How To Avoid Death On A Daily Basis: Book Three (15 page)

“I know that. Obviously. Ow. Ah. Colin, stop being such a dork and put your hand down my knickers.”

It was possibly the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to me.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m going in.”

Under normal circumstances, this sort of thing would happen with both people getting hot and heavy, some kissing, various body parts rubbing against each other, a sense of excitement in the air… in this case, not so much.

Being unable to see anything other than dark blotches on a background of even darker blotches also added to the strangeness. I finally had the chance to be intimate with the girl I liked and it was about as sexy as a gynaecological examination.

I probably sound a bit self-involved. After all, she was badly injured and in a lot of pain. Did it really matter if I wasn’t able to enjoy this moment for its eroticism? Of course not. Getting turned on would be inappropriate. Although, inappropriate sexiness is one of the best kinds of sexiness.

No. This was a medical emergency and I was doing what I had to. That was all. One hundred percent. Plus or minus five percent standard deviation. You always have to allow for a margin of error when it comes to statistics. What’s that? Standard deviation doesn’t work like that? Shut up and go back to your textbooks, I had lives to save.

I composed myself and placed my hand on Jenny’s stomach. She took a sharp inhale of breath. I slid my hand down her body.

“Stop!”

I froze.

“I’ll undo my belt.” She twisted against me and grunted. “Go ahead.” Her breathing was ragged and she was clearly in a great amount of pain.

“I just want you to know this is purely for medical—”

“Shut up and get on with iahhhhhh—” She let out a gasp as my hand slid inside the fabric of her underwear. They were surprisingly large panties. Not that I was paying attention to minor details like that.

“Oh, you’re really wet.”

“That’s... because... I’m bleeding.”

“Yeah. That’s what I meant. Okay, I have to move my fingers to activate the healing.”

“Yeah, fine, just do iunghhhh.” She suddenly gripped my jacket and buried her face in my chest. Her body convulsed as my hand vibrated. From the healing. That’s all I was doing, one hundred percent healing. Plus or minus five percent. Statistical variance is a thing, don’t judge me.

I pressed down harder as she writhed and moaned. Because of the pain. Probably. I still couldn’t see anything, so I didn’t know what kind of face she was making.

“You know,” I said, “usually the bleeding is the first thing to stop, but my hand seems to be actually getting wetter.”

“Mmmm,” she responded. Followed by, “Ggggggggghhhh.” She bit into my jacket. The pain must have been too much for her to bear.

After about five minutes, my hand was still sopping wet. “Is it any better?”

“Little bit. Little bit better. Keep going.”

I tried not to think about where my hand was. I tried to ignore the soft flesh pressed against my fingers. This was nothing more than a medical procedure. One hundred percent. Plus or minus.

Jenny’s body shuddered and then she went limp. Had she passed out? Did the healing not work?

“You can… you can take your hand out now.” She was out of breath but didn’t sound in pain anymore. I removed my wet and sticky hand from her pants.

She let out rather a long sigh. “Thanks. I needed that.”

“Me too. I mean, glad I could help. Medically. Hey, I think my eyesight’s returning.” The blotches in front of me had started to take shape and colour was returning as I squinted and blinked.

The first thing I saw was Little Chicken lying on the floor. He was curled up in a ball with his arms over his head. He was making a weird high-pitched whistling sound so at least that meant she hadn’t killed him.

Then my attention was caught by a flicker further down the passageway. A light was coming up the stairs.

“Someone’s coming.”

Jenny turned her head to see and then jumped to her feet. Her trousers fell down to her ankles and she quickly bent down to pull them back up.

The barman’s face, illuminated by the lantern he was holding, appeared at the top of the stairs.

“He-hello? Are you okay? I heard—” He stopped once he saw the curled up body lying in the doorway. He ran forward. “Little Chicken, oh no.”

He knelt down and cradled the boy in his arms. “What happened?”

Jenny buckled her belt. “It turns out your nephew was helping Corporal Ween.”

“What? No, I don’t believe it. Little Chicken, Little Chicken.” He shook the boy by his shoulders and  the whistling sound turned into a gurgle. He was crying.

