common sense." So it was, during World War Pi, when the earth was a perpetually-live bombsite, those with common sense moved either to the moon or to Mars, leaving the remaining population to wander in aimless confusion or blow up. However, since the moon isn't particularly large, not every common sense-wielding human could move there without weighing it down from one side and forcing it to either a) crash into earth, or b) drift out of Earth's orbit and towards the-fiery-red-thing-in-the-sky, archaically called ‘the sun’. And of those common sense-wielders still in peril of exploding, not all of them could afford to move to Mars. Their only choice was to do what common sense-wielding people in the midst of war do, and grab a gun. Alas, many of these men and women still died, for, as another great philosopher once said, "Bombs > guns."

Three main tribes rose from the ashes: those who were yet unharmed - the strongest, as it were; those who were slightly harmed and fewer in number; and those who escaped death with severed limbs and hanging entrails – in other words, those who didn't really know what to do because they lacked common sense.

The strongest did what ones with both strength and common sense do, and decided to rule over everyone else. However, they found this plan to be far more difficult than they expected, as only those lacking in common sense would a) blindly do whatsoever they were told to do by strong-sounding organisations, and b) rapidly multiply. The rest, well, they would rebel.

Ashleigh, who only recently joined the Untainted, was, of course, born of a mind lacking in common sense. Flint hadn't realised just how much common sense she lacked until, reaching his firing position on the fifth floor, he sat down, crossed his legs, and opened the briefcase that contained his firearm. When he had asked Ashleigh to design him a 'long-ranged weapon’ with which to shoot the president, what he didn't have in mind was a blow dart. Yet a pipe and a single dart, both packaged in close-fitting polystyrene, was exactly what he beheld.

He gazed down towards the pews overlooking the huge pool. President Nathan sat talking to his wife beside him, stroking her hair. Through clenched teeth, Flint said, “A simple rifle would have sufficed.”

“But a blow dart will make it appear as though the president fell asleep,” Ashleigh replied. “No one will suspect an assassination until you’re long gone.”

Flint was now both miserable and furious. He swung the pipe into his jaw, shattering it into three pieces. “Why do you think I want to assassinate the president?” he asked.

“Because his laws stink?” Ashleigh guessed. “I don’t know. You never told me.”

“Because he’s with his wife and you’re not,” Nicole put in.

“What?” Flint snapped. “Nicole, I told you my reasons, and I told you to tell-” he remembered her condition- “Never mind.”

Spectators filed into the pews. Chatter filled the building.

“So, are you going to tell us?” Ashleigh asked.

Flint sighed. “The Ozricks Maximum Security Prison is situated on the moon. If I kill the president, I’ll be sent there. Nicky will bust me out, and we’ll be united again.”

“You want to be caught," Ashleigh said through a gasp. Stating the obvious was something she, lacking in common sense, did a lot.

Flint sighed. “A silent blow dart doesn’t make it easy.”

He felt someone’s presence nearby just before a shadow fell over him. He looked up to find Douglas outfitted in the uniform of a security guard. Douglas presented his handgun. “Take this.”

Flint took the gun and stared at it for a time. “A pistol? What if I miss?”

Douglas held a hand out. “Then give it back and I’ll do it.”

“No,” Flint said. In an instant, he adopted the tone of a clichéd protagonist whose ambitions had suddenly risen past the point against which no man could argue. Nor did his leaden eyes bear lenience. “This is something I must do.”

The first bullet missed, but the second punctured President Nathan's shoulder. The third cracked his ribs, and the fourth his skull.

Six bodyguards were in hot pursuit even before Nathan's widow had time to scream. They climbed stairs, ladders, and other ladders that Flint hadn’t noticed before.

“Give me the gun,” Douglas said.

Flint did as his partner bid. “Don’t miss.”

Douglas raised his eyebrows. “I thought you would want me to miss.” He took the gun and shot Flint near his abdomen. 

Flint collapsed almost immediately. The pain was excruciating. Nathan’s bodyguards reached the top of the stairs. Already his sight was fading, and the last thing he heard was Douglas saying, “We got him.”

*

Flint lay on his back. The surface beneath him was soft, but he was moving. A bed with wheels. His abdomen throbbed with pain, and in his mouth he tasted blood. There would be blood in his wound, too, yet when he tried to touch it, he discovered that his hand was cuffed to the bedrail. He blinked until his vision cleared enough to make out the white walls and lights of a corridor, and a man in police uniform trolleying him somewhere. The words, “Where am I?” were on his lips, but he remembered before he said as much.

His other hand was free, and dabbing his wound left it wet with blood. But he would live. If there was anyone who knew how to shoot a man and not kill him, it was Douglas. It’ll be easier to escape the infirmary if they think I’m critically wounded. I have to inform the others. Pain shot up his arm as he raised it to the side of his head. He pressed a button on the device in his ear and whispered softly enough that his captor wouldn’t hear. “I’m in.”

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