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“I CAN’T TAKE THE SUSPENSE any longer. Why aren’t those things moving?” wailed Danny.
“Wait, something is happening. The passenger side door is opening on the second vehicle!” Kevin hollered, pointing at the screen.
Danny slapped Kevin’s hand away from the monitor, “We aren’t blind. Get your big fat finger out of the way. Shit, that’s Humberto! I recognize his L.L. Bean wardrobe.”
“I don’t know, that jacket looks more like your Eddie Bauer jacket than L.L. Bean” Danny muttered as he leaned in toward the monitor.
“Could be. Are you talking about that three- in- one jacket? That could be the lightweight liner he is wearing with the detachable hood. His looks like the hazelnut color I wanted, but you talked me out of. And that color’s not bland at all. It looks good in the desert, kind of blends. Damn it, I knew I should’ve gotten the hazelnut, but no, you talked me into the orange. I look like a fucking Popsicle in that thing. Hey, who’s that coming up behind Humberto?”
While Kevin and Danny had been discussing the finer points of menswear, Maggie and Melissa had decided to collect Humberto and his group, and Kevin and Danny now watched as Maggie and Melissa’s car lead Humberto’s group’s car down a dusty road, to a lone house surrounded by a large fence.
“So I guess we should start setting things up while the ladies bring in our guests,” Kevin said as he started propelling Danny toward the door.”
Danny and Kevin had already started setting up the room in the lone house they had nicknamed the “Q” room. Danny made a pit stop as he had a nervous bladder. “Man, I’m glad we put a bathroom in here. I know we have had to scare off those roaming bands of scavengers in the past, but they were disorganized and relatively easy to scare off. This is a worst fear scenario we never thought would come, but at least we of over-prepared for it. I hope we don’t even have to use a fraction of this arsenal. I’m getting kind’ a nervous. Geez, I may have to make another trip to the john.”
A voice could be heard outside the door: “How prepared are you for an assault on this house?” The voice started out strong and confident, but ended with a slight quake and squeak.
Assuming it was Humberto, Kevin opened the door. “Hey, buddy, Humberto, this place was designed to withstand certain problems outside the realm of everyday suburban difficulties. You scared the crap out of us. We thought this was it.”
“Um, actually this is it. There are a couple of SUVs a few minutes behind us with unfriendlies. These people are ruthless. At least the guy I know as the Boss is, and his second in command is one of those quiet scary types. I hope this place is as secure as you say it is.”
“All the glass is bulletproof. Doors are all oak and lead-lined.”
Momentarily forgetting the caravan of baddies coming their way, Humberto caressed the intricate carving on the door. “Oak, I thought this was oak. Beautiful, especially the hand carving. What is that, a roadrunner?”
“Yes, Danny and I also wanted a coyote, but we were shot down. Sorry, bad choice of words. Maggie and Mellissa thought that’d be too much and just wanted a desert scene with the roadrunner. Anyway, this place is very secure, very high-tech. Come into our ‘Q’ room and look at what we have. As Humberto entered, Kevin hollered into an intercom next to the door, Maggie, Melissa, per Humberto, we are going to have company shortly!”
“I filled them in when they collected us at the gate,” Humberto told Kevin.
“Never mind!” Kevin shouted at the intercom.
As Humberto and his group entered the “Q” room, a collective gasp rippled through the group. Danny’s panicked bladder had recovered, and he had opened all the secret panels, which revealed the surprises the room had to offer
The 007-like room, before the opening of cabinets of doom and gloom, as Melissa liked to call them (since that was also the name of one of her favorite kick-ass Stones tunes), looked like a comfy library or study where one could settle down with a good book. A stone fireplace graced the far left corner of the room, and two overstuffed leather recliners and an L-shaped, toffee- colored sofa faced it. Mounted above the hearth was a 40-inch flat screen TV. The walls were lined with built-in cherrywood bookcases that would make a librarian swoon, and the floor was a swirl of gray, brown and tan slate Danny was known to say that the color and style of flooring took longer to decide on than the Hundred Years’ War.
However, right now what caught Humberto’s and his team’s attention was what Danny had just revealed by opening the secret panels. They opened into a walk-in armory that would have made the DOD jealous. On the left were handguns by Glock, Taurus Hecker, and Koch HK45. All were .45 calibers. Humberto had so far counted 14 Glocks when one of the agents of SFPGABIBOONATDAP, or Counting Division also called CD called out to him.
“Oh my God, sir you should see what’s over here!” Carl yelled.
