32, Burned

“Don’t ask the questions if you can’t handle the answers.”  Special agent Trent Murdock doodled on a bar napkin and added bunny ears to a whiskey ring stain.

Murdocks best friend wasn’t buying it.  “And you swear you didn’t puke?  The guy who pukes at the first whiff of a dirty diaper.  You.  For real you didn’t puke?”  Special agent Dale O’Connor’s eyes drooped a bit as his intoxication momentarily got the better of him.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but I swear on the gods of Jameson…”

“Praise the Lord,” O’Connor interrupted in a dry but reverent tone.

“His gift of whiskey proves He is good and wise, yes, but focus Doc.  I’m telling you, I ate the whole thing in about six bites and never puked it back up.”  Murdock grimaced at the memory.  “It was awful, I won’t lie.”

“I’ve never felt sorry for you, ever, but I for the first time, I pity you.”  O’Connor did the math.  “They bury those fucking things for like, six months?”

“Twelve.”  Murdock paused for dramatic affect.  “And they taste worse than you can ever imagine.  The whole tradition of eating those fermented eggs had to have been born out of dare.”  The drawing on his bar napkin started to resemble a rabbit, as if it were drawn by a third grader with a sugar buzz.

“Humans never cease to amaze me.”  O’Connor raised his glass to the sky and gave a half hearted toast.  “To the idiots who tricked future generations into eating disgusting things.”

Murdock lifted his glass in response.  “Here’s to culinary delicacies everywhere, and may they not taste like rhino diarrhea.”

The men drained their glasses, put on their bullet resistant black leather trench coats, left a hundred dollar bill on the bar and exited.  The Moscow air was crisp and the scene was calm as the leaves yellowed showing signs of the oncoming winter.  The sun was just starting to dip behind the horizon and the colors filled the bleak downtown neighborhood with brilliant hues of temporary beauty.  The man walked quickly and with a purpose.

“I’ve never seen this shit hole town look this pretty,” Murdock mentioned.

“No matter how depressed the architecture is, nothing beats Mother Nature’s art show.”  O’Connor smiled and momentarily wondered if he could give up his life of adventure.  “I think I’d enjoy being a drunk poet.”

Without hesitation, Murdock eased his friends’ insecurities.  “You’re already a great poet, Doc.  You just gotta step up your drinking if you wanna be a drunk one.”  

“For real.  I think I could write poems that could make people fall in love.  I could heal the deep wounds of our fellow travelers to the grave.”

“Says the man who starts shaking after a few weeks of not blowing something up.”  The neighborhood was quiet.  The agents stopped at the corner of an intersection as a few cars putted by.  “Maybe you could do both.  Blow shit up and write poetry.”

“Hmmm,” O’Connor pondered.  “My first book of poetry will be titled, I Hate Shitty Drivers.”

Murdock looked at his wrist watch as a message came in.  “Be real with me Doc, when was the last time you drove a vehicle at all?”

“Since before Porter joined the team.”

Murdock finished reading his message and put his hand back in his pocket.  He pretended to make an announcement to a large crowd.  “Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you, the manliest man of all time!” 

O’Connor played along and pretend waved to the imaginary audience.  “Thank you, all!  I’d like to thank the academy and all of my fellow actors and actresses!  I accept this award on behalf of my sober friend, Porter, who drives and flies my drunk ass all over the world.  Thank you, Porter!  Without you, this manly man award would go to someone else.”  He pretended to accept a trophy from an imaginary presenter, then lifted the imaginary trophy in the air and smiled the fakest smile he could muster.

“Not only is Doc a manly man, folks, but he’s a hell of public speaker.  Sign this man up to run for public office!”

“I’m waiting to sell out to the corporate money.  Show me where to sign.”

“What bribes do you think you’d get first?”

O’Connor pondered the question as the men picked up their pace.  “Probably a big public works project or something.  I’d take large campaign donations and smile.”

Murdock appreciated the simplicity of the dishonesty.  “Classic.”

“That or I’d get in bed with a pharmaceutical company or two.  That’s where the real money is.”

“Humans love drugs.”

O’Connor snorted.  “My favorite drug comes from Ireland, no apologies.”

“Guinness and Jameson are blessed among all other liquids, duh.”  

Despite neither man being catholic, they both gave themselves the sign of the cross and muttered, “amen.”  

After a half a minute of silence, O’Connor randomly asked, “how do you feel about the fed raising interest rates another half a percent?”

As if he were an expert economist, Murdock answered, “in the long run it’s all moot since the current financial system is based on an inflationary currency in a model that’s predicated on perpetual growth.  In the short term, it’ll simply discourage lending to smaller players in the market.”

O’Connor pondered the answer and replied, “your breath stinks.”

