smokeSCREEN : book6.0

"That's where the boys are – third floor," he says, pointing a gloved finger at a gothic factory, rising soot-black out of the infant night. A few windows shine pale yellow, and he leads us around some sentries and into the building next door. We scamper up six flights of stairs, and then he expects us to jump to the adjacent roof.

"That's insane – it's two flights down!" I tell him.

"You said you'd fight," he reminds, harshly.

"I didn't say I'd jump."

He reaches out a palm wide and pushes through the air at my back – a wave hits me and I'm thrown from one rooftop to the next, tumbling onto the cruddy tarpaper. Crow makes the leap, and Cypress lands just past her.

"You didn't have to push me!" I snap at him.

"There are guards two floors below us – let's keep it to a whisper. Is anything broken?"

"No."

"Then let's move on."

"Someone's coming," Crow rasps in the darkness, and the roof access door springs open, bursting light forth. We split down the center – Crow goes one way, I go the other, and Cypress seems to have disappeared into thin air. Crow crouches in the darkness twenty feet from the door, behind an air vent. I pull up two Berettas, but she shakes her head at me and presses a finger to her lips, pulling out a blade instead. I nod as two more come out – then two more. And two more. And the last pair, all with machineguns. They form a quick circle and one says in a quaking voice;

"Om William 'Cypress' Sakura – we bring a peace offering from Brie – what do you say t-" The sound is split by a corpse falling. And another, and another as Cypress silently guns them down from the top of the roof access with a pair of SOCOMs. Crow and I both emerge to fling our knives. I catch two, and she catches one before Cypress drops down from the roof access. He steps forward and slashes the throat of one that's remained sputtering for breath, and whips the sword into his staff, holstering one of the SOCOMs, still smoking at the silencer. They didn't get off a round. "Absolute quiet," he whispers as we step into the stairwell and down. Down three floors to a floor that seems entirely populated by machinery. As we're lead into the blackness, my eye adjusts to a collection of cages on the far side of the floor – it's one big open space. As we get closer, I notice a few small table lamps glowing here and there aroung the cages.

"Guards," Cypress says. "But we already got half of 'em."

"Then let's take care of these," I say.

"They're ansy already." He shakes his head. "They want to know why they haven't heard back from the others. Let's give them a chance." He stands and looks towards the cages, his eyes slowly drifting as if in sleep. The one nearest us begins breathing faster. And faster. The one to his left now, too. And the next, and more – until all nine of them are shifing their weight, glancing to each other. One of them finally calls;

"They're not comin' back, what say we get the fuck outta' here?"

Cypress silently slings the sniper rifle from his shoulder and chambers a round.

"We can't just abandon our post," an older one snaps.

The swordsman flips two switches on the scope, and it glows a gentle green into his eye.

"Someone's here, man!"

Cypress squints into the scope as the older one starts again;

"I don't see nuthi-" Thwip.

The bullet slices cleanly through his head and he drops – it takes a second for them to notice, and by the time all of them have, half are already gone. "Fuck this!" is the most I can make out. Cypress shoulders his rifle and stalks ahead, satisfied.

I want to ask, but I know.

He just scared 'em. That's all.

Well, scared 'em and killed one.

And I understand why he's afraid of it. But Cypress was always willing to kill. He's just better at it now, when need be.

But he's so strong – surely if he had wanted, all of them could have lived and we could have walked away unharmed.

"Time is not our friend," he reminds me for no apparent reason. "They have talented snipers, rocket launchers, and let's not forget the tank. We have to make everything quick, surgical and economical. I don't have the time to put the wammy on them all." Those blue eyes strike mine now. "Wake up, boys – it's Canada Day!"

"Wicked – I'll have a Molson's," one of the caged Westwood men say.

"Fuck that – Fort Garry Dark."

"Fuck that – Sleeman's Honey Brown!" And they laugh.

"Holy fuck, Cypress!" one of them roars – and now they all sit up and stare. Cypress turns on the lights and walks to the center of the cages. I see there are about twenty of them now, but only thirty boys remain of the forty or so that must have filled them once. They're bathroom-sized, furnished with one bucket each and a bed that most of them share.

"Holy fuck guys," Cypress says. "Looks like you're in a tight spot – can I help anyone out, so long as you fight with us to the end?"

"Right here," someone calls. It's Richard, and Cypress nods – the bars of the cage bending on their own so he can step out. Richard stares in horror as the metal twists and snaps out of place, but Cypress just grins.