Humberto scurried over to Carl who was usually very soft-spoken and mild-mannered like most of his team. “What? I know there are a lot of weapons; I was just counting all the Glocks... oh, my, look at all these rifles. Several AK 47s and an AS50 sniper rifle. Did you know this will shoot five rounds in 1.6 seconds? Just a lovely little weapon. We brought one along as well. They have five. Let’s see, they also have several HK416 assault rifles. Ooooh, I’ve read about these, the FN Fal rifle, which fires a 7.62 round. This sucker can be used as a machine gun, combat rifle, or sniper gun. How many of these do they have? My, oh my, they have six of these. It’s like Christmas in here.”
Humberto’s hand brushed against one of the rifles in a caressing motion, and the entire cabinet swiveled around, revealing another level of weapons.
“Yikes, what did I do?”
“Nothing, you just exposed another layer of weaponry,” said Danny who had heard all Humberto’s oohing and ahhing and came over to show off the cabinets. “You have just uncovered the shotgun layer.
As Humberto and Carl gazed upon row upon row of shotguns, Danny moved along the rows like a teacher, and recited the names: “Remington 870 Express Tactical, the 12 gauge holds 6+1, a Mossberg 930 SPX holds 7 +1, and the Kel-Tec KSG 12 gauge that holds 12 rounds and his brothers all have holographic sites. As a side note, this last one is Maggie’s and Melissa’s favorite as it weighs in at 6.9 pounds. There are only six of them, so keep in mind two are for the ladies. To continue, Beretta 1301 Tactical 12 gauge 5 +1 and, last but not least, several AT1 Benelli M4s which can fire off six rounds. We also have a non-lethal section. These include attention-getting bean- bag round shotguns and some of our own devices.”
Carl, who was peering at a row of weaponry, asked, “What the hell are these things? They look like ray guns or potato guns on steroids.”
“Yes, well, no one can say we lack in variety,” replied Kevin as he wandered up to where Carl was fondling what looked like a double barreled potato gun.
Danny was still reciting the inventory to Humberto and Carl. “Next to the shotguns are the flashbangs, which are pretty self-explanatory. You don’t want to be nearby when they go off.”
“I can see now why you don’t have any problems with the roaming bands of undesirable elements. Why do you need a control panel for this room, how complicated are these cabinets? What the hell is that? I know what that is, but I thought we were the only ones that brought one,” said Humberto, pointing at the far corner of the walk-in armory.
“Hey Kevin, Humberto and gang brought along a rocket launcher too.”
“Cool, what type?” asked Kevin as he walked over.
“Hey, I hate to interrupt, but I know you guys have a lot of weapons and all, but what I was trying to show Mr. Fuego is over here by the rocket launcher,” Carl now pointed to several strange looking weapons in the corner.
“Don’t you mean Mr. Fugue,” giggled Maggie as she walked over. “I’m not so sure of those things. Perhaps they will be as effective as they were in the 60’s.”
“Now, now, no negativity, my little negative ion. It’s a good thing I’m positive otherwise we would never have been attracted to each other,” said Danny as he pulled Maggie close.
“God, you are such a nerd, which is why I love you, but I still think those things should stay where they are.”
“I would’ve interjected sooner, but I was getting nauseated from Mr. Romance’s patter,” Kevin said. “Actually, Mr. Smooth and I took the base idea from the 60’s and did some tweaking. Now the yardage of the microjets has improved from 55 yards to 200, and they can shoot eight rounds instead of six. The calibers are still .49 or .51. They work, and the percentage is 100% which is really incredible given our efforts together or singly. But they’ll be used in an only choice, situation I swear,” said Kevin.
“Only choice, isn’t that an oxymoron?” asked Ashley from Humberto’s team, who apparently had doubled majored in being a pain in the ass grammar corrector.
“Don’t worry about it, we have many backup plans, well several, and just avoid the areas we told you to. Avoid getting killed, and everything will be fine,” Kevin explained while waving his hands about as if there were a swarm of bees in front of him.
“Wait a second, back up a minute. If you guys actually succeeded at something, why haven’t we heard about this before now? There should’ve been a huge whoop dee doo and a lot of in-your-face gloating about this” Maggie said.
“Well, Danny and I agreed that because they’re weapons, we didn’t want news of them to get out. We only worked on them as a concept and it seemed like a cool idea. We didn’t think we could make them work. When we did get the Gyro-jet to work, it was amazing, and we got so wrapped up in what we were doing, we forgot what these things were capable of doing. When we came to our senses after having our fun, we just hid them away with all these other things, to be used as a last resort, right, Danny?”
