Through the Looking Glass

"So what's it going to be." Elaine shook her head in a taunting manner.

"I don't know what you're talking--" Baffled at the accusations, the doctor made his best effort to strangle the air in front of him.

"We gonna stand here or we gonna get to action." In between the dialogue Sean decided to interject with his comment over the shape of what Elaine decided could only be a death ray, something she knew nothing about, but felt convinced she could pass as a master of.

"This is surveying equipment--" While his gesturing tried to direct her attention to the device, she kept her gaze fixed on her target.

"Gonna survey up some action Mr. Surveyor; gonna get to some canvasing and then gerrymander some districting, or are you going to grow a pair." Leading with her shoulders and swiveling her head with the flow of her insults, Elaine dodged reason like a matador.

"None of those things are illegal--"

"Gerrymandering isn't a crime?" She shot back with truth on her side. It truly did hurt this time.

"Well, okay that is a crime, but--"

"But not for you because you're some kind of special case?" He could barely plead his case before Elaine found another reason to blame him for a new crime he showed no intention of committing.

"Because I'm surveying for an urban renewal--"

"What was wrong with the old school? You villains keep trying to make the world perfect by killing off everyone who doesn't agree with you." She strangled out the disagreement from the outmatched man. "First you gerrymander the voices of the people." She began counting the number of charges against the man on her fingers. "...and then you make them disappear under the guise of urban renewal."

"None of that makes sense." He exclaimed in his defense.

"It makes perfect sense; I just laid it out." Elaine shot back, firmly placing the burden of proof on him.

"Except motive. Why would I do any of that. I could blame any one for that--"

"Tell it to the judge."

"You can't even arrest me, how are you going to--"

"The judge is what I call my pistol." Elaine reached back for her phantom pistol forgetting she discarded it in an earlier skirmish. "Where'd I put that thing?"

“Right here.” Clayton held the gun in his hand. He was apparently the only one that thought to grab it on their way into the alley. “You’re not getting it back until someone explains this situation to me, though…” He pointed the gun at Professor Deathray first, “Starting with you. Who are you, and why are you carrying that big, dumb looking contraption around? That’s weird. Cut it out.” It was dangerous to be pointing the pistol at anyone as the safety had seemingly been broken off. He figured she probably thought it made the bullets go faster or something. Maybe it did. He would have to try it sometime. Before the guy could answer, he turned the gun to Sean, “And you two brothers, what are you doing here? Who even are you anyway?” Finally, he pointed it at Elaine, “And you! Umm…” He didn’t really have any questions for her. “Whats wrong with your safety?” He looked around at what was basically a captive audience in the alley. Embarrassment crawled from his chest to his face as he realized how crazy he must have looked. Still, he needed answers if he was going to prevent disaster before it could start for once.

"It's not a death ray! It's a time lapse camera. I wanted a black and white mural of dowtown Chicago and the man who normally does it is out of town." While the camera did resemble a death ray to someone with poor eye sight or delusions, to anyone else it did in fact resemble a stop lapse camera. Little of this proved compelling to Elaine.

"Too many words to be true." Her reasoning.

"The practice I work at told me to take the day off after me and this one had a less than successful session, so I decided to rent this camera and do it myself." Better reasoning.

"Doesn't add up." Elaine looked over to the group with a reassuring look as though she weighed the facts and came up with a reasonable response. "Let's kill him." Before her indictment could set in she heard the word "safety." "What do you mean safety? I was born safe. In a field hospital in the Filipines during an artillery firefight with rebels in the south." While granting the man a stay of execution Elaine noticed the dismantle safety on her pistol and began to remember that some words have two meanings, even when one of those words shouldn't exist because whats the point of guns that don't shoot. "Oh that. What's the point of guns that don't shoot?" She shook her head as though she presented a logical paradox that would entrap anyone trying to understand it. "What is the point of guns that don't shoot." Someone fell in. "You could throw them at someone."

Clayton just nodded silently as if he took in anything any of them were saying. He’d respond to them all in turn. “Ok. Nerd, take your camera someplace far away from here, any place. For your safety. I don’t care where.” He really didn’t.

“So if you’re not brothers, what are you?” It was then when everything clicked in Clayton’s head. Friends on a vacation or something. Group vacations were popular with the kids, right? “Ohh, wait. I get it. You two guys should probably get to wherever it is you’re going. This isn’t the best area, and you’ve probably got girlfriends that would miss you.”

He turned to the final face in the alley last again, “Did he say sessions? Like therapy sessions? How did they ever get you to agree to that?” He scratched his head with the pistol, forgetting about the lack of safety for a moment before he realized what he was doing and quickly lowered it again, “Still. I don’t think I should ever give this back to you. Ever.” As much damage as she could do without it, it was still less than with it. He could count holding onto the gun as his good deed for the day. He’d wait for everyone to follow his orders before he left.

