(Months into Tina’s residency at the Hu-Cow farm…)
“Katie, we’re getting so much closer. You know? And, I feel like you’re trusting me more and more.” Katie is following me with her eyes as I work. On the surface, I’m pretty sure she still thinks she’s a cow. She’s just a cow that recognizes me. But the REAL Katie is hiding out deep down inside. I’m sure of it!
“So, in the spirit of trust, I really want you to let me get you off that frame again.” Katie looked away. She loves her frame and HATED when I took her out of it that one time…
“Hey. Don’t blame the messenger, girl. But look around. They’re thinning the herd in the hu-cow barn. Out with the old. In with the new.” I gesture with my arms at the 11 hu-cows, including Katie, quietly being milked as scheduled. Only my milking pumps remain quiet. I sabotaged them after my first week here. The chaffing sucks.
Hey! Suction. Sucks. See what I did just there? Tee Hee!
“There’s just one more ahead of you, Katie. Then they’ll sell you off next. We HAVE to leave before that.” Katie still wasn’t looking at me. She hates my plan, but she hasn’t offered up anything better. I move on to the next container and pour a few ounces of milk from it into my own. The “farmers” expect my milk in the morning. The herd doesn’t mind that I take a little from each of them to make my quota. I approach Katie and stroke back. I feel her tension ease. Katie’s attention span is about as short as mine…
“I gotta go. I’ll bring you something, ok?” Katie gives subtle non-verbal responses, just like she always does. “I love you Miss.” Katie shifts her weight enough to nudge me! Oh, that’s a rare treat. She understands. But she’s worried. I’d tell her not to worry. I’d tell her that there’s NOTHING to worry about. But she’d just worry all the same, so I don’t bother. No better words to leave on than ‘love you,’ after all.
I open the hidden alcove I built in the corner stall and retrieve my gear.
------------------
(At a maintenance building several miles away…)
“I can’t reach anyone. Coms are down. Damnit! We’re fucked. We’re fucked!” Roberts is head of maintenance. He shouldn’t be way out here at 3:00 AM. I need to be careful. I stay in my dark corner and watch the woman. She seems to pose the only threat here.
“It’s OK. Shut up. What’s on the cameras?” Just when I thought they’d hired a competent security team member, she goes and does something stupid. ‘What’s on the cameras?’ You mean, ‘What’s on the monitors.’ Idiot. The cameras are up on the roof pointed out toward your perimeter. They aren’t doing you any good because I’m not coming from your perimeter, which is the reason I left them intact when I approached and only cut the secured phone lines.
“Nothing. There’s nothing there. Oh, shit!” Roberts stepped over the lifeless body of Terry. I announced my presence by dropping Terry through the skylight. I already stowed Terry’s rifle, correction, MY new rifle, in the truck I’m going to commandeer. As for his sidearm, it’s a Gloc 27. I like Glocs, so…. it’s on my belt just in case. From the way this lady moves, I can tell she has some skills. I’d rather not let off any rounds, but I also can’t afford to take a hit. It’ll be hard to explain bruises while I’m getting milked tomorrow…
“Just keep your eyes open, Roberts. There can’t be more than a few of them.” The hu-cow farm gang think they’ve been getting hit by a rival operation. They’re wrong. They’ve been getting worked over by one of their hu-cows; me. I go out every so often for normal food and other things. I don’t eat that shit with the hormones they feed my sisters. Scavenging worked for a few months, but missing items began getting noticed. Eventually, the inevitable happened and I had to engage.
Speaking of ‘engaging…’
--------------------------
Roberts is down and bleeding but not bleeding out. I’d have rather taken out the woman first, but she was behind cover and Roberts was exposed and near my entry point. A bitch slap with the butt of the Gloc was all he took. I’d like to handle her in similar, non-lethal fashion, but I can feel her reacting way too fast for me to be gentle. I pivot and bring the weapon into my chest for close quarters firing, but the woman was faster than I’d accounted for. She’s on top of me. I press the trigger, but it just goes ‘click.’
“You’re out of battery Spiderman.” Smug cunt. She’s referring to my attire. Unlike the expensive tactical gear she’s wearing, I had to piece together trash from the hu-cow pen and things I’ve been able to scavenge. I need to try not to shoot her so there won’t be a hole in anything I might want to wear later.
As for the Gloc, ‘out of battery’ means the barrel is pushed backward into the slide disengaging the firing pin. The Gloc is fantastic pistol and supremely reliable. You can drag it behind your car for four hours and the thing won’t let off a stray round and still shoot true. But you have to be careful in close quarters because if someone is smart enough and ballsy enough to press themselves right up against the barrel, they put you out of battery, and you’re holding a brick instead a gun. Personally, I’d rather fight with a gun…
My opponent thinks she’s got me. Her right hand is suddenly grasping the top of the slide near the muzzle where she’ll have the most torque. Her left hand is grasping my thumbs which are wrapped around the back of the Gloc. She’s going to rip my thumbs back and spin the gun by the muzzle around so it’s facing me instead of her. My trigger finger will either break or engage the trigger and let off a round into my chest. Game over.
Fucking bitch is messing with the goddamned wrong hu-cow.
In the micro-second before she can execute her disarming maneuver, I act. My thumb hits the magazine release. The full magazine drops out of the hilt which I catch in my left hand. At the same time I thrust the gun forward into her chest, aggravating the ‘out of battery’ condition even more, but critically, causing the action to slide back on the gun and sending the one chambered round flying out of the ejection port. She is so committed to her well-rehearsed disarm that she continues taking the now empty firearm from me rather than focus on regaining the balance I took from her when I pushed the weapon into her chest.
I’d love to see the look of surprise on her face as it clicks that the patch-work-looking ninja she’s fighting, me, is two steps ahead of her. Instead, all I see is my left fist clutching a magazine loaded up with brass flying straight into her nose.
Let me tell you why I punch above my weight class. When you throw a punch, you don’t use 100% of your power. Nobody ever does. To do so, you have to commit. You cannot have any doubts. You also cannot have any concerns about hurting your first. And that goes against your instincts to avoid injury. At a minimum, just before impact, any sane person is going to withhold a fraction of their strength.
I don’t have those problems. I access the totality of every situation as soon as I enter it. I consider all possible courses of action. I consider all of the variables, known and unknown. And I take the best action fully committed and assured that no other course of action will do. And as far as fear of injury goes, it turns out that I get off from a little bit of pain. So that’s not a problem either.
----------------------
(Around 4:00 am….)
“Miss Katie, good news! This phone has Netflix! What do you want to watch??” I swear to God I think Katie just smiled at me.
TO BE CONCLUDED…..
(My continued thanks to @KatieBlake for putting me into this story…)