Transformations: Latigo Key Ch. 01

The doors opened on the first floor.

Four Marines were running toward her with guns drawn.

She ducked back against the side of the elevator car as bullets sliced the air beside her and slammed into the faux woodgrain rear wall.

She slammed her hand against the button for the third floor.

The doors closed and the elevator rose.

"Akimi! Akimi, what's happening?!" Gwen typed.

"They're onto me. I'm going to find a different exit."

The doors opened on the third floor.

This was the accounting office, and everyone looked at her in confusion as she hit the emergency stop button and sprinted through the cubicles. "Do not touch that elevator!" Akimi yelled.

She ran full throttle toward the window at the end of the aisle.

Gwen typed, "Akimi, what the hell are you doing?"

"Improvising!" Akimi screamed out loud.

The stairwell doors burst open somewhere behind her.

Bullets sizzled through the air and the accountants began screaming as they dove for cover.

Akimi put her arms up in front of her face and crashed through the third story window.

***

"Fuck me," Colonel Menser whispered from the rear of the Blackhawk as they hovered over the NRO building.

Akimi Maru had crashed through a third story window and was now falling toward the pavement below.

Glass sprayed out in a cloud around her.

She landed on her feet almost forty feet below.

"No fucking way," the Blackhawk pilot said over the headphones.

Akimi had landed in a crouch.

She stood up and ran around the corner of the building.

"That's not possible," the pilot said.

"Please tell me you have a fucking rifle in this thing?" Menser said.

"Under the seat, sir."

***

"Akimi, we're coming," Gwen typed. "You need to get to the Cuban Embassy, 2630 16th Street Northwest..."

Akimi's motorcycle was in a space on the south side of the building. She hopped on, ignoring her helmet and started it. "Gwen, I have it. Project Diadem. I need to tell you..."

"I don't care about their fucking project! I want you safe. Do you hear me? Get to the embassy."

"On my way," she roared around the corner and onto F Street.

***

"Where's my drone, Gilder?" Menser asked over the headphones as he pulled the Marine issue sniper rifle out of its case and inserted the magazine.

"They're tracking her, sir."

"How's it armed?"

Gilder was silent. "Armed?"

"What armament is it carrying, Gilder?"

"Sir, the drone is fully loaded with missiles - you aren't suggesting we fire missiles into downtown DC, are you?"

Menser didn't answer. "My bet is she's heading for the Cuban Embassy. I need strike teams moved into position at every approach - Tony, she cannot reach Cuban territory. No matter the cost. Understood? If she has Diadem..."

"She does, sir. It's verified. She left with the plans, documentation, and... the prototype."

Menser closed his eyes and breathed out heavily. "Goddamn it."

***

Akimi glanced back over her shoulder. She spotted Menser sitting in the passenger section of the Blackhawk.

The chopper was flying sideways above her, following her.

And Menser had a rifle in his hands.

"Gwen, I don't think I'm going to make it. I should have looked at the schematics so you'd have an image from my eye," Akimi said as she threaded through the F Street traffic.

"Never mind that. Just get to the embassy. We're coming."

Just as the traffic opened up, a black SUV driving the wrong way down the street slid to a stop sideways in front of the motorcycle.

Tony Gilder, Menser's second in command.

He fired off a shot from his nine-millimeter through the open back window of the SUV.

Akimi jerked the bike to the right as the bullet whined past her and knocked stone chips off a building behind her.

She gunned the throttle and whipped around the SUV, laying almost on her side to do it.

Akimi righted the bike with the SUV behind her.

A second bullet missed her arm by inches and blew out the back window of a parked car.

"Goddamn it," Akimi thought-typed. "They're going to hurt someone!"

"Drop the backpack," Gwen typed back.

"Are you crazy?!"

Behind her, the SUV had turned to follow her and Menser's helicopter continued to hover just behind her.

She could hear police sirens.

A line of police cars and black SUVs were heading the wrong way down the street directly toward her.

She shifted right onto the sidewalk, sending pedestrians dodging left and right.

Akimi leaned left to avoid a trashcan and a bullet slammed into the sidewalk right in front of her.

"Akimi! Goddamn it! Give them the fucking backpack. It's not worth it," Gwen typed.

"Mistress, you have no idea how important it is. Now, please shut up, I'm trying not to get, you know... shot."

***

There was something Zen about the whole scene unfolding beneath Menser: Beauty in the midst of danger.