"I'll explain later. Let's go, let's go – who else?"

Hands go up. In the end – all twenty-one of them are with us, and we're obliged to share weapons – so they say.

"I need two pistols," I'm telling one. "I'll be off balance otherwise."

"So what? You only got one fuckin' eye anyway, what are you gonna' shoot?"

"Herskie, fuck off," Cypress says as he walks past.

"What?" Herskie says, turning to him. Herskie's bigger by a head and a lot wider in the shoulders, but Cypress just shoots his eyes up to his and says;

"What, you got yout panties in a bunch? I said fuck off." And Herskie fucks right off, behind the others – though he watches us.

"Rock and roll?" Cypress shouts.

"Rock on," the men shout back. Crow and I share glances.

* * *

* * *

whenever i'm alone with you / you make me feel like i am whole again / you make me feel like i am whole again / ahhhhhhh...

however far away i will always love you / how ever long i stay i will always love you / whatever words i say i will always love you / i will always love you

* * *

* * *

We walk ahead of the others. Cypress, Crow, Richard, myself and someone named Chris – a well-built black fellow with eyes bigger than your head.

"How many do you think?" Chris says.

"A good hundred," Cypress tells him.

"They told us they had at least three."

"They lied."

"Where is she?" Richard asks now.

"North of us – we'll sweep around to the east and come in from behind."

"Seriously, man – what's up with the chicks?" Chris says.

"Start thinking long-term," Cypress says. "The old ones are dying – one day we'll die too. Do you want us to just die out, man? There's no fuckin' disease – accept that shit," he calls to the group. "This is Winnipeg – all of us, in it together."

"Yeah – a twig and a one-eyed midget are gonna' save our day."

"Richard – kick his ass."

And Richard does. Cypress doesn't break stride, nor do any of the others as they scuffle behind us. I sigh – just another day.

* * *

Crow and I are somewhat astonished by the way Cypress talks to them. The boys, I mean. He's crude – sharp, and uses skewed logic. But they do what they're told – they stay in line. They stay quiet when he talks, and before long we're crouching outside of the reach of the spotlights that scan around the old stone mansion Brie and most of her liutenants are living in. "Close in," he says softly, and the group forms a quick circle around him. "Alright – doin' good. Chris – what do you got for explosives?"

"Level the house, if you need it."

"It's stone."

"I'll hit the hard points – collapse it on itself."

"Good man. I have the trigger," he says, opening his palm – the remote smacks into it. "Set it up – quiet like – an hour max. Who do you want?"

"Lenny, Craig, Jeff and Spike."

"Take Todd, for your six."

"Cool."

"Rock on'."

And they do – the six of them shrink into the shadows off to our right, and I lose them in the blackness immediately.

"I want transport," Cypress says now. "Herskie – that's you. Enough for all of us, maybe ten more – set to take the driveway on signal – who do you want?"

"These guys – plus Jame and Elliot."

"That's a lotta cars."

"Scouts mostly – won't be many workin' cars. Need to find good batteries."

"Try and get 'em from the old ones – fuck up the cars you don't need – I don't want anyone following us."

"Cool."

"If you see the tank, fuck it up hardcore. I want nothin' left."

"Cool."

"Take your guys and rock on – quiet like."

And they do. Big Canuck ninjas whip into the shadows and disappear with some dark boymagic.

"The rest of us on assault – we're one team – Rich, you're point with me and Crow – Soph, you're middle, you three on the six. Quiet like – rock and roll."

I'm peicing together the boys lingo.

'Rock and roll' is like saying, 'move out'. 'Cool' means 'yes'. Calling someone a girl means 'no'. I don't like Cypress when he's with the boys.

"Me neither," Crow whispers to me. I frown at her.

"Not cool!" I snap. "Cut it the fuck out! My head is my business!" "Rock on, Sistah Girl," one of them says behind me. Talky-Talk. Crow just huffs and quickens pace. We carry on for a little while in silence creeeping around the house to a side entrance – it's not hard – there are tons of little doors. For servants, I guess. But Cypress doesn't go in the first, second, third or fourth door. He wordlessly leads us on to the fifth.

"Guard," I whisper. We all freeze, just outside the double doors, that look as if they lead down to a cellar. In the darkness around us, I can see the cool-grey silhouettes of the men, and the blinding spotlights a few feet beyond. They're no quicker or slower than earlier – no alarm's been raised.

"Leave him," Cypress says. But the guard has paused on his circuit around the high stone walls. He's paused, and looking at something.