“Yup, couldn’t have said it any better myself,” replied Danny. “Now that our show and tell is done, what exactly have you brought to the party, Humberto?” Danny paused, looked at Humberto for a moment, and with a big grin on his face said, “Tom Hero Fugue, ha! I just got it! But before you show us what you have, you all need to know some other things about this house. Kevin, you are better at explanations than I am, so why don’t you show our guests the surprises in the house.”
But midway through Kevin’s lecture, and alarm started blaring.
“Hurry, Kev. Two SUVs just rolled up, and they do not look like Humberto’s actuarial majors,” Danny yelled.
Kevin finished outlining the plan with a map of the house and property, Melissa who was tracking the SUVs on the video system, made an announcement, “Looks like they are splitting up. Two are coming around to the patio in the back. I lost sight of two others. I’ve counted a total of six individuals so far. Okay does everyone have protection on? Shut up, morons,” she said, hearing giggles coming from Danny and Kevin who were loading up various weapons. “I know we all put on extra coats of the formula, but getting shot is not something any of us wants to experience,” Melissa continued. “Stick to the plan, herd the intruders, and stay out of the line of fire.” Mellissa checked to make sure her Glock 21 was loaded for at least the tenth time and slung a riot shotgun over her shoulder.
Melissa had been put in charge of the operation as she had the law enforcement experience and the rest of the group had zero experience. The majority of Humberto’s team was currently having simultaneous panic attacks and feelings of exhilaration. The initial rush of excitement turned to pants filling fear as an explosion ripped through the house. The kitchen wall that had been facing the patio disappeared, turning the area into a very “open” indoor/outdoor kitchen.
Since Melissa advised Humberto’s team to stay out of the line of fire, they immediately scattered throughout the house in small groups, clustering where they could get unobstructed views of the entrances yet be away from windows and doors. Humberto saw Carl and Anthony possibly having simultaneous seizures. In fact, they were trying attempting to fling their shotguns over their shoulder but failing and flailing because their straps had gotten caught on their holsters. They retreated to the second master bedroom next to the patio/kitchen, but appeared moments later in the hallway with shotguns at the ready as if they had been preparing for this moment their entire life.
Humberto saw Danny and Maggie gesturing at someone in the “Q” room, but couldn’t figure out if they were flashing the peace sign or the number two sign. Humberto wished he had watched more action movies and knew what SWAT signals meant. Whoever was in the “Q” room must’ve known what the gesture meant because, Melissa was now running toward him. “Wow, they sure aren’t fucking around, are they? Good thing that wasn’t a load-bearing wall” breathed Humberto. He was gasping for air, and he felt like he had just run a marathon.
“The question is, where are they? You just don’t blow up a wall and walk away. I just saw two running around the side of the house. So far, nothing. Doesn’t make sense,” said Cathy.
Kevin, who had an eye on the kitchen breakfast area from their “Q” room, noticed movement in the debris. “I’ve got movement!” he shouted louder than he intended, and mouthed “Sorry” to Danny and Maggie who shushed him from the family room area. Ashley and Joshua, who were with Ryan and Bernard in the master bedroom, came out when they heard Kevin yell. They joined up with Maggie and Danny.
“What’s he yelping about” asked Ryan
All eyes are on Kevin who then turned and pointed to several somethings that were overturning debris in the remodeled kitchen.
Danny saw the first object that surfaced and gasped, “It’s so tiny. I didn’t know they came so tiny. Oh my God, there are a lot of them too.”
At first look, the items appeared to be little, half dollar sized flimsy tinker toys. However, as one rolled closer, everyone got a better view of the device. Something that looked like an eyeball rotated in the center of its flat body that as it moved around on chunky tires. Whatever they were made of, it wasn’t tinker toy material.
Kevin apparently knew what they were, because he jumped up and down until he saw Melissa giving him that look.
Danny and Kevin immediately knew what to do and took aim with their shotguns, and they both blew a dozen away with one shot each.
Danny explained after taking out his Glock and blowing one of the rolling, micromachines off a piece of the remaining kitchen wall. “Those are programmable micro-robots with cameras, and most likely sending the feed nearby, probably to those SUVs out there. In any other circumstance, they would be super cool, but right now they are sneaky video bugs,” he said while blasting three more that crept through the hole in the wall.
“If you see any of these things, shoot them. Use your pistol if you see just one or two. If they are in groups, shotgun the bastards,” he said. At that, a blast could be heard from the direction of the hallway leading to the second master bedroom where Carl and Anthony were positioned.
“Ah ha, got you motherfucker!” growled Carl.
“You the man, Carl. I didn’t know you had it in you,” said Anthony as he clapped Carl on the back.
“I can be a mean bitch when I want to,” replied Carl and blasted eight more crawling cameras.