“I’m sorry Uncle Enwye,” sobbed the boy. “I’m sorry.” His face had lumps and bruises all over it.

The barman, Enwye, looked over at the three carpenters who were in a pile behind me. “Are they dead?” he asked.

I got up and kicked each one. They all made various noises indicating that they were breathing. “They live.”

Now that we had some light, I could see their clothing. They were wearing matching jumpsuits with large collars and shoulder pads that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an 80s music video. I knew this was a backward society, but I hadn’t expected to see something
this
primitive.

I turned back to the barman. “Help me get these men naked.” Which was the first time I’d ever said that. Yes, I’m sure. “And you,” I pointed at the kid, “how well do you know those guys downstairs?”

Little chicken looked confused.

“Well enough to want to help them out of this mess?” He nodded. “Then take your clothes off.”

Despite what you might think, a gay gangbang was not part of my plan. But I did have a possible way out of this predicament and the others seemed to sense it. At least, they did as I said without wanting wasting time to ask questions.

It took a while to get Duran Duran out of their outfits. They were tight-fitting duds with plenty of straps and belts so some squeezing and twisting of limbs was necessary. This produced a number of groans and painful yelps, but none of them regained consciousness.

Once we had them stripped, the barman found us some rope and we tied their hands behind their backs. The youngest of them was actually around my age, he just had an unusually high voice. He also now had an extremely broken nose. But I had no qualms about having hit him, even if he had been ten. Child or adult, he came to kill us. He deserved what he got. The important thing was that he was about the same size as our traitor.

Little Chicken put on the guy’s clothes as I told him what I wanted him to do.

“We’re relying on you,” said Enwye in a stern manner. “You’ve gotten yourself in big trouble, Little Chicken, but you can still get yourself out of it. A man faces his problems. Right? And don’t be thinking of running off. Don’t matter where you go, you can’t escape from Enwye, you know that.”

Little Chicken trembled in his Flock of Seagulls one-piece, but he had a determined look on his face. He nodded and we boosted him out through the skylight. His disguise probably wouldn’t fool any carpenters close up, but his outline running over the rooftops might not raise their suspicions too much.

“Now we just have to get these guys down the stairs,” I said.

Easier said than done. The three of them had finally regained consciousness but were still quite out of it. Guiding them downstairs required a mixture of prodding, coaxing and carefully targeted kicking.

While Jenny and I had been dealing with the intruders upstairs, Enwye and his staff had been busy sorting out their customers. The drugged men were all lying on the pub floor arranged in rows, snoring.

We maneuvered the bound carpenters through the field of sleepers towards the door. Once we got there, Enwye unbarred it and opened it just enough to let his face out.

“Crunchy!” Enwye called out “We got a gift for you.” He pulled the door wider and kicked the first man out.

He was stark bollock naked with his hands tied behind his back, but he didn’t make a sound. Too embarrassed at having royally fucked up, I would guess.

He was quickly followed by the other two.

“If they took a blood oath on this job, I think you can safely mark them down as failed,” said Enwye. “But feel free to send down a couple more. We’ll have a couple of fellows waiting to give them a warm welcome.”

That wasn’t true. We’d simply closed the door to the back room and hoped our bluff would stop them from trying the same thing again.

The three naked men stood in the street, shivering. Corporal Crunchy and his hired thugs could have tried rushing the door, but they seemed too shocked by the unexpected turn of events, or perhaps there was a truce in operation as we returned our prisoners. Either way, there was no attack.

Hooded men came forward and bundled their naked colleagues roughly towards the wagons. There were some unpleasant sounds which I assumed were the consequences of taking a blood oath on a job you thought would be a pushover.

Enwye closed the door and barred it. “Now we wait.”

“Yes. Let’s hope your nephew comes through for us.”

“He will. He’s not a bad boy. He’ll do what’s right.”

I didn’t feel so confident, but it was our only chance of getting out of this. And, more importantly, I wouldn’t be the one to save us.

“He’s probably going to come at us with everything, isn’t he?” I said to Enwye.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. Thing about Crunchy is, he’s never been a big risk taker. Likes things to be in his favour before he makes a move. Sending out those boys naked like that would have put the wind right up him.”