Akimi Maru in skintight black leather, her shoulder length hair flying behind her as she leaned left and right, avoiding obstacles in front of her, assessing her options in a split second and then acting on her analysis flawlessly.

We're like clumsy apes in comparison, he thought.

"Hold the chopper as steady as you can," Menser said into his headset as he sighted through the rifle scope.

That's the thing about us apes, though, Menser thought. Our capacity for violence knows no equal.

His finger rested on the trigger.

Akimi Maru was five blocks from the Cuban Embassy. In the backpack she wore was the fate of the United States... maybe of the whole world.

Below, Tony Gilder was firing shot after shot from his nine-millimeter - the road ahead was clear except for Akimi Maru.

But she was so fast and she seemed to know where Tony would aim the next bullet.

It was almost like someone... something... was watching over her.

Menser aimed for the point where Akimi's shoulders met her graceful neck.

It would be just like turning off a light.

She wouldn't feel a thing.

He didn't want to do it. He had killed so many times for his country. He didn't regret one pull of the trigger.

But he didn't want to kill Akimi Maru.

"Because you're not supposed to," a man said.

Startled he looked behind him.

A tall man in a leather jacket was sitting there. He was smiling.

"Who the hell are you?" Menser asked.

The man shook his head. "That's not the question, Colonel. The question is: who are you?"

"I don't understand..."

The man wasn't wearing a headset, but Menser could hear him clearly even over the sound of the rotors. "Sometimes I bend time. And, today? I'm bending it for you. The choice is yours."

And then he disappeared. He just disappeared into thin air.

"Did you say something, Colonel?" the pilot asked.

"What? No... no..." He put the rifle back against his shoulder and lined up the shot.

Akimi Maru was half a block from the Cuban Embassy.

Menser put the crosshairs on her neck again.

The question is: who are YOU? He thought.

"I know who I am," he whispered.

Then he pulled the trigger.

***

Akimi cried out as a much higher caliber bullet struck a parking meter to her right and it exploded in a cloud of metal and glass. She glanced over her shoulder at Colonel Taylor Menser.

She could have sworn he was smiling.

The gates to the Cuban Embassy were open wide. Two huge Whoremasters were picking up and moving the concrete traffic barriers in front of the gates.

A crowd of Church Agents looking identical in their black suits were standing on the huge embassy lawn, guns drawn.

Akimi came to a stop just inside the gates.

She shut off the engine.

As they closed the gates behind her, she sat on the bike, her hands locked on the handlebars, too terrified to do anything except tremble.

***

"Sorry, Colonel, she was just too fast," Tony Gilder said over Menser's headset.

"Yeah, I missed too," Menser said. "Get me on the ground," he said to the pilot.

"Jesus! Holy shit, what the fuck is that?" The pilot said.

Menser looked at the sky above the Cuban Embassy.

There was a helicopter there. It had four rotors above a rounded rectangular fuselage the size of a C-130.

"Attention Blackhawk, this is the Cuban Transport Leviathan you see at your twelve o'clock. You are within fifty yards of airspace belonging to the Theocratic Republic of Cuba. By international law, if you violate our airspace I can and will use deadly force to remove you from our territory."

The pilot looked at Menser. "If it's a transport, how is it going to fire..."

As if on cue, the Leviathan turned 90 degrees and showed it's starboard side. The doors there were open and some type of gatling style gun was pointing directly at them.

"What the fuck is that thing?" The pilot said.

Menser wasn't looking at the gun.

He was looking at the tall blonde woman in white latex standing beside it.

Gwen Kincaid had come to Washington, DC.

"You need to move back away from the embassy, son. Very slowly," Menser said. "And let me out."

***

The Leviathan set down on the embassy lawn.

Gwen walked down the metal ramp with Alex behind her.

She started to run on her stiletto heels when she saw Akimi still sitting motionless on the motorcycle.

She reached the motorcycle and saw Akimi trembling. "Akimi, sweetheart? Are you okay?"

Akimi turned slowly and looked at her. "That was... intense. I think... no, I'm sure I peed."

Gwen covered her face in kisses. "You're not hurt?"

The embassy gates were closed and the Whoremasters had replaced the concrete traffic barriers.

An NRO strike team had surrounded the embassy, Gwen could see snipers lying prone on the ground with their rifles pointed toward them.

"I just need a second," Akimi said as she climbed stiffly off the motorcycle.

Gwen smiled. "Take all the time you need. Oh, by the way, you're out of the spy business."

Akimi started to laugh. "Yeah, I think my cover is permanently blown."

