ORIGINS, Blacktide

“Look, I know I’m dumb because I’ve kept you around these past few days, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m fucking stupid. I’m not punching that alligator over there. Besides, I can feel PMS setting in. Don’t fuck with me today, Timmy.” 

The obnoxious red neck college aged boy protested as he said, “PMS?!? Come on Alexi! Two nights ago I watched you kick the shit out of three huge dudes outside of the bar with your bare knuckles! Was that PMS too?” 

Twenty one year old Alexi Blacktide shook her head. “Those guys were assholes to that nice waitress, so they deserved the ass beating they received. But I don’t mess with wildlife. Not just that, for all we know, that alligator down there is a good tipper.” She turned the key and the hovercraft engine fired back up. She added, “And I have visions of grandeur for my life, but it’s not on my bucket list to punch a large carnivorous reptile. Ever.” 

Timmy shook his head and in a thick red neck accent he said, “I’ll bet it’d go viral on YouTube if I filmed it. I’ll give you twenty bucks. Come on hot stuff, show me whatcha got.” 

The college student sighed deeply, looked at the dirty blond hair of the idiot boy, then smiled widely. She leaned in to give him a kiss. He very clearly was caught off guard by the move and he grinned widely as he leaned in to put his lips to hers. In the flash of a second, Alexi head butted Timmy hard. He collapsed on the hovercraft boat with a FUCKY! thud as his nose gushed blood. “Why can’t I ever find a quiet, fun boy to have a fling with?” she asked herself. She didn’t regret picking up Timmy at a local dive bar, but she was sober now and his lack of intellect annoyed her. 

It was summer break from her junior year of undergrad. She’d taken her motorcycle and rode a thousand miles south, following whatever whim she felt like. Blacktide was a long distance swimming champion for her college back in land locked North Dakota, and her whole life revolved around swimming pools and biker pool halls. NoDak had plenty of swampy areas, but nothing like the Everglades.

The hovercraft boat turned very quietly in the large swamp and moved slowly. With the exception of the bleeding redneck crumpled at her feet, the early evening was perfect. The sun was setting, the air was crisp, and the swamp teemed with life all around her. After several minutes of cruising along the swamps, she killed the engine again. The hovercraft drifted in the water and she soaked in the silence. 

The sound of a few gunshots brought her out of her zen. She couldn’t see where the shots were being fired from, but there was a gunfight going on a few hundred yards from her. She wasn’t afraid. In fact, she was surprised to discover, she was fucking angry as shit that guns were ruining her perfectly calm evening. Blacktide removed her shorts and shirt to reveal a competitive swimming bikini and a large hunting knife strapped to the inside of her thigh. Without fear of reptiles, insects or other life threatening swamp hazards, she jumped in the water and swam silently with incredible speed towards the gun fight. 

Popping her head up every so often to grab a breath, she squinted in the direction of the fire fight. She could see a smoking police hovercraft that had been shot to shit with a couple of men in sheriff uniforms waist deep behind some swamp brush, and they were certainly fearing for their lives. They were pinned down by half a dozen men on two different hover crafts. The men were wearing camouflage suits and firing mercilessly at the sheriffs with automatic weapons. 

By instinct, she knew these men were cocaine smugglers. Like an underwater missile, she undulated silently and deadly through the vegetation. When she surfaced, she was behind the flat hovercrafts of the bad men. She silently crept up to the first bad guy like an alligator ready to strike. Blacktide removed her knife from its sheath, then sliced the achilles tendon on both of his legs with blinding speed. Like a soundless ghost she was back underwater in less than a moment as the bad man fell screaming. The five remaining bad guys were incredibly confused in the waning sunlight. 

Fifteen seconds later another bad man fell screaming while the remaining four men scrambled to figure out what was going on. In the confusion, the sheriffs fired a few shots from their rifles that dropped another one of the bad guys. Less than a minute later, Blacktide had sliced the ankles of the rest of the bad men without being seen. Their wails of pain filled the dusk. She silently departed from the scene, knowing that the sheriffs could still get out of the swamp using the drug dealers hovercrafts. Later, they would wonder how they’d escaped with their lives, and who in the hell had anonymously helped them, but they’d never know. 

Upon getting back to her own hover craft, she swam and pushed it over a quarter mile away from the scene of the shootout before climbing aboard and driving it back to the dock. Timmy was still unconscious, covered in dried blood. It was night time when she docked and she figured she’d leave the boy here to fend for himself when he woke up.

As Blacktide tied a rope to the dock anchor, a silent man in a trench coat appeared out of the darkness. “That was impressive out there,” he said. 

The voice completely surprised her, but again she wasn’t scared. This time, she was drawn in and very intrigued. Who the hell was this guy, and why would he pretend to know what just happened out in the middle of nowhere? 

“Yeah, I admit, I might be PMSing a little bit,” she muttered. 

The man chuckled as he said, “Are you off duty law enforcement? Or do you simply hang out in alligator filled national parks in a bikini just looking for people to slice and dice for fun?” the man asked. 

Blacktide smiled and answered, “let’s just say, I don’t like bullies.” 

The man stepped into the light of the lone dock light and revealed his face. “I’m Speck,” he said, “and I’m like you. I fucking hate bullies. Along those lines, I’ve got an offer you might find tempting.” 

Without knowing why, she extended her hand and said, “I’m Alexi, and I’d love to kick more bullies asses, if that’s what you’re implying.” 

Speck smiled and said, “Good to meet you, Alexi, and that’s exactly what I’m implying.” He shook her hand, then reached in his pocket and pulled out a wallet. “Here’s five thousand bucks. Meet me at the Grey Duck cafe in Annapolis in three days at 6am sharp. You’re naval special forces now, Alexi.” 

She took the large wad of hundreds and stuffed it in her bikini top. “Maryland, Grey Duck, 6am, Monday morning. Got it. I hope their coffee is good.” 

Speck turned as if he were about to walk away in the evening dusk and said, “I wouldn’t know. I drink tea.” With that, he faded into the darkness of the night.

Blacktide finished tying the hovercraft to the dock, then disappeared into the dark night. In the distance, a red neck college aged boy woke up with a broken nose, a splitting headache and two black eyes with his face covered in dried blood, but he was smiling, too dumb to know that he’d never actually gotten to kiss the pretty girl he was hanging out with only a few hours earlier.