"Because people in this stupid country don't know how to say 'thank you' anymore and only know how to look out for themselves, that's why. I was walking through Chicago when I saw a bus, and I remember watching a documentary that stated when buses go under fifty miles an hour they blow up. Well, since I didn't want the bus to blow up, I jumped inside and made sure the bus continued on its way until the police, SWAT, and national guard could come in to safely evacuate the bus. As I stated instead of giving me a medal they labeled me a threat to society." Her story really didn't need anymore context, but Elaine continued with the second act. "So, the next day I had to take a personality test, and those things are stupid, closet case mumbo-jumbo. Just to show how dumb they are I answered all the questions and it said I was a functioning sociopath. Stupid right, but they decided 'oh no, she's Asian, so she must be crazy; if this were a white girl it would be fine.' I probably passed that test because I'm Asian. That's racist."

Watching the sun gleam off of the gun in Clayton's hand began to hypnotize Elaine. She wanted her gun bad pretty badly. "Instead of killing you, I'm going to make a trade for that gun, just to show you how much of a 'threat to society I am'." She air quoted the words to draw speculation to their authenticity, while also highlighting a major critique of Elaine. She stepped gently to the side and made a jump into the restaurant beside them. Most seedy little joints in this neighborhood made a little extra cash off of liquor sales, keeping a stocked cabinet of the best liquor you could get for under twenty dollars a bottle. Light gently shined through the glass of the windows onto the stacked bottles Elaine set her eyes on. One of these would do. She grabbed a brown bottle from the rack and started to walk over to the wall before a man shouted in defense of his establishment.

"No, it's okay. I'm taking this so that I can show I'm a fully functioning member of society." She turned back to explain her platform.

"I don't care what you say; you can't steal from me and feed me some line. Someone grab her while I call the cops."

"Stealing's okay if it's in the place of a murder." Her words and the gradual mixture of recent events caused the patrons to think twice about accosting the girl. They didn't know who the theft kept her from killing, but they all knew how to keep it from causing them trouble.

"It's on the house."

Elaine took a step back to the sidewalk and offered the illicit bottle of bourbon to her compatriot. "See, no one's dead, so I get my gun back."

“Ok, racist doctors, right, but you thought Speed was a documentary?” Out of everything Elaine said that far, that was the strangest. Then she disappeared again. It was beginning to get annoying, but he stood there and waited anyway for whatever reason; even he was unsure why.

As usual, instead of answers, Clayton got ignored and then handed a bottle of bottom-shelf whiskey, it had been happening since he was a kid. “Give me that.” He snapped, and snatched the bottle from her hands. He refused to be bought that easily, though, and stormed off the direction the good friends went. As long as he didn’t run into them, there would be no more awkward situations that day.

That was apparently too much to hope for, because not far from the alley at all, they were being accosted by the girl and the dog he ran into earlier. The dog kept its drooling, growling focus on the not-brothers while the girl turned to face him.

“Look, kid, what’d I say about the leash? That thing looks dangerous.”

The girl simply giggled in the exact same manner she always did before she spoke, “Thanks for leading us to these pretenders, Mister, but you should probably leave before this gets yucky.” It was possibly the most chipper vague threat Clayton ever heard. Still, how tough could a little girl and her dog be? No way would his arrogance let him be intimidated. Besides, he had two people between him and the dog that could be used as shields.

“Do your parents know you’re out threatening grownups with Cujo?” He didn’t really know how to talk to children.

“Mr. Thiels sent us, silly. Now are you gonna fuck off, or am I gonna have to feed you to Kirby?” There was a sudden shift in her tone and entire demeanor that was even more shocking than her choice of words.

“What the hell, kid?!”

Clayton took a few steps back when the dogs eyes started to glow again and smoke began to emanate from its nostrils as it hunched down, ready to attack.

After her display of bartering resulted in the loss of her gift and her guns, Elaine felt no other path lay before her to get her guns back than to murder Clayton. As she followed him, with murderous intent, her head began to think of all the ways in which she could dispatch him until she came to the conclusion that pretending to hug him and then shadow jumping into traffic, then jumping out leaving him to get hit by a truck would work best. The only problem moving across her head told her his parents obviously didn't love him, so a hug could startle him, or reveal something repressed or any other load of stuff.

As she began her approach and hugged Clayton she overheard the strange little girl say something very interesting. She called the two men she mistook for brothers 'fakers.' "What?" She released Clayton from her embrace and homicidal plan. "You two are robots? Machines are not to be trusted!" Elaine reached for her pistols to quickly terminate the two men, when she again realized she made a mistake in relinquishing her pistols in the first place. "Fine." She cocked her hips with her palms firmly attached to bone. "Can I have my guns back, please?" With no control over proper use of air quotations, Elaine once again surrounded the word 'please.'

Before any action could take place in her getting her pistols back, she noticed the canine with a smoking problem. "Hell hounds are almost as evil as robots, but not as smart as corgiyokei." Sensing the on coming fight, Elaine dropped into preemptive strike mode and let her lasso loose while grabbing one of her oxygenated bullets from the ammo distributer in her holster. With a flick of her wrist she launched the bullet loaded with a capsule of pure oxygen towards the hell hound to ignite his breathe and hopefully disorient him and his evil little friend. Taking advantage of the situation, she would then move to attempt to lasso the hell hound's neck to try and wrestle it down to the ground, before moving in to hog tie the creature.