"High speed pursuit and gunfire a few blocks from the White House? Yeah, I think you're burned, baby."

"Project Diadem. It's in my backpack. It's bad, Gwen. It's really, really bad."

***

Menser walked toward the embassy, passing by the black ops sniper positions.

Alex Kincaid was looking at him from behind the gate.

"Mr. Kincaid, we meet again," Menser called in his East Texas drawl. "Could I trouble you to retrieve the United States Government's property your little spy stole from us? On behalf of the President of the United States we'd like it back."

"You mean the suspicious material that somehow found its way onto my republic's territory? I'll have to take that up with my government. I wouldn't hold my breath."

Menser nodded. "Alex, whole goddamned world is holding its breath."

Alex looked at the snipers. "You want to start a war over this backpack, Colonel?"

"Do you?"

Alex gave him a one-sided smile. "Gonna start sometime, I suppose."

"Doesn't have to be today."

"No, it doesn't. Time for you to leave, Colonel. Some days you get the bear, other days it gets you. Today just wasn't your day. Leave it at that," Alex said.

Another Whoremaster emerged from the Leviathan. A huge man with short-cropped black hair.

"You brought a lot of firepower," Menser said.

"Trust me, you have no idea," Alex replied.

Menser heard a voice over his earpiece. "Subject Akimi Maru is walking toward the embassy."

"I have a shot," another voice replied.

Menser turned toward the snipers. "Stand down! Stand down! That woman is on Cuban soil. I repeat, hold your..."

A shot rang out.

Fuck, oh fuck, Menser thought.

***

One moment, Akimi was smiling up at Gwen.

Then there was blood.

So much blood. It was a crimson cloud in front of her right shoulder.

Akimi blinked. "Gwen. I..." Then she collapsed to her knees.

"Akimi!" Gwen screamed.

***

The embassy gates swung open wide and a crowd of Whoremasters and Church Agents rushed toward it.

"Who fired that shot?!" Menser yelled.

One of the snipers lying on the ground about twenty feet away looked toward him. "I did, sir."

Menser pulled the pistol from his jacket and fired once.

The bullet struck the sniper in the left buttock, and he howled in pain.

Then Menser turned around and dropped his gun. He called toward the embassy. "Alex, one of yours is shot, one of mine is shot. This is even. It can end here..."

"Nowhere near!" Alex yelled as he ran toward the gate.

"Goddamn it," Menser hissed. "Hold your fire, no one..."

A woman screamed and the ground shook.

Alex Kincaid faltered and spun on his heels. "Gwen... oh, Jesus..."

Car alarms went off in the middle of DC and windows four blocks away shattered.

The NRO black ops members within fifty feet of the gates were lifted into the air and flung through the air to land beside and on top of their comrades.

Gwen Kincaid was glaring at Menser and there was hell in her eyes.

She opened her mouth to scream again.

***

We all have different powers, Gwen thought. And, today, hers was going to come in very handy. "Sorry, Maria," Gwen whispered. "The war starts today."

Alex and the other Whoremasters were heading to the gate - forming a wall in case any of the soldiers started firing.

She was the artillery, and they would protect the artillery at all costs. She opened her mouth to scream again.

"Gwen, stop. Not for me. Don't go to war over me."

A slim hand touched her ankle.

Akimi Maru was alive, lying in a growing pool of her own blood.

But she was alive.

Gwen dropped to her knees beside her, the psychic scream never leaving her lips. Instead, she yelled, "Alex! She's alive! Dr. Thompson? We need you!"

The ground trembled again.

But this time it was because Dr. Everett Thompson was running toward her down the loading ramp of the quadcopter transport.

***

"What the fuck is that?" Tony Gilder said as he stared at the twelve foot tall giant running down the ramp of the quadcopter.

"I don't have the faintest idea," Menser said.

The towering giant was dressed in a red tracksuit. The bulge at his crotch marked him as one of the Whoremasters. The face was massive... and familiar.

"Tony, take pictures. Lots of them. I know that face."

A redheaded nurse in white latex ran beside him, looking tiny in comparison.

***

"Move aside, Gwen," Thompson's voice boomed as he knelt beside Akimi. "You awake, honey?"

"I... I hurt..."

"I know, sweetheart. Evie? Vitals."

Nurse Evie Price placed a device on Akimi's forearm, and it glowed with a green holographic readout. "BP 110 over 50 and dropping. Pulse 80 and thready. Oxygen sats are 87 and dropping."

"She's losing a lot of blood. We have to cauterize these bleeders first. She's going to go pneumothorax..."

