Johnny “Fat Fingers” Malone whooped loudly after he pulled down the canvas covering something in the warehouse. One of the prisoners came over and looked up at it, whistling in appreciation. Soon, the rest of the prisoners came over.
Standing before them was a surface-to-air rocket mounted on a camouflaged launcher. “Is this a beauty or what?” Malone walked around and pulled open the flap that covered the controls. “Shit!”
“What?” One of them came over, then laughed. “Ha, it’s in Russian!”
Said a man from the other end of the room, “I know Russian.” He stepped out onto the floor, as the prisoners held their Uzi’s trained on him. He had short hair, wore glasses, and looked impeccable in a simple Armani suit. He held his hands up near the middle of his torso. He had a touch of an accent, very slight. “Tell your men to stop staring down their guns at me.”
Fat Fingers said, “Put ’em down, boys. You own this?”
“No. It seems you killed the owners earlier. I just work here.”
“What’s this for?”
The man looked up at the missile. “You would have had to ask Van Zant. Seems he’s gone now.”
“Yeah, right.”
One of the prisoners yelled, “Let’s shoot a hero with it!”
The man sighed, though Fat Fingers thought it was a great idea. “Let’s get this thing outside.”
“This is a little more sophisticated than shooting heroes out of the sky.”
“Shaddap.” The group of prisoners manhandled the artillery piece out of the warehouse and into the light of Brickstown. Heroes really weren’t criss-crossing the skyline here, so they had plenty of time to set it up. Because heroes moved so fast, they wouldn’t have time to track them, and it would be pure, dumb luck if they hit anything. Fat Fingers demanded the man to tell him what button to press to shoot. Disgustedly, the man showed them the big red button.
So the men waited. The man tried a few times to sneak away but was caught. Soon, they got bored, and went back into the warehouse. A couple of the prisoners were more patient, obviously past soldiers. Fat Fingers had gone inside. Finally, their vigilance was rewarded, when one of them pointed out something with wings heading their way. Two men scrambled to the gun. One kept the sights on the flier, another his finger on the button.
“NOW!” yelled the sighter, and the button was pushed. The rocket rumbled, and flew into the sky with a roar. The two men watched the trajectory of the missile – the warehouse door opened and Fat Fingers and others spilled out. They came out just in time to see the missile hit the creature. They couldn’t see exactly where it was hit, but the black winged creature plummeted to the ground. They couldn’t see where it landed, as it was past the horizon line, but it was enough to see him fall to Earth. While they hollered and whooped, the Russian man snuck away.
—————-
Brandon finished resetting Walker’s wings. Silver stood in the corner, her hand over her mouth, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. “It could have been a lot worse, Silver. The missile only shattered his both forearms from the carpals on down. At least I think it’s the carpals. I don’t know dragon wing anatomy very well.”
“But his wing’s shredded.”
He looked over at the skin that had a huge hole torn through it. The left hole was much bigger than the right. “He turned in such a way that the missile’s initial impact was at his left side, and luckily he didn’t turn his whole body up into the trajectory of the missile.” He turned to Silver. “It could have been a lot, lot worse, Silver.”
She nodded. “Is he going to be all right?”
“Oh, of course he will be.” Brandon smiled reassuringly. “When he wakes up, we’ll see what we can do about the wing, if he needs grafting or if he can magically do it himself. In the meantime, I’m going to keep him sedated, if that’s all right with you. He’ll heal faster that way.”
She stood up straight. “Can I stay with him?”
“Absolutely. Let me get you a chair.”
As soon as he left Walker’s side, she ran to him and took his hand. He was very much asleep, lying on his side with his wings hanging off the bed. Brandon soon returned with a chair, wheeling it into the room. “You still have that thing to do tonight.”
She nodded not letting go.
“I’ll keep him out until after that, because if he was up, he’d go help you.”
She took the chair with her free hand and sat down. “I know, maybe I should wait…”
“Silver, I’m here. I promise I’ll take good care of him.”
She looked up at him, the tears now spilled out from her eyes. Brandon swallowed, and reached for the box of tissue. “Thank you, Dr. Winters.”
“Brandon,” he said with a smile, and handed her the box. “I’ll come back later to check on him and bring you something to eat.”
She nodded again, turned to her fiance, and stroked his hand.
Words: 872
Music: Lynyrd Skynyrd
Comments: Walker can’t make it for an AE event this evening. We needed an IC reason why. Here it is.