Without skipping a beat, Murdock answered, “it’s still from that fermented egg back in China.”  Both men laughed, but Murdock went suddenly quiet as yet another random thought popped into his head.  “You realize that I’m now a member of that clan, and any time we need to lay low in the Yellow River valley, those folks would hide us.”

“Jesus, Murdock.  You’re telling me that by eating a rotten egg in front of that whole village, they’ve accepted you as one of their own?”

“I don’t speak the best Mandarin, but yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s the case.”  He nodded to himself but didn’t feel reassured.

“That, or they laughed you out of town because you’re an idiot American who fell for a terrible practical joke.”

“That could be the case too, I’ll be honest I’m not sure.  I haven’t been able to feel my left testicle since after I ate that thing.”  Murdock shuddered.  His wrist watch lit up again with another message.  He read it and resumed walking.

Dale O’Connor was normally the type of guy who was very agreeable.  He never caused waves with his coworkers, he did his job with precision and competence, and he was never a liability.  Trent Murdock, on the other hand, was always a wild card.  In the past he’d been captured, tortured, or other times he’d made noise when he was supposed to stay quiet, etc.  Regardless, he too was pretty agreeable when it came to being in the group.  When the two men were left alone together for too long, they’d start bickering over petty things.

“You being real with me?  You can’t feel your left testicle?”  O’Connor pulled out a flask of whiskey as the men sped up their walk yet again.  “From eating a fucking egg?”

“No, dipshit, I was being sarcastic for your comedic entertainment.  I can feel my testicles fine, thank you very much.”

“You are a specimen of stupidity if there ever was one.”  O’Connor spoke dryly with no emotion.  

“Yet I’m in great company that dwarfs my lack of intellect and makes me look like a Rhodes scholar.”

“I’m surprised you even know what a Rhodes scholar is, you imbecile.”

Murdock shrugged.  “I read it in a tweet once.  No clue what it means, to be honest.”

A block away, an unmarked van pulled up to a three story cinder block apartment building that looked to be abandoned for a decade or more.  The back opened up and three people dressed in black ninja suits got out.  They were armed with automatic rifles and one of them had throwing knives strapped to their chest and arms.  

O’Connor took note of the scene unfolding in front of him and nodded approvingly.  “Looks like we have a party going on up here, huh?” 

“Oh, yeah, forgot to tell you.  Load up.”  Murdock reached into his trench coat and pulled out two large hand guns.  O’Connor followed suit.  “Rice messaged me saying that they’re on the trail of some thugs that might have info for Sarge.  It skipped my mind, Doc.  Sorry.”

“I’d expect nothing less from an infantile mind such as yourself.  Apology accepted, and I expect you to buy the first round at the next bar.”

“You drive a hard bargain.  Deal.”

Both men were blown backwards as the apartment building suddenly exploded.  Heat and flames billowed everywhere.  O’Connor was knocked onto his back and hit his head on the ground hard.  A normal man would have been seriously injured, but O’Connor simply took a big breath and exhaled hard.  “That hurt,” he muttered, but he couldn’t hear his own voice.  The ringing in his ears was far too loud.

Murdock sat up and rubbed his temples.  “Shit.”  He looked and saw that the van had been blown to the opposite side of the street and was on its side.  Three bodies lay on the ground motionless.  “The team,” he gasped.  

Even though he couldn’t hear his friend speak, O’Connor felt the horror in his heart instantly.  Both agents got to their feet and ran to the fallen bodies.  None of them moved.

Murdock ran to the first one and ripped off the mask.  It was his friend and fellow special agent Bradley McVandalay.  O’Connor removed the masks from the other bodies to discover agents Mikayla Doniak and Von Stryker completely knocked unconscious.  As the women started to stir, both were in rough shape from the explosion.  

O’Connor helped both women to their feet and together they walked away from the flames.  Murdock had picked up an unconscious McVandalay and carried him with his freakish strength as if he were carrying a large pillow over his shoulder.  Crowds of people were gathering in the waning sunlight to watch the large natural gas flames burn up the large cinderblock apartment building.  

“What just happened?” Von Stryker asked.

O’Connor still couldn’t hear shit but he mimed “explosion” with his hands, then pointed to his ears to let her know she couldn’t hear shit.  Agent Doniak hadn’t said anything, but she seemed to be coming to herself more and more.  The agents were too shaken up to notice a vehicle approaching them at high speed.

Another unmarked van pulled up and the sliding door flew open.  “Get in!”  Porter gave her toothy grin to her friends, and even though they couldn’t hear her, they knew what to do.  In the blink of an eye, the van drove off as a building mysteriously burned behind them.

In the distance, an unknown Russian mastermind was laughing to himself as his plan for global domination seemed to be unfolding perfectly.