HENTY'S FIST 1: GAUNTLET RUN by Andre Jute, Dakota Franklin, Andrew McCoy

37 HENTY'S FIST 1: GAUNTLET RUN by Andre Jute, Dakota Franklin, Andrew McCoy

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 37

 The sun set as she reached Des Moines. She drove a Cadillac, which she chose because it possessed really dark smoked windows. Her foresight paid off when a number of times choppers carrying red-faced men waving armament came down low beside her to inspect the car: she could see them but they couldn’t see her. Of course, if any of them had a receiver on the Fist wavelength, she would be a sitting target... It was a calculated risk: she calculated all the professionals would have been at the wrecking of the train and the bridge. These were the johnny-come-latelies.

She was already nearing downtown Des Moines when the sinister young man from the Chaser Bank caught up with her.

Henty wasn’t worried about the bounty hunters here: her concern was the unpredictable actions of local people turned into heroes by the sight of the Fist and the promise of ten million dollars, so it was all the more to her credit that she reacted so quickly to the unexpected threat. One moment Henty was driving along peacefully, the next a chopper dropped out of the sky between the high buildings (well, Henty, a Texas country girl, though of them as high) and settled in the road right in front of her car. Henty was about to brake sharply — a natural reflex action when she saw the intertwined crosses of the Chaser Bank on the chopper’s doors. Instead, she stepped right smartly on the accelerator and crashed the car into the chopper’s side at a good 15 milesperhour, which may not sound like much but was enough to damage the lightly built chopper quite extensively.

Henty jumped out of her car and started running. The man from the Chaser jerked at the hatch but couldn’t open it because the frames were bent and the car was right up against them. He clambered up to the roof hatch and aimed his rifle at Henty’s running back in the twilight.

The other commuters were also more than a little irritated at the chutzpah of this man in putting his chopper down in their way home. They took their cue from Henty and crashed their cars into the chopper. When the first car hit the chopper, the young professional killer had already fired his first shot and missed because Henty just then ducked around a parcel­ laden woman coming out of a store.

The woman. a born-again Christian, went to join her Maker.

Henty stopped to help her up, then saw the blood. She turned and ran towards the immobilized chopper. She didn’t know what she was going to do against a professional killer holding a rifle on her, but she was so angry, she didn’t think at all. “You can’t even shoot straight,” she shouted at the man again aiming the rifle at her, “you stupid— you— you— murderer!”

People on the pavements were giving way before her angry charge. The the man from the Chaser saw a clean shot and was about to bag her there and then — when the first commuter expressed his dissatisfaction with the holdup by ramming the chopper.

The organ chaser was thrown off balance and his shot killed another innocent bystander twelve feet to Henty’s right. Then his body jerked every which way as more enraged commuters crashed their cars into his chopper.

Henty was brought up short against a solid wall of automobile metal. Realizing for the first time the stupidity of going empty-handed against a man with a rifle, she turned and trotted away into the sunset. Behind her, the man from the Chaser turned his rifle on his tormentors and soon what had started as a traffic jam was a massacre. But Henty didn’t know any of this.

Nobody seemed to find it odd that Henty was running. In fact, many other people were either walking very briskly, or running themselves.

After a while, in which the streets suddenly emptied as it became dark much quicker than it would in Texas, Henty asked one of the few people still on the street. “Hey, why is everybody running?”

“It’s the garbos,” the woman said, and sprinted away at a rate of knots.

“Oh,” Henty said, though she was none the wiser. And, “Thanks,” even though the woman was already out of earshot. Henty kept heading west: the Mint in SF was thataway and that was the way she was going, for Petey’s sake.

Then, also for Petey’s sake, Henty had an idea when she saw a phone booth. She went in and stuck her card in the slot and then looked around uncertainly: she had never placed a bet before. But one number was written on the walls more than any other number and rather than call the operator — a member of The Caring Society to whom she would have to give her name before receiving service — Henty tried this popular number.

“Ryan’s Malted Milk and Candy Shop,” said a rasping voice.

“What’s the odds on the runner making it all the way to San Francisco?” Henty asked.

·Ten thousand to one,” came the prompt reply. “What’re you, some kind of a long-shot freak? Or a woman’s libber?”

“A liberated woman,” Henty said. “Can you bill me for a bet?”

“Sure. Just tell me your Medicare number and it’ll be automatically billed to your bank. How many credits?”

Henty still had a couple of thousand in the bank. It wasn’t enough to do Petey any good and the bank would grab it an anyway once she was gone. But the Syndicate always collected... and always paid. “Two thousand that she makes it to San Francisco. Not the Mint, just SF.”

“Sure. Two thousand she makes it to SF. You get twenty mill if she makes it. I’m holding thumbs for you, lover. If she makes it. You’ll be a celeb.”

“I guess I’m one already.”

He wasn’t impressed. “The vidi makes a new celeb every week. Now just put the thumb and four fingers of your right hand on the light pads to validate the credit transaction.”

Henty put her thumb and fingers on the pads, knowing that by the time the computer threw up her name and the bureaucracy decided what to do, she'd be several miles away, but grateful all the same that the Fist was on her other hand.

“Okay, you got two grand on the Runner to make SF. Cheers, sucker!”

Henty called Linda to tell her Chris was okay and was about to leave the phone booth when she found out about the garbos.

MORE SOON! A NEW CHAPTER ALMOST EVERY DAY!  Add GAUNTLET RUN to your Reading List (click “Manage” in the right hand column, then tick “Reading List” and “Done”).

• MORE ABOUT THE AUTHORS AT: 

Andre Jute http://coolmainpress.com/andrejute.html  Andre’s latest book is VANGUARD ELITE 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.