"He sees us," I whisper. "No he doesn't."

"Yes he does – we gotta' take him." I pull a knife.

"It will alert the others when he doesn't radio in."

"He fuckin' sees us," I say again.

"He does – he sees us, man," a guy says behind me.

"Shit, he does," Cypress nods. "Quick."

I let the knife fly. It cuts in a clean silver arc across the abyss from the wall of the house to the guard's throat – I think I fucked up his backbone, too. Threw it pretty hard. I'm thinkin' this 'cause he doesn't even try to breathe again. He just slumps to his feet and doesn't move. "Movin' on," Cypress says. The padlock snaps off somehow, and Cypress narrows his eyes for a moment. There's a pop somewhere, and the crack of light disappears from the edge of the doors. He throws them open, leading us down into a new darkness.

"Good with a knife," the talkative guy says behind me. "You can see okay?"

"Cover one eye," I tell him. "Can ya see?"

"Oh."

"I guess I can."

I wonder if I'm being bitchy.

Crow snickers in front of me, but I'm so preoccupied with Mr. Talky-Talk I don't give a shit. "Can it," Cypress whispers harshly – we're at the bottom of a stairway now, and he's peering up. "Shitloads of guards up there." "Where are we goin'?"

Cypress creeps back to us and kneels, whispering, "a hundred yards down the hall up there, to the kitchen. Then to the fourth floor – to the cages and labs."

"What's a lab?" says Talky-Talk.

"It's a dog, remember?" another says.

"It's a place where they cut people open and experiment on them," Cypress tells us. "We stay tight, we stay quiet – knives and silencers 'till I give the word."

"Rock on," Crow says.

And we do.

* * *

Two guards in the corridor upstairs – Cypress gets them with the SOCOMs – clean shots. He leads us – as I count it – a hundred and twenty yards down the corridor until we burst through a set of double-doors into a huge stainless-steel kitchen. Four scrappy heads pop up from their work. "Anze, Mel, Renee, Rieko – if you're done here, come with us." They all look at us as if we're not real, just figments of their imaginations. A daydream, in 3-D technicolour.

"Told you," Reiko whispers. "Sophie?" Anze says.

"Come on ladies, chop chop," Cypress says. "Fellas, give up a pistol or two – we're goin' up – everyone on offensive – knives and silencers only."

"Set," Reiko says – she's smiling so hard I'm worried her face will break, but it goes well. Cypress isn't sneaking around any more – he walks tall at the head of us, leading the group up stairs and around corners, never breaking stride. If any bullets come, they'll come for him, first. I wonder if that's on purpose. Crow just got one with a knife. Why didn't I see him? I'm thinking too much again.

"Slow," Cypress whispers. Doesn't he? He crouches and turns to look at us, and we crouch against the same wall and sheath our knives, drawing out pistols, machineguns and other tools of the trade. "Killin' time," Talky-Talk whispers behind me.

"What?" I turn to him. Oh.

"I didn't say anything," he says.

Whoah.

"Yes you did, you said 'killin' time'." He looks at me real weird. That's the only way I can describe it.

"No I didn't." But I know I should shut up now – we both do. We don't stop lookin' at each other – I could tell you everything about his face. But I won't. When Cypress kicks the doors open, his face isn't so pretty. A few old ones are waiting for us inside, and two of them got a couple rounds off. Most went into the walls and celing, but one found my shoulder. It's strange. It really is. I've had fingers shot of, dogs have fucked me up, my eye was cut out. Bullets and shit just find me. It's my own Goddamn fuckin' luck. So Talky-Talk's face is splattered with my blood, and he's not as pretty. He doesn't stop staring, he just immediately presses a hand to my shoulder. "Stop the flow," he tells me.

"I know, I'm medical," I snap as they fight up ahead, pushing his hand away. A bandage winds from my belt and I wrap my shoulder good and hard. But I can't get it tight enough to... A blade slices along my sleeve, and Talky-Talk's cut it away before I can bitch at him. He doesn't talk, he just pulls it 'till it's about set, and then clips it with a metal thingie I've never seen.

"Will that hold?" I ask.

"Like a muthafukka," he nods. "You're good – no shattered bone or nothin'."

We hurry into the new room – they are indeed cages. Cypress has torn most of them apart, and the weapons situation is getting grim.

