HENTY'S FIST 1: GAUNTLET RUN: birth of a superhero by Andre Jute, Dakota Franklin and Andrew McCoy. 60,000 words in 76 chapters.
CHAPTER 30
Henty swung the heavy bulletproof door closed.
“And now,” garbled the announcer, almost beside himself with excitement, “She’s in the home of Mr Jerome L. Feodor, of 71 Silvester Drive, Akron. Ohio and you’re watching on NBC through The Caring Society Watcheye on Mr Feodor’s vidi!”
Henty gave her vidi-likeness a quick look and tucked a stray strand of hair back off her forehead.
“Hey, whatya doin’ here?” Mr Feodor had at last realized he was in the middle of real live action. “Being shot at,” Henty said, cocking an ear to the patter of zipgun fire on the door.
“Soon they’re gonna bring up the heavy stuff, maybe a bazooka,” Mr Feodor said avidly. “Then they gonna getya.”
“They’ll get you at the same time,” Henty said reasonably.
“Oh yah? Yaaaah! You can’t stay here!”
“Show me the back way and I’ll be gone,” Henty said. “Look”. The box showed, courtesy of The Caring Society’s Public Safety Watcheye outside, the two Pacifiers running up with a heavy cannon-like weapon between them.
“Aargh!” said Mr Feodor. He almost fell over himself to lead her the back way out. In the kitchen Henty paused. She surveyed the piles of encrusted dishes stacked on every available surface. “My wife went back to her mother six months ago,” Mr Feodor said apologetically. “I eat teeveedindins.”
“Have you anything clean I can drink out of? I’m thirsty.”
“You can drink out of the can, like me.” He swung the fridge door open. It was full of beer. Nothing but beer.
“Water,” Henty said firmly.
“Water? You wanna drink water?” Mr Feodor demanded incredulously and threw her a beer. “With the Pacifiers outside the door with a cannon, you wanna drink water? With the Pacifiers outside— Here, have a six-pack.”
He threw the six pack at her and Henty caught it in her other hand and consequently had no spare hand to fend him off when he came at her with the carving knife. The Fist squeezed the six-pack so hard, the cans of beer popped with tremendous force, hitting Mr Feodor bruisingly with their tag-tops and blinding him with hops-spray.
Henty took the knife from his unresisting hand.
“You really should wash the cutlery before you attack guests,” she said sternly. She threw the knife back in the clutter and, popping the single beer in her other hand, trotted out of the back door drinking it just as the Pacifiers’ bazooka took out the steel front door, Mr Feodor’s living room, and that part of the kitchen she had just been standing in. As he came charging over the rubble, the chief Pacifier almost casually pacified Mr Feodor permanently.
From up the street, Henty looked back to see the whole apartment building take on a list towards her. There was also a loud creaking noise. There was a medicenter standing there deserted and in passing Henty grabbed a roll of white bandage and wound it around the Fist as she ran. It wouldn’t hide the Fist from The Caring Society’s radio receivers and transmitters built into every street corner Watcheye but it would stop casual discovery by what Henty still thought of as innocent bystanders. But she'd already seen how the prospect of $10,000,000 turned even the most innocuous of vicarious bystanders into knife wielding rippers. She wouldn’t invite any more attacks if she could help it. Next time she might not be carrying a handy six-pack to fend off the assailant.
She saw a cab and hailed it.
“Hey, hey, hey!” said the cabbie over his intercom. “I ain’t heard a piercing whistle like that since— hey, hey, hey, I dunno since when. Wherya’ headin’, my beauty?”
Henty looked anxiously out of the cab’s rear window. The building could still topple on them. The Pacifiers could come out of Mr Feodor’s hack door any moment.
“Towards Cleveland.”
“Hey, hey, hey! Mrs Van Winkle, whereyabin? Cleveland’s off-limits to Whitey.”
“Towards Cleveland. Take me as far as US-80. Just get a move on!”
He pulled out then, just as the building fell. A monster viditenna on top reached greedily for the cab and Henty screamed as a tentacle of the thing thrust through the window.
“Hey, hey, hey! I got you now. You the lady chicken farmer become lady Runner.”
“Oh dear,” said Henty.
“You think you won’t get recognized just because you wear a bandage round your hand like some neurotic biddy what got pacified?”
“Well, I was hoping—”
“Lady, your’n the most famous face in the nation this week.”
“Oh,” Henty said again, weakly. “Listen, I’ll—”
“Never mind the tip. Hey, hey, hey! You really are a chicken farmer. You go Gauntlet Running and you tacka cab.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Henty bridled at the condescension, no matter how well intentioned.
“Hey, hey, hey! I tell you! You see the little vidi the cab company provides as a free gratis bona fide service to customers at no extra cost because by law they must?”
Henty looked down at it. The sound was down low but there was no off-switch on it. Worse, her face stared back at her from it. She was sitting in the back of a cab, looking at herself sitting in the back of a cab.
“Every vidi,” the cabbie insisted on the obvious, “has a Watcheye.”
Henty covered the fisheye with her hand and the screen went black for just a second before the announcer said, “And now she’s put her hand over The Caring Society’s Watcheye.”
“Yes,” Henty said tiredly. “I get it.”
But the cabbie insisted on spelling it out for her. “Wherever I drop you, every bounty hunter in the nation will know where you are.”
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• MORE ABOUT THE AUTHORS AT:
Andre Jute http://coolmainpress.com/andrejute.html Andre’s latest book is DREAMS Book 1 of COLD WAR, HOT PASSIONS http://www.amazon.com/DREAMS-COLD-WAR-PASSIONS-ebook/dp/B00A3BSJM2 Dakota Franklin http://coolmainpress.com/Dakota%20Franklin.html Dakota’s latest book is NASCAR FIRST http://www.amazon.com/NASCAR-FIRST-RUTHLESS-WIN-ebook/dp/B00A72A556 Andrew McCoy http://coolmainpress.com/andrewmccoy.html Andrew’s latest book is STIEG LARSSON Man, Myth & Mistress http://www.amazon.com/STIEG-LARSSON-Myth-Mistress-ebook/dp/B004GXAZAM
Copyright © 2012 André Jute, Dakota Franklin, Andrew McCoy. The authors have asserted their moral right. Published by CoolMain Press 2012 www.coolmainpress.com. Editor: Lisa Penington. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or performed by any means without the written permission of the publisher.
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HENTY'S FIST 1: GAUNTLET RUN by Andre Jute, Dakota Franklin, Andrew McCoy
ActionThe Gauntlet Run is the toughest race ever run by man: across America with every man’s hand turned against you from the statue of Liberty to the old US Mint in San Francisco. There the prize awaits you: $10 million and a full and free Presidential P...