Evie handed Thompson a pen like device, and he held it in his massive hand.

Light flashed as he aimed it inside the wound and began closing blood vessels.

"Can't you use Instaheal?" Gwen asked.

Evie looked at her. "No. There's too much tissue damage... now, Gwen, I love you, but you need to fuck off - if you're not a doctor we don't need you. Scram."

Gwen stood up and backed away.

Akimi's head rolled to the side.

Thompson tapped her cheek gently. "No, you don't. I need you to stay awake until I can get you stabilized. Sorry, sweetheart, but you got to hang in there a few more minutes."

"Okay... trying... Gwen? Take my backpack. Project Diadem. It's in there. You need to get it to Maria..."

"Shh, honey, stop. Just do what Dr. Thompson is telling you," Gwen sobbed.

"Bleeders are cauterized. Evie, give her a shot of Hemomax. Let's get that transformed bone marrow working overtime making more blood." Thompson looked back at Gwen "I'll transfuse her when we get inside. We need to get her into the embassy - please tell me there's a clinic?"

"Fully stocked. We sometimes... collect visitors."

Thompson laughed humorlessly. "Fucking Church. Never waste a good basement. Lucky for us, though." He scooped up Akimi and stood.

Akimi screamed in pain.

"I know, honey. Painkillers are coming. I promise. Evie? Support her arm."

Evie ran to his side and lifted Akimi's limp, dangling arm. She held it steady as they moved quickly toward the embassy.

***

Menser watched as the giant carried Akimi Maru into the Cuban Embassy along with her now blood soaked backpack. "There it goes. Our last hope."

"God, I hope you're wrong," Tony Gilder said.

Alex Kincaid was walking toward the embassy gates, his blue eyes locked on Menser.

"Fuck. Not over yet," Menser whispered as he walked toward the gates. "All of you, stand down. Next one I have to shoot will leave in a bag."

The soldiers who were still able to move after Gwen Kincaid's onslaught began limping away from the embassy.

Menser stood on the US side of the gate three feet from Alex Kincaid. "Is she okay?"

Alex stared at him.

Menser knew the Whoremaster could reach out and break him like a twig if he wanted.

"Akimi Maru is my coven. She belongs to me. She belongs to Gwen," Alex said. He nodded back over his shoulder at the embassy. "She's part of our hearts. Do you understand that, Menser?"

"I do."

"If she dies? You die," Alex said.

"If it comes to that, I will gladly put my head on the block. If that keeps us from going to war today, you have my word."

Alex shook his head. "Words of a human don't mean much to me anymore, Colonel. I'm not asking for your consent. I'm just making a promise."

Menser nodded.

Alex Kincaid turned away and two more Whoremasters closed the gates.

Menser turned and walked back to an ashen-faced Tony Gilder.

***

"Goddamn, that was one supreme fuck up, Taylor," Secretary of Intelligence Byron Cook said as he stood looking out the picture window. A few blocks away from the office building the NRO rented, the Cuban Embassy was quiet.

Colonel Taylor Menser stood and watched silently. "Every bit of that is on me. I dropped the ball on Akimi Maru."

Cook was a head shorter and half Menser's weight in his gray suit as he stood beside him. "Did you honestly tell Alex Kincaid you would let him kill you if the girl dies?"

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," Menser said with a smile.

Cook nodded. "Kept a war from starting." Then Cook shook his head. "I want you out of Washington for a few days."

"I intend to fulfill my promise if Akimi Maru dies."

"I'm not worried about fucking Alex Kincaid and the rest of those freaks. I'm worried about the House Intelligence Committee. Jesus, Taylor, you shot one of your own men."

"In the ass."

"Yeah, you shot an American in the ass, Taylor. Fucking democrats are going to want to unionize your spec ops boys to end their being oppressed and the fucking republicans are going to want your ass for shooting a serviceman. This is a fucking nightmare. Get the fuck out of town. That's an order. Go... fish or whatever the fuck you do."

"That's a lot of 'fucks', Mr. Secretary," Menser said with a smile.

"What? Now you're a prude as well? Fuck, Taylor. This is turning into a nightmare."

Menser shook his head. "Nightmare hasn't even started yet. Jesus... they have giants. Witches who can blast whole areas like a howitzer with their voice. And somehow they flew an aircraft the size of a city block from upstate New York to Downtown DC without it showing up on radar, without a single sighting from the ground or the air. No, Mr. Secretary, the nightmare hasn't started yet."