"The sick in the middle – knives for close combat only – the rest around them, safeties off." The sick consists of most everyone from this new floor. They wear green gowns and all appear as if they've been through one atrocity or another. Men and women limp among us with drawn faces – I'd say they were walking dead, aside from their eyes. Their eyes are sharp. Clear. Angry.

"Where the fuck is she?!" Richard is shouting – Cypress stalks over to him and whispers something harsh. Richard nods, but turns away to check his weapon.

"Goin' up," Cypress says. "Rock on."

We've been inside twenty minutes, I figure – and almost no resistance. I mention this to Cypress, and he nods his head grimly. "I don't know where the bulk of them are," he tells me. "They're planning something."

"You don't just like... sense them?"

"Hold on-" He fires off a round from a Socom and peers around a corner. "Doesn't work like that," he says. "I kinda' got my hands full right now."

"Stop if you have to," Richard says. "Find her."

"We'll find them all," Cypress snaps. "Straighten your bra, Rich, you're out of your cage – I'd say it's a pretty good day already."

* * *

The house is empty. We find no more old ones. No more sentries. The house is a towering, stone-white ghost, and we wander about inside it – methodically, room to room, until we reach the sixth floor and Cypress pauses.

"Find some water," he says. "Distribute it. I'm in that room, no one comes in," and he walks off. Crow and I share glances, but we follow orders too. We find a good cold tap and pass it around – no one's had much, it seems.

We sit in a circle and smoke – the girls the old ones kept in the mansion are all ready for some dope, and we've smoked it all before the first half-hour's out. Only three guys are getting mellow – the rest are getting paranoid.

It can happen, if you're already in that state of mind. If you don't know the drug, what it does to you.

Between you and I, I'm a little stoner. Everyone thinks I pull my cap down because I'm shy. It's 'cause I don't want them to see my eyes – they go red like a beet when I smoke. I mean eye in the singular lately.

I'm not sharing this for any general reason – the point is, I've spent more time stoned over the past three years than sober. Point is, I'm in my comfort zone all of a sudden. And it feels great. Which is good, 'cause now that a guy named Paul and the boys have begun talking amongst themselves, they're not so sure they want to partner up with girls. The old ones are bad enough, they say.

"Why would we wanna' bunch of skanks around? So they can huddle behind us?"

The door opens, and Cypress says;

"Richard, kick his ass."

The door closes and paul looks up at Richard, who shakes his head and sits.

"And what the fuck's up with him?" he gripes. "Little Miss Cypress is a little big for his britches today."

"He'll get us all out," one of the girls says. It's Lisa. I didn't notice her 'till now – she's so skinny. Skinnier than Crow.

"He abandoned us at the Forks," Paul says.

"He wasn't himself at the Forks," Crow snaps. Paul points a big, stubby finger at the door, and his simple mind makes a perfect point, in Boyspeak;

"You're tellin' me that's a Normal Nancy?"

* * *

* * *

whenever i'm alone with you / you make me feel like i am young again / you make me feel like i am fun again

however far away i will always love you / how ever long i stay i will always love you / whatever words i say i will always love you / i will always love you

* * *

* * *

Crow and I cannot contain what happens next. The boys huddle in the center of our circle, whispering to themselves. Only two stay out of the central huddle – Talky-Talk and someone Crow introduces as Josh. I don't talk to Josh – I don't even talk to Talky-Talk. I sit and smoke my cigarettes. For all his assholery, Paul's point resonates with me.

Cypress probably knows this already. Whatever he's doing in that room, he's taking his sweet time.

"Ninety minutes," Crow tells me.

Enough reading my mind, already!

"Stop that," I tell her. "I'm serious."

"Stop what?"

"Fuck off."

"Okay, that one was total coincidence."

"You're not fightin' too now, are you?"

It's Talky-Talk.

"Not yet – what's your deal?"

"Pardon?" he grins down at me.

Fuck him.

"Them or us – pick," I tell him.

"You're asking for a lot of commitment already." Fuck him.

"If you're with them, I don't want you hearing what we say," I snap at him.

"Even when you're just fighting?"

"Words? Got 'em? Fffffuckoff, Mary."

His smile's gone. He shrugs, and says, "You're with Cypress, right?"

"Damn right," Crow says.

"And I'm with him – so I'm with you."

Damn him. I'd like a smoke, but I'm out. I don't ask Crow for one.

He lights himself a cigarette, and offers one to me.

Damn him.

I take it, but light it myself as he offers.

That's right – fuck you.

It's a real good cigarette. Where'd he get this?

I open my mouth to ask, but fuck him.