The only reason I’d made them all strip was so the uniform I’d given Little Chicken wouldn’t be missed. But returning prisoners naked also had a nice psychological effect.

I went and sat down in the booth at the back of the pub, exhausted from all the running around and hitting people from behind. Just because it was cowardly and dishonourable didn’t mean it wasn’t tiring.

Enwye went back up and nailed the door shut in case our little subterfuge didn’t work, although I wasn’t sure it would stop them if they really wanted to get through. A couple of slams with those shoulderpads would probably leave the door in smithereens.

But they’d have to come through a bottleneck one at a time, which completely negated their advantage.

Eventually, though, Ween would come up with a plan. Unless, of course, he had been told to wait for me to make my move first, which would be great since I planned to do absolutely nothing. Everything relied on Little Chicken, assuming he hadn’t taken his chance to leg it and disappear over the horizon.

As I sat there, I noticed my hand was remarkably clean considering all the blood that had passed through my fingers recently. Had I wiped it off without thinking? Or had Jenny’s claim to be injured been an elaborate ruse to be intimate with me? It was pleasing to think she’d go to such lengths to get me to fiddle with her bits, but how likely was it really? Wishful thinking.

Jenny slipped into the booth beside me and leaned on my shoulder. “What you doing?”  There was plenty of room for her to spread out, but she chose to sit as close to me as possible. I didn’t mind it.

“I was, er…” A guy staring at his hand after it had recently been in a girl’s pants probably didn’t give off the cool, laid back vibe I was hoping to send out. Maybe one step above “Hey, smell my finger.” I put my hand under the table like it didn’t belong me.

“Just so we’re clear,” she said, “what happened upstairs was a medical emergency.”

“I know. Why else would you let me put my hand down there?”

There was a long pause. “I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell the others about it.”

“Sure, no problem. Is it alright if I think about it when I’m by myself?”

There was an even longer pause. “If you want.”

Not the answer I was expecting. I turned to look at her. “I mean, it’s not like you could stop me, but thanks for the green light.”

She shrugged. “Makes no difference to me.”

It was a fair point. But I have to admit to feeling a tiny bit disappointed by her lack of concern. Perhaps she really did only see me as a useful medical device.

The bar staff were stationed at the windows, peering through the shutter slats. Snoring filled the room, topped off by the occasional involuntary fart. I sat with my elbows on the table, thinking about how to get out of Dargot without getting caught up in whatever scheme Gullen was cooking up. I could always try old faithful—running away—but I doubted it would work against Gullen. Or his dogs.

Jenny joined in the snoring. Apparently the threat of a horrible death at the hands of violent ruffians wasn’t worth losing sleep over.

The chances of my plan working weren’t bad, but they weren’t great, either. If this was a game, I’d have any number of skills and abilities to help. Stealth, AoE, persuasion… there’d be six different escape routes and a secret door in the basement—which I could find with my detect skill. But all I had was a door with a bunch of nutters on the other side.

I aimlessly started pressing invisible buttons. I had given up on the idea of this being a game, but I had learned magic in a random fashion, so maybe this would be the same. Which reminded me, I had to figure out how I’d managed to create that flash of light without using any finger movements.

Beep boop beep.

My hands froze in mid-air. That noise… Could it be....

I tapped the area in front of me with a finger. Beep. “Oh for fuck’s sake.” I turned to Jenny.

“Beep. Boop.” She grinned at me.

“Really?  You had to get my hopes up just so you could watch them crash and burn?”

“The crash and burn is the best part,” she said. Girls are cruel. “I asked Maurice why you keep doing that, and he said you think this might be some kind of virtual reality game.”
 

“It’s possible.”

“I don’t think so. I’ve tried Occulus Rift and I can tell you, it isn’t like this. It’s shit.”

“Is it? I’ve heard it’s quite—”

“Shit. It’s very, very shit. But even if this is some advanced VR simulation, why do you think there would be an invisible control panel? Why wouldn’t it be voice activated?”

