59 - Buford

7 1 0
                                    

"...Your greedy corporations ... Surely, it's obvious to even our three solicitants, that the empire of America can not sustain itself for long."

"There's that word again," Buford growled, "What are we selling?"

Buford saw Henri creep a hand over to the tip of the boot, her stealth blocked from the podiums and the audience. Buford saw everything-That's what it felt like, anyway. No one else was watching her-no one except his mother-as Henri found the boot and probed the inner edge.

Pictures of early Americans came up, of the pious and steadfast Pilgrims. And Armani turned to the colonials with a frown.

"What happened to those Americans? Your government routinely liquidates and tortures all over the world to destabilize for reasons lost to logic, while at home it teaches the American people to hate, so that you allow the establishment to spend billions and billions on more weapons and more killing. You've become very naughty beasts indeed..."

A rhizome, it had no assembly, it had no hierarchy, no points of entry or exit. It was instinctual. And so Buford wasn't surprised at all when Henri went on instinct, lunging...

With the cold steel in her hand, she soared right into him like a hawk in a swamp, Buford and Tiffany right behind her. And the spring in the blade popped right open for her, as she dived onto him, pressing the still sharp blade into his throat. And now they were all back at the fort, surviving, doing what had to be done-The killing, the bleeding; it was an imperative; it came naturally now.

"What if I puncture a carotid artery?" Henri whispered to the microphone on his lapel, her voice resonant in the arena, "Would that be disappointing?"

No laughter, no applause-The hijack of events happened in such a blink they generated from the crowd only hushed whispers. And Buford waited; he'd anticipated something as such. After all, they'd eaten, and now they were excusing themselves, though he couldn't help throwing a guilty glance back at the table-He had better manners than to eat and run...

But the Naughty Beasts were a team, and the team was leaving. Their exit strategy, however, was a mystery, as was the question of how much blood would have to flow. And as if to highlight the tension of the moment, the orchestra in the small pit at the foot of the stage began a dramatic version of God Bless America, while the colonists half-dragged their startled Russian host away from the podium and right up past the wispy dancers to the lip of the stage that dropped off into the center aisle. The music, mostly tight violin strings, and with a lone spotlight, followed the colonial escape, as they shuffled to a stop.

Buford could see the audience better now, near a thousand people, rooted breathlessly in their chairs, watching, studying...

Then it started-From the back of the room, like a huge wave it came, and then it broke over them in one cohesive, congruent roar of appreciation-the Rhizome, applauding the impulsive encore!

"Bravo!" they shouted, and Buford heard some woman squealing his name in the same mispronunciation as at the debut in May: "Booford!" "Booford!"

Henri seemed to pause in indecision: There were no steps, and the drop was a good two feet from the stage-though she still pressed the blade tightly into his throat, and he grumbled in Russian, or their new Proto Speak, as small droplets of his blood made their first appearance.

"You can't leave yet," the Russian said.

But that wasn't what the three-some wanted to hear; the blade went deeper toward the artery. Now he coughed in his discomfort.

Project PurpleWhere stories live. Discover now