Memetic Drift - J.N. Chaney Page 0,1

at last.

That struck me as kind of funny because I knew everything there was to know about him: his age, his weight, where he was born, his brothers and sisters. How he got that little scar above his left eyebrow. Where he got his beard trimmed so nicely.

“No.” I said, and he gestured to the three hulking bodyguards. He didn’t try to run, which in retrospect seemed like a stupid decision. But from his perspective, why would he? I was just one guy with an innocent face. They were three hard killers with submachine guns.

Two of the bodyguards flanked me, one to the right and one to the left. The third one came straight in at me but didn’t raise his submachine gun. He probably thought this would just be a simple beating.

I didn’t move on him. Instead I took the one on the left. Anytime you’re being flanked like that, they’ll expect you to go after the guy in the middle, at which point you will inevitably get sucker punched by the guy on either side. As a right-handed fighter, it made the most sense to me to move them all to my right. So I shuffled sideways, jammed my thumbs into the eyes of the man on the left, swept his feet out from under him, and guided his skull into the pavement.

That definitely surprised the others.

The man in the middle—probably their lead—had to jump out of the way to avoid the man falling in front of him. When he jumped back the other man had to also, so both of them were already off their rhythm before the first was out.

From that point on it was a straight-up fight of two against one. I drove my left fist into the face of the man in the middle, and to his credit he ate the punch and came back swinging. I dropped my right elbow to block the counterpunch, then pivoted and kicked the man on the right. He blocked it successfully but staggered back from the blow.

The man in the middle kept punching, either forgetting all about his weapon or thinking he had something to prove now. I caught a punch and wrapped my arm around his, locked the joint with upward pressure, then spun him around to block the other guy’s line of fire. That one hadn’t forgotten he had a gun, and I wanted to make him think twice about using it.

My faith was proven misplaced with a rattle of submachine gun fire. The man in my grip went slack as he became an unintended human shield. I shoved his dying body away, and he stumbled a few feet before falling onto the shooter. I came in behind the dead man as the shooter shoved the body out of his way and leveled his weapon again. I caught his wrist and stripped the weapon out of his hands in the same movement.

To my surprise, he rallied. I saw something flash and realized that he had drawn a knife. I threw my head back and dodged his first slash, then caught his arm. He probably thought I meant to wrestle him for the weapon, but I only wanted to stop it from moving. I kicked the man’s heel out from under him and dropped him hard on the street. He tried to twist out from under me, but a single blow to the back of his head knocked him out as well.

One dead, two concussions. Not bad, considering the situation at the start of the fight.

I turned and saw that Geoffrey Rosenstein was finally giving an appropriate level of thought to the possibility of just running away. I drew a pistol from under my shirt and advised him of the realities of his situation. “I wouldn’t do that, Geoffrey. I shoot better than I box.”

He had already half-turned, but these words did seem to give him pause. He looked down at his bodyguards. “You didn’t have to do that to them.”

“You didn’t have to sic them on me either.”

He swallowed nervously and tried to size me up. “You’re not an assassin, are you? What do you want from me?”

“I want you to come with me. Somewhere we can talk in private.”

He looked up and down the street, probably hoping some ally of his would suddenly show up. “I’ll follow you behind that warehouse.”

“I’d appreciate it if you don’t assume I’m that dumb. I’ll follow you.”

“If you’re planning to kill me—”

I gestured with my pistol and he