“Sorry, what?” Idiot. I’d completely forgotten about voice commands.

“Have you ever played computer games?”

It’s not fun having your video game prowess looked down on. Even more so when it’s by a girl. Sexist? Yeah, but still true.

“Status screen,” I said. Nothing happened. “Control panel.” Nothing. “Open window.”

“Open sesame,” said Jenny.

“User Interface on.”

“Let there be light.”

“You aren’t helping,” I said.

“How do you know? It could be a special password. Show me the money! Ooh, did you see that? I think I saw something.” She was mocking me and thoroughly enjoying herself while she did it. “Maybe it’s Maybelline.”

I was saved from further psychological mauling by one of the sleepers on the pub floor. He

suddenly sat up and said “Eh? What’s going on here?”

The other men all sat up, almost in unison, like this had been the prearranged signal to rise from their slumber. The men looked around, confused and still a bit groggy.

“Everyone get up. On your feet.” Enwye went round helping them up. Once he’d done that, he told them what had happened in the last few hours. This caused shock and disbelief. Which turned into anger and fear. Which, inevitably, led to whining and complaining.

“Calm down, throwing a hissy fit won’t do any good,” said Enwye

“This is madness,” said Bushy Beard. His previous faith in his good buddy Crunchy had disappeared. “We can’t stay here forever.”

“That’s true” said Enwye. “Come sun up, Crunchy will have the authority to demand entrance. Nothing I can do about it. He’s still a member of the Dargot Army, even if he is a total dirtbag.”

There was some more grumbling about this.

“But his plan was probably to grab you all when you were shit-faced and get you to sign the papers without knowing what it was you were signing. You ain’t drunk now, so he can’t make you sign nothing.”

I doubted it would be that easy, but the men seemed mollified and made optimistic noises. Until, that is, there was a loud banging on the door.

“Who is it?” shouted Enwye.

“This is Corporal Ween of Her Majesty’s Royal Infantry, Third Division. Under the City Provisions Act, I demand entry to these premises.” He sounded very formal and officious.

“Yes, yes, I know the drill.” Enwye unbarred the door and opened it. The men all backed away.

Corporal Ween stood in the doorway looking very pleased with himself.

“Hello, Ween,” said Enwye without a trace of friendliness. “You’re welcome to check my licence and stores, but first you’ll have let these customers leave.” He shoved Ween aside and motioned for the men to leave. They were nervous and unsure of what they’d find on the other side of the door, but they slowly walked through it. At the end of the line were me and Jenny. Seemed like as good a time to leave as any.

Outside, the sun’s early rays presented us with an ominous scene. The wagons formed a semi-circle blocking us in, and all around the perimeter were large men carrying clubs. I did a quick head count and made it fifteen of them—it looked like he’d called in reinforcements— against twelve scared men with hangovers, a barman and three staff members, and us two.

“Wh-what’s all this?” said Bushy.

“Now, now, don’t look so worried. I just want a quiet word, that’s all.”

I pushed my way through the men. “Well, I’ll be off then.”

“Wait a minute,” said Ween. “This is official Army business. You’ll have to wait until we’re done.”

“No, I won’t. You can do what you want, but it’s got nothing to do with me, so out of the way, Crunchy.”

Roly-poly Crunchy who enjoyed a joke and a laugh was not coming out to play. Instead, I had his evil twin Corporal Creepy staring me down.

“You may be a Visitor and all,” he said, eyeing me up like a lamb chop, “but you’ll do as I say if you want to avoid upsetting my friends.”

I did have a weapon and could possibly take out one or two of the carpenters if I got lucky, but I didn’t really fancy it.

“I think you’ve got it wrong,” I said. “I won’t be your opponent today. They will.” I nodded towards the men behind him.

He turned, didn’t see anything untowards at first, and then walked over to the wagons, pushing the  carpenters out of the way.

It was hard to see clearly because of the way the wagons were positioned, but coming down the street was a crowd. A large crowd of women and children.

“Wait a minute” said Bushy, suddenly looking twice as afraid as he had a moment ago. “Is that… Oh shit. What’s my wife doing here?”