Suddenly there were arms around him. They made him jump in surprise. Were there more attackers? It didn't feel like an attack, though; it felt more like a hug, because that is what it was. Elaine hugged him. Or at least that was all Clayton thought she was doing. He assumed it was either an attempt to win her guns back by showing she could be nice, or she had finally fallen for him as he assumed all women eventually did. He was completely oblivious to her murderous intent. Whatever her reasons, she was not getting the weapon back at that point in time. He refused to contribute to the probable injury and possible death of a foul-mouthed young girl and her dragon of a dog by giving her back her gun.

“Hell no, because if I-” His lecture was over before it could begin. A coin spun almost as quickly as the gears in Elaine’s head turned, and it was all twice as quick as even Clayton could react. There was a bright flash and a loud bang as the hellhound reflexively released a jet of flame from its mouth towards the incoming assailant and caught the bullet with it. Clayton took his own reflexive action at that second; he shielded his eyes, and ducked a bit lower. He almost dropped the items in his hands in the process. The girl was as unprepared as he was; her tiny frame was knocked completely back by the surprise explosion, so she was left disoriented by the ringing in her ears and started to struggle to her feet.
Kerberos snaped, snarled, and barked at his attacker, but she had the upper hand after the explosion wreaked havoc on his animal senses. The dog was on its back before it knew it. It struggled against the ropes with fire spraying wildly forward from its mouth.

At that same moment, the police officers from earlier made their triumphant return on a tandem bicycle. It came to a screeching halt. “Woah-hoh, you show dat canine perp whos boss, Angara! Need any backup here?” Officer Fargo congratulated.

“Perp, Jesus H. Christ, McGuinness, she’s tying up a fire breathing dog!” Officer Richards scolded before hopping off the bike and slowly reaching for his gun. He opened his mouth to speak again, but barely managed to say a word before he was caught by a stray ball of fire coughed up from the dog’s throat. His entire body was lit ablaze in an instant, and he rolled on the ground, writhing in the most intense pain of his life. The fire seemed as though it would never go out.

“Oh sweet lutefisk!” Was all McGuinness could manage to intelligibly utter. Everything else from that point was indecipherable gibberish and garbled screams for back up into his walkie talkie as his flight response kicked in and he sped off alone on the bicycle.

Clayton’s eyes were as wide as cliché saucers, it was time to do something, “Elaine! Gun!” He haphazardly tossed her the pistol. He motioned to Aaron with his bourbon bottle, “Thing 1! Givemeyourjacket! Wegottaputthisguyoutandmineismuchnicer! Hurry!” Sure, he wanted to help the cop, but what good would it do to him to ruin his own clothes in the process?

"If you want to help just, fire indiscriminately until the situation feels safe." Elaine leaped from the beast, landing in a kneeling position to keep her balance during the release from creature. With the fire spreading across the street she needed to rethink how she would deal with the creature, until she realized she didn't need guns to make bullets dangerous. Two bullets rolled around between her fingers as she smashed the two bullets against the ground. A tiny sensor within the rounds began to trigger, readying them for explosion as soon as she recovered her detonator from the bruised and dead body of Clayton.

Then, a bridge crossed itself. Her pistol returned to her hand and the two bullets flew out of her hand towards the girl and the dog. Elaine calculated the rolls each one of the bullets took and her finger slid over to the detonator. Firmly, her finger came down on the trigger. A pulse transmission finished the circuit and the bullets erupted with enough force to disorient the two targets. Wanting to try a new method of dealing with criminals, Elaine developed a bullet that packed a flash bang within it. Not her regular method, but it came in handy.

"Oh, that guy's on fire." Elaine turned to see the officer from their brief encounter lit ablaze. "I know just what to do." Elaine dug through her pocket and dug out her phone and began pressing buttons until a video began to play on her phone of the Midway 1993 game NBA Jam. The speakers of the phone gave out an over played announcer saying 'He's on fire!' "Yes! I can cross that off my list of things to say in situations that don't normally present themselves. Now I just have to say 'I'll have what she's having' at a restaurant after someone has a seizure and it'll be half done."

The smell of burning human flesh invaded the air. Despite the officers best attempts at stopping, dropping, and rolling, the flames showed no sign of dying anytime soon. Clayton took the man’s jacket. If one a suit had to get ruined, better that guy’s than his. He set the bottle of bourbon down behind him and made an attempt to smother the flames. It was a wasted effort, though, as the flames that engulfed the officer also ate the jacket. Finally, Officer Richards lay still and the flames died. As far as Clayton could tell, he was at least alive.

He looked up to find Elaine playing dated videogames on her cell phone instead of helping save lives. Even he was feeling more heroic than her. He could hardly keep his disapproval silent, “Use that to call an ambulance.” He spoke through gritted teeth.

Cellphone cameras went off left and right as a crowd of curious onlookers was formed around the scene.

This would be good for no one.